CHAPTER XXI.BUFFALO BILL AND GENTLEMAN JIM.
Unaware of the exciting events transpiring on the Montegordo trail, the little adobe camp of Sun Dance lay sweltering in peaceful quiet on its “flat” half-way up the wall of Sun Dance Cañon.
In front of the Lucky Strike Hotel Spangler was dozing in the shade, wondering, whenever he opened his drowsy eyes and had a lucid thought, why in Sam Hill the stage did not show up.
Old Nomad and Wild Bill were playing a game of seven-up in the room of the Lucky Strike, which was called, by virtue of its function, the “office.”
Dell Dauntless was in a room off the office, reading a book to Wah-coo-tah, who was sitting up in a chair, blanketed and pillowed.
In Gentleman Jim’s private room in the Alcazar the scout and the gambler were talking.
As a rule, the king of scouts had no more use for a gambler than he had for any other robber, but there was something about the quiet, polished Gentleman Jim, and his reputation for “squareness,” that attracted the scout. Then, too, Gentleman Jim was a good deal of a mystery, and there is always something attractive about a mystery.
Gentleman Jim had a “past,” but, up to that moment, he had never spoken to any one about it. The scout, it may be observed, was with the other at the gambler’sown request. Evidently, Jim had something on his mind of which he wished to relieve himself.
The two men had lighted cigars, and were smoking as they talked.
“It’s history now, Buffalo Bill,” the gambler was saying, “how Lawless sent to me a deed for the Forty Thieves Mine, executed in your name, with the understanding that the mine was to be yours if you went out to it and remained for three consecutive days and nights in its shaft and underground workings; it’s history, too, how you went there, fell into a trap Lawless had set for you, and were only saved from death by Wah-coo-tah; and it’s history how Lawless and his men escaped, and are now at large, still laying their traps to get the best of you—and me.”
“Laying their traps to get the best ofyou?” repeated the scout, puzzled. “I don’t understand it that way. What has Lawless got against you? Didn’t he send that deed to you, trusting you with it, and telling you to turn it over to me as soon as I had remained in the mine for the three days and nights?”
“That is why he has taken a grudge against me—for giving you the deed.”
“You only carried out his instructions.”
“I know that; but there is something you do not know, Buffalo Bill, and I have brought you here to tell you about it. You thought Lawless had been seriously, perhaps mortally, wounded, at the time you and your pards escaped from the mine?”
The scout nodded.
“Well, I don’t think he was even severely wounded. At any rate, while you were in the mine, staying out the three days and nights, I received a letter from Lawless.”
“A letter?” echoed the scout. “Why didn’t you tell me about that before, Gentleman Jim?”
“It was a threatening letter, and I didn’t want to bother you with it. Lawless, it appears, had gigged back on his proposition. He said you had gone to the mine, and you had not stayed there for the length of time he had specified. That it had not been his intention to give you two trials, and that, consequently, when you went back to the mine the second time, and stayed out the required three days, you were not fulfilling your part of the contract. Of course, it was only a quibble. Lawless had seen that he had failed to play even with you, and that he was going to lose the mine. In his letter to me, he said that if I did not leave the deed on a black boulder at the foot of Medicine Bluff on the night the letter reached my hands, he would put me on his blacklist along with you, and deal with me accordingly.” A slight smile curled the gambler’s lips. “I was not intimidated. When you had stayed in the mine the length of time agreed on, I gave you the deed; you made out another deed to Wah-coo-tah Lawless, and the Forty Thieves now stands, in the recorder’s office at Montegordo, in the name of Wah-coo-tah. It is out of Lawless’ hands.”
“The mine should belong to Wah-coo-tah,” said the scout, “and you did exactly right, Gentleman Jim. Lawless is a contemptible scoundrel, with no more heart in him than a timber-wolf. In losing the mine, he got his come-up-with for that part of his trickery.”
“I am not afraid of Lawless. But what is Wah-coo-tah going to do with the mine, Buffalo Bill? She knows no more about mining than a babe in arms.”
“I have foreseen that part of the difficulty,” the scoutreturned. “A friend of mine in Denver, by the name of Reginald de Bray——”
“Reginald de Bray!” laughed Gentleman Jim. “That sounds as though there wasn’t much of a man back of it.”
“Exactly; and the name has fooled more people than I know how to tell about. De Bray looks the part, too. He is a mining-man, however, and one in a thousand. I have interested him in the Forty Thieves, and have advised Wah-coo-tah to sell him a half-interest for twenty thousand dollars, and then to let De Bray go ahead and develop the property. He’ll do it, and give Wah-coo-tah every cent that is coming to her. My last advices from De Bray assured me that he would be here on the afternoon stage. I sent Little Cayuse to Montegordo to see if he reached there, and, if he did not, to forward a telegram to him, telling him to hurry. Little Cayuse will also come in on the stage.
“Whenever De Bray travels, he takes it upon himself to act as guileless as he looks, and as his name suggests him to be. This is a whim of his, but he turns it to good account, now and again. He’ll be here, I’m sure, and then the matter of the Forty Thieves Mine can be wound up, and I and my pards can take to the trail and finish our affair with Lawless.”
“You’re going to run Lawless to earth?”
“I am; and I shall not leave this part of the country until I have done so.”
Gentleman Jim got up and took a thoughtful turn about the room. The scout watched him curiously. Suddenly the gambler came to a halt in front of the scout.
“Buffalo Bill,” said he, “I presume you are aware that all gamblers are more or less superstitious and given topremonitions. I have a premonition that there is something on the cards for me, important if not vital. What it is I do not know, but events are forming which will make or mar me. If the worst happens, I have ten thousand dollars in the First National at Montegordo—honest money, not even won by the cards in honest games—and this I want you to hold in trust. I have drawn a check for the amount in your name; if need arise, you will find the check here.”
Gentleman Jim stepped to his desk, and pulled out a concealed drawer. The scout nodded, and the gambler closed the drawer.
“I am to hold the money in trust—for whom?” Buffalo Bill asked.
A sad look crossed the gambler’s face.
“For the only woman I ever loved,” he answered, sinking into a chair; “for my wife, Alice Brisco, if she is living.”
“How am I to find her?”
“We must leave that to fate,” Gentleman Jim answered, with a foreboding shake of the head. “All I know about Alice you will find in that drawer, with the check. If the money is never claimed, it is to be yours.”
“You’re gloomy to-day, old man,” said Buffalo Bill. “This talk of premonitions is all foolishness.”
“Not in this case,” asserted the gambler, with vehemence. “Something, for good or ill, is going to happen to me and make a decided change in my affairs. If the worst comes, you are the one man I know whom I can trust.”
Seeing that Gentleman Jim was deeply impressed by his forebodings, the scout remained silent. For a longtime they sat, smoking and gazing thoughtfully into the wreathes of vapor that floated about them.
“What a fool a man can sometimes make of himself!” the gambler exclaimed abruptly. “Five years ago I was a physician, in an Eastern city, with a large practise, a loving wife, a happy home—everything a man could need to have comfort and make life a success. The gambling fever took hold of me—perhaps it was in my blood, and had to come out. Be that as it may, I neglected my practise for the cards, losing—losing all the time—money, friends, reputation. My wife’s people heard how I was going, and took Alice away from me. I promised to do better, and she came back. Once more I went to the dogs, and she left me for good. Getting together the remnants of my fortune, I sent the pitiable sum to Alice, then I came West and made gambling my profession. I have tried to be square, and have been fairly successful. But what is it all worth, Buffalo Bill, compared to the love and companionship of a woman? There is no happiness for me, and never has been since I cut away from every tie that made life worth living.”
The gambler, stirred by some slumbering impulse, got up and once more began pacing the room.
“This,” he went on, “is what the cards have done for me. They have robbed me of everything that made existence worth while, and here I am in Sun Dance, an outcast, a pariah, a human bird of prey that wrings the wherewithal to live from the honest toil of others. I—I——”
He stopped, one clenched hand lifted in air. The hand dropped nervelessly, and he broke off with a bitter laugh.
“What’s the use of crying over spilled milk?” he added. “I have made my game, and I must play itthrough. What I have said, Buffalo Bill, is between ourselves. No other man has ever heard it from my lips before—and I speak now because I trust you.”
“Your trust, Gentleman Jim,” returned the scout, with feeling, “shall not be betrayed.”
The gambler started to say something more, then suddenly wheeled about and peered through a window.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, startled. “The stage is coming into camp, and it looks as though they had had trouble of some kind.”
“Is there a stranger aboard?” inquired the scout, starting up.
“Yes.”
“Ah! That will be De Bray. And Little Cayuse?”
“I can’t see him.”
The scout’s brow clouded.
“His orders were to come in with to-day’s stage,” said he, “and Little Cayuse never disobeys orders. You’re right, Jim, something surely has gone wrong.”
With that, the scout hurried from the room, through the deserted Alcazar and out into the street, Gentleman Jim following curiously.