Molly came down next morning in the faded blue gingham. Sandy marked how worn it was and marked an item in his mind—clothes. He smiled at her with the sudden showing of his sound white teeth that made many friends. She was much too young, too frank, too like a boy to affect him with any of his woman-shyness. He did not realize how close she was to womanhood, seeing only how much she must have missed of real girlhood.
Molly had a snubby nose, a wide mouth, Irish eyes of blue that were far apart and crystal clear, freckles and a lot of brown hair that she wore in a long braid wound twice about her well-shaped head. She was a combination of curves and angles, of well-rounded neck and arms and legs with collar-bones and hips over-apparent, immature but not awkward.
None of the three partners observed these things in detail. All of them noted that her eyes were steady, friendly, trusting, and that when she smiled at them it was like the flash of water in a tree-shady pond, when a trout leaps. Grit, entering with her, divided his attentions among the men, shoving a moist nose at last into Sandy's palm and lying down obedient,his tail thumping amicably, as Sandy examined the tape protectors.
"You lie round the ranch for a day or so," he told the collie, "an' you'll be as good as new."
"Fo' a sheepdawg," said Mormon, "he sure shapes fine."
Molly's eyes flashed. "He don'tknowhe's a sheepdawg," she protested. "He's never even seen one, 'less it was a mountain sheep, 'way up against the skyline. Samson liked him. Don't you like him?"
"I like him fine," Mormon answered hurriedly. "Fine!"
"Ef you-all didn't, we c'ud shack on somewheres. I c'ud git work down to the settlemints, I reckon. I don't aim to put you out any. I've been thinkin' erbout that. 'Less you should happen to want a woman to run the house. I don't know much about housekeepin' but I c'ud l'arn. It's a woman's job, chasin' dirt. I can cook—some. Dad used to say my camp-bread an' biscuits was fine. I c'ud earn what I eat, I reckon. An' what Grit 'ud eat. We don't aim to stay unless we pay—someway."
There was a touch of fire to her independence, a chip on the shoulder of her pride the three partners recognized and respected.
"See here, Molly Casey,"—Sandy used exactly the same tone and manner he would have taken with a boy—"that's yore way of lookin' at it. Then there's our side. You figger yore dad was a pritty good miner, I reckon?"
"He sure knew rock. Every one 'lowed that. They was always more'n one wantin' to grubstake him but he'd never take it. Figgered he didn't want to split any strike he might make an' figgered he w'udn't take no man's money 'less he was dead sure of payin' him back. Dad was a good miner."
"All right. Now, yore dad believes in them claims. The last two words he says was 'Molly' and 'mines.' I give him my word then and there, like he would have to me, to watch out for yore interests. My word is my pardners' word. I'm willin' to gamble those claims of his'll pan out some day. Until they do, ef you-all 'll stay on at the Three Star, stop Mormon stompin' in from the corral with dirty boots, ride herd on Sam an' me the same way, mebbe cook us up some of them biscuits once in a while, why, it'll be fine! Then there's yore schoolin'. Yore dad 'ud wish you to have that. I don't suppose you've had a heap. An' you sabe, Molly, that you swear mo' often than a gel usually swears."
She opened her eyes wide. "But I don't cuss when I say 'em. An' I don't use the worst ones. Dad w'udn't let me. I can read an' write, spell an' cipher some. But Dad needed me more'n I needed learnin'."
"But you got to have it," said Mormon earnestly. "S'pose them claims pan out way rich and you git all-fired wealthy? Bein' a gel, you sabe clothes, di'monds, silks, satins an' feather fuss. You'll want to learn the pianner. You'll want to know what to git an' how to wear it. Won't want folks laffin' at you like theylaffed at Sam, time he won fo' hundred dollars shootin' craps an' went to Galveston where a smart Alec of a clerk sells him a spiketail coat, wash vest an' black pants with braid on the seams.
"Sam, he don't know how to wear 'em, or when. His laigs sure looked prominent in them braided pants. Warn't any side pockets in 'em, neither, fo' him to hide his hands. Sam's laigs got warped when he was young, lyin' out nights in the rain 'thout a tarp'. That suit set back Sam a heap of money an' it ain't no mo' use to him than an extry shell to a terrapin."
He grinned at Molly with his face creased into good humor that could not be resisted. She laughed as Sam joined in, but the determination of her rounded chin returned after the merriment had passed.
"If you did that—took my Daddy's place," she said, "why, we'd be pardners, same as him an' me was. When the claims pan out, half of it'll have to be yores. I won't stay no other way."
The glances of the three partners exchanged a mutual conclusion, a mutual approval.
"That goes," said Sandy, putting out his hand. "Fo' all three of us. When the mines are payin' dividends, we split, half on 'count of the Three Star, half to you. Providin' you fall in line with the eddication, so's to do yore dad, yo'se'f an' us, yore pardners, due credit when the money starts comin' in. Sabe?"
"I don't sabe the eddication part of it," she answered. "Jest what does that mean? I don't want to go to school with a lot of kids who'll laf at me."
"You don't have to. As pardners," Sandy went on earnestly, "I don't mind tellin' you that the Three Bar has put all its chips into the kitty an', while we figger sure to win, we can't cash in any till the increase of the herds starts to make a showin'. Not till after the fall round-up, anyway. So yore eddication'll have to be put off a bit. Meantime you'll learn to ride an' rope an' mebbe break a colt or two, between meals an' ridin' herd on the dirt. When you start in, it'll be at one of them schools in the East where they make a speshulty of western heiresses. How's that sound?"
"Sounds fine. On'y, you've picked up Dad's hand to gamble with. Mebbe it ain't yore game, nor the one you'd choose to play if it wasn't forced on you."
"Sister," said Sam, "yo're skinnin' yore hides too close. Sandy 'ud gamble on which way a horn-toad'll spit. It's meat an' drink to him. We won this ranch on a gamble—him playin'. He gambles as he breathes. An' whatever hand he plays, me an' Mormon backs. Why, if we win on this minin' deal, we're way ahead of the game, seein' we don't put up anythin' in cold collateral. It's a sure-fire cinch."
"Sam says it," backed Sandy. "One good gamble!"
Molly's eyes had lightened for a moment, losing their gloom of grief they had held since the shadow of the circling buzzards in the gorge had darkened them. She fumbled at the waistband of her one-piece gown, working at it with her fingers, producing a golden eagle which she handed to Sandy.
"That's my luck-piece," she said. "Dad give it tome one time he cleaned up good on a placer claim. Nex' time you gamble, will you play that—for me? Half an' half on the winnin's. I sure need some clothes."
The glint of the born gambler's superstition showed in Sandy's eyes as he took the ten dollars.
"I sure will do that," he said. "An' mighty soon. Now then, talk's over, all agreed. Sam an' me has got some work to do outside. Won't be back much before sun-down. Mormon, he's goin' to be middlin' busy, too. Molly, you jest acquaint yorese'f with the Three Star. Riders won't be back till dark. No one about but Mormon, Pedro the cook, an' Joe. Rest up all you can. I'm goin' to bring yore dad in to runnin' water."
Tears welled in Molly's eyes as she thanked him. Again Sandy saw the girlish frankness change to the gratefulness of a woman's spirit, looking out at him between her lids. It made him a little uneasy. The men went out together, walking toward the corral.
"Sam an' me's goin' to bring in what's left of Pat Casey, Mormon. Wagon's kindlin', harness is plumb rotten. Ain't much to bring 'cept him, I reckon. We'll take the buckboard, with a tarp' to stow him under. Up to you to knock together a coffin an' dig a grave under the cottonwoods an' below the spring. Right where that li'l' knoll makes the overflow curve 'ud be a good spot. Use up them extry boards we got for the bunk-house. Git Joe to help you. No sense in lettin' the gel see you, of course."
"Nice occupation fo' a sunny day," grumbled Mormon, but, as the buckboard drove off, he was busy planing boards in the blacksmith's shop, with the door closed against intrusion.
Mid-afternoon found him with the coffin completed. He rounded up the half-breed to help him dig the grave, first locating Molly in a hammock he had slung for her in the shade of the trees by the cistern. He had furnished her with his pet literature, an enormous mail-order catalogue from a Chicago firm. It was on the ground, the breeze ruffling the illustrated pages, lifting some stray wisps of hair on the girl's neck as she lay, fast asleep, relaxed in the wide canvas hammock, her face checkered by the shifting leaves between her and the sun.
Mormon could move as softly as a cat, for all his bulk. There was turf about the cistern, he had made no sound arriving, but he tiptoed off, his kindly mouth rounded into an O of silence, his weather crinkled eyes half-closed.
"She's jest a baby," he said, half aloud, as he passed beyond the trees to where Joe waited with pick and spade.
The soil was soft and clear from stone. An hour sufficed to sink a shaft for Pat Casey's last bed. Mormon carefully adjusted the headboard he had fashioned from a thick plank, to be carved later when the lettering was decided upon. This done he buckled on the belt he had discarded, from which his holster and revolver swung. Sandy carried two guns, his partnersone, habits of earlier, more stirring days, toting them as inevitably as they wore spurs, though there was little occasion to use them on the Three Star, save to put a hurt animal out of misery, or kill a rattlesnake.
Moisture streamed from Mormon's face, patched his clothes as the heat and his exertions temporarily melted some of his superfluous adiposity. Joe, his mahogany face stolid as a wooden carving, rolled a cigarette.
"I sure hate to see a nameless grave," said Mormon.
"Si, Señor," Joe's amiability agreed.
"You go git a dipper. I'm drier'n Dry Crick. Fetch it full from the spring." The half-breed ambled off. Mormon wiped his face with his bandanna. Suddenly his big body stiffened. He heard Molly's voice from the cistern, frightened, then storming in anger. Mormon ran at a sprinter's gait from the cottonwoods, along a side of the corral, through the trees bordering the cistern. The girl was out of the hammock, facing a man in riding breeches and puttees, his face concealed for the moment by his hands. A sleeve of the girl's frock was torn away, the outworn fabric in streamers. The man's hands came down and Mormon recognized him for Jim Plimsoll, owner of the Good Luck Pool Parlors, in the little cattle town of Hereford, where faro, roulette, chuckaluck and craps were played in the back room, owner also of a near-by horse ranch. There was blood on his face, the marks of finger nails.
Plimsoll jumped for the girl, caught her by one armroughly. She struggled fiercely, silently, striking at him with her free fist. Mormon's gun flashed from its sheath as he shouted at the man. Plimsoll wheeled, releasing Molly. His dark face was livid with rage, a pistol gleamed as he plucked it from beneath the waistband of his riding breeches. The turf spatted between his feet as Mormon fired.
"Got the drop on ye, Jim! Nex' shot'll be higher. Shove that gun back. Now then," as Plimsoll sullenly obeyed, "what in hell do you figger yo're doin'?" Mormon's jovial face was tense, his voice stern and cold, he stood crouched forward a little from the hips, legs apart, his gun a thing of menace that seemed to be alive, snaky.
"Keep still," he ordered, walking toward the pair, his gun covering Plimsoll, the cheery blue of his eyes changed to the color of ice in the shade, the pupils mere pin-pricks. Molly glanced at him once, fingers caressing her bruised arm.
"He kissed me while I was asleep, the damned skunk!" she flared. "I'd sooner hev rattlesnake-pizen on my lips!" She stopped rubbing the arm to scrub fiercely at her mouth with the back of her hand.
"It ain't the first time I've kissed you," said Plimsoll. "Yore dad didn't stop me from doin' it. I didn't notice you scratching like a wildcat either. Where's your dad? And where do you come in on this deal between old friends?" he demanded of Mormon.
"Her dad's dead," said Mormon simply. "Molly is stayin' fo' a spell at the Three Star. Sandy Bourke,Sam Manning an' me is lookin' out fo' her, an' we aim to do a good job of it. Sabe?"
Plimsoll's thin-lipped mouth sneered with his eyes.
"Gone in for baby-farming, have you, or robbing the cradle? Who's playing the king in this deal? I——" The leer suddenly vanished from his face, the tip of his tongue licked his lips. Mormon's gun was slowly coming up level with his heart, steady as Mormon's gaze, finger compressing the trigger.
"The law reckons you a man—so fur," said Mormon. "Yore pals 'ud pack a jury to hang me fo' shootin' the dirty heart out of you, but—ef you ever let out a foul word or a look about that gel, I'll take my chance of their bein' enough white men round here to 'quit me. There ought to be a bounty on yore scalp an' ears. You hear me, Jim Plimsoll, I'm talkin' straight. Now git, head yore hawss fo' the short trail to Hereford an' keep travelin'. Pronto!"
Plimsoll's pony was standing under the trees and the gambler turned and, with an attempted laugh, swaggered toward it.
The threat to his personal safety, his desire to fling a sneer at Mormon, seemed to have halted any correlation of the statement concerning the death of the girl's father until now.
"If that's true about your dad," he said, "I'm sorry. How did he die?"
Sensing the hypocrisy of the shift to sympathy, the girl took a step forward. Mormon's pupils contracted again; his finger itched to press the trigger it touched.
"It's none of yore business," said the girl. "You git."
Plimsoll's eyes shifted to Mormon's big body, stiffening to the crouch that prefaced shooting. He faced toward the trees again, flinging his last words over his shoulder.
"None of my business? I don't agree with you there, you little hell-weasel. Your father and me had more than one deal together. You and I may have to do business together yet, Molly mine!"
Molly's teeth showed between her parted lips, her fingers were hooked. Mormon anticipated her indignant leap. His gun spurted fire, the expensive Stetson broadrim seemed lifted from Plimsoll's hair by an invisible hand. With the report it sailed forward, side-slipped, landed on its rim, perforated by a steel-nosed thirty-eight caliber bullet.
"I give you last warnin'," roared Mormon.
Plimsoll sprang ahead like a racer at the starter's shot, snatched at his hat, missed it, let it lie as he ran on to his horse, mounted and went galloping off. Mormon holstered his gun and swung about to Molly, standing with crimson cheeks, blazing eyes and a young bosom turbulent with emotions.
"I wisht you'd killed him. I wisht you'd killed him!" she cried. "I wisht I had a gun—or a knife! I hate him—hate him—hate him! When he says he was ever in a deal with Dad, he lies. Dad stood for him and that was all. He purtended to be awful strong for Dad, purtended to be fond of me, jest toswarm 'round Dad, for some reason. Brought me a doll once. I was thirteen. What in hell did I want with a doll?" she panted. "I burned the damn thing that night in the fire. He kissed me an' Dad seemed to think I owed it him for the doll. I nigh bit my lip off afterward. I wisht yore first shot had been higher, or yore second lower, Peters."
"Call me Uncle Mormon, Molly. I had all I c'ud do not to make it plumb center, li'l' gel, but the jury'd ring in a cold deck on me if I had. He's sure some snake. But we'll take care of Jim Plimsoll, yore Uncle Mormon, with Sam an' Sandy."
Patting Molly's shoulder, Mormon smiled at her with his irresistible grin, and she reflected it faintly as she tucked in the remnants of her torn sleeve.
"That's the on'y dress I got till Sandy Bourke wins me some money," she said. "You sure are quick, Uncle Mormon, when you git inter action. An' you can shoot some."
"I reckon I coil up tight, between times, like a spring. Used to be pritty light an' limber on my feet oncet. As for shootin', I wish Sandy 'ud been here. He'd have shot both the heels off that fo'-flusher, right an' left, 'thout you ever see his hands move. I ain't so bad, Sam's better, but we had to throw a lot of lead in practise. Sandy shoots like he walks or breathes. It comes natcherul to him, like Sam's ear fo' music. I've allus 'lowed Sandy must hev cut his teeth on a cartridge."
His arm around her shoulder, purposely chattingaway, Mormon led Molly toward the ranch-house, waving off the half-breed who came toward them, his dipper of the spring water half emptied in the excitement. Plimsoll's horse was stirring up a dust-cloud on the way to Hereford, other puffs, far-away toward the range, proclaimed that the buckboard was on its way with its funeral freight.
The body of the old prospector was lowered into the grave with the last of the daylight. The raw scar of the grave was covered with turfs Mormon ordered cut by the half-breed. Molly Casey walked away alone, her head high, the corner of her lower lip caught under her teeth, eyes winking back the tears. It was the headboard that had forced her struggle for composure. Mormon had marked on it, with the heavy lead of a carpenter's pencil.
PATRICK CASEYlies herewhere the grass growsand the water runs. Helooked for gold in the desertand found death.Buried June 10,1920
"Ef that suits you," he told Molly, "they's a chap over to Hereford who's a wolf on carvin'. My letterin's punk. When yore mines pay you c'ud have it in stone."
"You-all are awful good to me," was all she could trust herself to say. Each of the Three Musketeersof the Range felt a tug to take her in his arms and comfort her. Instead they looked at one another, as men of their breed do. Sam pulled at his mustache. Mormon rubbed the top of his bald head and Sandy rolled a cigarette and smoked it silently.
Molly ate no supper that night. Before dawn Sandy thought he heard the door of her room open and soft footfalls stealing down the stairs. When he went later to the spring he found the grave covered with the wild blooms that the girl had picked in the dewy dawn.
It was a week after Plimsoll's dismissal from the Three Star premises, that one of the riders, coming back from Hereford with the mail, brought rumors of a new strike at Dynamite. Neither of the partners paid much attention to a report so often revived by rumor and as swiftly dying out again. But the man said that Plimsoll had stated that he expected to go over to the mining camp in the interests of claims located by Patrick Casey in which he had a half-interest, by reason of having grubstaked the prospector.
"There's the thorn underthatsaddle," said Sandy to Mormon. "That's what Jim Plimsoll meant by his 'deal.' I don't believe he'd stir up things unless he was fairly sure there was something doin' oveh to Dynamite. He may be wrong but he usually tries to bet safe."
"Molly's father located Dynamite, didn't he?"
"So she tells me. Hopeful, as he called it. Seems he picked up some rich float. This float was where a dyke of porphyry comes up to the surface an' got weathered away down to the pay ore. Leastwise, this was her dad's theory. He told her everything hethought as they shacked erlong together, I reckon, an' she remembers it. He figgers this sylvanite lies under this porphyry reef, sabe? Porphyry snakes underground, sometimes fifty feet thick, sometimes twice that, an' hard as steel. Matter of luck where you hit it how fur you have to go. Cost too much time an' labor an' money for the crowd that made up the rush to stay with it, 'less some one of them hits it at grass roots an' stahts a real boom atop of the rush. They don't an' Hopeful becomes Hopeless. Me, I got fo'-five chances to grubstake in that time, but I'm broke. I reckon Casey's claims, which is now Molly's claims, is the pick of the camp. Not much doubt, from what I pick up, that he was sure a good miner. One of the ol' Desert Rats that does the locatin' fo' some one else to git the money.
"Molly ses her dad never grubstaked. She don't lie an' she was close to the old man. Mo' like pardners than dad an' daughter. Plimsoll smells somethin'. Figgers there's somethin' in the rumor an' stahts this talk of bein' pardners with Casey 'cause there's a strike. Me, I'm goin' to take a pasear to town soon an' I'll have a li'l' conversation with Jim the Gambolier."
"Count me in on that," said Sam.
"Me too," said Mormon.
"Can't all three leave the ranch to once," demurred Sandy.
The half-breed came sleepily round the corner of the ranch-house and struck at the gong for thebreakfast call. The vibrations flooded the air with wave after wave of barbaric sound and Joe pounded, with awakening delight in the savage noise and rhythm, until Sandy, after yelling uselessly, threw a rock at him and hit him between the shoulders, whereupon the light died out of his face and he shuffled away.
With the boom of the gong, daylight leaped up from the rim of the world. In the east the mountains seemed artificial, sharply profiled like a theatrical setting, a slate-purple in color. To the west, the sharp crests were luminous with a halo that stole down them, staining them rose. With the jump of the sun everything took on color and lost form, plain and hills swimming, seeming to be composed of vapor, the shapes of the mountains shifting every second, tenuous, smoky. The air was crisp, making the fingers tingle. The riders came from their bunk-houses, yawning, sloshing a hasty toilet at a trough with good-natured banter, hurrying on to the shack, where Joe tendered them the prodigious array of viands provided by Pedro, who waited himself on the three partners and the girl, at the ranch-house. The smell of bacon and hot coffee spiced the air. Sam, twisting his mustache, led the way.
"Smells like somethin' in the line of new bread to me," he said. "Bread or—it ain'tbiscuits, Molly?"
"Sure is." Molly came in with a plate piled high with biscuits that were evidently the present pride of her heart. "Made a-plenty," she announced. "Had to wrastle Pedro away from the stove an' I ain't quite on to that oven yet, but they look good, don't they?"
"They sure do," said Sandy, taking one to break and butter it. The eagerness with which his jaws clamped down upon it died into a meditative chewing as of a cow uncertain about the quality of her cud. He swallowed, took a deep swig of coffee and deliberately went on with his biscuit. Mormon and Sam solemnly followed his example while Molly beamed at them.
"You don'tsaythey're good?" she said.
"Too busy eating," said Sandy. And winked at Sam.
Molly caught the wink, took a biscuit, buttered it, bit into it.
Camp-bread and biscuits, eaten in the open, garnished with the wilderness sauce that creates appetite, eaten piping hot, are mighty palatable though the dough is mixed with water and shortening is lacking. As a camp cook, Molly was a success. Confused with Pedro's offer of lard and a stove that was complicated compared to her Dutch kettle, the result was a bitter failure that she acknowledged as soon as her teeth met through the deceptive crust.
Molly was slow to tears and quick to wrath. She picked up the plate of biscuits and marched out with them, her back very straight. In the kitchen the three partners heard first the smash of crockery, then the bang of a pan, a staccato volley of words. She came in again, empty-handed, eyes blazing.
"There's no bread. Pedro's makin' hot cakes." Then, as they looked at her solemnly: "You think you're damned smart, don't you, tryin' to fool me,purtendin' they was good when they'd pizen the chickens? I hate folks whoactlies, same as them that speaks 'em."
"I've tasted worse," said Mormon. "Honest I have, Molly. My first wife put too much saleratus an' salt in at first but, after a bit, she was a wonder—as a cook."
Molly, as always, melted to his grin.
"I ain't got no mo' manners than a chuckawaller," she said penitently. "Sandy, would you bring me a cook-book in from town?"
"Got one somewheres around."
"No we ain't. Mormon used the leaves for shavin'," said Sam. "Last winter. W'udn't use his derned ol' catalogue."
"I'll git one," said Sandy. "Here's the hot cakes."
They devoured the savory stacks, spread with butter and sage-honey, in comparative silence. There came the noise of the riders going off for the day's duties laid out by Sam, acting foreman for the month. Sandy got up and went to the window, turning in mock dismay.
"Here comes that Bailey female," he announced. "Young Ed Bailey drivin' the flivver. Sure stahted bright an' early. Wonder what she's nosin' afteh now? Mormon—an' you, Sam," he added sharply, "you'll stick around till she goes. Sabe? I don't aim to be talked to death an' then pickled by her vinegar, like I was las' time she come oveh."
A tinny machine, in need of paint, short of oil,braked squeakingly as a horn squawked and the auto halted by the porch steps. Young Ed Bailey slung one leg over another disproportionate limb, glanced at the windows, rolled a cigarette and lit it. His aunt, tall, gaunt, clad in starched dress and starched sunbonnet, with a rigidity of spine and feature that helped the fancy that these also had been starched, descended, strode across the porch and entered the living-room, her bright eyes darting all about, needling Molly, taking in every detail.
"Out lookin' fo' a stray," she announced. "Red-an'-white heifer we had up to the house for milkin'. Got rambuncterous an' loped off. Had one horn crumpled. Rawhide halter, ef she ain't got rid of it. You ain't seen her, hev you?"
"No m'm, we ain't. No strange heifer round the Three Star that answers that description." Sam winked at Molly, who was flushing under the inspection of Miranda Bailey, maiden sister of the neighbor owner of the Double-Dumbbell Ranch. He fancied the missing milker an excuse if not an actual invention to furnish opportunity for a visit to the Three Star, an inspection of Molly Casey and subsequent gossip. "You-all air up to date," he said, "ridin' herd in a flivver."
"I see a piece in the paper the other day," she said, "about men playin' a game with autos 'stead of hawsses—polo it was called—an' another piece about cowboys cuttin' out an' ropin' from autos. Hawsses is passin'. Science is replacin' of 'em."
"Reckon they'll last my time," drawled Sandy. "I hear they aim to roll food up in pills an' do us cattlemen out of a livin'. But I ain't worryin'. Me, I prefers steaks—somethin' I can set my teeth in. I reckon there's mo' like me. Let me make you 'quainted with Miss Bailey, Molly. This is Molly Casey, whose dad is dead. Molly, if you-all want to skip out an' tend to them chickens, hop to it."
Molly caught the suggestion that was more than a hint and started for the door. The woman checked her with a question.
"How old air you, Molly Casey?"
The girl turned, her eyes blank, her manner charged with indifference that unbent to be polite.
"Fifteen." And she went out.
"H'm," said Miranda Bailey, "fifteen. Worse'n I imagined."
Sandy's eyebrows went up. The breath that carried his words might have come from a refrigerator.
"You goin' back in the flivver?" he asked, "or was you aimin' to keep a-lookin' fo' that red-an'-white heifer?"
Miranda sniffed.
"I'm goin', soon's as I've said somethin' in the way of a word of advice an' warnin', seein' as how I happened this way. It's a woman's matter or I wouldn't meddle. But, what with talk goin' round Hereford in settin'-rooms, in restyrongs, in kitchens, as well as in dance-halls an' gamblin' hells where they sell moonshine, it's time it was carried to you which is mostconcerned, I take it, for the good of the child, not to mention yore own repitashuns."
"Where was ityouheard it, ma'am?" asked Sam politely.
"Where you never would, Mister Soda-Water Sam-u-el Manning," she flashed. "In the parlor of the Baptis' Church. I ain't much time an' I ain't goin' to waste it to mince matters. Here's a gel, a'most a woman, livin' with you three bachelor men."
"I've been married," ventured Mormon.
"So I understand. Where's yore wife?"
"One of 'em's dead, one of 'em's divorced an' I don't rightly sabe where the third is, nor I ain't losin' weight concernin' that neither."
"More shame to you. You're one of these women-haters, I s'pose?"
"No m'm, I ain't. That's been my trouble. I admire the sex but I've been a bad picker. I'm jest a woman-dodger."
Miranda's sniff turned into a snort.
"I ain't heard nothin' much ag'in' you men, I'll say that," she conceded. "I reckon you-all think I've jest come hornin' in on what ain't my affair. Mebbe that's so. If you've figgered this out same way I have, tell me an' I'll admit I'm jest an extry an' beg yore pardons."
"Miss Bailey," said Sandy, his manner changed to courtesy, "I believe you've come here to do us a service—an' Molly likewise. So fur's I sabe there's been some remahks passed concernin' her stayin' here'thout a chaperon, so to speak. Any one that 'ud staht that sort of talk is a blood relation to a centipede an' mebbe I can give a guess as to who it is. I reckon I can persuade him to quit."
"Mebbe, but you can't stop what's started any more'n a horn-toad can stop a landslide, Sandy Bourke. You can't kill scandal with gunplay. The gel's too young, in one way, an' not young enough in another, to be stayin' on at the Three Star. You oughter have sense enough to know that. Ef one of you was married, or had a wife that 'ud stay with you, it 'ud be different. Or if there was a woman housekeeper to the outfit."
"That ain't possible," put in Mormon. "I told you I'm a woman-dodger. Sandy here is woman-shy. Sam is wedded to his mouth-organ."
The flivver horn squawked outside. Miranda pointed her finger at Sandy.
"There's chores waitin' fo' me. I didn't come off at daylight jest to be spyin', whatever you men may think. You either got to git a grown woman here or send the gel away, fo' her own good, 'fore the talk gits so it'll shadder her life. I ain't married. I don't expect to be, but I aimed to be, once, 'cept for a dirty bit of gossip that started in my home town 'thout a word of truth in it. Now, I've said my say, you-all talk it over."
Sandy went to the door with her, helped her into the machine. It shudderingly gathered itself together and wheezed off; he came back with his face serious.
"She's right," he said.
"Mormon," said Sam, "it's up to you. Advertise fo' Number Three to come back—all is forgiven—or git you a divo'ce, it's plumb easy oveh in the nex' state—an' pick a good one this time."
"We got to send her away," said Sandy. "Me, I'm goin' into Herefo'd to-night. I aim to git a cook-book, interview Jim Plimsoll an' then bu'st his bank. One of you come erlong. Match fo' it."
"Bu'st the bank what with?" asked Sam.
Sandy produced the ten-dollar luck-piece and held it up.
"This. Mormon, choose yore side."
"Heads."
Sandy flipped the coin. It fell with a golden ring on the floor. "Tails," said Sandy inspecting it. "You come, Sam. Staht afteh noon. Oil up yore gun."
"I knowed I'd lose," said Mormon dolefully. "Dang my luck anyway."
It was a little after seven o'clock when Sandy and Sam walked out of the Cactus Restaurant, leaving their ponies hitched to the rail in front. They strolled down the main street of Hereford across the railroad tracks to where the "Brisket," as the cowboys styled the little town's tenderloin, huddled its collection of shacks, with their false fronts faced to the dusty street and their rear entrances, still cumbered with cases of empty bottles and idle kegs, turned to the almost dry bed of the creek. The signs of ante-prohibition days, blistered and faded, were still in place. Light showedin windows where fly-specked useless licenses were displayed. Back of the bars a melancholy array of soda-water advertised lack of interest in soft drinks. The front rooms held no loungers, but the click of chips and murmurs of talk came from behind closed doors.
Sandy stopped outside the place labeled "Good Luck Pool Parlors. J. Plimsoll, Prop." The line "Best Liquor and Cigars" was half smeared out. He patted gently the butts of the two Colts in the holsters, whose ends were tied down to the fringe ornaments of his chaps. Sam stroked his ropey mustache and eased the gun at his hip. Sandy pushed open the door and went in. A man was playing Canfield at a table in the deserted bar. As the pair entered he looked up with a "Howdy, gents?" shoving back a rickety table and chair noisily on the uneven floor. The inner door swung silently as at a signal and Jim Plimsoll came out. He stiffened a little at the sight of the Three Star men and then grinned at Sam.
"How was the last bottle, Soda-Water?" he asked. "You didn't have to change your name with Prohibition, did you? Nor your habits."
"Main thing that's changed is the quality of yore booze—an' the price, neither fo' the better," said Sam carelessly.
"We ain't drinkin' ter-night, Jim," said Sandy. "Dropped in to hev a li'l' talk with you an' then take a buck at the tiger."
Plimsoll's eyes glittered.
"Said talk bein' private," continued Sandy.
Plimsoll threw a glance at the man who had been posted for lookout and he left with a curious gaze that took in Sandy's guns.
"Sorry I was away from the ranch, time you called," said Sandy, sitting with one leg thrown over the corner of the table. "Hope to be there nex' time. I hear you-all claim to have an interest in Pat Casey's minin' locations, his interest now bein' his daughter's?"
"That any of your business?"
"I aim to make it my business," replied Sandy.
For a moment the two men fought a pitched battle with their eyes. It was a warfare that Sandy Bourke was an expert in. The steel of his glance often saved him the lead in his cartridges. Jim Plimsoll was no fool to wage uneven contest. He fancied he would have the advantage over Sandy later, if the pair really meant to play faro—in his place.
"I grubstaked him for the Hopeful-Dynamite discovery," he said.
"Got any papeh showin' that? Witnessed."
"You know as well as I do that papers ain't often drawn on grubstaking contracts. A man's word is considered good."
"Pat Casey's would have been, I reckon," said Sandy.
"I've got witnesses."
"Well, we'll let that matteh slide till the mines make a showin'. Meantime, there's talk goin' on in this town concernin' the gel an' her livin' at Three Star. Ilook to you to contradict that so't of gossip, Plimsoll, from now on."
Plimsoll flushed angrily.
"Who in hell do you think you are?" he demanded. "Who appointed you censor to any man's speech?"
"Aman'sspeech don't have to be censored, Plimsoll. An' I reckon you know who I am."
"You come here looking for trouble, with me?"
"I never hunt trouble, Jim. If I can't help buttin' into it, like a man might ride into a rattlesnake in the mesquite, I aim to handle it. Ef I ever got into real trouble, an' it resembled you, I'd make you climb so fast, Plimsoll, you'd wish you had horns on yore knees an' eyebrows."
Plimsoll forced a laugh. "Fair warning, Sandy. I never raise a fuss with a two-gun man. It ain't healthy. You've got me wrong in this matter."
"Glad to hear it. Then there won't be no argyment. Game open?"
"Wide. An' a little hundred-proof stuff to take the alkali out of your throats. How about it?"
"I don't drink when I'm playin'. I aim to break the bank ter-night. I'm feelin' lucky. Brought my mascot erlong."
"Meaning Sam here?"
All three laughed for a mutual clearance of the situation. Sandy had said what he wanted and knew that Plimsoll interpreted it correctly. They went into the back room amicably after Plimsoll had recalled his lookout.
There was little to indicate the passing of the Volstead Act in the Good Luck Pool Room, where the tables had long ago been taken out, though the cue racks still stood in place. The place was foul with smoke and reeked with the fumes of expensive but indifferently distilled liquor. Hereford—the "brisket" end of it—had never been fussy about mixed drinks. Redeye was, and continued to be, the favorite. A faro and a roulette game, with a craps table, made up the equipment, outside of half a dozen small tables given over to stud and draw poker.
Some fifty men were present, most of them playing. Many of them nodded at Sandy and Sam as they walked over to the faro layout and stood looking on. Plimsoll left them and went back to a table near the door, where his chair was turned down at a game of draw. He started talking in a low tone to the man seated next to him. The first interest of their entrance soon died out. The dealer at faro went on imperturbably sliding card after card out of the case, the case-keeper fingered the buttons on the wires of his abacus and the players shifted their chips about the layout or nervously shuffled them between the fingers of one hand.
Sandy knew the dealer for Sim Hahn, a man whose livelihood lay in the dexterity of his slim well-kept fingers and his ability to reckon the bets; swiftly to drag in or pay out losings and winnings without an error. His face was without a wrinkle, clean-shaven, every slick black hair in place, the flesh wax-like. Heheld a record—whispered, not attested—of having more than once beaten a protesting gambler to the draw and then subscribing to the funeral. As he came to the last turn, with three cards left in the box, he paused, waiting for bets to be made. His eyes met Sandy's and he nodded. Three men named the order of the last three cards. None of them guessed the right one of the six ways in which they might have appeared. Hahn took in, paid out, shuffled the cards for a new deal. Sam nudged Sandy, speaking out of the corner of his mouth words that no one else could catch.
"The hombre Plimsoll's talkin' to is 'Butch' Parsons. He's the killer Brady hired over to the M-Bar-M to chase off the nesters."
Sandy said nothing, did not move. As the play began he turned and looked at the "killer" who had been named "Butch," after he had shot two heads of families that had preempted land on the range that Brady claimed as part of his holding. Whatever the justice of that claim, it was generally understood that Butch had killed in cold blood, Brady's political pull smothering prosecution and inquiry. Butch had a hawkish nose and an outcurving chin. He was practically bald. Reddish eyebrows straggled sparsely above pale blue eyes, the color of cheap graniteware. His lips were thin and pallid, making a hard line of his mouth. He packed a gun, well back of him, as he sat at the game. Meeting Sandy's lightly passing gaze, Butch sent out a puff of smoke from hishalf-finished cigar. The pale eyes pointed the action, it might have been a challenge, even a covert insult. Sandy ignored it, devoting his attention to the case-keeper.
The jacks came out early, three of them losing, showing second on the turn. A dozen bets went down on the fourth jack to win. Sandy placed the luck-piece on the card, reached for a "copper" marker, and played it to lose.
"That's a luck-piece, Hahn," he said. "If it loses, I'll take it up." Hahn gave him an eye-flick of acknowledgment. He was used to mascots. Sandy watched the play until at last the jack slid off to rest by the side of the case, leaving the winning card, a nine, exposed. Sandy alone had won. The luck-piece had proved its merit.
In twenty minutes Sam borrowed a stack from Sandy's steadily accumulating winnings and departed for the craps table. He wanted quicker action than faro gave him. Luck flirted with him, never entirely deserting him. And Sandy won until the news of his luck spread through the room. The gamblers began to get the hunch that the Three Star man was going to break the bank. Not all at the faro layout attempted to follow his bets. Plimsoll's roll had never yet been very badly crimped. With the peculiar paradox of their kind, while they told each other that Plimsoll's game was square, they held the secret conviction that Hahn's fingers would manipulate the case in an emergency so that the house would win. And they waitedfeverishly for the time to come when such a show-down would arrive.
Sandy did not have many chips in front of him, but there were five small oblongs of blue, markers representing five hundred dollars apiece. Hahn laid the fingers of his right hand lightly across the top of the case, the fingers of his left hand curled about it. It had come down to the last turn of the deal again. Every player and onlooker knew what the three cards were—a queen, a five and a deuce. The checking-board showed that the queen had lost twice and won once, the five had won three times and the deuce had won twice and lost once. Most of the players shifted their bets accordingly, the queen to win, the five and deuce to lose. Hahn still waited.
"Goin' to call th' turn?"
All eyes shifted to Sandy. No one else was going to try to name that combination. If the order of the three cards were named correctly the bank would pay four to one. If Sandy staked all on his call he would win over ten thousand dollars. Plimsoll would have to open his safe. Hahn did not have that amount in his cash drawer.
The rest—save Sam, now close behind Sandy, with ninety dollars winnings cashed-in—watched Sandy enviously and curiously. Hahn was a wonder. The case might be crooked, the spring eccentric. Plimsoll himself was looking on. Butch Parsons stood beside him for a second and then strolled into the front room. Another man followed him.
Sandy shoved the markers across the board, followed by his chips. Apparently aimlessly, he hitched at his belt and the two Colts with their tied-down holsters swung a little to the front, their handles just touching his hips.
"Deuce—queen—five, I'm bettin'," he said. "An' deal 'em slow." His voice drawled and his eyes lifted to Hahn's and rested there.
Hahn had been mechanically chewing gum most of the evening. Now his cheek muscles bulged more plainly and the end of his tongue showed for a second between his lips. His right hand dropped and he drew out a deuce. Eyes shifted from Sandy to Plimsoll, to Hahn. Little beads of moisture oozed out on the dealer's forehead. Plimsoll's black brows met. Sandy's face was placid. Breaths were indrawn as Hahn paid out and raked in on the card, his left hand covering the top of the case.
The atmosphere was charged with intensity. Plimsoll's dark eyes were boring through the dealer's lowered lids.
"Move yo' fingehs, dealer, an' reveal royalty," drawled Sandy. "The queen wins!" His hands were on his hips, fingers touching the butts of his guns, his eyes burned. For all its drag there was a ring to his voice.
Hahn shot one swift look at him and removed his hand. The queen showed. The room gasped. Plimsoll clapped Sandy on the shoulder.
"You did it," he said. "Broke the bank when youcalled that turn. Game's closed and the drinks on the house. How'll you have it?"
The crowd made way as Plimsoll walked across to his safe, twirled the combination, opened the doors and took out a stack of bills.
"Bills from a century up," said Sandy. "The odds and ends in gold—for the drinks."
The excitement was dying down. The man from the Three Star had won and had been paid. Plimsoll's game was square. A few, reading the slight signs of Hahn's nervousness, still held some doubts, but the games were closing. The drinks were brought. Two men lounged out into the front room after they had tossed theirs down. Sandy slipped the folded bills into the breast pocket of his shirt in a compact package.
"See who went out?" asked Sam in his side whisper.
"Yep. Saw it in the glass of that picture. We'll go out the back way. Not yet." He shouldered his way through the congratulating crowd, Sam close behind him, into the front room. It was empty. The short end of Sandy's winnings still provided liquor. For a moment they were alone. Plimsoll had not followed them. Sandy swiftly socketed the bolt on the inside of the front door, turned the key and slid that into his pocket.
"Now we'll go out the back way," he said. "I ain't strong fo' playin' crawfish, Sam, but I ain't keen on bein' potted in the dark. I'll bet what I got in my pocket Butch is huggin' the boards to one side of thisshack. I got too much money on me to be a good insurance risk."
Sam chuckled. Plimsoll met them just inside the door.
"Makin' a short cut," said Sandy. "Good night."
As the pair went out at the rear, Plimsoll jumped into the front room. Sam, closing the back door behind them noiselessly, heard the gambler cursing at the bolted door. Silently as a cat, he covered the short distance between the house and the arroyo of the creek and disappeared, merged in its shadow. Sandy joined him and they made their way swiftly along the bottom, climbing the bank where the railroad bridge crossed it, striking off for the main street, lit by sputtery arc-lamps, making for their ponies, still standing patiently outside the all-night restaurant.
"No sense in runnin' our heads into a flyin' noose," said Sandy. "Plimsoll owns the sheriff. Married his sister. We'd be wrong whatever stahted. They'd frisk me of my roll an' we'd never see it ag'in, less we made a runnin' fight of it. Wondeh how much eddication costs nowadays, Sam? What you laffin' at?"
"Butch an' the rest of Plimsoll's gunmen holdin' up the shack, waitin' fo' us to come out, while Plim is huntin' that key."
"Don't laff too hard till we git home," said Sandy. "It's eleven miles to the Three Star."
They mounted, swung their horses and loped off toward the bridge across the creek. There were two spans, one built since the advent of automobiles, theother ancient, little used. They headed for the latter. Passing the end of the street they saw nothing out of the ordinary. The door of the "Good Luck" was open, shown by a square of light. A group stood outside. Sandy and Sam rode off, the ponies' hoofs silent in the soft thick dust; moving shadows in the twilight, merging with the dark.