Читать книгу Hopalong Cassidy and the Eagle's Brood - Clarence E. Mulford - Страница 5

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The hotel clerk, deftly twirling the register with one hand, offered the freshly dipped pen with the other. The blank line having been forever ruined by the heavy scrawl, the book was whirled around again and the clerk put down a number. Glancing at the scrawl, his brows puckered while he struggled with it, and he bent down over it; and then he suddenly appeared to be hypnotized, for the letters seemed to be written in fire. He raised his head and looked with deference at the seamed, tanned face in front of him; and when he spoke it was with a curious reverence.

“I’m givin’ you th’ corner room, Mr. Cassidy,” he said, swiftly changing the figure. “Number Six, sir; an’ th’ best in th’ house!”

“Much obliged, Bub,” said the puncher, stepping to one side and waving at the bulging sack on the floor as the bellboy showed signs of life.

Again the register twirled, stopping exactly in the right position for a right-handed man. Again a blank line was everlastingly defaced, and again a number was placed at the end of it. The clerk seemed to doubt his senses as he looked up.

“I’m givin’ you Number Four, Mr. Saunders,” he said, and nearly bowed as Mr. Saunders stepped back to make way for the third man.

The third man moved along the desk, irretrievably ruined the appearance of another line, and also stepped back; but his eyes had flashed to those other signatures, and now they flashed at the first man to sign. He saw that Mr. Saunders, also, was looking at the red-haired gentleman in the dusty black suit.

“Number Three for you, Mr. Skinner. I’m putting you three gentlemen on th’ same floor, close together,” said the clerk, handing out the third key. Then he glared at the bellboy, who had more ambition than good sense. This was shown by his fruitless attempt to carry three heavy stock saddles at once.

“Take up Number Six first!” ordered the clerk bruskly. “You can come back for th’ others.”

Mr. Cassidy brushed the boy aside and gripped the top of the sack.

“You play guide, Bub, an’ let me do th’ wranglin’,” he said, smiling broadly.

The other two gentlemen nodded, and followed Mr. Cassidy’s example; and the procession was forming when a shadow darkened the doorway and the town marshal stepped into the room from his customary beat for his customary scrutiny of the train’s addition to the town’s population. He stopped short, his mouth opening in surprise.

“Well, well, well!” he exclaimed, stepping forward with his hand extended. “Hopalong Cassidy, or I’m a liar! An’ Dave Saunders! An’ Matt Skinner! Durn if it ain’t like old home week in Bulltown! How are you, boys? Man, but I’m shore glad to see you ag’in! How are you?”

He shook hands in turn, wrinkles of delight on his habitually cold, appraising face. “Heard that yo’re th’ new sheriff of Twin River, Hopalong! Matt, you old cow thief, somebody told me that yo’re th’ boss of a bang-up fine ranch! An’ Dave, we’ve shore heard aplenty about you! You ain’t aimin’ to lynch nobody down here, are you? This ain’t Cottonwood Gulch, an’ I’ve got her fair peaceful.”

“Glad to see you, Bat; right glad,” said Hopalong, resting a kindly hand on the shoulder of a great peace officer. The fingers gripped the fabric of the black frock coat and bit into the flesh under it.

“I can give you a right good job punchin’, Bat, at sixty a month an’ found,” chuckled Matt Skinner. “Blast yore ornery hide, but it’s good to lay eyes on you ag’in!”

“Well, Bat,” said the boss of Cottonwood Gulch, stepping back for a better look at the marshal, “if I start any lynchin’ down here I’ll shore start with you. Yo’re a sight to cure sick eyes!”

The marshal took a step backward, so as to group his friends into a more compact picture.

“Well, this is great!” he said. “You boys know each other?”

“I’ve heard some gossip along th’ trails,” admitted Hopalong, with a broad grin. “I’d say Matt Skinner wasn’t exactly a stranger to any of us; an’ as for Saunders, he’s about as famous west of th’ Mississippi as General Grant.”

“Grant is near a stranger in this country, compared to you, Cassidy,” said Saunders, gripping the lean, hard hand. Handshaking became general, and the four men, forgetting the sacked saddles, their room assignments, and oblivious to the almost worshipping stares of clerk and bellboy, moved over to a row of chairs placed facing the big window. There are many times when Fate is kind, and to these men, this was one of them.

“Why, I came down here to meet Johnny—Johnny Nelson,” the redhead was saying in answer to the marshal’s question. “Last time I saw him was just after that Snake Buttes gang was cleaned out. He was purty well shot up then. He wrote up to me that he had some business to ’tend to here, an’ he wanted to know why I couldn’t come down an’ meet him, for old time’s sake. Tex is a-visitin’ him—Tex Ewalt. Tex an’ his wife kinda have to run a honeymoon every year—an’ this year they’re spendin’ it on th’ SV, with Margaret an’ Johnny. There’s another reason why they like th’ SV, aside from Johnny an’ his wife. Well, Tex is there; an’ since Johnny is headin’ this way, I wouldn’t be a heap surprised if Tex sorta slipped away an’ come with him.”

“I’d shore like to meet th’ pair of ’em,” said Skinner, skipping along the high spots in his memory of what he had heard about them both. He glanced at his companions. “I came down here to sell some cattle, if you city boys don’t rob me. We’re doin’ so well that our range is kinda gettin’ crowded.”

“Mebby we can do some business, Skinner,” suggested Saunders, turning to the last speaker. “There’s a new railroad goin’ across th’ country up my way, an’ I’ve got thunderin’ big beef contracts for feedin’ its construction gangs. I got three sections to supply, an’ it’s got to th’ point where I’ve got to buy before I can deliver, because that contract came right on top of some herds for delivery on th’ open range. I wrote to a friend of mine, name of Duncan—Wyatt Duncan—an’ he wrote back that he had some good critters to sell. I don’t believe he can come anywhere near fillin’ my needs. He’ll come first, of course, seein’ he was first come; but I’m right shore I can take a lot of head off yore hands, Matt, at a fair price to us both. What you say we wait till Duncan gets here, an’ then talk it over three-cornered?”

“Wyatt Duncan,” murmured Hopalong, thoughtfully. His mind was racing back and reviewing trail gossip. “He ain’t that Wyatt Duncan that raised so much cain over in th’ Black Buttes country, is he?”

“He shore is just that person,” answered Saunders. “You heard of him, Skinner?”

“Yeah; I’ve heard about Duncan. He did a right good job over in th’ Buttes. Say, Bat,” he said, chuckling, “sizin’ us up, an’ figgerin’ in them that are comin’, we’re goin’ to be a right law-abidin’ body of citizens, if you say it quick. There ain’t one of us but what has had to clean up some part of th’ country. Every one of us has been through some reg’lar little wars. Ain’t that right?”

The marshal laughed.

“Yes; I was just thinkin’ about th’ same thing when you said it. Everythin’ considered, there’ll be a round half dozen of th’ durnedest gun-throwin’ hombres of th’ West in this town, mebby to-night; an’ I’m tellin’ each one of you to keep on yore guns. If th’ city fathers have got anythin’ to say about it, I’ll swear you all in as deputy city marshals to serve durin’ yore stay, without pay. I figger if you boys wear ’em I won’t have nothin’ to do while yo’re here. Man, even Quantrell’s guerrillas in their best day would leave this town alone now!”

The day passed pleasantly enough. The three visitors made the rounds under the vouching of the town marshal. They visited old scenes and met a few old-time acquaintances; and in less than an hour the whole town knew who they were, and most of the town felt proud to offer its hospitality to such a trio.

In the evening the eastbound limited stopped at Bulltown, which was the end of a division. From the usual crowd heading for the depot, four men stepped out of the semi-darkness and loafed toward a baggage truck on the platform. As they stopped, there sounded far off in the west a pure, deep, vibrant tone. Soon a light appeared in the distance and glinted from the polished steel of the rails. The rails themselves seemed to waken. They hummed softly, and with a faint clicking told of distant wheels pounding over the rail joints. On she came, an imperious monster glaring with Cyclopean eye and breathing fire. The earth trembled, the rails clicked stridently and then, with hiss of steam, the whistle of air and a rush of cinder-filled wind, the long-tailed monster slid past the platform, slower and yet more slow. There came a grinding and squealing, a clash of brake chains, and the monster stopped, while various litter fluttered about the platform to settle slowly.

Lanterns swung down from car steps, and from the lighted door of the smoking car three men emerged, two of them talking and laughing.

“There he is!” called the foremost, raising an arm. “Hoppy! Hey, Hoppy!”

“Dang spavined old good-for-nothin’!” chuckled the second, hastily following his running companion.

The third man followed close to their heels, to meet and shake hands with his old friend from Cottonwood Gulch. Bat then took them all in charge and introductions followed. The seven men, bunched up, moved slowly from the platform, heading for the best saloon in town. They reached it, and passed in to line up against the bar.

Even from the rear they made a picture. Seven hewers of law and order, dressed in wool and leather and vast hats, Bat being the only exception to the last, for Bat wore a low-crowned derby, the last word in dog of that day. Seven hewers, their knees bending outward, their thighs hung with soiled scabbards, in which nestled walnut-handled arbiters of fate. Seven two-gun men, the cream of their various localities; seven men tested in flame and smoke and thundering stampedes; seven men without a flaw in courage. Stern and ruthless; yet kind and sympathetic; seven men who typified the better spirit of the old frontier.