Читать книгу Hopalong Cassidy and the Eagle's Brood - Clarence E. Mulford - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Breakfast was a silent affair, and when it was over the group returned to the chairs in front of the big window. The marshal joined them, a toothpick projecting from under his jet-black mustache. He was about to seat himself when the doctor appeared.

“Everythin’s goin’ well,” reported the gentleman of medicine. “I was afraid of somethin’ bein’ wrong inside of him. Bein’ throwed off of a movin’ train ain’t what you might call healthy. Then there was th’ dirt in all them cuts an’ gashes; but they look right good now. It’s goin’ to take time, though, to get back his strength. Couple of weeks, I’d say. I’m tellin’ you boys that that kid has had one heck of a session; an’ he wasn’t none too strong to begin with.”

“Two weeks!” growled Hopalong, shaking his head in stubborn disagreement with any such interval.

“Yes, two weeks,” replied the doctor, turning to the grumbler.

“I wasn’t questionin’ th’ time from yore point of view,” said Hopalong, “but from mine.”

Bat flipped the toothpick toward a sandbox cuspidor and nodded reassuringly to his old friend. There was a knowing smile on his face.

“I’ll see that he’s taken care of, if you boys want to go on about yore business,” he said quietly. “I’ll pass th’ hat around th’ poker tables an’ get him a real stake. This town shells out free an’ easy. He was headin’ east, back to th’ part of th’ country where he was born an’ raised. Th’ question is, which way should he go after he gets able to travel?”

“West,” growled Cassidy. “Back to th’ place he just left unless I send you word to send him somewhere else. Come to think of it, that’s somethin’ that can’t be decided now. Reckon mebby he don’t never want to see that place ag’in: I wouldn’t. You send him on east, Bat, if you don’t hear from us by th’ time he’s able to travel. I don’t know what kind of a layout he had; mebby it ain’t worth goin’ back to. He won’t have no cattle left, anyhow.”

Skinner had been fidgeting and now he took quick advantage of the pause in the talk.

“No need to pass no hat, Bat,” he said with the hesitation common to men who like to deprecate their good deeds. “I reckon none of us are paupers.”

“No,” said Saunders, decisively, sensing the drift. “We’ll pass th’ hat, an’ pass it now. It’s a sorta family affair, I reckon.”

“Can’t have that,” objected Bat, and meaning it. “I can’t go with you, but I aim to do my share; an’ Bulltown aims to do hers. Th’ boys will take care of that kid, an’ that’s flat.”

Bat exchanged a few words with the doctor on the way to the door, and returned alone. He dropped into his chair, hung the precious derby carefully on a knee, and looked around.

“Seems to me there oughta be a head to any kind of an expedition,” he suggested.

“Saunders is a good man to take hold of this,” said Cassidy, swiftly reviewing what he had heard of the vigilante days of Cottonwood Gulch.

“Be too much like a pupil instructin’ his teacher,” said Saunders, chuckling. “I don’t know how th’ rest of th’ boys feel about it, but by age, experience, an’ general cussedness I’d say that Hopalong Cassidy was boss of this young an’ self-supportin’ outfit. That’s my honest opinion.”

“Right,” said Duncan, smiling as he settled back in his chair.

“It’ll mebby give us all a chance to learn somethin’ worth while,” remarked Skinner, his face beaming. “I string along with Saunders, an’ vote for Cassidy.”

The affirmations were explosive and sincere, and the question seemed to be settled.

“I reckon it don’t matter so much who is foreman of this outfit,” said Hopalong thoughtfully. “Every man here is big enough for th’ job. Th’ main thing is obedience to whoever is foreman. I’m just as ready to follow as to lead. If I follow, I’ll do what I’m told to do; if I lead, I expect every one of you to do th’ same. We’ll likely have trouble enough from th’ outside without needin’ any bickerin’ among ourselves. Just to make that real plain, an’ mebby save some arguments later, we’ll hold th’ election over ag’in, on that footin’. First: are we all agreed to do what th’ boss tells us to do? To do it quick, without grumblin’ or arguin’?”

Nods of affirmation answered him and he put full faith in them as he, himself, nodded.

“All right,” he said, smiling thinly. “Now we’ll pick our leader. I name Saunders ag’in for my choice.”

“An’ I’m repeatin’ what I said before,” remarked Dave Saunders, smiling. “I vote for Cassidy.”

“Make mine th’ same,” said Wyatt Duncan, nodding swiftly.

“I’m stringin’ along with Dave an’ Wyatt,” said Skinner, and the others made it unanimous.

“Don’t see how you can get out of it, Hoppy, after what you just said,” said Tex Ewalt, chuckling. “We’ve all said we’d take orders, an’ we’ve elected you boss.”

Hopalong nodded without enthusiasm, and looked slowly from man to man.

“All right; I’ll go through with my end of it,” he said. “But any time th’ majority figgers that we need a new boss, we’ll hold another election. First, I want to talk to that kid ag’in, an’ learn all that he can tell me. He’s beginnin’ to talk easier—gettin’ a little more confidence in us, I reckon. We’ll leave town just as soon as we can; but there ain’t no sense of wastin’ time. Johnny, you an’ Tex hop th’ first train west, an’ get everythin’ ready for us on th’ SV.”

“Highbank is my railroad station,” said Johnny. “If we take to th’ hosses at th’ ranch we’ll have hundreds of miles to ride on them, when we might just as well cover that distance by rail. Suppose me an’ Tex get rifles, blankets, an’ things like that, pile ’em on th’ platform of th’ railroad station, an’ climb aboard when yore train comes along? We can get th’ hosses where we leave th’ train. How does that look to you, Hoppy?”

“Th’ same as it does to you,” replied the leader, his face crinkled with a smile. “I figger that we’ll take th’ limited in th’ mornin’. Seems to me that there’s a slow train west this afternoon. Is that right, Bat?”

“Yes; there’s an accommodation—we call it th’ dog train. Leaves at one-twelve this afternoon. It’s a local as far as Wickiup; an’ then runs th’ whole night through without a stop.”

“That’s ours,” said Johnny, and Tex nodded.

Hopalong turned to the marshal.

“Bat, you said somethin’ about knowin’ that country, out where th’ Kid came from. Suppose you tell us about it?”

“I know a town that ain’t so very far away from it, an’ I know th’ name of th’ sheriff that lives in that town. It’s in Cactus County, an’ only last week that sheriff telegraphed here for us to keep our eyes open for any BHB cattle that came east along th’ old wagon trail. His name is Corson, an’ he ranches near Willow Springs. I’d figger that yore best play would be to hunt him up an’ get him talkin’. Shall I wire him to expect you?”

“Yes; but you’ll have to tell him to expect us when he sees us,” replied Hopalong. He got up. “I’m goin’ upstairs to talk some more with th’ Kid.”

“I’ll go down to th’ station an’ send that telegram to Corson,” Bat said. “If there is any answer that you ought to have, I’ll forward to any place Nelson tells me to.”

“Good,” grunted the leader, heading for the stairs.

“Send it to Highbank, Bat,” said Johnny, thoughtfully. “Send it there if it comes in th’ next two days. We’ll get it.”

“All right, Johnny. See you boys later,” said the marshal, and left the room.

The afternoon train came and went, and with it went Ewalt and Nelson, making the first move in the campaign of skunk-killing. Their friends, watching the dust-wrapped end of the last car until it grew small, turned and walked back to the hotel, and there found Bat and Hopalong intently studying a map spread out on the card table.

“I’ll have to find out about that,” Bat was saying, frowning at a point marked by his finger. “Old Jackson will be in town to-night—if somebody ain’t shot him for hoss-stealin’. He used to travel out that way, an’ I reckon he knows th’ country; but if he ever got quite that far south an’ west, I don’t know. Anyhow, he can tell you th’ best way to get to Corson’s town, if he will.”

“Water an’ grass,” muttered Hopalong, thinking out loud. “Nothin’ else matters very much.”

“Shore,” agreed Bat, nodding. “You may have to stick to th’ reg’lar trails to be shore of water an’ grass, even if they are kinda roundabout. Well, old Jackson will know about that, I reckon.”

Old Jackson did, when they found him after supper. He looked frankly suspicious, swiftly reviewed his past, and then smiled with a certain amount of restraint. He was the best lone-hand horse thief for hundreds of miles around; he was the best because he never had been caught, although the activities toward that end had been unstinted and almost unceasing. Everybody suspected him, but nobody could prove anything at all against him.

“Whar’s yore map?” he asked, his eyes alertly on the group, but his words addressed to the marshal. He watched it unfold, and helped to smooth it out on the bar. His grimy finger moved swiftly along certain faint lines.

“Thar’s th’ reg’lar way—th’ old stage-coach routes; an’ here’s another, used by some of th’ government explorin’ expeditions, an’ quite some shorter than th’ stage routes; but,” he said, pausing to look into the interested faces around him, “thar’s another way that’s shorter yet, if you know it. Ten years ago I woudn’t ’a’ told you a word about it—but I ain’t goin’ back into that country no more. Them days are over, for me.”

He looked around at a bartender.

“Gimme a pencil, Billy,” he ordered.

Saunders relayed it and handed it to the old horse thief.

“Thar,” said old Jackson, bearing down with untrained hand, and drawing a line that twisted and turned, here and there marking heavy black X’s. “Thar! Them’s camp spots, them X’s—water an’ grass,” he explained. “If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you all about this route,” and for the next half-hour his drawling voice held his companions’ attention. Then came a shorter period of questions and answers, and finally, pushing his disreputable hat far back on his frowsy head, old Jackson wiped his lips with the back of a hand, and flatly announced a fact.

“I’m right thirsty,” he said, meaningly, and not long thereafter he left the building with almost a capacity load of liquor under his belt, and with a substantial addition to his cash in pocket.

Bat led the way toward a table, but caught sight of a man just coming in through the door. The marshal swung abruptly on his heels and went to meet the newcomer. After a few low-voiced words the newcomer dug down into a pocket and handed the peace officer something that clinked. Bat nodded, turned, and went back to the table, a satisfied smile on his face.

“That makes th’ five hundred, even,” he said proudly.