Читать книгу The Lost Cabin Mine - Frederick Niven - Страница 17

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f two incidents that befell on the journey to Camp Kettle, I must tell you; of the first because it showed me Apache Kid's bravery and calm; and that the first of these two noteworthy incidents befell at the "Rest Hotel" where we had "twenty minutes for supper" while the monster head-lamps were lit for the night journey; for between Baker City and Camp Kettle there was one "all-night division," as it was called.

Apache Kid, after getting into the stage, sat silent for a much longer time than it took him to regain his wind. The high speed of travel with which we started was not kept up all the way, needless to say, such bursts being spectacular affairs for departures and arrivals. But with our six horses we nevertheless made good travel.

Occasional trivialities of talk were exchanged between the travellers—there were three others besides ourselves—and Apache Kid gave no indication by his manner that he and I were in any way specially connected. It was amusing indeed how he acted the part of one making friendly advances to me as though to a mere fellow-voyager, including me in his comments on the road, the weather, the coyotes that stood watching us passing with bared teeth and ugly grin. Later, when one of the others fell asleep and the remaining two struck up a conversation, he remarked:

"Well, that was a hot run I had. Whenever I turned the far corner of Baker Street I took to my heels, doubled back behind the block, and sprinted the whole length of the town. I had to tell another lie, however, for I saw Canlan in Baker Street, just when I was thinking of getting aboard the stage. The driver was in having a drink before starting and, so as to prevent him raising questions about my blanket-roll lying in the stage and me not being there, I told him I had forgotten something at this end of the town and that I would run along and get the business done, and he could pick me up in passing. Lucky he did n't come out then or he would have wondered at the direction I took. You had n't turned up, you see, and I knew I must let you know that it was all right."

He paused and added: "But from to-day, no more lying. I don't want when I come into this kingdom of mine to feel that I've got it at the expense of a hundred cowardly prevarications."

He sat considering a little while.

"If Canlan should by any chance get wind of our departure and follow up——" he began, and then closed his teeth sharply.

"What then?" I asked.

"He 'd be a dead man," said he, "and a good riddance to the world."

"I 'd think murder worse than lying," said I.

"Tut, tut!" said he. "You look at this from a prejudiced standpoint. Donoghue and I are going out to a certain goal. We 've arranged to win something for ourselves. Well, we 're not going to win it with humbugging and lying. Where speech would spoil—we 'll be silent; otherwise we 're going to walk up like men and claim what's coming to us, to use the phrase of the country. Heavens! When I think of what I 've seen, and been, and done, and then think of all this crawling way of going about anything—it makes me tired, to use the——" and he muttered the rest as though by force of habit but knowing it quite unnecessary to say.

There was nothing startling on our journey till the incident befell which I promised to tell you. It was when we came to the Rest House, a two-storey frame house, with a planking built up in front of it two storeys higher, with windows painted thereon in black on a white background, making it look, from the road, like a four-storey building.

When we dismounted there one of the men on the coach said to the proprietor, who had come out to the door: "What's the colour of your hash slinger? Still got that Chink?"

"I 've still got the Chinaman waiter, sir," replied the proprietor, in a loud, determined voice, "and if you don't like to have him serve you—well you can——"

"I intend to," said the man, a big, red-faced, perspiring fellow with bloodshot eyes. "I intend to. I 'll do the other thing, as you were about to say;" and he remained seated in the coach, turning his broad back on the owner of the Rest Hotel.

"I won't eat here, either," said Apache Kid to me, "not so much from desiring in Rome to do as the Romans do, as because I likewise object to the Chink, as he is called. You see, he works for what not even a white woman of the most saving kind could live upon. But there is such a peculiarly fine cocktail to be had in this place that I cannot deny myself it. Come," and we passed wide around the heels of four restive cow ponies that were hitched at the door, with lariats on their saddle-pommels and Winchester rifles in the side-buckets.

"Some cowboys in here," said Apache Kid, "up from Ney's place likely, after strayed stock," and he led the way to the bar, and seemed rather aggrieved for a moment that I drew the line at cocktails.

When we entered the bar-room I noticed a man who turned to look at us remain gazing, not looking away as did the others. Instead, he bored Apache Kid with a pair of very keen grey eyes.

Apache evidently was known to the barman, who chatted to him easily while concocting the drink of which I had heard such a good account, and both seemed oblivious to the other occupants of the room. A flutter of air made me look round to the door again. Apache Kid had said no word of Donoghue, but I remembered Donoghue's remark as to seeing me later, in a day or two, and half expected him to appear here. But the door was not opening to a newcomer. Instead, the man who had cast so keen a look on my friend was going out, and as he went he glanced backwards toward Apache Kid again.

I stepped up to Apache Kid and said: "I don't like the manner of that man who went out just now. I'm sure he means mischief of some kind. He gave you a mighty queer look."

"What was he like?" Apache asked, and I described him, but apparently without waking any memory or recognition in Apache's mind.

"Who was that who went out?" he asked, turning to the barman.

"Did n't observe, sir," was the reply.

"O! Thought I knew his——" Apache Kid began, and then said suddenly, as though annoyed at himself: "No, I 'm damned if I did—did n't think anything of the kind. Did n't even see him."

The barman smiled, and as Apache Kid moved along the counter away from us to scrutinise an announcement posted on the wall, said quietly: "He don't look as if he hed bin drinkin' too much. Strange how it affects different men; some in the face, some in the legs. Some keep quite fresh looking, but when they talk they just talk no manner of sense at all."

I could have explained what was "wrong" with Apache Kid, but it was not necessary. Instead, I stepped back and took my seat with what the barman called, with a slight sneer, my "soft drink."

Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the counter. He sipped his cocktail with evident relish, and suddenly the door flew open. Those in the room were astonished, for the newcomer had in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers,—a Colt,—and he was three paces into the room and had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we had recovered from our surprise.

"Well!" he cried, "I have you now!" and behind him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so surreptitiously a few moments before.

Apache Kid's eyes were bright, but there seemed no fear on his face; I could see none.

"You have me now," he said quietly.

The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with close-cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand.

"I 've waited a while for this," he said.

"Yes," said Apache Kid. "To me it is incomprehensible that a man's memory should serve so long; but you have the drop on me." Here came a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass I thought wonderful. "You have the drop on me, Jake,—in the language of the country."

The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then.

"You can come away with that old gag of yourn about the language o' the country, and you right up against it like this? No, Apache Kid, I can't—say!" he broke off, "are you heeled?"

And I thought to myself: "In the language of the country that means, 'are you armed?'"

"I am not," said Apache, lightly.

The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman, for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down with a jerk into the holster at his hip.

"I can't do it," he said. "You 're too gritty a man for me to put out that way."

There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was gone.

A long sigh filled the room.

"A gritty man, right enough," said one man near by. "A pair of gritty men, I 'm thinking."

Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say to the barman:

"Well, he 's no coward. A coward would have shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given me no chance. And even if he had n't done that," he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I had already recognised as natural to him, as though he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, "even if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would have backed out behind his gun for fear of me. No, he 's not a coward."

"But you told him you were n't heeled," said the barman.

"Oh! But I might have been lying," said Apache Kid, and frowned.

"He was n't lying, I bet," said the man near me. "A cool man like that there don't lie. It's beneath him to lie."

But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze of the room, and turned his back on it and on me, leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a man receiving some high honour.

And just then, "All aboard!" we heard the stage-driver intone at the door.

When we came forth again there were only two horses before the hotel.

"The red-headed man and his friend are gone," thought I, as I climbed to my place, and away we lumbered through the night, the great headlights throwing their radiance forward on the road in overlapping cones that sped before us, the darkness chasing us up behind.