Eatin Crow; and The Best Man In Garotte | Page 2

the horn."
A day or two later Charley Muirhead, walking about the camp, came upon Dave Crocker's claim, and offered to buy half of it and work as a partner, but the other would not sell; "the claim was worth nothin'; not good enough for two, anyhow;" and there the matter would have ended, had not the young man proposed to work for a spell just to keep his hand in. By noon Crocker was won; nobody could resist Charley's hard work and laughing high spirits. Shortly afterwards the older man proposed to knock off; a day's work, he reckoned, had been done, and evidently considering it impossible to accept a stranger's labour without acknowledgment, he pressed Charley to come up to his shanty and eat The simple meal was soon despatched, and Crocker, feeling the obvious deficiencies of his larder, produced a bottle of Bourbon, and the two began to drink. Glass succeeded glass, and at length Crocker's reserve seemed to thaw; his manner became almost easy, and he spoke half frankly.
"I guess you're strong," he remarked. "You threw Bent out of the saloon the other night like as if he was nothin'; strength's good, but 'tain't everythin'. I mean," he added, in answer to the other's questioning look, "Samson wouldn't have a show with a man quick on the draw who meant bizness. Bent didn't pan out worth a cent, and the boys didn't like him, but--them things don't happen often." So in his own way he tried to warn the man to whom he had taken a liking.
Charley felt that a warning was intended, for he replied decisively: "It don't matter. I guess he wanted to jump me, and I won't be jumped, not if Samson wanted to, and all the revolvers in Garotte were on me."
"Wall," Crocker went on quietly, but with a certain curiosity in his eyes, "that's all right, but I reckon you were mistaken. Bent didn't want to rush ye; 'twas only his cussed way, and he'd had mighty bad luck. You might hev waited to see if he meant anythin', mightn't ye?" And he looked his listener in the face as he spoke.
"That's it," Charley replied, after a long pause, "that's just it. I couldn't wait, d'ye see!" and then continued hurriedly, as if driven to relieve himself by a full confession: "Maybe you don't sabe. It's plain enough, though I'd have to begin far back to make you understand. But I don't mind if you want to hear. I was raised in the East, in Rhode Island, and I guess I was liked by everybody. I never had trouble with any one, and I was a sort of favourite.... I fell in love with a girl, and as I hadn't much money, I came West to make some, as quick as I knew how. The first place I struck was Laramie--you don't know it? 'Twas a hard place; cowboys, liquor saloons, cursin' and swearin', poker and shootin' nearly every night At the beginning I seemed to get along all right, and I liked the boys, and thought they liked me. One night a little Irishman was rough on me; first of all I didn't notice, thought he meant nothin', and then, all at once, I saw he meant it--and more.
"Well, I got a kind of scare--I don't know why--and I took what he said and did nothin'. Next day the boys sort of held off from me, didn't talk; thought me no account, I guess, and that little Irishman just rode me round the place with spurs on. I never kicked once. I thought I'd get the money--I had done well with the stock I had bought--and go back East and marry, and no one would be any the wiser. But the Irishman kept right on, and first one and then another of the boys went for me, and I took it all. I just," and here his voice rose, and his manner became feverishly excited, "I just ate crow right along for months--and tried to look as if 'twas quail.
"One day I got a letter from home. She wanted me to hurry up and come back. She thought a lot of me, I could see; more than ever, because I had got along--I had written and told her my best news. And then, what had been hard grew impossible right off. I made up my mind to sell the stock and strike for new diggings. I couldn't stand it any longer--not after her letter. I sold out and cleared.... I ought to hev stayed in Laramie, p'r'aps, and gone for the Irishman, but I just couldn't. Every one there was against me."
"I guess you oughter hev stayed.... Besides, if you had wiped up the floor with that Irishman the boys would