Emersons Wife and Other Western Stories | Page 2

of excited voices told him that his summons had at least attracted
attention. "Push button's a sure handy thing!" he exclaimed aloud as he
fell back on the bed, laughing drunkenly.
The footsteps halted outside and the voices sunk to whispers. Presently
Ellhorn, gazing expectantly at the door, saw a pair of apprehensive eyes
peering through the transom. At sight of the face he waved his hand,
which still grasped the gun, and called out, "Say, you, I want six
cocktails!" The face quickly dodged downward and the feet and the
whispering voices moved farther away. Then came the sound of a rapid
stride down the hall and a deep voice bellowed, "Nick, let me in!"
Nick called out "Tommy Tuttle!" and in walked a big bulk of a man,
six feet and more tall, with shoulders broad and burly and legs like tree
trunks. Ellhorn turned toward him a beaming face and broke into a
string of oaths. But his profanity was cordial and joyous. It bloomed
with glad welcome and was fragrant with good fellowship and
brotherly love.
"Nick, you 're drunk," said Tuttle reprovingly.
"You 're away off, Tom! I was yesterday, but I 've been teetotallin' ever
since I came into this room last night, and the whole Arizona desert
ain't in it with my throat this mornin'! I want six cocktails!"
"No, you don't," the other interrupted decisively. "You-all can have
some coffee," and he stepped back to the door and gave the order.
Ellhorn sat up and looked with indignant surprise at his friend. "Tom
Tuttle--" he began.

"Shut up!" Tuttle interrupted. "Come and soak your head."
Ellhorn submitted to the head-soaking without protest, but drank his
coffee with grumblings that it was not coffee, but cocktails, that he
wanted.
"Nick, ain't you-all ashamed of yourself?" Tuttle asked severely. But it
was anxiety rather than reproof that was evident in his large, round face
and blue eyes. His fair skin was tanned and burned to a bright red, and
against its blazing color glowed softly a short, tawny mustache.
"No, Tommy, not yet," Nick replied cheerfully. "It's too soon. It's likely
I will be to-morrow, or mebbe even this afternoon. But not now.
You-all ought to be more reasonable."
"To think you 'd pile in here like this, when I 'm in a hole and need you
bad," Tuttle went on in a grieved tone.
The fogs had begun to clear out of Ellhorn's head, and he looked up
with quick concern. "What's up, Tom?"
"The Dysert gang 's broke loose again, and Marshal Black 's in San
Francisco, and Sheriff Williamson 's gone to Chicago. I 've got to ride
herd on 'em all by myself."
"What have they done?"
"Old man Paxton was found dead by his front gate yesterday morning.
He 'd been killed by a knife-thrower, and a boss one at that--cut right
across his jugular. I went straight for Felipe Vigil, and last night I got a
clue from him, and he promised to tell me more to-day. But this
morning he was found dead under the long bridge with his tongue cut
out. That's enough for 'em; not another Greaser will dare open his
mouth now. I wired you yesterday at Plumas to come as quick as you
could."
"Then what you gruntin' about, Tom? I left Plumas before your wire
got there, and how could I be any quicker 'n that?"

"I wish Emerson was here. I 'd like to have his judgment about this
business. Emerson 's always got sure good judgment."
"Send for him, then," was Nick's prompt rejoinder.
Tuttle looked at him with surprise and disapproval. "Nick, are you
drunker than you look? You-all know he 's just got back from his
wedding trip."
"But he 's back, all right, ain't he! Neither one of us has ever got into a
hole yet that Emerson did n't come a-runnin', and fixed for whatever
might happen. And he's never needed us that we did n't get there as
quick as we could. You-all don't reckon, Tom, that Emerson Mead's
liver 's turned white just because he 's got a wife!"
Tom Tuttle fidgeted his big bulk and cleared his throat. Words did not
come so easily to him as deeds, but Ellhorn's way of putting it made
explanation necessary. "I don't mean it that way, Tom. Once, last year,
down in Plumas, when Emerson would n't let us shoot into that crowd
that wanted to hang him, I wondered for just a second if he was afraid,
and it made me plumb sick. But I saw right away that it was just
Emerson's judgment that there ought n't to be any shootin' right then,
and he was plumb right about it. No, Tom, I sure reckon there