Emersons Wife and Other Western Stories | Page 5

already there had watched the arrival of the hack and the two prisoners
at the jail, and two of them, when they saw Nick coming, hurried into
the back room, leaving the door open.
"What's up, Nick?" the proprietor asked as he poured the whiskey
Ellhorn had ordered.

"Tommy and me," answered Nick jauntily, pushing his glass across the
bar to be filled a second time. "We 're on top now, and I sure reckon we
're goin' to stay there!"
"After the Dysert gang?"
"You bet! Hot and heavy! We'll have 'em all bunched in the jail by
night!"
Ellhorn stood with his back toward the middle door; and the two men
in the rear room cautiously made their way into the front again,
revolvers in their hands. Nick turned and found himself facing Faustin
Dysert and Hippolito Chavez, a policeman and member of Dysert's
society. His two revolvers flashed out, the triggers clicked, and he
stood waiting for the next move of the others, for he saw at once that
they did not intend to shoot at that moment.
"You 'll have to give me your guns, Nick," said Dysert. "You 're drunk
and disorderly, and I 'm going to arrest you."
"Want my guns?" shouted Nick derisively. "Then come and take 'em!"
"I 'm going to take them, and I 'll give you two minutes in which to
decide whether or not you 'll give them up peaceably."
"You will, will you! Let me tell you, it's yourself that's goin' to be taken,
dead or alive, and not for any common 'drunk and disorderly,' either!
You-all are goin' to swing, you are! Whoo-oo-ee-ee!"
Across the street, Tuttle had come out of the jail and was looking for
his friend. Ellhorn's peculiar yell came bellowing from the saloon, and
he knew that trouble of some sort was brewing. Dysert and Chavez saw
him leaping across the street, and rushed into the back room and
slammed the door as he entered at the front. With a glance Tuttle took
in the group of men with tense, excited faces, gathered at one side of
the room, Ellhorn, with a revolver in each hand, at the other, and the
saloon-keeper emerging from underneath the bar.

"Nick, you 're drinkin' again! Put up your guns!" Tom exclaimed
angrily.
"After 'em, Tommy! They went in there! Whoo-oo-ee-ee!" yelled Nick,
rushing toward the middle door. It gave before his weight and he
dashed in. Tuttle followed, not knowing what was happening, yet sure
that his friend was daring some danger. But the room was empty.
Through the back door Dysert and his companion had gained a corral,
into which opened several other houses, and in some one of these had
disappeared and found concealment.
"Huh!" grunted Nick. "Tom, if you'd only had sense enough to stay
away a minute longer I 'd have got both of 'em myself!"
They started forth on another raid, but the members of the Dysert gang
seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Neither in the
streets, the plaza, their homes, nor their usual haunts could the officers
of the law find one of those for whom they had warrants.
"It's what I was afraid of," said Tuttle. "The hint got out too quick for
us, and now they 're all hiding."
"They've holed up somewhere, all in a bunch, and we 've got to smoke
'em out. Whoo-oo-ee-ee!"
The several whiskies with which Nick had succeeded in eluding his
friend's vigilance were beginning to have manifest effect, and Tuttle
decided that, whatever became of the Dysert gang, there was only one
thing to do with Nick Ellhorn, and that would have to be done at once.
He drove back to the Plaza Hotel, took Nick to his room, locked the
door, and put the key in his pocket.
"Now, Nick, you-all don't get out of here till you 're plumb sober--sober
enough to be sorry!"
Nick protested, but Tuttle threw him down on the bed and then
deliberately sat down on his chest. Ellhorn swore valiantly and
threatened many and dire revenges. But Tom sat still, in unheeding

silence, and after a little Nick shut his mouth with a snap and gazed
sullenly at the ceiling. He labored for breath for a while, and at last
broke the silence by asking impatiently: "Say, Tom, how long you goin'
to make an easy chair of me?"
"You know, without askin'!"
Nick relapsed into silence again until his face grew purple and his
breath came in gasps. "Tom," he began, and there was no backbone left
in his voice, "what do you-all want me to promise?"
"Not to drink another drop of whiskey, beer, wine, brandy, or anything
intoxicatin', till we get the Dysert gang corralled--or they get us."
"All