Prairie Flowers | Page 8

saved the struggling Texan from serious mishap. As it was his two assailants hindered and impeded each other and at the same time formed a buffer against the shower of glassware that descended from above. Freeing one hand the Texan began to shoot along the floor. With the first explosion the bartender scrambled to his feet and leaped onto the bar at the precise moment that Green Vest, pausing in his flight toward the door, seized a heavy brass cuspidor and hurled it with both hands. The whirling missile caught the bartender full in the face and without a sound he crashed backward carrying Ike Stork with him to the floor. The next instant the Texan was upon his feet and a gun in each hand, grinned down into the face of the terrified man who lay helplessly pinned by the inert form of the bartender. "Any friends or relations you want notified, Isaac, or any special disposal of the remains?" he questioned, as the guns waved back and forth above the prostrate man's face.
"G'wan, shoot if yer goin' to. I ain't packin' no gun. I done my damnedest when I booted you down, an' we'd of had you at that if them damned eediots hadn't begun bouncin' bottles an' glasses an' spittoons offen our head. Shoot--an' for Christ's sake, make a job of it!"
The Texan's grin broadened, and reaching down he rolled the bartender over, "Get up Ike," he said. "You're a he-one, all right, an' it would be a pity to waste you."
The other struggled to his feet and as he faced him the Texan saw an answering grin widen the mouth beneath the heavy moustache. "Pour us a couple of drinks out of that private stock, an' in the meantime I'll just fog her up a bit as a warnin' to the curious not to intrude on our solitude. An', say, watch this, so you can tell 'em out there I can shoot." Four stacks of chips remained on the table where the players of solo had abandoned their game, and shooting alternately with either hand, and so rapidly that the explosions sounded like shots from an automatic, the Texan cleaned the table and filled the air with a blue-grey haze and a shower of broken chips. Suddenly he glanced at the clock. Its hands pointed to half-past four, and with an oath he sent two bullets crashing into its face. "Four-thirty!" he cried. "A year ago this minute--" He stopped abruptly.
Ike nodded approval and raised his glass: "Now," he pronounced, solemnly, "I've got to own that they ain't none of us in Timber City that's as handy with guns as what you be--but, at that, most of us kin hit a man reasonable often--an' some of us has."
"I'll give you a chance to do it again, then. But, first, you slip down cellar there an' h'ist me up a bunch of beer kegs. I'm goin' to build me a barricade so you birds can't rake the back bar through the window." As Ike passed up the kegs, the Texan arranged them in such a manner that from neither windows nor door could anyone upon the outside cover the space behind the bar, and when Ike came up into the room he shook his head, gloomily: "What's the big idee," he asked, "of startin' a war over a dollar an' four bits? It ain't too late yet fer to leave yer guns in here an' plead guilty to disturbin' the peace. That won't cost you much--but this way, how in hell do you expect to play a lone hand agin a whole town an' git away with it? You're either plumb crazy or drunk or there's somethin' settin' heavy on yer mind----"
"I want my change," insisted the Texan stubbornly, "an' I'm goin' to take it out in trade, an' also them fines--there's twenty or thirty drinks comin', accordin' to the matches. Pour me out a couple of more an' then you've got to take our little friend here an' beat it before the fireworks start. I ain't drunk now, but I'm goin' to be! An' when I am--there's a little song we used to sing way down on the Rio Grande, it runs somethin' like this." Raising his voice the cowboy roared forth the words of his song:
"I'm a howler from the prairie of the West. If you want to die with terror, look at me. I'm chain-lightning--if I ain't, may I be blessed. I'm the snorter of the boundless prairie.
"He's a killer and a hater! He's the great annihilator! He's the terror of the boundless prairie!
"I'm the snoozer from the upper trail! I'm the reveller in murder and in gore! I can bust more Pullman coaches on the rail Than anyone who's worked the job before.
"He's