The Gringos | Page 6

case proof enough that I'm right? I heard you telling a crowd in there
last night--" Bill tilted his head backward towards the room behind
them--"that this law-and-order talk is all a farce. What if it is? It don't
do any good for you to bawl it out in public and get the worst men in
the Committee down on you, does it?
"What you'd better do, Jack, is go on down to Palo Alto where your
pardner is. He's got some sense. I wouldn't stay in the darned town
overnight, the way they're running things now, if it wasn't for my
business. Ever since they made Tom Perkins captain there's been hell to
pay all round. I can hold my own; I'm up where they don't dare tackle
me; but you take a fool's advice and pull out before the Captain gets his
eagle eye on you. Talk like you was slinging around last night is about
as good a trouble-raiser as if you emptied both them guns of yours into

that crowd out there."
"You're asking me to run before there's anything to run away from."
Jack's lips began to show the line of stubbornness. "I haven't quarreled
with the Captain, except that little fuss a month ago, when he was
hammering that peon because he couldn't talk English; I'm not going to.
And if they did try any funny work with me, old-timer, why--as you
say, these guns--"
"Oh, all right, m'son! Have it your own way," Bill retorted grimly. "I
know you've got a brace of guns; and I know you can plant a bullet
where you want it to land, about as quick as the next one. I haven't a
doubt but what you're equal to the Vigilantes, with both hands tied! Of
course," he went on with heavy irony, "I have known of some mighty
able men swinging from the oak, lately. There'll likely be more, before
the town wakes up and weeds out some of the cutthroat element that's
running things now to suit themselves."
Jack looked at him quickly, struck by something in Bill's voice that
betrayed his real concern. "Don't take it to heart, Bill," he said,
dropping his bantering and his stubbornness together. "I won't air my
views quite so publicly, after this. I know I was a fool to talk quite as
straight as I did last night; but some one else brought up the subject of
Sandy; and Swift called him a name Sandy'd have smashed him in the
face for, if he'd been alive and heard it. I always liked the fellow, and it
made me hot to see them hustle him out of town and hang him like
they'd shoot a dog that had bitten some one, when I knew he didn't
deserve it. You or I would have shot, just as quick as he did, if a
drunken Spaniard made for us with a knife. So would the Captain, or
Swift, or any of the others.
"I know--I've got a nasty tongue when something riles me, and I lash
out without stopping to think. Dade has given me the devil for that,
more times than I can count. He went after me about this very thing,
too, the other day. I'll try and forget about Sandy; it doesn't make
pleasant remembering, anyway. And I'll promise to count a hundred
before I mention the Committee above a whisper, after this--nine
hundred and ninety-nine before I take the name of Swift or the Captain

in vain!" He smiled full at Bill--a smile to make men love him for the
big-hearted boy he was.
But Bill did not grin back. "Well, it won't hurt you any; they're bad men
to fuss with, both of 'em," he warned somberly.
"Come on out and climb a hill or two with me," Jack urged. "You've
got worse kinks in your system, to-day, than I've got in my legs. You
won't? Well, better go back and take another sleep, then; it may put you
in a more optimistic mood." He went off up the street towards the hills
to the south, turning in at the door of a tented eating-place for his
belated breakfast.
"Optimistic hell!" grunted Bill. "You can't tell a man anything he don't
think he knows better than you do, till he's past thirty. I was a fool to
try, I reckon."
He glowered at the vanishing figure, noting anew how tall and straight
Jack was in his close-fitting buckskin jacket, with the crimson sash
knotted about his middle in the Spanish style, his trousers tucked into
his boots like the miners, and to crown all, a white sombrero such as
the vaqueros wore. Handsome and headstrong he was; and Bill shook
his head over the combination which made for trouble