The Uphill Climb | Page 4

pore old Bill always gits in bad when you commence on your third
pint. You wasn't through, though, seems like. You was going to start in
at the beginning and en-core the whole performance, and you started
out after Bill. Bill, he was lookin' for a hole big enough to crawl into by
that time. But you run into the preacher. And you licked him to a
fare-you-well and had him crying real tears before I or anybody else
could stop you."
"What'd I lick him for?" Ford inquired in a tone of deep
discouragement.
Sandy's indeterminate, blue-gray eyes rounded with puzzlement.
"Search me," he repeated automatically. But later he inadvertently shed
enlightenment. He laughed, bending double, and slapping his thigh at
the irresistible urge of a mental picture.
"Thought I'd die," he gasped. "Me and Sam was watching from the
door. You had the preacher by the collar, shakin' him, and once in
awhile liftin' him clean off the ground on the toe of your boot; and you
kept saying: 'A sober man, and a preacher--and you'd marry that girl to
a fellow like me!' And then biff! And he'd let out a squawk. 'A drinkin',
fightin', gamblin' son-of-a-gun like me, you swine!' you'd tell him. And
when we finally pulled you loose, he picked up his hat and made a run
for it."
Ford meditated gloomily. "I'll lick him again, and lick him when I'm
sober, by thunder!" he promised grimly. "Who was he, do you know?"
"No, I don't. Little, dried-up geezer with a nose like a kit-fox's and a
whine to his voice. He won't come around here no more."
The door opened gustily and a big fellow with a skinned nose and a
whimsical pair of eyes looked in, hesitated while he stared hard at Ford,
and then entered and shut the door by the simple method of throwing
his shoulders back against it.
"Hello, old sport--how you comin'?" he cried cheerfully. "Kinda wet for

makin' calls, but when a man's loaded down with a guilty conscience--"
He sighed somewhat ostentatiously and pulled forward a chair
rejuvenated with baling-wire braces between the legs, and a cowhide
seat. "What's that cookin'--coffee, or sheep-dip?" he inquired
facetiously of Sandy, though his eyes dwelt solicitously upon Ford's
bowed head. He leaned forward and slapped Ford in friendly fashion
upon the shoulder.
"Buck up--'the worst is yet to come,'" he shouted, and laughed with an
exaggeration of cheerfulness. "You can't ever tell when death or
matrimony's goin' to get a man. By hokey, seems like there's no dodgin'
either one."
Ford lifted a bloodshot eye to the other. "And I always counted you for
a friend, Bill," he reproached heavily. "Sandy says I licked you good
and plenty. Well, looks to me like you had it coming, all right."
"Well--I got it, didn't I?" snorted Bill, his hand lifting involuntarily to
his nose. "And I ain't bellering, am I?" His mouth took an abused,
downward droop. "I ain't holdin' any grudge, am I? Why, Sandy here
can tell you that I held one side of you up whilst he was leadin' the
other side of you home! And I am sorry I stood there and seen you get
married off and never lifted a finger; I'm darned sorry. I shoulda
hollered misdeal, all right. I know it now." He pulled remorsefully at
his wet mustache, which very much resembled a worn-out sharing
brush.
Ford straightened up, dropped a hand upon his thigh, and thereby
discovered another sore spot, which he caressed gently with his palm.
"Say, Bill, you were there, and you saw her. On the square now--what's
she like? And what made me marry her?"
Bill pulled so hard upon his mustache that his teeth showed; his breath
became unpleasantly audible with the stress of emotion. "So help me, I
can't tell you what she's like, Ford," he confessed. "I don't remember
nothing about her looks, except she looked good to me, and I never
seen her before, and her hair wasn't red--I always remember red hair

when I see it, drunk or sober. You see," he added as an extenuation, "I
was pretty well jagged myself. I musta been. I recollect I was real put
out because my name wasn't Frank Ford--By hokey!" He laid an
impressive forefinger upon Ford's knee and tapped several times. "I
never knew your name was rightly Frank Ford Cameron. I always--"
"It ain't." Ford winced and drew away from the tapping process, as if
his knee also was sensitive that morning.
"You told her it was. I mind that perfectly, because I was so su'prised I
swore right out loud and was so damned ashamed I couldn't apologize.
And say! She musta been a real lady or I wouldn't uh felt that way