Winner Take All | Page 6

rose less readily; later still he did not rise at all. Then Blue Jeans watered his horse for him and led it where he lay. With a heave he tossed the once pretty puncher into the saddle,--he was pretty no longer. He returned his gun. But he broke that weapon and extracted the shells before he gave it back.
"There it is," he told the beaten man, and instantly a light leaped to the half-closed eyes.
Blue Jeans read it.
"Oh, it ain't loaded. See!" And he flung afar the handful of cartridges.
"It ain't loaded, and don't you load it, either. Don't you try to load it, till you're out of sight. Don't you even think to try to load it. If you do--if you do--"
He went back to his seat on the timber.
And the train rocked no more. It became instead loquacious.
"Didn't I tell you?" it demanded. "Didn't I say so, the minute I spotted that moving-picture scenery! You didn't think real cowboys dolled up like that, did you? You did? My Gawd! But that other bird--look at him! Sure--smoking his cigarette as if nothing had happened. Bet he rolls 'em with one hand! Bet he rolls 'em with one hand, going at a gallop! And dressed for business all the while! Gentlemen, you're looking at a cowboy!"
And the wise one--the one who had been in Cheyenne during Frontier Week--capped it all, nonchalantly. He'd never hoped to have such a happy chance to display his vocabulary.
"One bad hombre," he declared. "One bad hombre!"
Oh, but they were loquacious! They forgot the heat and delay; they would have risen to a man and gone out to him who sat, back toward them, on the timber base of the tank, only they were afraid that the train might pull out without them. So they had to be content with watching him while they continued to tell each other what good offhand judges of human nature they were.
Not so, however, in the private car at the end of the row of coaches. No noise had come from its occupants during even the worst, or the best, of it. First tense attention and then when it was over and the superintendent had ridden away, three pairs of eyes which, turned upon each other, were startled, questioning.
One of the men was tall and fat, and prosperous to the casual eye, as he most surely must have been offensive to the fastidious. One of them was short and fat, with pointed ears that made him look quite fox-faced. And the other was a reporter. From his appearance one would have said I hope, and truly, that only pursuit of his calling could have brought him in such company.
These three, then, sat for a time and looked eloquently at each other. They were not loquacious about it, not verbally; and finally the tall fat one heaved himself from his seat.
"I've got a hunch," he declared, "and God never forgives a man who doesn't ride one." Certainly he was a strange person to be mentioning God so complacently.
"Pull the bell cord if that fool engineer tries to start without me." And he left the car.
So presently another shadow fell athwart Blue Jeans' lap. He did not bother to raise his head this time, however; he was nursing a bruised hand and craved solitude. The fat man stood and looked down at him until he realized that the other was likely never to look up, unless he did something besides impose his plainly unwelcome presence upon him. Therefore he cleared his throat--"hm-m-m."
"Don't hm-m-m me," snarled Blue Jeans promptly. "And get out of my light."
In his own way the huge man was a genius, for surely nothing else could have accomplished it.
"Warm, isn't it?" he commented; and at that inanity Blue Jeans raised his head.
The huge man had his first fair view of the other's fine hard youth; and while he observed the self-possessed eyes and long nose, acquisitive and courageous, Blue Jeans devoted the interval to a counter-scrutiny. He scanned the newcomer from head to foot, silk hose and hair-line suit and expensive panama. The rings upon those pudgy fingers held longest his wandering eye, the blue-white fortune in the burnt-orange cravat. But all this seemed to kindle no approval.
"Prosperous!" he muttered bitterly. "Prosperous! And yet I don't hate you like I did that superintendent. Just as much maybe, but not just the same. . . . Go away!"
But the huge man smiled and stood his ground until finally Blue Jeans slanted his head at him, wickedly, and fell to talking again.
"I could pluck that stone from out your tie that easy!" And his voice held no assurance that he would not act upon his words. "Just as easy! Yes, and I could beat you over the head with my gun--oh, sure