Winner Take All | Page 7

I've got one!--just like he beat that roan horse, and strip your pockets and be clean away before one of those"--he nodded over his shoulder at the train--"could think to call for help. And thinking to call for help would come quicker to them than thinking to help without calling. And Girl o' Mine would carry me clear in five minutes."
He paused remorselessly, as if to let this sink in, but out of the silence, "I don't scare easily," the huge man said.
"Pshaw! I'm not telling you to try to scare you," Blue Jeans scoffed. "I'm telling myself how simple it could be--and wondering why I don't do it!"
"I can tell you that," answered the Easterner. "Because you're honest."
But that was not subtle, and he realized the flattery had been ill-chosen, even before Blue Jeans flared, which was almost instantaneously.
"Don't you tell me I'm honest! Don't you dare even hint I am! It's honesty brought me here."
The huge man laughed gently. He'd made one mistake; few could accuse him of repeating in stupidity. He took accurate stock of the symptoms; set his sights upon what he surmised must be the bull's-eye of Blue Jeans' discontent; waited a nicely balanced moment, and fired.
"How," he inquired in a tone both mild and unsensational, "how would you like to earn two hundred dollars?"
But the shot did not take effect as he had expected it to. Instead of snapping back Blue Jeans' curly head sank a little lower. Though his inward start at the query had been great his outward display of emotion was scarcely visible. For perceiving that this was a deliberate attempt to arouse his interest, he dissembled it and exhibited no interest at all.
"I balk at murder," he replied with careful indifference and no flicker of jocularity. "And it would have to be that, to earn that much money. Two hundred dollars is a fortune; so's one; so's fifty. But I'm kind of particular that way--though the offer is liberal--it is so! I admit that, but I--"
He would have gone on rambling had not the other stopped him.
"Sure, it's a nice bunch of coin." And then, daring to be facetious himself, though adhering still to his admirable and just-formed plan of not disclosing too much at once:
"You'd not have to kill him, you know. Half of what you did to your friend on the roan horse would be plenty and to spare."
"He was no friend of mine," Blue Jeans corrected coldly. "We'd just barely begun to get acquainted."
"Lucky for him!" Indeed, despite his personality, the huge man had a lively wit.
"A life-long friendship would have proved fatal!"
It made Blue Jeans' eyes twinkle though it warmed them not at all. He didn't like the fat man and he wasn't going to try. But when the latter showed no readiness to go back to the important topic which he had himself introduced, he found anxiety overcoming his resolution to remain unconcerned.
"You were speaking intimately of two hundred dollars," he drew it back tentatively.
And then the huge man knew that it was best to be precise.
"For eighteen minutes' work," he explained. "Six rounds with young Condit, at Estabrook, on the tenth."
"Me!" Blue Jeans blurted his surprise, it was so far from the sort of proposition he had been prepared to hear. In spite of his habiliments the Easterner was no new type to him, and he had been ready to dismiss him and his project, whenever it should develop, with a satisfying frankness which could not have been admitted here. But this tripped him,--stripped him momentarily of his self-possession.
"Me!" he deprecated. "Pshaw! I'm no box-fighter! I don't box!"
"Sure you don't," the huge man agreed, eagerly and instantly. "That's what I saw as I watched you from the window, arguing with your fr--your acquaintance. The whole world is full of box-fighters who box. You'll look years and years, however, before you'll find one who will fight."
Blue Jeans had learned to make his decisions quickly, and to abide later by their results without complaint. Swift and sudden, that was the better way. But here was no step to be taken ill-considered. He wasn't sick of cowpunching; he hadn't had half enough of it; he'd never have enough. But he was sick of punching other men's cattle. And he'd been maturing lately, getting full-grown ideas into his head. There wasn't any future for him, or for any man, hellin' around the country. But if a man was to settle down,--that was the Dream!
And he knew the place,--back of Big Thumb Butte. Good pasture; not too big, but enough for any bunch he was ever likely to own. Some fence; some buildings; both in a sad state but reclaimable by a handy man. And water! The finest water in all the country, and it never failed. And cheap!