to kill him. Wal, I'm always expectin' to see some feller ride
in here an' throw a gun on Benson. Can't say I'd be grieved."
Duane casually glanced in the direction indicated, and he saw a
spare, gaunt man with a face strikingly white beside the red
and
bronze and dark skins of the men around him. It was a
cadaverous face. The black
mustache hung down; a heavy lock of
black hair dropped down over the brow; deep-set, hollow,
staring eyes looked out piercingly. The man had a restless,
alert,
nervous manner. He put his hands on the board that
served as a bar and stared at Duane. But when he met Duane's
glance he turned
hurriedly" target="_blank" title="ad.仓促地,忙乱地">
hurriedly to go on serving out liquor.
"What have you got against him?" inquired Duane, as he sat down
beside Euchre. He asked more for something to say than from
real interest. What did he care about a mean,
haunted, craven-
faced
criminal?
"Wal, mebbe I'm cross-grained," replied Euchre, apologetically.
"Shore an
outlaw an' rustler such as me can't be touchy. But I
never stole nothin' but cattle from some rancher who never
missed 'em anyway. Thet sneak Benson--he was the means of
puttin' a little girl in Bland's way."
"Girl?" queried Duane, now with real attention.
"Shore. Bland's great on women. I'll tell you about this girl
when we get out of here. Some of the gang are goin' to be
sociable, an' I can't talk about the chief."
During the ensuing
half-hour a number of
outlaws passed by
Duane and Euchre, halted for a greeting or sat down for a
moment. They were all gruff, loud-voiced, merry, and good-
natured. Duane replied civilly and agreeably when he was
personally addressed; but he refused all invitations to drink
and
gamble. Evidently he had been accepted, in a way, as one of
their clan. No one made any hint of an
allusion to his affair
with Bosomer. Duane saw
readily that Euchre was well liked. One
outlaw borrowed money from him: another asked for tobacco.
By the time it was dark the big room was full of
outlaws and
Mexicans, most of whom were engaged at monte. These
gamblers,
especially the Mexicans, were
intense and quiet. The noise in
the place came from the drinkers, the loungers. Duane had seen
gambling-resorts--some of the famous ones in San Antonio and El
Paso, a few in border towns where license went unchecked. But
this place of Jackrabbit Benson's impressed him as one where
guns and
knives were accessories to the game. To his perhaps
rather distinguishing eye the most
prominent thing about the
gamesters appeared to be their weapons. On several of the
tables were piles of silver--Mexican pesos--as large and high
as the crown of his hat. There were also piles of gold and
silver in United States coin. Duane needed no
experienced eyes
to see that betting was heavy and that heavy sums exchanged
hands. The Mexicans showed a sterner obsession, an
intenser
passion. Some of the Americans staked
freely, nonchalantly, as
befitted men to whom money was nothing. These latter were
manifestlywinning, for there were brother
outlaws there who
wagered coin with grudging,
sullen,
greedy eyes. Boisterous
talk and
laughter among the drinking men drowned, except at
intervals, the low, brief talk of the
gamblers. The clink of
coin sounded
incessantly; sometimes just low, steady musical
rings; and again, when a pile was tumbled quickly, there was a
silvery crash. Here an
outlaw pounded on a table with the butt
of his gun; there another noisily palmed a roll of dollars
while he
studied his opponent's face. The noises, however, in
Benson's den did not
contribute to any
extent to the sinister
aspect of the place. That seemed to come from the grim and
reckless faces, from the bent,
intent heads, from the dark
lights and shades. There were bright lights, but these served
only to make the shadows. And in the shadows lurked
unrestrained lust of gain, a spirit
ruthless and
reckless, a
something at once suggesting lawlessness, theft, murder, and
hell.
"Bland's not here to-night," Euchre was
saying. "He left today
on one of his trips, takin' Alloway an' some others. But his
other man, Rugg, he's here. See him standin' with them three
fellers, all close to Benson. Rugg's the little bow-legged man
with the half of his face shot off. He's one-eyed. But he can
shore see out of the one he's got. An', darn me! there's
Hardin. You know him? He's got an
outlaw gang as big as
Bland's. Hardin is standin' next to Benson. See how quiet an'
unassumin' he looks. Yes, thet's Hardin. He comes here once in
a while to see Bland. They're friends, which's shore strange.
Do you see thet greaser there--the one with gold an' lace on
his sombrero? Thet's Manuel, a Mexican
bandit. He's a great
gambler. Comes here often to drop his coin. Next to him is Bill
Marr--the feller with the bandana round his head. Bill rode in
the other day with some fresh bullet-holes. He's been shot
more'n any feller I ever heard of. He's full of lead. Funny,
because Bill's no troublehunter, an', like me, he'd rather run
than shoot. But he's the best rustler Bland's got--a grand
rider, an' a wonder with cattle. An' see the tow-headed
youngster. Thet's Kid Fuller, the kid of Bland's gang. Fuller
has hit the pace hard, an' he won't last the year out on the
border. He killed his sweetheart's father, got run out of
Staceytown, took to stealin' hosses. An' next he's here with
Bland. Another boy gone wrong, an' now shore a hard nut."
Euchre went on
calling Duane's attention to other men, just as
he happened to glance over them. Any one of them would have
been a marked man in a
respectable crowd. Here each took his
place with more or less
distinction, according to the record of
his past wild
prowess and his present possibilities. Duane,
realizing that he was tolerated there, received in careless
friendly spirit by this terrible class of outcasts,
experienceda feeling of revulsion that amounted almost to
horror. Was his
being there not an ugly dream? What had he in common with such
ruffians? Then in a flash of memory came the
painful proof--he
was a
criminal in sight of Texas law; he, too, was an outcast.
For the moment Duane was wrapped up in
painful reflections; but
Euchre's heavy hand, clapping with a
warning hold on his arm,
brought him back to outside things.
The hum of voices, the clink of coin, the loud
laughter had
ceased. There was a silence that
manifestly had followed some
unusual word or action sufficient to still the room. It was
broken by a harsh curse and the
scrape of a bench on the floor.
Some man had risen.
"You stacked the cards, you--!"
"Say that twice," another voice replied, so different in its
cool,
ominous tone from the other.
"I'll say it twice," returned the first gamester, in hot haste.
"I'll say it three times. I'll
whistle it. Are you deaf? You
light-fingered gent! You stacked the cards!"
Silence ensued, deeper than before,
pregnant with meaning. For
all that Duane saw, not an
outlaw moved for a full moment. Then
suddenly the room was full of
disorder as men rose and ran and
dived everywhere.
"Run or duck!" yelled Euchre, close to Duane's ear. With that
he dashed for the door. Duane leaped after him. They ran into a
jostling mob. Heavy gun-shots and
hoarse yells
hurried the
crowd Duane was with pell-mell out into the darkness. There
they all halted, and several peeped in at the door.
"Who was the Kid callin'?" asked one
outlaw.
"Bud Marsh," replied another.
"I
reckon them fust shots was Bud's. Adios Kid. It was comin'
to him," went on yet another.
"How many shots?"
"Three or four, I counted."
"Three heavy an' one light. Thet light one was the Kid's .38.
Listen! There's the Kid hollerin' now. He ain't cashed,
anyway."
At this juncture most of the
outlaws began to file back into
the room. Duane thought he had seen and heard enough in
Benson's den for one night and he started slowly down the walk.
Presently Euchre caught up with him.
"Nobody hurt much, which's shore some strange," he said. "The
Kid--young Fuller thet I was tellin' you about--he was drinkin'
an' losin'. Lost his nut, too, callin' Bud Marsh thet way.
Bud's as straight at cards as any of 'em. Somebody grabbed Bud,
who shot into the roof. An' Fuller's arm was knocked up. He
only hit a greaser."
CHAPTER VI
Next morning Duane found that a moody and despondent spell had
fastened on him. Wishing to be alone, he went out and walked a
trail leading round the river bluff. He thought and thought.
After a while he made out that the trouble with him probably
was that he could not
resign himself to his fate. He abhorred
the
possibility chance seemed to hold in store for him. He
could not believe there was no hope. But what to do appeared
beyond his power to tell.
Duane had
intelligence and keenness enough to see his
peril--the danger threatening his
character as a man, just as
much as that which threatened his life. He cared
vastly more,
he discovered, for what he considered honor and
integrity than
he did for life. He saw that it was bad for him to be alone.
But, it appeared,
lonely months and perhaps years inevitably
must be his. Another thing puzzled him. In the bright light of
day he could not recall the state of mind that was his at
twilight or dusk or in the dark night. By day these visitations
became to him what they really were--phantoms of his
conscience. He could
dismiss the thought of them then. He could
scarcely remember or believe that this strange feat of fancy or
imagination had troubled him, pained him, made him sleepless
and sick.
That morning Duane spent an
unhappy hour wrestling decision out
of the unstable condition of his mind. But at length he
determined to create interest in all that he came across and so
forget himself as much as possible. He had an opportunity now
to see just what the
outlaw's life really was. He meant to
force himself to be curious,
sympathetic, clear-sighted. And he
would stay there in the
valley until its possibilities had been
exhausted or until circumstances sent him out upon his
uncertain way.
When he returned to the shack Euchre was cooking dinner.
"Say, Buck, I've news for you," he said; and his tone conveyed
either pride in his possession of such news or pride in Duane.
"Feller named Bradley rode in this mornin'. He's heard some
about you. Told about the ace of spades they put over the
bullet holes in thet cowpuncher Bain you plugged. Then there
was a rancher shot at a water-hole twenty miles south of
Wellston. Reckon you didn't do it?"
"No, I certainly did not," replied Duane.
"Wal, you get the blame. It ain't nothin' for a feller to be
saddled with gun-plays he never made. An', Buck, if you ever
get famous, as seems likely, you'll be blamed for many a crime.
The border'll make an
outlaw an'
murderer out of you. Wal,
thet's enough of thet. I've more news. You're goin' to be
popular."
"Popular? What do you mean?"
"I met Bland's wife this mornin'. She seen you the other day
when you rode in. She shore wants to meet you, an' so do some
of the other women in camp. They always want to meet the new
fellers who've just come in. It's
lonesome for women here, an'
they like to hear news from the towns."
"Well, Euchre, I don't want to be impolite, but I'd rather not
meet any women," rejoined Duane.
"I was afraid you wouldn't. Don't blame you much. Women are
hell. I was hopin', though, you might talk a little to thet