The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL

The camp which was to be the scene of Lafond's operations and of the girl's anticipated triumphs, lay between Ragged Top and Tom Custer. It consisted of a double row of log cabins situated in the V of the deep ravine. The men generally ate in the long dining-room of the hotel, worked at prospecting in the hills, and spent their evenings in the centrally situated Little Nugget saloon, the property of Michaïl Lafond.

The night of the half-breed's arrival the usual crowd was carrying on the usual discussions on the usual subjects.

One fresh from the East entering the building would have been struck first with the strangeness of the room. It was long and low, and on three sides dark. Against the fourth wall was stretched tightly a white cotton sheet, imitating plaster, in front of which stood the bar. The bar was polished, narrow, with a foot rest in front and two towels hanging from metal clasps just under the projecting eaves of it. It had been brought in sections, by wagon, at considerable expense. Some three feet behind the bar, stretched a shelf of the same height, towel covered, on which stood four bottles in front of a little mirror. The shelf was piled symmetrically with glasses of all shapes—tumblers, ponies, fine-stemmed wineglasses—arranged in pyramids and squares. They glittered in the glare of the lamps, and the indirect light from the white sheet. A dim pink reflection was given back by the mirror—dim and pink because the glass was draped with pink mosquito bar. Overhead hung the sign which read, "To Trust is Bust."

Beneath the reflector of the largest lamp lounged the barkeeper reading a paper. He had spread the paper on the bar, and, having crooked his elbows out at wide angles around its margin, was bending his head of straw-colored hair close over the print. He was dressed in white as to the upper part of his body. Occasionally he read aloud in a monotone from the paper. At other times his lips moved slowly, shaping the invisible words as they took form in his sluggish brain.

"The latest creations in ties," he read, "are described by our buyer as being natty effects in the narrow plaids."

Outside this glare of light from the white-dressed man, and the glittering pyramids and squares and glasses, and the dim pink reflections, and the white sheet imitating plaster, the rest of the room seemed dark by contrast. Near the door and the small front window, glowed a red-hot stove. Along the walls were ranged chairs. In the chairs sat many men smoking. Above the men a few cheap pictures were tacked against the rough walls. One of them represented an abnormally slim and smooth race horse against a background of vivid green. Another showed an equally green landscape, throwing into relief a group of red-coated men on spider-legged horses, pursuing a huddle of posing white hounds. One of the spider-legged horses had fallen, and the rider, being projected horizontally forward, was suspended rigidly in mid air, like Mohammed's coffin, and with as much apparent prospect of coming to earth. Still another presented the sight of an exceedingly naked woman descending from an exceedingly flat and marble couch. One foot was on the floor, and the other knee rested still on the flat and marble couch. It was labelled "Surprised."

Three large lamps with reflectors illuminated this part of the room. Then came a strip of comparative dusk; then another hanging-lamp disclosed a smooth-topped table, on which was a faro lay-out.

The men in the chairs smoked industriously and spoke seldom. The air was thick with the smoke of strong tobacco, such as "Hand Made" and "Lucky Strike." Very near the stove sprawled old Mizzou, low-foreheaded, white-bearded, talking always of women and the merits of grass-widows and school-ma'ams.

"They is nothin' like 'em!" he asserted with ever-fresh emphasis of tone. "Back in Chillicothe, whar th' hogs an' gals is co'n-fed, they is shore bustin'! When one of them critters comes 'round, I feels jest like raisin' hell and puttin' a chunk under it!"

"Th' hell you do!" snorted Cheyenne Harry, scowling his handsome brows, "th' hell you do! Give us a rest with yore everlasting females." He pulled his hat over his eyes, and drew savagely on his pipe, his right hand over the bowl, his left clasped tight under his armpit.

Billy Knapp was telling about his mine.

"On that thar Buffalo lode," he said impressively, "I got a lead twenty foot wide. Twenty foot, I say! And it holds out; it holds out a lot. It's great. I says to them Chicago sharps, I says, 'You won't find sech a lead as thet thar nowhere else in the Hills,' and by gravy I believe that's right! I do for shore! An' I says to them, I says, 'It only takes a little sinkin', an' a little five stamp mill, t' put her on a paying basis to wunst. Ain't no manner of doubt of it! I tell you it's a chance! that's what it is!'"

He breathed hard with the enthusiasm into which his words lifted him. He vociferated, telling over and over about his twenty foot lead. He held his great hand suspended in the air through whole sentences, bringing it down with a mighty slap as he came to his conclusions. The men about him listened unmoved. They believed what he said, but they had got over being excited at it. Jack Graham, his hat on his knees, twisted his little moustache and smiled amusedly. As the scout appealed to him from time to time, he nodded silent assent. Over beyond the bar of dusk, two men were staking small sums at faro. The keen-eyed dealer was monotonously calling the cards. "All ready; all down; hands up; jack win; queen lose!" he drawled.

In the corner nearest the door, a youth of eighteen huddled on the floor asleep. Here and there wandered an active wire-haired dog, bigger than a fox terrier and of different color, but with the terrier's bright eyes and alert movements. It was a strange beast, brown and black on the head, black on the body, badger gray on the legs, with sharp white teeth, over which bristled gray whiskers of the stiffness of a hair brush. As it passed the various men, it eyed them closely, ready to wag its stump of a tail in friendship, or to circle warily in avoidance of a kick. It was a self-reliant dog, a dog used to taking care of itself. Men called it Peter, without abbreviation.

Peter was possessed of the spirit of restlessness. He smelled everything, first with dainty sniffs, then with long, deep inhalations. Thus he came to know the inner nature of table legs and chairs, of men's boots and of dark corners. Between investigations he would stand in front of the bar and stretch, sticking first one hind leg, then the other, at stiff angles behind him, and then, fore feet far in front, pressing the chest of his long body nearly to the floor.

These things irritated Cheyenne Harry. He attempted to command Peter harshly, but Peter paid no attention.

"Off his feed," observed Dave Williams to young Barker in an undertone.

"Yeah," agreed the latter.

About eight o'clock Blair and the stage drew in and drew out again, after warming at the red-hot stove a little cross man who cursed the whole West—climate, scenery, and all—with a depth and heartiness that left these loyal Westerners gasping. Billy Knapp had attempted to reply, but had not held his own in the interchange.

After the stranger had gone out, the pristine calm broke into a froth of recrimination. The room shouted. It blamed Billy. It cursed the stranger. It thought of a dozen things that might have been said or done, as is the fashion of rooms. Billy vociferated against the tourist.

"Little two by four prospec' hole!" he cried. "He may be all right whar he comes from, which don't rank high anyhow, but when he comes out yar makin' any sech fool breaks as that, he don't assay a cent a ton fo' sense!"

"Oh, hell," growled Cheyenne Harry. "You-all make me tired!"

"Shake yore grouch, Harry," they advised good-humoredly. Cheyenne Harry was popular, fearless and a good shot. He had a little the reputation, in some quarters, of being a "bad man."

Billy went on with his tirade. The men shook their heads. "You wasn't ace high, Billy," said they. Billy insisted, getting more and more excited. They looked down from the calm of superior wisdom. Their anger vanished in Billy's. He was angry for the whole crowd.

"Moroney ought to have been here," they observed regretfully. "He's th' boy! He'd have trimmed th' little cuss good. Can't get ahead of Moroney nohow."

Billy denied that Moroney could have done better than he, Billy, did. The men championed Moroney's cause with warmth. A new discussion arose out of the old. With a prodigious clatter every man drew up his chair until a circle was formed. Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, the barkeeper, leaned his head on his fists across the bar, trying to hear. The two men at the faro game cashed in and quit. The faro dealer, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like, shuffled his cards. Around the outside of the word-hurling circle Peter wandered, sniffing at chairs and the boots of men.

Then on a sudden Molly and the half-breed arrived, to the vast astonishment of Copper Creek, which had no women and expected none.

The newcomers appeared in the doorway, apparently from nowhere, pausing a moment before entering the saloon. Molly leaned a hand on each jamb, and calmly surveyed the room. Lafond blinked his eyes at the light, imperturbably awaiting the girl's good pleasure. After a moment she stepped inside, and again looked the apartment over, slowly, searchingly. She saw in that long sweeping glance everything there was to be seen—the men and their various attitudes, the bar, the glasses, the mirror draped with mosquito bar, the white cotton sheet, the lamps, the faro table, even the three sporting pictures on the wall.

In that moment she made up her mind what to do. Her heart was beating fast and her color was high. She experienced all the sensations of a man going into battle, but not a timid man, or one not sure. Rather, she felt a new access of force, a new confidence, a new imperious power that would bend conditions to suit itself. She knew in a flash just how to tame these untamed men.

Then she stepped swiftly forward and marched up to the bar, against which she leaned the broad of her back, running her arms along the rail on either side and resting one heel against the foot rest. She tossed her curls back, and again looked coolly at the silent men.

An observer might have found it interesting to note how the different inmates of the room took this unexpected appearance of the First Woman. Billy Knapp stared with round, gloating eyes, in which a hundred possibilities awoke. Cheyenne Harry, aroused from his slouching attitude, thrust his pipe into his pocket and furtively smoothed his moustache. Graham looked the newcomer over with cool inquiring scrutiny. Frosty began to polish a glass, finding relief from his embarrassment in accustomed and commonplace occupation. The faro dealer shuffled his cards, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. Peter sat upright on his haunches, sniffing daintily, first in the girl's direction, then in the man's, watching, bright-eyed and alert. Peter was the only being in the place who noticed the girl's companion. The latter, in turn, inspected the room deliberately, with a crafty calculation.

"Well," said Molly Lafond, with slow scorn, "how long are you going to sit there before you take care of a lady's horses?"

Then they suddenly became aware of the half-breed and of the white-covered schooner, dimly visible through the door. They began to regain control of their wits. The arrested currents of life moved once more. Who was this girl? Why should she command? Above all, why did not this little black hairy man take care of his own horses? Men helped themselves in the West.

They stirred uneasily, but no one responded. The girl's eyes flashed.

"Move!" she commanded, stretching her arm with a sudden and regal gesture toward the door.

The three men nearest jumped up and hurried out. The girl stood for an instant, her arm still outstretched; then she dropped it to her side with a rippling laugh.

"You boys need someone to make you stand 'round, that's all," she said. "Next time I speak, you rustle!"

She placed her hands behind her on the bar, and jumped lightly upward, perching on one corner and swinging her little feet to and fro. She sat in the focus of one of the larger lamps, seeming to radiate with a strange hard brilliancy. Her eyes sparkled and her curly golden hair escaped from under her old peaked cap in a bewildering tangle of twisted and glittering fire. She went on easily, without embarrassment, chattering in so assured a manner that the men were silenced by the very shyness that should have been hers.

"We got here a little late, boys," she said, conversationally, "on account of a hot box, but here we are—me and Mike. You don't know us though, do you? Well, this is Mike Lafond." She looked toward the half-breed, and a sudden inspiration lit her eye. "Black Mike!" she cried, clapping her hands. "That's it; Black Mike." She paused in happy contemplation of the appropriateness of this nickname. It seemed to fit; and it stuck forever after. "He owns this joint here, he says, and I reckon he says right," she went on after a pause. "He ain't pretty, but I'll tend to that for the family." She perked her head sideways, proving the point beyond contest.

Peter, who had been watching her, his own head in the same attentive pose, took this as a signal. He barked sharply. "Shut up, dog!" commanded Molly. She seized a pretzel from a tin pan at her side and threw it at Peter. Peter considered the pretzel as a contribution, so subsided.

"Well, boys, I'm glad to be here. I'm going to stay. You might look more pleased." She cast her eye along the group of men, each in a tense attitude of uneasiness. Graham's nonchalant and lounging self-poise struck her. "Aren't you glad?" she asked, pointing her finger at him. His quizzical smile only deepened. Failing to confuse him, as she intended, Molly hastily abandoned him. "You ought to be," she asserted, skilfully turning the remark in the direction of Cheyenne Harry. "Come here and let's look at you. I want to know your name. You ain't bashful, are you?"

Harry put on an appearance of ease and sauntered over to the bar. He would show the boys that he was used to society. He grinned at her pleasantly.

"Can't no one look purty nex' to you!" he said boldly.

"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. "That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was coming here to live, too!"

Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation.

"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated.

The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats. The constraint was beginning to break.

"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?"

The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly.

Frosty set out glasses, into which the men poured whiskey from small black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent, imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received their glasses. The girl raised hers high in the air.

"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!"

The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor, where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders. Molly touched her lips to her glass, and handed it to Billy, who stood on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered confidentially in his ear.

"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He had made a pretty speech, too.

The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amusement. She turned away impatiently and began to talk.

Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed consumedly.

And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high, sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal, the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places—the night herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling over-note of a triumphant child.

Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the lips.

The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe.

The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned red and white, and looked about him helplessly.

"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back."

She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one finger by the trigger guard.

"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She passed through the door to the canvas-covered schooner outside.

A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry.

"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word. Frosty, trot out the nose paint."

Billy was fuming.

"Hell of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice hospitable way to welkim a lady! Lovely idee she gets of this camp!"

Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently. "What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let you in this, anyway?"

He thrust his head forward at Billy.

"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you dead right, Harry, and you know it."

"That's right, Billy," said several.

Harry growled sulkily in his glass. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected. "Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t' have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in."

"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and let up."

The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations. They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying much. Everybody was "stuck" on him—everybody but Harry. Harry sulked over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar.

"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle."

He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the wrist, and turned away.

"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?"

"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back.

Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door.

The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows.

"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?"

"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin the rules."

"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you? Answer me that. Ain't you?"

"But it's different now," objected Mudge.

"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh, or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more, or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere till you ain't got glass enough left to mend your wall eye, you white-headed little varmint."

Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted quietly, "you are not shooting up anything."

Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?"

"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!"

Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You damn little greaser," he cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!"

He reached for his gun, remembered on the instant that his holster was empty, and sprang for Lafond. The half-breed calmly lifted a whiskey glass, near which he had taken the precaution to stand, and slopped its contents full in the other's eyes. Harry, blinded, struck against the corner of the bar. Mike slipped to one side and produced his revolver.

Several sprang between the two men. The room was in an uproar. Peter barked, clamant, frantic. Everybody tried to talk at once. In the background the faro dealer ceased shuffling his cards, and began imperturbably, indifferently, to pack together his layout. He had made little that night. After a moment he went out, without a glance toward the excited group.

The men were forcing the blinded and raving Harry toward the door. Mike leaned over the bar, watching with bright eyes, his arms folded across his chest and the pistol barrel peeping over the crook of one elbow.

When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast.

After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in Billy's personality—love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself, and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time. Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter.

"Go slow," said Black Mike to himself.

His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation. He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of consecutive thought.

"And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little voice.

Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!" he shouted angrily. "Get out!"

Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove. After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened, stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept.

The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply. But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his ablutions, and laughed.

"Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal——"

"She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou.