“Play any?” he inquired, “or do you keep it around as sort of an ornament?”
“Both,” smiled Malone. “It makes the place more homelike, you know, and then I sing once in a while, but not often. Folks around here aren’t particularly partial to my voice.”
“I’m a pretty good judge,” stated the sheriff; “blaze away, and I’ll see you ain’t interrupted. Been a long time since I had the pleasure of hearing any decent singin’.”
He was, as he said, a fairly good judge, and he was delighted with the rich barytone which rang through the cave. After a time, as the whisky and the music melted into his mood, he began to call for old favorites, darky ballads, and last of all, for the sentimental ditties which have always charmed the heart of the rough men of the West: “Annie Laurie,” “Old Black Joe,” “Ben Bolt,” “Silver Threads Among the Gold.”
As he sang the bandit commenced, naturally, to walk back and forth through the cave, and the sheriff sat back in the chair and with half-closed eyes waved the revolver back and forth in time. He failed to note that as Malone walked up and down each time he made a longer trip, until at last he was pacing and turning close to the table on which lay the revolvers side by side. He did not note it, or if he did his mind was too thrilled with the tender airs and the tenderer liquor to register the fact clearly. It faded into the pleasant blur of his sensations.
Oh, don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, Sweet Alice with—
The music stopped. Malone had stooped over the table with the speed of a bird picking up a grain of wheat, and with the same movement he whirled and fired. The gun spun from the hand of the sheriff and he stood staring into eyes which now beyond all doubt flared with a yellow animal fire.
“Now put your hands behind your back after you’ve thrown those bracelets to me,” said Malone. “I naturally hate to break up this party, but I think you’ve had about enough whisky to keep you warm on the ride back, Lefty, my boy.”
There was an insane desire on the sheriff’s part to leap upon Malone bare-handed, but he had seen too many fighting men in action before. He knew the meaning of those eyes and the steadiness of the revolver.
“It’s your game, Slim,” he said, with as little bitterness as possible; “but will you tell me why in the name of God you aren’t on the stage? It isn’t what you do, pal, it’s the way you do it!”