"So did I, but to make it more binding I brought in a train of government plunder for the Agency, some plows and mowin' machines and school house desks. Say, but I'd like to see some of these redskins trying to cut a furrer down that sage brush flat or sittin' at one of them desks doin' sums in 'rithmetic. More'n likely they'll be makin' pictures of Parson Meeker crossing the divide on a sulky plow under escort of Uncle Sam's cavalry," at which the freighter turned his gigantic laugh loose again.
Just then two men in "store clothes" picked their way around the various groups of horses and Indians, stopping a short distance from Jack and the freighter, whose sobriquet was "Cal." As the new comers faced square about Cal eyed them a moment and then said to Jack:
"You see that red-faced, black mustached feller standin' there? Well, that's Sam Tupper, the graveyard starter of the Animas and Wet Mountain valleys. I seen him make the first corpse in Silver Cliff. Wonder what he's doin' up here. Sure as gun's made of iron he's up here for mischief. It was October and the first blizzard of the season caught us all with short wood and no pitch hot. Every prospector around the cliff made for 'Nigger Barber's' place—afterward it got a regular name, the 'slaughter house,' kase 'Nigger,'—he was half Indian, half Mexican and balance coyote—had two great big stoves to keep us warm. Four fellers rode into the Cliff about 10 o'clock, cold and hungry, and expected to find a tavern started, but they were a little early, for the camp was right young, so they got permission to use some feller's tent near by—one of the four was Charley Rogers"—
"Owner of 'Brown Dick,'" interrupted Jack, in surprise.
"Yes; and Frank Mitchell, Les McAvoy and Paddy Dinslow. Les was a bad man, no mistake. His daddy was a judge in one of the northern counties and when Les was a kid the old man would take the youngster to some of the faro banks, hold him on his knee and seem to think it cute if the little gambler picked up a 'sleeper' and sold it to the barkeep for lumps of sugar or a bottle of pop. Well, Les got pretty tough. Worked some, but liked his 'licker' and was allus waitin' to pick a fuss. He was nervy and could fight with fists, stove pokers, 'toad stabbers' or six-shooters, it was all the same to him. Sam and 'Nigger' both knew him of old in Trinidad and Silverton. The first night after the boys got into the Cliff they dropped into 'Nigger's' and got into a game of faro. Les piled his stack of reds above the limit and Sam there, who was lookout, told Les to take 'em down. Les lost on the turn, but before the dealer could rake in the chips Les snatched the extra ones off the top of the pile. If he won, the dealer only paid the limit, and then Les would talk bad. All of 'em were scared of Les and no one wanted to make a beginning, so they humored him, but the next night they laid for him. I met Frank and Charley durin' the day and they said Les had been run out of Silverton, and he remarked as he came into the Cliff, 'Boys, mebbe it's my time to die with my boots on in this very camp, but I'm game.'
"It was almost 8 o'clock and 'Nigger's' was jammed. There was a big crowd at the table near the end of the bar. I sat at a table parallel to it, the big red hot stove making the apex of a triangle about the same distance as the tables were apart. The deal which old Colonel Crumpy was making came to an end. I was winner and thumbing my chips, when bang went a gun at the other table. Say, but did you ever see two hundred and fifty crazy, desperate men push and crowd out of gun play range? Well, there was lots of tenderfeet in that gang. They jumped onto the 'mustang' table and then to the hazard table and into the crowd, pell-mell, out of windows. One feller was so scar't he never stopped to open it, but went kersmash through glass and all. Durin' this I backed away keerful like to the wall between two windows. I knew if any of 'em started to run it would be in the middle of the room and I didn't feel like risking my back to that crowd. My gun hung handy in case of a free get-away, or die a doin' it. As I felt the cold green boards rub my spine I seen the rest of the show. It don't take a man a lifetime to move when guns are speakin'.
"It seems a kid, with sickly taller-like face and pinched cheeks, a young feller from the States lookin' for a gold mine, who got broke and nothing to do but clean spit-kits in 'Nigger's' and tend bar, had been exercised a little with the cards, dealing faro, and they put him on watch with a big Colt's old-fashioned navy on his lap, all cocked and ready for business, with instructions that if Les did any more funny work to plug him. Les had bet his stack as high as he could pile 'em and lost, grabbed the extra chips, and to the dealer's 'You—put them chips back,' Les slid up the back of his chair. He was keepin' cases and had his back to me, reachin' fer his gun. He had on a pair of blue overalls, and the hammer of that six-shooter got caught in the corner of his pocket. I seen him tuggin' to get it out, and the dealer, whose name was Bert Lillis, had lifted the big cannon, the muzzle half way across the table, and with both hands pulled the trigger, got scared, dropped the gun and was trying to skin under the table. He turned his head sideways to keep from scratching his nose, and just then Les got into action. He leaned on his left hand over the middle of the faro layout, put the muzzle of his gun against the eye of the dealer as he was sliding down and fired. As Les was doin' this Sam Tupper was busy, but Les had his eye on the lookout, who dared not move his hand for fear Les would git him first. As quick as Les made his play at the dealer, Sam reached for a drawer about six inches from his hand and grabbed a pearl-handled, silver-plated gun. As Les turned with uplifted arm, cocking his weapon, Sam stepped to the edge of the drygoods box on which the lookout's chair was placed, his weapon pointing straight at Les's heart. Before Les could fire there was a flash—a report. The smoke from the pearl-handled gun wreathed around Les's head as he turned convulsively, frantically trying to get the muzzle of his pistol on a line with Sam, who stood with the least perceptible smile waiting for the eye of his opponent to catch his own, but as Les's body slowly swayed and pivoted the gambler knew that in a moment more all would be over. The fingers which tightly gripped the murderous firearm now slackened, gripped again, then the pistol dropped to the floor; a body straightened up its full height, the head thrown back in defiance and with eyes rolling upward, Les McAvoy fell prone to the floor backwards. As he fell that man standing there stepped off the box with the pearl-handled gun cocked for a second shot, and hissed between those white teeth of his, 'You got it that time.' The jury heard no evidence of any shots but Lillis' and the one Les fired—no bullet was found from a Colt's navy, round ball. A conical ball rested just beneath the skin in the small of the back. The jury said, 'Justifiable homicide at the hands of Bert Lillis,' and I heard that Lillis died the next day."
"And that is the man who did the deed?" asked Jack, as he gazed at a real bad man; "one of those who make the history of every country black with their infamous deeds, which they plan and then inveigle innocent people to execute."
"Yes," said Cal, "and these redskins are not much to blame for goin' on the warpath the way they are bamboozled about. The trouble is, them cusses in Washington, who never see an Injun and who don't know what a real live one is, pass laws and send commissioners and army officers and agents out here to investigate. Some are preachers, some cunning lawyers and some statesmen—they call 'em so. The investigation drags along while the poor devils go hungry. Rations are held back, blankets rot for want of transportation, and somebody back in the woodpile is getting rich all the time. Then the Injun takes it out of a party of prospectors or some poor rancher, or like as not holds up a train of mules and the mule-skinners 'bite the dust' after defending their own property. But I suppose in the end it is all for the benefit of what they call civilization. Let's go and see them ponies over there."
"Look," said Jack; "must have been a bunch of folks come in last night," pointing to a regular settlement of new tents and camping outfits.