We must transport our reader now to a locality somewhere in the region lying between New Mexico and Colorado. Here, in a mean-looking out-of-the-way tavern, a number of rough-looking men were congregated, drinking, gambling, and spinning yarns. Some of them belonged to the class known as cow-boys—men of rugged exterior, iron constitutions, powerful frames, and apparently reckless dispositions, though underneath the surface there was considerable variety of character to be found.
The landlord of the inn—if we may so call it, for it was little better than a big shanty—was known by the name of David. He was a man of cool courage. His customers knew this latter fact well, and were also aware that, although he carried no weapon on his person, he had several revolvers in handy places under his counter, with the use of which he was extremely familiar and expert.
In the midst of a group of rather noisy characters who smoked and drank in one corner of this inn or shanty, there was seated on the end of a packing-case, a man in the prime of life, who, even in such rough company, was conspicuously rugged. His leathern costume betokened him a hunter, or trapper, and the sheepskin leggings, with the wool outside, showed that he was at least at that time a horseman. Unlike most of his comrades, he wore Indian moccasins, with spurs strapped to them. Also a cap of the broad-brimmed order. The point about him that was most striking at first sight was his immense breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, though in height he did not equal many of the men around him. As one became acquainted with the man, however, his massive proportions had not so powerful an effect on the mind of an observer as the quiet simplicity of his expression and manner. Good-nature seemed to lurk in the lines about his eyes and the corners of his mouth, which latter had the peculiarity of turning down instead of up when he smiled; yet withal there was a stern gravity about him that forbade familiarity.
The name of the man was Hunky Ben, and the strangest thing about him—that which puzzled these wild men most—was that he neither drank nor smoked nor gambled! He made no pretence of abstaining on principle. One of the younger men, who was blowing a stiff cloud, ventured to ask him whether he really thought these things wrong.
“Well, now,” he replied quietly, with a twinkle in his eye, “I’m no parson, boys, that I should set up to diskiver what’s right an’ what’s wrong. I’ve got my own notions on them points, you bet, but I’m not goin’ to preach ’em. As to smokin’, I won’t make a smoked herrin’ o’ my tongue to please anybody. Besides, I don’t want to smoke, an’ why should I do a thing I don’t want to just because other people does it? Why should I make a new want when I’ve got no end o’ wants a’ready that’s hard enough to purvide for? Drinkin’s all very well if a man wants Dutch courage, but I don’t want it—no, nor French courage, nor German, nor Chinee, havin’ got enough o’ the article home-growed to sarve my purpus. When that’s used up I may take to drinkin’—who knows? Same wi’ gamblin’. I’ve no desire to bust up any man, an’ I don’t want to be busted up myself, you bet. No doubt drinkin’, smokin’, an’ gamblin’ makes men jolly—them at least that’s tough an’ that wins!—but I’m jolly without ’em, boys,—jolly as a cottontail rabbit just come of age.”
“An’ ye look it, old man,” returned the young fellow, puffing cloudlets with the utmost vigour; “but come, Ben, won’t ye spin us a yarn about your frontier life?”
“Yes, do, Hunky,” cried another in an entreating voice, for it was well known all over that region that the bold hunter was a good story-teller, and as he had served a good deal on the frontier as guide to the United States troops, it was understood that he had much to tell of a thrilling and adventurous kind; but although the men about him ceased to talk and looked at him with expectancy, he shook his head, and would not consent to be drawn out.
“No, boys, it can’t be done to-day,” he said; “I’ve no time, for I’m bound for Quester Creek in hot haste, an’ am only waitin’ here for my pony to freshen up a bit. The Redskins are goin’ to give us trouble there by all accounts.”
“The red devils!” exclaimed one of the men, with a savage oath; “they’re always givin’ us trouble.”
“That,” returned Hunky Ben, in a soft voice, as he glanced mildly at the speaker,—“that is a sentiment I heer’d expressed almost exactly in the same words, though in Capatchee lingo, some time ago by a Redskin chief—only he said it was pale-faced devils who troubled him. I wonder which is worst. They can’t both be worst, you know!”