They left the doctor and went back. Pinnacle was beginning to wake up now. The driver let Hashknife and Sleepy have space in the stable for their horses, and offered them a bed at the rear of the stage office.
“That damned hotel no good,” he told them. “Too much bug. You have good bed in my place—cost not’ing.”
They thanked him kindly and accepted his offer. Hashknife’s rheumatism was less painful now; and while Pinnacle awoke to the fact that the stage had been robbed and a man shot, Hashknife and Sleepy burrowed down in a fairly good bed and forgot that such things as wounded men and stage robbers ever existed.
CHAPTER II
BIG MEDICINE HAWKWORTH
And at about the same time a cowboy had brought a message to Big Medicine Hawkworth. He was one of Hawkworth’s men, a thin, wry-necked cowboy, with badly bowed legs and bat ears.
The living-room of Hawkworth’s home was almost a hovel. The ceilings sagged badly and every board in the bare floor creaked in a different key. One or two faded pictures hung askew on the walls, and in the center of the ceiling hung an old oil-burning chandelier with a cracked chimney and a badly bent reflector.
Near the center of the room, huddled in a striped blanket, sat Big Medicine Hawkworth, a veritable giant in stature, but as lean as a wolf. His big, bony head was covered with a huge mop of yellowish-white hair, which flared out from his ears, reaching to his cheekbones, and giving him the appearance of wearing crumpled horns.
His forehead was broad and high, his eyes set far apart and hidden beneath heavy brows. The nostrils of his finely chiseled nose flared out above a wide, heavy mouth, which sagged just enough to show a glimpse of heavy teeth. The lower jaw was firm, and perhaps a trifle belligerent.
Just now he humped in his chair, as if asleep, his huge hands gripping slightly at the blanket at his knees. The cowboy who had brought the message squatted on his heels beside the door, slowly rolling a cigarette.
A big black cat, its eyes glistening in the rays from the lamp, came in past the squatting cowboy, shrank quickly away from his reaching hand, darted across the room, and sprang onto the table near Big Medicine.