CHAPTER VI: CULTUS MEETS THE FOLKS
Cultus Collins jogged on to Medicine Tree, studying the country as he went along, rather amused at being mistaken for a sheepman, but not blaming them. He had learned enough to know that Painted Valley feared the sheep, and he didn’t blame them for that. Cultus Collins was heart and soul for the cattle interests. He stabled his roan, secured a room at the little adobe hotel, where he performed his weekly shaving duties before sallying forth to see the little town. The bathing facilities at the Medicine Tree hotel were nil.
Cultus naturally gravitated to the War Dance Saloon. Business was not very brisk at this time in the afternoon. A couple of girls were practising a dance step on the little platform, while a third pounded a few notes from the out-of-tune piano. Alden Marsh sprawled in a chair, mouthing a frayed cigar and trying to tell them that they knew nothing of dancing.
Butch Van Deen stood at the bar, one elbow resting on the top, watching four men playing black jack at a nearby table, when Cultus came in. He shut one eye and looked Cultus over deliberately, when Cultus came slowly along in front of the bar, indifferent to the one-eyed stare and halted near the end of the bar.
One of the girls noticed Cultus and called her companion’s attention, thereby also attracting the attention of Alden Marsh, who got up from his chair and came slowly back to the bar, a half-grin on his lips. He looked sharply at Cultus as he went past and stopped beside Van Deen. One of the girls giggled, and Cultus turned his head to see them looking at him.
“I don’t blame ’em,” said Alden with drunken gravity. “’S enough to make yuh laugh, eh, Butch?”
Butch grinned but did not reply. He wasn’t as drunk as Marsh.
“If I was a stranger with a face like that, I’d stay home,” said Marsh, laughing at his own wit. The blackjack players looked up. But not a line of Cultus’s face changed. As far as Marsh’s gibes were concerned, Cultus might have been stone deaf.
Marsh grimaced sourly. His comedy was falling flat, as far as his object was concerned; so he came around in front of Van Deen and moved in closer to Cultus, who paid him no heed.
“Hellow, cowboy,” he said, speaking almost in Cultus’s ear. Cultus turned his head slowly and looked at Marsh.