Winner Take All. Evans Larry

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СКАЧАТЬ for business all the while! Gentlemen, you're looking at a cowboy!"

      And the wise one—the one who had been in Cheyenne during Frontier Week—capped it all, nonchalantly. He'd never hoped to have such a happy chance to display his vocabulary.

      "One bad hombre," he declared. "One bad hombre!"

      Oh, but they were loquacious! They forgot the heat and delay; they would have risen to a man and gone out to him who sat, back toward them, on the timber base of the tank, only they were afraid that the train might pull out without them. So they had to be content with watching him while they continued to tell each other what good offhand judges of human nature they were.

      Not so, however, in the private car at the end of the row of coaches. No noise had come from its occupants during even the worst, or the best, of it. First tense attention and then when it was over and the superintendent had ridden away, three pairs of eyes which, turned upon each other, were startled, questioning.

      One of the men was tall and fat, and prosperous to the casual eye, as he most surely must have been offensive to the fastidious. One of them was short and fat, with pointed ears that made him look quite fox-faced. And the other was a reporter. From his appearance one would have said I hope, and truly, that only pursuit of his calling could have brought him in such company.

      These three, then, sat for a time and looked eloquently at each other. They were not loquacious about it, not verbally; and finally the tall fat one heaved himself from his seat.

      "I've got a hunch," he declared, "and God never forgives a man who doesn't ride one." Certainly he was a strange person to be mentioning God so complacently.

      "Pull the bell cord if that fool engineer tries to start without me." And he left the car.

      So presently another shadow fell athwart Blue Jeans' lap. He did not bother to raise his head this time, however; he was nursing a bruised hand and craved solitude. The fat man stood and looked down at him until he realized that the other was likely never to look up, unless he did something besides impose his plainly unwelcome presence upon him. Therefore he cleared his throat—"hm-m-m."

      "Don't hm-m-m me," snarled Blue Jeans promptly. "And get out of my light."

      In his own way the huge man was a genius, for surely nothing else could have accomplished it.

      "Warm, isn't it?" he commented; and at that inanity Blue Jeans raised his head.

      The huge man had his first fair view of the other's fine hard youth; and while he observed the self-possessed eyes and long nose, acquisitive and courageous, Blue Jeans devoted the interval to a counter-scrutiny. He scanned the newcomer from head to foot, silk hose and hair-line suit and expensive panama. The rings upon those pudgy fingers held longest his wandering eye, the blue-white fortune in the burnt-orange cravat. But all this seemed to kindle no approval.

      "Prosperous!" he muttered bitterly. "Prosperous! And yet I don't hate you like I did that superintendent. Just as much maybe, but not just the same.… Go away!"

      But the huge man smiled and stood his ground until finally Blue Jeans slanted his head at him, wickedly, and fell to talking again.

      "I could pluck that stone from out your tie that easy!" And his voice held no assurance that he would not act upon his words. "Just as easy! Yes, and I could beat you over the head with my gun—oh, sure I've got one!—just like he beat that roan horse, and strip your pockets and be clean away before one of those"—he nodded over his shoulder at the train—"could think to call for help. And thinking to call for help would come quicker to them than thinking to help without calling. And Girl o' Mine would carry me clear in five minutes."

      He paused remorselessly, as if to let this sink in, but out of the silence, "I don't scare easily," the huge man said.

      "Pshaw! I'm not telling you to try to scare you," Blue Jeans scoffed. "I'm telling myself how simple it could be—and wondering why I don't do it!"

      "I can tell you that," answered the Easterner. "Because you're honest."

      But that was not subtle, and he realized the flattery had been ill-chosen, even before Blue Jeans flared, which was almost instantaneously.

      "Don't you tell me I'm honest! Don't you dare even hint I am! It's honesty brought me here."

      The huge man laughed gently. He'd made one mistake; few could accuse him of repeating in stupidity. He took accurate stock of the symptoms; set his sights upon what he surmised must be the bull's-eye of Blue Jeans' discontent; waited a nicely balanced moment, and fired.

      "How," he inquired in a tone both mild and unsensational, "how would you like to earn two hundred dollars?"

      But the shot did not take effect as he had expected it to. Instead of snapping back Blue Jeans' curly head sank a little lower. Though his inward start at the query had been great his outward display of emotion was scarcely visible. For perceiving that this was a deliberate attempt to arouse his interest, he dissembled it and exhibited no interest at all.

      "I balk at murder," he replied with careful indifference and no flicker of jocularity. "And it would have to be that, to earn that much money. Two hundred dollars is a fortune; so's one; so's fifty. But I'm kind of particular that way—though the offer is liberal—it is so! I admit that, but I—"

      He would have gone on rambling had not the other stopped him.

      "Sure, it's a nice bunch of coin." And then, daring to be facetious himself, though adhering still to his admirable and just-formed plan of not disclosing too much at once:

      "You'd not have to kill him, you know. Half of what you did to your friend on the roan horse would be plenty and to spare."

      "He was no friend of mine," Blue Jeans corrected coldly. "We'd just barely begun to get acquainted."

      "Lucky for him!" Indeed, despite his personality, the huge man had a lively wit.

      "A life-long friendship would have proved fatal!"

      It made Blue Jeans' eyes twinkle though it warmed them not at all. He didn't like the fat man and he wasn't going to try. But when the latter showed no readiness to go back to the important topic which he had himself introduced, he found anxiety overcoming his resolution to remain unconcerned.

      "You were speaking intimately of two hundred dollars," he drew it back tentatively.

      And then the huge man knew that it was best to be precise.

      "For eighteen minutes' work," he explained. "Six rounds with young Condit, at Estabrook, on the tenth."

      "Me!" Blue Jeans blurted his surprise, it was so far from the sort of proposition he had been prepared to hear. In spite of his habiliments the Easterner was no new type to him, and he had been ready to dismiss him and his project, whenever it should develop, with a satisfying frankness which could not have been admitted here. But this tripped him,—stripped him momentarily of his self-possession.

      "Me!" he deprecated. "Pshaw! I'm no box-fighter! I don't box!"

      "Sure you don't," the huge man agreed, eagerly and instantly. "That's what I saw as I watched you from the window, arguing with your fr—your acquaintance. The whole world is full of box-fighters who box. You'll look years and years, however, before you'll find one who will fight."

      Blue Jeans had learned to make his decisions quickly, and to abide later by their results without complaint. Swift and СКАЧАТЬ