Sundown Slim. Henry Herbert Knibbs

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СКАЧАТЬ cooked in everything from a hotel to a gradin'-camp. All I want is a chanct."

      The cowboy shook his head. "I don' know. It'll take a pretty good man to hold down this job."

      "Where is the job?" queried Sundown.

      Several of the men grinned, and Sundown, eager to be friendly, grinned in return.

      "Mebby you could hold it down," continued the cowboy. "But say, do you eat your own cookin'?"

      "Guess you're joshin' me." And the tramp's face expressed disappointment. "I eat my own cookin' when I can't get any better," he added, cheerfully.

      "Well, it ain't no joke—cookin' for that hotel," stated the puncher, gazing at the end of his cigar and shaking his head. "Is it, boys?"

      "Sure ain't," they chorused.

      "A man's got to shoot the good chuck to hold the trade," he continued.

      "Hotel?" queried Sundown. "In this here town?"

      "Naw!" exclaimed the puncher. "It's one o' them swell joints out in the desert. Kind o' what folks East calls a waterin'-place. Eh, boys?"

      "That's her!" volleyed the group.

      "Kind o' select-like," continued the puncher.

      "Sure is!" they chorused.

      "Do you know what the job pays?" asked Sundown.

      "U-m-m-m, let's see. Don't know as I ever heard. But there'll be no trouble about the pay. And you'll have things your own way, if you can deliver the goods."

      "That's right!" concurred a listener.

      Sundown looked upon work of any kind too seriously to suspect that it could be a subject for jest. He gazed hopefully at their hard, keen faces. They all seemed interested, even eager that he should find work. "Well, if it's a job I can hold down," he said, slowly, "I'll start for her right now. I ain't afraid to work when I got to."

      "That's the talk, pardner! Well, I'll tell you. You take that road at the end of the station and follow her south right plumb over the hill. Over the hill you'll see a ranch, 'way on. Keep right on fannin' it and you'll come to a sign that reads 'American Hotel.' That's her. Good water, fine scenery, quiet-like, and just the kind of a place them tourists is always lookin' for. I stopped there many a time. So has the rest of the boys."

      "You was tellin' me it was select-like—" ventured Sundown.

      The men roared. Even Sundown's informant relaxed and grinned. But he became grave again, flicked the ashes from his cigar and waved his hand. "It's this way, pardner. That there hotel is run on the American style; if you got the price, you can have anything in the house. And tourists kind o' like to see a bunch of punchers settin' 'round smokin' and talkin' and tellin' yarns. Why, they was a lady onct—"

      "But she went back East," interrupted a listener.

      "That's the way with them," said the cowboy. "They're always stickin' their irons on some other fella's stock. Don't you pay no 'tention to them."

      Sundown shook hands with his informant, crossed to the corner of the room, and slung his blanket-roll across his back. "Much obliged to you fellas," he said, his lean, timorous face beaming with gratitude. "It makes a guy feel happy when a bunch of strangers does him a good turn. You see I ain't got the chanct to get a job, like you fellas, me bein' a Bo. I had a pal onct—but He crossed over. He was the only one that ever done me a good turn without my askin'. He was a college guy. I wisht he was here so he could say thanks to you fellas classy-like. I'm feeling them kind of thanks, but I can't say 'em."

      The grins faded from some of the faces. "You ain't goin' to fan it to-night?" asked one.

      "Guess I will. You see, I'm broke, now. I'm used to travelin' any old time, and nights ain't bad—believe me. It's mighty hot daytimes in this here country. How far did you say?"

      "Just over the hill—then a piece down the trail. You can't miss it," said the cowboy who had spoken first.

      "Well, so-long, gents. If I get that job and any of you boys come out to the hotel, I'll sure feed you good."

      An eddy of smoke followed Sundown as he passed through the doorway. A cowboy snickered. The room became silent.

      "Call the poor ramblin' lightnin'-rod back," suggested a kindly puncher.

      "He'll come back fast enough," asserted the perpetrator of the "joke." "It's thirty dry and dusty miles to the water-hole ranch. When he gets a look at how far it is to-morrow mornin' he'll sure back into the fence and come flyin' for Antelope with reins draggin'. Set 'em up again, Joe."

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

THE JOKE

       Table of Contents

      Owing to his unaccustomed potations Sundown was perhaps a trifle over-zealous in taking the road at night. He began to realize this after he had journeyed along the dim, starlit trail for an hour or so and found no break in the level monotony of the mesa. He peered ahead, hoping to see the blur of a hill against the southern stars. The air was cool and clear and sweet. He plodded along, happy in the prospect of work. Although he was a physical coward, darkness and the solitudes held no enemies for him. He felt that the world belonged to him at night. The moon was his lantern and the stars were his friends. Circumstance and environment had wrought for him a coat of cheerful effrontery which passed for hardihood; a coat patched with slang and gaping with inconsistencies, which he put on or off at will. Out on the starlit mesas he had metaphorically shed his coat. He was at home. Here there were no men to joke about his awkwardness and his ungainly height. A wanderer by nature, he looked upon space as his kingdom. Great distances were but the highways of his heritage, each promising new vistas, new adventuring. His wayside fires were his altars, their smoke the incense to his gods. A true adventurer, albeit timid, he journeyed not knowing why, but rather because he knew no reason for not journeying. Wrapped in his vague imaginings he swung along, peering ahead from time to time until at last he saw upon the far background of the night a darker something shaped like a tiny mound. "That's her!" he exclaimed, joyously, and quickened his pace. "But Gee Gosh! I guess them fellas forgot I was afoot. That hill looks turruble far off. Mebby because it's dark." The distant hill seemed to keep pace ahead of him, sliding away into the southern night as he advanced. Having that stubbornness so frequently associated with timidity, he plodded on, determined to top the hill before morning. "Them fellas as rides don't know how far things are," he commented. "But, anyhow, the folks at that hotel will sure know I want the job, walkin' all night for it."

      Gradually the outline of the hill became bolder. Sundown estimated that he had been traveling several hours, when the going stiffened to a slow grade. Presently the grade became steep and rocky. Thus far the road had led straight south. Now it swung to the west and skirted the base of the hill in a gradual ascent. Then it swung back again following a fairly easy slope to the top. His optimism waned as he saw no light ahead. The night grew colder. The stars flickered as the wind of the dawn, whispering over the СКАЧАТЬ