The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox. Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ desk. "A banker can't afford to be sorry, can he?"

      "I would like to give you another year—" began Craib. But Jim Chaffee broke bluntly into the other's talk.

      "I'd be just as poor next year as this one. It takes three seasons to get a herd started. I banked on that. I lost. It would take me another three to get back where I began. I can't do it. There's another tough winter hidin' up behind the peaks."

      Craib seemed a clumsy figure for his profession. His lank legs were too high for the space beneath the table; his spare chest towered above it. Everything about him was bony—fists and cheeks and nose. He owned a narrow, overlong face, across which the skin lay tight, holding his features in a kind of cast. And because of this physical peculiarity he was an enigma in Roaring Horse county after twenty years' residence. Sometimes, he as strode along the street with his chin tucked against his chest and his clothes flapping on the awkward frame, it appeared as if he was a man smothered beneath solemn thoughts. From season to season there was not a shade of variance in the set expression; he talked very little, he had no friends and no family. The country made up strange and contradictory stories about him—he was as hard as flint, he was just; he was fabulously rich, he was poor and on the verge of bankruptcy; he was credited with a scheming, brilliant brain that lusted after power in the county, and at the same breath people spoke of him as nothing more than a dull and plodding man who never rose above the pettiness of penny shaving. Nobody fathomed him, and now as he faced Jim Chaffee there was nothing on his parchment face to indicate what he felt about the former's misfortune.

      "I would like to give you another year," he repeated, as if not hearing Jim. "But unfortunately I am not in a position to do so. This has been a bad season. I cannot afford to hold paper. I've got to take yours over, Jim, and realize on it."

      "May the Lord have mercy on you," drawled Jim. "I don't know how you'll get anything out of it. There she lies, idle and profitless."

      "I have a man who is buying it," said Craib in the selfsame, even, expressionless tone.

      That stirred Jim's curiosity. "Now who's foolish?"

      "I'm bound not to say," replied Craib.

      Jim got up, smiling. "The man must be ashamed of his lack o' discretion. All right, Craib. Sorry I've been a poor customer. But I'll be tryin' again somewhere and sometime. After I get a rest." He opened the door and looked out, wistfulness clouding his eyes. "By George, I hate to lose that little place. Won't ever find another like it."

      Craib rose, knocking back the chair by the force of his unwieldy legs. "Can't loan you any of the bank's money, Jim," he said, "but if a personal loan of a hundred dollars will help any I'll be glad to let you have it. No note, no security."

      It was so unusual a proposal, coming from Craib, that Jim Chaffee was plainly astonished. "Well, that's handsome of you, Craib. Maybe I'll take the offer. Let you know later."

      "All right," grunted Craib, busy again with his map.

      Jim left the office, nodding at Mark Eagle. The teller's eyes followed the rangy cow-puncher all the way to the street. And long after, Mark Eagle tapped his counter with an idle pen, squinting at some remote vision.

      Within twenty paces Jim Chaffee confronted three entirely dissimilar gentlemen whom he knew very well. Mack Moran, Dad Satterlee, and William Wells Woolfridge, who owned an outfit adjoining Satterlee, broke through the crowd. Mack Moran threw a hand over his face at sight of Jim and appeared to stagger from the shock of it. "Oh, look at the stranger from the brush! Mama, there's that face again!" He came forward, Irish countenance split from ear to ear. "How, Jim!"

      "You're drunk."

      "I ain't drunk," was Moran's severe retort. "I ain't even intoxicated. Been lookin' all over hell's half acre—?"

      Satterlee, a stout old fellow with iron-crusted hair rumbled an abrupt question. "When did you get in?" Woolfridge contented himself with a bare nod and found something else to interest him. Jim shook hands with his old boss and before he could answer the question Satterlee shot another at him. "Enterin' the buckin' to- morrow?"

      "Shore he is," chimed Mack Moran. "And there goes yore hundred dollars first money."

      "I don't know," said Jim. "Ain't rode for an awful long while, Dad."

      "Get in it," urged Satterlee. "Theodorik Perrine's ridin'."

      All three of them watched Jim with considerable gravity. He reached for his tobacco, quite thoughtful. "I have heard the name before," he murmured. "Maybe I'll ride." Satterlee grunted and moved on with Woolfridge. But Mack Moran had, as he said, found the answer to a maiden's prayer and placed a great hand through Jim Chaffee's arm.

      "We'll settle this right now. Yore ridin'." He took off his hat and rubbed a tangle of fire-red hair; he looked up to Jim for he was a short and wiry bundle of dynamite, this Mack Moran—and chuckled to himself. "I been like a chicken minus a head all day. By golly, I'm glad to see yore homely mug. Let's do somethin', let's drink somethin', let's rip up a few boards."

      Jim stopped, attracted by a fresh sign painted on an adjacent building front: "Roaring Horse Irrigation and Reclamation Corporation." He pointed at it.

      "How long's that been there? What is it?"

      "I dunno. Some new fangled outfit come in here a few weeks back. They's a dude in charge that calls himself secretary. In plain words, a pen pusher. What's behind it I ain't able to state. They been buyin' land and doin' a good business at that. Tough year. Small folks are sellin'. What does the aforesaid corporation want with land that ain't worth four bits an acre? I dunno. Here's where you sign up."

      He led Jim into a hardware store, where all the contestants applied for places in the next day's rodeo. Jim signed. But when then gentleman in charge asked for the customary ten dollars he stared rather blankly at Mack. "I forgot that. Ain't got ten dollars."

      "I have," said Moran, and peeled the sum from his pocket. He slapped it down. "And I'll state I'll bring a hundred iron men back with it to-morrow night."

      The gentleman behind the counter accepted the ten but not the comment. He looked curiously toward Chaffee. "Theodorik Perrine's ridin'."

      "The name," replied Jim, "is not altogether strange to me."

      The partners went out. Mack suggested it was time to humor the inner man, and they started through the crowd, bound for the restaurant. "Jim," was Mack's abrupt question, "have you seen Theodorik yet this aft'noon?"

      "Ain't had that pleasure for a great many months."

      "Well, he's ornerier than ever. If you could cross a skunk, a grizzly, and a snake you'd have a combination half as mean as Theodorik. Most men stop growin' when they get of age. Theodorik just keeps gettin' bigger and meaner."

      "Be interestin' to see him again," drawled Jim. His head snapped upward, and he gripped Mack Moran's arm so tightly that the latter jumped. "Walk slow," breathed Jim fiercely. "Walk slow like you was just wastin' time."

      "Yeah, but—"

      "Shut up!"

      William Wells Woolfridge came toward them; beside him walked the girl Jim had seen earlier in the afternoon. She had a parasol raised against the late afternoon's sun, and her white chin was tipped toward the man. She was talking gayly, while her free hand made graceful gestures that seemed to flow into her words and add life to СКАЧАТЬ