The Big-Town Round-Up. William MacLeod Raine

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СКАЧАТЬ as he thought of what had so nearly been.

      The girl snuggled closer to him, her arms round his neck. His anxiety touched her nearly, and tears flooded her eyes.

      "I know, Dad. I … I'll be good."

      A young man descended from the car, handsome, trim, and well got up. He had been tailored by the best man's outfitter in New York. Nobody on Broadway could order a dinner better than he. The latest dances he could do perfectly. He had the reputation of knowing exactly the best thing to say on every occasion. Now he proceeded to say it.

      "Corking bit of riding—never saw better. I'll give you my hand on that, my man."

      The cowpuncher found a bunch of manicured fingers in his rough brown paw. He found something else, for after the pink hand had gone there remained a fifty-dollar bill. He looked at it helplessly for a moment; then, beneath the brown outdoor tan, a flush of anger beat into his face. Without a word he leaned forward and pressed the note into the mouth of the bronco.

      The buckskin knew its master for a very good friend. If he gave it something to eat—well, there was no harm in trying it once. The buckskin chewed placidly for a few seconds, decided that this was a practical joke, and ejected from its mouth a slimy green pulp that had recently been a treasury note.

      The father stammered his thanks to the rescuer of the girl. "I don't know what I can ever do to let you know … I don't know how I can ever pay you for saving … "

      "Forget it!" snapped the brown man curtly. He was an even-tempered youth, as genial and friendly as a half-grown pup, but just now the word "pay" irritated him as a red rag does a sulky bull.

      "If there's anything at all I can do for you—"

      "Not a thing."

      The New Yorker felt that he was not expressing himself at all happily. What he wanted was to show this young fellow that he had put him under a lifelong obligation he could never hope to wipe out.

      "If you ever come to New York—"

      "I'm not liable to go there. I don't belong there any more than you do here. Better drift back to Tucson, stranger. The parada is no place for a tenderfoot. You're in luck you're not shy one li'l' girl tromped to death. Take a fool's advice and hit the trail for town pronto before you bump into more trouble."

      The rider swung round his pony and cantered back to the beef herd.

      He left behind him a much-annoyed clubman, a perplexed and distressed father, and a girl both hurt and indignant at his brusque rejection of her father's friendly advances. The episode of the fifty-dollar bill had taken place entirely under cover. The man who had given the note and the one who had refused to accept it were the only ones who knew of it. The girl saw only that this splendid horseman who had snatched her from under the very feet of the ladino had shown a boorish discourtesy. The savor had gone out of her adventure. Her heart was sick with disappointment and indignation.

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      CONCERNING A STREET TWELVE MILES LONG

      "I like yore outfit," Red Hollister grumbled. "You're nice boys, and good to yore mothers—what few of you ain't wore their gray hairs to the grave with yore frolicsome ways. You know yore business and you got a good cook. But I'm darned if I like this thing of two meals a day, one at a quarter to twelve at night and the other a quarter past twelve, also and likewise at night."

      A tenderfoot might have thought that Hollister had some grounds for complaint. For weeks he had been crawling out of his blankets in the pre-dawn darkness of 3 A.m. He had sat shivering down beside a camp-fire to swallow a hurried breakfast and had swung into the saddle while night was still heavy over the land. He had ridden after cattle wild as deer and had wrestled with ladino steers till long after the stars were up. In the chill night he had eaten another meal, rolled up in his blankets, and fallen into instant heavy sleep. And five minutes later—or so at least it seemed to him—the cook had pounded on the triangle for him to get up.

      None the less Red's grumbling was a pretense. He would not have been anywhere else for twice the pay. This was what he lived for.

      Johnnie Green, commonly known as "the Runt," helped himself to another flank steak. He was not much of a cow-hand, but when it came to eating Johnnie was always conscientiously on the job.

      "These here New Yorkers must be awful hardy," he ventured, apropos of nothing. "Seems like they're night birds for fair. Never do go to bed, far as I can make out. They tromp the streets all day and dance at them cabby-rets all night. My feet would be all wore out."

      Stace Wallis grinned. "So would my pocketbook. I've heard tell how a fellow can pay as high as four or five dollars for an eat at them places."

      "Nothin' to it—nothin' a-tall," pronounced Red dogmatically. Hollister always knew everything. Nothing in the heavens above or the earth below could stump him. The only trouble with his knowledge was that he knew so much that wasn't true. "Can't be did. Do you reckon any o' them New Yorkers could get away with five dollars' worth of ham and aigs? Why, the Runt here couldn't eat more'n a dollar's worth."

      "Sure," assented Johnnie. It was the habit of his life to agree with the last speaker. "You're damn whistlin', Red. Why, at the Harvey House they only charge a dollar for a square, and a man couldn't get a better meal than that."

      "Onct in Denver, when I went to the stock show, I blowed myself for a meal at the Cambridge Hotel that set me back one-fifty," said Slim Leroy reminiscently. "They et dinner at night."

      "They did?" scoffed Johnnie. "Don't they know a fellow eats dinner at noon and supper at night?"

      "I ain't noticed any dinner at noon for se-ve-real weeks," Hollister contributed.

      "Some feed that," ruminated Leroy, with memories of the Cambridge Hotel still to the fore.

      "With or without?" questioned Red.

      "I reckon I had one li'l' drink with it. No more."

      "Then they stung you," pronounced Hollister.

      "Mebbeso, and mebbe not. I ain't kickin' none. I sure was in tony society. There was fellows sittin' at a table near us that had on them swallow-tail coats."

      Johnnie ventured a suggestion. "Don't you reckon if a fellow et a couple o' plates of this here cavi-eer stuff and some ice cream and cake, he might run it up to two bucks or two and a half? Don't you reckon he might, Clay?"

      Clay Lindsay laughed. "You boys know a lot about New York, just about as much as I do. I've read that a guy can drop a hundred dollars a night in a cabaret if he has a friend or two along, and never make a ripple on Broadway."

      "Does that look reasonable to you, Clay?" argued Red. "We're not talkin' about buckin' the tiger or buyin' diamonds for no actresses. We're figurin' on a guy goin' out with some friends to eat and take a few drinks and have a good time. How could he spend fifty dollars—let alone a hundred—if he let the skirts and the wheel alone and didn't tamper with no straight flushes?"

      "I'm tellin' СКАЧАТЬ