Bar-20 Days by Clarence Edward Mulford (new reading TXT) 📗

“Say, was you ever broke?” he asked suddenly, a trace of sadness in his voice.

The bartender glanced at him quickly, but remained judiciously silent, smelling the preamble of an attempt to “touch.”

“Well, I have been, am now, an' allus will be, more or less,” continued Fisher, in soliloquy, not waiting for an answer to his question. “Money an' me don't ride the same range, not any. Here I am fifty miles away from my ranch, with four dollars and ninety-five cents between me an' starvation an' thirst, an' me not going home for three days yet. I was going to quit the CG this month, but now I gotta go on working for it till another pay-day. I don't even own a cayuse. Now, just to show you what kind of a prickly pear I am, I'll cut the cards with you to see who owns this,” he suggested, smiling brightly at his companion.

The bartender laughed, treated on the house, and shuffled out from behind the bar with a pack of greasy playing cards. “All at once, or a dollar a shot?” he asked, shuffling deftly.

“Any way it suits you,” responded Fisher, nonchalantly. He knew how a sport should talk; and once he had cut the cards to see who should own his full month's pay. He hoped he would be more successful this time.

“Don't make no difference to me,” rejoined the bartender.

“All right; all at once, an' have it over with. It's a kid's game, at that.”

“High wins, of course?”

“High wins.”

The bartender pushed the cards across the table for his companion to cut. Nat did so, and turned up a deuce. “Oh, don't bother,” he said, sliding the four dollars and ninety-five cents across the table.

“Wait,” grinned the bartender, who was a stickler for rules. He reached over and turned up a card, and then laughed. “Matched, by George!”

“Try again,” grinned Fisher, his face clearing with hope.

The bartender shuffled, and Fisher turned a five, which proved to be just one point shy when his companion had shown his card.

“Now,” remarked Fisher, watching his money disappear into the bartender's pocket, “I'll put up my gun agin ten of yore dollars if yo're game. How about it?”

“Done—that's a good weapon.”

“None better. Ah, a jack!”

“I say queen—nope, king!” exulted the dispenser of liquids. “Say, mebby you can get a job around here when you quit the CG,” he suggested.

“That's a good idea,” replied Fisher. “But let's finish this while we're at it. I got a good saddle outside on my cayuse—go look it over an' tell me how much you'll put up agin it. If you win it an' can't use it, you can sell it. It's first class.”

The bartender walked to the door, looked carefully around for a moment, his eyes fastening upon a trail in the sandy street. Then he laughed. “There ain't no saddle out here,” he reported, well knowing where it could be found.

“What! Has that ornery piebald—well, what do you think of that!” exclaimed Fisher, looking up and down the street. “This is the first time that ever happened to me. Why, some coyote stole it! Look at the tracks!”

“No; it ain't stolen,” the bartender responded. He considered a moment and then made a suggestion. “Mebby the marshal can tell you where it is—he knows everything like that. Nobody can take a cayuse out of this town while the marshal is up an' well.”

“Lucky town, all right,” chirped Fisher. “An' where is the marshal?”

“You'll find him down the back way a couple of hundred yards; can't miss him. He allus hangs out there when there are cayuses in town.”

“Good for him! I'll chase right down an' see him; an' when I get that piebald——!”

The bartender watched him go around the corner and shook his head sadly. “Yes; hell of a lucky town,” he snorted bitterly, listening for the riot to begin.

The marshal still sat against the corral gate and stroked the Winchester in beatific contemplation. He had a fine job and he was happy. Suddenly leaning forward to look up the road, he smiled derisively and shifted the gun. A cow-puncher was coming his way rapidly, and on foot.

“Are you the marshal of this flea of a town?” politely inquired the newcomer.

“I am the same,” replied the man with the rifle. “Anything I kin do for you?”

“Yes; have you seen a piebald cayuse straying around loose-like, or anybody leading one—CG being the brand?”

“I did; it was straying.”

“An' which way did it go?”

“Into the town pound.”

“What! Pond! What'n blazes is it doing with a pond? Couldn't it drink without getting in? Where's the pond?”

“Right here. It's eating its fool head off. I said pound, not pond. P-o-u-n-d; which means that it's pawned, in hock, for destroying the vegetation of Rawhide, an' disturbing the public peace.”

“Good joke on the piebald, all right; it was never locked up before,” laughed Fisher, trying to read a sign that faced away from him at a slight angle. “Get it out for me an' I'll disturb its peace. Sorry it put you to all that trouble,” he sympathized.

“Two dollars an' four bits, an' a dollar initiation fee—it wasn't never in the pound before. That makes three an' a half. Got the money with you?”

“What!” yelled Fisher, emerging from his trance. “What!” he yelled again.

“I ain't none deaf,” placidly replied the marshal. “Got the money, the three an' a half?”

“If you think yo're going to skin me outen three-fifty, one-fifty, or one measly cent, you need some medicine, an' I'll give it to you in pill form! You'd make a bum-looking angel, so get up an' hand over that cayuse, an' do it damned quick!”

“Three-fifty, an' two bits extry for feed. It'll cost you 'bout a dollar a day for feed. At the end of the week I'll sell that cayuse at auction to pay its bills if you don't cough up. Got the money?”

“I've got a lead slug for you if I can borrow my gun for five minutes!” retorted Fisher, seething double from anger.

“Five dollars more for contempt of court,” pleasantly responded Mr. Townsend. “As Justice of the Peace of this community I must allow no disrespect, no contempt of the sovereign law of this town to go unpunished. That makes it eight-seventy-five.”

“An' to think I lost my gun!” shouted Fisher, dancing with rage.