Bar-20 - Clarence E. Mulford (best e books to read .txt) 📗
- Author: Clarence E. Mulford
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shot at Hopalong sent that gentleman’s rifle hurtling to the ground. Another tore through
his hat, removing a neat amount of skin and hair and giving him a lifelong part. He fell
back inside and proceeded to shoot fast and straight with his revolvers, his head burning
as though on fire. When he had vented the dangerous pressure of his anger he went
below and tried to fish the rifle in with a long stick. It was obdurate, so he sent three
more shots into the door, and, receiving no reply, ran out around the corner of his shelter
and grasped the weapon. When half way back he sank to the ground. Before another shot
could be fired at him with any judgment a ripping, spitting rifle was being frantically
worked from the barn.
The bullets tore the door into seams and gaps; the lowest panel, the one having the
“H” in it, fell inward in chunks. Johnny had returned for another smoke.
Hopalong, still grasping the rifle, rolled rapidly around the corner of the barn. He
endeavored to stand, but could not. Johnny, hearing rapid and fluent swearing, came out.
“Where’d they git yu?” he asked.
“In th’ off leg. Hurts like blazes. Did yu git him?”
“Nope. I jest come fer another cig; got any left?”
“Up above. Yore gall is shore apallin’. Help me in, yu two Iaigged jackass.”
“Shore. We’ll shore pay our `tentions to that door. She’ll go purty soon-she’s as
full of holes as th’ Bad Lan’s,” replied Johnny. “Git aholt an’ hop along, Hopalong.”
He helped the swearing Hopalong inside, and then the lead they pumped into the
wrecked door was scandalous. Another panel fell in and Hopalong’s “C” was destroyed.
A wide crack appeared in the one above it and grew rapidly. Its mate began to gape and
finally both were driven in. The increase in the light caused by these openings allowed
Red and Lanky to secure better aim and soon the fire of the defenders died out.
Johnny dropped his rifle and, drawing his six-shooter, ran out and dashed for the
dilapidated door, while Hopalong covered that opening with a fusillade.
As Johnny’s shoulder sent the framework flying inward he narrowly missed
sudden death. As it was he staggered to the side, out of range, and dropped full length to
the ground, flat on his face. Hopalong’s rifle cracked incessantly, but to no avail. The
man who had fired the shot was dead. Buck got him immediately after he had shot
Johnny.
Calling to Skinny and Red to cover him, Buck sprinted to where Johnny lay
gasping. The bullet had struck his shoulder. Buck, Colt in hand, leaped through the door,
but met with no resistance. He signaled to Hopalong, who yelled, “They’s none left.”
The trees and rocks and gullies and buildings yielded men who soon crowded
around the hotel. A young doctor, lately graduated, appeared.
It was his first case, but he eased Johnny. Then he went over to Hopalong, who
was now raving, and attended to him. The others were patched up as well as possible and
the struggling young physician had his pockets crammed full of gold and silver coins.
The scene of the wrecked barroom was indescribable. Holes, furrows, shattered
glass and bottles, the liquor oozing down the walls of the shelves and running over the
floor; the ruined furniture, a wrecked bar, seared and shattered and covered with blood;
bodies as they had been piled in the corners; ropes, shells, hats; and liquor everywhere,
over everything, met the gaze of those who had caused the chaos.
Perry’s Bend had failed to wipe out the score.
THE VAGRANT SIOUX
Buckskin gradually readjusted itself to the
conditions which had existed before its sudden leap into
the limelight as a town which did things. The soiree at the
Houston House had drifted into the past, and was now
substantially established as an epoch in the history of the town. Exuberant joy gave way
to dignity and deprecation, and to solid satisfaction; and the conversations across the bar
brought forth parallels of the affair to be judged impartially—and the impartial judgment
was, unanimously, that while there had undoubtedly been good fights before Perry’s Bend
had disturbed the local quiet, they were not quite up to the new standard of strenuous
hospitality. Finally the heat blistered everything back into the old state, and the shadows
continued to be in demand.
One afternoon, a month after the reception of the honorable delegation from
Perry’s Bend, the town of Buckskin seemed desolated, and the earth and the buildings
thereon were as huge furnaces radiating a visible heat, but when the blazing sun had
begun to settle in the west it awoke with a clamor which might have been laid to the
efforts of a zealous Satan. At this time it became the Mecca of two score or more joyous
cowboys from the neighboring ranches, who livened things as those knights of the saddle
could.
In the scant but heavy shadow of Cowan’s saloon sat a picturesque figure from
whom came guttural, resonant rumblings which mingled in a spirit of loneliness with the
fretful sighs of a flea-tormented dog.
Both dog and master were vagrants, and they were tolerated because it was a
matter of supreme indifference as to who came or how long they stayed as long as the
ethics and the unwritten law of the cow country were inviolate. And the breaking of these
caused no unnecessary anxiety, for justice was both speedy and sure.
When the outcast Sioux and his yellow dog had drifted into town some few
months before they had caused neither expostulation nor inquiry, as the cardinal virtue of
that whole broad land was to ask a man no questions which might prove embarrassing to
all concerned; judgment was of observation, not of history, and a man’s past would reveal
itself through actions. It mattered little whether he was an embezzler or the wild chip
from some prosperous eastern block, as men came to the range to forget and to lose touch
with the pampered East; and the range absorbed them as its own.
A man was only a man as his skin contained the qualities necessary; and the
illiterate who could ride and shoot and live to himself was far more esteemed than the
educated who could not do those things. The more a man depends upon himself and the
closer is his contact to a quick judgment the more laconic and even-poised he becomes.
And the knowledge that he is himself a judge tends to create caution and judgment. He
has no court to uphold his honor and to offer him protection, so he must be quick to
protect himself and to maintain his own standing. His nature saved him, or it executed;
and the range absolved him of all unpaid penalties of a careless past.
He became a man born again and he took up his burden, the exactions of a new
environment, and he lived as long as those exactions gave him the right to live. He must
tolerate no restrictions of his natural rights, and he must not restrict; for the one would
proclaim him a coward, the other a bully; and both received short shrifts in that land of
the self-protected. The basic law of nature is the survival of the fittest.
So, when the wanderers found their level in Buckskin they were not even asked by
what name men knew them. Not caring to hear a name which might not harmonize with
their idea of the fitness of things, the cowboys of the Bar-20 had, with a freedom born of
excellent livers and fearless temperaments, bestowed names befitting their sense of
humor and adaptability. The official title of the Sioux was By-and-by; the dog was
known as Fleas. Never had names more clearly described the objects to be represented,
for they were excellent examples of cowboy discernment and aptitude.
In their eyes By-and-by was a man. He could feel and he could resent insults.
They did not class him as one of themselves, because he did not have energy enough to
demand and justify such classification. With them he had a right to enjoy his life as he
saw fit so long as he did not trespass on or restrict the rights of others. They were not
analytic in temperament, neither were they moralists. He was not a menace to society,
because society had superb defenses. So they vaguely recognized his many poor qualities
and clearly saw his few good ones. He could shoot, when permitted, with the best; no
horse, however refractory, had ever been known to throw him; he was an adept at
following the trails left by rustlers, and that was an asset; he became of value to the
community; he was an economic factor.
His ability to consume liquor with indifferent effects raised him another notch in
their estimation. He was not always talking when some one else wished to-another count.
There remained about him that stoical indifference to the petty; that observant
nonchalance of the Indian; and there was a suggestion, faint, it was true, of a dignity
common to chieftains. He was a log of grave deference which tossed on their sea of
mischievous hilarity.
He wore a pair of corduroy trousers, known to the carefree as “pants,” which
were held together by numerous patches of what had once been brilliantly colored calico.
A pair of suspenders, torn into two separate straps, made a belt for himself and a collar
for his dog. The trousers had probably been secured during a fit of absentmindedness on
his part when their former owner had not been looking. Tucked at intervals in the top of
the corduroys (the exceptions making convenient shelves for alkali dust) was what at one
time had been a stiff-bosomed shirt. This was open down the front and back, the weight
of the trousers on the belt holding it firmly on the square shoulders of the wearer, thus
precluding the necessity of collar buttons. A pair of moccasins, beautifully worked with
wampum, protected his feet from the onslaughts of cacti and the inquisitive and
pugnacious sand flies; and lying across his lap was a repeating Winchester rifle, not
dangerous because it was empty, a condition due to the wisdom of the citizens in
forbidding any one to sell, trade or give to him those tubes of concentrated trouble,
because he could get drunk.
The two were contented and happy. They had no cares nor duties, and their
pleasures were simple and easily secured, as they consisted of sleep and a proneness to
avoid moving. Like the untrammeled coyote, their bed was where sleep overtook them;
their food, what the night wrapped in a sense of security, or the generosity of the cowboys
of the Bar-20. No tub-ridden Diogenes ever knew so little of responsibility or as much
unadulterated content. There is a penalty even to civilization and ambition.
When the sun had cast its shadows beyond By-and-by’s feet the air became
charged with noise; shouts, shots and the rolling thunder of madly pounding hoofs echoed
flatly throughout the town. By-and-by yawned, stretched and leaned back, reveling in the
semi-conscious ecstasy of the knowledge that he did not have to immediately get up.
Fleas opened one eye and cocked an ear in inquiry, and then rolled over on his
back, squirmed and sighed contentedly and long. The outfit of the Bar-20 had come to
town.
The noise came rapidly nearer and increased in volume as the riders turned the
corner and drew rein suddenly, causing their mounts to slide on their haunches in ankle-deep dust.
“Hullo, old Buck-with-th’-pants, how’s yore liver?”
“Come up
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