Cow-Country by B. M. Bower (best color ereader txt) 📗

“I gave you five thousand in currency and the balance in a cashier's check,” Jimmy whispered through he wicket. “Sent it to the house, We don't keep a great deal—ten thousand's our limit in cash, and I don't think you want to pack gold or silver—”

“No, I didn't. I'd rather—”

Two men came in, one going over to the desk where he apparently wrote a check, the other came straight to the window. Bud looked into the heavily bearded face of a man who had the eyes of Lew Morris. He shifted his position a little so that he faced the man's right side. The one at the desk was glancing slyly over his shoulder at the bookkeeper, who had just returned to his work.

“Can you change this twenty so I can get seven dollars and a quarter out of it?” asked the man at he window. As he slid the bill through the wicket he started to sneeze, and reached backward—for his handkerchief, apparently.

“Here's one,” said Bud. “Don't sneeze too hard, old-timer, or you're liable to sneeze your whiskers all off. It's happened before.”

Someone outside fired a shot in at Bud, clipping his hatband in front. At the sound of the shot the whiskered one snatched his gun out, and the cashier shot him. Bud had sent a shot through the outside window and hit somebody—whom, he did not know, for he had no time to look. The young fellow at the desk had whirled, and was pointing a gun shakily, first at he cashier and then at Bud. Bud fired and knocked he gun out of his hand, then stepped over the man he suspected was Lew and caught the young fellow by the wrist.

“You're Ed Collier—by your eyes and your mouth,” Bud said in a rapid undertone. “I'm going to get you out of this, if you'll do what I say. Will you?”

“He got me in here, honest,” the young fellow quaked. He couldn't be more than nineteen, Bud guessed swiftly.

“Let me through, Jimmy,” Bud ordered hurriedly. “You got the man that put up this job. I'll take the kid out the back way, if you don't mind.”

Jimmy opened the steel-grilled door and let them through.

“Ed Collier,” he said in a tone of recognition. “I heard he was trailing—”

“Forget it, Jimmy. If the sheriff asks about him, say he got out. Now, Ed, I'm going to take you over to Mrs. Hanson's. She'll keep an eye on you for a while.”

Eddie was looking at the dead man on the floor, and trembling so that he did not attempt to reply; and by way of Jimmy's back fence and the widow Hanson's barn and corral, Bud got Eddie safe into the kitchen just as that determined lady was leaving home with a shotgun to help defend the honor of the town.

Bud took her by the shoulder and told her what he wanted her to do. “He's Marian's brother, and too young to be with that gang. So keep him here, safe and out of sight, until I come. Then I'll want to borrow your horse. Shall I tie the kid?”

“And me an able-bodied woman that could turn him acrost my knee?” Mrs. Hanson's eyes snapped.

“It's more likely the boy needs his breakfast. Get along with ye!”

Bud got along, slipping into the bank by the rear door and taking a hand in the desultory firing in the street. The sheriff had a couple of men ironed and one man down and the landlord of the hotel was doing a great deal of explaining that he had never seen the bandits before. Just by way of stimulating his memory Bud threw a bullet close to his heels, and the landlord thereupon grovelled and wept while he protested his innocence.

“He's a damn liar, sheriff,” Bud called across the hoof-scarred road. “He was talking to them about eleven o'clock last night. There were three that chased me into town, and they got him up out of bed to find out whether I'd stopped there. I hadn't, luckily for me. If I had he'd have showed them the way to my room, and he'd have had a dead boarder this morning. Keep right on shedding tears, you old cut-throat! I was sitting on the court-house porch, last night, and I heard every word that passed between you and the Catrockers!”

“I've been suspicioning here was where they got their information right along,” the sheriff commented, and slipped the handcuffs on the landlord. Investigation proved that Jeff Hall and his friends had suddenly decided that they had no business with the bank that day, and had mounted and galloped out of town when the first shot was fired. Which simplified matters a bit for Bud.

In Jimmy Lawton's kitchen he received his money, and when the prisoners were locked up he saved himself some trouble with the sheriff by hunting him up and explaining just why he had taken the Collier boy into custody.

“You know yourself he's just a kid, and if you send him over the road he's a criminal for life. I believe I can make a decent man of him. I want to try, anyway. So you just leave me this deputy's badge, and make my commission regular and permanent, and I'll keep an eye on him. Give me a paper so I can get a requisition and bring him back to stand trial, any time he breaks out. I'll be responsible for him, sheriff.”

“And who in blazes are you?” the sheriff inquired, with a grin to remove the sting of suspicion. “Name sounded familiar, too!”

“Bud Birnie of the Tomahawk, down near Laramie; Telegraph Laramie if you like and find out about me.

“Good Lord! I know the Tomahawk like a book!” cried the sheriff. “And you're Bob Birnie's boy! Say! D'you remember dragging into camp on the summit one time when you was about twelve years old—been hidin' out from Injuns about three days? Well, say! I'm the feller that packed you into the tent, and fed yuh when yuh come to. Remember the time I rode down and stayed over night at yore place, the time Bill Nye come down from his prospect hole up in the Snowies, bringin' word the Injuns was up again?” The sheriff grabbed Bud's hand and held it, shaking it up and down now and then to emphasize his words.

“Folks called you Buddy, then. I remember yuh, helpin' your mother cook 'n' wash dishes for us fellers. I kinda felt like I had a claim on yuh, Buddy.

“Say, Bill Nye, he's famous now. Writin' books full of jokes, and all that. He always was a comical cuss. Don't you remember how the bunch of us laughed at him when he drifted in about dark, him and four burros—that one he called Boomerang, that he named his paper after in Laramie? I've told lots of times what he said when he come stoopin' into the kitchen—how Colorou had sent him word that he'd give Bill just four sleeps to get outa there. An, 'Hell!' says Bill. 'I didn't need any sleeps!' An' we all turned to and cooked a hull beef yore dad had butchered that day—and Bill loaded up with the first chunks we had ready, and pulled his freight. He sure didn't need any sleeps—”