Ben Blair.

by Will Lillibridge.

CHAPTER I

IN RUDE BORDER-LAND

Even in a community where unsavory reputations were the rule, Mick Kennedy's saloon was of evil repute. In a land new and wild, his establishment was the wildest, partook most of the unsubdued, unevolved character of its surroundings. There, as irresistibly as gravitation calls the falling apple, came from afar and near--mainly from afar--the malcontent, the restless, the reckless, seeking--instinctively gregarious--the crowd, the excitement of the green-covered table, the temporary oblivion following the gulping of fiery red liquor.

Great splendid animals were the men who gathered there; hairy, powerful, strong-voiced from combat with prairie wind and frontier distance; devoid of a superfluous ounce of flesh, their trousers, uniformly baggy at the knees, bearing mute testimony to the many hours spent in the saddle; the bare unprotected skin of their hands and faces speaking likewise of constant contact with sun and storm.

By the broad glow of daylight the place was anything but inviting. The heavy bar, made of cottonwood, had no more elegance than the rude sod shanty of the pioneer. The worn round cloth-topped tables, imported at extravagant cost from the East, were covered with splashes of grease and liquor; and the few fly-marked pictures on the walls were coa.r.s.ely suggestive. Scattered among them haphazard, in one instance through a lithographic print, were round holes as large as a spike-head, through which, by closely applying the eye, one could view the world without.

When the place was new, similar openings had been carefully refilled with a whittled stick of wood, but the practice had been discontinued; it was too much trouble, and also useless from the frequency with which new holes were made. Besides, although accepted with unconcern by _habitues_ of the place, they were a source of never-ending interest to the "tenderfeet" who occasionally appeared from nowhere and disappeared whence they had come.

But at night all was different. Encircling the room with gleaming points of light were a mult.i.tude of blazing candles, home-made from tallow of prairie cattle. The irradiance, almost as strong as daylight, but radically different, softened all surrounding objects. The prairie dust, penetrating with the wind, spread itself everywhere. The reflection from cheap gla.s.sware, carefully polished, made it appear of costly make; the sawdust of the floor seemed a downy covering; the crude heavy chairs, an imitation of the artistic furniture of our fathers. Even the face of bartender Mick, with its stiff unshaven red beard and its single eye,--merciless as an electric headlight,--its broad flaming scar leading down from the blank socket of its mate, became less repulsive under the softened light.

With the coming of Fall frosts, the premonition of Winter, the frequenters of the place gathered earlier, remained later, emptied more of the showily labelled bottles behind the bar, and augmented when possible their well-established reputation for recklessness. About the soiled tables the fringe of bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes was more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker-chips lasted longer, frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.

On such a morning, early in November, daylight broadened upon a characteristic scene. Only one table was in use, and around it sat four men. One by one the other players had cashed out and left the game. One of them was snoring in a corner, his head resting upon the sawdust.

Another leaned heavily upon the bar, a half-drained gla.s.s before him.

Even the four at the table were not as upon the night before. The hands which held the greasy cards and toyed with the stacks of chips were steady, but the heads controlling them wavered uncertainly; and the hawk eyes were bloodshot.

A man with a full beard, roughly trimmed into the travesty of a Vand.y.k.e, was dealing. He tossed out the cards, carefully inclining their faces downward, and returned the remainder of the pack softly to the table.

"Pa.s.s, d.a.m.n it!" growled the man at the left.

"Pa.s.s," came from the next man.

"Pa.s.s," echoed the last of the quartette.

Five blue chips dropped in a row upon the cloth.

"I open it."

The dealer took up the pack lovingly.

"Cards?"

The man at the left, tall, gaunt, ill-kempt, flicked the pasteboards in his hand to the floor and ground them beneath his heavy boots.

"Give me five."

The point of the Vand.y.k.e beard was aimed straight past the speaker.

"Cards?" repeated the dealer.

"Five! Can't you hear?"

The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the face of the dealer turned.

"I can hear you pretty well when you cash into the game. You already owe me forty blues, Blair."

The long figure stiffened, the face went pale.

"You--mean--you--" the tongue was very thick. "You cut me out?"

For a moment there was silence; then once more the beard pointed to the player next beyond.

"Cards?" for the third time.

Five chips ranged in a row beside their predecessors.

"Three."

A hand, almost the hand of a gentleman, went instinctively to the gaunt throat of the ignored gambler and jerked at the close flannel shirt; then without a word the owner got unsteadily to his feet and followed an irregular trail toward the interested spectator at the bar.

"Have a drink with me, pard," said the gambler, as he regarded the immovable Mick. "Two whiskeys, there!"

Kennedy did not stir, and for five seconds Blair blinked his dulled eyes in wordless surprise; then his fist came down upon the cottonwood board with a mighty crash.

"Wake up there, Mick!" he roared. "I'm speaking to you! A couple of 'ryes' for the gentleman here and myself."

Another pause, momentary but effective.

"I heard you." The barkeeper spoke quietly but without the slightest change of expression, even of the eye. "I heard you, but I'm not dealing out drinks to deadbeats. Pay up, and I'll be glad to serve you."

Swift as thought Blair's hand went to his hip, and the rattle of poker-chips sympathetically ceased. A second, and a big revolver was trained fair at the dispenser of liquors.

"Curse you, Mick Kennedy!" muttered a choking voice, "when I order drinks I want drinks. Dig up there, and be lively!"

The man by the speaker's side, surprised out of his intoxication, edged away to a discreet distance; but even yet the Irishman made no move.

Only the single headlight shifted in its socket until it looked unblinkingly into the blazing eyes of the gambler.

"Tom Blair," commanded an even voice, "Tom Blair, you white livered bully, put up that gun!"

Slowly, very slowly, the speaker turned,--all but the terrible Cyclopean eye,--and moved forward until his body leaned upon the bar, his face protruding over it.

"Put up that gun, I tell you!" A smile almost fiendish broke over the furrows of the rugged face. "You wouldn't dast shoot, unless perhaps it was a woman, you coward!"

For a fraction of a minute there was silence, while over the visage of the challenged there flashed, faded, recurred the expression we pay good dollars to watch playing upon the features of an accomplished actor; then the yellow streak beneath the bravado showed, and the menacing hand dropped to the holster at the hip. Once again Kennedy, who seldom made a mistake, had sized his man correctly.

"What do I owe you altogether, Mick?" asked a changed and subdued voice.

"Make it as easy as you can."

Kennedy relaxed into his lounging position.

"Thirty-five dollars. We'll call it thirty. You've been setting them up to everybody here for a week on your face."