CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE TRAPPERS

"It's the women make half the trouble in the world," mused young Riley Tyler, who had received the mitten from his girl of the period, the restaurant waitress, and was a misogynist in consequence.

"You're wrong," said Shotgun Shillman. "They make all of it."

"All?"

"All. And not only that--they make all the good, too. Yep, Riley, you can put down a bet there ain't a thing happens to a feller--good, bad or indifferent--that you won't find a woman at the bottom of it. A good man goes to h.e.l.l or heaven--it depends on the woman."

"That's right, dead right," corroborated young Riley.

"Those fatal blondes!" grinned Shotgun; for the waitress was decidedly of that type.

"They're all deceivers," muttered Riley Tyler, reddening to his ear tips.

"Ain't it the truth!" said Shotgun Shillman. "They can lie to you with a straighter face than a government mule. Like that jail lady in the Bible who put the kybosh on a feller named Scissors by nailing his head to the kitchen floor with a railroad spike. Yeah, her. Hugging him she was ten minutes before using the hammer. Oh, that's their best bet; kiss you with one hand and cut your throat with the other."

"That's news," said Riley Tyler. "Where I come from the gent kisses with his mouth, and if he has to cut your throat he uses the butcher knife."

"Did that hasher do all those things?" Shotgun asked instantly.

Riley made believe not to hear. Shotgun chuckled.

"Billy's coming back," observed the latter, gazing through the window.

"Where did he go?"

"Walton's, he said."

"I thought he liked Hazel Walton."

"He likes 'em all." Thus Riley, thinking of the scornful waitress who did not like him. "'Lo, Bill, remember to wipe your feet on the mat.

Li'l paddies all cold?"

"She's a-thawing," replied Billy Wingo, kicking the snow from his boots. "But I need a large, long, hot drink alla same. Where is that bottle?"

When the bottle and the three gla.s.ses had been returned to their appointed place between the horse liniment and the spare handcuffs, Riley moved listlessly to the front window and drummed on the pane.

"Oh, the devil," Riley groaned. "Here's work for li'l boys. As if there wasn't enough to do in summer."

"Good thing to-day's a chinook," remarked Shillman, without interest.

Billy joined Riley at the window. "Looks like Simon Reelfoot. It's Simon's horse, anyway. It is Simon. I can see his long nose."

Riley squinted at the approaching man. "I wonder what he wants."

"I thought maybe I'd ask him when he comes in," said Billy.

"I would," observed Riley. "That'll show you're interested in your job. It'll please Simon, too. He'll think you've got his interests at heart. After that shall I kick him out, or will you let Shotgun bite him?"

For Simon Reelfoot was not well thought of by the more decent portion of the community. Men that put money out at high interest and are careless of their neighbors' property usually aren't. It was said of him that he still had the first nickel that he ever earned. Certainly he was not a generous person. Three women, at one time and another, had been unlucky enough to marry him. Each wife died within two years of her marriage--murdered by her husband. Not in such a way, however, that the law could take its proper course and hang Simon by the neck till he was dead. The murders were done in a perfectly legal manner and all above-board--overwork and undernourishment. The two in conjunction will kill anything that lives and breathes. So Simon, if not a murderer, was at least an accomplice before and after the fact.

A cheerful creature, indeed. There were no children.

Something of all that Simon was and stood for pa.s.sed through Riley Wingo's mind as he stood with Riley at the window.

"He always keeps his horses in good condition," said Billy.

"He does--the skunk!" acquiesced Riley.

"Stop calling a honest citizen names," directed Shotgun Shillman. "Mr.

Reelfoot is an upright man. I don't believe he'd rob a child or steal the pennies off a dead baby's eyes. I don't believe he would--if any one was looking."

Simon Reelfoot rode up, tied his horse on the lee of the building--he was always tender of his stock--and entered.

"Howdy," he said glumly. "Cold day."

"If you'd wear something besides that relic of the days of '61 you wouldn't find it such a cold day," observed the straightforward Shotgun.

At which allusion to his ratty old blue army overcoat Simon's upper lip lifted. It might almost be said that he snarled silently.

"Feller as poor as I am can't afford to buy buffalo coats," he declared in the grumbling rumble so oddly at variance with his build. For he was a little clean-shaven man, this Simon Reelfoot, with a hatchet face and the watery peering eyes of the habitual drunkard.

"Yeah," he grumbled, staring from one to another of the three officers with open disapproval. "I ain't got money to buy buffalo coats. I have to work to earn my living, I do. I ain't got time to sit on my hunkers around a hot stove come-day-go-day a-taking the county's money for doing nothin'."

"Which will be just about all from you, Reelfoot," Billy Wingo suggested sharply.

"Oh, you can't scare me," said Simon, shaking a lowering and dogged head. "I say what I think, and if folks don't like it they know what they can do."

"Of course, Reelfoot," pursued Billy, with his most pleasant smile, "folks naturally know what they can do. But you don't guess now it gives a feller any pleasure to squash every spider, caterpillar, hoptoad or snail he runs across. And-- But I don't know that I ever saw any snails in this part of the county. Suppose now we hold it down to spiders, caterpillars and hoptoads. Yeah. Why kill 'em? Yeah again. Why put the kibosh on you, Mr. Reelfoot, just because you make me think of a hoptoad? You may be a bad old man. I dunno that I care.

But I don't like your company. Not a bit. You're a slimy old devil, and you never wash. Therefore let's hear what your business is so you can take it away with you in a hurry."

So saying Billy sat down, c.o.c.ked his feet up on the table and regarded Reelfoot gravely. Shillman and Tyler stood before the fireplace, their legs spread, their hands in the their pockets and their faces expressionless.

Simon Reelfoot's upper lip lifted in the same soundless snarl.

"I'll go when I please," he began, "and----"

"You're mistaken," contradicted Billy, taking out his watch and holding it open in the palm of his hand. "Not to give it too a coa.r.s.e a name, you'll go when I please. Yep. If you haven't begun to state your official business with the sheriff within forty-five seconds, out you go, Mr. Reelfoot, out you go."

"You fellers are paid to see that the law is obeyed," growled Simon Reelfoot. "You can't throw me out."

"'Round and 'round the mulberry bush,'" quoted Billy Wingo. "Reverse.

Try the other way for a change. You're getting dizzy."