Mr. Allison maintained his verbal flow unchecked. He had elocutionary gifts, had Mr. Allison, and flaunted them. Mingling scorn with reproach, and casting defiance over all, he spake in unmeasured terms of Dodge and its inhabitants. But never once did he lay hand to gun; it was solely an exhibition of rhetoric.

Mr. Masterson waxed weary. There were s.p.a.ces when the mills of Mr.

Allison's vituperation ran low; at such intervals Mr. Masterson would take the buffalo gun from his shoulder. Anon, Mr. Allison's choler would mount, his threats and maledictions against all things Dodgeian would soar. Thereupon, hope would relight its taper in the eye of Mr.

Masterson; he would again cover Mr. Allison with his buffalo gun. Mr.

Allison's energy would again dwindle, and the light of hope again sink low in the Masterson eye. The buffalo gun would be given another recess.

First and last, by the later word of Mr. Masterson, Mr. Allison was covered and uncovered twenty times. It was exceedingly fatiguing to Mr.

Masterson, who was losing respect for Mr. Allison, as one all talk and no shoot.

While Mr. Allison vituperated, his glance roved up and down the street.

"What's the matter with him!" considered Mr. Masterson disgustedly. "Why doesn't he throw himself loose!"

Mr. Masterson's disgust became amazement when Mr. Allison turned in his saddle, and asked in tones wherein was more of complaint than challenge:

"Where's Bat Masterson? He's on the squar'! He won't let no cheap store clerk put it all over me, an' get away! Where's Bat?"

As though seeking reply, Mr. Allison in a most pacific manner got down from the saddle, and limped away out of range into Mr. Webster's Alamo.

Mr. Masterson pitched the buffalo gun into a corner, put on his more personal artillery, and repaired to the Alamo with the thought of investigating the phenomenon. In the Alamo he found Mr. Allison asking Mr. Webster-who looked a bit pale-to send for Mr. Masterson.

"Have somebody round Bat up," said Mr. Allison, peevishly. "Which I want a talk with him about my injuries."

"What's wrong, Clay?" asked Mr. Masterson-outwardly careless, inwardly as alert as a bobcat. "What's gone wrong?"

"Is that you, Bat?" demanded Mr. Allison, facing around on his lame foot. "Wherever have you been for the last half hour? I've hunted you all over camp."

"Where have I been for a half hour? I've been seesawing on you with a Sharp's for the better part of it."

"Is that so!" exclaimed Mr. Allison, while his face lighted up with a kind of pleased conviction. "Thar, d'ye see now! While I was in that saddle I could feel I was covered every moment. It was the sperits tellin' me! They kept warnin' me that if I batted an eye or wagged a year I was a goner. It was sh.o.r.e one of them prov'dential hunches which is told of by gospel sharps in pra'r-meetin's."

Mr. Masterson's indignation was extreme when he had heard the story of Mr. Allison's ill usage. And at that, his anger rested upon the wrongs of Dodge rather than upon those of Mr. Allison.

"One may now see," said Mr. Masterson, "the hole into which good people can be put by a cowardly outcast of the Ground Owl type. That disgusting Ground Owl might have been the means of killing a dozen men. Here he turns in an' stirs Clay up; and then, when he's got him keyed to concert pitch, he sneaks away and hides, and leaves us with Clay on our hands!"

Cimarron Bill came into the Alamo; his brow turned dark with the scandal of those friendly relations between Mr. Masterson and Mr. Allison, which he saw and did not understand. Drawing aside, he stood moodily at the end of the bar, keeping a midnight eye the while on Mr. Allison, thirsting for an outbreak.

Mr. Masterson approached him craftily-being diplomatic and having a mind to preserve the peace.

"There's something I want you to do, Cimarron," said Mr. Masterson, easily. The other brightened. "No, not that!" continued Mr. Masterson, intercepting a savage look which Cimarron bestowed upon Mr. Allison, "not Clay."

"Who then?" demanded Cimarron, greatly disappointed.

"The other one," responded Mr. Masterson. "Still I don't want you to overplay. You must use judgment, and while careful not to do too little, be equally careful not to do too much. This is the proposition: You are to go romancing 'round until you locate that miscreant Ground Owl. Once located, you are to softly, yet sufficiently, bend a gun over his head."

"Leave the Ground Owl to me," said Cimarron Bill, his buoyant nature beginning to collect itself. As he went forth upon his mission, he tossed this a.s.surance over his shoulder: "You gents'll hear a dog howl _poco tempo_, an' when you do you can gamble me an' that Ground Owl clerk has crossed up with one another."

"That," observed Mr. Short, who arrived in time to hear the commission given Cimarron Bill, "that's what I call gettin' action both ways from the jack. You split out Cimarron from Clay here; an' at the same time arrange to stampede that malignant Ground Owl out o' camp. Which I always allowed you had a head for business, Bat."

Cimarron Bill was wrong. He did not cut the trail of the vermin Ground Owl-lying close beneath the alfalfa of Mr. Trask! Neither did any dog howl that day. But Dodge was victorious without. It was rid of the offensive Ground Owl; when the sun went down that craven one crept forth, and fled by cloak of night.

"Which it goes to show," explained Cimarron Bill, judgmatically, when a week later he was recovered from the gloom into which Mr. Allison's escape had plunged him, "which it goes to show that every cloud has a silver linin'. Clay saves himse'f; but that Ground Owl has to go. It's a stand-off. We lose on Clay; but we sh.o.r.e win on that Ground Owl man."

CHAPTER XI

HOW TRUE LOVE RAN IN DODGE

In the old golden days, gunshot wounds were never over-soberly regarded by Dodge. Mr. Kelly, being creased by Rattlesnake Sanders and discovering that the bullet had done no more than just bore its sullen way through the muscular portion of his shoulder, came to look upon the incident as trivial, and nothing beyond a technical violation of his rights. He gave his word to that effect; and when Rattlesnake-in seclusion on Bear Creek-was made aware of that word, he returned to the ranges along the White Woman, and re-began a cowboy existence where his flight had broken it off. Mr. Kelly's forbearance was approved by the public, the more readily since Dodge in the catholicity of its justice believed in punishing folk, not for what they did but for what they were, and Rattlesnake was an estimable youth.

This tolerant breadth was wholly of the olden day, and has not come down to modern men. Dodge now lies writhing beneath the wheel of Eastern convention. Starched shirts have crept in, derby hats have done their worst, and that frank fraternalism, so brightly a virtue of the heretofore, has disappeared. To-day the sound of a six-shooter in the timid streets of Dodge would produce a shock, and whatever gentleman was behind that alarming artillery meet the fate which would encounter him under similar explosive conditions in Philadelphia.

California is the proprietor of a past, and in moments of sentiment croons of:

The days of old, The days of gold, The days of Forty-nine.

Dodge also owns a day-that-was. Its memory appeals often and fondly to an hour when no one asked a stranger's name, but politely reduced curiosity to a cautious "What may I call you?" The stranger might have been "Bill Jones" in the faraway, forgotten East. He could now become "Jack Robinson"; and if his case presented any personal argument favourable to such change, the liberality of Dodge not alone permitted but invited that amendment. The stranger's life for Dodge commenced with his advent in its friendly midst and went no further back. His past, with all that to him appertained, had fallen from him as fall the fetters from the bond slave when once he sets foot upon the sacred soil of England. Dodge refused to be involved in any question of what that stranger had done, or who he was. It received him, trusted him, watched him, and when popular judgment concerning him had ripened, it either applauded or lynched him as circ.u.mstances seemed most to invite.

It is good to shut one's eyes and ruminate upon a past. The old days are ever golden, and for those of Dodge this should be their portrait. What might the heart of the stranger desire that they do not offer him? If he be a-weary, there is the Wright House whereat he may repose himself.

Does he crave relaxation, there is Mr. Peac.o.c.k's Dance Hall, called sometimes the Bird Cage, where to the lively observations of the fiddle he shall loosen the boards of the floor until refreshed. At all hours of the night the master of ceremonies is to be heard above the subdued muttering of exuberant feet:

"Ally man left-all sa.s.shay! Balance to yer podners-all hands 'round!

Grand right an' left-dozy do! Chaat 'n' swing-right arm to yer podner!

All prom'nade to the bar!"

If mere trade be the stranger's purpose, where is that emporium superior to Mr. Wright's? Should the appet.i.te of speculation seize him, is there not the Alamo, the Alhambra and the Long Branch? From those latter clapboard palaces of chance, where Fortune holds unflagging court, comes the inviting soft flutter of chips, punctuated by such terse announcements from roulette wheel and faro table as "All's set an' th'

ball's rollin'!" or "Ace lose, trey win!" Now and again a hush descends while through the blue tobacco smoke two sisters of charity-looking with their white faces and black hoods like pale pictures set in jet-make the silent round of the games, seeking aid for their hospital in Santa Fe.

Each courtier of Fortune cashes a handful of chips, and pa.s.ses the proceeds to them over his shoulder; knowing that should sickness lay skeleton hand upon him he will be welcome at their merciful gates.

If the stranger be not only strange but tender-having just made his appearance, possibly, on some belated "buckboard" from the South, where he has been touring the Panhandle or ransacking the ranges with thoughts of buying a ranch-the all-night whirl of Dodge excites his wonder. In such round-eyed case, he sets forth at four o'clock in the morning his amazement to Mr. Short.

"Aren't you open rather late?" mildly observes the tender stranger.

"It is rather late," responds Mr. Short, with an eye of tolerant cynicism, "it is rather late for night before last, but it's jest th'

shank of th' evenin' for to-night."

The tender stranger makes no response, for his faculties have become engaged upon an ebullient cowboy who, with unsteady step, swings in through the Long Branch's open door, spurs a-jingle, wide hat set at an arrogant slant.

"I'm Palo Duro Pete," the invader remarks. "Which blood's my colour, gents, an' I kin whip my weight in wolves!"

The strain on the tender stranger's nerves is redeemed by Mr. Short, who languidly fells Palo Duro Pete with his six-shooter. The strain gains additional relief when Palo Duro picks himself up with a gratified air, and says:

"Gents, this is sh.o.r.ely the sociablest crowd I've crossed up with as yet. Let's libate!"

In a daze of admiration the tender stranger "libates" with Palo Duro, while Mr. Short makes a careless third. Mr. Short suggests cigars at the expense of the Long Branch, and Palo Duro, after lighting one, goes jingling out into the night to continue his happy exploits at the Alamo or the Alhambra.