On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane
country I might give you a hundred or so for your brand, but you better hurry up. There was a deputy sheriff up here the other day, lookin' for you!"
"Yes, I heard about it," sneered Pecos. "I reckon he was lookin' for evidence about this here Wine-glass iron."
A smothered curse escaped the lips of Isaac Crittenden, but, being old at the game, he understood. There was nothing for it but to pay up—and wait.
"Well, what guarantee do I git that you don't give the whole snap away anyhow?" he demanded, fiercely. "What's the use of me payin' you anything—I might as well keep it to hire a lawyer."
"As long as you pay me what you owe me," said Pecos, slowly, "and treat me square," he added, "I keep my mouth shut. But the minute you git foxy or try some ranikaboo play like sayin' the deputy was after me—look out! Now they was a matter of a hundred and twenty dollars between us—do I git it or don't I?"
"You git it," grumbled Crittenden, reluctantly. "But say, I want you to keep away from Verde Crossing. Some of them Wine-glass cows have drifted back onto the upper range and John Upton has made a roar. More than that, Boone Morgan has undertook to collect our taxes up here and if that deputy of his ever gits hold of you he's goin' to ask some mighty p'inted questions. So you better stay away, see?"
He counted out the money and held it in his hand, waiting for consent, but Pecos only laughed.
"Life's too short to be hidin' out from a deputy," he answered, shortly. "So gimme that money and I'll be on my way." He leaned over and plucked the bills from Crit's hand; then, spurring back toward the Crossing he left Old Crit, speechless with rage, to follow in his dust.
A loud war-whoop from the store and the high-voiced ranting of Babe made it plain to Crit that there was no use going there—Angy was launched on one of his periodicals and Pecos was keeping him company—which being the case there was nothing for it but to let them take the town. The grizzled Boss of Verde stood by the corral for a minute, listening to the riot and studying on where to put in his time; then a slow smile crept over his hardened visage and he fixed his sinister eye on the adobe of Joe Garcia. All was fair, with him, in love or war, and Marcelina was growing up to be a woman.
"Joe," he said, turning upon his corral boss, "you tell your wife I'll be over there in a minute for supper—and say, I want you to stay in the store to-night; them crazy fools will set the house afire."
"Stawano," mumbled José, but as he turned away there was an angry glint in his downcast eye and he cursed with every breath. It is not always pleasant, even to a Mexican, to be in debt to the Boss.
CHAPTER VII
THE REVOLUTION
The coyotes who from their seven hills along the Verde were accustomed to make Rome howl found themselves outclassed and left to a thinking part on the night that Pecos Dalhart and Angevine Thorne celebrated the dawn of Reason. The French Revolution being on a larger scale, and, above all, successful, has come down in history as a great social movement; all that can be said of the revolution at Verde Crossing is packed away in those sad words: it failed. It started, like most revolutions, with a careless word, hot from the vitriolic pen of some space-writer gone mad, and ended in that amiable disorder which, for lack of a better word, we call anarchy. Whiskey was at the bottom of it, of course, and it meant no more than a tale told by an idiot, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." At the same time, it managed by degrees to engross the entire attention of Verde Crossing and after the fall of the Bastile, as symbolized by the cracking of a bottle, it left Pecos and Babe more convinced than ever that the world was arrayed against them.
In the early part of the evening, according to orders, José Garcia watched them furtively through the open door, returning at intervals, however, to peer through the window of his own home. At each visit it seemed to him that Angy was getting drunker and the Boss more shameless in his attentions to Marcelina. At last, when he could stand the strain no longer, he threw in with the merry roisterers, leaving it to the Señora to protect the dignity of their home. A drink or two mellowed him to their propaganda—at the mention of Crit he burst into a torrent of curses and as the night wore on he declared for the revolution, looking for his immediate revenge in drinking up all the Boss's whiskey. In the end their revelry rose to such a height that Crittenden was drawn away from his rough wooing and finally, under the pretence of delivering the United States mail, he walked boldly in upon them, determined to protect his property at any risk. The penalty for interfering with the United States mail, as everybody who has ever read the card on a drop-box knows, is a fine of $1,000, or imprisonment, or both. In defence of that precious packet Crittenden could have killed all three of them and stood justified before the law, but although he had a reputation as a bad man to crowd into a corner, Old Crit was not of a sanguinary disposition. No man could hold down a bunch of gun-men of the kind that he employed in his predatory round-ups and not have a little iron in his blood, but the Boss of Verde Crossing had seen all too well in his variegated career the evils which cluster like flies about an act of violence, and he was always for peace—peace and his price.
"Here; here, here," he expostulated, as he found Angy in the act of drinking half a pint of whiskey by measure, "you boys are hittin' it pretty high, ain't ye?"
"The roof's the limit," replied Babe, facetiously. "As the Champeen Booze-fighter of Arizona I am engaged in demonstratin' to all beholders my claim to that illustrious title. Half a pint of whiskey—enough to kill an Injun or pickle a Gila-monster—and all tossed off at a single bout, like the nectar of the gods. Here's to the revolution, and to hell with the oppressors of the poor!"
"That's right," chimed in Pecos, elevating his glass and peering savagely over its rim at the Boss, "we done declared a feud against the capitulistic classes and the monneypullistic tendencies of the times. Your game's played out, Old Man; the common people have riz in their might and took the town! Now you go away back in the corner, d'ye understand, and sit down—and don't let me hear a word out of you or I'll beat the fear o' God into you with this!" He hauled out his heavy six-shooter and made the sinister motions of striking a man over the head with it, but Crit chose to ignore the threat.
"All right," he said, feigning an indulgent smile, "you boys seem to be enjoyin' yourselves, so I'll jest deliver this United States mail as the law requires and leave you to yourselves." He stepped in behind the bar, chucked a couple of demijohns of whiskey into the corner where they might be overlooked, and threw the mail pouch on the counter.
"Better come up and git your mail, boys," he observed, dumping the contents out for a lure. "Hey, here's a package for you, Mr. Dalhart—something pretty choice, I 'spect. Nothin' for you, Joe," he scowled, as his faithless retainer lurched up to claim his share. "Here's your paper, Babe. Letter for you, Mr. Dalhart," he continued, flipping a large, official envelope across the bar, "you're developin' quite a correspondence!" He ducked down behind the counter, grinning at his stratagem, and while Pecos and Babe were examining their mail he managed to jerk the money drawer open and slip the loose change into his pockets.
"Well, we'll be goin' home now, Joe," he said, taking the corral boss briskly by the arm. "Come on, hombre, you ain't got no mail!" Under ordinary circumstances José would have followed peaceably, thus reducing the revolutionary forces to a minimum, but the covert insult to his daughter, magnified by drink, had fired his Latin blood.
"No, Señor," he replied, fixing his glittering eyes upon the hateful boss. "Yo no go! Carramba, que malo hombre! You dam' coward, Creet—you scare my wife—you scare—"
"Shut up!" hissed Crit, hastily cuffing him over the head. "Shut your mouth or I'll—"
"Diablo!" shrieked the Mexican, striking back blindly. "I keel you! You have to leave mi niña alone!"
"What's that?" yelled Angevine Thorne, leaping with drunken impetuosity into the fray, "hev you been—"
"Leave him to me!" shouted Pecos, wading recklessly into the scrimmage. "I'll fix the blankety-blank,