Valley of Wild Horses Part 8

The town appeared about a mile long, spread out on two sides of the main street, graduating from the big buildings of stone and wood in the center to flimsy frame structures and tents along the outskirts. Pan estimated that he must have pa.s.sed three thousand people during his stroll, up one side of the street and down the other. Even if these made up the whole population it was enough to insure a good-sized town.

There were no street lamps. And the many yellow lights from open doors and windows fell upon the throngs moving to and fro, in the street as well as on the sidewalks.

Pan's guide eventually led him into the Yellow Mine.

He saw a long wide room full of moving figures, thin wreaths of blue smoke that floated in the glaring yellow lights. A bar ran the whole length of this room, and drinkers were crowded in front of it. The clink of gla.s.s, the clink of gold, the incessant murmur of hoa.r.s.e voices almost drowned faint strains of music from another room that opened from this one.

The thousand and one saloons and gambling dives that Pan had seen could not in any sense compare with this one. This was on a big scale without restraint of law or order. Piles of gold and greenbacks littered the tables where roulette, faro, poker were in progress.

Black garbed, pale hard-faced gamblers sat with long mobile hands on the tables. Bearded men, lean-faced youths bent with intent gaze over their cards. Sloe-eyed Mexicans in their high-peaked sombreros and gaudy trappings lounged here and there, watching, waiting--for what did not seem clear to Pan. Drunken miners in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves stamped through the open door, to or from the bar. An odor of whisky mingled with that of tobacco smoke. Young women with bare arms and necks and painted faces were in evidence, some alone, most of them attended by men.

The gambling games attracted Pan. Like all cowboys he had felt the fascination of games of chance. He watched the roulette wheel, then the faro games. In one corner of the big room, almost an alcove, Pan espied a large round table at which were seated six players engrossed in a game of poker. He saw thousands of dollars in gold and notes on that table. A pretty flashy girl with bold eyes and a lazy sleepy smile hung over the shoulder of one of the gamblers.

Pan's comrade nudged him in the side.

"What? Where?" whispered Pan answering quickly to the suggestion and his glance swept everywhere.

Brown was gazing with gleaming eyes at the young card player over whose shoulder the white-armed girl hung.

Then Pan saw a face that was strangely familiar--a handsome face of a complexion between red and white, with large sensual mouth, bold eyes, and a broad low brow. The young gambler was d.i.c.k Hardman.

Pan knew him. The recognition meant nothing, yet it gave Pan a start, a twinge, and then sent a slow heat along his veins. He laughed to find the boyishness of old still alive in him. After eight years of hard life on the ranges! By that sudden resurging of long forgotten emotion Pan judged the nature of what the years had made him. It would be interesting to see how d.i.c.k Hardman met him.

But it was the girl who first seemed drawn by Pan's piercing gaze. She caught it--then looked a second time. Sliding off the arms of Hardman's chair she moved with undulating motion of her slender form, and with bright eyes, round the table toward Pan. And at that moment d.i.c.k Hardman looked up from his cards and watched her.

CHAPTER SIX

"h.e.l.lo, cowboy. How'd I ever miss you?" she queried roguishly, running her bright eyes from his face down to his spurs and back again.

"Good evening, Lady," replied Pan, removing his sombrero and bowing, with his genial smile. "I just come to town."

She hesitated as if struck by a deference she was not accustomed to.

Then she took his hands in hers and dragged him out a little away from Brown, whom she gave a curt nod. Again she looked Pan up and down.

"Did you take off that big hat because you know you're mighty good to look at?" she asked, archly.

"Well, no, hardly," answered Pan.

"What for then?"

"It's a habit I have when I meet a pretty girl."

"Thank you. Does she have to be _pretty_?"

"Reckon not. Any girl, Miss."

"You are a stranger in Marco. Look out somebody doesn't shoot a hole in that hat when you doff it."

While she smiled up at him, losing something of the hawklike, possession-taking manner that had at first characterized her, Pan could see d.i.c.k Hardman staring hard across the table. Before Pan could find a reply for the girl one of the gamesters, an unshaven scowling fellow, addressed Hardman.

"Say, air you playin' cairds or watchin' your dame make up to that big hat an' high boots?"

Pan grasped the opportunity, though he never would have let that remark pa.s.s under any circ.u.mstances. He disengaged his right hand from the girl's, and stepping up to the table, drawing her with him, he bent a glance upon the disgruntled gambler.

"Excuse me, Mister," he began in the slow easy cool speech of a cowboy, "but did you mean me?"

His tone, his presence, drew the attention of all at the table, especially the one he addressed, and Hardman. The former laid down his cards. Shrewd eyes took Pan's measure, surely not missing the gun at his hip.

"Suppose I did mean you?" demanded the gambler, curiously.

"Well, if you did I'd have to break up your game," replied Pan, apologetically. "You see, Mister, it hurts my feelings to have anyone make fun of my clothes."

"All right, cowboy, no offense meant," returned the other, at which everyone except Hardman, let out a laugh. "But you'll break up our game anyhow, if you don't trot off with Louise there."

His further remark, dryly sarcastic, mostly directed at Hardman did not help the situation, so far as Pan was concerned. It was, however, exactly what Pan wanted. d.i.c.k stared insolently and fixedly at Pan.

He appeared as much puzzled as annoyed. Manifestly he was trying to place Pan, and did not succeed. Pan had hardly expected to be recognized, though he stood there a moment, head uncovered, under the light, giving his old enemy eye for eye. In fact his steady gaze disconcerted d.i.c.k, who turned his glance on the amused girl. Then his face darkened and he spat out his cigar to utter harshly: "Go on, you cat! And don't purr round me any more!"

Insolently she laughed in his face. "You forget I can scratch." Then she drew Pan away from the table, beckoning for Brown to come also.

Halting presently near the wide opening into the dance hall she said:

"I'm always starting fights. What might your name be, cowboy?"

"Well, it might be Tinkerdam, but it isn't," replied Pan nonchalantly.

"Aren't you funny?" she queried, half-inclined to be affronted. But she thought better of it, and turned to Brown. "I know your face."

"Sure you do, Miss Louise," said Brown, easily. "I'm a miner. Was here when you came to town, an' I often drop in to see the fun."

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Charley Brown, an' that's straight."

"Thanks, Charley. Now tell me who's this big good-looking pard of yours? I just want to know. You can't fool me about men. He doffs his hat to me. He talks nice and low, and smiles as no men smile at me. Then he bluffs the toughest nut in this town.... Who is he?"

"All right, I'll introduce you," drawled Brown. "Meet Panhandle Smith, from Texas."

"Well," she mused, fastening her hands in the lapels of his coat. "I thought you'd have a high-sounding handle.... Will you dance with me?"

"Sure, but I'm afraid I step pretty high and wide."

They entered another garish room, around which a throng of couples spun and wagged and tramped and romped. Pan danced with the girl, and despite the jostling of the heavy-footed miners acquitted himself in a manner he thought was creditable for him. He had not been one of the dancing cowboys.

"That was a treat after those clodhoppers," she said, when the dance ended. "You're a modest boy, Panhandle. You've got me guessing. I'm not used to your kind--out here.... Let's go have a drink. I've got to have whisky."

That jarred somewhat upon Pan and, as she led him back to Brown and then both of them to an empty table, he began to grasp the significance of these bare-armed white-faced girls with their dark-hollowed eyes and scarlet lips.

She drank straight whisky, and it was liquor that burned Pan like fire.

Brown, too, made a wry face.