The Westerners Part 13

"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder.

"That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was coming here to live, too!"

Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation.

"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated.

The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats.

The constraint was beginning to break.

"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?"

The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly.

Frosty set out gla.s.ses, into which the men poured whiskey from small black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent, imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received their gla.s.ses. The girl raised hers high in the air.

"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!"

The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor, where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders.

Molly touched her lips to her gla.s.s, and handed it to Billy, who stood on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered confidentially in his ear.

"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He had made a pretty speech, too.

The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amus.e.m.e.nt. She turned away impatiently and began to talk.

Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed consumedly.

And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high, sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal, the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places--the night herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling over-note of a triumphant child.

Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the lips.

The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe.

The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned red and white, and looked about him helplessly.

"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back."

She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one finger by the trigger guard.

"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She pa.s.sed through the door to the canvas-covered schooner outside.

A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry.

"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word.

Frosty, trot out the nose paint."

Billy was fuming.

"_h.e.l.l_ of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice _hospitable_ way to welkim a lady! _Lovely_ idee she gets of this camp!"

Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently.

"What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let _you_ in this, anyway?"

He thrust his head forward at Billy.

"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you dead right, Harry, and you know it."

"That's right, Billy," said several.

Harry growled sulkily in his gla.s.s. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected.

"Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t'

have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in."

"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and let up."

The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations.

They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying much. Everybody was "stuck" on him--everybody but Harry. Harry sulked over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar.

"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle."

He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the wrist, and turned away.

"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?"

"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back.

Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door.

The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows.

"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?"

"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin the rules."

"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you?

Answer me that. Ain't you?"

"But it's different now," objected Mudge.

"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh, or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more, or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere till you ain't got gla.s.s enough left to mend your wall eye, you white-headed little varmint."

Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted quietly, "you are not shooting up anything."

Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?"

"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!"

Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You d.a.m.n little greaser," he cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!"