Bar-20 by Clarence E. Mulford (i want to read a book .txt) đź“•
"Th' wall-eyed piruts," he muttered, and then scratched his head for a way to "play hunk." As he gazed sorrowfully at the saloon he heard a snicker from behind him. He, thinking it was one of his late tormentors, paid no attention to it. Then a cynical, biting laugh stung him. He wheeled, to see Shorty leaning against a tree, a sneering leer on his flushed face. Shorty's right hand was suspended above his holster, hooked to his belt by the thumb--a favorite position of his when expecting trouble.
"One of yore reg'lar habits?" he drawled.
Jimmy began to dust himself in silence, but his lips were compressed to a thin white line.
"Does they hurt yu?" pursued the onlooker.
Jimmy looked up. "I heard tell that they make glue outen cayuses, sometimes," he remarked.
Shorty's eyes flashed. The loss of the horse had been rankling in his heart all day.
"Does they git yu frequent?" he asked. His voice sounded ha
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to the missile.
“Hey, yu!” indignantly yowled Mr. Travennes from his defective storm cellar.
“Don’t yu know any better’n to heave things thataway?”
“Hi-le, hi-lo,” sang Mr. Cassidy, as another stone soared aloft in the direction of
the complainant. Then he stood erect and awaited results with a Colt’s in his hand leveled
at the rim of the hole. A hat waved and an excited voice bit off chunks of expostulation
and asked for an armistice. Then two hands shot up and Mr. Travennes, sore and
disgusted and desperate, popped his head up an blinked at Mr. Cassidy’s gun.
“Yu was fillin’ th’ hole up,” remarked Mr. Travennes in an accusing tone, hiding
the real reason for his evacuation. “In a little while I’d a been th’ top of a pile instead of
th’ bottom of a hole,” he announced, crawling out and rubbing his head.
Mr. Cassidy grinned and ordered his prisoner to one side while be secured the
weapon which lay in the hole. Having obtained it as quickly as possible be slid it in his
open shirt and clambered out again.
“Yu remind me of a feller I used to know,” remarked Mr. Travennes, as he led the
way to the hut, trying not to limp. “Only he throwed dynamite. That was th’ way he
cleared off chaparral-blowed it off. He got so used to heaving away everything he lit that
he spoiled three pipes in two days.”
Mr. Cassidy laughed at the fiction and then became grave as he pictured Mr.
Connors sitting on the rock and facing down a line of men, any one of whom was capable
of his destruction if given the interval of a second.
When they arrived at the hut Mr. Cassidy observed that the prisoners had moved
considerably. There was a cleanly swept trail four yards long where they had dragged
themselves, and they sat in the end nearer the guns. Mr. Cassidy smiled and fired close to
the Mexican’s ear, who lost in one frightened jump a little of what he had so laboriously
gained.
“Yu’ll wear out yore pants,” said Mr. Cassidy, and then added grimly, “an’ my
patience.”
Mr. Travennes smiled and thought of the man who so ably seconded Mr. Cassidy’s
efforts and who was probably shot by this time. The outfit of the Bar-20 was so well
known throughout the land that he was aware the name of the other was Red Connors.
An unreasoning streak of sarcasm swept over him and he could not resist the opportunity
to get in a stab at his captor.
“Mebby yore pard has wore out somebody’s patience, too,” said Mr. Travennes,
suggestively and with venom.
His captor wheeled toward him, his face white with passion, and Mr. Travennes
shrank back and regretted the words.
“I ain’t shootin’ dogs this here trip,” said Mr. Cassidy, trembling with scorn and
anger, “so yu can pull yourself together. I’ll give yu another chance, but yu wants to hope
almighty hard that Red is O. K.
If he ain’t, I’ll blow yu so many ways at once that if yu sprouts yu’ll make a good
acre of weeds. If he is all right yu’d better vamoose this range, for there won’t be no hole
for yu to crawl into next time. What friends yu have left will have to tote yu off an’ plant
yu,” he finished with emphasis. He drove the horses outside, and, after severing the
bonds on his prisoners, lined them up.
“Yu,” he began, indicating all but Mr. Travennes, “yu amble right smart toward
Canada,” pointing to the north. “Keep a-going till yu gets far enough away so a Colt
won’t find yu.” Here he grinned with delight as he saw his Sharp’s rifle in its sheath on his
saddle and, drawing it forth, he put away his Colts and glanced at the trio, who were
already industriously plodding northward. “Hey!” he shouted, and when they sullenly
turned to see what new idea he had found he gleefully waved his rifle at them and warned
them further: “This is a Sharp’s an’ it’s good for half a mile, so don’t stop none too soon.
Having sent them directly away from their friends so they could not have him
“potted” on the way back, he mounted his bronco and indicated to Mr. Travennes that he,
too, was to ride, watching that that person did not make use of the Winchester which Mr.
Connors was foolish enough to carry around on his saddle. Winchesters were Mr.
Cassidy’s pet aversion and Mr. Connors’ most prized possession, this difference of
opinion having upon many occasions caused hasty words between them. Mr. Connors,
being better with his Winchester than Mr. Cassidy was with his Sharp’s, had frequently
proved that his choice was the wiser, but Mr. Cassidy was loyal to the Sharp’s and refused
to be convinced. Now, however, the Winchester became pregnant with possibilities and,
therefore, Mr. Travennes rode a few yards to the left and in advance, where the rifle was
in plain sight, hanging as it did on the right of Mr. Connors’ saddle, which Mr. Travennes
graced so well.
The journey back to town was made in good time and when they came to the
buildings Mr. Cassidy dismounted and bade his companion do likewise, there being too
many corners that a fleeing rider could take advantage of. Mr. Travennes felt of his
bumps and did so, wishing hard things about Mr. Cassidy.
THE PENALTY
While Mr. Travennes had been entertained in the
manner narrated, Mr. Connors had passed the time by relating
stale jokes to the uproarious laughter of his extremely bored
audience, who had heard the aged efforts many times since they
had first seen the light of day, and most of whom earnestly longed for a drink. The
landlord, hearing the hilarity, had taken advantage of the opportunity offered to see a free
show. Not being able to see what the occasion was for the mirth, he had pulled on his
boots and made his way to the show with a flapjack in the skillets which, in his haste, he
had forgotten to put down. He felt sure that he would be entertained, and he was not
disappointed.
He rounded the corner and was enthusiastically welcomed by the hungry Mr.
Connors, whose ubiquitous guns coaxed from the skillet its dyspeptic wad.
“Th’ saints be praised!” ejaculated Mr. Connors as a matter of form, not having a
very clear idea of just what saints were, but he knew what flapjacks were and greedily
overcame the heroic resistance of the one provided by chance and his own guns. As he
rolled his eyes in ecstatic content the very man Mr. Cassidy had warned him against
suddenly arose and in great haste disappeared around the corner of the corral, from which
point of vantage he vented his displeasure at the treatment he had received by wasting six
shots at the mortified Mr. Connors.
“Steady!” sang out that gentleman as the line-up wavered. “He’s a precedent to
hell for yu fellers! Don’t yu get ambitious, none whatever.” Then he wondered how long
it would take the fugitive to secure a rifle and return to release the others by drilling him
at long range.
His thoughts were interrupted by the vision of a red head that climbed into view
over a rise a short distance off and he grinned his delight as Mr. Cassidy loomed up,
jaunty and triumphant. Mr. Cassidy was executing calisthenics with a Colt in the rear of
Mr. Travennes’ neck and was leading the horses.
Mr. Connors waved the skillet and his friend grinned his congratulations at what
the token signified.
“I see yu got some more,” said Mr. Cassidy, as he went down the line-up from the
rear and collected nineteen weapons of various makes and conditions, this number being
explained by the fact that all but one of the prisoners wore two. Then he added the five
that had kicked against his ribs ever since he had left the hut, and carefully threaded the
end of his lariat through the trigger guards.
“Looks like we stuck up a government supply mule, Red,” he remarked, as he
fastened the whole collection to his saddle. “Fourteen colts, six Merwin-Hulbert’s, three
Prescott, an’ one puzzle,” he added, examining the puzzle. “Made in Germany, it says,
and it shore looks like it. It’s got little pins stickin’ out of th’ cylinder, like you had to swat
it with a hammer or a rock, or somethin’ to make it go off. Must be damn dangerous, to
most anybody around. Looks more like a cactus than a six-shooter-gosh, it’s a ten-shooter! I allus said them Dutchmen was bloody-minded cusses. Think of bein’ able to
shoot yoreself ten times before th’ blame thing stops!” Then looking at the line-up for the
owner of the weapon, he laughed at the woeful countenances displayed.
“Did they sidle in by companies or squads?” he asked.
“By twos, mostly. Then they parade-rested an’ got discharged from duty. I had
eleven, but one got homesick, or disgusted, or something, an’ deserted. It was that cussed
flapjack,” confessed and explained Mr. Connors.
“What!” said Mr. Cassidy in a loud voice. “Got away! Well, we’ll have to make
our get-away plumb sudden or we’ll never go.
At this instant the escaped man again began his bombardment from the corner of
the corral and Mr. Cassidy paused, indignant at the fusillade which tore up the dust at his
feet. He looked reproachfully at Mr. Connors and then circled out on the plain until he
caught a glimpse of a fleeing cowpuncher, whose back rapidly grew smaller in the fast-increasing distance.
“That’s yore friend, Red,” said Mr. Cassidy as he returned from his
reconnaissance. “He’s that shorthorn yearling. Mebby he’ll come back again,” he added
hopefully. “Anyhow, we’ve got to move. He’ll collect reinforcements an’ mebby they all
won’t shoot like him. Get up on yore Clarinda an’ hold th’ fort for me,” he ordered,
pushing the farther horse over to his friend.
Mr. Connors proved that an agile man can mount a restless horse and not lose the
drop, and backed off three hundred yards, deftly substituting his Winchester for the Colts.
Then Mr. Cassidy likewise mounted with his attention riveted elsewhere and backed off
to the side of his companion.
The bombardment commenced again from the corral, but this time Mr. Connors’
rifle slid around in his lap and exploded twice. The bellicose gentleman of the corral
yelled in pain and surprise and vanished.
“Purty good for a Winchester,” said Mr. Cassidy in doubtful congratulation.
“That’s why I got him,” snapped Mr. Connors in brief reply, and then he laughed.
“Is them th’ vigilantes what never let a man get away?” he scornfully asked, backing down
the street and patting his Winchester.
“Well, Red, they wasn’t all there. They was only twelve all told,” excused Mr.
Cassidy. “An’ then we was two,” he explained, as he wished the collection of six-shooters was on Mr. Connors’ horse so they wouldn’t bark his shin.
“An we still are,” corrected Mr. Connors, as they wheeled and galloped for
Alkaline.
As the sun sank low on the horizon Mr. Peters finished ordering provisions at the
general store, the only one Alkaline boasted, and sauntered to the saloon where he had
left his men. He found diem a few dollars richer, as they had borrowed ten dollars from
the bartender on their reputations as poker players and had used the money to stake Mr.
McAllister in a game against the local poker champion.
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