The Hash Knife Outfit

by Zane Grey

  “Yes,” she promised, shyly, yet fearfully, as if remembering.

  “Put your arms up round my neck. … There!—Now start kissing me once for every one of those heart-broken minutes.”

  Molly was not very far on this tremendous penance, considering sighs and lulls, and spasms of quick tender passion to make amends, when a knock on the living-room door startled her violently.

  “Well, if that isn’t tough!” ejaculated Jim, and putting Molly down he arose to go to the door. “Must be Gloriana May.”

  And she it was who entered, radiant and beautiful, with swift hopeful flash of purple eyes that moved from Jim to Molly, and back again. Curly stepped in behind her.

  “Jim, dear, I hope we didn’t intrude,” she said, sweetly, with mischief and gaiety underlying her speech. “Were you aware that this is Christmas?”

  “Jim, many happy returns of this heah evenin’—I mean the last of it,” drawled Curly, as he came forward, so cool and easy, and already within possession of the facts. “Molly, I’ve been shore daid sore at you. But I’m an understandin’ cuss. … Suppose I kiss you my Christmas greetin’s.”

  And he did kiss her, gallantly, though withal like a brother, while Molly stood stiff, blushing and paling by turns.

  “Curly Prentiss, do you kiss every girl on Christmas?” she had spirit to retort.

  “Nope. Thet privilege I reserve fer particular gurls,” he drawled, and turned to Jim with extended hand. “Boss, I’m shore glad. This is the second time the Diamond’s near been busted. Never no more! … Good night, all. I’ll see you in the mawnin’.”

  When Jim had closed the door upon him there was an eloquent silence in which Gloriana and Molly gazed into each other’s eyes. Certain it was that Jim trembled. Yet his hopes ran high. Molly approached Gloriana and stood bravely, without trace of the shame Jim knew she felt.

  “Glory, I’m heah again—to stay,” she said, simply. “Jim kidnapped me—an’ I reckon saved me when he did it. … I’m shore powerful sorry I’ve been such a dumb-haid. But you cain’t doubt my love for Jim, at least. … Will you forgive me?”

  Gloriana took Molly into her arms, and bending over her spoke with emotion. “I do indeed, Molly, as I hope to be forgiven. … Come with me to my room. … Good night, brother Jim; it’s late. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  SNELL’S gambling-hall was crowded on the afternoon of Christmas Day, when Jim Traft and Curly Prentiss arrived rather late. Evidently no open sesame was required on this occasion, and no doortender. Curly said this was because the business men of Flagerstown, who liked to buck the tiger, would be conspicuous for their absence on this holiday. But there would be a big game going, and Darnell would be in it.

  Curly appeared to be under the influence of liquor, which Jim knew he was most decidedly not. But Curly excited no interest whatever, for the good reason that he differed very little in garb and manner from other cowboys present. Some, in fact, were hilariously drunk.

  They strolled around to watch the faro game, the roulette wheel, and other games of chance, more or less busy with customers, until they approached a ring of lookers-on which surrounded the heavy poker game Curly wanted to sit in, provided Darnell was one of the players.

  By looking over the heads of spectators they ascertained that Darnell was indeed there, and also Bambridge. Then Curly whispered to Jim that the other three gamblers were precisely the same he and Bud had watched yesterday afternoon.

  “All set,” concluded Curly, his blue eyes flashing like a northern sunlit sky. “Big game an’ all daid sore. Darnell is ridin’ them high an’ handsome.”

  Then he turned to the circle of watchers and lurched into it. “Heah, lemme in, you geezers,” he called out, in a loud and good-natured drawl. “I’m a-rarin’ to set in this heah game.”

  But Curly’s action was more forceful. Without waiting for the men to open up he swept them aside. Jim followed until he secured a place just back of the front row, where he could see and yet keep out of sight.

  “Gennelmen, I wanta set in,” said Curly. “There’s only five of you heah. Thet shore ain’t no good game. You oughta have six. An’ heah I am.”

  Darnell looked up and gave Curly a hard glance. But if it were one of recognition he certainly did not connect Curly with the little meeting in Winslow some time previous.

  “This is poker for men of means and not casino for two-bit cowpunchers,” he said.

  “Hell you shay,” replied Curly, without offense, as he wiped a hand across his face, after the fashion of the inebriated. “Reckon you don’t savvy I ain’t no two-bit cowpuncher.”

  “Get out or I’ll have you thrown out,” snarled Darnell. His concentration on the game was such that an interruption jarred him. Yet even in anger there was no heat in the sharp dark eyes. His cheek and the line of his chin were tight. Here Jim saw the man as a handsome cold-faced gambler.

  “My Gawd! man, you must be a stranger heahaboots,” drawled Curly, and he clumsily pulled out the one vacant chair and fell into it, knocking against the table. With one hand he dropped his sombrero beside the chair and with the other he slammed down a huge roll of greenbacks, the outside one of which bore the number one hundred.

  “My money ain’t counterfeit, an’ I reckon it’s as good as anybody’s,” said Curly, lolling over the table in the careless laxity of a drunken man. His curly hair, wet and dishevelled, hid his eyes. He gave his mouth and chin the weakness characterizing the overindulgence in drink.

  At sight of the roll of greenbacks Darnell’s eyes leaped, but before he could speak, which it was evident he intended to do, Bambridge came out with: “Sure your money’s as good as anybody’s, cowboy. Sit in an’ welcome.”

  “Much obliged, Mister,” replied Curly, gratefully, as he snapped the rubber band off his roll. “What’s the game, friends?”

  “You make your own game. No limit,” replied the dealer, who happened to be the man from Winslow. “Your ante.”

  “Make it five call ten,” drawled Curly, but he labored long over the huge roll of greenbacks trying to find one of small numeration. “Doggone!—This heah legacy of mine is shore dwindlin’ of change.”

  The game proceeded then with Curly apparently a lamb among wolves. Still, though betting with reckless abandon, he did not risk much. “Dog-gone-it! Wait till I get some cairds,” he complained, “an’ I’ll show you fellars how a cowboy bets.”

  Altogether he carried out his pretense of a drinking range-rider come into possession of much money that was destined to make rich pickings for one of the gamblers presently. Once or twice the Winslow man kindly cautioned Curly about betting, which act incurred the displeasure of Bambridge.

  “I’m two thousand out,” he growled. “This cowpuncher insisted on joining us. Now let him play his own game.”

  “Bambridge, I’m out more than that,” replied the Winslow rancher, sarcastically. “But I reckon it’s low-down to rob this boy.”

  “Rob!—Are you casting any reflections?” spoke up Darnell, sharply.

  “Not yet,” answered the rancher, steadily, his eyes veiled.

  “See heah, Boss,” began Curly, to the Winslow man. “I’m shore appreciatin’ your advice. But since it ’pears to rile this gamblin’ couple, you let me play my own game. I ain’t so dumb. But at thet I only started in fer fun.”

  Jim was all eyes when the deal passed to Darnell. He had long slim white hands, flexible, and they manipulated the cards marvelously. Yet when he dealt them out he was very slow and deliberate, as if to show his antagonists that his deal was open and fair. There was some stiff betting on that hand, which Curly passed and which Bambridge won. The game seesawed on. Finally Curly won his first hand, and he was jubilant. After that he staked his winnings recklessly. He had injected something of humor into the game, from a spectator’s point of view, judging from the comments round the circle. Jim heard a cowboy whisper: “Thet’s Curly Prentiss, an’ you wanta lo
ok out.”

  Upon Darnell’s next deal the play was a jack-pot, with the dealer’s privilege of making the ante.

  “Throw in one of your hundreds, cowboy,” he said, as he chipped in one hundred dollars.

  “Wal, century plants ain’t nothin’ in my young life,” drawled Curly. “There you air, my Mississippi River gazabo.”

  Darnell gave a slight start, and eyed the cowboy intently. Curly’s head was bent rather low, as usual, with his eyes hidden under that wave of bright hair any girl might have envied. He was smiling, easy, and happy in the game. Perhaps his remark was merely a chance one and meant nothing. But Jim’s reflection was that Darnell certainly did not know cowboys of the Arizona-range stripe.

  The Winslow man opened the jack-pot, the two players between him and Curly stayed, and then Bambridge raised before the draw. Presently they were all in, in a jack-pot carrying more than six hundred dollars. The watchers of the game looked on with intense interest. Each player called for what cards he wanted. Darnell said casually: “Three for myself—to this little pair.” And he slid the three cards upon the table and laid the deck aside.

  Suddenly like a panther Curly leaped. His left hand shot out to crack down upon Darnell’s and crush it flat on the table. Then his right followed, clutching a big blue gun, which he banged on the table, making the players jump, then freeze in their seats. Curly sank back and threw up his head to show blazing eyes as clear as crystal. His frank young face set cold. How vastly a single moment had transformed him!

  Darnell turned a greenish livid hue. He had been trapped. Malignance and fear betrayed him.

  “You——low-down— — — ——of a caird sharp!” drawled Curly, in a voice with a terrible edge. “You reckoned I was drunk, eh?”

  The circle of men back of Darnell split and spread, with shuffling feet and hoarse whispers, in two wings, leaving the space there clear. That act was as significantly Western as Curly’s. Jim had seen it before.

  “Don’t anybody move a hair,” ordered Curly, and the pivoting of his gun indicated the other players. Bambridge gasped. Only the Winslow man remained cool. Perhaps he knew or guessed the nerve behind that gun-hammer, which plainly rose a trifle, sank back, to rise again, almost to full cock.

  “Gentlemen, look heah,” went on Curly, bitingly, and he turned Darnell’s crushed hand over. Bent and doubled in his palm were three cards that dropped out. Aces!

  “Pretty raw, I must say,” spoke up the Winslow man. “At that, I had a hunch.”

  “Darnell, we Westerners don’t often hang caird sharps, like we do cattle thieves. But on second offense we throw a gun,” said Curly, and the menace of him seemed singularly striking. Then in the same cool, careless voice he called Darnell all the profane epithets, vile and otherwise, known to the range. “You get out of Flag. Savvy? … An’ any time anywhere after this—if you run into me—you pull a gun!”

  Darnell whirled on his chair, knocking it to the floor, and he rushed through the opening in the crowd to disappear.

  Curly moved the gun, by accident or intent—no one could tell—until it had aligned itself with Bambridge.

  “Mister Bambridge, you’ve laid yourself open to suspicion round heah—long before this poker game,” said Curly, as cutting as before. “I told your daughter thet, an’ naturally it riled her. I reckon she’s a fine girl who doesn’t savvy her Dad.”

  “Who the hell is this hyar lyin’ cowpuncher?” demanded Bambridge, yellow of face, as he appealed to the other players.

  Curly’s arm moved like a snake. “Don’t you call me liar twice! … I’m Curly Prentiss, an’ I belong to the Diamond. We are on to you, Bambridge, if no other outfit round heah is. We know you’re a damn sight crookeder cattle thief than Jed Stone himself. … Now listen closer. What I said aboot gun play, to your gamblin’ new hand, Darnell, goes for you, too. Savvy? … Right now an’ heah, or anywhere after.”

  “You—you drunken puncher—you’ll pay for this hold-up of an innocent—and unarmed man,” panted Bambridge, as he got up, his face ghastly, sweating, and his eyes bulging with a fury of passions. He swept the edge of the crowd aside and thumped away.

  “Gentlemen, I apologize for breaking up your game,” said Curly, sheathing his gun. “But I reckon I saved you money. Suppose we divide what’s on the table an’ call it quits.”

  “Agreed,” replied the Winslow man, gruffly. “Prentiss, we sure owe you a vote of thanks.”

  It was Jim, and not Curly, who told the rest of the Diamond what had happened at Snell’s late on Christmas Day.

  Bud and Cherry, who had already been surreptitiously looking upon red liquor, promptly went on the rampage, eventually getting Lonestar and Up Frost with them. Jackson Way, owing to his new girl, manfully refused to drink more than one glass with his comrades.

  “No, siree,” avowed Jack, seriously. “Sometime in a man’s life he parts with bad whisky—an’ company.”

  “You disgrash to Diamond,” roared Bud.

  Jim, learning of this from Ring Locke, rode back to town, perturbed in mind, but the cowboys could not be located, at least in a hasty search. So he went home to supper. Later Curly came in, serene and drawling. “They’re shore a bad bunch of punchers. They’ve busted out. In the mawnin’ we better go find them an’ hawg-tie them an’ pack them in, or they’ll never be fit fer Molly’s party.”

  It seemed incredible to Jim that the quiet evening at home was real. How strange to glance at Curly now and recall the tremendous force he had exhibited at Snell’s only a few hours before! He was so easy-going, so droll and tranquil, as he unmercifully teased Molly, subtly including Gloriana in his philosophy.

  “You cain’t never tell aboot girls, Jim,” he said, sorrowfully. “I’ve shore had a deal of experience with all kinds. Red-headed girls, I reckon, are best to gamble on. Blondes are no good. Brunettes are dangerous. They’re like mules, an’ fer a spell will be powerful good, just to get a chance to kick you. Christmas an’ birthdays, though, a fellar’s girl can be relied upon to stand without a halter. But these girls between blondes an’ brunettes, the kind with hair like the ripple of amber moss, an’ eyes like violets under water—they’re scarce, thank the Lord. … I’ve heahed of a few, only never saw but one.”

  Uncle Jim roared, Molly threw something at Curly, while Gloriana was convulsed with laughter. Curly evidently was a perpetual source of surprise, delight, and mystery to Gloriana. There dawned in Jim a hope that she would grow to find more.

  They had a pleasant hour in the bright living-room, then the rancher left the young folk to themselves. Curly stayed awhile longer.

  “Wal,” he said, presently, “I’ll say good night, Miss Glory.”

  “What’s your hurry?” queried Gloriana, in surprise. “Don’t be so outlandishly thoughtful of my brother. He and Molly don’t know we exist. … Oh, maybe you want to go to town.”

  “Wal, I had thought aboot it,” drawled Curly.

  “And maybe join in the general painting the Diamond is giving Flag?” went on Gloriana.

  “Wal, they shore cain’t do much paintin’ or anythin’ without me,” he admitted, his keen blue eyes studying Gloriana.

  Despite Gloriana’s conviction of Jim’s utter absorption, he still had eyes and ears for his sister and his best friend. Molly saw nothing except the ruddy coals of the fire, until Jim gave her a nudge.

  “Very well, Mister Prentiss, good night,” said Gloriana, icily, as she rose.

  “Say, do you care a whoop aboot whether I get drunk or not?” demanded Curly, his face flaming. Gloriana was the one person who could stir him out of his nonchalance or coolness.

  “Certainly not,” replied Gloriana, in amaze. “Why should I? … But you are my brother’s right-hand man. And I had hoped you would develop some character, for his sake.”

  “Cain’t a man take a drink an’ still have some character?” asked Curly, stoutly.

  “Some men can,” replied Gloriana, with emphasis that excluded Curly from he
r generalization.

  “Wal, I reckon I’ll go get awful drunk. Good night, Miss Traft.”

  “Good-by! … Mister Prentiss.”

  Curly departed hastily. His heavy steps sounded faster and faster, until they died away.

  “Jim, this Curly cowboy irritates me,” remarked Gloriana, coming to the fire.

  “What?—Oh, I’m sorry, Glory. I thought you liked him,” replied Jim, innocently.

  “I do. He’s a fine upstanding chap, so kind, easy-going, and big-hearted. He worships you, Jim. And of course that goes a long way with me. But it’s the other side of him I can’t—savvy, isn’t it? It’s that plagued cowboy side. … For instance, just a moment ago he saw you holding Molly’s hand. So he possessed himself of mine. And I give you my word I could hardly get it away from him.”

  How sweet to hear Molly’s laugh trill out! And the perplexity of Glory’s expressive face, with its suggestion of color, likewise pleased Jim.

  “Glory, the way to get along with Curly—and amuse yourself—is to let him hold your hand,” said Jim.

  “Don’t be silly. I—I did that very thing, at the dance, until I got scared. In fact, I scarcely knew I was letting him.”

  “Glory, I told you Curly was the finest fellow I ever knew, for a man’s friend, or a pard, as they call it out West. If you could stop his drinking he’d be that for a woman, too.”

  “I want to stop his drinking,” admitted Gloriana, now gravely, “but I—I am not prepared to—to——”

  “Sure you’re not,” interposed Jim, apologetically. “Don’t misunderstand me, Glory. On the other hand, don’t be cold to Curly just because you wasted some admiration—and sentiment—perhaps some kisses and caresses that would have raised poor Curly to the seventh heaven—on that Ed Darnell. … By the way, Glory, Curly threw a gun on Darnell today. Cussed him!—Whew! I never heard such language. He cast our cook, Jeff Davis, in the shade. And he drove Darnell out of Flag!”

  “My—heavens! … Jim!” cried Gloriana, and Jim could find no suggestion of indifference now.

  “Yes, by heavens—and any other place,” nodded Jim, emphatically. He had the satisfaction also of seeing Molly come out of her trance.