Part 12 (1/2)

”I left two.”

”Two! Two! Say, I bought that tobacco myself for my own personal use, and not for a lazy, loafing, cow-faced lump of slumgullion to glom and smoke. Why don't you spend something besides the evening now and then?

Gawda-mighty, you sit on yore coin closer than a hen with one egg!

I'll gamble that Robinson Crusoe spent more money in a week than you spend in four years. Two sacks of my smoking. You got a gall like a hoss. There was my extra unders.h.i.+rt under those sacks. It's a wonder you didn't smouch that, too.”

”It didn't fit,” replied Swing Tunstall, placidly constructing a cigarette. ”Too big. Besides, all the b.u.t.tons was off, and if they's anything I despise it's a unders.h.i.+rt without any b.u.t.tons. Sort of wandering off the main trail though, ain't we, Racey? We was talking about Arizona, wasn't we?”

”We was not,” Racey contradicted, quickly. ”We was talking about a job here in Fort Creek County. T'ell with Arizona.”

”T'ell with Arizona, huh? You're serious? You mean it?”

”I'm serious as lead in yore inwards. 'Course I mean it. Ain't I been saying so plain as can be the last half-hour?”

”You're saying so is plain enough. And so is the whyfor.”

”The whyfor?”

”Sh.o.r.e, the whyfor. Say, do you take me for a damfool? Here you use up the best part of two days on a trip I could make in ten hours going slow and eating regular. Who is she, cowboy, who is she?”

”What you talking about?”

”What am I talking about, huh? I'd ask that, I would. Yeah, I would so. Is she pretty?”

”Poor feller's got a hangover,” Racey murmured in pity. ”I kind o'

thought it must be something like that when he began to talk so funny.

Now I'm sh.o.r.e of it. You tie a wet towel round yore head, Swing, and take a good pull of cold water. You'll feel better in the morning.”

”So'll I feel better in the morning if you jiggers will close yore traps and lemme sleep,” growled a peevish voice in the next room--on the Main Street side.

”As I live,” said Racey in a tone of vast surprise, ”there's somebody in the next room.”

”Sounds like the owner of the Starlight,” hazarded Swing Tunstall.

”It is the owner of the Starlight,” corroborated the voice, ”and I wanna sleep, and I wanna sleep _now_.”

”We ain't got any objections,” Racey told him. ”She's a fine, free country. And every gent is ent.i.tled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, three things no home should be without.”

”Shut up, will you?” squalled the goaded proprietor of the Starlight Saloon. ”If you wanna make a speech go out to the corral and don't bother regular folks.”

”Hear that, Swing?” grinned Racey, and twiddled his bare toes delightedly. ”Gentleman says you gotta shut up. Says he's regular folks, too. You be good boy now and go by-by.”

”_Shut up_!”

”Here, here, Swing!” cried Racey, struck by a brilliant idea. ”What you doing with that gun?”

”I--” began the bewildered Swing who had not even thought of his gun but was peacefully sitting on his cot pulling off his boots.

”Leave it alone!” Racey interrupted in a hearty bawl. ”Don't you go holding it at the wall even in fun. It might go off. You can't tell.

You're so all-fired careless with a sixshooter, Swing. Like enough you're aiming right where the feller's bed is, too,” he added, craftily.