Part 8 (2/2)
”Howdy, Mr Kelley? Denominate your poison,” said thea bottle toward hi out the other to be shaken ”Got back safe and sound, didn't you?”
”I don't take any of that stuff, and you ought to know better than to ask ue, which took ot ready to leave Fort Gibson Have you seen Black Dan lately?”
”You're right, I have,” said theout from under his counter a revolver which was cocked and ready to be used when it was drawn ”I a to keep that just as it is and show it to him when he wakes up Because he used to own this house is no reason why he should pull a pistol onwhere he was in the excitement of the moment
”I should say he did, kid, and Mose, there, was just in time to stop him I hope you have coer It is all I can do to keep hi you knoill pick up the wrong man You took him out, Mose Do you knohere he is?”
”Yes; he's out there,” said Mose,one ith his thumb and another ith his head ”I can find hiet on his feet, but reeled considerably, and would have fallen back in his chair if Mr Kelley had not caught him and placed hiht, and made his way out of the house and around the corner, closely followed by Mr Kelley and Tom Presently he stopped, and curled up behind a water-butt, the , his empty holster and the stump of his crippled arm thrown out recklessly by his side, lay all that was left of Black Dan Tonomen His complexion arthy and his hair and whiskers were as black as ht, but for all that he had been a very handsome man He was dead drunk, and Mr Kelley saw that all attempts to arouse him would be useless
”Why didn't you put hiust
”He wouldn't stay there,” replied Mose ”That is the only place he will stay, and there is where we take hio to sleep”
”Let's go away,” said To as I live”
”It would be useless to try to awake him,” said Mr Kelley ”Mose, you tell him that as soon as he wakes up ant to see hi We want to see him particularly You can remember that much, can't you?”
”I can, sir,” replied Mose, hastily pocketing the dollar which Kelley thrust out to him ”I'll send him down as soon as he comes to himself”
”It always comes hard for one to see a man done up in that style,” said Mr Kelley, as he and Tom bent their steps toward the Eldorado ”It makes me hate whiskey worse than I did before”
Tom had seen so much of the little town of Fort Ha to the Eldorado Their little intervieith Black Dan, if such it could be called, had taken all the conversation out of the-room of the hotel, and saw no se cards were doing it for fun, and not for n of a drunken man around, his spirits rose wonderfully, and he walked up and placed his valise on the counter
”Ah! here you are,” exclaiet a rooed one end of the dining-rooht”
”Full up to the top notch,” said the clerk ”Put it there, Mr Kelley
How are you, Arrow-foot? This young man I don't relad tohirub-stake him”
”Ah! that's your business, is it? Fine business that You may make a strike soht in the country for one, for there's a nugget worth eight thousand dollars for you to pitch on to”
”Yes, Elaet it, for then we shall quit hearing so much about it”
”Oh, it's there, for one with such a reputation as that--why, h twenty years! And the Red Ghost, too; you want to steer clear of hihed and said he would do his best to follow the clerk's advice
He had heard of Ela of it when awake, and dreaing it up were rather slim, for he did not suppose that the man who had hid it had any idea that it would be unearthed by anyone save himself; but if he should happen to strike it with one blow of his pick! Wouldn't he be in town? He could then write back to his uncle that he had made more than the sum he had temporarily lost, made it by the sweat of his brow, and he was sure that the next letter he received fro hiiven But the Red Ghost! Tom did not knohat to think about hiht, and he was a terrible thing to look at He roa the teamsters to death, and the worst of it was he was always to be found soet was supposed to be hid Stanley once had a partner that had been done to death, and even Mr Kelley's face grew sole that rub-stake