Part 13 (1/2)
”Cold feet are sure bad.” Strange favored the crowd with a wink.
”I'm sort of sick.”
”That's tough!” the victor exclaimed, regretfully. ”But I'll tell you what we'll do--we'll take a little look into the future.”
”What d'you mean?”
”Simply this: Nature has favored me with second sight and the ability to read fortunes. I foretell good an' evil, questions of love and mattermony by means of numbers, cards, dice, dominoes, apple-parings, egg-sh.e.l.ls, tea-leaves, an' coffee-grounds.” The speaker's voice had taken on the brazen tones of a circus barker. ”I pro'nosticate by charms, ceremonies, omens, and moles; by the features of the face, lines of the hand, spots an' blemishes of the skin. I speak the language of flowers. I know one hundred and eighty-seven weather signs, and I interpet dreams. Now, ladies and gents, this is no idle boast.
Triflin' incidents, little marks on the cuticle, although they appear to be the effect of chance, are nevertheless of the utmost consequence, an' to the skilled interpeter they foretell the temper of, an' the events that will happen to, the person bearin' 'em. Now let us take this little deck of common playing-cards---”
The monologist, suiting the action to the word, conjured a deck of cards from somewhere, and extended them to Blaze. ”Select one; any one---”
”h.e.l.l!” snorted Jones, slipping into his coat.
”You are a skeptic! Very well. I convince n.o.body against his will. But wait! You have a strong face. Stand where you are.” Extracting from another pocket a tiny pair of scissors and a sheet of carbon paper, Mr.
Strange, with the undivided attention of the audience upon him, began to cut Blaze's silhouette. He was extraordinarily adept, and despite his subject's restlessness he completed the likeness in a few moments; then, fixing it upon a plain white cardboard, he presented it with a flourish.
Blaze accepted the thing and plunged for the open air.
IX
A SCOUTING TRIP
”What ails you?” Law inquired as he and Blaze rolled away in the buckboard.
”Serves me right for leaving my six-shooter at home,” panted the rancher. ”Well, I might have known they'd find me some day.”
”'They'? Who?”
”That hombre and his wife--the woman with the mustache. They swore they'd get me, and it looks like they will, for I daresn't raise my hand to protect myself.”
This was very mystifying to Dave, and he said so.
”The woman'll recognize me, quick enough,” Blaze a.s.serted, and then, ”G.o.d knows what Paloma will do.”
”Really! Is it that bad?”
”It's a vile story, Dave, and I never expected to tell anybody; but it's bound to come out on me now, so you better hear my side. Last summer I attended a convention at Galveston, and one hot day I decided to take a swim, so I hired a suit and a room to cache my six-shooter in. It was foolish proceedings for a man my age, but the beach was black with people and I wasn't altogether myself. You see, we'd had an open poker game running in my room for three days, and I hadn't got any sleep. I was plumb feverish, and needed a dip. Well, I'm no water-dog, Dave; I can't swim no better than a tarrapin with its legs cut off, but I sloshed around some in the surf, and then I took a walk to dreen off and see the sights. It was right interesting when I got so I could tell the women from the men--you see I'd left my gla.s.ses in the bath-house.
”Now I'd sort of upheld the general intemperance of that poker game for three days and nights--but I don't offer my condition as an excuse for what follows. No gentleman ought to lay his indecencies onto John Barley corn when they're nothing more nor less than the outcroppin's of his own orneriness. Liquor has got enough to answer for without being blamed for human depravities. I dare say I was friendlier than I had any right to be; I spoke to strangers, and some of the girls hollered at me, but I wouldn't have harmed a soul.
”Well, in the course of my promenade I came to a couple of fellers setting half-buried in the sand, and just as I was pa.s.sing one of them got up--sort of on all-fours and--er--facing away from me--sabe? That's where the trouble hatched. I reached out and, with nothing but good-will in my heart, I--sort of pinched this party-sort of on the hip, or thereabouts. I didn't mean a thing by it, Dave. I just walked on, smiling, till something run into me from behind. When I got up and squared around, there was that man we just left cutting didos out of black paper.
”'What d'you mean by pinching my wife?' he says, and he was r'arin' mad.
”'Your WIFE?' I stammers, and with that he climbs me. Dave, I was weak with shame and surprise, and all I could do was hold him off. Sure enough, the man I'd pinched was a long, ga'nt woman with a little black mustache, and here she came!
”We started in right there. I never saw such a poisonous person as that woman. She was coiled, her head was up, and her rattles agoing, and so I finally lit out But I'm sort of fat, and they over-ran me. They bayed me against the sea-wall, and all I had the heart to do was to hold 'em off some more. Soon as I got my wind I shook 'em off a second time and run some more, but they downed me. By that time we'd begun to gather quite a crowd. ...