Part 18 (1/2)
”Yas, here I be,” said Enoch, jauntily, ”consortin' with the hosts of Belial. Take a cheer, Simon, take a cheer.”
”I guess not,” said Simon, slowly; ”I don't have no special hankerin'
after Belial, myself. Do you happen to know a man named Conrad Christie?”
”Him's the gentleman,” the red-silk Hebe volunteered. ”Him in the yeller beard and the red necktie, rakin' in the chips.”
Amberley took a critical survey of his adversary. He was a man of forty, or thereabouts, singularly like Simon himself in build and coloring, with enough of the ruffian in his aspect to give the professor an envious sense of inferiority. He was playing cards with a fierce-looking fellow in a black beard, who seemed to be getting the worst of it.
Simon was conscious afterwards of having turned his back on Enoch rather abruptly; of having interrupted, by his departure, an outpouring of confidence in regard to ”Mis' Baker's tantrums.” At the time, however, he had but one thought and that was to strike while the iron was hot. He felt that the iron was becoming very hot indeed, as he stepped up to the yellow-haired gambler, who was again engaged in the satisfactory ceremony of ”rakin' 'em in.”
”Mr. Christie,” Simon said, and hot as the iron was, he could not control a slight tremor in his voice, not of fear, but of excitement.
”Mr. Christie, I've got something to say to you. Will you step outside with me?”
Christie measured his interlocutor from head to foot, till Simon felt himself insulted in every inch of his person. The peace-loving hermit had time for blood-thirsty thoughts before the answer struck his ear.
”Not much!” came the reply at last, while the speaker gathered up the cards and began dealing. ”If this place is good enough for me, I reckon it's good enough for a blasted Sissy of your description!”
No one would do Mr. Christie the injustice to suppose that his remark was unembellished by more forcible expressions than are hereby recorded. Yet, somehow, the worst of them lacked the sting that Simon managed to get into his reply, as he said, in a suppressed voice: ”This place ain't good enough, as far's that goes, for the meanest skunk G.o.d ever created! But it'll do for what we've got to settle between us.”
”Have a seat, Mister?”
A sick-looking girl, with blazing cheeks, had placed a chair for him.
”Have a----”
The words died on her lips before the solemn, reproachful look the professor turned upon her.
”And Jinny looked smart As a cranberry tart!”
sang the discordant voice from the stage, which n.o.body thought of listening to.
”It's the Lame Gulch Professor,” the black-haired man remarked, taking a look at his cards, before turning to his gla.s.s for refreshment.
”d.a.m.n the Lame Gulch Professor!” Christie retorted, by way of acknowledging the introduction.
Then Simon spoke again.
”Mr. Christie, you've got the prettiest and smartest little girl in Lame Gulch,” he declared, laying down his proposition in a tone of extreme deliberation; ”and you hit her over the head last night, and 't ain't the first time neither.”
”Is that the latest news you've got to give us?” asked Christie, pa.s.sing his hand caressingly over his pistol, which lay like a lap-dog on his knees.
”Better let that alone,” said the black-haired gambler, persuasively.
”The professor's ben good to my kids.”
The threat was so very covert that the sensitive Christie did not feel himself called upon to recognize it as such.
”_He_ ain't no target,” Christie declared, with unutterable contempt.
”I'd as soon shoot a door-mat!” whereupon he proceeded, in a disengaged manner, to empty the contents of the black bottle into a gla.s.s, flinging the bottle under the table, with a praiseworthy regard for appearances.
Simon breathed deep and hard, and again there was an exasperating tremor in his low-pitched voice, which drawled more than usual, as he said: