Part 15 (2/2)
”Don't lose no time, but git right in at supper,” instructed John Tuttle, for the group. ”Jest bang him with any old insult you can think of, and leave the rest to Barney. Trot out a plain, home-made slap at the fodder he's dis.h.i.+n' up, fer instance. And when he comes at you with a challenge, don't fergit your privilege of pickin' out the weapons--savvy?”
It chanced that the moment selected for the entertainment was most propitious, inasmuch as Barney had that day declared his devotion to Sally Wooster, and had duly desired her big red hand for his own, only to hear a wild peal of laughter in reply, and to find himself boosted bodily out of the window by the hearty young lady herself. He was not, therefore, exactly in a mood of milk and honey.
It never had failed, and it did not fail to-night, that Barney should conceive himself more than half insulted merely by the sight of a stranger appearing at the board and calmly requiring the wherewithal to satisfy a mountain appet.i.te. Accordingly, when the miners and teamsters all came filing in, dusty, angular, raw-looking of countenance, Barney instantly detected the presence of Slivers among them, and his eyes ”lit up shop” without delay.
Slivers, to speak the truth, was easily seen. He was framed like a sky-sc.r.a.ping building, with the girders all plainly suggested. Not without a certain insolence of deliberation, he stared about the room before a.s.suming his seat, and provoked himself to a sneer of opera-bouffe proportions.
”You're his meat already,” whispered one of the men. ”Set down.”
Comrade Slivers thereupon proceeded to comport himself with a studied indifference to the cook which was duly galling. In a grim silence that all who knew him comprehended, Barney went about the table glowering with ferocity. Edging closer and closer to Slivers, the little man seemed itching in his ears to catch some careless word that might, by dint of inventiveness, be construed as a personal affront.
”I can see you ain't got no cook in the camp,” said Slivers, loudly, to his neighbor, when Barney was directly behind his chair. ”Has that pizened little boy I seen a while ago been playin' keep-house with the grub?”
”What's the matter with the grub, you scion of the wild-a.s.s family?”
demanded Barney, exploding like a fulminate.
Slivers looked around and scowled. ”Git out, you yawping brat,” said he. ”You must have been losin' hair for years--one hair a day--for everything you don't know about decent grub. Go look at yer head, and figure out your ignorance.”
Sensitive concerning the trackless Sahara which his pate presented, Barney clapped his hand upon it instantly. He could scarcely speak, for rage.
”You--dead lizard!” finally spurted from his safety-valve. ”You mongrel viper! Low-bred ooze, disowned and outcast, I'll spoil a grave with your carca.s.s for this! You jelly of cowardice, meet me to-morrow for satisfaction, or I'll swing you about by the tongue, and hurl you to pulp against the sty of a pig!”
Even Slivers somewhat gasped.
”Meet you?” he retorted, arising, to tower above his foeman like a mast. ”Iron me, Johnny!--if I can crawl in the hole to find you where you're hidin' I'll make you wish for hair a mile long, to stand on your head in your pitiful scare!”
”Oh, fie! Oh, bah!” said the cook, scanning the teamster's length with ill-concealed awe. ”Buzzard, you toy with languages. To-morrow I shall throw tomato-cans in scorn to build your monument.”
”All right,” answered Slivers. ”To-morrow suits me, and we'll fight it out bareback on buckin' broncos, out in the small corral, each feller armed with a stockin' full of rocks for a weapon.”
Barney stared for a moment in consternation at the man before him. He had previously grown accustomed to the horrors suggested by pistols, knives, red-hot branding-irons, and even pitchforks, but rocks in a stocking--that smacked of barbarism. Moreover, to mount on the back of a bronco, wild or tame--the very meditation made the walls drop out of his stomach. However, he smiled.
”Child's play!” he answered, with fine disgust. ”You warty infant! No matter, an odious child would become a more detestable reptile! Till to-morrow, don't speak to me--don't speak to me! Or I shall cheat myself of the morning's pastime.” And with that he strode haughtily away.
”Howlin' coyotes!” said Slivers, when he met the gaze of a dozen pair of gleaming eyes. ”Take him dose for dose he's worse than pizen! By gar! just see if he burned any holes in my s.h.i.+rt.”
Nearly all night long, however, little Barney lay awake, wildly fas.h.i.+oning excuses to avoid that horrid duel in the morning. He had always escaped by a margin so narrow that no precedent of the past gave a.s.surance of luck for the future. He was mortally afraid that at last he had challenged such a monster of brute courage, malignity, and strength that nothing terrestrial could avert his untimely demise.
Then in the morning the first sight that met his troubled gaze was that of Slivers rounding up a pair of unbroken ponies, as wild as meteors, in the field of honor, hard by the camp. Every cell in Barney's structure was in a panic. How he managed to walk to the water-bench to wash was more than he knew. After that there was no retreat. The citizens of Bitter Hole surrounded him, according to preconcerted arrangement, and began to coach him for his fight.
”Barney, you'd better have a jolt of whiskey in yer vitals,” suggested one. ”Slivers is a regular expert with a stockin' of rocks.”
”If I was you, Barney,” said Tuttle, ”I'd leave my bronco throw me right at him. Then. I'd turn in the air and soak my heels into Slivers's grub-basket and knock him into pieces small enough to smoke in a cigarette.”
”Barney,” counselled another, ”you take my advice and fight standin'
up on your hoss, so you can jump over onto Slivers's bronco and cram your stockin' of rocks down that there mule-driver's neck and choke him clean to death.”
<script>