FullReads

Billy ate expansively and earnestly. Toward the close of the meal Charley slipped into place beside him. Charley was out of humour, and found the meat cold.

“Damn yore soul, Nell,” he cried, “this yere ain’t fitten fer a hog to eat!”

The girl did not mind; nor did Billy. It was the country’s mode of speech. The stranger dropped his knife.

“I don’t wonder you don’t like it, then,” said he, with a funny little blaze of anger.

“Meanin’ what?” shouted Charley, threateningly.

“You sure mustn’t speak to a lady that way,” replied the stranger, firmly, in his little piping voice.

Billy caught the point and exploded in a mighty guffaw.

“Bully fer you!” he cried, slapping his knee; “struck pyrites (he pronounced it pie-rights) fer shore that trip, Charley.”

The girl, too, laughed, but quietly. She was just a little touched, though only this winter she had left Bismarck because the place would have no more of her.

In the face of Billy’s approval, the patriarch fell silent.

About midnight the four inmates of the frontier hotel were awakened by a tremendous racket outside. The stranger arose, fully clothed, from his bunk, and peered through the narrow open window. A dozen horses were standing grouped in charge of a single mounted man, indistinguishable in the dark. Out of the open door a broad band of light streamed from the saloon, whence came the noise of voices and of boots tramping about.

“It is Black Hank,” said Billy, at his elbow, “Black Hank and his outfit. He hitches to this yere snubbin’-post occasional.”

Black Hank in the Hills would have translated to Jesse James farther south.

The stranger turned suddenly energetic.

“Don’t you make no fight?” he asked.

“Fight?” said Billy, wondering. “Fight? Co’se not. Hank don’t plunder me none. He jest ambles along an’ helps himself, and leaves th’ dust fer it every time. I jest lays low an’ lets him operate. I never has no dealin’s with him, understand. He jest nat’rally waltzes in an’ plants his grub-hooks on what he needs. I don’t know nothin’ about it. I’m dead asleep.”

He bestowed a shadowy wink on the stranger

Below, the outlaws moved here and there.

“Billy!” shouted a commanding voice, “Billy Knapp!”

The hotel-keeper looked perplexed.

“Now, what’s he tollin’ me for?” he asked of the man by his side.

“Billy!” shouted the voice again, “come down here, you Siwash. I want to palaver with you!”

“All right, Hank,” replied Billy.

He went to his “room,” and buckled on a heavy belt; then descended the steep stairs. The bar-room was lighted and filled with men. Some of them were drinking and eating; others were strapping provisions into portable form. Against the corner of the bar a tall figure of a man leaned smoking–a man lithe, active, and muscular, with a keen dark face, and black eyebrows which met over his nose. Billy walked silently to this man.

“What is it?” he asked, shortly. “This yere ain’t in th’ agreement.”

“I know that,” replied the stranger.

“Then leave yore dust and vamoose.”

“My dust is there,” replied Black Hank, placing his hand on a buckskin bag at his side, “and you’re paid, Billy Knapp. I want to ask you a question. Standing Rock has sent fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks to Spotted Tail. The messenger went through here to-day. Have you seen him?”

“Nary messenger,” replied Billy, in relief. “Stage goes empty.”

Charley had crept down the stairs and into the room.

“What in hell are yo’ doin’ yere, yo’ ranikaboo ijit?” inquired Billy, truculently.

“That thar stage ain’t what you calls empty,” observed Charley, unmoved.

A light broke on Billy’s mind. He remarked the valise which the stranger had so carefully guarded; and though his common-sense told him that an inoffensive non-combatant such as his guest would hardly be chosen as express messenger, still the bare possibility remained.

“Yo’re right,” he agreed, carelessly, “thar is one tenderfoot, who knows as much of ridin’ express as a pig does of a ruffled shirt.”

“I notes he’s almighty particular about that carpet-bag of his’n,” insisted Charley.