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The Shyness Of Shorty
by
“Here’s to Her,” It burned delightfully.
“Here’s to the groom.” It tingled more alluringly.
“I’ll drink what I can, and get back to the bunk before it works,” he thought, and the darkness veiled the measure of his potations.
He started at a noise on the stairway. His senses not yet dulled, detected a stealthy tread. Not the careless step of a man unafraid, but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder. Every nerve bristled to keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached, passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to the window. Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out as a candle wick sputtered.
Shorty stretched on tiptoe, brought his eye to the level of the bar, and gazed upon the horrent head of Bailey. He sighed thankfully, but watched with interest his strange behaviour.
Bailey moved the light across the window from left to right three times, paused, then wigwagged some code out into the night.
“He’s signalling,” mused Shorty. “Hope he gets through quick. I’m getting full.” The fumes of the liquor were beating at his senses, and he knew that soon he would move with difficulty.
The man, however, showed no intention of leaving, for, his signals completed, he blew out the light, first listening for any sound from above, then his figure loomed black and immobile against the dim starlight of the window.
“Oh, Lord! I got to set down,” and the watcher squatted upon the floor, bracing against the wall. His dulling perceptions were sufficiently acute to detect shuffling footsteps on the porch and the cautious unbarring of the door.
“Gettin’ late for visitors,” he thought, as he entered a blissful doze. “When they’re abed, I’ll turn in.”
It seemed much later that a shot startled him. To his dizzy hearing came the sound of curses overhead, the stamp and shift of feet, the crashing fall of struggling men, and, what brought him unsteadily to his legs, the agonized scream of a woman. It echoed through the house, chilling him, and dwindled to an aching moan.
Something was wrong, he knew that, but it was hard to tell just what. He must think. What hard work it was to think, too; he’d never noticed before what a laborious process it was. Probably that sheriff had got into trouble; he was a fresh guy, anyhow; and he’d laughed when he first saw Shorty. That settled it. He could get out of it himself. Evidently it was nothing serious, for there was no more disturbance above, only confused murmurings. Then a light showed in the stairs, and again the shuffling of feet came, as four strange men descended. They were lighted by the sardonic Bailey, and they dragged a sixth between them, bound and helpless. It was the sheriff.
Now, what had he been doing to get into such a fix?
The prisoner stood against the wall, white and defiant. He strained at his bonds silently, while his captors watched his futile struggles. There was something terrible and menacing in the quietness with which they gloated–a suggestion of some horror to come. At last he desisted, and burst forth.
“You’ve got me all right. You did this, Bailey, you —- traitor.”
“He’s never been a traitor, as far as we know,” sneered one of the four. “In fact, I might say he’s been strictly on the square with us.”
“I didn’t think you made war on women, either, Marsh Tremper, but it seems you’re everything from a dog-thief down. Why couldn’t you fight me alone, in the daylight, like a man?”
“You don’t wait till a rattler’s coiled before you stamp his head off,” said the former speaker. “It’s either you or us, and I reckon it’s you.”
So these were the Tremper boys, eh? The worst desperadoes in the Southwest; and Bailey was their ally. The watcher eyed them, mildly curious, and it seemed to him that they were as bad a quartette as rumour had painted–bad, even, for this country of bad men. The sheriff was a fool for getting mixed up with such people. Shorty knew enough to mind his own business, anyway, if others didn’t. He was a peaceful man, and didn’t intend to get mixed up with outlaws. His mellow meditations were interrupted by the hoarse speech of the sheriff, who had broken down into his rage again, and struggled madly while words ran from him.