Sundown Slim Part 9

"Have one with me, Jack. You didn't used to be afraid of it."

"I'm not now, but I'm not going to take a drink with you."

"Sorry. Well, here's looking." And the brother poured himself a half-tumblerful of whiskey and gulped it down. "Now, let's talk business."

Corliss smiled despite his disgust. "All right. You talk and I'll listen."

The brother slouched to the bed and sat down. "How's the Concho been making it?" he asked.

"We've been doing pretty fair. I've been busy."

"How's old man Loring?"

"About the same."

"Nell gone into mourning?"

Corliss frowned and straightened his shoulders.

"See here, Will, you said you'd talk business. I'm waiting."

"Touched you that time, eh? Well, you can have Nell and be d.a.m.ned. No Mexican blood for mine."

"If you weren't down and out--" began Corliss; then checked himself.

"Go ahead. What do you want?"

"I told you--money."

"And I told you--no."

The younger man started up. "Think because I'm edged up that I don't know what's mine? You've been piling it up for three years and I've been hitting the road. Now I've come to get what belongs to me and I'm going to get it!"

"All right, Will. But don't forget that I was made guardian of your interest in the Concho until you got old enough to be responsible. The will reads, until you come of age, providing you had settled down and showed that you could take care of yourself. Father didn't leave his money to either of us to be drunk up, or wasted."

"Prodigal son, eh, Jack? Well, I'm it. What's the use of getting sore at me? All I want is a couple of hundred and I'll get out of this town mighty quick. It's the deadest burg I've struck yet."

John Corliss gazed at his brother, thinking of the bright-faced, blue-eyed lad that had ridden the mesas and the hills with him. He was touched by the other's miserable condition, and even more grieved to realize that this condition was but the outcome of a rapid lowering of the other's moral and physical well-being. He strode to him and sat beside him. "Will, I'll give anything I have to help you. You know that. Anything! You're so changed that it just makes me sick to realize it. You needn't have got where you are. I would have helped you out any time. Why didn't you write to me?"

"Write? And have you tell Nell Loring how your good little brother was whining for help? She would have enjoyed that--after what she handed me."

"I don't know what she said to you," said Corliss, glancing at his brother. "But I know this: she didn't say anything that wasn't so. If that's the reason you left home, it was a mighty poor one. You've always had your own way, Will."

"Why shouldn't I? Who's got anything to say about it? You seem to think that I always need looking after--you and Nell Loring. I can look after myself."

"Doesn't look like it," said Corliss, gesturing toward the washstand.

"Had anything to eat to-day?"

"No, and I don't want anything."

"Well, wash up and we'll go and get some clothes and something to eat.

I'll wait."

"You needn't. Just give me a check--and I won't bother you after that."

"No. I said wash up! Get busy now!"

The younger man demurred, but finally did as he was told. They went downstairs and out to the street. In an hour they returned, Will Corliss looking somewhat like his former self in respectable raiment.

"John," he said as they entered the room again, "you've always been a good old stand-by, ever since we were kids. I guess I got in bad this time, but I'm going to quit. I don't want to go back to the Concho--you know why. If you'll give me some dough I'll take care of myself. Just forget what I said about my share of the money."

"Wait till morning," said Corliss. "I'll take the room next, here, and if you get to feeling bad, call me."

"All right, Jack. I'll cut it out. Maybe I will go back to the Concho; I don't know."

"Wish you would, Will. You'll get on your feet. There's plenty to do and we're short-handed. Think it over."

"Does--Nell--ever say anything?" queried the brother.

"She talks about you often. Yesterday we were talking about you. I told her what Sundown said about--"

"Sundown?"

"Forgot about him. He drifted in a few months ago. I met up with him at the water-hole ranch. He was broke and looking for work. Gave him a job cooking, and he made good. He told me that he used to have a pal named Will Corliss--"

"And Sundown's at the Concho! I never told him where I lived."

"He came into Antelope on a freight. Got side-tracked and had to stay.

He didn't know this used to be your country till I told him."

"Well, that beats me, Jack! Say, Sun was just an uncle to me when we were on the road. We made it clear around, freights, cattle-boats, and afoot. I didn't hit the booze then. Funny thing: he used to hit it, and I kind of weaned him. Now it's me. . ."

"He's straight, all right," said Corliss. "He 'tends right to business. The boys like him."

"Everybody liked him," a.s.serted Will Corliss. "But he is the queerest Hobo that ever hit the grit."

"Some queer, at that. It's after nine now, Will. You get to bed. I want to see Banks a minute. I'll be back soon."

When John Corliss had left the room, something intangible went with him. Will felt his moral stamina crumbling. He waited until he heard his brother leave the hotel. Then he went downstairs and returned with a bottle of whiskey. He drank, hid the bottle, and went to bed. He knew that without the whiskey he would have been unable to sleep.

The brothers had breakfast together next morning. After breakfast Corliss went for the team and returned to the hotel, hoping to induce his brother to come home with him. Will Corliss, however, pleaded weariness, and said that he would stay at the Palace until he felt better.

"All right, Will. I'll leave some cash with Banks. He'll give you what you need as you want it."

"Banks? The sheriff?"

"Yes."

"Oh, all right. Suppose you think I'm not to be trusted."