Claim Number One Part 17

"Then go with me," she invited.

"I wondered if you had faith enough in me to ask me," he laughed.

There was an extra stage out the next morning, owing to the movement toward Meander of people who must file on their claims within the next ten days. Smith was to drive it. He was in the office when they arrived.

"I think I'll a.s.sume the responsibility of taking the doctor's two bags with me," said Bentley.

She agreed that there was little use in leaving them behind. Walker was to go to his ranch the next day; the others would break camp the following morning. There would be n.o.body to leave his possessions in charge of, except the hotel-keeper, who had a notoriously short memory, and who was very likely to forget all about it, even if the doctor ever returned.

Bentley made arrangements for the transportation of that much excess baggage, therefore. The cost was reminiscent of freight charges in the days of the Santa Fe Trail.

"We'll leave word for him at the hotel-office," said he.

As they came out of the stage-office a man was mounting a horse before the stable door, a group of stage employees around him. He galloped off with a flourish. The man who had caparisoned his horse stood looking after him as he disappeared in the night.

"That feller's in a hurry--he couldn't wait for the stage in the morning," said Smith. "He's ridin' relay to Meander tonight on our horses, and he'll be there long before we start. He's the Governor's son."

CHAPTER IX

DOUBLE CROOKEDNESS

Comanche was drying up like a leaky pail. There remained only the dregs of the thronging thousands who had chopped its streets to dust beneath their heels; and they were worked out, panned down to scant profit, and growing leaner picking every day.

The ginger was gone out of the barker's spiel; the forced gaiety was dying out of the loud levees where the abandoned of the earth held their nightly carousals. Comanche was in the lethargy of dissolution; its tents were in the shadow of the approaching end.

Most of the shows had gone, leaving great gaps in the tented streets where they had stood, their debris behind them, and many of the saloons were packing their furnis.h.i.+ngs to follow. It had been a seasonable reaping; quick work, and plenty of it while it lasted; and they were departing with the cream of it in their pouches. What remained ran in a stream too thin to divide, so the big ones were off, leaving the little fellows to lick up the trickle.

A few gambling-joints were doing business still, for men will gamble when they will neither eat nor drink. Hun Shanklin had set up a tent of his own, the big one in which he had made his stand at the beginning having been taken down. To make sure of police protection, he had established himself on Main Street, next door to headquarters.

Ten-Gallon, the chief, now const.i.tuted the entire force, all his special officers having been dropped to save expense to the munic.i.p.ality, since the population had begun to leak away so rapidly and the gamblers' trust had been dissolved.

The chief slept until the middle of each afternoon. Then he went on duty in Hun Shanklin's tent, where he usually remained the rest of the day, his chair tilted back against the pole at the front end. It was generally understood that he had a large interest in the game, which was the same old one of twenty-seven.

On the side there was an army-game outfit at which a pimple-faced young man presided, small whiskers growing between his humors where they had escaped the razor, like the vegetation of that harsh land in the low places, out of the destroying edge of the wind. For army-game was held so innocuous in Comanche that even a cook might run it.

It was the third day after the drawing, and the middle of the afternoon.

That short-time had seen these many changes in Comanche, and every hour was witnessing more. Mrs. Reed and her party had gone that morning in the wagon sent for them from the Governor's ranch. The Hotel Metropole, now almost entirely without guests for its many tents and cots, was being taken down.

The red-nosed proprietor was loading cots into a wagon, his large wife, in a striped kimono with red ruffles at the sleeves and a large V of bare bosom showing, standing in the door of the office-tent directing his labors in a voice which suggested a mustache and knee-boots. A dangling strand of her greasy black hair swung in the wind across her cheek, at times lodging in the curve of it and obscuring her eye. As the lady's hands were both employed, one in holding up the train of her florescent garb, the other in supporting her weight against the tent-pole, she had no free fingers to tuck the blowing wisp in place.

So, when it lodged she blew it out of the way, slewing her mouth around to do so, and shutting one eye as if taking aim.

All these employments left her no time for the man who had approached within a few feet of her and stood with an inquiring poise as if asking permission to speak. She went on with her directing, and skirt-holding, and leaning against the tent-pole, and blowing, without giving him a full look, although she had taken his apprais.e.m.e.nt with the corner of her eye.

The man was not of an appearance to inspire the hope of gain in the bosom of the hostess. His band-less slouch-hat flapped down over his forehead and face, partly hiding a bandage, the sanguine dye of which told what it concealed. A black beard of some days' growth, the dust of the range caught in it, covered his chin and jowls; and a greasy khaki coat, such as sheep-herders wear, threatened to split upon his wide shoulders every time he moved his arms.

His trousers were torn, and streaked with the stain of rain and clay. He had pinned the rents about his knees together, but he seemed so insecurely covered that a strong wind might expose him, or a sudden start burst his seams and scant contrivances to s.h.i.+eld his nakedness. He touched his hat in a moment when he caught the quick eye of the landlord's wife upon him again, and moved a little nearer.

"Can you tell me, madam," said he respectfully, "what has become of the party that was camped in the tent around on the other side--four ladies and several men?"

"We don't lodge either sheep-herders or sheep-shearers unless they take a bath first," said she, turning from him disdainfully.

"But I am neither a herder nor a shearer," he protested, "although I may----"

"May be worse," she finished, though perhaps not in the way he intended.

"Suit yourself about it," he yielded. "I don't want lodging, anyhow."

The landlord came staggering in with an armload of cheap bed-covers and threw them down where his dragoon of a wife directed with imperious gesture.

"Just look at all that money invested and no return!" she lamented.

The battered stranger appealed to the landlord, repeating his question.

"None of your business," the landlord replied crabbedly. "But they're gone, if that'll do you any good."

"Did they leave two grips--a suitcase and a doctor's instrument-case--with you?" inquired the man.

"They left a pie-anno and a foldin'-bed, and a automobile and a safety-razor!" said the landlord, looking reproachfully at his big wife, who was motioning him out to his labors again.

"Or any word for Dr. Slavens?" the stranger pursued with well-contained patience.

"What do you want to know for?" asked the woman, turning upon him suddenly.

"Because the grips belonged to me, madam; I am Dr. Slavens."

The landlord looked at him sharply.

"Oh, you're the feller that went off on a drunk, ain't you? I remember you now. Well, they didn't leave no grips here."

"And no word either that I know of," added the woman.

She swept Dr. Slavens with wondering eyes, for she had held a pretty good opinion of him before his sudden, and evidently heavy, fall.

"But where in this world have you been, man?" she asked.

"Nowhere in _this_ world," he answered. "I've been taking a little side-trip to h.e.l.l!"

"You cert'nly look like it, mister!" the woman shuddered, closing the wide V at her bosom, the flaring garment clutched in her great ring-enc.u.mbered hand.

"Will you tell me, then, about my friends?" he asked.

"Gone; that's all we know," said she.

"Part went on the train, two or three days ago; some went on the stage; and the rest left in a wagon this morning," said the landlord.