The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 52

"I come ahead of time, pardner. Come to see how--you was--gettin'

along." The Spider's arm dropped to his side.

"Take him to the other bed there," said the doctor.

The Spider shook his head. "Just a minute." He nodded toward Pete.

"I want you to do something for me. Go see that party--in letter--fix you up--he's played square with me--same as you done."

"But who was it--" began Pete.

"Old bunch. Trailed me--too close. Got 'em--every dam' one. A mas ver. Tengo que marcharme, compadre." And then, "Close the cases,"

said The Spider.

The internes helped him to the cot on which Doris had rested as she watched Pete through those dark hours, refusing to leave him till she knew the great danger had pa.s.sed.

Pete lay back staring at the ceiling. He was, stunned by this sudden calamity. And all at once he realized that it must have been The Spider who had called to see him several times. Doris had hinted to Pete that some friend asked after him daily. So The Spider had come to El Paso to find out if the money had been delivered--risking his life for the sake of a few thousand dollars! Pete turned and glanced at the other cot. The doctor was bending over The Spider, who mumbled incoherently. Presently brisk footsteps sounded in the hallway, and two men entered the room and stepped to where The Spider lay. They spoke in low tones to the doctor, who moved back. One of the men--a heavy-shouldered, red-faced man, whom Pete recognized--asked The Spider who had shot him, and if he had been in Pony Baxter's place that night.

The Spider's lips moved. The other leaned closer. Dimly The Spider realized that this was the Law that questioned him. Even at the last moment his old enemy had come to hunt him out. The Spider's beady black eyes suddenly brightened. With a last vicious effort he raised his head and spat in the officer's face.

The doctor stepped quickly forward. The Spider lay staring at the ceiling, his sightless eyes dulled by the black shadow of eternal night.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

GETTING ACQUAINTED

It was Pony Baxter who gave the names of the dead gunmen to the police, confirming the records of White-Eye, Pino, Longtree, and Jim Ewell--known as The Spider. The ident.i.ty of the fourth man, he of the deformed shoulder and shriveled arm, was unknown to Baxter. The police had no record of him under any alias, and he would have been entered on their report of findings as "unknown," had not the faro-dealer and the lookout both a.s.serted that The Spider had called him Gary--in fact had singled him out unmistakenly, asking him what be had to do with the quarrel, which evidently concerned but three of the four men whom The Spider had killed. Pony Baxter, slowly recovering from an all but fatal gun-shot wound, disclaimed any knowledge of a "frame-up" to get The Spider, stating that, while aware that the gunmen and The Spider were enemies, The Spider's sudden appearance was as much of a surprise to him as it evidently was to the gunmen--and Baxter's serious condition pretty well substantiated this statement. Baxter's negro was also questioned--concerning Baxter's story and explaining the circ.u.mstances under which he had admitted The Spider to the back room.

When confronted with the torn slip of paper on which was written the address of White-Eye, Baxter admitted that he knew of the rendezvous of the gunmen, but refused to explain why he had their address in his possession, and he put a quietus on that phase of the situation by asking the police why they had not raided the place themselves before the shooting occurred, as they seemed to have known of it for several months. Eventually Baxter and the police "fixed it up." The gambler did a thriving business through the notoriety the affair had given him.

Many came to see the rooms where The Spider had made his last venomous fight, men who had never turned a card in their lives, and who doubted the rumors current in the sporting world until actually in the room and listening to the faro-dealer's cold and impa.s.sive account of the men and the battle. And more often than not these curious souls, who came to scoff, remained to play.

Pete, convalescing rapidly, had asked day after day if he might not be allowed to sit with the other patients who, warmly blanketed, enjoyed the suns.h.i.+ne on the wide veranda overlooking the city. One morning Andover gave his consent, restricting Pete's first visit to thirty minutes. Pete was only too glad of a respite from the monotony of back-rest and pillow, bare walls, and the essential but soul-wearying regularity of professional attention.

Not until Doris had helped him into the wheel-chair did he realize how weak he was.

Out on the veranda, his weakness, the pallid faces of the other convalescents, and even Doris herself, were forgotten as he gazed across the city and beyond to the sunlit s.p.a.ces softly glowing beneath a cloudless sky. Sunlight! He had never known how much it meant, until then. He breathed deep. His dark eyes closed. Life, which he had hitherto valued only through sheer animal instinct, seemed to mean so much more than he had ever imagined it could. Yet not in any definite way, nor through contemplating any definite attainment. It was simply good to be alive--to feel the pleasant, natural warmth of the sun--to breathe the clear, keen air. And all his curiosity as to what the world might look like--for to one who has come out of the eternal shadows the world is ever strange--was drowned in the supreme indifference of absolute ease and rest. It seemed to him as though he were floating midway between the earth and the sun, not in a weird dream wherein the subconscious mind says, "This is not real; I know that I dream"; but actual, in that Pete could feel nothing above nor beneath him. Being of a very practical turn of mind he straightway opened his eyes and was at once conscious of the arm of the wheel-chair beneath his hand and the blanket across his knees.

He was not aware that some of the patients were gazing at him curiously--that gossip had pa.s.sed his name from room to room and that the papers had that morning printed a sort of revised sequel to the original story of "The Spider Mystery"--as they chose to call it.

Doris glanced at her watch. "We'll have to go in," she said, rising and adjusting Pete's pillow.

"Oh, shucks! We jest come out!"

"You've been asleep," said Doris.

Pete shook his head. "Nope. But I sure did git one good rest. Doc Andover calls this a vacation, eh? Well, then I guess I got to go back to work--and it sure is work, holdin' down that bed in there--and nothin' to do but sleep and eat and--but it ain't so bad when you're there. Now that there cow-bunny with the front teeth--"

"S-s.h.!.+" Doris flushed, and Pete glanced around, realizing that they were not alone.

"Well, I reckon we got to go back to the corral!" Pete sighed heavily.

Back in bed he watched Doris as she made a notation on the chart of his "case." He frowned irritably when she took his temperature.

"The doctor will want to know how you stood your first outing," she said, smiling.

Pete wriggled the little gla.s.s thermometer round in his mouth until it stuck up at an a.s.sertive angle, as some men hold a cigar, and glanced mischievously at his nurse. "Why don't you light it?" he mumbled.

Doris tried not to laugh as she took the thermometer, glanced at it, and charted a slight rise in the patient's temperature.

"Puttin' it in that gla.s.s of water to cool it off?" queried Pete.

She smiled as she carefully charted the temperature line.

"Kin I look at it?" queried Pete.

She gave the chart to him and he studied it frowningly. "What's this here that looks like a range of mountains ?" he asked.

"Your temperature." And she explained the meaning of the wavering line.

"Gee! Back here I sure was climbin' the high hills! That's a interestin' tally-sheet."

Pete saw a peculiar expression in her gray eyes. It was as though she were searching for something beneath the surface of his superficial humor; for she knew that there was something that he wanted to say--something entirely alien to these chance pleasantries. She all but antic.i.p.ated his question.

"Would you mind tellin' me somethin'?" he queried abruptly.

"No. If there is anything that I can tell you."

"I was wonderin' who was payin' for this here private room--and reg'lar nurse. I been sizin' up things--and folks like me don't get such fancy trimmin's without payin'."

"Why--it was your--your father."

Pete sat up quickly. "My father! I ain't got no father. I--I reckon somebody got things twisted."

"Why, the papers"--and Doris bit her lip--"I mean Miss Howard, the nurse who was here that night . . ."

"When The Spider cashed in?"

Doris nodded.

"The Spider wasn't my father. But I guess mebby that nurse thought he was, and got things mixed."

"The house-doctor would not have had him brought up here if he had thought he was any one else."

"So The Spider said he was my father--so he could git to see me!" Pete seemed to be talking to himself. "Was he the friend you was tellin' me called regular?"

"Yes. I don't know, but I think he paid for your room and the operation."

"Don't they make those operations on folks, anyhow, if they ain't got money?"