The Spoilers Part 21

Now with a shock he caught himself in the grip of a thirst as insistent as though the cold bore down and the weariness of endless heavy miles wrapped him about. It was no foolish wish to drown his thoughts nor to banish the grief that preyed upon him, but only thirst! Thirst!--a crying, trembling, physical l.u.s.t to quench the fires that burned inside. He remembered that it had been more than a year since he had tasted whiskey. Now the fever of the past few hours had parched his every tissue.

As he elbowed in through the crowd at the Northern, those next him made room at the bar for they recognized the hunger that peers thus from men's faces. Their manner recalled Glenister to his senses, and he wrenched himself away. This was not some solitary, snow-banked road-house. He would not stand and soak himself, shoulder to shoulder with stevedores and longsh.o.r.emen. This was something to be done in secret. He had no pride in it. The man on his right raised a gla.s.s, and the young man strangled a madness to tear it from his hands. Instead, he hurried back to the theatre and up to a box, where he drew the curtains.

"Whiskey!" he said, thickly, to the waiter. "Bring it to me fast.

Don't you hear? Whiskey!"

Across the theatre Cherry Malotte had seen him enter and jerk the curtains together. She arose and went to him, entering without ceremony.

"What's the matter, boy?" she questioned.

"Ah! I am glad you came. Talk to me."

"Thank you for your few well-chosen remarks," she laughed. "Why don't you ask me to spring some good, original jokes? You look like the finish to a six-day go-as-you please. What's up?"

She talked to him for a moment until the waiter entered, then, when she saw what he bore, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the gla.s.s from the tray and poured the whiskey on the floor. Glenister was on his feet and had her by the wrist.

"What do you mean?" he said, roughly.

"It's whiskey, boy," she cried, "and you don't drink."

"Of course it's whiskey. Bring me another," he shouted at the attendant.

"What's the matter?" Cherry insisted. "I never saw you act so. You know you don't drink. I won't let you. It's booze--booze, I tell you, fit for fools and brawlers. Don't drink it, Roy. Are you in trouble?"

"I say I'm thirsty--and I will have it! How do you know what it is to smoulder inside, and feel your veins burn dry?"

"It's something about that girl," the woman said, with quiet conviction. "She's double-crossed you."

"Well, so she has--but what of it? I'm thirsty. She's going to marry McNamara. I've been a fool." He ground his teeth and reached for the drink with which the boy had returned.

"McNamara is a crook, but he's a man, and he never drank a drop in his life." The girl said it, casually, evenly, but the other stopped the gla.s.s half-way to his lips.

"Well, what of it? Goon. You're good at W. C. T. U. talk. Virtue becomes you."

She flushed, but continued, "It simply occurred to me that if you aren't strong enough to handle your own throat, you're not strong enough to beat a man who has mastered his."

Glenister looked at the whiskey a moment, then set it back on the tray.

"Bring two lemonades," he said, and with a laugh which was half a sob Cherry Malotte leaned forward and kissed him.

"You're too good a man to drink. Now, tell me all about it."

"Oh, it's too long! I've just learned that the girl is in, hand and glove, with the Judge and McNamara--that's all. She's an advance agent--their lookout. She brought in their instructions to Struve and persuaded Dex and me to let them jump our claim. She got us to trust in the law and in her uncle. Yes, she hypnotized my property out of me and gave it to her lover, this ward politician. Oh, she's smooth, with all her innocence! Why, when she smiles she makes you glad and good and warm, and her eyes are as honest and clear as a mountain pool, but she's wrong--she's wrong--and--great G.o.d! how I love her!" He dropped his face into his hands.

When she had pled with him for himself a moment before Cherry Malotte was genuine and girlish but now as he spoke thus of the other woman a change came over her which he was too disturbed to note. She took on the subtleness that masked her as a rule, and her eyes were not pleasant.

"I could have told you all that and more."

"More! What more?" he questioned.

"Do you remember when I warned you and Dextry that they were coming to search your cabin for the gold? Well, that girl put them on to you. I found it out afterwards. She keeps the keys to McNamara's safety vault where your dust lies, and she's the one who handles the Judge. It isn't McNamara at all." The woman lied easily, fluently, and the man believed her.

"Do you remember when they broke into your safe and took that money?"

"Yes."

"Well, what made them think you had ten thousand in there?"

"I don't know."

"I do. Dextry told her."

Glenister arose. "That's all I want to hear now. I'm going crazy.

My mind aches, for I've never had a fight like this before and it hurts. You see, I've been an animal all these years. When I wanted to drink, I drank, and what I wanted, I got, because I've been strong enough to take it. This is new to me. I'm going down-stairs now and try to think of something else--then I'm going home."

When he had gone she pulled back the curtains, and, leaning her chin in her hands, with elbows on the ledge, gazed down upon the crowd. The show was over and the dance had begun, but she did not see it, for she was thinking rapidly with the eagerness of one who sees the end of a long and weary search. She did not notice the Bronco Kid beckoning to her nor the man with him, so the gambler brought his friend along and invaded her box. He introduced the man as Mr. Champian.

"Do you feel like dancing?" the new-comer inquired.

"No; I'd rather look on. I feel sociable. You're a society man, Mr. Champian. Don't you know anything of interest? Scandal or the like?"

"Can't say that I do. My wife attends to all that for the family.

But I know there's lots of it. It's funny to me, the airs some of these people a.s.sume up here, just as though we weren't all equal, north of Fifty-three. I never heard the like."

"Anything new and exciting?" inquired Bronco, mildly interested.

"The last I heard was about the Judge's niece, Miss Chester."

Cherry Malotte turned abruptly, while the Kid slowly lowered the front legs of his chair to the floor.

"What was it?" she inquired.

"Why, it seems she compromised herself pretty badly with this fellow Glenister coming up on the steamer last spring. Mighty brazen, according to my wife. Mrs. Champian was on the same s.h.i.+p and says she was horribly shocked."

Ah! Glenister had told her only half the tale, thought the girl.

The truth was baring itself. At that moment Champian thought she looked the typical creature of the dance-halls, the crafty, jealous, malevolent adventuress.

"And the hussy masquerades as a lady," she sneered.

"She IS a lady," said the Kid. He sat bolt upright and rigid, and the knuckles of his clinched hands were very white. In the shadow they did not note that his dark face was ghastly, nor did he say more except to bid Champian good-bye when he left, later on. After the door had closed, however, the Kid arose and stretched his muscles, not languidly, but as though to take out the cramp of long tension. He wet his lips, and his mouth was so dry that the sound caused the girl to look up.

"What are you grinning at?" Then, as the light struck his face, she started. "My! How you look! What ails you? Are you sick?" No one, from Dawson down, had seen the Bronco Kid as he looked to- night.

"No. I'm not sick," he answered, in a cracked voice.

Then the girl laughed harshly.

"Do YOU love that girl, too? Why, she's got every man in town crazy."