11
Hunting for news, he went naturally to the news emporium which took theplace of the daily paper--namely, he went to the saloons. But on the wayhe ran through a liberal cross-section of The Corner's populace. Firstof all, the tents and the ruder shacks. He saw little sheet-iron stoveswith the tin dishes piled, unwashed, upon the tops of them when theminers rushed back to their work; broken handles of picks and shovels;worn-out shirts and overalls lay where they had been tossed; here was aflat strip of canvas supported by four four-foot poles and withoutshelter at the sides, and the belongings of one careless miner tumbledbeneath this miserable shelter; another man had striven for somesemblance of a home and he had framed a five-foot walk leading up to theclosed flap of his tent with stones of a regular size. But nowhere wasthere a sign of life, and would not be until semidarkness brought theunwilling workers back to the tents.
Out of this district he passed quickly onto the main street, and herethere was a different atmosphere. The first thing he saw was a mandressed as a cowpuncher from belt to spurs--spurs on a miner--but abovethe waist he blossomed in a frock coat and a silk hat. Around the coathe had fastened his belt, and the shirt beneath the coat was commonflannel, open at the throat. He walked, or rather staggered, on the armof an equally strange companion who was arrayed in a white silk shirt,white flannel trousers, white dancing pumps, and a vast sombrero! But asif this was not sufficient protection for his head, he carried a parasolof the most brilliant green silk and twirled it above his head. The twoheld a wavering course and went blindly past Donnegan.
It was sufficiently clear that the storekeeper had followed the gold.
He noted a cowboy sitting in his saddle while he rolled a cigarette.Obviously he had come in to look things over rather than to share in themining, and he made the one sane, critical note in the carnival of noiseand color. Donnegan began to pass stores. There was the jeweler's; thegent's furnishing; a real estate office--what could real estate be doingon the Young Muddy's desert? Here was the pawnshop, the windows of whichwere already packed. The blacksmith had a great establishment, and theroar of the anvils never died away; feed and grain and a dozenlunch-counter restaurants. All this had come to The Corner within sixweeks.
Liquor seemed to be plentiful, too. In the entire length of the streethe hardly saw a sober man, except the cowboy. Half a dozen in one grouppitched silver dollars at a mark. But he was in the saloon district now,and dominant among the rest was the big, unpainted front of a buildingbefore which hung an enormous sign:
LEBRUN'S JOY EMPORIUM
Donnegan turned in under the sign.
It was one big room. The bar stretched completely around two sides ofit. The floor was dirt, but packed to the hardness of wood. The low roofwas supported by a scattering of wooden pillars, and across the floorthe gaming tables were spread. At that vast bar not ten men weredrinking now; at the crowding tables there were not half a dozenplayers; yet behind the bar stood a dozen tenders ready to meet theevening rush from the mines. And at the tables waited an equal number ofthe professional gamblers of the house.
From the door Donnegan observed these things with one sweeping glance,and then proceeded to transform himself. One jerk at the visor of hiscap brought it down over his eyes and covered his face with shadow; asingle shrug bunched the ragged coat high around his shoulders, and theshoulders themselves he allowed to drop forward. With his hands in hispockets he glided slowly across the room toward the bar, for all theworld a picture of the guttersnipe who had been kicked from pillar topost until self-respect is dead in him. And pausing in his advance, heleaned against one of the pillars and looked hungrily toward the bar.
He was immediately hailed from behind the bar with: "Hey, you. No trampsin here. Pay and stay in Lebrun's!"
The command brought an immediate protest. A big fellow stepped from thebar, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, his shirt sleevesrolled to the elbow away from vast hairy forearms. One of his long armsswept out and brought Donnegan to the bar.
"I ain't no prophet," declared the giant, "but I can spot a man that'sdry. What'll you have, bud?" And to the bartender he added: "Leave himbe, pardner, unless you're all set for considerable noise in here."
"Long as his drinks are paid for," muttered the bartender, "here hestays. But these floaters do make me tired!"
He jabbed the bottle across the bar at Donnegan and spun a glass noisilyat him, and the "floater" observed the angry bartender with a frightenedside glance, and then poured his drink gingerly. When the glass was halffull he hesitated and sought the face of the bartender again, forpermission to go on.
"Fill her up!" commanded the giant. "Fill her up, lad, and drinkhearty."
"I never yet," observed the bartender darkly, "seen a beggar that wasn'ta hog."
At this Donnegan's protector shifted his belt so that the holster came alittle more forward on his thigh.
"Son," he said, "how long you been in these parts?"
"Long enough," declared the other, and lowered his black brows. "Longenough to be sick of it."
"Maybe, maybe," returned the cowpuncher-miner, "meantime you tie tothis. We got queer ways out here. When a gent drinks with us he's ourfriend. This lad here is my pardner, just now. If I was him I would ofknocked your head off before now for what you've said--"
"I don't want no trouble," Donnegan said whiningly.
At this the bartender chuckled, and the miner showed his teeth in hisdisgust.
"Every gent has got his own way," he said sourly. "But while you drinkwith Hal Stern you drink with your chin up, bud. And don't forget it.And them that tries to run over you got to run over me."
Saying this, he laid his large left hand on the bar and leaned a littletoward the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at hisside. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender,having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlilyaway. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definitionof the word, skunk?"
"Nope," said Donnegan, brightening now that the stern eye, of thebartender was turned away.
"Here's one that might do. A skunk is a critter that bites when yourback is turned and runs when you look it in the eye. Here's how!"
He drained his own glass, and Donnegan dexterously followed the example.
"And what might you be doing around these parts?" asked the big man,veiling his contempt under a mild geniality.
"Me? Oh, nothing."
"Looking for a job, eh?"
Donnegan shrugged.
"Work ain't my line," he confided.
"H'm-m-m," said Hal Stern. "Well, you don't make no bones about it."
"But just now," continued Donnegan, "I thought maybe I'd pick up somesort of a job for a while." He looked ruefully at the palms of his handswhich were as tender as the hands of a woman. "Heard a fellow say thatJack Landis was a good sort to work for--didn't rush his men none. Theysaid I might find him here."
The big man grunted.
"Too early for him. He don't circulate around much till the sun goesdown. Kind of hard on his skin, the sun, maybe. So you're going to workfor him?"
"I was figuring on it."
"Well, tie to this, bud. If you work for him you won't have him overyou."
"No?"
"No, you'll have"--he glanced a little uneasily around him--"Lord Nick."
"Who's he?"
"Who's he?" The big man started in astonishment. "Sufferin' catamounts!Who is he?" He laughed in a disagreeable manner. "Well, son, you'llfind out, right enough!"
"The way you talk, he don't sound none too good."
Hal Stern grew anxious. "The way I talk? Have I said anything agin' him?Not a word! He's--he's--well, there ain't ever been trouble between usand there never ain't going to be." He flushed and looked steadily atDonnegan. "Maybe he sent you to talk to me?" he asked coldly.
But Donnegan's eyes took on a childish wideness.
"Why, I never seen him," he declared. Hall Ster
n allowed the muscles ofhis face to relax. "All right," he said, "they's no harm done. But LordNick is a name that ain't handled none too free in these here parts.Remember that!"
"But how," pondered Donnegan, "can I be working for Lord Nick when Isign up to work under Jack Landis?"
"I'll tell you how. Nick and Lebrun work together. Split profits. AndNelly Lebrun works Landis for his dust. So the stuff goes in acircle--Landis to Nelly to Lebrun to Nick. That clear?"
"I don't quite see it," murmured Donnegan.
"I didn't think you would," declared the other, and snorted his disgust."But that's all I'm going to say. Here come the boys--and dead dry!"
For the afternoon was verging upon evening, and the first drift oflaborers from the mines was pouring into The Corner. One thing at leastwas clear to Donnegan: that everyone knew how infatuated Landis hadbecome with Nelly Lebrun and that Landis had not built up anextraordinarily good name for himself.