CHAPTER XIV
LIFTING A CACHE
The Prouty barber lathering the face of a customer, after the manner ofa man whitewashing a chicken coop, paused on an upward stroke to listen.Then he stepped to the door, looked down the street, and nodded inconfirmation. After which he returned, laid down his brush, and pinnedon a nickel badge, which act transformed him into the town constable.
The patron in the chair, a travelling salesman, watched the pantomimewith interest.
"One moment, please." The barber-officer excused himself and stepped outto the edge of the sidewalk, where he awaited the approach of a pair onhorseback who were making the welkin ring with a time-honoured ballad ofthe country:
I'm a howler from the prairies of the West. If you want to die with terror, look at me. I'm chain-lightnin'----
As they came abreast the constable held out his hand and the pairautomatically laid six-shooters in it and went on without stopping intheir song:
--if I ain't, may I be blessed. I'm a snorter of the boundless, lone prairee.
Other citizens than the barber recognized the voices, and frowned orsmiled as happened, among whom was Mr. Tucker repairing a sofa in therear of his "Second-Hand Store."
Returning, the constable laid the six-shooters on the shelf among theshaving mugs and removed his badge.
"Who's that?" inquired the patron, since the barber offered noexplanation.
"Oh, them toughs--'Gentle Annie' Macpherson and 'Pinkey' Fripp," was theanswer in a wearied tone. "I hate to see 'em come to town."
The pair continued to warble on their way to the livery barn on a sidestreet:
I'm the double-jawed hyena from the East. I'm the blazing, bloody blizzard of the States. I'm the celebrated slugger----
The song stopped as Pinkey asked:
"Shall we work together or separate?"
To this mysterious question Wallie replied:
"Let's try it together first."
After attending personally to the matter of feeding their horses oats,the two set forth with the air of having a definite purpose.
Their subsequent actions confirmed it, for they approached diverspersons of their acquaintance as if they had business of a confidentialnature. The invariable result of these mysterious negotiations, however,was a negative shake of the head.
After another obvious failure Pinkey said gloomily:
"If I put in half the time and thought trying to be a Senator that I dofiggerin' how to git a bottle, I'd be elected."
Wallie replied hopefully:
"Something may turn up yet."
"I'd lift a cache from a preacher! I'd steal booze off my blind aunt!I'd----"
"We'll try some more 'prospects' before we give up. It's many monthssince I've gone out of town sober and I don't like to establish aprecedent. I'm superstitious about things like that," said Wallie.
At this unquestionably psychological moment Mr. Tucker beckoned themfrom his doorway. They responded with such alacrity that their gaitapproached a trot, although they had no particular reason to believethat it was his intention to offer them a drink. It was merely a hopeborn of their thirst.
Their reputation was such, however, that any one who wished todemonstrate his friendship invariably evidenced it in this way, takingcare, in violation of the ethics of bygone days, to do the pouringhimself.
Mr. Tucker winked elaborately when he invited them in, and Wallie andPinkey exchanged eloquent looks as they followed him to his Land Officein the rear of the store.
Inside, he locked the door and lowered the shade of the single windowwhich looked out on an areaway. No explanation was necessary as he tooka hatchet and pried up a plank. This accomplished, he reached under thefloor and produced a tin cup and a two-gallon jug.
He filled it with a fluid of an unfamiliar shade and passed it toPinkey, who smelled it and declared that he could drink anything thatwas wet. Wallie watched him eagerly as it gurgled down his throat.
"Well?" Mr. Tucker waited expectantly for the verdict.
Pinkey wiped his mouth.
"Another like that and I could watch my mother go down for the thirdtime and laugh!"
"Where did you get it?" Wallie in turn emptied the cup and passed itback.
"S-ss-sh!" Mr. Tucker looked warningly at the door. "I made itmyself--brown sugar and raisins. You like it then?"
"If I had about 'four fingers' in a wash-tub every half hour---- Whatwould you hold a quart of that at?" Pinkey leaned over the opening inthe floor and sniffed.
Mr. Tucker hastily replaced the plank and declared:
"Oh, I wouldn't dast! I jest keep a little on hand for my particularfriends that I can trust. By the way, Mr. Macpherson, what are you goin'to do with that homestead you took up?"
"Hold it. Why?"
"I thought I might run across a buyer sometime and I wondered what youasked."
A hardness came into Wallie's face and Tucker added:
"I wasn't goin' to charge you any commission--you've had bad luckand----"
"You're the seventh philanthropist that's wanted to sell that place inmy behalf for about $400, because he was sorry for me," Wallieinterrupted, drily. "You tell Canby that when he makes me a decent offerI'll consider it."
"No offence--no offence, I hope?" Tucker protested.
"Oh, no." Wallie shrugged his shoulder. "Only don't keep getting memixed with the chap that took up that homestead. I've had my eyeteethcut."
Extending an invitation to call and quench their thirsts with hisraisinade when next they came to town, Tucker unlocked the door.
After the two had wormed their way through the bureaus and stoves andwere once more in the street, they turned and gave each other a long,inquiring look.
"Pink," demanded Wallie, solemnly, "did you smell anything when heraised that plank?"
"Did I smell anything! Didn't you see me sniff? That joker has got acache of the real stuff and he gave us raisinade! I couldn't git ananswer from a barrel of that. He couldn't have insulted us worse if he'dslapped our faces."
"A man ought to be punished that would do a wicked thing like that."
"You've said somethin', Gentle Annie."
The two looked at each other in an understanding that was beautiful andcomplete.
The behaviour of the visitors was nearly too good to be true--it was soexemplary, in fact, as to be suspicious, and acting upon this theory,the barber closed his shop early, pinned on his badge of office, andfollowed them about. But when at ten o'clock they had broken nothing,quarrelled with nobody, and drunk only an incredible quantity of sodapop, he commenced to think he had been wrong.
At eleven, when they were still in a pool-hall playing "solo" for a centa chip, he decided to go home. There he confided to his wife that nomore striking example of the benefits of prohibition had come under hisobservation than the conduct of this notorious pair who, when sober,were well mannered and docile as lambs.
It was twelve or thereabouts when two figures crept stealthily up thealley behind Mr. Tucker's Second-Hand Store and raised the windowlooking out on the areaway. As noiselessly as trained burglars theypried up the plank and investigated by the light of a match.
"Well, what do you think of that!"
"I feel like somebody had died and left me a million dollars!" saidPinkey in an awed tone, reaching for a tin cup. "I didn't think they wasanybody in the world as mean as Tucker."
"You mustn't get too much," Wallie admonished, noting the size of thedrink Pinkey was pouring for himself.
"I've never had too much. I may have had enough, but never too much,"Pinkey grinned. "I don't take no int'rest in startin' less'n a quart."
"I hope he'll have the decency to be ashamed of himself when he findsout we know what he did to us. I shouldn't think he'd want to look us inthe face," Wallie declared, virtuously.
"He won't git a chanst to look in my face for some time to come if wekin lift this cache."
Together they filled the grain sack the
y had brought and carefullyreplaced the plank, then, staggering under the weight of the load, madetheir way to a gulch, buried the sack, and marked the hiding-place witha stone. With a righteous sense of having acted as instruments ofProvidence in punishing selfishness, they returned to town to followsuch whims as seized them under the stimulus of a bottle of Mr. Tucker'sexcellent Bourbon.
The constable had been asleep for hours when a yell--a series ofyells--made him sit up. He listened a moment, then with a sigh ofresignation got up, dressed, and took the key of the calaboose from itsnail by the kitchen sink.
"I'll lock 'em up and be right back," he said to his sleepy wife, whoseemed to know whom he meant too well to ask.
Under the arc light in front of the Prouty House he found them doing theIndian "stomp" dance to the delight of the guests who were leaning fromtheir windows to applaud.
"Ain't you two ashamed of yerselves?" the constable demanded,scandalized--referring to the fact that Pinkey and Wallie had divestedthemselves of their trousers and boots and were dancing in theirstocking feet.
"Ashamed?" Wallie asked, impudently. "Where have I heard that word?"
"Who sold liquor to you two?"
"I ate a raisin and it fermented," Wallie replied, pertly.
"Where's your clothes?" To Pinkey.
"How'sh I know?"
"You two ought to be ordered to keep out of town. You're pests. Comealong!"
"Jus' waitin' fer you t'put us t'bed," said Pinkey, cheerfully.
The two lurched beside the constable to the calaboose, where theydropped down on the hard pads and temporarily passed out.
The sun was shining in Wallie's face when he awoke and realized where hewas. He and Pinkey had been there too many times before not to know. Ashe lay reading the pencilled messages and criticisms of theaccommodation left on the walls by other occupants he subconsciouslymarvelled at himself that he should have no particular feeling of shameat finding himself in a cell.
He was aware that it was accepted as a fact that he had gone to the bad.He had been penurious as a miser until he had saved enough from hiswages as a common cowhand to buy his homestead outright from the State.After that he had never saved a cent, on the contrary, he was usuallyoverdrawn. He gambled, and lost no opportunity to get drunk, since hecalculated that he got more entertainment for his money out of that thananything else, even at the "bootlegging" price of $20 per quart whichprevailed.
So he had drifted, learning in the meantime under Pinkey's tutelage toride and shoot and handle a rope with the best of them. Pinkey had leftthe Spenceley ranch and they were both employed now by the samecattleman.
He rarely saw Helene, in consequence, but upon the few occasions theyhad met in Prouty she had made him realize that she knew his reputationand disapproved of it. In the East she had mocked him for hisinoffensiveness, now she criticized him for the opposite. It was plain,he thought disconsolately, that he could not please her, yet it seemedto make no difference in his own feelings for her.
His face reddened as he recalled the boasts he had made upon severaloccasions and how far he had fallen short of fulfilling them. He wasgoing to "show" them, and now all he had to offer in evidence was 160acres gone to weeds and grasshoppers, his saddle, and the clothes hestood in.
It was not often that Wallie stopped to take stock, for it was anuncomfortable process, but his failure seemed to thrust itself upon himthis morning. He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in thecell adjoining and he began to grumble.
"Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it,"he said, crossly. "They go and throw every Tom, Dick, and Harry in thishere cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress."
"You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.
"I've paid enough in fines to build a cooler the size of this one, andlooks like I got a little somethin' comin' to me."
"I suppose they don't take that view of it," said Wallie, "but you mightspeak to the Judge this morning."
After a time Pinkey asked, yawning:
"What did we do last night? Was we fightin'?"
"I don't know--I haven't thought about it."
"I guess the constable will mention it," Pinkey observed, drily. "Hedoes, generally."
"Let's make a circle and go and have a look at my place," Walliesuggested. "It's not far out of the way and we might pick up a fewstrays in that country."
Pinkey agreed amiably and added:
"You'll prob'ly have the blues for a week after."
The key turning in the lock interrupted the conversation.
"You two birds get up. Court is goin' to set in about twenty minutes."The constable eyed them coldly through the grating.
"Where's my clothes?" Pinkey demanded, looking at the Law accusingly.
"How should I know?"
"I ain't no more pants than a rabbit!" Pinkey declared, astonished.
"Nor I!" said Wallie.
"You got all the clothes you had on when I put you here."
"How kin we go to court?"
"'Tain't fur."
"Everybody'll look at us," Pinkey protested.
The constable retorted callously:
"Won't many more see you than saw you last night doin' the stomp dancein Main Street."
"Did we do that?" Pinkey asked, startled.
"Sure--right in front of the Prouty House, and Helene Spenceley and alot of folks was lookin' out of the windows."
Wallie sat down on the edge of his cot weakly. That settled it! Hedoubted if she would ever speak to him.
"I've got customers waitin'," urged the constable, impatiently. "Wrap asoogan around you and step lively."
There was nothing to do but obey, in the circumstances, so theshame-faced pair walked the short block to a hardware store in the rearof which the Justice of the Peace was at his desk to receive them.
"Ten dollars apiece," he said, without looking up from his writing. "Andhalf an hour to get out of town."
Pinkey and Wallie looked at each other.
"The fact is, Your Honour," said the latter, ingratiatingly, "we havemislaid our trousers and left our money in the pockets. If you would beso kind as to loan us each a ten-spot until we have wages coming weshall feel greatly indebted to you."
The Court vouchsafed a glance at them. Showing no surprise at theirunusual costume, he said as he fumbled in the pocket of his waistcoat:
"Such gall as yours should not go unrewarded. You pay your debts, andthat's all the good I know of either of you. Now clear out--and if youshow up for a month the officer here is to arrest you."
He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with hisscratching.
"Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts,"I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridgebefore I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like'poor-boys-serge,' but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'mbusted."
"What's that?" Wallie asked, curiously.
"Denim," Pinkey explained, "overalls. That makes me think of a song afeller wrote up:
"A Texas boy in a Northern clime, With a pair of brown hands and a thin little dime. The southeast side of his overalls out-- _Yip-yip, I'm freezin' to death_!"
"That's a swell song," Pinkey went on enthusiastically. "I wish I couldthink of the rest of it."
"Don't overtax your brain--I've heard plenty. Let's cut down the alleyand in the back way of the Emporium. Oh!" He gripped his quilt insudden panic and looked for a hiding-place. Nothing better than atelegraph pole offered. He stepped behind it as Helene Spenceley passedin Canby's roadster.
"Did she see me?"
"Shore she saw you. You'd oughta seen the way she looked at you."
Wallie, who was too mortified and miserable for words over the incident,declared he meant never again to come to town and make a fool ofhimself.
"I know how you feel, but you'll git over it," said Pinkey,sympathetically. "It's no
thin' to worry about, for I doubt if you everhad any show anyhow."
Canby laughed disagreeably after they had passed the two on thesidewalk.
"That Montgomery-Ward cowpuncher has been drunk again, evidently," hecommented.
"I wouldn't call him that. I'm told he can rope and ride with any ofthem."
He looked at her quickly.
"You seem to keep track of him."
She replied bluntly:
"He interests me."
"Why?" curtly. Canby looked malicious as he added: "He's a fizzle."
"He'll get his second wind some day and surprise you."
"He will?" Canby replied, curtly. "What makes you think it?"
"His aunt is a rich woman, and he could go limping back if he wanted to;besides, he has what I call the 'makings'."
"He should feel flattered by your confidence in him," he answered,uncomfortably.
"He doesn't know it."
Canby said no more, but it passed through his mind that Wallie wouldnot, either, if there was a way for him to prevent it.