CHAPTER XV
MOCHA AND JAVA
Old Heck and Skinny had left Ophelia and Carolyn June at the OccidentalHotel, where a room was reserved by Old Heck for the use of the twowomen during the Rodeo. They had then gone direct to Mike Sabota's placefor the express purpose of running into Dorsey and his crowd. Old Heckknew that if any large bets were to be laid on the two-mile sweepstakesthe only chance would be to place them before the Ramblin' Kid broughtthe Gold Dust maverick to Eagle Butte and the Vermejo bunch discoveredthe identity of the horse Thunderbolt was up against.
The Quarter Circle KT cow-men stepped into the pool-room at exactly theinstant most favorable for their purpose.
Dorsey had made his boast in the presence of a crowd.
He would hardly dare back up without covering, at least to someworth-while extent, his words with his money.
For a full minute Old Heck drilled Dorsey with a look such, as a hounddog might have in his eyes after he has cornered a coyote and pausesbefore he springs.
Instinctively the crowd stepped back from the two cattlemen while adeath-like hush fell over the place.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid don't need to back the filly with his money, Dorsey,"Old Heck said slowly and in a voice audible in every part of the room;"I'm here to back her with mine! You've done a lot of talking--now,damn you, cover your chatter with coin or shut up!" the end of thesentence coming like the crack of a whip.
With a nervous laugh the Vermejo cattleman jerked a wallet from hispocket.
"Here's a thousand that says Thunderbolt does the same thing to theRamblin' Kid's filly that he done to Quicksilver!" Dorsey snapped.
Old Heck threw back his head and laughed scornfully.
"A thousand? I thought you were a sport, Dorsey!" he sneered. "Matchthis," he continued, reaching for his check-book and fountain pen andquickly filling out a check payable to "Cash" for ten thousand dollars,which he laid on the hardwood bar. "Match that, or admit you're a cheap,loud-howlin' bluffer!"
Dorsey paused just an instant as he noted the amount of the check.
"I'll match it!" he exclaimed, flushing angrily, drawing his owncheck-book from his pocket, and then, carried away by his passionadded, throwing down the bars completely as Old Heck had hoped he would,"and go with you to the end of the trail!"
"Good!" Old Heck laughed, "now you are talking like a sport! Let's see,"he added calculatingly, "how many Y-Bar cattle do you figure you've gotrunning on the Vermejo range--five thousand?"
"There's that many," Dorsey started to say.
"Call it fifty-five hundred!" Old Heck flung at him. "Steer for steer,cow for cow, hoof for hoof--I'll put Quarter Circle KT critters againstevery brute you own that th' Ramblin' Kid lands his horse tinder thewire ahead of Thunderbolt!"
Dorsey paled, then a purple-red of fury spread over his neck and face,and with an oath he cried:
"I'll call you!"
Bills of sale were drawn and turned over to Judge Ivory, to bedelivered, after the race, to the winner.
"Now," Old Heck said with a hard laugh, "maybe you'd like to own theQuarter Circle KT ranch, Dorsey? It's worth twice as much as yourVermejo holdings but I'll just give you that percentage of odds and callit an even bet that your black stallion don't outrun the little animalth' Ramblin' Kid has entered in the sweepstakes!"
But Dorsey did not answer except with a muttered: "Hell, a man's crazythat--" He had gone his limit. He had suddenly come to his senses andgrown suspicious.
Before Skinny and Old Heck left the pool-room the former managed to geta bet of five hundred dollars with Sabota.
The next afternoon the Ramblin' Kid rode into Eagle Butte on CaptainJack. By his side he led the Gold Dust maverick. The noise and confusionin the streets filled the mare with nervousness and she crowded closelyagainst the little roan stallion. Before he got the outlaw filly to thestables a half dozen cowboys had recognized the Cimarron maverick.Within an hour Dorsey and Sabota knew the identity of the Ramblin' Kid'sentry in the big race that was to be run Friday afternoon and which wasthe big and closing event of the Rodeo.
The Greek was furious.
Wednesday night he called "Gyp" Streetor, a carnival tout, who had onetime been a jockey but was ruled off the track for crooked work and wasnow picking up "easies" at the Eagle Butte Rodeo, into a side room ofthe Amusement Parlor.
For half an hour the two talked earnestly and furtively.
"Nothin' doin'--absolutely nothin'!" the tout finally said in reply tosome suggestion of Sabota's. "That Captain Jack horse would murder anyman but th' Ramblin' Kid that tried to get in the stall--"
"Well, by hell!" the Greek exclaimed, clenching his hairy fists, whilehis mouth twitched with passion, "that filly's got to be kept out of thesweepstakes someway or other--"
"You can't get to her, I tell you," Gyp said sullenly, then with a lookof cunning suddenly coming into his eyes: "They say she's a one-manbrute like the stallion--nobody can ride her but th' Ramblin' Kid,"significantly looking at Sabota. "If you could--but he don't drink!"
The Greek laughed.
"There are other ways!" he said. "He eats, don't he? Listen: To-morrowand Friday you take that 'sandwich and coffee' run at the stables--"referring to the concession to peddle lunch stuff among the horsemen whoseldom left their charges, a concession which Sabota, with otherprivileges, had purchased the right to operate. "Th' Ramblin' Kid eatsoff the trays--it will be your business to see that he ain't feelingwell when the sweepstakes is called! I'll get the 'pills' for youto-night--"
"No killin', Sabota!" Gyp warned.
"Just enough to put him out for an hour or two!" the Greek answered.
Wednesday night the Ramblin' Kid slept in the stall with the Gold Dustmaverick and Captain Jack. Thursday he remained close to the horses.Thursday night he again slept on a pile of hay in one corner of thebox-compartment. Under no circumstances would he leave the animals.Occasionally Parker or some of the Quarter Circle KT cowboys came downto the stables.
Each night Old Heck and Skinny, with Carolyn June and Ophelia, after theevening program was concluded, drove out to the ranch in the Clagstone"Six," returning early the following day.
Friday forenoon Old Heck drove the car down to the stall in whichCaptain Jack and the Gold Dust maverick were confined. The two horseswere standing, side by side, with their heads out of the door, the upperhalf of which was swung back. The Ramblin' Kid leaned against the doorat the side of the horses.
To Carolyn June he looked tired and worn.
"How's the filly?" Old Heck asked, as the outlaw mare sprang back awayfrom the door when the car stopped.
"She's all right."
"Hadn't you ought to exercise her?" Skinny asked.
"She don't need it," the Ramblin' Kid replied with a note of wearinessin his voice. "She'll get enough exercise this afternoon!"
"You're all right, yourself, are you?" Old Heck asked a bit anxiously.
"Of course I'm all right," was the rather impatient reply. "Don't beuneasy," he added with a laugh; "--th' filly'll be in th' race an' beatold Thunderbolt!"
"Good luck!" Carolyn June cried, as Old Heck turned the car about andstarted back toward the grandstand.
"Good luck!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered to himself, watching the car asit whirled away. "Ign'rant, savage, stupid brute!" he repeated bitterly,then with a queer smile in which was a world of tenderness he pulled thepink satin elastic garter he had picked up at the circular corral, fromhis pocket and looked at it long and wistfully. "Good luck?" heexclaimed again questioningly. "Well, maybe that little jigger'll bringit!" and he slipped the band back in his pocket.
"Th' Ramblin' Kid acts like he's got the blues this morning," Skinnysaid as the Clagstone "Six" rolled away from the stables. "He looks tome like a feller that's in just the right humor to get on a whale of adrunk--"
"That's one thing about him you can depend on," Old Heck broke in, "--henever poisons himself with liquor. That's why when he says he'll doanything you can bet all you've got
he'll do it!"
"Well, if he ever does break loose," Skinny retorted, "it'll be suddenand wild!"
"Probably," Old Heck replied as though there wasn't the slightest dangerof such an eventuality.
That morning Gyp purposely avoided going as far, with his stock ofprovisions, as the stall in which were Captain Jack and the Gold Dustmaverick. Nor did he come with his lunch tray and tin pot of coffeeuntil nearly one o'clock.
The Ramblin' Kid had no breakfast. To secure it he would have beenrequired to leave the horses. That he would not do. Of course he mighthave told Old Heck or Skinny to bring or send him something, but he didnot feel inclined to mention, in the presence of Carolyn June andOphelia, that he was hungry. Anyhow, well, they were having a good timeand what was the use of bothering them?
When Gyp finally came with the lunch the Ramblin' Kid was outside thestall and had walked a little way up the stable street. Captain Jack andthe filly were in a compartment at the end of the string of stalls. Theone next to it, back toward the grandstand, was unoccupied, andadjoining that was a hay room. Gyp stopped opposite the open door of thecompartment in which the bales of hay and straw were piled. He paused amoment and turned as if to go back.
"Hold on there!" the Ramblin' Kid called to him. "What you tryin' to do?Starve me to death?"
"D' last thing I'd want to do, Bo!" Gyp laughed good-naturedly. "Did Imiss you this mornin'? Here, come inside where I can set this bloomin'junk down on a bale of hay for a minute an' I'll fix you up!"
The Ramblin' Kid followed Gyp into the stall.
The tout stooped over, with his back to the other, and slipped a capsulecontaining a white powder into a coffee cup which he filled quickly withthe black liquid from the tin pot he carried. He handed the cup to theRamblin' Kid. The latter took it and sat down on a bale of hay lyingopposite. The coffee was just hot enough to melt, instantly, the capsuleand not too warm to drink at once. The Ramblin' Kid was thirsty as wellas hungry. Lifting the cup to his lips, while Gyp, fumbling for asandwich, watched him furtively, he drained it without stopping.
"That's--what was in that?'" he asked, eying the tout keenly. "It tasteslike--!"
"Just good old Mocha an' Java!" Gyp interrupted lightly. "Maybe it's alittle strong. Here, take another one!" reaching for the cup.
The Ramblin' Kid started to hand the cup to Gyp to be refilled--a queernumbness swept over him--the cup fell from his hand--he swayed--tensedhis body in an effort to get up--mumbled thickly:
"What th'--what th'--?"
The tout backed away toward the door, crouching like a cat ready tospring, his beady eyes half-frightened, watching the poison deaden thefaculties of the other. He leaped through the door, glanced up and downthe stable street--deserted at that hour except for a few drowsyattendants lounging in front of their stalls--jerked the door shut,hooked the open padlock through the iron fastenings, snapped its jawstogether and muttered, as he hurried away:
"I guess that guy won't ride the Gold Dust maverick in any two-milesweepstakes to-day!"
As the door slammed shut the Ramblin' Kid pitched forward, unconscious,on the bale of hay.