He jerked his hat down to his eyebrows and struck Glory with the quirt;
but the trail he took was strange to Glory and he felt impelled to stop
and argue--as only Glory could argue--with his master. Minutes passed
tumultuously, with nothing accomplished save some weird hoof-prints in
the sod. Eventually, however, Glory gave over trying to stand upon his
head and his hind feet at one and the same instant, and permitted
himself to be guided toward a certain tiny, low-eaved cabin in a meadow
just over the hill from the town.
Weary was not by nature given to burglary, but he wrenched open the
door of the cabin and went in with not a whisper of conscience to say
him nay. It was close and ill-smelling and very dirty inside, but
after the first whiff Weary did not notice it. He went over and
stopped before a little, old-fashioned chest; it was padlocked, so he
left that as a last resort and searched elsewhere for what he
wanted--medicine. Under the bed he found a flat, black case, such as
old-fashioned doctors carried. He drew it out and examined if
critically. This, also, was locked, but he shook it tentatively and
heard the faintest possible jingle inside.
"Bottles," he said briefly, and grinned satisfaction. Something
brushed against his hat and he looked up into a very dusty bunch of
herbs. "You too," he told them, breaking the string with one yank.
"For all I know, yuh might stand ace-high in this game. Lord! if I
could trade brains with the old devil, just for to-night!"
He took a last look around, decided that he had found all he wanted,
and went out and pulled the door shut. Then he tied the black medicine
case to the saddle in a way that would give it the least jar, stuffed
the bunch of dried herbs into his pocket and mounted for the homeward
race. As he did so the sun threw a red beam into his eyes as though
reminding him of the passing hours, and ducked behind the ridge which
bounds Lonesome Prairie on the east.
The afterglow filled sky and earth with a soft, departing radiance when
he stopped again in front of the saloon. Old Doc was still
gesticulating wildly, and the sheet of fly-paper still clung to the
back of his coat. The crowd had thinned somewhat and displayed less
interest; otherwise the situation had not changed, except that a pinto
pony stood meekly, with head drooping, at the hitching-pole.
"There's your horse," Rusty Brown called to Weary. "Yours played out?"
"Not on your life," Weary denied proudly. "When yuh see Glory played
out, you'll see him with four feet in the air."
"I seen him that way half an hour ago, all right," bantered Bert Rogers.
Weary passed over the joke. "Mamma! Has it been that long?" he cried
uneasily. "I've got to be moving some. Here, Dock, you put on that
coat--and never mind the label; it's got to go--and so have you."
"Aw, he's no good to yuh, Weary," they protested. "He's too drunk to
tell chloroform from dried apricots."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account