"SO you and your pa put your money in real estate up there in Kansas City when you sold your ranch, and them sharks cleaned you out, eh?"
"They scraped our bones, sir. But I paid out; I don't owe any man, livin' or dead, a cent—in anything that money will pay."
"No, I bet you don't, Texas. Well, I'm glad you give me the inside and straight of your history, for I'm more'n a little petic'lar who I interduce to Sallie McCoy."
"I'm glad to hear you say it, grandpa."
"Don't you 'grandpa' me, gol dern you! I ain't no man's grandpa!"
"No, sir, of course you're not, sir."
"But I may be before I die. I ain't so danged used up as some men of forty-seven I could name."
"Nor some of thirty-five, I bet you a purty, sir."
Well, I can hold up my end of the log along with most of 'em. They all call me Uncle Boley around here, but I ain't nobody's uncle, neither. I don't mind that; I've known boys of ten that was uncles. You can set in young bein' a uncle, and keep it up as long as you live."
"Yes, sir; you sure enough can, sir."
They were back in Uncle Boley's shop, and the old man was smoking his pipe, the day's work being done. Uncle Boley had insisted that Texas accept the boots from him as an appreciation of the pleasure the afternoon's adventures had given him. The old man said he didn't think it was quite decent for a gentleman to go around in shoes, for a person couldn't tell where his body ended and his legs began in that foot-gear.
Texas had accepted the gift gratefully, and now he sat with his feet crossed, with something in his eyes that looked like pride to Uncle Boley, as he regarded the neat insteps and handsomely quilted tops.
"Have you got a gun, Texas?" The old man turned a shrewd eye on him, his pipestem stayed two inches from his mouth.
"No, sir, I haven't got a gun right now."
The old man smoked a little while, a look of wise contemplation in his benevolent face.
"Yes, I'd git one right away to-night if I was you. Mebbe two."
"Do you suppose I'll have any urgent need for a gun, sir?"
"Well, Texas, I wouldn't be surprised if you did. Do you know who that feller you larruped was?"
"No, sir, I didn't stop to inquire his name."
"He was Johnnie Mackey, mayor of this town, and owner of the biggest gamblin' house and dance-house-saloon here."
Texas received the information with unmoved countenance. He sat staring out into the street, his legs stretched comfortably in his new boots, as if what he had heard was the lightest of incidental gossip. Uncle Boley watched him covertly, turning his sly old eyes. He liked the way Texas took it; that was a mighty good sign of a man.
"Well, sir, I reckon I had better buy me a gun," Texas said at last, very softly.
Uncle Boley nodded, and smoked on. It was past sunset, and with the cool of the day a freshness had come that invigorated man and beast, and stiffened the drooping leaves of plantain and burdock like a shower.
People were beginning to stir about in numbers surprising compared to the somnolence that had prevailed over Cottonwood when Texas arrived. Some went by with a look of drowsiness about them, as if they had just roused from sleep and were out foraging supper, and these Texas knew by their marks for gamblers and game-tenders, saloon employees and the dusty butterflies wihch flitted under the dance-hall lamps.
Cowboys were trooping in from long rides, others were setting out for their distant ranches. All was astir with a picturesque life that transformed the poor streets, and turned the plank "palaces" and "casinos" into places of romance and mystery.
"Yes, sir, this was a purty decent town till about two weeks ago, a place where every man got a square deal and a show for his money, but it ain't that way any more."
"What happened to change it, sir, if I may ask?"
"Oh, we had a 'lection."
"Sure enough you did; I just bet you did!"
"We put that feller—well, I didn't have no hand in it—Mackey in for mayor, and a wall-eyed lightheel in for marshal, turned Dee Winch out to give him the job, and them two they've shut up everything in town they ain't got a hand in or a rakeoff on of some kind."
"You could expect it of Mackey, sir. He's a houn'-dog from the rattlesnake hills by the look he wears in his face."
"It's all cow trade in this place, for Cottonwood's a cow town, and you know what it takes to draw cowboys and that kind. It takes noise and show and fiddlin' and singin'. Up to a week ago we had two big dance halls, Jud Springer's and Mackey's. Both of 'em had bands fiddlin' till the mayor up and ordered the aldermen to pass a law forbiddin' music in places where liquor was sold. The marshal he went right down and stopped Jud's music, and the fiddlers and tooters all got a job playin' for the mayor. Of course he wouldn't put the law to his own place."
"So the business all went there, followin' after the music, which is very natural," Texas said.
"Yes, mostly. But Jud he got three or four musicians together and went ahead, and then the mayor sent a gang of gun-slingers down there and pitched everybody out and locked the door with a padlock and chain. They took Jud to the depot and told him to light out of here on the first train that stopped, and Jud he went. I don't know what he's goin' to do about it, but I know he ain't through. Jud ain't that kind of a man."
"I would hope not, sir."
"So you see what kind of a feller Mackey is. You was kind of takin' chances when you laid that rawhide to that scamp, but I glory in what you done. Yes, if I was in your place, Texas, I believe I'd git me a couple of guns."
"Yes, sir, I don't know but what I will, sir."
Uncle Boley went into the back room, which was his parlor, kitchen and bedroom all together, and came back with a revolver and belt. He sat with the belt over his knee, the big weapon in its chafed holster resting on the floor, saying nothing at all about it for a good many minutes. He seemed to be considering something, his hand on the leather in a touch like a caress.
"Here's a gun, Texas, that a friend of mine used to pack, the best man I ever knew, and the best friend I ever had. He died with it on him, and his widder give it to me. Just feel the weight of that gun, will you?"
"It is a man's gun, sir," said Texas, drawing it from the holster with hand that told it was no stranger to such an operation.
"That gun belonged to Ed McCoy, Sallie McCoy's father. He died with it on him; the man that killed him never give him a show to use it."
"Miss Sallie is an orphan, then?"
"Half orphant; her mother's livin'. They've got the best house in Cottonwood, and the purtiest place, but that's all they have got. Yes, sir, Sallie she needed the money them fellers beat her out of to-day; it'd 'a' been like a rain in a drouth to them. I don't suppose anything else but the need of it'd 'a' drove Sallie to go out there in public and take a hand in that ropin'. She's a lady, that girl, is, from the heels up."
"It's a scan'lous shame that she was beaten out of it! Do you suppose she'd accept—"
"I s'pose she'd claw a mile of hide off of your skelp if you was to mention acceptin' money to her!"
"As payment for the use of her horse, sir," Texas explained, his homely face burning from the old man's vehement correction.
"She'll git on till school opens. She's got a job for then, the first she ever was obliged to take. When Ed was alive they wallered in money, and they'd 'a' had plenty to last 'em all their lives if they'd 'a' got a square deal. They was beat out of a lot of money; I'll tell you how it was.
"Ed McCoy was the man that started this town. He was the first man that ever drove a herd of cattle up from Texas to load here, and he done it when other cowmen said it couldn't be done and come out on it. He made a pile of money at it the first few years, but when them Texas cattle begun to spread the fever up here, and the cowmen on this range got to kickin', Ed he quit drivin' and started up the cattle business with a man name of Henry Stott, a kind of a half-breed Dutchman with eyes in his head like a hog.
"Well, sir, a drouth hit us here about three years ago and nearly cleaned up this range, and McCoy and Stott they bought at their own price right and left. All the money Ed had went into stock. They must 'a' had five or six thousand head that fall when the rains set in and the grass popped up. It looked like the biggest thing Ed ever had done, for he was the brains of it; Stott wasn't nothing but the guts.
"Well, sir, they found Ed McCoy dead out there on the prairie one day that fall, shot through the back of the head. Stott was away in Kansas City with a shipment, and it never has been found out who done that low-down job. Anyhow, to cut it off short, when it come to arrangin' and settlin' up what Ed left, by golly it come to pass he didn't leave nothin' but the house here in Cottonwood. No, sir, Henry Stott he brought out a note showin' Ed owed him sixty thousand dollars, borrowed money.
"All signed up by Ed, and all as straight as a die, the lawyers said. But the widder and Sallie they didn't have no track of that money, didn't know anything about the deal. What did Ed do with it if he got it? Gambled it off, some said. Well, I know better; Ed never set foot in a gamblin' house as long as I knew him, and that was back in Mezoury twenty years before I come out here."
"But the money was gone, sir?"
"It was gone if it ever was paid in, son. I tell you, as I've told many a man face to face, and as I've told that hog-eyed Henry Stott face to face, it never was paid. That note was either a forgery, or else it was signed by Ed for something else and filled in after he was dead. Sallie and her ma brought suit, but the court upheld Stott, and that ended it, I guess, till the judgment day. But Ed like to see Henry Stott's face when he stands up before the throne! My-y-y Lord, I'd like to see that dam' Dutchman's face!"
"Is he still around here?"
"Yes, he's here, as big as a stuffed buzzard. He's got a bank down on the corner of the square, and money to burn. But he don't burn any of it, nor hand any of it out where it belongs, as fur as anybody ever saw. And this here's pore old Ed's gun. It never was drawed except in the right, and it never was put back in the leather without honor. It'd be a credit to any man to pack that gun."
"It sure would be, sir."
"Yes, and I'm keepin' it by me chancin' I may be called on to go out and use it one of these days. I'm the man of that family now, you might say, though I ain't no kin. I can shoot, too, I can sling a gun as quick as any man of forty-seven you can name!"
Texas was looking across the street at four men who had come lounging along the plank sidewalk throwing inquiring glances toward the little shop, talking among themselves in low voices. They were all too cautious and watchful for ordinary business or pleasure, something suppressed and alert about them which told Texas at once that they were looking for him.
At the angle that he was looking through the door Uncle Boley could not see them. He started when Texas drew his feet back and sat up stiffly, seeming to grow several inches as his muscles set to meet the emergency of life or death which he knew he should soon be called upon to face. He believed the gang that had been sent out to hunt him had not seen him yet. He got up and stood aside a little from the open door.
"What's the matter?" Uncle Boley inquired, leaning to see.
Texas motioned silently toward the street, his eyes on Ed McCoy's gun with a flame in them such as burns from a man's soul when he rises to the sublimest heights of courage. He felt that his hour had come, but he was ready.
"It's the mayor's gang—they're after you!" the old man said.
Texas reached out for the revolver. Uncle Boley strapped the belt round the waist of his new-found friend, his hands trembling in the strain of the situation.
"Go out the back door—I'll hold 'em here till you're gone!" he said.
"You mean for me to run, sir?"
"Well no, Texas, I don't mean for you to just run. But they's four of them fellers, and ever' one of 'em's—"
"If there were forty of them, sir, you couldn't ask me to run!"
The old man looked at him, a mist coming into his quick blue eyes.
"No, I couldn't even throw a hint, Texas."
Texas tightened the belt, snapped out the gun, changed the cartridges, working so fast that the old man gasped in admiration. He smiled, and held out his hand to Uncle Boley.
"I wish to thank you for your many kindnesses to me, a stranger in your door, sir," he said. His voice was as light and steady, his eyes as eager, as if he was about to mount his horse and ride away on some pleasant adventure.
Uncle Boley pressed the young stranger's hand—a stranger grown suddenly as dear to him as a son returned from his far wanderings—and Texas turned with quick step and passed out into the street.