'Didn't you take for it?' asked the customer; and when the other sullenly nodded, 'then that makes it my whisky, don't it?--an' shorely a fella can do what he likes with his own.'
The barkeeper could not refute the argument; this cold-eyed, firm-jawed person was a very different proposition from the limp, drink-sodden bum he had so unceremoniously flung out a few hours before. Pushing forward a coin from the change lying before him, the cowboy poured himself another dose. This he also smelt, then took a mouthful, rolling the liquor around his tongue before finally spitting it out.
'You see, fella, it can be did,' he remarked to the astounded Jude. 'Of Man Booze can be beat. Yu wanta get yore think-box workin' an' reorganize yore ideas some. Sabe?'
He strolled casually out of the saloon, leaving an almost petrified bartender giving a lifelike impersonation of a newly-caught codfish. After a visit to the barber, Green purchased a new shirt and kerchief, which he donned in the room behind the store, and emerged looking and feeling a very different individual. There were still some hours of daylight remaining, and having nothing else to do, he sauntered along to the eastern end of the town, which was also the Mexican quarter. Passing a dumpy adobe building, which he rightly guessed to be a drinking dive, he heard his own tongue.
'Well, yu got me fixed. Go ahead an' finish it, yu scum.'
Noiselessly pushing open the swing-door he saw a curious sight. In the centre of the earthen floor a short, stout cow-puncher was standing, his gun out. In front of him, right and left, were two Mexicans with drawn knives. Behind him, leaning over the rough wooden bar, was another, an older man, who had a shotgun trained on the cowboy's back. Green entered just in time to see the hand of the fellow on the left flash up, and promptly fired. The bullet, shattering the thrower's elbow, spoiled his aim and sent the knife thudding into the front of the bar, where it quivered, winking wickedly in the sunlight.
'Drop it,' Green said sharply to the other knife expert, and when the weapon tinkled on the floor and its owner had frozen into immobility, he turned to the man at the bar. 'Push that gun over an' hoist yore paws, pronto!'
The command was obeyed with ludicrous promptitude. Green looked at the puncher.
'What's the trouble?' he asked.
'Friend, yo're as welcome as a fourth ace--these skunks shore had me cold,' was the reply. 'I was in here yestiddy, an' I don't just remember what happened. S'pose they hocussed my liquor. This mornin' I wakes up with a head like a balloon, way out on the desert under a mesquite, an' my roll was missin'. I walks in, an' nacherally calls to enquire. Bein' hoppin' mad, I don't look at my gun first; o' course, they'd drawed the shells an' if yu hadn't happened along I reckon I'd be tryin' to twang a harp about now. An' I never had no ear for music,' he finished whimsically.
'Which of 'em, would yu say, has yore mazuma?' Green asked.
'They was all here, but I'm guessin' the old piker has it--he's the boss, the other two are just relations,' the puncher explained.
Green looked at the proprietor. 'Ante up,' he said. 'If this hombre don't get his roll, I'll have to ask yore widow about it.'
' 'To be or not to be,' amigo,' grinned the little puncher, busy stuffing cartridges into his gun.
Green looked at him in surprise and then chuckled inwardly. The Mexican, his beady eyes full of hate, reached into a drawer beneath the bar and threw out a roll of bills secured by a rubber band, the while he jabbered a string of excuses. The senor had been seized with illness; he had taken care of the money lest the senor be robbed; it would have been returned in due course; it was only a joke...
'Yore brand o' humour'll get yu fitted with a wooden suit one o' these fine days,' Green grimly warned him, as he backed out of the door the puncher was holding ajar. They stood without for a moment, waiting, but there was no demonstration from the dive. As they turned up the street the rescued man said quietly:
'I'm obliged to yu.'
'Shucks! Nothin' to that,' Green returned hastily. 'I'm bettin' that, like myself, yo're a stranger hereabouts.'
'Yeah, drifted in coupla days back--just moseyin' round the country,' explained the other. 'I'm stayin' here; what about comin' in for a pow-wow?'
He had halted before an unpretentious log and shingle two-storey building, above the door of which a rudely- lettered board announced, 'Durley's Rest House. Good Food and Likker.' Green read the notice and smiled.
'I hope he cooks better'n he spells,' he said.
'Shore does, an' I reckon he's square at that,' responded the stranger, as he thrust open the door.
CHAPTER III
The bar they entered was small but neat and clean. A man of middle age, with a round, red, jovial face greeted the smaller of the pair with a reproving shake of the head.
'Yore bed don't appear to 'a' bin used any last night,' he said. 'Sleepin' out in thisyer town ain't supposed to be healthy. No business o' mine, o' course, but--' He pushed forward the customary bottle and glasses. The little puncher shuddered visibly at the sight of them.
'Not if yu paid me, ol'-timer,' he said earnestly. 'I'm feelin' like a warmed-up corpse right now.'
'Yu look it,' the landlord told him. 'Been to Miguel's, I s'pose? Yo're old enough to know better.'
'I do know better, but I went there--wanted suthin with a kick in it.' He grinned ruefully. 'I got the kick awright, on my head from the way she aches. If you had a cup o' strong coffee now--' He looked enquiringly at Green.
'Coffee sounds good to me too,' that young man replied. In a few moments they were seated at one of the small tables, and the rescuer had an opportunity to study the man whose life he had probably saved. The round, plump face, with its twinkling eyes and generous mouth suggested good-humour, and there was strength in the squat figure and slightly-bowed legs. Despite the fact that he must have passed the mid-thirties his manner showed the irresponsibility of a boy. He swallowed half the cup of thick, black beverage the landlord had just put before him.
'That's the stuff,' he said appreciatively. 'Now, s'pose we get acquainted; my name is Barsay, but my friends call me--'
'Tubby?' queried the other, with a grin.
The little man stopped rolling a cigarette and stared in open-mouthed astonishment. Then he grinned too.
'Hell! I was goin' to say 'Pete,'' he pointed out. 'How'd yu guess 'bout that infernal nickname?'
'You told me yoreself--back there in the dive,' Green smiled. ' 'To be or not to be,' yu said, an', lookin' at yu, it was easy to find the answer.'
The other man raised his hands in ludicrous despair. 'Awright, I'll be good,' he said. 'Yu see, it's thisaway. Years back, I'm punchin' for the Bar 9 in Texas, an' I go to see a play by a fella named Shakespeare. That bit of it sticks in my noddle, but every while or so she slips out through my mouth. The boys plastered the name on me, an' I can't lose it. I reckon,' he added sadly, 'she does kinda fit my figure.'
'Shore does,' Green laughed; 'but I wouldn't worry. That same fella, Shakespeare, also says, 'What's in a name?' Mine is Green, but I've been told I don't look it.'
'An' that's terrible true,' Barsay grinned. 'If yu got any other I'm aimin' to use it.'
'I answer to 'Jim' when the right fella says it,' came the reply. 'What yu doin' in this prairie-dog's hole of a town?'
'Well, I've punched cows from the Border to Montana an' back again. I s'pose I'd be chasin' a job right now if you hadn't rescued my roll for me.'
'I've done considerable harassin' o' beef my own self, an' I want a change.'
'This is cattle country.'
'Shore it is, but I hear there's a vacancy for a town marshal.'
The little man sat up suddenly. 'Sufferin' serpents!' he cried. 'Yu must be tired o' life; marshals here don't last as long as a dollar in a cowboy's pocket. Say, if yo're as broke as that, half o' what I got is yores.'
'Thank yu, but I ain't busted, an' I come here a-purpose to land the job,' the other told him. 'What's more, I got my eye on the deputy I want--short, fat fella, 'bout yore size.'
'Take that eye off,' gasped the 'fat fella.' 'Me a deputy? Why, I wouldn't fit nohow. I've bin a hold-up, hoss- thief, rustler--'
