gittin' too mighty prevalent.'
'Found yore mine yet, Snowy?' Gerry inquired.
'No, young fella, an' I ain't going to look for it till we got some sort o' protection. It'll keep; I ain't in no hurry.'
'Some other jasper may light on it,' Gerry persisted. ''Tain't likely, but if it did happen that way I'd get me another; I can allus find gold--I smell it.' With a wild laugh he pushed open the door of the saloon, turned and whispered, 'Keep handy,' and vanished.
'Mad as a loon,' Mason decided.
'I ain't so shore,' his friend replied. 'What I can't savvy is why folks side-step me like I was a rattler?' He got the solution to the problem a few nights later as he was returning from the store where they obtained their supplies. A thin, weedy shrimp of a man, whom he recognized as one of the group with Lesurge in the Monte, stopped him.
'Say, Mister Green, c'n I have a word with you?' he asked. The man shuffled his feet and cast an oblique glance at a nearby dive. Obviously he did not want to talk in the open, and Sudden therefore determined that he should.
'I ain't drinkin',' he said. 'Yu can trail along o' me an' sing yore song. I'm shy yore name.'
'Berg,' the other replied, and then went on with a rush, 'You know Bill Hickok? Well, he don't like you.'
'No reason why he should, we've never met.'
'Mebbe, but he says he's goin' to get you--heard him my own self, an' so did others.' The cowpuncher cogitated over this amazing statement and then, 'What's he sore about?' he inquired.
'Sore nothin',' was the reply. 'You know what these biggunmen are. He's cock o' the walk around here an' he ain't goin' to let anyone else crow, that's what.'
'But why pick on me--I ain't let out a chirp?'
'Hell, he's scared--yo're Sudden, ain't you?' The puncher stopped as though one of Wild Bill's bullets had struck him. Then his iron nerve came to his aid. 'Sudden?' he sneered. 'Where'd yu get that fool notion?'
'Why, all the town knows,' Berg retorted. 'Yore pard told young Ginger when you stopped him baitin' of Jacob.' This cleared the air somewhat but not entirely; how did Gerry know? Sudden had never breathed a word of his past. He turned to the man who had flung this bombshell at him.
'My pard was joshin'--he's a born humorist,' he said.
Berg smiled sourly. 'He'll be a dead humorist when the boys find out an' if you owed me money I'd be askin' for it now,' he said with sinister emphasis.
Sudden knew it was true; the town would never forgive what it must regard as a deliberate imposture.
'So yu are here to warn me, just a kindly act, huh?'
'I came to warn you, yes, an' give you a chance o' pickin' up a nice piece o' change. There's big men in Deadwood who got no use for Hickok. Put him outa business--any way you choose--an' there'll be a thousand bucks for you an' no comeback, see?' The cowboy's fists bunched at this infamous proposal but he controlled his anger and asked coolly, 'Who are these big men?'
'I ain't sayin',' was the expected reply. 'Put the job over an' the cash will be ready for you at my shack.' The cowpuncher glanced round; they were clear of the street and had almost reached Jacob's cabin. With a quick snatch he had the other by the throat.
'Yu dirty rat,' he rasped, and shook him till the teeth of the wretch rattled in his jaws. 'So yu take me for a hired killer? I'd twist yore rotten neck if I hadn't a use for yu. Go back to the cowards that sent yu an' tell 'em to come along an' I'll kill 'em one after the other--for nothin'.' With a powerful thrust he hurled the almost senseless form into the dust and strode away. His frowning face when he entered the cabin apprised his friend that something was wrong.
'Been fightin'?' he asked.
'No,' came the snapped answer. 'What possessed yu to tell that fool boy I was 'Sudden'?' Gerry started to grin but changed his mind. 'It seemed a good jape to put over on him andeg mebbe saved a ruckus,' he explained. 'I couldn't know he'd chatter but it's goin' to make things easy for us, seemin'ly.'
'It's goin' to make things damned difficult. Why did yu pick on Sudden?'
'I'd heard of him; he's a Texas outlaw an' the least likely to show up, I figured. Yu ain't tellin' me he's here?'
'I am--just that,' Sudden retorted, grimly gratified at the result the statement produced.
The boy's face became a picture of consternation as he realized that his little comedy was likely to have a tragic ending. 'My Gawd, Jim, I'm sorry,' he groaned. 'By all accounts, he's reckoned the worst hell-raiser in the south-west, a heartless hound who shoots folk just to see 'em kick. I guess yu'd better head for the woods an' let me take the medicine--I got yu in the jam.' His perturbed gaze rested on the other. 'Yu certain he's here?'
'Dead shore,' was the reply, and with a hard smile, 'Yo're lookin' at him.'
'Quit it, Jim, this ain't no time for foolin','
'I am givin' it to yu straight,' was the harsh answer. 'I am the man they call 'Sudden,' outlawed in Texas, an' lied about everywhere else.' He waited for the expected look of repulsion, but Gerry's face expressed only astonishment, admiration and relief.
'Then it's all right,' he cried, and grinned widely. 'No call for yu to run away from yoreself.'
'That's what I was tryin' to do when I came here,' Sudden said moodily. ''Pears it can't be done. No, Gerry, it ain't all right, it's all wrong--for yu.' He hesitated a moment. 'We will have to tread different trails.'
'Not on yore life,' Mason said instantly. 'We're pards, an' I'm stick in' to yu like a tick on a cow, that's whatever.' Sudden shook his head, but he saw the boy was in earnest and made no further protest. That he could count on one friend dispelled some of the gloom which had enveloped him when he learned his evil reputation had, by a mere chance, dogged him even to far-off Deadwood.
'Then it's on'y fair yu should know who yo're hookin' up with,' he replied, and proceeded to give a brief recital of how Fate had foisted his infamous notoriety upon him.' Mason listened in stupefied silence to the story of a promise to a dying man, the blind search for two villains it entailed, and the false accusation of murder which sent a youth no older than himselfwandering in the West with a price on his head, and every man's hand against him.
The relation of his interview with Berg evoked a long whistle of dismay. 'The swine!' Gerry exploded. 'I hope yu bruk his neck.'
'I made myself plain,' Sudden said, with a wintry smile. 'The fellas who sent him won't like it.'
'D'yu reckon Hickok is really after yore scalp?'
'Dunno, but he ain't the breed o' gunman who goes around with a chip on his shoulder. I've heard that he never draws till his hand is forced, but he's probably been told I'm here to get him. That's why I'm callin' on him in the mornin'.' Mason sprang to his feet. 'Are yu plumb crazy?' he inquired. 'Why, he'll down yu on sight; I'm goin' along.'
'Yu'll stay here,' was the definite reply. 'If I don't show up in a coupla hours, yu can make arrangements for the buryin'.'
'An' there'll be two holes needed,' Gerry said savagely. 'Wild Bill may be a wizard with a six-shooter but a load o' buckshot fired from behind
'Shucks, there'll be no battle,' Sudden interrupted. 'He's white, I tell yu.' But Gerry was not so confident, and it was with a glum face that he watched his partner set out in the morning. Jacob found him idly smoking in the doorway.
'Taking a holiday?' he asked.
'Jim has business in town,' Gerry explained, and then, unable to keep silent. 'He's gone to meet Hickok.' The old man's face showed his concern. 'That's bad,' he said. 'No man has ever beaten Wild Bill to the draw, and I doubt if even Sudden--'
'Yu know?' Gerry broke in.
'All Deadwood knows,' was the reply. 'I found it very hard to believe--he doesn't look like a desperado.'
'He ain't,' Gerry said eagerly, and told something of what he had learned the night before.
The elder man nodded his comprehension. 'Fate plays fantastic tricks with some of us,' he said. 'Don't worry; despite his terrible toll of human life, Hickok is not a butcher. All will be well; they are both sane men.'
