his hip. Each threw down his big hat and stood at apparent ease, with his thumbs caught in his belt.
“Shall you give the word, or me?” asked Cook.
“You says when!” retorted Watkins. “It’ll be a funny passage in American history if you-all gets your gun to the front any sooner than I do.”
“Be you ready?” asked Cook.
“Which I’m shorely ready!”
“Then, go!”
“Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!” went both pistols together.
The reports came with a rapidity not to be counted. Cook got a crease in the face – a mere wound of the flesh. Watkins blundered forward with a bullet in his side.
Rawlins ran out. His experience taught him all at a look. Hastily examining Cook, he discovered that his hurt was nothing serious. The others carried Watkins into the house.
“Take my pony saddled at the fence, Jack,” said Rawlins, “an’ pull your freight. This yere Watkins is goin’ to die. You’ve planted him.”
“Which I shorely hopes I has!” said Cook, with bitter cheerfulness. “I ain’t got no use for cattle of his brand; none whatever!”
Cook took Rawlins’s pony. When he paused, the pony hung his head while his flanks steamed and quivered. And no marvel! That pony was one hundred miles from the last corn, as he cooled his nervous muzzle in the Rio San Simon.
“Some deviltry about their saddles, Miss; that’s all!” reported Rawlins to Jess, the pretty girl.
“Isn’t it horrible!” shuddered Jess, the pretty girl.
The next morning Jess and the gnarled aunt paid the injured Watkins a visit. This civility affected the other three cowboys invidiously. They at once departed to a line of Cross-K camps in the Northwest. This on a pretence of working cattle over on the Cochise Mesa. They looked black enough as they galloped away.
“Which it’s shore a sin Jack Cook ain’t no better pistol shot!” observed one, as the acrid picture of Jess, the pretty girl, sympathising above the wounded Watkins, arose before him.
“That’s whatever!” assented the others.
Then, in moods of grim hatefulness, they bled their tired ponies with the spur by way of emphasis.
THE HUMMING BIRD
NIT; I’m in a hurry to chase meself to-night,” quoth Chucky, having first, however, taken his drink. “I’d like to stay an’ chin wit’ youse, but I can’t. D’ fact is I’ve got company over be me joint; he’s a dead good fr’end of mine, see! Leastwise he has been; an’ more’n onct, when I’m in d’ hole, he’s reached me his mit an’ pulled me out. Now he’s down on his luck I’m goin’ to make good, an’ for an even break on past favours, see if I can’t straighten up his game.”
“Who is your friend?” I asked. “Does he live here?”
“Naw,” retorted Chucky; “he’s a crook, an’ don’t live nowhere. His name’s Mollie Matches, an ‘d’ day was when Mollie’s d’ flyest fine-woiker on Byrnes’s books. An’ say! that ain’t no fake neither.”
“What did he do?” I inquired.
“Leathers, supers an’ rocks,” replied Chucky. “Of course, d’ supers has to be yellow; d’ w’ite kind don’t pay; an’ d’ rocks has to be d’ real t’ing. In d’ old day, Mollie was d’ king of d’ dips, for fair! Of all d’ crooks he was d’ nob, an’ many’s d’ time I’ve seen him come into d’ Gran’ Central wit’ his t’ree stalls an’ a Sheeny kid to carry d’ swag, an’ all as swell a mob as ever does time.
“But he’s fell be d’ wayside now, an’ don’t youse forget it! Not only is he broke for dough, but his healt’ is busted, too.”
“That’s one of the strange things to me, Chucky,” I said, for I was disposed to detain him if I could, and hear a bit more of his devious friend; “one of the very strange things! Here’s your friend Mollie, who has done nothing, so you say, but steal watches, diamonds and pocket-books all his life, and yet to-day he is without a dollar.”
“Oh! as for that,” returned Chucky wisely, “a crook don’t make so much. In d’ foist place, if he’s nippin’ leathers, nine out of ten of ‘em’s bound to be readers – no long green in ‘em at all; nothin’ but poi-pers, see! An’ if he’s pinchin’ tickers an’ sparks, a fence won’t pay more’n a fort’ what dey’s wort’ – an’ there you be, see! Then ag’in, it costs a hundred plunks a day to keep a mob on d’ road; an’ what wit’ puttin’ up to d’ p’lice for protection, an’ what wit’ squarin’ a con or brakey if youse are graftin’ on a train, there ain’t, after his stalls has their bits, much left for Mollie. Takin’ it over all, Mollie’s dead lucky to get a hundred out of a t’ousand plunks; an’ yet he’s d’ mug who has to put his hooks on d’ stuff every time; do d’ woik an’ take d’ chances, see!
“But I’ll tip it off to youse,” continued Chucky, at the same time lowering his tone confidentially; “I’ll put you on to what knocks Mollie’s eye out just now. He’s only a week ago toined out of one of de western pens, an’ I reckon he was bad wit’ ‘em at d’ finish – givin’ ‘em a racket. Anyhow, dey confers on Mollie d’ Hummin’ Boid, an dey overplays. Mollie’s gettin’ old, and can’t stand for what he could onct; an’, as I says, these prison marks gives him too much of ‘d Hummin’ Boid and it breaks his noive.
“Sure! Mollie’s now what youse call hyster’cal; got bats in his steeple half d’ time. If it wasn’t for d’ hop I shoots into him wit’ a dandy little hypodermic gun me Rag’s got, he’d be in d’ booby house. An’ all for too much Hummin’ Boid! Say! on d’ level! there ought to be a law ag’inst it.”
“What in heaven’s name is the Humming Bird?” I queried.
“It’s d’ prison punishment,” replied Chucky. “Youse see, every pen has its punishment. In some, it’s d’ paddles, an’ some ag’in don’t do a t’ing but hang a guy up be a pair of handcuffs to his cell door so his toes just scrapes d’ floor. In others dey starves you; an’ in others still, dey slams you in d’ dark hole.
“Say! if youse are out to make some poor mark nutty for fair, just give him d’ dark hole for a week. There he is wit’ nothin’ in d’ cell but himself, see! an* all as black as ink. Mebby if d’ guards is out to keep him movin’, dey toins d’ hose in an’ wets down d’ floor before dey leaves him. But honest to God! youse put a poor sucker in d’ dark hole, an’ be d’ end of ten hours it’s apples to ashes he ain’t onto it whether he’s been in a day or a week. Keep him there a week, an’ away goes his cupolo – he ain’t onto nothin’. On d’ square! at d’ end of a week in d’ dark, a mut don’t know lie’s livin’.
“D’ cat-o’nine-tails, which dey has at Jeff City, ain’t a marker to d’ dark hole! D’ cat’ll crack d’ skin all right, all right, but d’ dark hole cracks a sucker’s nut, see! His cocoa never is on straight ag’in, after he’s done a stunt or two in d’ dark hole.”
“But the Humming Bird?” I persisted. “What is it like?”
“Why! as I relates,”
