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Updated: June 4, 2025
He knelt down and examined him. When he rose it was with a very grave face. "He is dead," he said quietly. McWilliams, who had been bending over Chalkeye, looked up. "Here, too. Any one of the shots would have finished him." Bannister nodded. "Yes. That first exchange killed them both." He looked down at the limp body of his cousin, but a minute before so full of supple, virile life.
McLean unexpectedly after several years, hailed the horseman with frank and lively pleasure, and, inquiring who might be the other riders behind, was told that they were Shorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, come for Christmas. "And dandies to hit town with," Mr. McLean added. "Red-hot." "I am acquainted with them," assented his Excellency.
"We looked the lot over." They were arriving from their search among the old dug-up graves on the hill. Now they descended from their ponies, with the box roped and rattling between them. "Where's your hearse, Jerky?" asked Chalkeye. "Have her round in a minute," said the cowboy, and galloped away with three or four others. "Turruble lonesome coffin, all the same," repeated the Doughie.
"Give the doctor a show now, boys," said he. "You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you," he whispered to McLean. At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veering of wind. "Don't crowd his elbows," they began to say at once, and told each other to come away. "We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't want to be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye.
The man jumped to his feet in a rage and struck the boy across the face with his whip once, and then again. "By God, that'll do for you!" cried Chalkeye from the other side of the fire, springing revolver in hand. "Draw, you coyote! I come a-shooting." The "King" wheeled, finding his weapon he turned. Two shots rang out almost simultaneously, and Chalkeye pitched forward.
And they surveyed the box that had once held some soldier. "She did like fixin's," said Limber Jim. "Fixin's!" said Toothpick Kid. "That's easy." While some six of them, with Chalkeye, bore the light, half-rotted coffin into the room, many followed Toothpick Kid to the post-trader's store. Breaking in here, they found men sleeping on the counters.
"We ain't talkin', we're waitin'," observed Chalkeye; and the three cynics smiled amiably. "Well, Doc, see yu' again," said Mr. McLean. He turned to accompany his brother cow-punchers, but in that particular moment Fate descended or came up from whatever place she dwells in and entered the body of the unsuspecting Governor. "What's your hurry?" said Fate, speaking in the official's hearty manner.
Here was Cheyenne, full of holiday for sale, and he with his pockets full of money to buy; and when he thought of Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, those dandies to hit a town with, he stepped out with a brisk, false hope. It was with a mental hurrah and a foretaste of a good time coming that he put on his town clothes, after shaving and admiring himself, and sat down to the square meal.
"I didn't know " he was beginning, when his master cut him short with a furious tongue lashing out of all proportion to the offense. The lad's face blanched with fear, and his terror was so manifest that the bully, who was threatening him with all manner of evils, began to enjoy himself. Chalkeye, returning from watering the horses, got back in time to hear the intemperate fag-end of the scolding.
Chalkeye Dave, he was called, and sometimes merely Chalkeye. What his real name was no man knew. Nor was his past a subject for conversation in his presence. It was known that he had been in the Nevada penitentiary, and that he had killed a man in Arizona, but these details of an active life were rarely resurrected.
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