United States or Iceland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Boyle leaned against the torrent of abuse and swallowed it, his face losing its fiery hue, blanching and fading as if every word fell on his senses like the blow of a whip to the back. The Governor's son watched every muscle of Shanklin's face as if to read the gambler's intention in his eye, while his hand, stiff-set and clawlike, hovered within three inches of his pistol-butt.
The memory of what he had seen dice do there moved him to smile. Then the recollection of what had stood on that spot came to him; the big tent, with the living pictures and variety show, and Hun Shanklin's crescent table over against the wall.
He put his hand to his forehead and stood a moment, his eyes closed. Then he went in and bent over the wounded man. A sob of pity rose in Agnes' throat as she watched him and saw the pain and affection upon his face. Presently Governor Boyle turned and walked to the spot where Hun Shanklin's body lay. Without a word, he lifted the coat from the gambler's face, covered it again, and turned away.
It was craftily disposed in the mouth of the half-open bag, which seemed crammed to the hinges with it, making an alluring bait. The long, black revolver of Shanklin's other days and nights lay there beside the bag asserting its large-caliber office of protection with a drowsy alligator look about it. Slavens was as dirty and unwashed as the foulest in that crowd.
Agnes could hear the bride singing early in the morning, when the sun came up and poured its melted gold over that hopeful scene, with never a cloud before its face. Twenty miles farther along, toward Comanche, Dr. Slavens had pitched his tent among the rocks on the high, barren piece of land which he had selected blindly, guided by Hun Shanklin's figures.
They were all closed and dark. The best that he could do toward improving his outcast appearance was to get shaved. This done, he found lodging in a place where he could have an apartment to himself, and even an oil-lamp to light him to his rest. Sitting there on the side of his bed, he explored the pockets of Hun Shanklin's coat.
I'll own up that I helped him nail you up and dump you in the river; but I done it because I thought you was finished, and I didn't want the muss around." "Well, it will all come out on the day of reckoning, I suppose," said Slavens, not believing a word the old scamp said. He knew that minute, as he had known all the time, that no other hand than Shanklin's had laid him low that night.
There was a clattering on the small stones which strewed the ground thickly there, as of somebody approaching, but the bulk of the horse was between Slavens and the view, as the doctor stopped momentarily in the door of the low tent. Clearing the tent and standing upright, Slavens saw Boyle and Ten-Gallon coming on hurriedly. They had been to Shanklin's camp evidently, looking for him.
"And did you have an interesting time, too!" she smiled. "Yes, ma'am. I sure did. I was just telling your little girl about bosses." "He was a cowboy, once, mamma," she cried. The mother smiled her acknowledgment to him, and looked fondly down at the little girl. The thought that came into Ross Shanklin's mind was the awfulness of the crime if any one should harm either of the wonderful pair.
Several sheep-herders, who had arrived late to dip into the vanishing diversions of Comanche, and a few railroad men to whom pay-day had just supplied a little more fuel to waste in its fires, were in Hun Shanklin's tent when Dr. Slavens and his backer arrived. Shanklin was running off about the same old line of talk, for he was more voluble than inventive, and never varied it much.
Word Of The Day