It was long after midnight when the Ramblin' Kid and Skinny rode into Eagle Butte and the heels of Captain Jack and Old Pie Face echoed noisily on the board floor of the livery stable as the bronchos turned into the wide, open doorway of the barn. A drowsy voice from the cubby-hole of an office called:
"In just a minute—I'll be out!"
"Aw, thunder," Skinny answered, "go on back to sleep, we'll find stalls and put 'em up!"
Captain Jack and Old Pie Face cared for, Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped out into the deserted street.
Eagle Butte was sleeping.
Here and there a blaze of light from a store window invited belated passers to covet the bargains offered within; a half-dozen incandescent bulbs, swung on cross-wires at intervals along the street, glowed feebly as if weary with the effort to beat back the darkness clutching at the throat of the town; over the sidewalk in front of the Elite Amusement Parlor an illuminated red and green sign told that Mike Sabota's place was still open; across the porch of the Occidental Hotel and spilling itself on the ground out in the street a stream of light guided weary travelers to the portals of that ancient, though hospitable, institution; from the sides of the Butte beyond the railroad tracks a coyote yelped shrilly a jerky, wailing challenge—a dozen dogs, suddenly aroused in different parts of the town, answered.
"Pretty dead-lookin'," the Ramblin' Kid remarked. "Let's go down to Sabota's."
"All right," Skinny replied, and they moved down the street.
The pool-room offered nothing of interest. A couple of traveling men, waiting for the early morning train, were playing a listless game of billiards at one of the tables; a pair of Jap sugar-beet workers and a negro section hand sat half-asleep and leaned against the wall; "Red" Jackson, Sabota's chief lieutenant, with an air of utter boredom, lounged behind the soft-drink bar. Sabota was not there.
"What's happened to everybody?" Skinny asked; "where's Mike?"
"Everybody's got religion, I guess," Red yawned, "and gone to bed. What do you want with Sabota?" looking suspiciously at the Ramblin' Kid; "he's over at Vegas; won't be back till to-morrow—or to-day it is now, I reckon—evening sometime!"
"Th' Ramblin' Kid and me have been out in the rain," Skinny said suggestively, "and thought we might take cold—"
"Nothing doing!" Red laughed, "ain't a drop around! When Mike gets back he'll fix you up, maybe—that's what he's gone after!"
"We'd just as well go to bed!" Skinny grumbled disgustedly to the Ramblin' Kid.
"I reckon," was the laconic answer.
They returned to the hotel, roused the clerk from his doze, secured a room and retired.
It was eight o'clock when they got up.
Both went directly to the livery stable and saw that Captain Jack and Old Pie Face were properly attended to. While at the barn Skinny took the bundle he had wrapped in the bunk-house at the ranch from the saddle where he had tied it.
"What's that?" the Ramblin' Kid queried.
"It's that darned shirt!" Skinny retorted. "I'm going to make Old Leon eat it—it wasn't the size Parker asked for!"
The Ramblin' Kid laughed, but said nothing.
They returned to the hotel and had breakfast. Manilla Endora waited on them. Before Carolyn June and Ophelia came to the Quarter Circle KT Manilla's yellow hair and blue eyes were the flames that fanned the affections of Skinny. He felt guilty as, sweetly as ever and without a hint of reproach, Manilla took their orders and served them with their ham and eggs and coffee.
After breakfast Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid explored the town.
Eagle Butte had come to life. The stores were open. Business was brisk. The "dray" was delivering the express accumulated the night before at the depot. Here and there a morning shopper was passing along the street. At the post-office there was quite a crowd.
Skinny carried the shirt, wrapped in the soggy, rain-soaked newspaper. As he and the Ramblin' Kid came near the dingy, general merchandise establishment kept by the squint-eyed Jew from whom Parker had bought the unfortunate garment a sudden look of cunning gleamed in the eyes of Skinny. He laughed aloud. A box of eggs, ten or twelve dozen it contained, was set, with other farm produce, in a display on the sidewalk at the side of the door of the store.
"Hold on a minute," Skinny said to the Ramblin' Kid, stopping in front of the Jew's place of business, "I got an idea—By golly," he continued argumentatively and with apparent irrelevancy, in a loud voice, "I tell you I'm the lightest man on my feet in Texas!" and he winked knowingly at the Ramblin' Kid. "I can walk on eggs and never bu'st a one! I've done it and"—as Leon came to the door—"I'll bet four-bits I can jump in that box of eggs right there and never crack a shell!" The Ramblin' Kid understood.
"Aw, you're crazy," he laughed. "I don't want to win your money!"
"What's the matter?" Leon asked curiously, having heard only part of Skinny's boast.
"This locoed darn' fool thinks he can walk on them eggs an' not mash 'em!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed again. "He wants to bet me four-bits he can—"
"Walk on them eggs and not preak them?" Leon exclaimed disdainfully. "You ought to lock him up! He iss crazy!"
"By gosh," Skinny argued, "you don't realize how light-footed I am—I can jump on them, I tell you, and I got money to back it up!" And he pulled a half-dollar from his pocket.
"Put away your money, you blamed idiot—" the Ramblin' Kid began.
"I'll bet him four-bits he can't!" Leon cried, jerking a coin from his own pocket.
Skinny and Leon each handed the Ramblin' Kid fifty cents.
"By thunder, I can," Skinny said, pausing, "that is, I'm willing to bet my money on it—"
"Vhy don't you go ahead and do it, then?" Leon exclaimed. "Vat you standing there for? Vhy don't you do it if you're so light on your feet?"
"Well, I can!" Skinny argued, still hesitating.
"Den go ahead and chump—chump I told you—into the box!" Leon shouted excitedly.
Skinny jumped. The eggs crushed under the heels of his riding boots. In an instant the box was filled with a squashy mass of whites, yolks and broken shells. Skinny pawed around until there wasn't a whole egg left in the box.
At the first crunch Leon laughed hilariously.
"I knowed you'd lose!" he cackled. "Giff me the money!"
"You win, Leon!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed, handing over the wager. "Skinny wasn't as delicate on his feet as he thought he was!"
"Thunderation, that's funny!" Skinny said soberly as he stepped out of the box; "it wouldn't work that time! Something must have slipped!"
With a grin he calmly unwrapped the one-time white shirt and with it began to wipe the slimy mess from his boots.
"The next time you won't be so smart!" Leon cried, then paused in consternation, his eyes riveted on the scrambled mixture in the box. "But mine eggs!" he exclaimed, suddenly suspicious. "Who pays for the eggs? There vas twelve dozen—they are worth seventy cents a dozen—that is more as eight dollars. Pay me for the eggs!"
"Pay, hell!" Skinny said. "I didn't agree to furnish no eggs! You won my fifty cents and th' Ramblin' Kid gave it to you—"
"That's right, Leon," the Ramblin' Kid chuckled, "you got th' four-bits—that's all you won!"
"But pay me—" Leon whined.
"I'll pay you, you dirty crook!" Skinny snapped as he slapped the soppy, egg-splattered shirt in Leon's face. "I'll pay you with that! The next time," he added as he and the Ramblin' Kid started down the street—"anybody asks for a size fifteen shirt don't give them a sixteen and a half!"
The day was spent idling about town waiting for Sabota to return so Skinny could get some whisky and drown his disappointment in love in intoxicated forgetfulness.
After supper Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid went to the picture show—Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were "movie nights" in Eagle Butte—and saw a thrilling "wild-west" drama in which a band of Holstein milk cows raced madly through an alfalfa field in a frenzied, hair-raising stampede! When the show was over the Ramblin' Kid started toward the livery barn.
"What you going to do?" Skinny queried.
"I was just goin' to get Captain Jack," the Ramblin' Kid replied.
"What for?" Skinny asked as they moved toward the barn. "There ain't no hurry about getting back to the ranch. We won't be going out till to-morrow or next day—there ain't no use getting the horses out to-night."
"I don't know," the Ramblin' Kid answered, without stopping, "I just got a hunch to get him in case I need him. Anyhow, it won't hurt him to stand out a while—they've been eatin' all day."
"Then I'll get Old Pie Face, too," Skinny replied.
They saddled the bronchos and rode out of the barn.
"Where'll we go?" Skinny asked.
"Reckon we'd better go back down to Sabota's," the Ramblin' Kid said as they turned their horses in the direction of the pool-room, "if you still insist on makin' a blamed fool of yourself an' gettin' drunk. Maybe Mike's back by now. Anyhow, there might be a little poker game goin' on—I saw a couple of the fellers from over on th' Purgatory come in a while ago!"
They left Captain Jack and Pie Face standing, with bridle reins dropped, across the street and in the broad shaft of light streaming from the open door of the pool-room, and went into the resort.
The place was well filled. Sabota had returned, evidently with an ample supply of the fiery stuff he called "whisky." Like vultures that unerringly seek and find the spot where a carcass has fallen the thirsty of Eagle Butte had gathered at the Elite Amusement Parlor.
Inside the door of the pool-room and at the left, as one entered, was a hardwood bar eighteen or twenty feet long and over which at one time, in the days before Eagle Butte "reformed," had been dispensed real "tarantula juice." The back bar, with its big mirrors and other fixtures, was as it had been when the place was a regular saloon. At the right of the room, opposite the bar, were several round, green-topped card tables. In the rear was the billiard and pool equipment, which entitled the place to the name "pool-room." Just across from the farther end of the bar and near the last card table a half-dozen hard-looking, small-town "toughs"—creatures who loafed about Sabota's and aided him, as occasion required, in his boot-legging operations or other questionable enterprises—were lounging, some standing, some sitting, watching a slow poker game going on at the last table. Cards, under the laws of Texas, are taboo, but for some reason Sabota managed to get by and games were allowed in his place.
The two cowboys the Ramblin' Kid had mentioned, a rancher from the irrigated section near Eagle Butte and "Jeff" Henderson, one of Sabota's henchmen, who was playing for the house, were sitting in at the game.
Half-way down the room at one side against the wall a mechanical player piano was grinding out garish, hurdy-gurdy music.
"Red" Jackson was dispensing soft drinks from behind the bar.
Sabota himself, with one heel caught on the brass foot-rail, was leaning indolently but with a lordly air against the front of the polished, imitation mahogany counter.
He had been drinking and was in his shirt-sleeves.
As Skinny and the Ramblin' Kid stepped into the pool-room Sabota glanced around. For an instant he eyed the Ramblin' Kid keenly while a nasty sneer curled his lips. As they approached he turned the grin into a hypocritical smile of welcome. The Ramblin' Kid barely noticed the Greek and passed on to where the card game was in progress. Skinny paused and said something in a low tone to Sabota. The two walked to the rear end of the bar where the proprietor of the place in turn spoke to Red and the latter furtively handed a pint bottle to the cowboy and which he dropped into the bosom of his flannel shirt.
The Ramblin' Kid was recognized by the cowboys from the Purgatory.
"Come on and get into the game!" one of them invited, moving over.
"Yes," Henderson added, hitching his own chair to one side to make room for another, "the cards are running like"—he paused—"like the Gold Dust maverick for everybody but the house!" There was a laugh at the subtle reference to the outlaw filly that had cost Sabota so much in losses on the sweepstakes at the Rodeo.
The Greek scowled.
"In that case," the Ramblin' Kid drawled, "I reckon I'll ride 'em a few rounds!" dropping into the chair he had dragged forward and which placed him with his back toward the bar.
"What they costin' a stack?" he questioned, reaching to the left breast pocket of his shirt for a roll of bills.
In the same pocket was the pink satin garter Carolyn June had lost the morning of his first meeting with her at the circular corral.
"Five bones!" Jeff answered languidly.
"Well, give me a couple of piles," the Ramblin' Kid replied, glancing around at the cowboy sitting at his right, who had invited him into the game. "How's the Purgatory?"
As the bills came from the Ramblin' Kid's pocket the silver butterfly clasp of the garter caught in the paper currency and the elastic band was drawn out and dropped, at the side of his chair, on the floor next to Sabota.
The Greek and Skinny saw, at the same time, the dainty satin ribbon.
Sabota stepped quickly forward and with the toe of his shoe kicked the garter toward the bar, where all could see it.
"Look what th' Ramblin' Kid's been carrying!" he exclaimed with a coarse laugh. "Some size garter, that!" And guessing at random that it had belonged to Carolyn June, he added: "Old Heck's niece must be—damned convenient and accommodating!"
A laugh started from the lips of the crowd. It was instantly checked and a dead silence followed as the Ramblin' Kid looked around, saw Sabota leering down at the trinket and heard his vulgar insinuation. He slowly pushed his chair back from the table and with eyes half-closed—the lids tightening until there were but narrow slits through which the black pupils burned like drops of jet—he began slowly to straighten up. Not a sound came from his lips save the deep, regular breathing those sitting near could hear and which was like a bellows fanning embers into a white heat. His mouth was drawn back in a smile, almost caressing in its softness, but a thousand times more menacing than the black scowl on the face of the Greek.
The Ramblin' Kid's gun was at his hip, but he made no move to draw it.
Sabota watched the slender young cowboy. A look of contempt and derision was in his eyes. The Greek was no taller, but full eighty pounds heavier than the other. But he forgot that the other's lithe body moving with the calm, undulating grace of a panther preparing to spring was all clean youth, muscle and courage, unbroken by any debauchery!
"That's a hell of a thing for a man to pack," the giant bully cried nastily, "and it's a hell of a lady that gives it to a man to pack!"
With a sneering laugh he raised his foot and brought it down on the garter, grinding the silver clasp and the satin ribbon under the sole of his shoe.
"You damned black cur!" The Rambling' Kid spoke scarcely louder than a whisper, yet his voice echoed throughout the tense silence of the room. "I'll put my heel in your face for that!"
Sabota threw back his head to laugh.
For a second of time the Ramblin' Kid crouched, then shot through the air like a wire spring drawn far back and suddenly released, and with an his hundred and forty pounds of nerve and sinew behind it his right fist smashed the big Greek squarely on the half-open mouth, splitting the thick lip wide and causing a red stream to spurt from the gash. Sabota staggered back and, would have fallen had he not crashed against the hardwood bar.
As the Greek reeled away from the garter the Ramblin' Kid stooped quickly forward, picked up the elastic and dropped it again into his pocket.
With a roar like a mad bull Sabota rushed his slight antagonist. Lunging forward, blind with rage, he aimed a murderous blow at the head of the Ramblin' Kid. The cowboy ducked, but not in time to escape the wide swing of the massive, hairy fist. The Greek's knuckles raked the side of the Kid's face and the blood rained down his cheek from a cruel cut under the eye. The Ramblin' Kid spun around like a top and for the fraction of a second stood swaying uncertainly.
For a moment they faced each other, crouching, watching for an opening. Sabota's great hands worked convulsively, eager to grasp and crush his wiry opponent; the Ramblin' Kid, with lips curled back from white teeth, like a pure-bred terrier circling a mastiff, bent forward, every muscle tense as drawn copper, his eyes cold as a rattler's as he searched for a place to strike!
The crowd in the pool-room instinctively kept far back and gave the unequal combatants ample room.
From Sabota's lips poured a steady torrent of blasphemy. The Ramblin' Kid made no sound as, with body swaying slowly from side to side, his shoulders heaved with the full, heavy breaths that reached to the bottom of his lungs.
Suddenly, like some wild beast, Sabota sprang forward. The Ramblin' Kid met him—in mid-air—right and left jolting, almost at the same instant, into the beefy jaws of the Greek. At the impact a claw-like hand shot out and the gorilla fingers of the left hand of the brute-man the Ramblin' Kid fought, closed over the throat of the cowboy. Sabota threw his right arm around the back of his antagonist, gripping the shoulder on the far side of his body and drew the slender form toward him—pinning the Ramblin' Kid's left arm and hand to his side.
Skinny's hand dropped to the butt of his gun and rested there.
The Ramblin' Kid struggled desperately in the strangling grasp of the crazed Greek. The two reeled back and forth, crashing chairs and tables to the floor, and lunged against the bar. The Ramblin' Kid's gun fell from its scabbard at the side of the brass foot-rail. Sabota's eyes glared down into the face of the man he was choking to death—gleaming with the ferocity of an animal gone mad—Awhile bloody foam spewed from his bleeding lips. The cowboy's face was beginning to flush a terrible purple as the breath was gradually crushed from his body.
As the Greek forced him back, bending him down and over, the Ramblin' Kid, his eyes burning like fire while a million flashes of light seemed to stab the darkness before them and needles darted through every fiber of his flesh, wrenched his right arm free and gripping the back of Sabota's shirt with his left hand to give purchase to the blow, with all the strength left in his body, drove the knuckles of his right fist into the left temple of the Greek.
The blow went home.
A film, like a veil drawn across the fiendish glare in them, spread over the eyes of Sabota, his grip on the throat of the cowboy relaxed and as a bull, struck by the hammer of the butcher, he dropped to the floor.
The Ramblin' Kid crouched, panting, over the massive bulk.
Sabota slowly opened his eyes and started to raise his battered head. With a laugh the cowboy swung terrible right and left blows into the Greek's face. The head dropped back.
Again the Ramblin' Kid stooped low, waiting for another sign of life from the prostrate form.
Red Jackson slipped from behind the bar, half bent forward, moved stealthily up behind the Ramblin' Kid; one hand drawn partly back held, by the neck, a heavy beer bottle. Skinny saw his intention. Instantly the Quarter Circle KT cowboy's forty-four was jerked from its holster and the blue-steel barrel swung against the side of the bartender's head. He pitched over in a limp heap and the bottle crushed against the brass foot-rail, breaking into a thousand fragments. A half-dozen of Sabota's crowd started forward. Skinny's gun whipped around in front of him.
"Keep back, y' sons-of-hell!" he snarled, "Sabota's gettin' what's coming to him!"
The Greek's eyes opened. His fingers touched the butt of the Ramblin' Kid's revolver and began to close slowly over the handle of the weapon.
"Make him quit," one of the pool-room loafers whined; "he's killed him!"
The Ramblin' Kid saw Sabota reach for the gun. He answered the speaker and the Greek's effort to get the forty-four at the same time:
"Not yet—but now!" he cried with a low laugh and leaped with both heels squarely on the bloody face of Sabota! There was a horrible crunching sound as of bones and flesh being ground into pulp. The fingers about to close on the handle of the revolver grew limp, the Greek's head, a hideous, scarcely recognizable mass, slumped to one side and lay perfectly still.
An instant longer the Ramblin' Kid looked at him, then reached over, picked up his gun and slipped it into the holster at his hip.
As he straightened up, Tom Poole, the marshal, rushed into the pool-room. He covered the Ramblin' Kid with his revolver and placed him under arrest.
"You don't need to get excited, Tom!" the Ramblin' Kid laughed. "I didn't do nothin' but kill that damned black cur layin' there! Come on—I want to get out in th' air—I never like to stay around where dead skunks are!"
They moved toward the door.
Poole dropped his gun back in its scabbard and walked at the side of the now apparently peaceful young cowboy.
At the door the marshal looked around:
"Some of you fellers get the doctor or undertaker—whichever he needs—and take care of Sabota!" he called to the group around the body of the Greek.
Like a flash the muzzle of the Ramblin' Kid's gun was pressed against the side of Poole.
"Put 'em up, Tom!" he snapped, "I don't want to kill you, but I will if I have to—I ain't goin' to rot in no jail just for stampin' a dirty snake-to death!"
The marshal's hands shot into the air as if operated by springs.
The Ramblin' Kid, with his left hand, jerked Poole's revolver from its holster. He backed into the street toward where Captain Jack and Old Pie Face were standing, still with his own gun covering the officer.
"Jack!" he cried sharply, "meet me!"
The little stallion moved toward him.
With the thumb of the hand in which he held the marshal's gun the Ramblin' Kid threw open the breech and flipped the shells on the ground. He tossed the empty forty-four to one side, threw the reins over Captain Jack's head and the next instant was in the saddle. The broncho wheeled and was gone, in a dead run, toward the west.
The marshal rushed into the street and picked up his gun, jerked some cartridges from his belt, slipped them into the cylinder and fired quickly at the fleeing horse and rider.
The bullets whistled past the ear of the Ramblin' Kid.
He raised his own weapon, half-turned in the saddle, dropped the muzzle of the gun forward until it pointed at the flashes spitting from the officer's revolver. His finger started to tighten on the trigger.
"Hell," he muttered, "what's the use? Tom's just doin' what he thinks he has to do!" and the Ramblin' Kid slipped the gun, unfired, back into its holster.
A moment later Captain Jack whirled to the right across the Santa Fe tracks and bearing a little to the east, in the direction of Capaline, the dead volcano that rises out of the lavas northwest of the Quarter Circle KT, between the Purgatory and the Cimarron, disappeared in the black starlit night.
