Chicken Bill was reasonably perfect in all accomplishments of the Southwest. He could work cattle; he could rope, throw, and hog-tie his steer; he could keep up his end at flanking, branding, and ear-marking in a June corral; he could saddle and ride a wild, unbroken bronco; he could make baking-powder biscuit so well flavored and light as to compel the compliments of those jealous epicures of the cow-camps who devoured them.

Yet Chicken Bill would not work on the ranges. There were no cards permitted in the camps, and whiskey was debarred as if each bottle held a rattlesnake. Altogether a jovial soul, and one given to revelry, would fly from them in disgust.

“It’s too lonesome a play for me, this punchin’ cattle,” observed Chicken Bill, and so eschewed it.

While Pike’s Peak Martin expounded this aversion on the part of Chicken Bill, as well as the latter’s refusal to pick and dig and drill and blast in the Timberline mines, as mere laziness, public feeling, though it despised the culprit, was inclined to tolerate him in his shiftlessness. American independence in the Southwest is held to be inclusive of the personal right to refuse all forms of labor. Wherefore Chicken Bill was safe even from criticism as he hung about the saloons and faro rooms and lived his life of chosen vagabondage.

Our low-flung hero made shift in various ways. Did he find a tenderfoot whom he could cheat at cards, he borrowed a stake—sometimes, when the subject was uncommonly tender, from the victim himself—and therewith took a small sum at poker or seven-up. Another method of trivial fraud, now and then successful with Chicken Bill, was to plant a handful of brass nuggets, each of about an ounce in weight, under a little waterfall that broke into the canyon just below the windmill. There was a deal of mineral in this feeble side-stream, and the brass nuggets became coated and queer of color.

One of these Chicken Bill was able at intervals to impose at a profit upon a stranger, by swearing doughtily that it was virgin gold.

It came to pass, however, that Chicken Bill, despairing of fortune by the cheap processes of penny-ante and spurious nuggets, decided on a coup. He would stake out a claim, drift it and timber it, and then salt it to the limit of all that was possible in the science of claim-salting. Then would he sell it to the first Christian with more money than sagacity who came moved to buy a mine.

Chicken Bill was no amateur of mines. He knew the business as he knew the cow trade, and avoided it for the same reason of indolence. In his time, and after some windfall at faro-bank, Chicken Bill had grub-staked prospectors who were to “give him half” and who never came back. In his turn Chicken Bill was grub-staked by others, in which event he never came back. But it went with other experiences to teach him the trade, and on the morning when with pick and paraphernalia Chicken Bill pitched camp in Arizona Gulch a mile beyond the farthest, and where it was known to all no mineral lurked, he brought with him a knowledge of the miner’s art, and began his digging with intelligent spirit. Moreover, the heart of Chicken Bill was stout for the work; for was he not planning a swindle? and did not that thought of itself swell his bosom with a mighty peace?

Once upon a time Chicken Bill had had a partner.

This partner was frequently on the lips of Chicken Bill, especially when our hero was in his cups. He was always mentioned with a gush of tears, this partner, and his name as furnished by Chicken Bill was Flim Flam Murphy. Flim Flam had met death somewhere in the Gunnison country while making good his name, and passed with the smoke of the Colt’s-44 that dismissed him. But Chicken Bill reverenced the memory of this talented man and was ready to honor him, and, having staked out his claim with the fraudulent purpose aforesaid, filed on it appropriately as “The Flim Flam Murphy.”

It would be unjust to the intelligence of Timberline to permit one for a moment to suppose that the dullest of her male citizenry lived unaware of the ignoble plans of Chicken Bill. That he proposed to salt a claim and therewith ensnare the stranger within the local gates were truths which all men knew. But all men cared not; and mention of the enterprise when the miracle of Chicken Bill at work found occasional comment over the bars, aroused nothing save a sluggish curiosity as to whether Chicken Bill would succeed. No thought of warning the unwary arose in the Timberline heart.

“It’s the proper play,” observed Pike’s Peak Martin, representative of Timberline feeling, “to let every gent seelect his own licker an’ hobble his own hoss. If Chicken Bill can down anybody for his bankroll without making a gun play to land the trick, thar’s no call for the public to interfere.”

It was about this time that Chicken Bill added to his ornate scheme of claim-salting—a plain affair of the heart. The lady to thus cast her spell over Chicken Bill was known as Deadwood Maggie and flourished a popular waitress in the Belle Union Hotel. Timberline thought well of Deadwood Maggie, and her place in general favor found suggestion in a remark of Pike’s Peak Martin.

“Deadwood Maggie,” observed that excellent spirit, as he replaced his glass on the Four Flush bar and turned to an individual who had been guilty of words derogatory to the lady in question; “Dead-wood Maggie is a virchoous young female, an’ it shore frets me to hear her lightly allooded to.”

As Pike’s Peak Martin’s disapproval took the violent form of smiting the maligner upon the head with an 8-inch pistol, the social status of the lady was ever after regarded as fixed.

Chicken Bill was not the one to eat his heart in silence, and his passion was but one day old when he laid hand and fortune at Deadwood Maggie’s feet. That maiden for her part displayed a suspicious front, born perhaps of an experience of the perfidy of man. Deadwood Maggie was inclined to a scorn of Chicken Bill and his proffer of instant wedlock.

“Not on your life!” was Deadwood Maggie’s reply.

But Chicken Bill persisted; he longed more ardently because of this rebuff. To soften Deadwood Maggie he threw a gallant arm about her and drew her to his bosom.

“Don’t be in sech a hurry to lose me,” said Chicken Bill on this sentimental occasion.

Deadwood Maggie was arranging tables at the time for those guests who from mine and store and bar-room would come, stamping and famishing, an hour later. Chicken Bill and she for the moment had the apartment to themselves. Goaded by her lover’s sweet persistency, and unable to phrase a retort that should do her feelings justice, Deadwood Maggie fell to the trite expedient of breaking a butter-dish on the head of Chicken Bill.

“Now pull your freight,” said she, “or I’ll chunk you up with all the crockery in the camp.”

Finding Deadwood Maggie obdurate, Chicken Bill for the nonce withdrew to consider the situation. He was in no sort dispirited; he regarded the butter-dish and those threats which came after it as marks of maiden coyness; they were decisive of nothing.

“She wasn’t in the mood,” said Chicken Bill, as he explained his repulse to the bar-keeper of the Four Flush Saloon; “but I’ll get my lariat on her yet. Next time I’ll rope with a larger loop.”

“That’s the racket!” said the bar-keeper.

Chicken Bill in a small way was a gifted rascal. After profound contemplation of Deadwood Maggie in her obstinacy, he determined to win her with the conveyance of a one-quarter interest in The Flim Flam Murphy. Deadwood Maggie knew nothing of the worthlessness of The Flim Flam Murphy. Chicken Bill would represent it to her as a richer strike than Old Man Granger’s Old Age Mine. He would give her one-quarter. There would be no risk; Deadwood Maggie, when once his wife and getting a good figure for the mine, would make no demur to selling to whatever tenderfoot he might dupe. This plan had merit; at least one must suppose so, for the soul of Deadwood Maggie was visibly softened thereby.

“I must have you, Maggie,” wooed Chicken Bill, when he had put forth the sterling character of The Flim Flam Murphy and expressed himself as determined to bestow on her the one-fourth interest, a conveyance whereof in writing he held then in his hand; “I can’t live without you. When you busted me with that yootensil you made me yours forever. I swear by this gun I pack, I’ll not outlive your refusal to wed me longer than to jest get good an’ drunk an’ put a bullet through my head.”

Who could resist such love and such hyperbole? Deadwood Maggie wept; then she took the deed to the one-fourth interest in The Flim Flam Murphy, kissed Chicken Bill, and said she would drift into his arms as his wife at the end of two months. Chicken Bill objected strenuously to such a recess for his affections, but with the last of it was driven to yield.

There came a time when The Flim Flam Murphy salted to the last degree of salt was as perfect a trap for a tenderfoot as any ever set. And as though luck were seeking Chicken Bill, a probable prey stepped from the stage next day.

Chicken Bill and the stranger were seen in prompt and lengthy conference. Timberline, looking on, grinned in a tolerant way. For two days Chicken Bill and the stranger did nothing but explore the drift, inspect the timbering, and consider specimens taken from The Flim Flam Murphy.

At last the stranger filled ten small canvas sacks with specimens of ore and brought them into camp on a buckboard to be assayed. Chicken Bill was with him; and pleading internal pains that made it impossible to ride upright, our wily one lay back with the bags of specimens while the stranger drove. From time to time the astute Chicken Bill, having advantage of rough places in the canyon’s bed which engaged the faculties of the stranger, emptied some two or three quills of powdered gold into each specimen sack by the ingenius process of forcing the sharpened point of the quill through the web of the canvas, and blowing the treasure in among the ore.

“It’s a cinch!” ruminated Chicken Bill, when he had completed these improvements. Then he refreshed himself from a whiskey flask, said that he felt better, and climbed back beside the stranger on the buckboard’s seat.

There came the assay next day. With that ceremony Chicken Bill had nothing to do, and could only wait. But he owned no misgivings; there would come but one result; the ore would show a richness not to be resisted.

Chicken Bill put in his time preparing Deadwood Maggie for the sale. He told her that not a cent less than sixty thousand dollars would be accepted.

“It’s worth more,” declared Chicken Bill, “but me an’ you, Maggie, ain’t got the long green to develop it. Our best play is to cash in if we can get the figure.”

But disaster was striding on the trail of Chicken Bill. That evening, as Deadwood Maggie was returning to the Belle Union from the Dutch Woman’s Store, to which mart she had been driven for a tooth-brush, she was blasted with the spectacle of Chicken Bill and a Mexican girl in confidential converse just ahead. Deadwood Maggie, a bit violent of nature, had been in no wise calmed by her several years on the border. While not wildly in love, still her impulse was to dismantle, if not dismember, the senorita thus softly whispering and being whispered to by the recreant Chicken Bill. But on second thought Deadwood Maggie restrained herself. She would observe the full untruth of Chicken Bill.

The next day, when Chicken Bill called on Dead-wood Maggie, he was met with a smothering flight of table furniture and told never to come back.

It was a crisis with Chicken Bill. The assay had been a victory and the stranger stood ready, cash in hand, to pay the sixty thousand dollars demanded for The Flim Flam Murphy. Chicken Bill felt the necessity of getting the money without delay. Any marplot, whether from drink or that mean officiousness which hypocrites call “conscience,” might say the word that would arm the tenderfoot with a knowledge of his peril. But Chicken Bill could not come to speech with Dead-wood Maggie. In a blaze of jealousy, that wronged woman would begin throwing things the moment he appeared. As a last resort, Chicken Bill dispatched the bar-keeper of the Four Flush to Dead-wood Maggie. This diplomat was told to set forth the crying needs of the hour, Chicken Bill promising friendship for life and five hundred dollars if he made Deadwood Maggie see reason.

Ten minutes later the bar-keeper returned, bleeding from a cut over his eye.

“Did it with a stove-lifter,” he explained, as he laved the wound in a basin at the corner of the bar. “Say! you can’t get near enough to that lady to give her a diamond ring.”

Chicken Bill made a gesture of despair; he saw that Deadwood Maggie was lost to him forever.

But the sale of The Flim Flam Murphy must go on. Chicken Bill sought the tenderfoot. He found him with a smile on his face reading the report of The Flim Flam Murphy assay. Chicken Bill guardedly explained that he had a partner, name not given, who objected to the sale. The partner held a one-quarter share in The Flim Flam Murphy. The stranger, who knew it all along from the records, pondered briefly. Finally he broke the silence:

“Would Chicken Bill sell his three-quarters?”

Chicken Bill composed his face. Chicken Bill would sell.

Nothing is big in the Southwest; transactions of millions are disposed of while one eats a flap-jack. In an hour the stranger had acquired The Flim Flam Murphy interest which was vested in Chicken Bill; in two hours that immoralist was speeding by vague trails to regions new, forty-five thousand dollars in his belt and a soreness in his heart.

Timberline felt a quiet amusement in the situation. It leaned back and waited in a superior way for the stranger to set up the low wail of the robbed. The outcry couldn’t be long deferred; the fraud must be soon unmasked since the development of The Flim Flam Murphy was gone about with diligence and on a dazzling scale.

But the stranger did not complain.

Two weeks were added to that vast eternity which had preceded them and the sobered sentiment of Timberline began to think it might better investigate. Timberline, however, would proceed with caution; missing its laugh, it must now guard itself against being laughed at.

It turned as the wise ones had begun to apprehend. The Flim Flam Murphy was a two-million dollar wonder. The talented Chicken Bill had overreached himself. With no hope beyond a plan to salt a claim, he had not thought to secure an assay for himself. The Flim Flam Murphy loomed upon mankind as Timberline’s richest strike.

Pike’s Peak Martin was the first to collect himself. Crawling from beneath that landslide of amazement which had caught and covered Timberline, he visited the Belle Union with a resolved air. Pointedly but fully Pike’s Peak Martin tendered himself in marriage to Dead wood Maggie. That lady did not hurl a butter-dish; such feats would seem too effervescent on the part of a gentlewoman worth five hundred thousand dollars.

Deadwood Maggie blushed with drooping lids as she heard the words of Pike’s Peak Martin.

“Which your offer shore makes a hit with me,” murmured Deadwood Maggie. Then, when a moment later, her head lay on Pike’s Peak Martin’s shoulder like some tired flower at rest, Deadwood Maggie gave a sigh, and lifting her eyes to the deep inquiring gaze of Pike’s Peak Martin, she whispered: “You’re the only gent I ever loved.”

THE END.