looked after him. His eyes were unfriendly, but then they were generally unfriendly. As the doors swung to behind his customer he turned and looked in through the doorway behind him.
“Ma!” he cried, “Jim Thorpe’s been in. He’s had four drinks o’ whiskey, and took a bottle with him. He’s been thinkin’ a whole heap, too. Guess he’s goin’ on a sky-high drunk.”
And a shrewish voice called back to him in a tone of feminine spleen.
58
“Guess it’s that Marsham gal,” it said conclusively.
A woman’s instinct is a wonderful thing.
Meanwhile Jim was riding across the market-place. Half-way across he saw Smallbones. He hailed him, and the little man promptly hurried up to his horse’s side.
Jim knew that Smallbones disliked him. But just now he was only seeking ordinary information.
“Where’ll I find Restless?” he inquired. “Where’s he working?”
“Guess I see him over by Peter Blunt’s shack. Him an’ Peter wus gassin’ together, while you wus up ther’ seein’ Eve Marsham,” Smallbones replied meaningly. “I ’lows Peter’s mostly nosin’ around when–––”
“Thanks, I’ll ride over.”
Jim made as though to ride off. He understood the spiteful nature of this little busybody, and was in no mood to listen to him now. But Smallbones was something of a leech when he chose. He had seen the whiskey bottle sticking out of Jim’s coat pocket, and his Barnriff thirst and curiosity were agog, for Jim was at no time a man to waste money in drink.
“Say, givin’ a party?” he sneered, pointing at the bottle.
“Yes, a party to a dead friend,” replied Jim, with a wintry smile. “It’s inexpensive, less trouble, and there’s more for myself. So long.”
A minute or two later Smallbones was serving Angel Gay in his store. He had just sold him a butcher’s knife of inferior quality at double New York prices.
“Say,” he observed, in the intimate manner of fellow villagers. “Who’s dead? I ain’t heard nuthin’. 59 Mebbe you’ll know, your bizness kind o’ runnin’ in that line.”
“Ain’t heerd tell,” the butcher replied, with a solemn shake of his large head. “An’ most o’ them come my way, too,” he added, with thoughtful pride. “Here, wait.” He drew out a greasy note-book. “Y’see I kind o’ keep re-cords o’ likely folks. Mebbe some o’ the names’ll prompt you. Now ther’s M. Wilkes, she’s got a swellin’, I don’t rightly know wher’––ther’s folk talks of it bein’ toomer––deadly toomer. You ain’t heerd if she’s gone?” he inquired hopefully, while he thumbed the pages of his book over.
“Nope. I ain’t heerd,” said Smallbones. “But I don’t guess it’s a woman. Friend o’ Jim Thorpe’s.”
“Ah,” murmured the happy butcher, lifting his eyes to the ceiling for inspiration. “That kind o’ simplifies things. Jim Thorpe,” he pondered. “He ain’t got a heap o’ friends, as you might say. Ther’s Will Henderson,” he turned over the pages of his book. “Um, healthy, drinks a bit. Hasty temper, but good for fifty year ’less he gits into a shootin’ racket. ’Tain’t him now?” he inquired looking up.
“No, ’tain’t him. I see him this mornin’. He was soused some. Kind o’ had a heavy night. Wot about McLagan of the ‘AZ’s’?”
Again the butcher turned over the pages of his note-book. But finished by shaking his head mournfully.
“No luck,” he said. “McLagan’s ’bout forty, never sick. Only chance ‘accident on ranch.’”
The two men looked blankly at each other.
“Wot set you thinkin’?” inquired the butcher at last.
60
“Jest nuthin’ o’ consequence. Thorpe sed as he was givin’ a party to a dead friend. He’d got a bottle o’ whiskey.”
“Ah!” murmured Gay, with an air of relief, returning his note-book to his pocket. “That clears things. He’s speakin’ metaphoric. I’ll git goin’, kind o’ busy. I ain’t sent out the day’s meat yet, an’ I got to design a grave fixin’ fer Restless’s last kid. Y’see it’s a gratis job, I guess, Restless bein’ my pardner, as you might say. So long.”
Jim reached Peter Blunt’s hut as the carpenter was leaving it. Peter was at the door, and smiled a genial welcome. He and Jim were excellent friends. They were both men who thought. They both possessed a wide knowledge of things which were beyond the focus of the Barnriff people, and consequently they interested each other.
“Howdy, Jim,” the giant called to him, as he drew up beside the carpenter.
Jim returned his greeting.
“I’ll come along, Peter,” he said. “Guess I need a word with Restless first.”
“Right-ho.”
Jim turned to the man at his side.
“I won’t need those buildings,” he said briefly.
“But I ordered–––”
Jim cut him short.
“I’ll pay you anything I owe you. You can let me know how much.”
He passed on to the hut without waiting for a reply. He had no intention of arguing anything concerning his future plans with Restless. If the carpenter stood to lose 61 he would see him right––well, there was nothing more about it that concerned him.
Peter was inside his hut examining a litter of auriferous soil on his table when Jim entered. This man’s home possessed an unique interior. It was such as one would hardly have expected in a bachelor in Barnriff. There were none of the usual impedimenta of a prairie man’s abode, there was no untidiness, no dirt, no makeshift. Yet like the man himself the place was simple and unpretentious.
There were other signs of the man in it, too. There was a large plain wooden bookcase filled to overflowing with a choice collection of reading matter. There were rows of classics in several languages, there was modern fiction of the better kind, there were many volumes of classical verse. In short it was the collection of a student, and might well have been a worthy addition to many a more elaborate library.
There were, besides this, several excellent pictures in water-color on the walls, and the absence of all tawdry decoration was conspicuous. Even the bed, the chair, and the table, plain enough, goodness knows, had an air of belonging to a man of unusual personality.
It would be impossible to describe adequately the manner in which the character of Peter Blunt peeped out at one from every corner of his home, nevertheless it did impress itself upon his every visitor. And its peculiar quality affected all alike. There was a strangely gentle strength about the man that had a way of silencing the most boisterously inclined. He had a quiet humor, too, that was often far too subtle for the cruder minds of Barnriff. But most of all his sympathy was a thing that 62 left no room for self in his thoughts. No one attempted undue familiarity with him; not that he would have been likely to actively resent it, but simply, in his presence nobody had any inclination that way. Nobody could have been more a part of the Barnriff community than Peter Blunt, and yet nobody could have been more apart from it.
Peter did not even look up from his labors when his visitor flung himself into the vacant chair. He silently went on with his examination of first one fragment of quartz and then another. And the man in the chair watched him with moody, introspective eyes. It was a long time before either spoke, and when, at last, the silence was broken, it was by Peter’s deep mellow voice.
“I’m looking for gold in a heap of dirt, Jim,”