ARMS AND THE WOMAN
Beach, Rex E.
Arms and the Woman By REX E. BEACH Illustrated by George Gibbs (Copyright, 1914, by Newspaper Enter prise Association.) "HERE'S the point," said Hoffmeister. "If we send a messenger they'll...
...It's the messenger that fills the exactin' duties of imita-tin' the back end of a shootin gallery...
...It was not this that abashed the little man and shattered his complacency, leaving him gasping...
...I don't mean that way...
...I'd kill him...
...Hope he gets me 'stead of a horse...
...As the driver fired, he writhed in his seat, expecting the blow of the other's ball...
...He had cooled even before his weight on the brake brought them to a stand...
...Sounded something like a gun play back yonder...
...Perhaps you knew him...
...Old Hay Fever pags his grib as sood as Old Jag Frost hids the towd...
...Theatrically, it was a stagewait, silent, agonizing, sweat-producing, with a delighted audience grinning its approval...
...He'd puncture me some day...
...I got a little something to show fer it...
...said she, moving uneasily...
...Even though he got one, the other would kill him where he sat...
...thought the driver...
...The driver groaned...
...Her listener didn't seem particularly horrified...
...Id is do respecter of persods ad fasteds its grib alige od the rich and the poor...
...It did not come...
...Then she addressed the wounded man, unconscious of their presence: "Link, speak to me...
...It might frighten the horses...
...Then they both fired...
...Two figures had risen from the top of the bank, armed, masked and sinister...
...Swinging, he fired again, and the stranger swayed gropingly out over the bank and slid limply down into the road, amid a rattle of gravel and stones...
...questioned Winters...
...Git some water and bandages, Charlie, quick...
...and the girl flung herself into his arms...
...S'posin' he couldn't shoot straight...
...The young lady studied for some moments...
...As the stocky driver wallowed forth and climbed the wheel for his three-mile Auburn drive, Winters gazed at his companion solemnly...
...As they topped this, the girl shrieked muffledly...
...Who is Black Bart...
...My speech splinters up and sticks in my neck like I was eatin' sun perch in the dark...
...id dever asgs a bad how buch buddy he has before id fasteds idself od hib...
...I couldn't...
...Oh...
...Each carried a Winchester...
...He was settin' right where you are...
...It launched itself upon him, more dreadful than a plague, and he froze in his seat...
...He swallowed desperately the precipice of his aesophagus like an ore-skip diving into a shaft...
...That's not the worst, though...
...Yes, yes...
...The splinters bit off from the seat at Shorty's side...
...hastily disclaimed the girl...
...Before the horses had reared at the back pull, the little man had grasped these points and swore again at the luck which sent two men against him on this of all days...
...Swinging past an elbow in the trail they sagged rattling down across a gully, thence up a gentle rise where the horses slowed...
...Hey...
...How'd you come out...
...The odly kubford that cad be god oud of havig hay fever is that id is libided...
...Hay fever mages wud of a retirig disposition, because wud is always busy usig his hagerchief ad has do tibe for ady other of the social abedities...
...He lashed the horses down the dizzy trail, while above and far to the right he saw the vanishing outlaw flickering through the scattered pines...
...Not on your life—they're used to it...
...Shorty guessed maybe he was, and recalled only too well how the young rascal had jumped camp owing him a hundred dollars...
...It had come too suddenly for him to formulate a plan of action...
...not too bad...
...Moreover, it was contrary to all precedent for a driver to assume other than passive duties...
...As they tore "up abreast, the other's gun belched again, and Shorty felt the paralyzing stroke of a missile, while the ribbons slipped from his left hand...
...He was a trifle wild, I'm afraid...
...Do you always carry a gun...
...Simultaneously there was a jolting crash and a muffled squeak from the girl...
...Good-by, Miss...
...Oh...
...Better cargo than bullion this trip, Shorty...
...The lady leaned over confidentially...
...He slid dumbly along till he crowded the edge, while she was lifted by willing hands, settling beside him like a bit of thistle-down...
...If we send a messenger they'll know there's treasure aboard...
...All right, Shorty...
...Ye got me...
...The postmaster tossed a dyspeptic mail bag into the stage body and the driver scrambled to his throne with dignity...
...Why, I come off up here on purpose to get shed of 'em...
...What a horrible creature," said the lady with heat...
...Er—ah—ain't you heard about Black Bart, the outlaw...
...We've got to get two Wells-Fargo men...
...Never in his life had the little man been so long in the company of the unknown sex, and now this unwonted intimacy with its most lovely member, together with the sense of being in a measure her protector, stimulated him strangely...
...I've heard he drank...
...Then, as he gathered his reins, the voice of "Peg-Leg," the landlord, came to him...
...Hay fever blays do favorides...
...Shorty nodded...
...There issued—silence, broken only by the tramp of the dancing animals...
...As he did so, the man raised uncertainly upon one elbow, the mask, a bandanna kerchief still hiding his features...
...His chest swelled round and full and he thought: "Grand...
...He licked his lips and opened his mouth...
...What do you mean...
...he doubted whether road etiquet permitted it...
...the other filling his to the brim, and rolling it in his mouth like a toothwash...
...The odly thig for a bad thad cad afford to tage a vacation to do whed he geds hay fever is to hige for the up-lads...
...the indescribable sweetness of that moment...
...Still, it was quite, impossible that the lady should lose her fortune...
...No...
...Cubbig lige a thief id the dide, there is no chadce to ged away frob hay fever...
...I often do," said Shorty, licking his lips...
...First time I shot her she bucked me through a fence an' then kicked at me twicet under the bottom rail...
...Shorty had taken out the corner post of the hotel porch...
...We've got to use ingenuity habitual...
...You dever saw a hay fever victib thad god up od his hide legs ad howled because there was dager of a frosd...
...I learned the habit as a baby...
...This Bart is a guy with lean-in's toward politeness an' other people's money, also a hell of an aim...
...get inside, quick...
...he might be considerable worse...
...Shorty nodded acquiescence...
...Yep...
...If he cad nod afford id all he cad do is to stay hobe and bake everybody biserable alog with hibself...
...Aboud the odly way thad it will ever be drived frob the Bississipi valley is to cebend the whole valley, ad this is nod expacted to be dud id tibe to benefid the victibs this year.—Indian" apolis News...
...In this camp...
...Want to try her...
...A bad with the hay fever is so udderly biserable thad he cad ged alog fide with his bother-id-law...
...It's Milly—Milly, your little sister...
...His mask was gone, and Shorty knew that he alone had seen the features of the mysterious road agent...
...Oh, lasting disgrace...
...It nearly killed mother and as soon as my school closed I came out to sell the mine...
...You must live plumb out of the world, New York...
...Shorty gazed incredulously at her, but she smiled into his eyes till he suddenly felt chills racing madly up his spine and grew apopletic...
...Here...
...Bart's Winchester rang whirling from his grasp...
...Sure, an' she jumps like a goat, too...
...Blood trickled out of his hair from a thin gash over one ear...
...Then, without facial disturbance, one eyelid fell slowly in a wink of great understanding, and delving into a pocket he drew forth the soiled and bloody half of a bandanna...
...What...
...You've brought me a sweetheart, eh...
...She said it breathlessly, with open shame...
...Thrusting her inside, he ran forward to the figure that lay in the road by the heads of the snorting horses...
...The boys would swear he was a liar if he ever told...
...He drank whisky—think of it...
...Occasionally he stole furtive sidewise glances, then stared fixedly at the thirsty road ahead, planting the im pressions in his memory that they might later grow and bloom into marvelous reminiscence...
...Under her tactful loquacity the dust dissolved in Shorty's mouth, the constricted paralysis left his larynx, and sounds born of intellect began to issue, hoarse and unintelligible at first, but approximating rhetoric of a kind...
...Go on, please...
...Thank God, he ain't trying for the team," thought the dwarf, and as they drew together he beheld the other's face, and saw that rage rioted there so savagely that it Winded him to his surer revenge...
...You Eastern folks 'way down around Denver an' Boston is clean off the map, ain't you...
...There was a rustle and scurry, and the jehu's widening gaze beheld a flashing, white clad, feminine figure, petite and picturesque...
...She flashed upon him the glare of an animal at bay while she spoke words that left him benumbed...
...I want to ride up there," she cried brightly, and Shorty's heart turned to water...
...All the same, I ain't weighed down with suppressed glee at bein' duenna for thirty thousand dollars, even for twenty mile—that is, not in the immoral vicinity of this neighborhood...
...said the passenger with emphasis...
...said "Peg-Leg...
...Well, he et, too, as I recall it now...
...Wait a minute—passenger fer you, Shorty...
...He had held a woman —a real, regular woman—on his breast...
...Her clothes were awry, her face tear stained and swollen...
...Two thousand dollars...
...A man inserted his head through the door and yelled: "All aboard...
...the other half leveled in the position for quick action...
...The men at the rearing horses' heads watched the driver vainly waiting the signal to let go, but his eyes were roving helplessly...
...Hay fever selegs ids victibs about August fivteed every year ad they cad always tell thad they are id by the facd thad sub bordig whed they ged up they cad nod talk civilized, their eyes wader ad they feel tough as sid, as the preacher says...
...They swung down on to the flat amid a spatter of gravel, splashed through the ford of the North Fork, and rushed scrambling up the bank to the Wire Bridge Toll House...
...It'll be just my infernal luck to run slap into her, an' if I do I'll stampede like a buffalo calf, see if I don't...
...You've killed him...
...the elder man holding his loosely in his hollowed arm...
...Shorty squared around...
...It'll be on the Big Grade if it's anywhere...
...As they rocked around the nose of the last bluff he yelled again, for ahead of him and midway down the zigzag sheep trail was Black Bart, literally dropping off the vertical cliff, from crag to crag...
...We heard he was dead," she continued sadly...
...Bart snatched at his rifle and leaped to cover behind the boulders of the hillside, moving with the quick lithe-ness of a panther...
...It's the first payment for my brother's claim...
...Tain't over two weeks ago that Black Bart shot up the Auburn Kid —Wells-Fargo man, you know...
...The safety of his lady, the capture of a desperado, the preservation of the company's bullion...
...Who was it —Black Bart...
...They must be associated with something sad in his past, for he's acquired such a mild aversion to 'em that he's laid out five in eight months...
...I thought so...
...The outlaw rested limply on the girl's breast while she sopped at his bleeding temple...
...Black Bart knows that the olive wreaths of peace and concord is grafted on to me and sproutin' like asparrowgrass...
...The victib cad odly rud away to sub other stade lig Bichigad, for idstadce, ad sub of the victibs prefer the disease to the rebedy...
...Disregarding his victim's groans, the dwarf swung him over his great shoulders and rushed at the stage...
...Well, it's this way...
...Id is the odly drawbag to the Bissis-sippi valley, ad as id draws bag odly about sigs weegs id the year id is nod considered serious...
...As the reins eased, his hand slid suddenly to holster, and the overgrown leaped forth, roaring as it came...
...Thad's his salvation...
...The minute 1 see skirts I go plumb dippy—my eyes hang out like loose ulster buttons, an' them little hot springs in my mouth goes dry till my throat feels like I was beatin' carpets in a closet...
...she inquired, gazing doubtfully at his holster, from which protruded a carved ivory pistol butt smoothed by much usage...
...He snatched the long neckcloth from his own throat, and rolling the man roughly on his face, drew his arms together, knotting his wrists at the back...
...What's up, Shorty...
...Men and horses leaped together, and they were snatched clattering into full flight...
...Bart he knew for a deadly shot, Whereas the stranger seemed oddly shaken—regular buck-fever apparently, from his trembling...
...Let me impress on you oncet and forever that there ain't no danger to me in neither place—I'm the driver...
...The two men carried the messenger box from the rear room, lifting it on to the hoot...
...Old Charley Crane appeared, followed by Winters, the messenger...
...What...
...If the boys could only see me now...
...id's the hay fever thad drives theb there...
...His body doubled convulsively, and there came a cough, unheralded and sharp—as sudden, metallic, and loud as the exhaust of a switch engine on a frosty morning...
...One, the familiar form of Black Bart, tall, debonair, mocking...
...What's the matter with you...
...I ain't sweatin' a bit...
...Lincoln Cushing...
...Also, rage had flashed blindingly over him at the mocking words of the desperado: "Oh...
...The stage has been stuck up so often it's getting habitual...
...Come again," and the populace of Forest Hill doffed felt and fur to sweep the ground in a Chesterfieldian salute...
...Yes...
...all this he had effected single handed—and against odds...
...He worked with fury, glancing up the mountainside, where on the bare ridge, he saw the figure of Black Bart running westward along its crest paralleling the direction they would take...
...We've got acquainted now, though...
...Nobody's ever seen his face, though some people claims hanker-in's for a sight of it, such bein' mostly sheriffs an' Wells-Fargo directors...
...With the others crowding him he jerked the door open, then his jaw dropped...
...Oh, I hate you...
...It wouldn't be reg'lar I'm the driver, and drivers aint' supposed to draw cards in the game...
...He clambered down, finding it impossible not to swagger slightly, for he felt an overpowering satisfaction...
...he bellowed...
...I beg your pardon, Miss," he stammered while his face grew red and hot...
...It's an awfully big one, isn't it...
...Hurling him abruptly in upon the girl, he slammed the door...
...Shorty showed extreme trepidation...
...Girl here...
...It had eyeholes and a string at the upper corners, forming a rude road agent's mask...
...the large man wetting the bottom of his glass with the vitrol, and tossing it off wryly...
...Bichigaders thig that the climad of their beloved stade lures Idiadiads ub there about this tile every year, bud it doesed...
...Hay Fever HAY FEVER is called thad because the hay cad nod get bag at id, though hay has nothig to do with id...
...Oh...
...They'll meet you at the second relay, so you pull out alone, as usual, and pick 'em up there...
...He works alone, an' hot-gun messengers sort of riles him...
...Besides, I ain't a fightin' man...
...This he tore up and tossed out of the window into the river...
...The other, a stranger whom Shorty had never seen before...
...Every year sub wise youg docdor cubs alog with a cure for hay fever, bud id is doticed thad the cure dever lasds bore thad five or ted bidudes...
...If he drops one of them we'll go over the mountainside like a rocket...
...I hate to think about robberies, for all the money I have in the world is in that box...
...Yes, I only caught a glimpse of her and it appears to me she's mighty pretty...
...As I have alius observed," said he, "outside of wimmen folks there's nothin' more onreliable an' de-ceivin' than circumstantial evidence— when it's destroyed...
...Bart knelt, resting his weapon over the crook of his folded arm...
...it was the look of her eyes...
...Shorty slammed the door abruptly in the faces of the others...
...As these thoughts hurtled through his brain he likewise weighed the odds against him...
...As the bandit dodged out of range Shorty leaped down...
...Oh, there's no danger this side of Number Two...
...Thad is wud tibe thad she cad bake hib ead oud of her had...
...I suppose," said the superintendent, having coughed the paralysis from his vocal cords, "you saw the girl that came the yesterday with New-comb...
...Hoffmeister and his companion drank...
Vol. 6 • October 1914 • No. 42
