Cash Hawkins leaned against the bar and maliciously took in the silence that followed his entrance into the saloon. He knew he was feared; he had made more than one man there feel his power. Malignity was marked in his demeanor and in the physiognomy of his face. He was lithe and straight, with wiry, steel-like muscles. He had a small head with a shock of tawny hair that he wore much longer than is usual with ranchmen. The rawhide strap of his hat hung under his chin, and his face, with its long, pointed wolf jaw, suggested that animal in its expression of ferocious keenness. When he grew excited his mouth moved convulsively, like an ugly trap ready to devour its prey. His hands were curiously beautiful—long and slender, with almond-shaped nails. The care he bestowed on them to keep their beauty in the midst of his rough life, the gorgeousness of his leather chaps with their mounting of silver, and the embroidery on his waistcoat betrayed his salient weakness—inordinate vanity. He was handsome in a cruel, hard fashion. Of his power as an athlete there was no question. In the saloon many could testify to the devilish cunning of those supple hands.
"Got a bottle of ink handy, Nick?" he said, when he had insolently surveyed the assemblage, who, after a pause, were beginning to talk and settle down to new games.
Nick, who wished to be friendly with all who patronized him, answered:
"Ink? Ink is a powerful depressing drink, Cash."
"Drink!" Cash\'s face grew livid with rage. "You see here, Nick, don\'t you joke with me; I ain\'t in the humor for it. People has to know me intimate to joke with me—savvy? You get me a pen and a bottle of ink P.D.Q. I\'m buying some cattle of Tabywana, the Ute chief—savvy? And he\'s got to put his mark to the contract."
With swaggering gestures Cash announced his business so that all could hear him. Bill whispered to the boys, who, going on with their game, were still listening and watching Cash intently:
"You know what that skunk\'s up to now. He\'s got Tabywana drunk—been at it for days—in order to swindle him out of his cattle."
Shorty, with all of the cow-boy\'s intolerance of the red man\'s rights, snapped, "Well, it don\'t make much difference about Injins."
"No," growled Grouchy, "guv\'ment supports \'em anyway."
Nick had unearthed a bottle of ink.
"Well," he said, as he handed it across the bar, "that was ink once, Cash. \'Ain\'t had no use for it sense my gal throwed me. Gits more people into trouble. Often wisht I was illiterate." Nick\'s dry humor betrayed his descent from the Emerald Isle.
Cash paid no attention to Nick\'s attempts at conversation. He was filling his glass and surveying the crowds at the various tables. It annoyed him that no one had greeted him with any particular show of enthusiasm. Save for a "How d\'ye," or a nod from some of the hangers-on, no one had particularly noticed him. He stood against the bar, and without turning his body directed his words towards Big Bill and Jim\'s men at a table near him. With a truculent swagger he blew his cigarette smoke through his nostrils.
"There\'s just one thing I can\'t stand for," he began, "and that\'s an Englishman." There was a movement from Jim\'s men, but it was quickly controlled. Cash went on: "He\'s a blot on any landscape, and wherever I see him I shall wipe him off the map. He is distinctly no good. We whipped \'em once, and we kin do it again. They \'ain\'t never whipped nuthin\' but niggers and savages. The Englishman is a coward and any American who works for him is a cur."
With one movement Andy, Shorty, and Grouchy rose and their hands went to their guns, but almost before they had clutched them Bill was towering over them. With one hand he pushed Grouchy, and with the other gripped the shoulders of Shorty and Andy, until he forced them down into their chairs.
"Leave him to me," was all he said, and the men sullenly subsided under their foreman\'s orders.
Bill stood looking at Cash. He wanted to gain time and not take any notice of insults from him until it was so directly levelled that they could no longer endure it. He wished Jim would come; it was time for him. He wanted to finish some details of the shipping and then get their men to leave Maverick.
Cash saw Bill\'s command of the men; he ground his jaw with ugly grating sounds from his big white teeth. Looking directly at Bill, he said, "There is a certain outfit been a circilatin\' reports derogitory to my standin\' in this here kummunity, and before the day is over I will round up said outfit and put my brand on \'em." As he spoke he touched his gun.
"Same as you been a-puttin\' it on their cattle?" Bill remarked, coldly.
This was what Cash wanted; but he saw Tabywana coming along the platform, and there was too much at stake to allow him to gratify his feeling of anger against Bill then. He gave a low, chuckling laugh.
"A remark I overlook for the time bein\', as I ain\'t agoin\' to take advantage of the absence of the furrin gent that owns you."
He came towards Tabywana, who, halting and stumbling, was trying to cross the room. Cash laughed malevolently as he noticed his helpless condition. The Indian was trailing his blanket along the ground, his feathers were broken, and all intelligence—even cunning—was blotted from his face. The unconquerable dignity of a fallen aristocrat alone remained, and even handicapped as he was by his inebriated condition, he stood out against the others in the saloon as the one true claimant of America\'s royal race.
"ALMOST AS ONE MAN THEY THRUST THEIR REVOLVERS INTO BUD\'S FACE" See page 200
"ALMOST AS ONE MAN THEY THRUST THEIR REVOLVERS INTO BUD\'S FACE" See page 200
Cash caught him by the arm and steered him to the bar. "Hello, Chief," he began, most affably; "come over here and we\'ll close our trade in a jiffy."
He spoke lightly, but his mouth began its rapacious twitching—Cash was really a little nervous over the deal. The government once in a while remembered its people, and took up the claim of the red man. He drew from his belt a paper.
"Ther\'s the big treaty, Chief," he hurriedly began to explain. "Now all you got to do is to make your mark to it." He spoke aloud so that all could hear as he said, "Heap good trade." Cash was clever enough to know that if the deal took place in the saloon in the presence of Nick it would seem, if inquiry were made later, a fair deal.
But Tabywana\'s mind had been tortured by one desire—more drink from the bottle that the white man controlled.
He mumbled helplessly as he leaned against the bar and began soliciting Nick for a drink.
"What\'s that? You don\'t want to trade?" Cash burst forth. "Why, damn you—" Then he paused; to lose his temper would accomplish nothing. A little patience and he could force Tabywana to make his mark. He glanced about the saloon. The others were paying little attention to him—a drunken Indian was of no moment to them. He signalled Nick that he would take the responsibility of giving the Indian liquor. Both knew it was against the law, but both also knew that it was a law daily broken.
"Touge-wayno fire-water," wailed Tabywana.
Cash took hold of him. "What\'s the matter, you—"
Tabywana turned to him. Yes, for days this Cash Hawkins had given him his drink; why shouldn\'t he do so now? Nick was watching them from over his shoulder as he took down a bottle of rye. Tabywana pointed to him.
"No give \'em, me—heap like \'em—big medicine, sick. Me all time heap sick." By his gestures he indicated that his body was suffering for the medicine. "Wayno medicine," he continued. "Pretty soon, more fire-water, catch \'em. Pretty soon—maybe so—no sick." Incoherently he tried to explain that the drink would cure him at once. If not, then pretty soon he would be very ill.
Even at a moment like this Nick could not resist the temptation to tease the Chief. He poured out some whiskey, Tabywana tried to reach it, but Nick lifted the glass and drank it. The sight of it maddened Tabywana: with his two fists he struck the bar and gave vent to his rage in a loud voice.
Cash saw it was time to finish the business. He put his arm about Tabywana, while he directed Nick to give the Indian the bottle.
"It\'s agin the law to give you whiskey, Chief. \'Tain\'t every one\'s got the nerve to treat you like a white man." By this time he was holding the bottle high up in the air. "But there ain\'t no one hereabouts goin\' to question any trade I make. Every man has an inalienable right—say, \'inalienable\'s\' great, Chief—that\'s good medicine," he translated—"inalienable right to git drunk if he wants to, and I\'m agoin\' to protect you in your rights."
He held the paper close to Tabywana; he lowered his voice.
"Now just put your mark to that paper and you get this bottleful and the time of your life." The words were accompanied with explanatory gestures so that Tabywana could understand.
The Indian tried to reach the bottle. Then he saw the paper; he took hold of the pen and bent over it. As he did so a girl\'s figure slid in between him and Cash, and the bottle went smashing out of Cash Hawkins\'s hand up against the bottles and glasses on the shelf at the back of the bar. There was a crash of breaking glass and a snarling curse from Hawkins.
Tabywana stood dazed for a moment at the sight of Nat-u-ritch, who silently faced him and Hawkins. He made a sweeping gesture of fury, and attempted to strike Nat-u-ritch, but she cleverly dodged him. The force of the unarrested blow carried Tabywana against a table, he stumbled into a chair, made an attempt to rise, but, after a desperate effort, fell back in a drunken stupor, oblivious to his surroundings. The sudden burst of anger was the natural climax to days of dissipation.
The crash of the glasses and the sudden entrance of the girl attracted the attention of the gamblers. Some of them, scenting a fracas, stopped playing; others merely looked up, and then went on with the game. What did an Indian, male or female, matter to them?
Cash propped himself up against the bar. For the first time he really was brought within close range of Nat-u-ritch. Silent and immovable she stood, guarding the sunken form of her father. Her head was erect and she looked her contempt and scorn full in Hawkins\'s face. In her hands she held the fallen blanket of her father.
"Well, what d\'ye think of it, eh?" Cash finally ejaculated. His eyes took note of the girl\'s physical perfection. "Say, fer spunk and grit dam\'f I ever see her equal. Say, she can have me, kin Tabywana\'s squaw."
Nick interposed sullenly as he straightened up the disordered bar.
"She ain\'t Tabywana\'s squaw—that\'s Nat-u-ritch, his gal—his daughter."
"Daughter or squaw, don\'t make no difference to me." Cash slouched up to Nat-u-ritch and insolently surveyed her. "She\'s puty, she is, and I\'ll include her in the deal. Say, sis, I like your looks. You please me a whole lot, and I\'ll buy you along with your father\'s cattle—savvy?"
Still she made no answer—she knew what the white man was suggesting. That she had accomplished what she had dared to save her father now frightened her. She wanted to get him away and escape with him. But how? She could not leave him. She only clutched the blanket tighter.
Cash caught sight of the half-breed Baco, who was often called in to act as interpreter by the white men. "Baco," he called, "what\'s her name mean?" He designated Nat-u-ritch with his thumb.
Baco grinned: "Purty little gal." He had cast his own eyes unsuccessfully on Nat-u-ritch.
"Well, she lives up to the name all right. Ain\'t she hell?" Cash drooped lower against the bar. "Say, Nat-u-ritch, you take chances with me when you interfere that way like you did jest now."
Along the platform Jim swung, the gray dust whitening his leather chaps and dusting his shirt and hat with a heavy powder. He had ridden hard to keep his appointment with Bill and his men. As he entered the centre door of the saloon he watched Hawkins and the little Indian girl with curiosity. He took in the situation at a glance. The drunken Chief, the tigerish Hawkins bending over the girl like an animal about to crunch a ewe lamb, and the contents of the smashed bottle that Nick was wiping away told him what had occurred. Cash was saying:
"Nat-u-ritch, you spoiled a very puty deal, and I ain\'t complaisant a whole lot with people as do that, but I\'m goin\' to pass that up, \'cause you please me, and I\'m goin\' to annex you. You\'re comin\' to my wickyup—savvy? And to seal the bargain, and to show you that I ain\'t proud like the ordinary white man, I\'m goin\' to give you a kiss."
Before Hawkins could catch the resisting girl in his arms, Jim quietly stepped between them.
"drop that, Hawkins." The voice of the Englishman was electrical. Jim\'s men jumped to their feet. At a move of Cash\'s hand to his belt they grasped their guns. "Don\'t pull your gun, Cash," Jim said. "You want to get your gang together before you do that. My boys would shoot you into ribbons.&quo............