The Essential Max Brand - 29 Westerns in One Edition. Max Brand
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for a cane and it was a plain untapered bar of iron which the blacksmith had given him as the price of a drink, on a day. He needed a large poker, however, for there was only the one stove in the entire big room, and it was a giant of its kind, as capacious as a hogshead. This day Pale Annie kept it red hot, so that the warmth might penetrate to the door on the one hand and to the rear of the room where the tables and chairs were, on the other.
Since Pale Annie's crowd took little exercise except for bending their elbows now and again, and since the majority of them had been in the place fully half the day, by ten in the evening sounds of hilarity began to rise from the saloon. Solemn-faced men who had remained in their places for hour after hour, industriously putting away the red-eye, now showed symptoms of life. Some of them discovered hitherto hidden talents as singers, and they would rise from their places, remove their hats, open their bearded mouths, and burst into song. An antiquarian who had washed gold in '49 and done nothing the rest of his life save grow a prodigious set of pure white whiskers, sprang from his place and did a hoe-down that ravished the beholders. Thrice he was compelled to return to the floor, and in the end his performance was only stopped by an attack of sciatica. Two strong men carried him back to his chair and wept over him, and there was another drink all around.
In this scene of universal joy there were two places of shadow. For at the rear end of the room, almost out of reach of the lantern-light, sat Haw-Haw Langley and Mac Strann. The more Haw-Haw Langley drank the more cadaverous grew his face, until in the end it was almost as solemn as that of Pale Annie himself; as for Mac Strann, he seldom drank at all.
A full hour had just elapsed since either of them spoke, yet Haw-Haw Langley said, as if in answer to a remark: "He's heard too much about you, Mac. He ain't no such fool as to come to Elkhead."
"He ain't had time," answered the giant.
"Ain't had time? All these days?"
"Wait till the dog gets well. He'll follow the dog to Elkhead."
"Why, Mac, the trail's been washed out long ago. That wind the other day would of knocked out any trail less'n a big waggon."
"It won't wash out the trail for that dog," said Mac Strann calmly.
"Well," snarled Haw-Haw, "I got to be gettin' back home pretty soon. I ain't rollin' in coin the way you are, Mac."
The other returned no answer, but let his eyes rove vacantly over the room, and since his head was turned the other way, Haw-Haw Langley allowed a sneer to twist at his lips for a moment.
"If I had the price," he said, "we'd have another drink."
"I ain't drinkin'," answered the giant monotonously.
"Then I'll go up and bum one off'n Pale Annie. About time he come through with a little charity."
So he unfurled his length and stalked through the crowd up to the bar. Here he leaned and confidentially whispered in the ear of Pale Annie.
"Partner, I been sprinklin' dust for a long time in here, and there ain't been any reward. I'm dry, Annie."
Pale Annie regarded him with grave disapproval.
"My friend," he said solemnly, "liquor is the real root of all evil. For my part, I quench my thirst with water. They's a tub over there in the corner with a dipper handy. Don't mention it."
"I didn't thank you," said Haw-Haw Langley furiously. "Damn a tight-wad, say I!"
The long hand of Pale Annie curled affectionately around the neck of an empty bottle.
"I didn't quite gather what you said?" he remarked courteously, and leaned across the bar—within striking distance.
"I'll tell you later," remarked Haw-Haw sullenly, and turned his shoulder to the bar.
As he did so two comparatively recent arrivals came up beside him. They were fresh from a couple of months of range-finding, and they had been quenching a concentrated thirst by concentrated effort. Haw-Haw Langley looked them over, sighed with relief, and then instantly produced Durham and the brown papers. He paused in the midst of rolling his cigarette and offered them to the nearest fellow.
"Smoke?" he asked.
Now a man of the mountain-desert knows a great many things, but he does not know how to refuse. The proffer of a gift embarrasses him, but he knows no way of avoiding it; also he never rests easy until he has made some return.
"Sure," said the man, and gathered in the tobacco and papers. "Thanks!"
He covertly dropped the cigarette which he had just lighted, and stepped on it, then he rolled another from Haw-Haw's materials. The while, he kept an uneasy eye on his new companion.
"Drinkin'?" he asked at length.
"Not jest now," said Haw-Haw carelessly.
"Always got room for another," protested the other, still more in earnest as he saw his chance of a return disappearing.
"All right, then," said Haw-Haw. "Jest one more."
And he poured a glass to the brim, waved it gracefully towards the others without spilling a drop, and downed it at a gulp.
"Been in town long?" he asked.
"Not long enough to find any action," answered the other.
The eye of Haw-Haw Langley brightened. He looked over the two carefully. The one had black hair and the other red, but they were obviously brothers, both tall, thick-shouldered, square-jawed, and pug-nosed. There was Irish blood in that twain; the fire in their eyes could have come from only one place on earth. And Haw-Haw grinned and looked down the length of the room to where Mac Strann sat, a heavy, inert mass, his fleshy forehead puckered into a half-frown of animal wistfulness.
"You ain't the only ones," he said to his companion at the bar. "They's a man in town who says they don't turn out any two men in this range that could give him action."
"The hell!" grunted he of the red hair. And he looked down to his blunt-knuckled hands.
"'S matter of fact," continued Haw-Haw easily, "he's right here now!"
He looked again towards Mac Strann and remembered once more the drink which Mac might so easily have purchased for him.
"It ain't Pale Annie, is it?" asked the black-haired man, casting a dubious glance up and down the vast frame of the undertaker.
"Him? Not half!" grinned Haw-Haw. "It's a fet feller down to the end of the bar. I guess he's been drinkin' some. Kind of off his nut."
He indicated Mac Strann.
"He looks to me," said the red-haired man, setting his jaw, "like a feller that ain't any too old to learn one more thing about the range in these parts."
"He looks to me," chimed in the black haired brother, "like a feller that might be taught something right here in Pale Annie's barroom. Anyway, he's got room at his table for two more."
So saying the two swallowed their drinks and rumbled casually down the length of the room until they came to the table where Mac Strann sat. Haw-Haw Langley followed at a discreet distance and came within earshot to hear the deep voice of Mac Strann rumbling: "Sorry, gents, but that chair is took."
The black-haired man sank into the indicated chair.
"You're right," he announced calmly. "Anybody could see with half an eye that you ain't a fool. It's took by me!"
And he grinned impudently in the face of Mac Strann. The latter, who had been sitting with slightly bent head, now raised it and looked the pair over carelessly; there was in his eye the same dumb curiosity which Haw-Haw Langley had seen many a time in the eye of a bull, leader of the herd.
The giant explained carefully: "I mean, they's a friend of mine that's been sittin' in that chair."
"If I ain't your friend," answered the black-haired brother instantly, "it ain't any fault of mine. Lay it up to yourself, partner!"
Mac Strann stretched out his hand on the surface