The Greatest Works of B. M. Bower - 51 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). B. M. Bower
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added dryly, "I haven't got it yet."
"Hey, you, shuck that shirt!" roared the policeman who had held the gun in at the cab window. "Don't let me tell yuh again, either!"
While the thief sullenly divested himself of the now celebrated garment and flung it savagely at the Kid, Harlan spoke briefly and privately with the cab driver; and from the quick smile of gratitude on the driver's cynical mouth as he turned to the door, one might assume that the damages had been paid several times over. Which was merely Harlan's way.
"I'd like to take the chaps and the hat and badge back to the fellow who owns them," the Kid next suggested. "And if you're through with me here, I'd like to get back to the stadium right away. The ponies ought to be fed; they've got a lot of work ahead of them this evening."
No one stopped him, so the Kid took that as permission to go. He shook the legs of the chaps to make sure the money was all out, flung them across his arm, along with the shirt from which the square gun-metal badge dangled by its narrow black strap, snatched up the stolen hat and dashed out in time to hail the cab as it was easing away from the curb.
Inside the sub-station office two policemen, the desk sergeant and the influential Mr. Harlan looked at one another. One policeman shook his head in a gesture of complete bafflement, and the other thrust his tongue in his cheek to head off a delighted grin.
"He'll win," the sergeant observed sententiously, nodding his head toward the door. "Steam roller couldn't stop that boy when he gets started!"
Had you told the Kid that he had walked off with Exhibit A, B and C of the evidence, he wouldn't have known what you were talking about; though of course they were not especially needed just then.
"That boy could get away with murder!" one policeman said to the other, as they mounted their motorcycles to ride away.
"Sure could, with Jim Harlan to back him," said the other.
Chapter XV. It Wasn't Anything
In that singleness of purpose which had brought him to Chicago the Kid dismissed the affair as settled and done with. He had his shirt, Harlan had his money back, the police had the thief. Beautifully simple, eminently satisfactory and no more to be said—except when he ran across yellow-cab driver Number Nineteen. That gratitude stuff of Harlan's was, in the Kid's opinion, all blah; polite but foolish, because he had merely been attending to his own personal affairs and had served the rodeo committee by accident, as it were. He was glad they had their money again, but no more glad than he was to have his shirt back. It had cost him two dollars and a half in cab fare, but he would have more money that night, unless something went wrong in the relay race.
That thought remained to harass him until he reached his horses and found the Laramie boys waiting, full of the contest and the robbery and the mystery of the Kid's absence. When they spied his tall, slender figure coming down through the stables clad in the familiar blue and taking long steps in his haste, they whooped and made for him, fairly babbling their relief.
"D' you feed the horses, Walt?" The Kid broke into their chorus.
"N-o—never thought of it." Walt shook his head. They had been haled before the committee to be identified as bandits, had answered innumerable questions about themselves and about Montana Kid, and had been wild with worry over his disappearance. How could he expect that they would remember to feed the horses? Hadn't they just come, in the faint hope of finding him there?
"Where you been, Kid? Don't you know—"
"After my shirt. Got it too," the Kid answered succinctly, flinging the chaps and hat down upon the saddle of the owner and picking up the oats basin. "Have to send it to the cleaner's, darn it. That'll bust me flat if I don't get some day money." He filled and carried the basin to Stardust who nickered eagerly for his supper and set the other two pawing and teasing.
"Say, the office was held up and robbed, and—"
"Yeah, I know. They've got it back. Got the fellow in jail." The Kid casually informed them, coming back for more oats.
"They did? When was that? How do you know?"
"Saw Harlan a little bit ago," the Kid evaded, busying himself with the horses. "Fork some hay in here, will you, boys? Then we'll have to go eat. Six o'clock—we'll have to make it a light supper, for that only gives us two hours and a half till contest time again. I've got eggs enough, and bread—it'll be toast and soft-boiled eggs for us to-night. Good thing I forgot to turn in the key of the kitchen. If it isn't in use—"
"Kitchen?" Incredulity sharpened all three voices.
"You bet. Kitchen. Where you cook stuff. I've been baching here for a week and more. Fellow gave me the key to a swell kitchen—wait till you see it!" On that subject the Kid was loquacious enough to satisfy the most inquisitive.
Once more the stadium was magically empty except for the hostlers and a few laggard contestants, and the clean-up gang at work getting ready for the evening performance. Rows of lights twinkled in all the corridors; their footsteps sounded loud and clumping as they made their way to the kitchen.
"I should think they'd use this now, but I guess everybody eats down town—but us. We're the only broke guys in this show, looks like. How'd you fellows make out after I left?"
While he boiled coffee and eggs and made toast for the four, they told him in great detail how they had fared. The Kid listened and nodded approval, distributing sympathy and praise impartially as the recital seemed to require. When they swung to the robbery, however, that remote look which his mother so dreaded to see crept into his face; though with three young men each eager to give his version and explain his reaction to the implication that he might possibly be a bandit, the Kid's reticence passed unnoticed.
"And they didn't grab you and search your soul for guilt?" Walt finally demanded curiously. "How come?"
"Well, the fact that the thief was already in jail and they found the money in his possession before I saw Harlan, might possibly have something to do with it," the Kid squelched them. "They aren't going to keep right on looking for him after they've got him, do you suppose? Snap out of it, fellows! Get your gigantic intellects to work figuring how I'm going to nick a few more seconds off my remount in the relay. That's what's worrying me now."
Beck Wilson looked up from breaking an egg into a teacup.
"Can't nick many seconds off nothin' flat," he stated positively. "I'll bet money you weren't two seconds in station any time to-day. Only way I can see is for you to leave before you arrive, Kid."
"That's right," Walt attested. "You've got to get off the ground, take your saddle and put it on the other horse and get on. It's humanly impossible to do it much quicker than you did to-day."
"Much! There you are—there's the slack I've got to take up, boys. I've been thinking about the cinch. We're allowed any kind we want—it's got to be fastened, or I'll pull it off, mounting. I'm going to make it a flying mount from now on. I've got to. That black and that pinto—ow-w! D' you see what they nearly did to me? I thought my ponies were fast, but—"
"You've got 'em beat at the station, Kid. They don't handle the way yours do," Billy comforted. "That guy's got to take up his brakes; he sure has! They can run, all right, but they can't stop. Why, that black horse—" He broke off abruptly, staring at the door.
Two men were letting themselves into the kitchen which the Kid had told them was not being used by any one save himself. The first pulled a key from the lock as he came in, and the second glanced around at the room with what is sometimes called a photographic eye, which he presently fixed curiously upon the group at the end of the long table.
"Hello, Cowboy," the leader greeted with a heartiness that smacked of insincerity, as if it had been manufactured for the occasion.
The Kid, who was officiating as cook, had just lifted an egg out of