*CHAPTER IV*
_*I Take My Life in My Hands*_
After breakfast on the day following the incident of the verandah I wasjourneying down town to post two letters, the Lost Cabin Mine stilluppermost in my mind, when I came, at the turning into Baker Street,face to face with the man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me,--hecould not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,--and I wonderedif now he would have a word to say to me regarding the part I played onthe preceding evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was onlyfriendliness on his face and the heaviness of it and the sulkiness werehardly visible when he smiled.
He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, and said that he hadto thank me for preventing what he called "an accident last night."
I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as though the wholething were a mere bagatelle to him. "It was right stupid of me," hesaid. "But Laughlin keeps such bad liquor! Canlan, too, had had toomuch of it, or he would never have tried to irritate me with hisremark." I was trying to recollect the exact words of that remark whichDonoghue classified as "irritating" when he interrupted my thoughtswith: "The Apache Kid and me has quit the Laughlin House."
"Yes, I did n't see you at breakfast there," said I.
"Was Canlan there?" he asked eagerly.
"Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate," I replied.
He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood pondering something.Then: "Quite so, quite so," he commented as though to himself. Then tome: "By the way, would you be so kind as to come down this evening toBlaine's? The Apache Kid asked me to try and see you and ask you if youwould be good enough to come down."
"Blaine's?" I asked. "Where is Blaine's?"
"Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue; near the corner of Twenty-secondStreet."
It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in this city that boastedonly one long street (Baker Street) and six streets running off it. Butof course, a street is a street in a new city even though it can boastonly of a house at either corner and has nothing between these cornerhouses but tree-stumps, or sand, or sage-bushes, and little boardsthrust into the ground announcing: "This is a sure-thing lot. Its daywill come very soon. See about it when it can be bought cheap from----, Real Estate Agent, office open day and night."
But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the streets of the city byname, directed me:
"You go right along Baker Street,--you know it, of course, the mainstreet of this progressive burgh?--straight ahead west; turn down thirdon the right; look up at the store front there and you read 'H.B.Blaine. Makes you think o' Home and Mother.' It's a coffee-joint, yousee. There 's a coffee urn in the window and two plates, one withcrackers on it and t' other with doughnuts. You walk right in and askfor the Apache Kid--straight goods--no josh." He stopped to giveemphasis to the rest and after that pause he said in a meaning tone:"And--you--will--hear--o' something to your advantage."
He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to say anything in reply,moved off. You may be sure I pondered this invitation as I went alongroaring Baker Street to the post-office. And I was indeed in two mindsabout it, uncertain whether to call in at Blaine's or not. Both thesheriff and Mrs. Laughlin had cautioned me against these men, and I had,besides, seen enough of them to know myself that they were not just allthat could be desired. The word the sheriff had used regarding ApacheKid's nature, "deep," came into my mind, along with reflections on allhis prevarications of the previous day. It occurred to me that it wouldbe quite in keeping with him to pretend gratefulness to me, at themoment, for my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the same,with the intention in his mind all the while of "getting me in a quietcorner," as the phrase is. I think I may be excused this judgmentconsidering all the duplicity I had already seen him practise. A storythat I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a floor which opened andprecipitated whoever stood upon it down into a hole among rats came intomy head. Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in his floor. Onecould believe anything of half the men one saw here, with theirblood-shot eyes, straggling hair, and cruel mouths. Still, I had feltreal friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last night andDonoghue to-day.
A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion came over me to aid metoward the decision that my curiosity was already crying for and so,when the day wore near an end, I set forth--for Blaine's, the"coffee-joint."
When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see another sight such asonly the West could show. The phonographs, as usual, it being nowevening, were all grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls andopen windows. The wonted din was in the air when suddenly an eddy beganin the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. It was in front of one of the"toughest" saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man, hatless,and broke away pell-mell along the street. Next moment the saloon doorswung again, and after him there went running another fellow, with atomahawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran, his legsstraddled wide to prevent him tripping up on his great spurs. Where thethird party in this scene sprang from I cannot tell. I only know thathe suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue serge suit, with aStars-and-Stripes kerchief round his slouch hat in place of a band, anda silver star on his breast. It was my friend the portly, fatherly,stern sheriff.
"Stop, you!" he cried.
But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out shot the sheriff's legand tripped the man up. The tomahawk flew from his hand and burieditself almost to the end of the handle in the dust of the road.
"Stop, you!" cried the sheriff again to the other fellow, who was stillposting on. But the fugitive gave only a quick glance over his shoulderand accelerated his speed. It looked as though he would escape, whendown flew the sheriff's hand to his belt, then up above his head. Hethrust out his chin vindictively, down came his revolver hand in ahalf-circle and--it was just as though he pointed at the flying man withhis weapon--"flash!" The man took one step more, but not a second. Hisleg was shot, and he fell. A waggon had stopped on the roadway, theteamster looking on, and him the sheriff immediately pressed intoservice. The man of the tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man oflaw-and-order, climbed into the waggon; he of the shot leg was assistedto follow; the sheriff mounted beside them, and with a brief word to theteamster away went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round thecorner to the court-house. And then the crowd in the street moved on asusual, the talk buzzed, the cigar smoke crept overhead.
"Would n't that jar you?" said a voice in my ear, and turning I foundDonoghue by my side. "Just toddling down to Blaine's?"
"Yes," I said, and fell in step with him.
Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the way reassured meto the extent of making me think that if I was to be shot in the"coffee-joint," there was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless mydemise was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the way of makinginquiries.
With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the sign "H. B. Blaine.Makes you think of Home and Mother," I followed Donoghue into thesweet-scented "joint" with the gleaming coffee urn in the window.
He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind the doughnut-heapedcounter--H. B. Blaine, I presumed--who jerked his head towards the rearof the establishment.
"Step right in, Mr. Donoghue," he said. "Apache Kid is settin' there."