THIS IS A SALOON
I was glad they labelled her. I'd never have known it. They had a fifteen-year old kid tendin' bar, no games goin', and not a soul in the place. "Sorry to disturb your repose, bub," says I, "but see if you can sort out any rye among them collections of sassapariller of yours." I took a drink, and then another to keep it company - I was beginnin' to sympathise with anythin' lonesome. Then I kind of sauntered out to the back room where the hurdy-gurdy ought to be.
Sure enough, there was a girl settin' on the pianner stool, another in a chair, and a nice shiny Jew drummer danglin' his feet from a table. They looked up when they see me come in, and went right on talkin'. "Hello, girls!" says I. At that they stopped talkin' complete. "How's tricks?" says I. "Who's your woolly friend?" the shiny Jew asks of the girls. I looked at him a minute, but I see he'd been raised a pet, and then, too, I was so hungry for sassiety I was willin' to pass a bet or two. "Don't you ADMIRE these cow gents?" snickers one of the girls. "Play somethin', sister," says I to the one at the pianner. She just grinned at me.
"Interdooce me," says the drummer in a kind of a way that made them all laugh a heap. "Give us a tune," I begs, tryin' to be jolly, too.
"She don't know any pieces," says the Jew. "Don't you?" I asks pretty sharp. "No," says she. "Well, I do," says I. I walked up to her, jerked out my guns, and reached around both sides of her to the pianner. I run the muzzles up and down the keyboard two or three times, and then shot out half a dozen keys. "That's the piece I know," says I. But the other girl and the Jew drummer had punched the breeze. The girl at the pianner just grinned, and pointed to the winder where they was some ragged glass hangin'. She was dead game.
"Say, Susie," says I, "you're all right, but your friends is tur'ble. I may be rough, and I ain't never been curried below the knees, but I'm better to tie to than them sons of guns."
"I believe it," says she.
So we had a drink at the bar, and started out to investigate the wonders of Cyanide.
Say, that night was a wonder. Susie faded after about three drinks, but I didn't seem to mind that. I hooked up to another saloon kept by a thin Dutchman. A fat Dutchman is stupid, but a thin one is all right. In ten minutes I had more friends in Cyanide than they is fiddlers in hell. I begun to conclude Cyanide wasn't so lonesome. About four o'clock in comes a little Irishman about four foot high, with more upper lip than a muley cow,and enough red hair to make an artificial aurorer borealis. He had big red hands with freckles pasted onto them, and stiff red hairs standin' up separate and lonesome like signal stations. Also his legs was bowed.
He gets a drink at the bar, and stands back and yells: "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!"
Now, this was none of my town, so I just stepped back of the end of the bar quick where I wouldn't stop no lead. The shootin' didn't begin. "Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little dogie DID say," thinks I to myself. The Irishman bellied up to the bar again, and pounded on it with his fist. "Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?" "Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with a towel. At that my soul just grew sick. I asked the man next to me why Dutchy didn't kill the little fellow. "Kill him! " says this man. "What for?" "For insultin' of him, of course." "Oh, he's drunk," says the man, as if that explained anythin'.
That settled it with me. I left that place, and went home,and it wasn't more than four o'clock, neither. No, I don't call four o'clock late. It may be a little late for night before last, but it's just the shank of the evenin' for to-night. Well, it took me six weeks and two days to go broke. I didn't know sic em, about minin'; and before long I KNEW that I didn't 'know sic 'em. Most all day I poked around them mountains - -not like our'n - too much timber to be comfortable. At night I got to droppin' in at Dutchy's. He had a couple of quiet games goin', and they was one fellow among that lot of grubbin' prairie dogs that had heerd tell that cows had horns. He was the wisest of the bunch on the cattle business. So I stowed away my consolation, and made out to forget comparing Colorado with God's country.
About three times a week this Irishman I told you of - name O'Toole - comes bulgin' in. When he was sober he talked minin' high, wide, and handsome. When he was drunk he pounded both fists on the bar and yelled for action, tryin' to get Dutchy on the peck. "God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle!" he yells about six times. "Say, do you hear?" "Sure," says Dutchy, calm as a milk cow, "sure, I hears ye!" I was plumb sorry for O'Toole. I'd like to have given him a run; but, of course, I couldn't take it up without makin' myself out a friend of this Dutchy party, and I couldn't stand for that. But I did tackle Dutchy about it one night when they wasn't nobody else there.
"Dutchy," says I, "what makes you let that bow-legged cross between a bulldog and a flamin' red sunset tromp on you so? It looks to me like you're plumb spiritless." Dutchy stopped wiping glasses for a minute. "Just you hold on" says he. "I ain't ready yet. Bimeby I make him sick; also those others who laugh with him."
He had a little grey flicker in his eye, and I thinks to myself that maybe they'd get Dutchy on the peck yet. As I said, I went broke in just six weeks and two days. And I was broke a plenty. No hold-outs anywhere. It was a heap long ways to cows; and I'd be teetotally chawed up and spit out if I was goin' to join these minin' terrapins defacin' the bosom of nature. It sure looked to me like hard work. While I was figurin' what next, Dutchy came in. Which I was tur'ble surprised at that, but I said good-mornin' and would he rest his poor feet. "You like to make some money?" he asks.
"That depends," says I, "on how easy it is." "It is easy," says he. "I want you to buy hosses for me." "Hosses! Sure!" I yells, jumpin' up. "You bet you! Why, hosses is where I live! What hosses do you want?" "All hosses," says he, calm as a faro dealer. "What?" says I. "Elucidate, my bucko. I don't take no such blanket order. Spread your cards." "I mean just that," says he. "I want you to buy all the hosses in this camp, and in the mountains. Every one." "Whew!" I whistles. "That's a large order. But I'm your meat." "Come with me, then," says he. I hadn't but just got up, but I went with him to his little old poison factory. Of course, I hadn't had no breakfast; but he staked me to a Kentucky breakfast. What's a Kentucky breakfast? Why, a Kentucky breakfast is a three-pound steak, a bottle of whisky, and a setter dog. What's the dog for? Why, to eat the steak, of course.
We come to an agreement. I was to get two-fifty a head commission. So I started out. There wasn't many hosses in that country, and what there was the owners hadn't much use for unless it was to work a whim. I picked up about a hundred head quick enough, and reported to Dutchy.
"How about burros and mules?" I asks Dutchy.
"They goes," says he. "Mules same as hosses; burros four bits a head to you."