The Night Horseman

THE GIFT-HORSE

“Your dog is your own dog,” remarked Jerry Strann, still to the back of the card-laying stranger, “but this ain’t your back-yard.  Keep your eye on him, or I’ll fix him so he won’t need watching!”

So saying he made another step forward, and it brought a snarl from the dog; not one of those high-whining noises, but a deep guttural that sounded like indrawn breath.  The gun of Jerry Strann leaped into his hand.

“Bart,” said the gentle-voiced stranger, “lie down and don’t talk.”  And he turned in his chair, pulled his hat straight, and looked mildly upon the gunman.  An artist would have made much of that picture, for there was in this man, as in Strann, a singular portion of beauty.  It was not, however, free from objection, for he had not the open manliness of the larger of the two.  Indeed, a feminine grace and softness marked him; his wrists were as round as a girl’s, and his hands as slender and as delicately finished.  Whether it be the white-hot sun of summer or the hurricane snows of winter, the climate of the mountain-desert roughens the skin, and it cuts away spare flesh, hewing out the face in angles; but with this man there were no rough edges, but all was smoothed over and rounded with painful care; as if nature had concentrated in that birth to show what she could do.  Such fine workmanship, perhaps, would be appreciated more by women than by men; for men like a certain weight and bulk of bone and muscle—­whereas this fellow seemed as light of body as he was of hand.  He sat now watching Strann with the utmost gravity.  He had very large brown eyes of a puzzling quality; perhaps that was because there seemed to be no thought behind them and one caught the mystery and the wistfulness of some animals from a glance at him.

The effect of that glance on Strann was to make him grin again, and he at once banished the frown from his forehead and put away his gun; the big dog had slunk deeper into the shadow and closer to his master.

“I’m Strann.  Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

“My name is Barry,” said the other.  “I’m sorry that I haven’t heard of you before.”

And the sound of his voice made Jerry Strann grin again; it was such a low, soft voice with the velvet of a young girl’s tone in it; moreover, the brown eyes seemed to apologise for the ignorance concerning Strann’s name.

“You got a hoss out in front.”

A nod of agreement.

“What’s your price?”

“None.”

“No price?  Look here,” argued Strann, “everything’s got a price, and I got to have that hoss, understand? Got to!  I ain’t bargaining.  I won’t try to beat you down.  You just set a figger and I’ll cover it.  I guess that’s square!”

“He ain’t a gentle hoss,” said Barry.  “Maybe you wouldn’t like him.’

“Oh, that’s all right about being gentle,” chuckled Strann.  Then he checked his mirth and stared piercingly at the other to make out if there were a secret mockery.  It could not, however, be possible.  The eyes were as gravely apologetic as ever.  He continued:  “I seen the hell-fire in him.  That’s what stopped me like a bullet.  I like ’em that way.  Much rather have ’em with a fight.  Well, let’s have your price.  Hey, O’Brien, trot out your red-eye; I’m going to do some business here!”

O’Brien came hastily, with drinks, and while they waited Strann queried politely:  “Belong around these parts?”

“No,” answered the other softly.

“No?  Where you come from?”

“Over there,” said Barry, and waved a graceful hand towards half the points of the compass.

“H-m-m!” muttered Strann, and once more he bent a keen gaze upon his companion.  The drinks were now placed before them.  “Here,” he concluded, “is to the black devil outside!” And he swallowed the liquor at a gulp, but as he replaced the empty glass on the table he observed, with breathless amazement, that the whiskey glass of the stranger was still full; he had drunk his chaser!

“Now, by God!” said Strann in a ringing voice, and struck a heavy hand upon the top of the table.  He regained his control, however, instantly.  “Now about that price!”

“I don’t know what horses are worth,” replied Barry.

“To start, then—­five hundred bucks in cold cash—­gold!—­for your—­what’s his name?”

“Satan.”

“Eh?”

“Satan.”

“H-m-m!” murmured Strann again.  “Five hundred for Satan, then.  How about it?”

“If you can ride him,” began the stranger.

“Oh, hell,” smiled Strann with a large and careless gesture, “I’ll ride him, all right.”

“Then I would let you take him for nothing,” concluded Barry.

“You’d—­what?” said Strann.  Then he rose slowly from his chair and shouted; instantly the swinging doors broke open and a throng of faces appeared at the gap.  “Boys, this gent here is going to give me the black—­ha, ha, ha!—­if I can ride him!” He turned back on Barry.  “They’ve heard it,” he concluded, “and this bargain is going to stick just this way.  If your hoss can throw me the deal’s off.  Eh?”

“Oh, yes,” nodded the brown-eyed man.

“What’s the idea?” asked one of Jerry’s followers as the latter stepped through the doors of the saloon onto the street.

“I dunno,” said Jerry.  “That gent looks kind of simple; but it ain’t my fault if he made a rotten bargain.  Here, you!”

And he seized the bridle-reins of the black stallion.  Speed, lightning speed, was what saved him, for the instant his fingers touched the leather Satan twisted his head and snapped like an angry dog.  The teeth clicked beside Strann’s shoulder as he leaped back.  He laughed savagely.

“That’ll be took out of him,” he announced, “and damned quick!”

Here the voice of Barry was heard, saying:  “I’ll help you mount, Mr. Strann.”  And he edged his way through the little crowd until he stood at the head of the stallion.

“Look out!” warned Strann in real alarm, “or he’ll take your head off!”

But Barry was already beside his horse, and, with his back towards those vicious teeth, he drew the reins over its head.  As for the stallion, it pricked one ear forward and then the other, and muzzled the man’s shoulder confidingly.  There was a liberal chorus of astonished oaths from the gathering.

“I’ll hold his head while you get on,” suggested Barry, turning his mild eyes upon Strann again.

“Well,” muttered the big man, “may I be eternally damned!” He added:  “All right.  Hold his head, and I’ll ride him without pulling leather.  Is that square?”

Barry nodded absently.  His slender fingers were patting the velvet nose of the stallion and he was talking to it in an affectionate undertone—­meaningless words, perhaps, such as a mother uses to soothe a child.  When Strann set his foot in the stirrup and gathered up the reins the black horse cringed and shuddered; it was not a pleasant thing to see; it was like a dog crouching under the suspended whip.  It was worse than that; it was almost the horror of a man who shivers at the touch of an unclean animal.  There was not a sound from the crowd; and every grin was wiped out.  Jerry Strann swung into the saddle lightly.

There he sat, testing the stirrups.  They were too short by inches but he refused to have them lengthened.  He poised his quirt and tugged his hat lower over his eyes.

“Turn him loose!” he shouted.  “Hei!”

And his shrill yell went down the street and the echoes sent it barking back from wall to wall; Barry stepped back from the head of the black.  But for an instant the horse did not stir.  He was trembling violently, but his blazing eyes were fixed upon the face of his owner.  Barry raised his hand.

And then it happened.  It was like the release of a coiled watch-spring; the black whirled as a top spins and Strann sagged far to the left; before he could recover the stallion was away in a flash, like a racer leaving the barrier and reaching full speed in almost a stride.  Not far—­hardly the breadth of the street—­before he pitched up in a long leap as if to clear a barrier, landed stiff-legged with a sickening jar, whirled again like a spinning top, and darted straight back.  And Jerry Strann pulled leather—­with might and main—­but the short stirrups were against him, and above all the suddenness of the start had taken him off guard for all his readiness.  When the stallion dropped stiff-legged Jerry was thrown forward and an unlucky left foot jarred loose from the stirrup; and when the horse whirled Strann was flung from the saddle.  It was a clean fall.  He twisted over in the air as he fell and landed in deep dust.  The black stallion had reached his master and now he turned, in that same catlike manner, and watched with pricking ears as Strann dragged himself up from the dust.

There was no shout of laughter—­no cheer for that fall, and without a smile they watched Strann returning.  Big O’Brien had seen from his open door and now he laid a hand on the shoulder of one of the men and whispered at his ear:  “There’s going to be trouble; bad trouble, Billy.  Go for Fatty Matthews—­he’s a deputy marshal now—­and get him here as quick as you can.  Run!”

The other spared time for a last glance at Strann and then hurried down the street.

Now, a man who can lose and smile is generally considered the most graceful of failures, but the smile of Jerry Strann as he walked slowly back worried his followers.

“We all hit dust sometime,” he philosophized.  “But one try don’t prove nothin’.  I ain’t near through with that hoss!”

Barry turned to Strann.  If there had been mockery in his eyes or a smile on his lips as he faced Jerry there would have been a gun play on the spot; but, instead, the brown eyes were as dumbly apologetic as ever.

“We didn’t talk about two tries,” he observed.

“We talk about it now,” said Strann.

There was one man in the crowd a little too old to be dangerous and therefore there was one man who was in a position to speak openly to Strann.  It was big O’Brien.

“Jerry, you named your game and made your play and lost.  I guess you ain’t going to turn up a hard loser.  Nobody plays twice for the same pot.”

The hazel eye of Strann was grey with anguish of the spirit as he looked from O’Brien to the crowd and from the crowd to Satan, and from Satan to his meek-eyed owner.  Nowhere was there a defiant eye or a glint of scorn on which he could wreak his wrath.  He stood poised in his anger for the space of a breath; then, in the sharp struggle, his better nature conquered.

“Come on in, all of you,” he called.  “We’ll liquor, and forget this.”