CHAPTER XVII

THE LUCKY SHOT

The attack was so absolutely unprovoked, and so sudden was it, that Teddy and Roy stood there while the bullets dug up the earth.

“Dance!” the man roared. “Step out, boys, afore I raise my sights on this here weapon! Dance! You hear the music? Well, don’t let it go to waste!”

At the sound of the revolver, men who had been making merry inside rushed from the hall. They saw the gleam of the gun and saw also that neither Teddy nor Roy was obeying the shouted commands to “dance!”

“Maryland, what do you think you’re doin’?” some one called.

“I’m givin’ myself a private show,” was the answer. “Strictly private!”

He had shot four times and had two bullets left in the gun. The four shots had followed so quickly on one another that the sound seemed continuous.

Then it was that Roy awoke. Slowly, with no attempt at haste, he drew his own revolver. Those watching from the steps of the dance hall saw him level it carefully.

“You,” he said quietly, “drop that gun!”

“Huh?” Maryland, to give him the title which had just been applied, stared at the boy. Was this kid, this half-baked kid, trying to face him down? Him, the terror of the mining camp?

“You heard me,” Roy went on, still in that even-toned voice. “I said drop the gun!”

“I’ll drop nothin’!” Rage came into Maryland’s face. “You fool kid, think you can get away with that? I’ll--” he jerked the revolver up. “By golly, I’ll--”

Once, only once, did Roy’s revolver speak. But Maryland’s weapon flew from his hand as though it had been pulled with a cord. One minute there stood a bullying braggart of a man whose gun was his champion; the next moment in his place was a frightened dazed wretch, his face white, rubbing the hand from which Roy had shot the revolver.

“I’ll admit,” Roy declared calmly, “that that was a lucky shot. I aimed at your wrist.”

A look of complete bafflement spread over Maryland’s features. He looked at the gun lying in the road, then at Roy, and then at the crowd on the steps of the hall.

“Don’t do no more shootin’,” he muttered. “I feel kinda sick.”

Roy and Teddy both grinned at this. The men on the steps roared with laughter.

“So you’re sick, Maryland?”

“Try a little gun grease--a spoonful after meals!”

“Maryland, my Maryland!”

The former gunman shuddered and glanced at Roy. There was a strange light in his eyes.

“Kin I,” he said, “get my gun? You got me licked.”

“Go on, get it,” Roy said shortly. “But you’ll give us no more funny work. My brother and I are out for a walk, and we intend to continue it. Understand?”

“There’ll be no more shootin’,” Maryland asserted. “I’m sober now--I wasn’t before.”

He walked toward his gun and picked it up. Then, while the boys watched him, he re-entered the hall, a different man than when he had come out. The crowd dispersed, after shouting congratulations to Roy for his nerve and marksmanship. The whole affair was taken by most of the men as a matter of course, just an item in the life of a mining camp.

“I reckon you got your welcome,” Teddy remarked, as he and Roy left the glow of light for the darkness of the farther end of the street. “They’ll know you now.”

“Maybe. You know, that was a lucky shot. Maryland was drunk, and there was no telling where his next bullet would go. I really tried to put his arm out of commission. But it served--hitting his gun.”

“Sure did!” Teddy agreed. “Maryland! That’s a fine name for a man!”

“I don’t believe he’s such a terror as he thinks he is. Did you hear the crowd jeer him?” asked Roy musingly.

“Yes. He’s the kind who goes wild all of a sudden and needs a good sock on the jaw to bring him to. No real harm in him when he’s sober, I guess. Golly! this is a real sure-enough mining camp, isn’t it? We no sooner get to it than we have to use guns. I suppose every man is his own police force here.”

“With reservations. The toughs know that if they shoot up the place the military will enter and put this camp under martial law. So they have to watch their step.”

“Uh-huh. Boy, I’m tired! What say we hit the hay? Lots to do to-morrow, and early, too.”

They turned and retraced their steps. As they passed the hall in front of which they had made the acquaintance of Maryland, they noticed that the noise had quieted somewhat. A number of men were coming down the steps on their way home. The evening festivities were over. Wise men sought their bunks, so that they might be alert in the morning for whatever gold Lady Luck might bring them.

Silent and Nick were still at their game of double solitaire, played in the tent under the yellow glow of a smoking lantern.

The brothers stood over Silent, gazing down at the box the two were using for a table.

“How you coming?” Teddy asked.

“Fair. Say,” he sniffed, and touched Roy’s gun. “Practicing?”

“What? Oh, you can tell it’s been fired? No, Silent, it wasn’t practice.” He told him and Nick of the occurrence. “We’ve got to expect those things, I reckon.”

“Uh-huh, reckon so. Nick an me’ll bunk here--that the idea?”

“That’s it. Well, pleasant dreams.”

Teddy and Roy walked out of the tent. Their shelter had been set up about ten feet away. They found their way to it and lit the lantern. Then, perhaps because they should have turned in immediately, they sat and talked until the flickering wick of their lantern recalled the time to them.

During their life on the plains, Teddy and Roy had slept under the stars about as often as under a roof. It was anything but a new experience to them, and yet, to-night, sleep seemed far from them. They lay on their cots, still talking.

“You know the reason Silent was so anxious to come out here?” Roy asked. Then, answering himself: “Oh, that’s right--he did tell you, didn’t he? Well, I’ll bet we never see the two horsemen again.”

“Now, my hunch is just the opposite,” Teddy replied. Turning on his side and reaching down he trailed his fingers through the grass. “I’ve got a feeling we’ll meet them again--and soon.”

Roy made no comment to this. After a moment:

“How about that fellow that peppered away at our toes? We have an enemy there, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Teddy declared. “He’ll forget all about it to-morrow. Me, I’d be willing to let it slide. Aren’t you?”

“Might as well.” Quiet now, except for the sounds of the night--a gentle wind rustling the trees, the insects grating out their songs, the stream gurgling in the distance.

“Wonder how Jerry Decker’s coming along,” Teddy said finally.

“And I wonder if Belle is at the 8 X 8,” said Roy. “If that doctor is still visiting Decker, she’ll sure be on hand.”

“And how she likes to be kidded--_not!_” Teddy laughed. “Anyway, I still have to catch her at a loss for a come-back. Say, Roy, it was mighty fine of dad to let us leave the ranch with so many of the hands gone.”

“I’ll tell a maverick!” Another period of silence. “But he can spare us now. And we may find gold.”

“Not only may, but will. Nothing like confidence. If we caught those scoundrels who robbed Decker, I wonder if we could get his nuggets back for him? He needs ’em. What a rotten break he got!”

“I’ll say! After working all that time, too! It would be different if he came like most of these others, and was lucky enough to strike it the first day or so. ‘Easy come, easy go.’ But his gold didn’t come easy. He worked for it.”

“And how! He deserved to find a fortune. And then to be robbed of it! Sure is tough luck.”

Roy pulled his blanket a bit closer about him. The night was chilly, with a hint of fall. Gradually, the eyes of Teddy and Roy closed, their breathing became regular. Jerry Decker, the two horsemen out of the storm, the thought of to-morrow with gold waiting for them, the encounter with Maryland--all these began to whirl around in their heads, each thought overlapping the other, none assuming any importance, and, finally, nothing. They slept.