Chapter 6 - Page 2

ever was stamped upon. They had huge bandanas draped picturesquely over their chests, and their sleeves were rolled to the elbows and their eyes rimmed with deep pencil shadings. At their hips swung six-shooters of violent pattern and portent. Around their middles sagged belts filled with blank cartridges. A sack of tobacco was making the rounds as they came on, and Luck watched them through speculatively narrowed lids.

"Say, by cripes, that there saloon is the driest poison-palace I ever surged out of with two guns spittin' death and dumnation!" Big Medicine complained, coming up with the plain intention of lighting his cigarette from Luck's cigar. "How'd we stack up this time, boss? Bein' soused on cold tea, I couldn't rightly pass judgment. How many was it I murdered in cold blood, in that there scene where I laid 'em out with black powder? Four, or five? Pink, here, claims I killed him twicet, whereas he oughta be left alive enough to jump on his horse and ride three hundred and fifty miles to fall dead in his best girl's arms. He claims he made that ride day before yesterday, and done some pitiful weaving around in the saddle, out there in the hills, and that he died in that blond lady's arms first thing this morning, and I hadn't no right to kill him twicet afterwards in the saloon fight. Now I leave it to you, boss. How about this here killin' Pink off every oncet in a while?"

Deep in his throat Luck chuckled. "Well, Pink certainly does die pathetic," he soothed the perturbed murderer, dropping his professional brusqueness for frank comradeship. "He's about the best little close-up dier I ever worked with. He can get a sob anytime he rolls his eyes and gasps and falls backward." He clapped his hand down on Pink's shoulder and gave it a little shake.

"That's all right," drawled the Native Son, taking off his sombrero to deepen the crease and the dents, because three girls were coming across the lot. "But I've got a complaint of my own to make. When you holler for Bud to start the rough stuff, he just goes powder crazy. He shot me up four times in that scene! Twice he held the gun so close my scalp's all powder-marked, and by rights he should have blowed the top of my head plumb into the street. He gets so taken up with this slaughter-house business that he'll wind up by shooting himself a few times if you don't watch him."

"One thing," Weary put in mildly, "I want to speak about, Luck. We need more blood for those murders. I didn't have half enough for all the mortal wounds Bud gave me. By rights that saloon should be plumb reeking with gore when we're all killed off--the way Bud flies at it with those two six-shooters. No bullets hit the walls anywhere, so it stands to reason they all land in a soft spot on our persons. I needed a large bucket of blood--and I had about a half teacupful." He grinned. "Mamma! That