“Why, I watched you!” she returned. And then suddenly aware of her mistake in admitting that she had felt an interest in him at their first meeting, she lowered her gaze in confusion and stood, kicking with her booted toe into a hummock, her face suddenly very red.
The situation might have been embarrassing for her had not her brother created a diversion by suddenly sighing and struggling to sit up. The girl was at his side in an instant, assisting him. The young man’s bewilderment was pitiful. He sat silent for a full minute, gazing first at his sister and then at Hollis, and finally at his surroundings. Then, when a rational gleam had come into his eyes he bowed his head, a blush of shame sweeping over his face and neck.
“I expect I’ve been at it again,” he muttered, without looking up.
The girl leaned over him, reassuring him, patting his face lovingly, letting him know by all a woman’s arts of the sympathy and love she bore for him. Hollis watched her with a grim, satisfied smile. If he had had a sister he would have hoped that she would be like her. He stepped forward and seized the young man by the arm, helping him to his feet.
“You are right now,” he assured him; “there has been no harm done.”
Standing, the young man favored Hollis with a careful inspection. He flushed again. “You’re the man that rode through the draw,” he said. “I saw you and thought you were one of Dunlavey’s men. I shot at you once, and was going to shoot again, but something cracked in my head. I hope I didn’t hit you.” Embarrassment again seized him; his eyes drooped. “Of course you are not one of Dunlavey’s men,” he added, “or you wouldn’t be here, talking to sis. No friend of Dunlavey’s could do that.” He looked at the girl with a tender smile. “I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for her,” he added, speaking to Hollis. “But I expect it’s a good thing that I’m not crazy all the time.” He looked searchingly at Hollis. “I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I am Kent Hollis.”
The young man’s eyes lighted. “Not Jim Hollis’s son?” he asked.
Hollis nodded. The young man’s face revealed genuine pleasure. “You going to stay in this here country?” he asked.
“I am going to run the Circle Bar,” returned Hollis slowly.
“Bully!” declared the young man. “There’s some folks around here said you wouldn’t have nerve enough to stay.” He made a wry face. “But I reckon you’ve got nerve or you’d have hit the breeze when I started to stampede.” He suddenly held out a hand. “I like you,” he said impulsively. “You and me are going to be friends. Shake!”
Hollis saw a smile of pleasure light up the girl’s face, which she tried to conceal by brushing the young man’s clothing with a gloved hand, meanwhile keeping him between her and Hollis.
Hollis stood near the boulder, watching them as they prepared to depart, the girl telling her brother that he would find his pony on the plains beyond the canyon.
“I am glad I didn’t hit you,” the young man told Hollis as he started away with the girl. “If you are not scared off you might take a run down to the shack some time—it’s just down the creek a ways.”
Hollis hesitated and then, catching the girl’s glance, he smiled.
“I can’t promise when,” he said, looking at the girl, “but you may be sure that I will look you up the first chance I get.”
He stood beside the boulder until he saw them disappear around the wall of the canyon. Then with a satisfied grin he walked to his pony, mounted, and was off through the draw toward the Circle Bar ranchhouse.
CHAPTER VI
HOLLIS RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE
Rumor, that mysterious disseminator of news whose tongues are legion, whispered that the Dry Bottom Kicker was to come to life. Wherefore curiosity led many of Dry Bottom’s citizens past the door of the Kicker office to steal covert glances at the young man whose figure was bent over the desk inside. Many passed in silence after looking at the young man—he did not see them. Others commented gravely or humorously according to their whim—the young man did not hear them. Seated at the desk he gave his attention to the tasks before him—he was not concerned with rumor; the curiosity of Dry Bottom’s citizens did not affect him. Seriously, methodically, steadily, he worked at his desk, while rumor wagged her tongues and curiosity lounged past the window.
It was Hollis’s first visit to the Kicker office; he had come to work and there was much that he could do. He had found the Kicker installed in a one story frame building, verging upon dilapidation, unpainted, dingy. The appearance of its exterior had given Hollis a queer sensation in the pit of the stomach. He was cheered a little by the businesslike appearance of the interior. It was not what he had been used to, but he felt that it would answer very well in this locality, and—well, he planned to make improvements.
About twenty by forty, he estimated the size of the interior. Originally there had been only one room. This had been divided into three sections by partitions. An old, flat-topped desk sat near the front window, a swivel chair before it. Along the wall above the desk were several rows of shelving with paste-board boxes and paper piled neatly up. Calendars, posters, and other specimens of the printer’s art covered the walls. In the next room was another desk. Piles of advertising electrotypes, empty forms, and papers filled the corners. The composing room was in the rear. Everything was in order here; type cases, stands, forms. There were a proof press, some galley racks, a printing press, with a forlorn-looking gasolene engine near it. A small cast-iron stove stood in a corner with its door yawning open, its front bespattered with tobacco juice. A dilapidated imposing stone ranged along the rear wall near a door that opened into the sunlight. A man stood before one of the type cases distributing type. He did not look up at Hollis’s entrance.
“Hello!” greeted Hollis.
The man hesitated in his work and looked up. “Hello,” he returned, perfunctorily.
“I suppose your name is Potter?” Hollis inquired cordially. Judge Graney had told him that if he succeeded in finding the compositor he would have him at the Kicker office this morning. Potter had gone to work without further orders.
“Yes,” said the man. He came forward.
“I am the new owner of the Kicker,” Hollis informed him with a smile.
“Jim Hollis’s boy?” inquired Potter, straightening. At Hollis’s nod he stepped quickly forward and grasped the hand the latter offered him, squeezing it tightly. “Of course you are Jim Hollis’s boy!” he said, finishing his inspection. “You are the living image of him!” He swept his hand around toward the type case. “I am working, you see. Judge Graney wrote me last week that you wanted me and I came as soon as I could. Is it true that the Kicker is going to be a permanent institution?”
“The Kicker is here to stay!” Hollis informed him.
Potter’s face lighted with pleasure. “That’s bully!” he said. “That’s bully!”
He was of medium height, slender, lean faced, with a magnificent head, and a wealth of brown hair thickly streaked with silver. His thin lips were strong; his chin, though a trifle weak, was well formed; his eyes slightly bleared, but revealing, in spite of this defect, unmistakable intelligence. In the first flashing glance which Hollis had taken at him he had been aware that here was a person of more than ordinary mental ability and refinement. It was with a pang of pity that he remembered Judge Graney’s words to the effect that he was a good workman—“when sober.” Hollis felt genuinely sorry for him.
“I have had a talk with Judge Graney,” volunteered Potter. “He tells me that you are a newspaper man. Between us we ought to be able to get out a very respectable paper.”
“We will,” calmly announced Hollis; “and we’ll get the first issue out Saturday. Come in here and we’ll talk about it.”
He led the way to the front room and seated himself at the desk, motioning Potter to another chair. Within the next hour he knew all about the Kicker. It was a six-column sheet of four pages. The first page was devoted to local news. T
he second carried some local advertisements, exchange clippings, and two or three columns of syndicate plate matter. On the third page two columns were devoted to editorials, one to advertisements, and three to local news in large type. The fourth, and last page was filled with more plate matter and a litter of “foreign” advertising—patent-medicines, soaps, hair-dye.
At the first glance it appeared that the paper must be a paying proposition, for there were a goodly proportion of advertisements. Yet Hollis had his suspicions about the advertisements. When he had spoken to Potter about them he discovered that quite a number of them were what is known to the craft as “dead ads”—which meant advertisements upon which payment had ceased and which were carried either for the purpose of filling up the paper or because it was found cheaper to run them than to set type for the space which would be left by their absence.
“We won’t carry any dead ads!” announced Hollis.
“Several of these are big merchants,” said Potter, pointing them out with inky forefinger; “though the contracts have run out the appearance of their ads lends the Kicker a certain moral support—the little fellows don’t know that they are not paid for and it draws their business.”
“We don’t care for that kind of business,” smiled Hollis; “we’re going to run a real newspaper. We’re going to get paid ads!”
“I hope so,” hesitatingly replied Potter.
“Of course you do,” laughed Hollis; “but whether we get paid ads or not this newspaper is coming out regularly and on time. Furthermore, we’re going to cut down on this plate stuff; we don’t want a paper filled with stale articles on snakes, antedated ocean disasters, Egyptian monoliths, and the latest style in opera hats. We’ll fill the paper with local news—we’ll ginger things up a little. You are pretty well acquainted here—I’ll leave the local items to you. What town near here compares with Dry Bottom in size?”
“There’s Lazette,” returned Potter; “over in Colfax County.”
“How far from here?”
“Eighty miles.”
“Got a newspaper?”
“Yes; the Eagle.”
“Bully! Step on the Eagle’s toes. Make the Eagle scream. Get into an argument with it about something—anything. Tell Lazette that as a town it’s forty miles behind Dry Bottom. That will stir up public spirit and boom our subscription list. You see, Potter, civic pride is a big asset to a newspaper. We’ll start a row right off the reel. Furthermore, we’re going to have some telegraph news. I’ll make arrangements for that to-day.”
Hollis’s enthusiasm was infectious; a flash of spirit lighted up Potter’s eyes as he rose from his chair. “I’m going to set up the head for the first page,” he said. “Probably you’ll want a slogan; that sort of thing is the style out here.”
“We’ll have one,” returned Hollis briskly. “Set this in triple leads: ‘We Herald the Coming of the Law! The Kicker is Here to Stay!’”
“Good!” declared Potter. He went into the composing room and Hollis saw his fine old head bent over a type case. Hollis turned to his desk.
He sat there long, his tall, lithe body slack, grim, serious lines in his lean face. He had thought of his conversation with Judge Graney concerning ambition—his ambition, the picture upon which his mind had dwelt many times. A little frame printing office in the West was not one of its features. He sighed with resignation and began methodically to look over the papers in the desk, finding many things to interest him. He discovered that in spite of his father’s one great fault he had been a methodical man. He smiled regretfully, wishing that he might have been able to have seen more of him. Among the papers he hoped to find a personal note—a word—from his father. He found nothing of that character.
After a time he took up a pen and began to write. Long ago he had decided that in the first issue of the paper he would attack the Cattlemen’s Association. Judge Graney had ridden out to the Circle Bar on the previous Saturday afternoon, remaining over Sunday, and accompanying Hollis on the return trip Monday morning.
While at the ranch the Judge had spent much of his time in communicating to Hollis his views of the situation in Union County and in acquainting him with the elder Hollis’s intentions regarding the newspaper. Hollis had made some inquiries on his own account, with the result that when he reached the Kicker office this morning he felt that he had acquired a good and sufficient knowledge of the situation.
Looking over the old copy of the Kicker he studied some of the advertisements. Evidently some Dry Bottom merchants had been brave enough to antagonize Dunlavey by advertising in the Kicker. With this copy of the Kicker in hand Hollis rose from his desk, told Potter he was going out, and proceeded to visit some of the merchants whose advertisements appeared in the paper, hoping that their bravery still abided with them. He made a good solicitor. Some of the merchants flatly refused, saying they did not care to risk Dunlavey’s anger. Others demurred, confidentially announcing that they had never considered the paper seriously and that there was really no good in advertising in Dry Bottom anyway—the town wasn’t big enough. Half a dozen listened quietly while he told them that the Kicker was in Dry Bottom to stay and then smiled and told him to run their advertisements. They rather admired his “nerve” and were not afraid of Dunlavey.
At noon Hollis stepped into a restaurant called the Alhambra. While he ate he was critically inspected; the Alhambra swarmed with customers, and the proprietor quietly informed him that he was a “drawin’ card” and hoped he’d “grub” there regularly. In return for his promise to do so Hollis secured his advertisement.
Leaving the Alhambra he returned to the Kicker office, seating himself again at his desk. The sun came slantwise through the window full upon him; the heat was oppressive; the flint-like alkali dust sifted through the crevices in the building and settled over everything in the room; myriad flies droned in the white sunlight before the open door. He heard nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing—for his thoughts were miles away, in an upper story of a big office building in the East from whose windows he even now looked down upon a bustling city.
Life would be so different here. He heard a sound behind him and turned. Dunlavey was standing just inside the door, his great arms folded over his chest. He had been watching Hollis, his eyes narrowed with a cynically humorous expression.
Hollis knew that by this time Dunlavey must have discovered his identity. He swung slowly around in his chair, his face wearing an expression of whimsical amusement as he greeted his victim of a few days previous.
“Welcome to the Kicker office,” he said quietly.
Dunlavey did not move. Evidently he had expected another sort of greeting and was slightly puzzled over Hollis’s manner. He remained motionless and Hollis had an opportunity to study him carefully and thoroughly. His conclusions were brief and comprehensive. They were expressed tersely to himself as he waited for Dunlavey to speak: “A trickster and a cheat—dangerous.”
Dunlavey’s eyes flashed metallically for an instant, but immediately the humorous cynicism came into them again. “I don’t think you mean all of that,” he said evenly.
Hollis laughed. “I am not in the habit of saying things that I do not mean,” he said quietly. “I am here to do business and I am ready to talk to anybody who wants to do business with me.”
Dunlavey’s hands fell to his sides and were shoved into his capacious trousers’ pockets. “Right,” he said tersely: “that’s what I’m here for—to talk business.”
He pulled a chair over close to Hollis and seated himself in it, moving deliberately, a certain grim reserve in his manner. Hollis watched him, marveling at his self-control. He reflected that it required will power of a rare sort to repress or conceal the rage which he surely must feel over his humiliation of two weeks before. That Dunlavey was able to so mask his feelings convinced Hollis that he had to deal with a man of extraordinary character.
“I recollect meeting you the other day,” said Dunlavey after he had become seated. H
e smiled with his lips, his eyes glittering again. “I’ll say that we got acquainted then. There ain’t no need for us to shake hands now.” He showed his teeth in a mirthless grin. “I didn’t know you then, but I know you now. You’re Jim Hollis’s boy.”
Hollis nodded. Dunlavey continued evenly: “Your father and me wasn’t what you might call bosom friends. I reckon Judge Graney has told you that—if he ain’t you’ve heard it from some one else. It don’t make any difference. So there won’t be any misunderstanding I’ll tell you that I ain’t figgering on you and me hitching up to the mutual friendship wagon either. I might say that we wasn’t introduced right.” He grinned evilly. “But I ain’t letting what happened interfere with the business that’s brought me here to-day. I’ve heard that you’re intending to start the Kicker again; that you’re figgering on staying here and running the Circle Bar. What I’m here for is to buy you out. I’m offering you fifteen thousand dollars for the Circle Bar and this damn newspaper.”
Dunlavey had lost a little of the composure which had characterized his actions since entering the office and the last words of his speech had writhed venomously through his lips.
Hollis’s face betrayed absolutely no emotion. Though Dunlavey’s visit to the Kicker office had surprised him he was not surprised at his offer for the ranch and the newspaper, for according to Judge Graney he had made some such offer to the elder Hollis. Coming now, with an addition of five thousand dollars, Dunlavey’s offer seemed to advertise his reluctance to continue the war that he had waged. Hollis appreciated the situation. If Dunlavey were to buy him off now there would come an end to the warfare that had already been an expensive one for the interests represented by Dunlavey. Likewise, the acceptance of the offer would give Hollis an opportunity to withdraw gracefully. Dunlavey had placed the issue squarely before him. The young man held his future in his hands and he did not reply at once.
He sat silent for a few moments, studying the coarse, brutal face of the man seated before him, noting that his under jaw had come forward slightly, and that the cold, hard glitter had come again in his eyes. However, Hollis’s silence meant nothing beyond the fact that he was going slowly over the history of the fight between his father and the man who sat there representing the interests which had begun the war. He had no thought of surrendering—that would be dishonorable. He was merely revolving the situation in his mind, considering how best to word his refusal. He did not want to appear belligerent; he did not want to precipitate war. But he did want Dunlavey to know that he purposed to have his rights; he wanted Dunlavey to know that he could not be frightened into surrendering them. He clasped one hand over his knee and leaned back in his chair, his gaze meeting Dunlavey’s steadily.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 139