The Short Cut

by Jackson Gregory

  CHAPTER XIII

  SLEDGE HUME MAKES A CALL AND LAYS A WAGER

  "Now, my erstwhile Noble Benefactor, brighten up and look happy. I'vegot some red, white and blue news for you. I like you first rate, I'mstrong for the grub and I guess I can stand for the country being stoodon edge. I've come to stay!"

  The door had been flung open and Mr. Willie Dart came gaily into WayneShandon's bed room carrying a big book in his hands, trailing a longwisp of fragrant smoke from one of his host's cigars behind him.Shandon looked at him with a sober, thoughtful frown, and seemed in noway hilariously impressed with Mr. Dart's glad tidings.

  Already the latter had been at the Bar L-M several days. During thistime Shandon had not seen Wanda; he had come close to blows with RufEttinger; he had been variously and grievously annoyed by Mr. Dart;certain other matters had gone wrong; and altogether he was in nopleasant mood.

  "Look here, Dart," he replied savagely, kicking off his boot so hardthat it struck against the far wall of the room, and continuing hisundressing with a fierceness that brought a momentary speculativesquint into Mr. Dart's innocent eyes. "What's your game, anyhow?"

  "Game?" Willie Dart put a great deal of reproach into his tone. "Nixon that, Red, old sport. When a man travels three thousand miles in adamned stuffy car and then on top of that rides a horse like I didclean over the backbone of the universe, just through gratitude to hisNoble Ben--"

  "Oh, damn the gratitude," cried Shandon. "I'm tired of hearing of it.I most heartily wish that I'd let matters take their own course."

  "Now," resumed Dart, again smilingly, having softly closed the door andmade himself comfortable in a chair, "what's the use of pals gettingoff wrong with one another? You slipped up and got your tongue twistedwhen you said what's my game. What you'd ought to have said was whatnoble purpose is kicking around in my manly boosum. You don't seem toput any faith in me, Red."

  Shandon's short laugh prefixed his short answer.

  "Do you wonder I don't?"

  Then Mr. Dart chuckled.

  "Come right down to it, Red, I don't! But you wrong me. Gratitude, myNoble--"

  "Call me that once more and I'll heave you through the window," snappedShandon. "If you've got anything to say, say it. I'm going to bed."

  "Don't mind me," Dart hastened to say. "It won't bother me at all.What I was going to say was this: Here I've come all the way from NewYork--"

  "No doubt because you were run out!"

  "Just through a sense of gratitude. What can I do to show thatgratitude has been the only worry to keep my appetite down to capacity?I've been here a week, ain't I? Well, the first thing after I gotrested up which has been about four days now, I begun thinking aboutthat. And it come to me like this: Old Red's got troubles; he needs afriend that would live in a temperance town just to help him. Here's aplace for Willie Dart to fit in and do some good!"

  Shandon groaned.

  "If you start in--"

  "I've started already," beamed Dart. "I ain't had much time for finework, yet, and I don't know the play quite as well as I might, but I'vebeen planting little seeds of kindness promiscuous."

  "What do you mean?" frowned Shandon.

  "Now don't go to getting excited. I'm going to tell you, ain't I?First place, the day I got into these forests primeval, I run across afairy that could be Mrs. Willie Dart in a minute if I wasn't sworn tosingle harness by my dad on his dying bed down in Argentine."

  "Last time he died it was in Nova Scotia," remarked Shandon drily. "Goahead."

  "As I was saying she was fine and foxy," resumed Dart pleasantly. "Wemade up a little lunch and went out for a picnic, just her and me.Soon as we got to feeling like old friends and I found out she knewyou, I said, 'Look here, Wanda--"

  "What!" cried Shandon, bolt upright.

  Mr. Willie Dart blew a playful puff of smoke at him and picked up thetale:

  "I said, 'Look here, Wanda--'"

  "Wanda who?" sharply.

  "Leland, of course. Wanda Leland. Got it now? How am I ever going toget anything said if you keep butting in like that, Red? I said, 'Lookhere--'"

  "You look here!" muttered Shandon. "I don't like to hear you talkabout her at all. If you've got to do it, call her Miss Leland.Understand?"

  "Aw, rats, Red. What's the use of that kind of talk between friends?She don't care."

  "Well, I do. And I mean it."

  "Oh, all right. Well, anyway, we was setting on a log together and wegot to talking like fellers and girls do, you know. Good God, Red,quit your glaring at me like you was an old tomcat screwing yourself upto jump a mouse. I never kissed her even, I swear I didn't. I foundout she knew you and I begun right then being a real friend. Say, Red,if you could have heard the fairy tales I dropped into that fairmaiden's pearly ear!"

  His dimples twinkled and danced and deepened upon his round face.Shandon, staring at him fearfully, demanded to be told what the fairytales had consisted of. Willie Dart eagerly complied.

  "I set right in watering your stock, old scout. I told her you were ahero and a guy a man could trust a gold watch to that didn't have anymarks on it to prove who it belonged to. I begun by informing her howyou came to my rescue when a hard fate had me on the embers of despair."

  "You told her that?" in amazement.

  "Oh, don't get alarmed. I set forth the account in such a way thatwhile your part was not lessened my own was not exactly--"

  "In other words you twisted it entirely out of shape," laughed theother. "You forgot to say that a detective nabbed you while you werepicking my pocket and that I--"

  Willie Dart raised a soft white hand.

  "I showed her how you saved my bacon," he said easily. "What's thedifference how you done it? Then, when I got through that and I couldsee she was thinking what a grand man you are and she never noticed itbefore, I slipped a card off a fresh deck and related your adventureswith the Roosian princess."

  The dimples that had fled as his host mentioned a certain word whichMr. Willie Dart did not like to hear now came back. Shandon stared athim wonderingly.

  "What in the devil are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about the Roosian princess," chuckled Dart. "I told Wandaall about her, what a nifty dame she is, you know, and how you savedher life and how she put her arms around your neck and cried and--"

  "Good Lord," groaned Shandon. "I could wring your neck, Dart. What inthe world made you lie to her like that?"

  "This here is a prime cigar, Red. Better send for a fresh box, thisone is drying up. Now, I'm going to tell you something: My mother wasa fortune teller and maybe that's why it is, but anyway I can dope upwhat people are thinking lots of times. I hadn't any more than saidRed Shandon to her than I got wise to that little girl's trouble. Say,Red, she's just naturally stuck on you! It's a fact! Now, when awoman's stuck on a guy, what's the way to make her go clean nuts overhim? What's the answer? Why, just tell her about the other woman likeI told Wanda about Princess Helga."

  "Helga?" cried Shandon in sheer wonder. "What Helga?"

  "The Roosian princess," beamed Willie Dart.

  "Dart," very sternly. "You lie to me now and I'll wire the police ofNew York that you are here. I ought to do it anyway; I would have doneit when you came if I hadn't been a fool and you hadn't filled me upwith your lies until I was sorry for you. Why did you say Helga?Where did you learn that name? What Helga do you know?"

  Dart hesitated briefly, his childlike eyes smiling frankly, the shrewdside of his strange brain very busy.

  "When you took me up to your room that day in New York and threw somegrub into me," he replied at last with apparent carelessness, "and leftme for a minute, why I just sort of looked things over. There was aletter with Helga signed to it. The name's awful funny, ain't it? Sheis Roosian, ain't she?"

  "What do you know about her?"

  "Just that she was much obliged to you for the information you promisedto send her about something o
r other. It ain't anything to send you upthe river for, Red."

  "What did you tell Miss Leland?"

  "Miss Leland? Oh, Wanda, you mean." Mr. Dart repeated the tale he hadtold Wanda with the many fanciful embellishments which it seemednecessary for him to give to any story that he found it necessary torepeat.

  "I sure enough boosted your game, Red. Say, kid, it worked for fair.You ought to have--"

  Even after the threats which Wayne Shandon made to him that nightWillie Dart stayed on. Shandon declared he would drive him off theplace with a buggy whip, and Willie Dart said that he'd come back if hewas chased away. Shandon mentioned the police of New York, and Dartasked him reproachfully if he delighted in wounding him in his mostsensitive part; wanted to know if his Noble Benefactor was the sort todrive a man back into the mire he had just emerged from, to thwart alleffort to lead a pure, sweet, rural existence. Finally Shandoncontented himself by forbidding Dart to meddle in the future withanything not in any way a part of his own business; and nourished thesecret hope that a few weeks of the humdrum of mountain life would tirethis sparrow of the city gutters. Whereupon, when alone with his bigbook and a fresh cigar, Willie Dart soliloquised as follows:

  "He's up against a good many things, poor old Red is. He's as bad inlove with Wanda as she is with him. Her old man is soured on Red andis making the toboggan slide all bumpy. Then there's some sort oftrouble with Ettinger. There's a deal on somewhere I ain't wise to,and Red ain't in on it. Wanda's old man is in on it, so's the WeakSister, meaning Garth, so's a gent name of Sledgehammer Hume. I guesstime's ripe for little Willie Dart to mix in and see what's what. He'sa square kid, is Red, and I'm going to help him put his affairs inorder."

  And then making himself comfortable as he pondered in the biggest chairin the well furnished living room, he sighed, twisted his cigar amoment thoughtfully, sighed again, put his feet on the table and turnedto the pages of the big book. His fancy was caught by numerous andattractive illustrations in a volume dealing with the mythology of theancients, and he was soon convinced that he was acquiring a scholarlyknowledge of the history of the old Greeks and Romans.

  Wayne Shandon was distinctly surprised the next morning as he enteredthe corral to encounter Sledge Hume sitting a sweating horse andevidently in wait for him.

  "You were looking for me?" he asked shortly. The last time he hadspoken to Hume was to quarrel with him, and to be drawn into hot wordswith Arthur because of him. He made no pretence at making his tonemore than coldly civil.

  "Yes," returned the other as bluntly. "I rode over from old manLeland's on business."

  Shandon frowned. His quick thought was that Martin, unwilling tocommunicate personally with him, had sent this envoy. With this ideain mind he said,

  "If Mr. Leland has any business with me--"

  Hume laughed his short, insolent laugh.

  "I didn't say I came on his business," he said.

  "I just stayed over there last night and came on this morning, early,to catch you before you left the house. It's my own business, Shandon.I'm not in the habit of taking other men's worries on my shoulders."

  "What is it?"

  "Just this!" coolly. "Whenever I hear of any money lying around looseit's as good as mine unless some other fellow beats me to it. You musthave done a whole lot of talking; anyway word has gone all over thecountry, clean down to my place and beyond, that you're putting on ahorse race. How about it?"

  "I don't see just where you come in?"

  "You will in a minute if you care to. I hear the race is to be pulledoff the first thing in the spring, as soon as the snow's gone? Howabout it?"

  "Correct."

  "You're going to ride, of course?"

  "I am."

  "Little Saxon?"

  "Yes."

  Hume eased himself in the saddle and looked down at Shandon keenly. Alittle sneeringly he demanded,

  "What are you going to make it? A little penny ante game?"

  Shandon stared at him curiously. Hume laughed again under his gaze andsaid arrogantly, after the born manner of the man,

  "If you'll make the stakes worth a man's time I'll make you hunt yourhole, Shandon."

  A little flush crept up into Shandon's cheeks and his eyes hardened.It would be so easy to quarrel again with this man; the very sight ofhim, supremely egotistical and contemptuous, stirred a natural dislikeinto something very close to positive hatred. But these days he wasmaking it his business to hold himself in check, he was turning hisback against the old headlong ways, and he said quietly,

  "Make your proposition. I see you've got one to make."

  "I'll ride you any race you like, anywhere you like and at any time;provided it's a gentleman's game and not penny ante."

  "Done," answered Shandon promptly. Had he refused it would have beenthe first time in his life he had refused a wager offered as this onewas. "Name the sum and if it's anything I can raise I'm satisfied.And," his eyes steely, "_I'll_ name the sort of race!"

  "Some one said that you were going to start things with a purse of fivehundred," remarked Hume. "I don't do business on that scale. I'll layyou an even thousand."

  "I'm pretty close up right now," was Shandon's answer. "I've spent agood bit lately and I don't want to sacrifice any more cattle. But--"

  "Oh, well," laughed Hume, "it doesn't make any difference. I thoughtthat you might have a little sporting blood, you know. You must havedone a lot of talking, Shandon."

  "--but," Shandon went on, his voice raised to cut into the other'sjibe, "I can sell a few cows if necessary. And while I'm doing it itis just as easy to raise five thousand as one."

  "Oho!" cried Hume. "Little Saxon is proving up, eh?"

  "Little Saxon can beat his brother Endymion any day in the week in thesort of race we're going to run. It's going to be ten miles, acrosscountry, across the damndest country you ever saw, Sledge Hume! It'sgoing to be a distance race and an endurance race. And since it'sgoing to be here in the West it's going to be Western. I don't care ifyou run or don't run and I don't care if it is for five cents or forfive thousand dollars."

  There crept into Sledge Hume's cold eyes a look of such shrewdness thatShandon was struck by it then, and remembered it long afterward.

  "When I go into a deal," was Hume's swift answer, "it's because there'ssomething in it. You put up your five thousand if you're so cocksure,and put it up now and I'll cover it! With one thoroughly understoodprovision, Shandon. The man who comes in first at the end of that tenmiles, be it you or me, gets the money. There's going to be no chanceto get cold feet and pull out. If you don't ride at all, if you getscared and decide to get sick or break a leg to save five thousand, Iride alone and get it just the same. Remember I didn't ride over thismorning for love of racing or for love of anything else; I saw a chancefor some money, easy money."

  "Draw up an agreement to that effect," answered Shandon, a darkening ofhis eyes showing that Hume's taunt had stung. "I'll sign it. Find atrustworthy man to hold stakes and I'll put up my five thousand withinten days after you put yours up. Is that satisfactory?"

  Hume answered that it was, and named two or three men in El Toyon aspossible stake holders. When he mentioned Charlie Granger, proprietorof the El Toyon hotel, Shandon said curtly,

  "Charlie's all right. He's square."

  So the matter was decided as coolly, and apparently with as muchindifference, as if it had been a matter of no particular importance.Hume made no pretence of desiring to continue a conversation that wouldbe a mere waste of time and words now that his business was done, andswinging his horse about raked it with his spurs and galloped backtoward the Echo Creek. Wayne Shandon, suddenly a little thoughtful,turned and went to the stable. Little Saxon jerked up his head andlooked at his master with glaring, untamed eyes.

  "We've got to get busy, Little Saxon," he said, looking with criticaleyes at the lithe, powerful, rebellious body.

  "Say, Red! Ain't you on to his ga
me?" Shandon had not noticed thatWillie Dart was anywhere near, but was hardly surprised when the littleman popped up, wild eyed and excited. "Once you get your cash downhe's going to put you out of the running! That guy'd put ground glassin a baby's milk bottle for the price of a beer. Gee, Red. You sureenough do need a keeper!"

  Which position Willie Dart was already seeking manfully to fill.