Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Fear by Mosso A Angelo Kiesow Federico Translator Lough E Translator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 501 lines and 14524 words, and 11 pages
Dan opened his eyes with horror at the suggestion.
"I ain't takin' risks. You got heaps of time. It's only five o'clock and the road is good to Graymount."
"More'n Rob's hosses are. That off-side mare's like a sausage on four crooked sticks."
"Jim! We want Colorado Jim!" was howled up from below.
The much desired went to the window.
"Boys," he bawled, "you all run along home. I gotta catch a train."
His voice was drowned by horrible threats of what they would do if he didn't hike down immediately. He turned to Dan.
"They're a darn fine lot of boys, but I wish they wouldn't git so worked up. Where's Emily?"
Emily, who was standing in the doorway, ogling him unseen, came forward.
"There's something to buy a dress with, and see here, don't get a draughtboard pattern. If there's any money over, buy soap--scented soap."
Emily's eyes almost fell from her head at the sight of the fifty-dollar note. She rubbed her hands down her dress and took it. Jim had grabbed the heavy bag and was half-way down the stairs before she could summon enough breath to murmur the incessant refrain, "Ain't he jest wonderful!"
At the door Jim was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag, and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, much to Rob's disgust. The hurtling missile came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly went through the roof.
"Don't get fresh, boys," pleaded Jim. "These are my Sunday clothes."
They ran him twice up the main street, yelling and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. A queer awry figure stuck its head from the window of a tumble-down shop and, seeing the cause of the disturbance, shook his fist and yelled:
"The sheriff ought to be fired, to allow ..."
A shot from a revolver shivered his shop-window to atoms, and a ten-dollar note was flung at him. He slammed down the window, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor. The high-spirited men went on their way, rousing the whole population as they progressed. After about twenty minutes of these capers they reached the hotel again. Jim was praying that the business was over. He fought his way to the ground, but was immediately hoisted on to the top of Rob's coach.
"Give over, boys ..."
"Who is the whitest man in Medicine Bow?" sang Ned Blossom.
"Colorado Jim!" howled the chorus.
"Who is the huskiest two-hundred-pounder in the hul of Ameriky?"
"Colorado Jim!"
"Who is it the gals all lu-huv?"
"Colorado Jim--sure!"
Jim swung his big figure over the side of the coach. He grabbed two of his tormentors by the scruffs of their necks and jerked them on to the ground.
"I'm through with all this," he cried. "Rob, get that animated bunch of horse-hair going."
Ned Blossom held up his hand.
He jerked something from his pocket and put it into Jim's hand. It was a gold cigarette-case, with an inscription worked in small diamonds: "To Colorado Jim from his chums." Jim stood gazing at this token of their regard. He hated sentiment, and yet was as big a victim of it as anyone. When he spoke his great voice wavered.
He grabbed Ned's hand quickly, and then that of each of the other men, and jumped into the coach. They understood the emotion in the big heart of him. Rob started the team and away went the coach in a cloud of dust. Hats went up in the air and revolvers barked.
"Good-bye, Colorado Jim! Good-bye!"
Emily at the door, clasping the fifty-dollar note in her grimy paw, waited until the coach was a mere dot in the distance. Then she rubbed a sorrowful eye.
"Gee, but he was jest wonderful!" she moaned.
THE BRIGHT LIGHTS
New York brought Jim Conlan up with a start. Everything was amazing; everything was bewildering. He felt like a lost soul, stunned with the noise, dazed by the sights. In the fastnesses of his beloved West he had never imagined that such a place existed on the face of the earth. He felt stifled and ill at ease. His clothes were different to those worn in this city. People gave him a quick passing glance, knowing him at once for a Westerner. Feeling a trifle embarrassed under their glances, he reflected upon the advisability of buying new and more appropriate garb. A tailor was requisitioned and, finding his client to be indifferent in the matter of costs, fixed him up with a fine wardrobe--and a fine bill.
Jim spent the best part of two hours trying on the new things. The long mirror in his bedroom did its best, but it wasn't good enough for Jim. He groaned as he saw this stranger staring at him from the mirror. He wasn't built for that sort of garb. The hard hat looked perfectly idiotic and the starched collars nearly choked him. Eventually he tore the offending article from his sunscorched neck and flung it across the room. The other things followed. He stood once more in the rough gray clothes that served for "best" out West, and jammed the comfortable Stetson hat on his head.
"I'm darned if I'll wear 'em!" he growled.
A few days of shopping and theaters, and he began to grow homesick. Thoughts of Colorado and the boys constantly flickered in his brain. Here he was an outcast--a nonentity. He was not good at making friends, and the New Yorkers were not falling head over heels to shake hands with him, though more than one pair of eyes looked admiringly at his magnificent physique.
Oh, Colorado! With your wide prairie and your eternal peaks, your carpeted valleys and your crystalline streams, your fragrant winds and your gift of God--good men!
He was sitting in the lounge of his hotel one evening, feeling more than usually homesick, when he noticed a beautiful woman sitting near him. Her evening dress was cut well away at the shoulders, displaying a white neck around which a pearl necklace glowed in the light. A mass of auburn hair was coiled up neatly round her head, with a rebellious little curl streaming down one ear.
The curl fascinated Jim. He thought it ought to be put back in its proper place, but a second's reflection revealed to him the fact that it was intended to trickle thus alluringly. It was there for effect. It enhanced her considerable charm. In the midst of his interested survey she turned and caught his eye. He began to study his boots with an embarrassed blush. When he ultimately stole another glance at this wealth of feminine beauty he found she was busily engaged in similar scrutiny--of himself. They both smiled. Then she stood up, languidly, and came across to him.
"Pardon me, but you are from the West, aren't you?"
"Right first time."
"Ah, I thought so. You Westerners can't disguise yourselves. I love the West. I was born in Wyoming."
Here at last was a sympathetic soul. Jim edged along a little. She sat down.
"You don't like New York?" she queried.
"I don't," he replied emphatically. "It leaves me gasping for breath."
She nodded.
"I felt like that when first I came down. I wish I were you to be going back again."
Jim laughed.
"But I'm not going back."
She opened her brilliant eyes and then laughed.
"I know. You've made a pile and are now seeing life. Is that it?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page