“You darned drunken hobo, it takes money to ride on this train,” the brakeman bawled as he shook his fist at the forlorn figure.
The little man stumbled to his feet and disclosed a dirty face largely obscured by blue glasses. His trousers were too large and bagged at the waist. His threadbare coat hung in tatters. A battered bit of felt draped his head in the semblance of a hat, and one toe protruded from an overlarge shoe. He clinched a grimy fist and shook it after the jeering brakeman.
“You mutton face! Just you dare come back here, and I’ll give you a licking so your mother won’t know you!” he cried shrilly.
His futile rage, his puny fists, brought another gale of mirth from the onlookers.
As if stirred by the laughter, his rage mounted, and he lapsed into shrill abuse mixed with oaths. Toothpick seized him by the shoulder and shook him.
“Hey, you little runt, there’s ladies present,” he warned sharply. “Get out of here, pronto!”
He gave the hobo a rough shove that sent him staggering. The small man gave one glance at the tall Toothpick and limped forlornly up the platform.
“Poor fellow!” Mrs. Ransom fluttered after the tattered figure. Even in her own troubles she pitied this scarecrow of a man. “Why did they throw you off the train?”
He paused, then drew down his mouth and whined to gain her sympathy.
“I bought me a ticket to Chi – that’s Chicago – where I live, ma’am. Me muvver is sick. That feller stole my ticket and guv it to a friend, then threw me off.”
Mrs. Ransom struggled between the contrary emotions of pity and common sense. She knew the story was not true, yet he was so forlorn and hungry looking. Pity won.
“Here’s a dollar. Go buy yourself some food,” she said. Then, struck with an idea, she added sternly: “Promise you won’t drink it up.”
The tramp straightened up.
“Me, ma’am?” He was all injured innocence. “Why, ma’am, I never touch the stuff.”
The crowd chuckled. Tom Powers snorted disgust. He seized the man’s arm.
“What’s yuhr name?” he snapped.
The hobo glanced at the star on the sheriff’s coat and tried to slink away. Pinioned by the heavy hand, he cowered as if he expected a blow.
“Mister, I ain’t done nothin’. I’ll get out of town on the first train,” he pleaded.
“You got until to-morrow afternoon to do it,” warned the sheriff.
As the hobo slunk away the three Frying Pan riders looked after him longingly. He was an ideal mark for their humor. Sam Hogg sensed their longing.
“It’s all right, boys,” he said. “You can go along now. Looks like they ain’t goin’ to be no trouble here, after all. Not right now, leastways.”
As one man the three humorists started after the scarecrow. Mrs. Ransom bristled to his protection.
“You bullies!” She shook a warning finger. “If I hear of you tormenting that poor little fellow, I’ll – well, I’ll be angry.”
“Huh, ma’am,” Tad Hicks stuttered. “We wa’n’t thinkin’ of doin’ nothin’, nohow.”
“We figured we’d take him to dinner with us-all,” Windy added with defensive genius.
Mrs. Ransom shook her head, smiling, as they joined the hobo. They towered above him – a tatterdemalion dwarf between three guardsmen.
She rejoined her husband. The sheriff nodded, and the judge and his family moved toward their home. Ransom was flanked by two deputies and further protected by Silent and Dutchy, who brought up a grim rear guard.
Snippets turned back and ran to Toothpick.
“Thank you for protecting me from that man,” she smiled, teasing.
“Huh?” Toothpick queried dumbly.
“Oh, you men! How dumb you are!” She stamped her foot. Then, on tiptoe, she delivered a quick kiss on the nose of the astounded Toothpick and ran to rejoin her party.
Toothpick stared after her. He felt gingerly of his nose and scratched his head.
“She meant somethin’ by that. But what was it?” he asked himself, and gave up the answer.
CHAPTER III
KING OF LIARS
Tad Hicks, Windy Sam, and Kansas Jones, out of sight of the depot platform, seized the little hobo’s arms and dragged him willy-nilly behind a saloon.
“Yuh promised yuh wouldn’t drink up that cartwheel Mrs. Ransom guv yuh,” Tad Hicks reminded him.
“Aw, get out and leave me be,” the hobo said truculently, with an evident attempt at bravado.
“What’s that?” Windy roared as he tightened his grip on the arm.
The hobo’s truculence vanished, and he whined: “Nothin’ – where we goin’ to eat?”
They led him to a Mexican eating house on Depot Street, where they were joined by Toothpick. Having planked their charge in a chair and ordered food, they settled back to have a little fun with the victim.
“What’s yuhr name?” Windy Sam commenced.
“Jim Anson. What’s yours?” the hobo asked.
“Windy Sam, now – ”
The man called Jim Anson interrupted him.
“Is you called that because you talk too much, or because what you say don’t mean nothin’?” he asked innocently.
“Ha-ha!” the others exclaimed, and dug the red-faced Sam in the ribs.
One after the other they plied him with questions, but his answers always left them floundering. He had a way of turning a thrust into a boomerang. He did this with such a guileless, cringing air that they were never sure whether he was secretly laughing at them or if his answers were accidental. Before the meal was over he had them grinning at his absurd tales. In spite of themselves they listened, absorbed, and momentarily almost believed what he said.
“Rise up, liars, and salute yuhr king!” Toothpick shouted.
For a moment there was a change in the hobo’s face. The fawning expression was replaced by a broad, lovable grin that made the punchers’ hearts warm toward Jim Anson. Toothpick started. For a moment he studied the hobo’s face, saw the fawning smile there again, and shook his head.
The five adjourned to Maria’s Cantina, on the corner of Depot Street. Jim Anson insisted that the first drink was on him and ordered it in a loud voice. Another followed and another. Toothpick chuckled when he saw that, while Jim Anson always ordered the drinks, one of the three riders paid for them.
All the while Jim Anson asked them questions in such a way that they never realized they were being pumped. He turned on Toothpick and skillfully ferreted from him the story of the murder of the Courfay family two weeks before.
“When we got there they was all dead, except one gent what says: ‘Fees do dible chable’ which I figures is French.” Toothpick rambled on with his story, but Jim Anson was not listening.
“Fils du Diable à Cheval,” he muttered to himself. “Sons of the Devil on Horseback. Gosh!”
A little later “Mac” Kennedy, an Eastern dude, sauntered in. Jim Anson, after studying him a minute, turned to the others.
“Who’s that gazebo all dressed up like a Christmas tree?” he asked.
“He’s a white-livered dude,” Windy snorted contemptuously.
“He comes out here about three months back and says it’s for his health,” Kansas elaborated. “Buys the Bar X, a little runt of a ranch what