Wild Bill was at the poker table with Minky, Sandy Joyce and Toby Jenks when Scipio entered the place. He was a gambler out and out. It was his profession. He was known as Wild Bill of Abilene, a man whose past was never inquired into by even the most youthful newcomer, whose present was a thing that none ever saw sufficient reason to question, and whose future suggested nothing so much as the general uncertainty of things human. He was a man of harsh exterior and, apparently, harsh purpose. His eyes were steely and his tongue ironical; he possessed muscles of iron and a knowledge of poker and all its subtleties that had never yet failed him. He was a dead shot with a pistol, and, in consequence, fear and respect were laid at his feet by his fellow-townsmen. He was also Minky’s most treasured friend.
Sandy Joyce had to his credit a married past, which somehow gave him a certain authority in the place. He was expected to possess a fund of wisdom in matters worldly, and he did his best to live up to this demand. He was also, by the way, an ex-cowpuncher suffering from gold fever, and between whiles played poker with Wild Bill until he had lost the result of his more regular labors. He was a slight, tall, bright-eyed man of thirty, with an elaborate flow of picturesque language. He was afraid of no man, but all women.
Toby Jenks was as short and squat as his friends were long and thin. He was good-tempered, and spent large remittances which reached him at regular intervals in the lulls which occurred in his desultory search for gold.
Minky, a plain, large man of blunt speech and gruff manners, looked up swiftly as Scipio entered, and a moment later three more pairs of eyes were fixed inquiringly upon the newcomer.
“Struck color?” inquired Minky, with his gruffest cordiality.
“No.”
Scipio’s entire attitude had distinctly undergone a change since Sunny Oak’s lazy eyes first discovered his approach. Where before the hopelessness of despair had looked out from every line of his mild face, now his mouth was set obstinately, and a decided thrust to his usually retiring chin became remarkable. Even his wispy hair had an aggression in the manner in which it obtruded from under the brim of his slouch hat. His eyes were nearly defiant, yet there was pleading in them, too. It was as if he were sure of the rightness of his purpose, but needed encouragement in its execution.
For the moment the poker game was stopped, a fact which was wholly due to the interest of the steely eyes of Wild Bill.
“Layin’ off?” inquired the gambler, without a moment’s softening.
“Guess you’re passin’ on that mud lay-out of yours,” suggested Sandy, with a laugh.
Scipio shook his head, and his lips tightened.
“No. I want to borrow a good horse from Bill here.”
The gambler set down the cards he had been shuffling. The statement seemed to warrant his action. He sat back in his chair and bit a chew of tobacco off a black plug. Minky and the others sat round and stared at the little man with unfeigned interest.
“You’re needin’ a hoss?” demanded Bill, without attempting to disguise his surprise. “What for?”
Scipio drew a hand across his brow; a beady sweat had broken out upon it.
“Oh, nothing to bother folk with,” he said, with a painful attempt at indifference. “I’ve got to hunt around and find that feller, ‘Lord’ James.”
A swift glance flashed round the table from eye to eye. Then Sunny Oak’s voice reached them from beyond the window–
“Guess you’ve a goodish ways to travel.”
“Time enough,” said Scipio doggedly.
“What you need to find him for?” demanded Wild Bill, and there was a change in the glitter of his fierce eyes. It was not that they softened, only now they had the suggestion of an ironical smile, which, in him, implied curiosity.
Scipio shifted his feet uneasily. His pale eyes wandered to the sunlit window. One hand was thrust in his jacket pocket, and the fingers of it fidgeted with the rusty metal of the gun that bulged its sides. This pressure of interrogation was upsetting the restraint he was putting on himself. All his grief and anger were surging uppermost again. With a big effort, which was not lost upon his shrewd audience, he choked down his rising emotion.
“Oh, I–I’d like to pay him a ‘party call,’” he blurted out.
Minky was about to speak, but Wild Bill kept him silent with a sharp glance. An audible snigger came from beyond the window.
“Guess you know jest wher’ you’ll locate him?” inquired the gambler.
“No, but I’m going to find him, sure,” replied Scipio doggedly. Then he added, with his eyes averted, “Guess I shan’t let up till I do.”
There was a weak sparkle in the little man’s eyes.
“What’s your game?” rasped Bill curiously.
“Oh, just nothin’.”
The reply caused a brief embarrassed pause. Then the gambler broke it with characteristic force.
“An’ fer that reason you’re–carryin’ a gun,” he said, pointing at the man’s bulging pocket.
Sandy Joyce ceased stacking his “chips”; Toby squared his broad shoulders and drained an already empty glass. Minky blinked his astonishment, while Wild Bill thrust his long legs out and aggressively pushed his hat back on his head. It was at that moment that curiosity overcame Sunny Oak’s habitual indolence, and his face appeared over the window-sill.
“He’s stole from me,” said Scipio in a low tone.
“What’s he stole?” demanded the gambler savagely.
“My wife.”
The stillness of the room remained unbroken for some moments. Actions came far easier to these men than mere words. Scipio’s words had a paralyzing effect upon their powers of speech, and each was busy with thoughts which they were powerless to interpret into words. “Lord” James was a name they had reason to hate. It was a name synonymous with theft, and even worse–to them. He had stolen from their community, which was unforgivable, but this–this was something new to them, something which did not readily come into their focus. Wild Bill was the first to recover himself.
“How d’you know?” he asked.
“She wrote telling me.”
“She went ’cos she notioned it?” inquired Sandy.
“He’s stole her–he’s stole my Jessie,” said Scipio sullenly.
“An’ you’re goin’ to fetch her back?” Bill’s question whipped the still air.
“Sure–she’s mine.”
Scipio’s simplicity and single-mindedness brought forth a sigh of intense feeling from his hearers.
“How?” Wild Bill’s method of interrogation had a driving effect.
“She’s mine, an’–I’m going to get her back.” There was pity at the man’s obstinate assertion in every eye except Wild Bill’s.
“Say, Zip, he’ll kill you,” said the gambler, after a pause.
“She’s my wife. She’s mine,” retorted Scipio intensely. “An’ I’ll shoot him dead if he refuses to hand her over.”
“Say,” the gambler went on, ignoring the man’s protest–the idea of Scipio shooting a man like James was too ludicrous–“you’re up agin a bad proposition, sure. James has stole your–wife. He’s stole more. He’s a stage-robber.”
“A cattle-thief,” broke in Sandy.
“A ‘bad man’ of the worst,” nodded Minky.
“He’s all these, an’ more,” went on Bill, scowling. “He’s a low-down skunk, he’s a pestilence, he’s a murderer. You’re goin’ to hunt him back ther’ to his own shack in the foothills with his