Revenge!

THE SHADOW OF THE GREENBACK

Hickory Sam needed but one quality to be perfect. He should have been an arrant coward. He was a blustering braggart, always boasting of the men he had slain, and the odds he had contended against; filled with stories of his own valour, but alas! he shot straight, and rarely missed his mark, unless he was drunker than usual. It would have been delightful to tell how this unmitigated ruffian had been "held up" by some innocent tenderfoot from the East, and made to dance at the muzzle of a quite new and daintily ornamented revolver, for the loud-mouthed blowhard seemed just the man to flinch when real danger confronted him; but, sad to say, there was nothing of the white feather about Hickory Sam, for he feared neither man, nor gun, nor any combination of them. He was as ready to fight a dozen as one, and once had actually "held up" the United States army at Fort Concho, beating a masterly retreat backwards with his face to the foe, holding a troop in check with his two seven-shooters that seemed to point in every direction at once, making every man in the company feel, with a shiver up his back, that he individually was "covered," and would be the first to drop if firing actually began.

Hickory Sam appeared suddenly in Salt Lick, and speedily made good his claim to be the bad man of the district. Some old-timers disputed Sam's arrogant contention, but they did not live long enough to maintain their own well-earned reputations as objectionable citizens. Thus Hickory Sam reigned supreme in Salt Lick, and every one in the place was willing and eager to stand treat to Sam, or to drink with him when invited.

Sam's chief place of resort in Salt Lick was the Hades Saloon, kept by Mike Davlin. Mike had not originally intended this to be the title of his bar, having at first named it after a little liquor cellar he kept in his early days in Philadelphia, called "The Shades," but some cowboy humourist, particular about the external fitness of things, had scraped out the letter "S," and so the sign over the door had been allowed to remain. Mike did not grumble. He had taken a keen interest in politics in Philadelphia, but an unexpected spasm of civic virtue having overtaken the city some years before, Davlin had been made a victim, and he was forced to leave suddenly for the West, where there was no politics, and where a man handy at mixing drinks was looked upon as a boon by the rest of the community. Mike did not grumble when even the name "Hades" failed to satisfy the boys in their thirst for appropriate nomenclature, and when they took to calling the place by a shorter and terser synonym beginning with the same letter, he made no objections.

Mike was an adaptive man, who mixed drinks, but did not mix in rows. He protected himself by not keeping a revolver, and by admitting that he could not hit his own saloon at twenty yards distance. A residence in the quiet city of Philadelphia is not conducive to the nimbling of the trigger finger. When the boys in the exuberance of their spirits began to shoot, Mike promptly ducked under his counter and waited till the clouds of smoke rolled by. He sent in a bill for broken glass, bottles, and the damage generally, when his guests were sober again, and his accounts were always paid. Mike was a deservedly popular citizen in Salt Lick, and might easily have been elected to the United States Congress, if he had dared to go east again. But, as he himself said, he was out of politics.

It was the pleasant custom of the cowboys at Buller's ranch to come into Salt Lick on pay-days and close up the town. These periodical visits did little harm to any one, and seemed to be productive of much amusement for the boys. They rode at full gallop through the one street of the place like a troop of cavalry, yelling at the top of their voices and brandishing their weapons.

The first raid through Salt Lick was merely a warning, and all peaceably inclined inhabitants took it as such, retiring forthwith to the seclusion of their houses. On their return trip the boys winged or lamed, with unerring aim, any one found in the street. They seldom killed a wayfarer; if a fatality ensued it was usually the result of accident, and much to the regret of the boys, who always apologised handsomely to the surviving relatives, which expression of regret was generally received in the amicable spirit with which it was tendered. There was none of the rancour of the vendetta in these little encounters; if a man happened to be blotted out, it was his ill luck, that was all, and there was rarely any thought of reprisal.

This perhaps was largely due to the fact that the community was a shifting one, and few had any near relatives about them, for, although the victim might have friends, they seldom held him in such esteem as to be willing to take up his quarrel when there was a bullet hole through him. Relatives, however, are often more difficult to deal with than are friends, in cases of sudden death, and this fact was recognised by Hickory Sam, who, when he was compelled to shoot the younger Holt brother in Mike's saloon, promptly went, at some personal inconvenience, and assassinated the elder, before John Holt heard the news. As Sam explained to Mike when he returned, he had no quarrel with John Holt, but merely killed him in the interests of peace, for he would have been certain to draw and probably shoot several citizens when he heard of his brother's death, because, for some unexplained reason, the brothers were fond of each other.

When Hickory Sam was comparatively new to Salt Lick he allowed the Buller's ranch gang to close up the town without opposition. It was their custom, when the capital of Coyote county had been closed up to their satisfaction, to adjourn to Hades and there "blow in" their hard- earned gains on the liquor Mike furnished. They also added to the decorations of the saloon ceiling. Several cowboys had a gift of twirling their Winchester repeating rifles around the fore finger and firing it as the flying muzzle momentarily pointed upwards. The man who could put the most bullets within the smallest space in the roof was the expert of the occasion, and didn't have to pay for his drinks.

This exhibition might have made many a man quail, but it had no effect on Hickory Sam, who leant against the bar and sneered at the show as child's play.

"Perhaps you think you can do it," cried the champion. "I bet you the drinks you can't."

"I don't have to," said Hickory Sam, with the calm dignity of a dead shot. "I don't have to, but I'll tell you what I can do. I can nip the heart of a man with this here gun" showing his seven-shooter, "me a- standing in Hades here and he a-coming out of the bank." For Salt Lick, being a progressive town, had the Coyote County Bank some distance down the street on the opposite side from the saloon.

"You're a liar," roared the champion, whereupon all the boys grasped their guns and were on the look out for trouble.

Hickory Sam merely laughed, strode to the door, threw it open, and walked out to the middle of the deserted thoroughfare.

"I'm a bad man from Way Back," he yelled at the top of his voice. "I'm the toughest cuss in Coyote county, and no darned greasers from Buller's can close up this town when I'm in it. You hear me! Salt Lick's wide open, and I'm standing in the street to prove it."

It was bad enough to have the town declared open when fifteen of them in a body had proclaimed it closed, but in addition to this to be called "greasers" was an insult not to be borne. A cowboy despises a Mexican almost as much as he does an Indian. With a soul-terrifying yell the fifteen were out of the saloon and on their horses like a cyclone. They went down the street with tornado speed, wheeling about, some distance below the temporarily closed bank, and, charging up again at full gallop, fired repeatedly in the direction of Hickory Sam, who was crouching behind an empty whiskey barrel in front of the saloon with a "gun" in either hand.

Sam made good his contention by nipping the heart of the champion when opposite the bank, who plunged forward on his face and threw the cavalcade into confusion. Then Sam stood up, and regardless of the scattering shots, fired with both revolvers, killing the foremost man of the troop and slaughtering three horses, which instantly changed the charge into a rout. He then retired to Hades and barricaded the door. Mike was nowhere to be seen.

But the boys knew when they had enough. They made no attack on the saloon, but picked up their dead, and, thoroughly sobered, made their way, much more slowly than they came, back to Buller's ranch.

When it was evident that they had gone, Mike cautiously emerged from his place of retirement, as Sam was vigorously pounding on the bar, threatening that if a drink were not forthcoming he would go round behind the bar and help himself.

"I'm a law and order man," he explained to Davlin, "and I won't have no toughs from Buller's ranch close up this town and interfere with commerce. Every man has got to respect the Constitution of the United States as long as my gun can bark, you bet your life!"

Mike hurriedly admitted that he was perfectly right, and asked him what he would have, forgetting in his agitation that Sam took one thing only, and that one thing straight.

Next day old Buller himself came in from his ranch to see if anything could be done about this latest affray. It was bad enough to lose two of his best herdsmen in a foolish contest of this kind, but to have three trained horses killed as well, was disgusting. Buller had been one of the boys himself in his young days, but now, having grown wealthy in the cattle business, he was anxious to see civilisation move westward with strides a little more rapid than it was taking. He made the mistake of appealing to the Sheriff, as if that worthy man could be expected, for the small salary he received, to attempt the arrest of so dead a shot as Hickory Sam.

Besides, as the Sheriff quite correctly pointed out, the boys themselves had been the aggressors in the first place, and if fifteen of them could not take care of one man behind an empty whiskey barrel, they had better remain peaceably at home in the future, and do their pistol practice in the quiet, innocuous retirement of a shooting gallery. They surely could not expect the strong arm of the law, in the person of a peaceably-minded Sheriff, to reach out and pull their chestnuts from the fire when several of them had already burned their fingers, and when the chestnuts shot and drank as straight as Hickory Sam.

Buller, finding the executive portion of the law slow and reluctant to move, sought advice from his own lawyer, the one disciple of Coke-upon- Littleton in the place. The lawyer doubted if there was any legal remedy in the then condition of society around Salt Lick. The safest plan perhaps would be—mind, he did not advise, but merely suggested— to surround Hickory Sam and wipe him off the face of the earth. This might not be strictly according to law, but it would be effective, if carried out without an error.

The particulars of Buller's interview with the Sheriff spread rapidly in Salt Lick, and caused great indignation among the residents thereof, especially those who frequented Hades. It was a reproach to the place that the law should be invoked, all on account of a trivial incident like that of the day before. Sam, who had been celebrating his victory at Mike's, heard the news with bitter, if somewhat silent resentment, for he had advanced so far in his cups that he was all but speechless. Being a magnanimous man, he would have been quite content to let bygones be bygones, but this unjustifiable action of Buller's required prompt and effectual chastisement. He would send the wealthy ranchman to keep company with his slaughtered herdsmen.

Thus it was that when Buller mounted his horse after his futile visit to the lawyer, he found Hickory Sam holding the street with his guns. The fusillade that followed was without result, which disappointing termination is accounted for by the fact that Sam was exceedingly drunk at the time, and the ranchman was out of practice. Seldom had Salt Lick seen so much powder burnt with no damage except to the window-glass in the vicinity. Buller went back to the lawyer's office, and afterwards had an interview with the bank manager. Then he got quietly out of town unmolested, for Sam, weeping on Mike's shoulder over the inaccuracy of his aim, gradually sank to sleep in a corner of the saloon.