Fightin' Fool Read online

  He undressed, tore up his undershirt, and made a bandage. The wound had closed its small mouth, and only a trickle of blood was coming from it after the first gush. There was a big, dark, wet spot of it on the inside of his trousers leg. But since he was to make his call just at twilight, he would have to hope that it would not be seen as a discoloration.

  Now he picked the bits of hay out of his clothes and shook the dust from them before he dressed again.

  One part of his way was clear before him. High above, there was a trapdoor in the roof, and to this he mounted, climbing up a ladder. He looked from the door into the smoking red of the dying sunset. He looked down toward the ground and saw men already walking back and forth. A long, loose line of them extended as far as he could see around the barns and the house, which was the building next to him. He saw the glimmer of the barrels of rifles and shotguns. They would be on the alert now, as the right season of the day approached for Jingo’s well-advertised attempt to call on Judge Tyrrel’s daughter.

  The distinguishing feature of the roof of the barn which Judge Tyrrel had decided to use for a house, was a little roof garden or “captain’s walk” which had been built out around the trap such as that through which Jingo was looking. And Tyrrel had set off the high platform with a flagstaff as the wind extended it or let it shrink from the sunset light.

  Jingo saw his chance. There was no way of getting to the house of the judge by walking on the ground—not under the eyes of all the men who were surrounding the place. Already they were bringing out lanterns to encircle the house with a cordon of light. But there was another possibility of entering the place.

  Jingo went back inside the barn and worked his way to the runway of the Jackson fork, and then cut a great length of the derrick rope, which he coiled around his shoulder. With that weight, he returned to his trapdoor in the roof. He made a running knot, shook out a noose, then pushed the trapdoor wide open and stepped out on the slant of the roof.

  It was not easy. The roof slanted so that it made it hard for him to stand and also constricted the area in which he could swing his noose. Above all, he stood up there on the roof with the dull light of the horizon encircling him—and below, pacing the ground, there were expert marksmen looking for just such a target.

  However, he widened his noose, swung it until it was hissing in the air about his head, then threw it with all the strength of his arm. He threw it with so much strength, in fact, that the impetus jerked him off his feet. He fell flat, skidding down over the shakes that covered the roof. Only at the rain gutter, his fingers got a grip and saved him from diving headlong to the ground.

  He looked up and saw that his noose had fallen fair and true over the flagstaff of Judge Tyrrel. It seemed to him that he had put out a long, thin arm on the judge.

  Then he heard, from beneath, voices talking. “What’s that rope doing?” asked one.

  “I never seen it before.”

  “I’ll go up and take a look.”

  “There ain’t any light in the barn to climb by. You’ll break your neck.”

  “I’ll get Tom Farrell, then. Farrell will know if that rope had oughta be there.”

  “Yeah, you go that way, and I’ll go this, and we’ll get Tom Farrell.”

  Jingo was already crawling back up the sharp slope of the roof. He pulled the length of derrick rope taut and fastened it to a beam inside the trapdoor. After that he walked down the roof and began to swing himself hand over hand along the rope.

  It swayed up and down, vibrated under his hands, as though it were endowed with a snaky life and with an urgent desire to shake him from his grasp. The rope was worn. The frayed strands bristled like a steel cable and cut the palms of his hands. And every moment he waited to hear from beneath the outcry that would announce that he was discovered.

  Then his feet no longer dangled over nothingness. They struck the slant of the opposite roof. A moment later, he was on the “captain’s walk” of Judge Tyrrel’s house. An open door offered, right before him, a way into the place!

  He crouched for a moment, breathing hard. He had come a good distance, to be sure, but he was by no means safe; he was by no means at the end of his journey, and the day was darkening fast. He looked up, and could see a fine golden point of light in the sky. Arcturus was already beginning to shine!

  Well, there was still plenty of green light banding the horizon, and it must be called dusk until the full battery of the stars had begun to shine!

  Where would the girl be? Alone in her room perhaps, or else in the midst of many others.

  He entered the darkness and the warm air inside the house. There was a long flight of steps that turned into a hall. The hall ended at a door. He opened it and stepped out on a narrow balcony which overlooked the huge central hall of the judge’s house. There were little round circles of lamplight, here and there. A long table was being set. And as the chill of the evening commenced, a great fire had been lighted on a hearth of such dimensions as Jingo never had seen before in all his life.

  He saw the judge seated beside the fire and was surprised by the shabbiness of his clothes, but he recognized the face which had appeared so often in newspaper photographs. He knew the great spacious brow and the thoughtful inclination of the head.

  Then he saw young Wheeler Bent talking with the girl, who sat with her back to the biggest pillar in the room, the huge central support which upheld the middle of the roof and for which a great tree had been felled and squared. It was, in fact, like the mast of a ship.

  How could the girl have been placed in a position more difficult for him to reach? Or should he content himself with simply calling to her from the balcony where he then stood?

  No, what was in his mind was suddenly to appear before her, while the twilight was still in the sky, and offer his greeting in the most casual manner.

  His time was short, not only because the day was dying rapidly, but also because that fellow Tom Farrell might even at this moment be staring up from the ground toward the mysterious rope which extended still from the opposite barn to the house of the judge. Should he have cut that rope away from the flagpole? Well, in that case it would have been found dangling along the side of the barn, to cause even more suspicion than before.

  He looked desperately about the hall. He could get out on the big beams. He could descend from one story of them to the other, and if he were sufficiently silent, he might accomplish most of his journey without attracting attention. But how was he to descend the final stage from the lowest beams to the floor?

  His wandering eye lighted on the only note of color in the entire room—a pair of great, striped curtains that soared upward across the windows which faced the entrance door. It looked like an Indian pattern. It even looked like Indian blanket stuff. In that case it could be used perhaps.

  He was at work in an instant, his boots off and tied about his neck, while he stole like a huge, prowling cat out along the comfortable bulk of the first beam beneath the balcony.

  He got out to the center of the room, slid down an upright to the beams beneath, and crossed the next huge beam until he found himself right at the head of the big curtains. By the wavering firelight, he could see the strength of the big iron rings that fastened the curtains to their pole. He gripped the cloth and found the fabric of heavy wool. Well, perhaps he had found the ladder that would take him almost the rest of the way!

  The judge was saying: “Cheer up, Eugenia. It’s drafty, over there. Come here by the fire or you’ll be catching cold.”

  “I’ll stay where I am,” she answered. “I can look out through the doors, from here, and see the end of the day.”

  “It’s ended now,” said the judge, “and your friend Jingo is not going to appear. Eh, Wheeler?”

  Wheeler Bent laughed. “He’s a wild rascal, but of course he’s not an absolute fool,” said Wheeler Bent “The night has started now.”

  “Look again, Wheeler,” said the girl. “You can still see green in the sky.
That isn’t in the color of the night sky, is it?”

  “Well, grant him five minutes more,” said Wheeler Bent.

  “I’m glad he hasn’t come,” said the girl. “If he had come—if one of those men had dared to shoot at him—Father, will you answer me one thing?”

  “Perhaps,” said Tyrrel.

  “You’ve put those men on guard only as bluff, of course. They wouldn’t dare to shoot, would they?”

  “I won’t answer that,” said Tyrrel. “I want no trespassers on this place and no young ruffians walking into it.”

  The girl had started up from her chair. Jingo, letting himself down from the beam, got inside one half of the curtain and, gripping the big, stiff folds of it, began to lower himself. It was hard work. The cloth, coarse as canvas, was plenty strong enough to support him, but his weight kept pulling the stuff away from the strongest grip he could fasten on the folds.

  He heard the girl crying out: “Father, I’m going out there now and tell them not to shoot. Great heavens, don’t you see what that wild man will do? He’ll wait till the last minute of the twilight, and then he’ll make a dash for the house.”

  “In that case,” said the grim voice of Tyrrel, “it will be about the last dash that he makes at anything. Those men out there will shoot him to bits!”

  “Nonsense, Gene,” said Wheeler Bent. “Are you trying to make a hero out of your cowboy tramp? He has too much sense; he won’t try to run such a gauntlet even to get a smile from you, my dear.”

  She cried to them again: “None of you understands. He said he would be here, and he’ll come. If you had the whole army waiting for him with guns, he would come nevertheless. Father, you’ve got to go out now—now—and tell your men to drop their guns, if he comes—because he must be on the way this instant!”

  The judge was sufficiently moved to stand up by the hearth. And Jingo now stood on the floor inside the curtains. The red firelight shook in great tangible waves through the room and set it wavering like images in deep water. Over the dishes and the glasses that had been set out on the long table the light ran like gilding; the glass seemed to burn.

  Jingo pulled on his boots and stepped quietly out from his hiding place, walking toward the central pillar so that the light from the hearth would still be divided to either side away from him. In a shuddering, narrow ravine of darkness he stealthily stepped toward the pillar, as the judge answered his daughter:

  “When a man puts his will against my will, Eugenia, he has to take the chances that luck give him—and the troubles that I can put in his way. If your friend Jingo, or Jingle, or whatever his name may be, manages to get to this house, I’ll welcome him with an open hand—for this evening at least. But if my men can stop him on the way, they’re going to blow him to bits as a trespasser. The law supports them. A man’s house can be kept sacred from intrusion!”

  A big fellow, with bells chiming on his spurs, came striding suddenly through the open doorway. “Judge Tyrrel,” he said, “we gotta go up and have a look at the roof. There’s a rope running from the next barn over to your house.”

  “The devil there is!” said the judge. “Who put it there?”

  “I did,” said Jingo, stepping out from the pillar at the side of the girl. “Good evening, Gene. I think I’m just on time?”

  CHAPTER 18

  Wild Horses

  It was like the sudden striking of a blow after the sparring has continued a long time. A quick tension jerked every head. And Jingo watched all of these results from the corner of his eye while he considered the girl, first of all. The shock of his appearance made her rigid for an instant. Then her head tilted back a little, and she began to laugh. She held out her hand, and he took it gravely.

  Wheeler Bent got hold of the back of a chair and supported himself. The big fellow by the door was gibbering something. And then Judge Tyrrel came slowly across the room, saying: “You’re Jingo, I suppose? We’ve been expecting you. But did you rise up out of the floor or just materialize out of the empty air?”

  He was not laughing. A smile twisted a bit at his lips; that was all. But he shook hands with Jingo, who was answering: “I just dropped down into your place, but I landed in the next barn, and not in your house. So I put a rope bridge across and came over that way. I hate crowds, and there were a lot of people walking around on the ground below.”

  The judge chuckled. After that first long, straight look, he did not examine Jingo with so much criticism in his eyes. Suddenly he seemed to accept the intruder. “You’ll have supper with us,” he said. “Eugenia, see that another place is laid. I think you’ve met Wheeler Bent before?”

  Wheeler Bent had managed to steady himself a little. He made no effort to approach but acknowledged the introduction from a distance. He was white about the lips as though the effort of smiling had numbed his face. “Oh, yes,” he said. “We’ve met before!”

  He began to frown a little and kept narrowing his eyes. Jingo understood. He was looking to Wheeler Bent rather smaller than that gentleman’s expectation.

  “A rope bridge from the next barn,” the judge was saying. “And you flew down to the barn with a pair of wings or you rose out of the ground, Jingo?”

  “I’d like to tell you,” said Jingo. “It’s really very simple. But magicians are bound to one another not to tell how they do their little tricks.”

  “Little tricks?” exclaimed Wheeler Bent. “A man could easily rob a bank with a trick no better than this!”

  The big cow-puncher who had come through the doorway to announce the discovery of the rope between barn and house had remained motionless all this time. There was only a slight twitching of his body, from time to time, as new ideas struck him like bullets.

  Now he said: “Well, dog-gone my hide!” and turned on his heel and departed with his glance trailing over his shoulders toward Jingo. It was plain that Tom Farrell was not satisfied with life or the world, this evening. Perhaps the judge would have something to say, later on, about the efficiency with which his place had been guarded against intrusion.

  The girl had gone off to give directions about the alteration in seating at the table. Wheeler Bent moved like a stunned man toward the open door, from which he stared at the sky that was still faintly stained near the horizon with the twilight green.

  And the judge took Jingo nearer to the fire. “Now, young man,” said Judge Tyrrel, “I’d like to hear from you.”

  Jingo looked into the dark hollows under the great brow of Tyrrel and saw the steady glimmering of the eyes. “Do you want to know why I came?” he asked.

  “I want to know anything you care to tell me about yourself,” answered Tyrrel. “Including your name.”

  “My name,” said Jingo, “comes from the African—”

  “Oh,” said the judge, “my girl has told me already about J. I. Ngo. I thought you might have another name, by this time.”

  “I hate to throw away gifts,” said the young man, “and Jingo is a name that was given to me. If you want to know why I came—it’s simply because I told your daughter that I’d call on her. But as for the name—why, when you travel, you don’t take your whole wardrobe with you, I suppose? And Jingo is a good, light traveling name.”

  The judge smiled his faint smile again. “Please go on,” he said. “You came partly because you wanted to see my daughter and partly because it would be a hard thing to do.”

  “It’s better to do things at a stroke, I always think,” answered Jingo. “I’d rather ride than walk. And think of all the walking I’d have to do to get a proper introduction to Judge Tyrrel. However, by just sending word that I’m coming, in this way, the whole place is organized to meet me. Every cow-puncher on the ranch, since he heard that I was coming, has been polishing up—his guns. And even Judge Tyrrel is kind enough to pay attention to me. I’d have to be worth two or three millions, at least, to get this much attention from you in any other way.”

  “Jingo,” said Tyrrel, “how long do you intend to
ride horses through life?”

  “I hope,” said Jingo, “that I’ll always be in the saddle.”

  “And work?” asked the judge.

  “No work,” replied Jingo. “I agree with you about that. I hate work almost as much as you do, Judge Tyrrel.”

  “Hate it as much as I do? Do I hate work?” repeated the judge, half offended and half curious. “My dear young friend, how much time do you think I have to myself?”

  “Nearly every minute,” answered Jingo. “You’ve been daydreaming all your life, I suppose. You have the dream, and then you step into it. So do I. That’s where we’re different from most people.”

  “And similar to one another?” asked Tyrrel, his air more watchful than ever.

  “Well,” said Jingo, “you’ve kept yourself young, having a good time. I’m doing the same. My good times have horses and guns and poker games in them. Your good times have other things, like cutting down forests and spiffing the logs into rivers and sending the big trees through sawmills to make shingles of ’em; you go into a directors’ meeting, and I go into a saloon, and the people look on us in about the same way. I break up a meeting, now and then, and so do you. We both look for excitement. You get yours out of raising beef. I get mine out of shooting venison.”

  “From that angle,” said Tyrrel ironically, “we’re very much alike.”

  “I think so,” said Jingo, laughing easily.

  “In that case,” said the judge, “we ought to make a combination.”

  “That’s what I think,” said Jingo. “That’s why I came here.”

  “If we combine resources,” said the judge, his mouth twitching to the side, “what has each of us to offer?”

  “Money, of course, doesn’t count,” said Jingo. “Any one can make enough of that.”

  “What does count?” asked the judge.

  “Reputation,” said Jingo. “You have a reputation and a daughter. I have a reputation and need a wife. You can draw the easy deduction from that.”