“Looks like you’d been through th’ mill, bo!” said one, a great, rough fellow; but meeting M’Ginnis’s answering glare, he quailed and shrank away.
Dawn was at hand when at last he reached O’Rourke’s saloon and, letting himself in, strode into the bar. The place was deserted at this hour, but from a room hard by came the sound of voices, hoarse laughter, and the rattle of chips that told a poker game was still in progress.
Scowling, M’Ginnis stood awhile to listen. Then, lifting the flap of the bar, he passed through the narrow door beyond, along the passage and so to that dingy office, from the open door of which a light streamed.
Scowling still, M’Ginnis strode in, then stood suddenly still, lifted his right hand toward his breast, then paused as Soapy, turning about in the swing chair, took a heavy, ivory-handled revolver from where it had lain on the desk beside a packet of letters tied up in a faded blue ribbon.
“Lock th’ door, Bud, lock th’ door!” said he softly. “So!” he nodded, as M’Ginnis obeyed. “‘N’ say, Bud, take that hand away from y’r gun an’—keep it away—see?” And the lamplight glittered on the long barrel that rested on Soapy’s knee.
“So—this is th’ game—hey?” demanded M’Ginnis hoarsely, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Soapy unwinkingly.
“‘S right, Bud. Y’ see, I been takin’ a peek int’ that little tin safe o’ yours—say, it looks like you’d had a bit of a rough house, Bud!”
Soapy’s cigarette quivered and was still again, while M’Ginnis watched him, breathing thickly but speaking no word, and Soapy went on again:
“I been takin’ a peek into that little tin safe o’ yours, an’ I found some papers you’d been kind o’ treasurin’ up about me, so I burnt ‘em, Bud—not as they mattered very much, there ain’t nobody t’ worry when I snuff it—but I found as you’d got other papers about other guys as would matter some t’ them, I guess—so I burnt ‘em too, Bud.”
“Burnt ‘em!” cried M’Ginnis in a strangled voice, “burnt ‘em—you—”
“It ain’t no use t’ get riled, Bud; I burnt ‘em—there’s th’ ashes!”
M’Ginnis glanced at the heap of ash by the stove and burst into a frenzy of curses and fierce invective, while Soapy, lounging back in the chair, watched him unmoved until he had done, then he spoke again:
“Also I found—letters, Bud, a packet tied up in blue ribbon—an’, Bud, they matter a whole lot. Here they are—look at ‘em!”
For a moment Soapy’s baleful eye turned aside to the desk as he reached for the letters, and in that moment M’Ginnis’s pistol spoke, and Soapy, lurching sideways, sagged to his knees, his back against the desk. Again and again M’Ginnis’s weapon clicked, but no report followed, and Soapy slowly dragged himself to his feet. His cigarette fell and lay smouldering, and for a moment he stared at it; then he laughed softly and glanced at M’Ginnis.
“You fool, Bud, you dog-gone fool! Forgot t’ load up y’r gun, eh? But I guess you got me all right, anyway—you’re shootin’ better t’night than you did in the wood that time—eh, Bud? Now I want t’ tell you—” He was choked suddenly with a ghastly coughing, and when he spoke again, his voice was fainter, and he held a smartly-bordered handkerchief to his mouth.
“They say God made this world, Bud—if He did, I guess He was asleep when you was made, Bud—anyway, remembering little Maggie, you ain’t got no right to breathe any longer—so that’s for me—an’ that’s for her!”
Lounging still, he fired twice from the hip and M’Ginnis, twisting upon his heels, fell and lay with his face at his slayer’s feet. Then, spying the packet of letters that lay upon the grimy floor, Soapy stooped painfully and fired rapidly four times; when the smoke cleared, of those tear-blotted pages with their secret of a woman’s anguish, there remained nothing but a charred piece of ribbon and a few smouldering fragments of paper. And now Soapy was seized with another fit of coughing, above which he heard hoarse shouts and hands that thundered at the door. Lazily he stood upon his feet, turned to glance from that scorched ribbon to the still form upon the floor and, lifting a lazy foot, ground his heel into that still face, then, crossing unsteadily to the door, unlocked it. Beyond was a crowd, very silent now, who drew back to give him way, but Soapy paused in the doorway and leaned there a moment.
“What’s doin’?” cried a voice.
“Say, run f’r a doctor, somebody—quick—Soapy’s hurt bad, I reckon—”
“Hurt?” said Soapy, in soft, lazy tones. “‘S right! But—say—fellers, there’s a son of a dog in there—waitin’ f’r a spade—t’ bury him!” Then Soapy laughed, choked, and groping before him blindly, staggered forward, and pitching sideways, fell with his head beneath a table and died there.
CHAPTER XLV
OF THE OLD UN AND FATE
Spike leaned back among his cushions and, glancing away across close-cropped lawns and shady walks, sighed luxuriously.
“Say, Ann,” he remarked. “Gee whiz, Trapesy, there sure ain’t no flies on this place of old Geoff’s!”
“Flies,” said Mrs. Trapes, glancing up from her household accounts, “you go into the kitchen an’ look around.”
“I mean it’s aces up.”
“Up where?” queried Mrs. Trapes.
“Well, it’s a regular Jim-dandy cracker-jack—some swell clump, eh?”
“Arthur, that low, tough talk don’t go with me,” said Mrs. Trapes, and resumed her intricate calculations again.
“Say, when’ll Geoff an’ Hermy be back?”
“Well, considerin’ she’s gone to N’ York t’ buy more clo’es as she don’t need, an’ considerin’ Mr. Ravenslee’s gone with her, I don’t know.”
“An’ what you do know don’t cut no ice. Anyway, I’m gettin’ lonesome.”
“What, ain’t I here?” demanded Mrs. Trapes sharply.
“Sure. I can’t lose you!”
“Oh! Now I’ll tell you what it is, my good b’y—”
“Cheese it, Trapes, you make me tired, that’s what.”
“If you sass me, I’ll box your young ears—an’ that’s what!”
“I don’t think!” added Spike. “Nobody ain’t goin’ t’ box me. I’m a sure enough invalid, and don’t you forget it.”
“My land!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes, “a bit of a hole in his arm, that’s all.”
“Well, I wish you got it, ‘stead o’ me—it smarts like sixty!”
“Shows it’s healin’. Doctor said as it’ll be well in a week.”
“Doctor!” sniffed Spike, “he don’t know what I suffer. I may be dyin’ for all he knows.”
“You are!” sighed Mrs. Trapes, with a gloomy nod.
“Eh—what?” exclaimed Spike, sitting up.
“So am I—we all are—by the minute. Every night we’re a day’s march nearer home! So now jest set right there an’ go on dyin’, my b’y!”
“Say, now, cut it out,” said Spike, wriggling. “That ain’t no kind o’ way t’ cheer an invalid.”
“It’s th’ truth.”
“Well, it don’t cheer me more, so let’s have a lie for a change.”
Mrs. Trapes snorted and fell to adding and subtracting busily.
“Say, Ann,” said he after awhile, “if you got any more o’ that punkin pie I could do some right now. I’m hungry.”
“It ain’t eatin’ time yet.”
“But—Gee! ain’t I a invalid?”
“Sure! Consequently you must be fed slow an’ cautious.”
“Oh, fudge! What’s th’ good of a guy bein’ a invalid if a guy can’t feed when he wants to?”
“What’s a hundred an’ ninety-one from twenty-three?” enquired Mrs. Trapes.
“Skidoo!” murmured Spike sulkily. But after Mrs. Trapes had subtracted and added busily he spoke again.
“You ain’t such a bad old gink—sometimes,” he conceded.
“Gink?” said Mrs. Trapes, glaring.
“I mean you can be a real daisy when you want to.”