Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/260

 "I don't know," said Lee.

"Well, then, throw him out," said Perley shortly, snapping his watch with his free hand. "We can't stay here all day."

This little ruction between Perley and the half-breed has taken me longer to tell it, I guess, than it did to happen. Anyway, it didn't cause the excitement you might think it would. The "blankets" were too busy drinking in the smell of that whisky to let their hungry eyes wander very far from anywhere but the open door of that car. And as for the stragglers, by the time they'd caught on to the fact that there was something on the boards besides that drunken Indian, Perley, with the same cool contempt, had slipped his gun back in his pocket and was boosting Lee into the car.

The Indian offered no opposition as Lee tackled him. He couldn't—he was beyond all that—he was so full of dead-eye it was oozing out by the pores. He just sat there, and Lee slid him to the door just as he was, still sitting, and dropped him out. He struck the ground with a thud, rebounded a foot, rolled over, grunted, and lay like a log. There was a guffaw from the camp stragglers, and a deep and envious chorus of "Ughs!" from the "blankets." No, I'm not joking—it's a long way from a joke, as you'll see. They were envious. It acted like a red rag on a bull—the possibility of attaining the condition, the state of heavenly bliss, that had been reached by their red brother, do you understand? Clancy wasn't laughing. He stood where Perley had left him, sullen and with twitching face. I don't know,