The other men sprang
up. The barkeeper dashed around the corner of his bar. There was a
great tumult, and then was seen a long blade in the hand of the
gambler. It shot forward, and a human body, this citadel of virtue,
wisdom, power, was pierced as easily as if it had been a melon. The
Swede fell with a cry of supreme astonishment.
The prominent merchants and the district-attorney must have at
once tumbled out of the place backward. The bartender found himself
hanging limply to the arm of a chair and gazing into the eyes of a
murderer.
"Henry," said the latter, as he wiped his knife on one of the towels
that hung beneath the bar-rail, "you tell 'em where to find me. I'll
be home, waiting for 'em." Then he vanished. A moment afterward the
barkeeper was in the street dinning through the storm for help, and,
moreover, companionship.
The corpse of the Swede, alone in the saloon, had its eyes fixed
upon a dreadful legend that dwelt a-top of the cash-machine. "This
registers the amount of your purchase."
IX
Months later, the cowboy was frying pork over the stove of a
little ranch near the Dakota line, when there was a quick thud of
hoofs outside, and, presently, the Easterner entered with the
letters and the papers.
"Well," said the Easterner at once, "the chap that killed the
Swede has got three years. Wasn't much, was it?"
"He has? Three years?" The cowboy poised his pan of pork, while he
ruminated upon the news.
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