The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1927-04-29
CHAPTER XII
The Night at caIabasas.


for the night. Scott, punctilious as a
soldier and hardened to discomfort,
had stood his watch outside. When,
at the end of 1t, he called Pardaloe,
asleep in the wagon, and the big
guard, stiffened with the night chill
of the desert, reused himself for his
turn and pulled his shotgun out of the
wagon. the nipping air settled on his
neck and shoulders like nodded ice.
After Scott had crawled into the
warm place, stern resolve to obey
orders gradually CONCEALED within
Pardaloe into the conviction that he
could stand guard as well inside the
cabin as outside. Where the silence
was so intense that the sneeze of a
gopher would alarm every living
thing about a water hole, Pardaloe
felt, perhaps rightly, that no human
being could possibly sneak up on him
unawares.
Once inside, on the job, the embers
dying on the hearth pleaded, together
with Pardaloe's benumbed joints, for
new lease of life. Tracy was
breathing regularly, and Pardaloe,
cautiously scraping the fragments of
fire together with the fireproof ends
of his fingers, laid a few chips OF
wood across them and turned him
self for few minutes into quiet
but energetic bellows.
Sitting, giant-like, over the tiny
blaze he coaxed thus from the dark
ness, the big fellow stared into 1t a
few minutes, pulled his shotgun hand.
lily up beside him on the earthen floor,
drew from hip pocket pack of
cards, busted off a space below the
fire with his hat, and began his soli-
taire.
When Tracy, half an hour later,
woke from his heavy sleep and
opened his eyes on the dim and mys-
FERROUS scene before him, he might
well have thought himself In a from
tier nightmare. A smoky lantern
burned vaguely on the hearth, and
the uncertain light from the dying
fire threw Pardaloe's huge bulk
grotesquely up on the ceiling. Tracy,
lifting himself slowly on his elbow,
looked with blinking eyes and tried,
as he stared, to collect his sluggish
|, faculties.
1t was not very long before he per-
ceived that the fancied bandit, loom
ing over the squirting fame while
counting ill-gotten spoil, was only
playing some sort of a game of
cards. And when Pardaloe turned his
head sidewise-as he did at inter-
vals-Tracy thought that the bulky
torso outlined on the wall and cell
ing and the disreputable slant of the
shapeless hat on, the mule boss head,
betokened some one much like Bill
Pardaloe
Once convinced OF this, Tracy was
not slow in asking .questions-which
he made frequent and sharp. Parla-
loe, beyond acknowledging his iden-
tity was loath to talk, shrewdly reck-
oning that If there were explaining
to be done, Selwood would prefer to
do it himself.
In these circumstances, 1t was no
time before Tracy and Pardaloe were
at tart exchanges.
Saint no use your gettin' sassy,
Dave, not Bit" urged Pardaloe at
length. "Wait till the boss comes,
with your questions, n be hanged to
you"
well, he may be your boss but he
amt mine, not by a jugful," sput-
tered Tracy. where is he?"
SLEEPY Cat, reckon. Mop he ex-
claimed, contradicting himself sud-
denly, grabbing his shotgun. and
springing to his feet with all the
celebrity and something of the grace
of grizzly bear. mol" he repeated,
standing for an instant silent aud
alert; for as the radio picks the
music of a human voice out of the
silent air, Pardaloe's trained ear had
drawn from the perfect silence Of the
desert night the echo Of distant hoof-
BEATS '"The boss amt in Sleepy
Cat. For if that amt hostyle visi-
tor, it's himself a-comin' now!'
To scatter with deft kick what
was left of the fire, sweep up the
grimy cards with the eXpertness of
an old acquaintance, and to blow out
the half-dead flame in the lantern,
was all the work of surprisingly
few seconds, and Pardaloe. in fewer
added seconds was outside the tippy
door, where he belonged, and on
guard, as he belonged. 1t was Sell
wood, as he had surmised, and
Scott's regular breathing in the
wagon was checked only long enough
to assure himself almost without,
waking that all was well in the COM
ing of the horseman.
Pardaloe could answer all questions
satisfactorily because there was
nothing whatever to report. He asked
in turn for the. latest news from
Sleepy Catj listened, wonderstruck, to
the scraps of news from the fires and
the fighting; shook himself at each
startling sentence and complained he
was missing 1t all.
Selwood had no sooner stuck his
head inside the door of the shack
than his impatient patient within
called out: "Who's there?"
"Nobody but me, Dave" answered
Selwood.
He sat down beside Tracy and ex-
-plained what had happened-told him
what he had done in abducting him.
Not without bitter remonstrance on
Tracy's part, not without outbursts
of protest at what the old gambler
characterized as despicable conduct
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