The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On | Page 5

nor hot-headed. In cold blood
you are planning that men shall die; that other men shall rot in prison.
Why? For hate and revenge? Not even that. Oh, a little spice of revenge,
perhaps; Foy and his friends made you something of a laughing stock.
But your main motive is--money. And I don't see why. You've got all
the money any one man needs now."
"I notice you get your share."
"I hope so. But, even as a money-making proposition, your
troubled-voters policy is a mistake. All the mountain men want is to be
let alone, and you might be sheriff for life for all they care. But you fan
up every little bicker into a lawsuit--don't I know? Just for the
mileage--ten cents a mile each way in a county that's jam full of miles

from one edge to the other; ten cents a mile each way for each and
every arrest and subpoena. You drag them to court twice a year--the
farmer at seed time and harvest, the cowman from the spring and fall
round-ups. It hurts, it cripples them, they ride thirty miles to vote
against you; it costs you all the extra mileage money to offset their
votes. As a final folly, you purpose deliberately to stir up the old
factions. What was it Napoleon said? 'It is worse than a crime: it is a
blunder.' I'll tell you now, not a Barela nor an Ascarate shall stir a foot
in such a quarrel. If you want to bait Kit Foy, do it yourself--or set your
city police on him."
"I will."
A faint tinge of color came to the clear olive of Anastacio's cheek as he
rose.
"But don't promise my place to any of them, sheriff. I might hear of it."
"Stranger," said Ben Creagan, "you can't play pool! I can't--and I beat
you four straight games. You better toddle your little trotters off to
bed." The words alone might have been mere playfulness; glance and
tone made plain the purposed offense.
The after-supper crowd in the hotel barroom had suddenly slipped
away, leaving Max Barkeep, three others, and John Wesley Pringle--the
last not unnoting of nudge and whisper attending the exodus. Since that,
Pringle had suffered, unprotesting, more gratuitous insults than he had
met in all the rest of his stormy years. His curiosity was aroused; he
played the stupid, unseeing, patient, and timid person he was so
eminently not. Plainly these people desired his absence; and Pringle
highly resolved to know why. He now blinked mildly.
"But I'm not sleepy a-tall," he objected.
He tried and missed an easy shot; he chalked his cue with assiduous
care.
"Here, you! Quit knockin' those balls round!" bawled Max, the

bartender. "What you think this is--a kindergarten?"
"Why, I paid for all the games I lost, didn't I?" asked Pringle, much
abashed.
He mopped his face. It was warm, though the windows and doors were
open.
"Well, nobody's going to play any more with you," snapped Max. "You
bore 'em."
He pyramided the balls and covered the table. With a sad and lingering
backward look Pringle slouched abjectly through the wide-arched
doorway to the bar.
"Come on, fellers--have something."
"Naw!" snarled José Espalin. "I'm a-tryin' to theenk. Shut up, won't
you?"
Pringle sighed patiently at the rebuff and stole a timid glance at the
thinker. Espalin was a lean little, dried-up manikin, with legs, arms, and
mustaches disproportionately long for his dwarfish body. His black,
wiry hair hung in ragged witchlocks; his black pin-point eyes were
glittering, cold, and venomous. He looked, thought Pringle, very much
like a spider.
"I'm steerin' you right, old man," said Creagan. "You'd better drag it for
bed."
"I ain't sleepy, I tell you."
Espalin leaped up, snarling.
"Say! You lukeing for troubles, maybe? Bell, I theenk thees hombre got
a gun. Shall we freesk him?"
As he flung the query over his shoulder his beady little eyes did not
leave Pringle's.

Bell Applegate got leisurely to his feet--a tall man, well set up, with a
smooth-shaved, florid face and red hair.
"If he has we'll jack him in the jug." He threw back the lapel of his coat,
displaying a silver star.
"But I ain't got no gun," protested John Wesley meekly. "You-all can
see for yourself."
"We will--don't worry! Don't you make one wrong move or I'll put out
your light!"
"Be you the sheriff?"
"Police. Go to him, Ben!"
"No gun," reported Ben after a swift search of the shrinking captive.
"I done told you so, didn't I?"
"Mighty good thing for you, old rooster. Gun-toting is strictly barred in
Las Uvas. You got to take your gun off fifteen minutes after you get in
from the road and you can't put it on till fifteen minutes before you take