Bucks

“ The sick man, confounded by such learning, determined to try one question, and, if he was at fault, to drag his gun from under his pillow and sell his life as dearly as possible. Summoning his waning strength, he looked hard at Bucks. “Just let me ask you one question. I never saw you before. Are you a doctor?”
“No, I’m a railroad man; my name is Bucks.” McCloud rose half up in bed with amazement. “They’ll kill you if you lie here a week,” continued Bucks. “In just a week. Now I’ll tell you my plan. I’ll take you down in the morning in my car to Medicine Bend; this barber will go with us. ”

“ Oh, no," smiled Bucks faintly, "we are doing it for 'the stuff.' You put up the money; we put up the speed. Not sixty miles; sixty-five—from the Missouri to the Sierras. No; no more wine. Yes, I will take a cigar."
The trade was on from that minute. Bucks said no more then; he was a good listener. But next day, when it came to talking money, he talked more money into the West End treasury for one year's running than was ever talked before on a mail contract for the best three years' work we ever did. ”

“ He was laughing under Bucks’s scrutiny when he handed the message back. “Why, I don’t know a thing about it, not a thing; but taking a long shot and speaking by and far, I should say it looks something like first blood for Sinclair,” he suggested, and to change the subject lifted his cup of coffee.
“Then it looks like you for the mountains to-night instead of for Weber and Fields’s,” retorted Bucks, reaching for a cigar. “Brown, why have you never learned to smoke?” ”

“ Bucks undertook to open up this country to settlers, he needed a man of patience and 208 endurance and with courage and skill in dealing with lawless men, and no man has ever succeeded so well as this terrible man you have heard about. ”

“ At dinner, which was served at one table in the dining-car, Glover was brought by the Pittsburg magnate to sit at his own right hand, Bucks being opposite. No one may ever say that the value of resource in emergency is lost on the dynamic Mr. Brock. But having placed his guest in the seat of honor he paid no further attention to him unless his running fire of big secrets, discussed before the engineer unreservedly with Bucks, might be taken as implying that he looked on the constructionist of the Mountain Division as one of his inner official family. ”

“ Had a bomb been exploded on the platform the marauders could not have scattered more quickly. Bucks never in his life had seen 205 three men move so fast. The fat man, indeed, had given Bucks the impression of being heavy and slow in his movements. He now made a surprising exhibition of agility, and Bucks to his astonishment, saw him distancing his leaner companions and sprinting for the shelter at a pace that would have made a jack-rabbit take notice. ”

“ The “Bold Bucks” took for their devilish device, “Blind and Bold Love,” and, under it, committed atrocities, the very thought of which makes the heart of human nature palpitate with horror and disgust. No man could become a member who did not denounce the claims both of nature and God! They used to assemble every Sunday at a tavern, close to the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. During divine service, they kept a noisy band of horns and drums continually at work; and, after service, they sat down to dinner, the principal dish at which was a “Holy-Ghost pie!” ”

“ Within the office, the despatcher found Bucks talking to Callahan, while Baggs was trying to explain to Bill Dancing how the confidence men had tried to inveigle him into a “shell” game and, when they found they could not rob him of his month’s pay in any other way, had knocked him down to pick his pockets. ”

“ In all the group of young men then on the mountain division, obscure and unknown at the time, but destined within so few years to be scattered far and wide as constructionists with records made in the rebuilding operations through the Rocky Mountains, none was less likely to attract attention than McCloud. Bucks, who, indeed, could hardly be reckoned so much of the company as its head, was a man of commanding proportions physically. ”

“ The law of the herd was very simple, and it had to be obeyed. Even Black Buck knew this, and if he chose Father Buck could challenge and prove his right to remain leader if he proved himself better than all others.
116“If you challenge again,” began Black Buck, “you must do battle with the young bucks as well as the others. That’s the law isn’t it?”
“It is!” replied Father Buck. “Young and old may meet the challenger. But I first issue my challenge to the older ones. That is my right. I may be old and weak, my eyes may be growing dim, and my legs less active and sure ”

“ If we don’t get the fellow on his engine, there will be no train out till midnight. Say nothing to anybody and answer no questions; just find him.”
Baxter started down the right-hand side of the long street and Bucks took the left-hand side. It 187 was queer business for Bucks, and the sights that met him at every turn were enough to startle one stouter than he. He controlled his disgust and ignored the questions sometimes hurled at him by drunken men and women, intent only on getting his eye on the irresponsible Baggs. ”

“ Dick asked, winking at the Kid. "The kind that used a buck-strap and ate his coffee out of a frying-pan."
"Buck-strap! Buck—say, boy, if any man on that there Two-bar Cross outfit ever heard you speak of a buck-strap they wouldn't know what you was talkin' about. No, sir! Those boys were rough customers."
A buck-strap is a leather thong fastened to the saddle in such a way that if the pony suddenly bucks, its rider can hold himself on by inserting his hand within this thong and pulling hard. The user of one of these contraptions is never proud of it, needless to say. ”

“ Buck, it's the solemn truth, that nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever happened to me in my life."
"Nothing ever happened!" said Buck, staring. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing has ever happened," repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy. "You don't know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office expecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street expecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink and get it; you feel inclined for a bet and make it. You expect either to win or lose, and you do either one or the other. ”

“ We make our money hard and earn it slow, seems to me. Look at Pat, he’s none of our natural advantages; the chap can’t more than read and write his name, he’s only one brain and we’ve got two, but look at him, rolling in dollars. How’s it done?”
“Search me,” says Buck. “It’s the way they all do it. Seems to me it’s the start. If you’re American-born you start selling newspapers, if you’re only a blistered alien you land without a cent in your pocket, whereas we’d got a few dollars, but there’s no going back.” ”

“ There was not a man in the room who had not heard the last words of Buck Daniels, and not a man who had not seen the blow. Everyone of them had seen, or heard accurately described, how the slender stranger beat Jerry Strann to the draw and shot him down in that same place. Such a moan came from them as when many men catch their breath with pain, and with a simultaneous movement those who were in line with Buck Daniels and Barry leaped back against the bar on one side and against the wall on the other. ”

“ Now the face of Buck Daniels held what men have called a "deadly pallor," that pallor which comes over one who is cornered and about to fight for his life. He leaned closer, resting one hand upon the edge of the table, so that his face was close to Dan Barry. ”

“ Is that twenty thousand dollars in our money, or do I just think so?"
"Something like that," said Kenneth Clifford, grinning.
Buck slid limply off the bench, wiggling his fingers feebly.
"Air!" he murmured. "Gimme air! My socks have got holes in 'em! When I eat I got to count my dough first to see if I've got enough for pie. I drink bartenders' mistakes even; but this guy here—he gets twenty thousand a year just for bein' alive! Air!"
"Oh, I say, Buck! Don't be a silly ass! Money isn't everything." ”

“ A get-rich-quick—excuse me—gang giving back the boodle! Oh, no. I’m not on the comic supplement.”
“You can’t understand it, of course,” says Buck, with his hand on the door knob. “Me and Pick ain’t Wall Streeters like you know ’em. We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids. ”

“ I wanted to play fair with ye, Bucky, because ye've got brains, which a man wouldn't think to hear ye now."
"Brains enough not to be cut down like a bullock by Thirkle, when the last comes to the last."
"Reddy and Jim were not fit men to trust with a heap of gold like this, Bucky, and it's you that knows the truth of what I say. They would have the whole thing cut open in a week once they got into some port with their pockets full of sovereigns and their skins full of rum, and their mouths full of babble in the public houses of their wealth and how smart they be. ”

“ Now, I want to know if you'll lead a posse down into the south country and bring out that last bunch, and the man who rustled them?"
"I don't know—" hesitated the stranger.
"I offer you five thousand dollars in gold if you'll bring back those cows and the man who stole 'em," repeated Buck Johnson. "And I'll give you all the horses and men you think you need."
"I'll do it," replied the two-gun man promptly.
"Good!" cried Buck Johnson, "and you better start to-morrow."
"I shall start to-night—right now."
"Better yet. How many men do you want, and grub for how long?" ”

“ I gets the stockholders strung out and marches 'em, single file, through from the main room; and the reporter man passes 'em out of the side door into the hall again. As they go by, Buck takes up the stock and the Gold Bonds, paying 'em cash, dollar for dollar, the same as they paid in. The shareholders of the Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company can't hardly believe it. They almost grabs the money out of Buck's hands. ”

“ Buck leaned with his broad back against the bar, talking over his shoulder to the bartender, but watching Tenspot Davis, who was assiduously engaged in juggling a handful of Mexican dollars.
Up by the door Bigfoot Baker, elated at winning the buck-and-wing contest, was endeavoring to learn a new step, while his late rival was drowning his defeat at Buck's elbow. Lefty Allen was softly singing a Mexican love song, humming when the words would not come. ”

“ The brisk wind up the gulch set her clothes fluttering, stirred the hair about the rim of her hat, and she seemed to Buck more gracefully, more beautifully young than he had ever seen her; but her face was like stone.
“You'd be no help,” she answered. “When I get to the place I may have to meet him! Would you face him, Buck?”
His hand fell away from the bridle. It was not so much what she said as the cold, steady voice with which she spoke that unnerved him. Then, without a farewell, she turned the brown horse around and struck across the meadow at a swift gallop. ”

“ Buck called it "uncanny." For a short haul the doctor seemed infallible. He never left an open order on our books—the deal had to be finished and the money in his pocket before he left the office. That was another thing that struck us as singular. Almost anybody will get a copper—fastened tip once in a while that will absolutely compel him, if he has any sort of a soul, to buy or sell the market as a matter of conscience with the certainty of a big profit some time in the course of a week, two weeks or a month. Migraine never did that sort of thing. ”

“ Pretty soon the money begins to roll in. Buck didn't have to pretend to be busy; his desk was piled high up with money orders and checks and greenbacks. People began to drop in the office and buy stock every day.
Most of the shares went in small amounts—$10 and $25 and $50, and a good many $2 and $3 lots. And the bald and inviolate cranium of President Atterbury shines with enthusiasm and demerit, while Colonel Tecumseh Pickens, the rude but reputable Crœsus of the West, consumes so many apples that the peelings hang to the floor from the mahogany garbage chest that he calls his desk. ”

“ Like a vampire, Buck sprang from the third stair, landing on the man's back, his legs worked inside the man's elbows, pinioning the scoundrel's arms back like a trussed turkey, his arms went round the bull-like neck, and his tough young fingers closed on a sinewy throat. ”

“ Buck’s senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in the red sweater.
“‘Answers to the name of Buck,’” the man soliloquized, quoting from the saloon-keeper’s letter which had announced the consignment of the crate and contents. “Well, Buck, my boy,” he went on in a genial voice, “we’ve had our little ruction, and the best thing we can do is to let it go at that. You’ve learned your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog and all ’ll go well and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I’ll whale the stuffin’ outa you. Understand?” ”

“ Now and again men came, strangers, who talked excitedly, wheedlingly, and in all kinds of fashions to the man in the red sweater. And at such times that money passed between them the strangers took one or more of the dogs away with them. Buck wondered where they went, for they never came back; but the fear of the future was strong upon him, and he was glad each time when he was not selected. ”

“ Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, he growled menacingly. He had merely intimated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. ”