Pleasant Jim by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2020-05-21T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXIII

One may take chances with a revolver, which is a careless and sometimes a foolish weapon; but there is a sort of philosophical calm about a rifle which discourages questions and sudden starts, and brave attempts. Behind the rifle was a face like the face of a bull terrier—that is to say, there was a long, down-bending nose, and a narrow forehead which hastily hid itself in short-cropped hair, and two eyes very small and black, crowded close under the shadow of the nose. There was a thin- lipped broad mouth cut in a straight line and under this a chin which receded, without giving token of weakness. It was a face which, in a photograph, would have looked extremely simple, but the brightness and the animal intensity of the eyes, in actual life, gave it meaning. There was no touch of grayness about this man, and there was no trace of a wrinkle even around the eyes, and yet, something in the ruddy, weathered skin made one understand that he must be at least fifty.

Above all, he was not the sort of man who would miss with a rifle!

He said in rather a sharp and boyish voice which had little or no excitement in it: “You put your hands over your head, Holman, and come down the ladder that way. The lady, she better stay where she is, up the ladder!”

Pleasant Jim had been in many narrow corners, and it was very nearly impossible for him to think of a predicament in which he would not be able to strike back; but here he knew that he was helpless. He put his hands above his head and climbed down the ladder to the ground, where he faced the farmer.

From the distance a woman’s voice wailed: “Jo-el-l-l! Oh, Joel! Jo-el-l-l!”

“Coming in a minute, wife,” said the farmer with a grin. “I’m just hung up here a minute!”

“Joel Peet,” cried the shrill voice, “where are you?”

“Be still,” said the farmer softly, with a shrug of his shoulders. And he added to Pleasant: “Here’s four of you caught already! If I had the robbing of a bank and got the stuff in my hand, I’d aim to make a better getaway than that!”

“Four?” echoed the girl from the ladder.

“Are you chimin’ in, honey?” asked the farmer. “Four, I said. Lefty and Christy are in jail, now, at Fisher Falls, where you two will be before very long. And here’s the pair of you added!”

“Hold on!” said Pleasant. “I’ve a bargain to make with you, Peet, if that’s your name.”

“Go on,” said the farmer. “You have my name right. Now let’s hear the bargain.”

“You take me and the money that’s on both of us and call it square. What good will it do you to drag a girl through the dirt and put her in a common jail?”

“I dunno,” said the other, “that it makes any particular difference, except about ten thousand dollars. But I’m a kind of a close-fisted man, and

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