RAINEY said it would be harder for him to pass through Blue Water than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and he smiled a little when he said this. He had a way of smiling somewhat askance at his own words and ideas, as though he found his ideas petty things and would forgive another person for passing them over with a shrug of the shoulders.
It was very plain to Derry that his companion was different from other men. His background was not that which one would expect to encounter on the range, and when they caught trout out of Thompson’s Creek and broiled them for a lunch, he noticed that Rainey ate with a care as meticulous and a propriety as great as though he had been seated at a table in a fashionable restaurant. He had a little knife and fork set, and putting his portion of the trout on the clean inside of bark, he removed the bones dexterously and balanced the bark on one knee while he ate slowly. He even had a collapsible cup for his coffee, which he sipped while he ate, and he kept up a mild stream of conversation through the meal.
Tom Derry was more accustomed to the manners of forecastles and cook wagons. He wolfed his portion, swallowed his coffee, and then lay on his back under a tree and smoked, and stared at his companion with a good deal of relish.
“Listen, Rainey,” he broke in at last, “I don’t want to seem curious, or ask questions, but I suppose that you’ve stepped around in some pretty steep and lofty places. You didn’t dig all your lingo out of funny papers and the fifth reader. You’ve been through college and stayed a while. Am I wrong?”
“I’ve had a chance to learn a good deal from books,” said Rainey, “but I’ve never learned the thing that I need to know now.”
“What’s that?” asked Derry.
“How to handle a six-shooter like Jim Silver.”
“He’s good, is he?”
“I understand that he’s about the best in the world. How are you with a gun, my friend?”
“Lend me yours, and I’ll show you,” said Derry.
It was a good new Colt, and Tom Derry stood up and looked about him for a target. He selected a sapling with a six-inch trunk, about twenty steps away, and fired at it three times. One bullet missed, one clipped the rim, one slogged right into the heart of the little tree.
“That’s not so bad,” said Tom Derry. “I can do much better than that when I’m in good practice, though.”
“Throw the gun back to me,” suggested Rainey.
Derry handed the Colt, instead of throwing it. And he saw Rainey swing the gun carelessly over his knee and flick the hammer three times with his thumb. The gun jerked rapidly with explosions. Right around the bull’s-eye that Derry had made appeared three spots, quite regularly placed.
“Great thunder!” cried Derry. “You could shoot the eyes out of a man at that rate!”
“I’m only a novice and a beginner compared with Barry Christian, and he’s left-handed compared with Jim Silver. The thing for you to do, Derry, is to keep away from gunmen in this part of the country. If you’re going to try to get to Cary Valley for me, don’t start any fights.”
“They’re born with knives in their teeth and guns in their hands, are they?” asked Derry.
“Pretty much that way,” replied Rainey.
“Well,” said Derry, “If I shoot slower, I’ll shoot straighter.”
“If you shoot slower, you’ll die in a shower of lead,” Rainey warned.
“Maybe. But the other fellow’s going to die with me. I can be slow enough to be sure, all right.”
Rainey remarked: “Good shooting is good shooting, Derry.”
“And a fight is always a fight,” answered Derry.
Rainey pulled out a leather case that was filled with long, thin cigars and offered one to Derry, who refused.
“Those are too good for me,” said Derry.
“What makes you think they’re good,” asked Rainey.
“There was a look in your face, when you offered them to me, as though you had your heart in your hand.”
“I’m sorry, and you’re welcome to one.”
“I’ll drink your best whisky when you’re at home,” said Derry calmly. “But out on the range, every man ought to have a chance to enjoy the stuff he packs with him.”
“You’re a philosopher,” said Rainey, biting off the end of his cigar with his white teeth. “Where have you been educated, Tom?”
“I went to a country school three days a week, for three or four whole winters,” said Derry. “And I picked up a lot of facts on the street and on the bum and before the mast. You know how it is. I got through a lot of grades, but it’s the sort of a school that you never graduate from.”
“I know.” Rainey smiled as he lighted his cigar and began to smoke it tenderly. “But you use good English. How does that happen?”
“I sailed a couple of years,” said Derry, “with a red-nosed, hard-handed, whisky soak as skipper of the ship. He was a Yankee and he’d been through all sorts of colleges. He used to go on a binge two or three times a week, unless we were lying off the Horn or making land, and the day after he’d had a bust, he was pretty shaky. The only thing that quieted him down and rubbed the edges off his sharp nerves was reading aloud. He picked me for the job. A lot of times when the rest of the boys were washing decks, or making sail, or doing any of the kind of dirt that comes your way at sea, the skipper would have me in his cabin reading to him. And every time I mispronounced a word, he’d put me right. And if I mispronounced the same word twice, he’d be apt to get up and come for me. He was six-feet-something and two hundred pounds of hell. He used to beat me to a pulp until I learned how to box from fighting him.”
“A hard way to learn,” said Rainey, smiling.
“A fast way, and a good way,” answered Derry. “A right hook that knocks you flat every time it socks you is a punch that you learn to block. The skipper’s jaw was so hard that I broke my hand the first time I hit it. That taught me how to grip my hands. You can knock the edge off a block of stone, if you hold your hands right.”
“What became of the skipper?” asked Rainey.
“Oh, it’s a long story. He rode the men so long that they threw him over the side into a boat, one day, and they threw me after him, and we lived on rain-water and fish, now and then, for thirty days before we made land. And the skipper was so tired of water that when we made port, he went on a ten-day binge that finished him. I planted him down there in Valparaiso and came north again.”
Rainey nodded. He took out a wallet and from it counted out a stack of bills. He pushed the money out to Derry.
“That’s twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said. “Maybe you can get to Old Man Cary, and maybe you can buy him for less than that amount. If you can, you’ll get a cut of what you save.”
Derry took the sheaf of bills and smoothed them carefully. He sighed. A little shudder ran through him.
“I’m not worrying,” said Rainey. “That stuff will be safe with you. It’s going to be all right.”
Derry grinned. “It’s going to be tough to go straight where you’re sending me,” he said. “But I’ll see what I can do for you. When do I start?”
“Now,” said Rainey. “I’ll take you as far along the way as I can.”