Read Online Blue Kingdom by Max Brand - Free Book Online Page B

his gripping fingers were working upon a mass of rubbery muscle. Suddenly he understood that this young man was not sleek with fat, but with sheer might, and it discouraged Harper’s rage at once.
    Dunmore shrugged his shoulders, and the hand of his host fell away.
    â€œSure I changed ’em,” he said. “You take this here part of the world, partner, and, of course, you know that a gent always gives room to a lady. When I seen that big hoss standin’ in there all by himself, I took a look in his eye, and plain as day he was sayin’ ladies first. ‘Thanks, old boy,’ says I. I put him in that next stall and tied Excuse Me in here. She just seemed to fit, as you can see for yourself. Where’s the grain bin?”
    Mr. Harper had grown a dark and swollen purple, but somehow it seemed impossible for him to find the proper word with which to answer.
    â€œHere we are,” went on Dunmore. “Thanks!” He lifted the lid of the big oat bin in the corner and dipped out a large measure, which he carried into the box stall, and dumped into the feed box there.
    â€œLook here . . . ,” began Harper.
    â€œYes, look at her,” said Dunmore, sleeking the neck of the mare with a fond hand. “Look at her try to stand on her head in that feed box. Greedy pig, ain’t she? But I never seen a hoss worth his oats that didn’t want toswaller them alive.” He came out from the stall. “I’d better go and see about rooms now,” he announced.
    â€œThey ain’t no room for you in that house,” said Harper grimly.
    â€œWhy,” said Dunmore cheerfully, “where I roll down my blankets is no worry to me.” He shouldered his pack and stepped lightly past his big host, and through the door of the barn toward the hotel.
    Chuck Harper could hardly believe his eyes or his ears. He thought first of rushing after this youth and falling upon him with naked hands. Those mighty maulers of his had beaten many a strong man to a pulp, but something checked him now. It was the thought of the lifting of the great rock in front of the house. For that matter, the thing might not be as difficult as he imagined.
    His next impulse was to snatch out his revolver and send a bullet through the back of this calm-mannered interloper. But he remembered what the judge had said about self-defense the last time he was in court, and the memory made Chuck snarl like a savage but half-cowed dog. Finally he hurried from the barn in pursuit, but already the stranger was at the back door, speaking to Mrs. Harper.
    â€œKeep that gent out!” roared Harper.
    But at that moment Dunmore had stepped through into the interior.
    â€œWhat’s your name and what you want?” Harper heard his wife shrilling. “You git out of here! Chuck don’t want you!”
    Harper could hear a polite murmur in response. Then a door banged, and he came up into the kitchenwith a leap, to find his wife was raging at the dining room door, and shaking the knob of it furiously.
    â€œChuck, he walked through here and locked the door after him. I never seen anything like it. It’s drivin’ me crazy! What’s he mean? Who is he? Is he drunk? I’d like to scratch his eyes out!”
    Chuck Harper laughed. In the pure excess of passion he laughed, and that laughter died into a whining snarl. He tried the knob of the door, assuring himself that the impossible was, indeed, possible. Then he flung out of the kitchen. His wife clutched at him and was dragged a little way with the rushing bulk of him.
    She stammered: “Don’t you do no murder, Chuck. Mind you, Chuck, don’t you pull no knife on him. . . .”
    â€œI’m gonna bust him wide open!” gasped Chuck Harper, and raced around the corner of the house.
    At the front door, he slipped, such was the recklessness of his abandon, and fell heavily to the ground, skinning the palm of one hand. It was like giving