The Dark Star
Page 48"Well, Ben," said the latter pleasantly, "I'm going to Gayfield to
telegraph for another car."
"How soon can they get one up?" inquired Stull, inserting a large
cigar into his slitted mouth and lighting it.
"Oh, in a couple of days, I guess. I don't know. I don't care much,
either."
"We can go on to Saratoga by train," suggested Stull complacently.
"We can stay here, too."
"What for?"
Brandes said in his tight-lipped, even voice: "The fishing's good. I guess I'll try it." He continued to contemplate
the machine, but Stull's black eyes were turned on him intently.
"How about the races?" he asked. "Do we go or not?"
"Certainly."
"When?"
"When they send us a car to go in."
"Isn't the train good enough?"
Stull's pasty visage turned sourer: "Do you mean we lose a couple of days in this God-forsaken dump
because you'd rather go to Saratoga in a runabout than in a train?"
"I tell you I'm going to stick around for a while."
"For how long?"
"Oh, I don't know. When we get our car we can talk it over and----"
"Ah," ejaculated Stull in disgust, "what the hell's the matter with
you? Is it that little skirt you was buzzing out here like you never
seen one before?"
"How did you guess, Ben?" returned Brandes with the almost
expressionless jocularity that characterised him at times.
"That little red-headed, spindling, freckled, milk-fed
mill-hand----"
"Funny, ain't it? But there's no telling what will catch the tired
business man, is there, Ben?"
"Well, what does catch him?" demanded Stull angrily. "What's the
"I guess she's the answer, Ben."
"Ah, leave the kid alone----"
"I'm going to have the car sent up here. I'm going to take her out. Go
on to Saratoga if you want to. I'll meet you there----"
"When?"
"When I'm ready," replied Brandes evenly. But he smiled.
Stull looked at him, and his white face, soured by dyspepsia, became
sullen with wrath. At such times, too, his grammar suffered from
indigestion.
"Say, Eddie," he began, "can't no one learn you nothin' at all? How
many times would you have been better off if you'd listened to me?
Every time you throw me you hand yourself one. Now that you got a
little money again and a little backing, don't do anything like
that----"
"Like what?"
summer! You wouldn't listen to me then, would you? And that Denver
business, too! Say, look at all the foolish things you done against
all I could say to save you--like backing that cowboy plug against
Battling Jensen!--Like taking that big hunk o' beef, Walstein, to San
Antonio, where Kid O'Rourke put him out in the first! And everybody's
laughing at you yet! Ah----" he exclaimed angrily, "somebody tell me
why I don't quit you, you big dill pickle! I wish someone would tell
me why I stand for you, because I don't know.... And look what you're
doing now; you got some money of your own and plenty of syndicate
money to put on the races and a big comish! You got a good theayter in
town with Morris Stein to back you and everything--and look what
you're doing!" he ended bitterly.