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Show j EigBiU Came Back, but !! Not to Fight 6 o By ANTHONY RE1MERT I i;E . 124. WeaLern 1'ewsp.p.r Union.) . ((CiY, boys, d'you know what night this is?" asked the bartender. "This is the night Big Bill's due to return." "Aw; t!)' h 1 with Big Bill!" shouted shout-ed Cassidy. "That stiff's down and out !" but an uneasy silence fell upon the rest of them, particularly upon Shee-han, Shee-han, holding pretty Mary Morrison on his knee. Mary was' the prettiest of all the dance hall girls. She bad been engaged to Big Bill before he came to grief over the contract. con-tract. Charges of fraud had been made against him and he had been arrested and sent to prison for a whole year. He had gone in a discredited discred-ited bankrupt. And how could a dance-hall girl be expected to remain true to a man like that for a year? But the bartender's words profoundly profound-ly Impressed all of them nevertheless. Big Bill's volcanic temper was known to every man in that room. There was no one who could stand against him with his fists. And he would not stop at fists. Everyone knew how he had shot Ike Thompson over a dog. how he had cleaned out the Yellow Dollar In Red Gulch when an insulting insult-ing message had been sent him by the proprietor. The gloom descended deeper over the assembly. Outside one of the blizzards bliz-zards that strike Montana had filled the air with a One blinding sleet, driven driv-en before (he whistling wind. "Tell me, Jim, are you afraid of that stiff?" Mary asked Sheehan. "That stiff Bill? I'll plug him fuller of lend than a sieve Is full of holes If he shows his face in here!" shouted Sheehan, who was already half drunk. "Hey! Fill 'em up. Pat!" The drinking was resumed. The fiddler struck up a waltz, and the men and two or three of the girls began to pirouette, hut it was half-hearted. They drifted back to their corner again, staring at the door and starting at each quiver of It under the wind. "We don't want no fightln' here." said Pat. "If Big Bill shows up, you'd best skip, girls, until things has been arranged." "He won't show up," snarled Oas-sidy. Oas-sidy. "He's very different now from what he was when they sent him up to the big house. He's down and out. He's a bum. he Is " Suddenly the electric lights went out as a terrific rush of wind whistled around the eaves of the saloon. It blew the door wide open. One of the girls uttered a scream and pointed. In the doorway, faintly Illumined against the darkness, they saw the outlines of the figure of Big Bill. He stood there, staring Into the dark saloon. Mary Morrison slipped from Sheehan's knee with a whimper. Sheehan snarled and hacked into a corner. Cassidy swore. All waited for the inevitable pistol shot. Then of a sudden the lights had come on again, the door had been blown to. and Big Bill was nowhere to be seen. "Gone!" yelled Sheehan, catching Mary upon his knee again. "Guess he hadn't the nerve to do niore'n look in at the door." "Arter him !" howled Cassidy. "Let's fill the stiff full of lead !" But no one stirred. The music began be-gan again, a plaintive tune, but no one danced. Girls and men cowed in their corner, watching the door, as If at any moment they expected Big Bill to appear once more, a gun In either hand. Suddenly the sound of sleigh bells was heard outside. A horse stopped. The door opened. It was only little Andy Darrell from Slmontown. "Say, Pat, whntcha think?" he yelled. "I got a dead man In the sleigh outside. Who d'ya think it is? Never see him before. Found him froze stiff at the bottom of the hill. Must have been dead for hours to Jedge from the feel of him. Lost his way in the blizzard, I guess." They poured out of the saloon. In 'the sleigh, stiff and lifeless, lay Big Bill, his teeth set hard, ' his lips twisted In an Ironical grin. "My Gawd !" screamed Mary Morrison. Mor-rison. "He told me he'd come back for me. Go away, Jim Sheehan, I hate you, I tell you, I hate yon I" |