The Fortune Hunters by J. T. Edson Page A

stopped his lip-flapping,’ the waiter objected.
    ‘Go get him!’ snapped the bartender. ‘I’ll take the responsibility.’ Then, as the waiter hurried away, leaned on the bar top and called to Mark. ‘Hey, friend, don’t you go lift it afore the boss gets here. Wouldn’t want you to have to do it twice in one night.’
    From the bandstand, Thackery saw the crowd settle down again and wondered if he could attract their attention. Before he could start to speak, although he did not feel like chancing speaking while the head man of the camp stood in the same room, he had the matter taken out of his hands.
    Stepping to where a girl sat at one of the tables, Mark bent over and whispered a request in her ear. She looked startled, but drew her chair clear of the table and sat on it grinning self-consciously.
    The crowd fell silent, watching and wondering what Mark intended to do. He did not keep them in suspense. Bending, he gripped the chair’s back legs and started to lift it from the floor. The girl gave a squeal that was part delight at being the centre of attraction, and part fear. As the chair rose, she grabbed at its seat and clung on with both hands, her legs kicking out before her.
    Lifting the girl and the chair at arms’ length and shoulder high, Mark took a couple of steps forward and set them down gently on the table. To laughter and applause from the onlookers, Mark lifted the girl to the floor although she stood five foot eight and had a buxom, Junoesque build which did not make her a feather-weight. Setting her down, Mark gave the girl a kiss she would never forget.
    Watching the girl stagger away from Mark looking glassy-eyed, for all her experiences in such matters, Calamity smiled. Yet she made no attempt to leave the bar and go speak words of wisdom to the saloongirl. Not that Calamity was scared of the girl even though slightly smaller and lighter. Nor was the fact that Buffalo Bill, his client and the client’s wife sat in the railed-off area reserved for the upper-classes what held Calamity back. At another time Calamity would have gone straight across the room and explained to the girl that although a kiss from Mark Counter was something no female would be likely to forget, nothing would develop from that kiss while Calamity was around. Right now Calamity had something more important to tend to, so she put off pleasure until a later, more convenient time.
    The saloon’s owner arrived still puffing on his cutaway coat and without a tie around the neck of his unbuttoned shirt. With his swarthily handsome face showing annoyance, Tom Barraclough asked his bartender why the hell he had been called out while working on the business’ books.
    ‘That big feller looks like he might be able to lift the weight, boss,’ was the explanation.
    ‘All right. But why the hell couldn’t you handle it without—’
    ‘I thought maybe the politician’d be through talking, seeing how nobody’s listening,’ replied the bartender. ‘And he don’t look like the sort to hang around in a saloon.’
    With a grunt that might have meant anything, Barraclough turned and studied Mark’s giant physique. Like the bartender said, there was a man who looked as if he might be able to do something with the five hundred pound dumb-bell. Most likely he could not lift it clean over his head, nobody had done so yet—even the great Seamus O’Sullivan, for he was no more than a figment of the saloonkeeper’s imagination, a come-on which brought much trade to the house. Even should the big cowhand look like succeeding, Barraclough was prepared to prevent him from doing so.
    ‘Go to it, cowhand,’ Barraclough called. ‘Let’s see you helft that dumb-bell right up there.’
    Before he started to make the attempt, Mark took certain precautions. He knew the danger to himself should the weight slip while he lifted, so went to the barrel of sawdust standing at the side of the room and helped himself to a double handful. After