Star Over Prescott

THE boot-packed snow crunched and snapped on Whiskey Row's boardwalk under his feet. Colonel Bigelow bowed his head against December's wintery blast howling down off the Bradshaws to rattle the shakes on the roofs of the few huddled saloons and dwelling houses which made up Prescott, Arizona in the pioneering '70's. He raised his head out of the collar of his great-coat and idly watched the scurrying figure of a Chinese. "Must'o come out of the Cobweb," he mused as he stopped in front of the saloon run by Captain Fisher. The dinging of a tinny piano rattled on his muffled ears. He shuddered, not so much from cold as from the rasping whiskey soprano of a dance hall girl who was winding up a ballad for the late customers at the bar. "Damn poor bar whiskey, the Cap'n has, but I believe I'll take a drink 'fore I go home," the Colonel muttered, pursing his lips against the frost on his mustache. But the elite Cobweb was the only two-bit place on the Row. The Nifty, the Colonel's own place, next to the Roan Horse Barber Shop along with the rest of 'em in Block 13, sold drinks two for a quarter.

By Charles C. Niehuis

A sheet of warm smoke-heavy air hit him as he pushed the doors open. Before the long mirror stood Captain Fisher, a wreath of juniper and mistletoe dangling from his horny hands. He turned and placed it on the bar. "'Lo Colonel," greeted the Captain, his heavy mustache lifting jovially. "Have a good night in the Nifty?" "Fair, Cap'n, fair." The Colonel held up a protesting hand, "Now Cap'n, none of your cheap bar whiskey." The Captain laughed and reached under the bar for the better whiskey.

Bigelow poured a drink and raised the glass to Captain Fisher. "Hope you have a Merry Christmas, Cap'n." The Captain gestured his thanks and muttered, "Same to you." He seemed preoccupied suddenly. The Colonel detected an almost imperceptible diminuendo in the crashing, jarring noise of the saloon. The card-players, a dancing couple noticed it and gradually quieted down. They looked about at each other unable to understand. The only sounds seemed to be the metallic piano, under the hands of an emaciated Orpheus, tinning out a strangely familiar accompaniment, and the throaty singing of the girl, "It came upon the midnight clear-----" "Shuddup!" roared the Captain, as though bellowing into the teeth of a norther. Sudden and complete silence crashed on noise-tempered ears. "It is from the bundle of laundry it comes," Old Rudolph, the Jew murmured from his solitary table. His long sensi-tive finger quivered in the yellow fitful glare from the oil lamp over the bar. Eyes followed. Ears turned. There was no mistake, the bundle of clothing on the end of the bar was pulsating and a barely audible whimpering wavered along the polished mahogany.

"Well blow me down!" the Captain growled. He rolled the bundle over. The blanket fell away and a chubby fist pushed its way out of the fold.

"A baby!" the singer breathed audibly, a rapt light on her face. She elbowed through the miners, soldiers, cowboys, all suddenly sober. Sweeping the bundle deftly into her arms she whirled, back to the bar, as defiant as a mother wildcat.

The men closed in, but gently. Gnarled hands lifted back the coverlet. Round eyes, black as polished ebony, twinkled in the yellow light. A flared little hand waved a greeting to the audience then curled into a fist that all but disappeared into the pink mouth.

"Hell, it's hungry!" wailed big, fat Baldy Brown in his high tenor voice, whose first thought in a crisis was always concerning the food situation.

"Why-wh-why here's its little bottle," stammered the girl suddenly finding herself embarrassed.when she realized men were looking at her with a different light in their eyes. She laughed throatily as eager little hands grasped the milk-filled nursing bottle which she had found in the blankets.

"That young'in shore knows how to handle its likker," guffawed a huge bewhiskered miner. But he immediately shrank a size and retreated from under the baleful glares to the outside of the crowding circle of men. A red-nosed, bleary-eyed bar fly elbowed him still

Illustrated By G. A. Randall

farther back and reproached the chagrined miner with, "Ain't cha got a lick of sense?"

"What are you going to do with it?" from the cadaverous piano player.

That bombshell of a question fell in the gathering, leaving them stunnedbut not for long.

"I'll just take it to my room with me until we find the mother," said the girl, her voice shaking slightly in spite of her elaborate aplomb.

"You ain't fitten," snarled a miner, reaching. "I'll take it tuh mah shack." The singer's eyes flashed. "You low drunken----"

"The hell you will," roared a redfaced soldier, drawing back a fist like a ham.

For only a moment the men swirled, surged, in the beginning of a knock-down-drag-out, but they were suddenly calmed by a voice that had roared above many a stormy gale.

"Batten down your hatches, mates! I've got an idea!"

"Out with it, Cap'n" applauded Colonel Bigelow.

"We'll roll high-man for the kid. Ten dollars a roll and the money goes to help raise the kid."

A roar of cheers greeted the suggestion and the bar rang with ten dollar gold pieces.

"Maybe ve should roll 'em out of der cup undt bank 'em, eh?" suggested Old Rudolph wisely.

The circle of men arched away from the bar leaving a cleared space in the center. Captain Fisher strode into the space rattling five dice in a heavy leather cup, "Who wants the first roll?" (Turn to Page 44)