best robot kits for 6 year oldsThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Heart of the West, by O. Henry
HEART OF THE WEST
by O. Henry
CONTENTS
| I. Hearts and best engineering kits for 14 year olds under 50 dollarsCrosses |
| II. The Ransom of Mack |
| III. Telemachus, Friend |
| IV. The Handbook of Hymen |
| V. The Pimienta Pancakes |
| VI. Seats of the Haughty |
| VII. Hygeia at the Solito |
| VIII. An Afternoon Miracle |
| IX. The Higher Abdication |
| X. Cupid à la Carte |
| XI. The Caballero’s Way |
| XII. The Sphinx Apple |
| XIII. The Missing Chord |
| XIV. A Call Loan |
| XV. The Princess and the Puma |
| XVI. The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson |
| XVII. Christmas by Injunction |
| XVIII. A Chaparral Prince |
| XIX. The Reformation of Calliope |
HEART OF THE WEST
I
HEARTS AND CROSSES
Baldy Woods reached for the bottle, and got it. Whenever Baldy went foranything he usually—but this is not Baldy’s story. He poured out athird drink that was larger by a finger than the first and second. Baldy was inconsultation; and the consultee is worthy of his hire.
“I’d be king if I was you,” said Baldy, so positively thathis holster creaked and his spurs rattled.
Webb Yeager pushed back his flat-brimmed Stetson, and made further disorder inhis straw-coloured hair. The tonsorial recourse being without avail, hefollowed the liquid example of the more resourceful Baldy.
“If a man marries a queen, it oughtn’t to make him atwo-spot,” declared Webb, epitomising his grievances.
“Sure not,” said Baldy, sympathetic, still thirsty, and genuinelysolicitous concerning the relative value of the cards. “By rightsyou’re a king. If I was you, I’d call for a new deal. The cardshave been stacked on you—I’ll tell you what you are, WebbYeager.”
“What?” asked Webb, with a hopeful look in his pale-blue eyes.
“You’re a prince-consort.”
“Go easy,” said Webb. “I never blackguarded you none.”
“It’s a title,” explained Baldy, “up among thepicture-cards; but it don’t take no tricks. I’ll tell you, Webb.It’s a brand they’re got for certain animals in Europe. Say thatyou or me or one of them Dutch dukes marries in a royal family. Well, by and byour wife gets to be queen. Are we king? Not in a million years. At thecoronation ceremonies we march between little casino and the Ninth GrandCustodian of the Royal Hall Bedchamber. The only use we are is to appear inphotographs, and accept the responsibility for the heir-apparent. Thatain’t any square deal. Yes, sir, Webb, you’re a prince-consort;and if I was you, I’d start a interregnum or a habeus corpus orsomethin’; and I’d be king if I had to turn from the bottom of thedeck.”
Baldy emptied his glass to the ratification of his Warwick pose.
“Baldy,” said Webb, solemnly, “me and you punched cows in thesame outfit for years. We been runnin’ on the same range, andridin’ the same trails since we was boys. I wouldn’t talk about myfamily affairs to nobody but you. You was line-rider on the Nopalito Ranch whenI married Santa McAllister. I was foreman then; but what am I now? Idon’t amount to a knot in a stake rope.”
“When old McAllister was the cattle king of West Texas,” continuedBaldy with Satanic sweetness, “you was some tallow. You had as much tosay on the ranch as he did.”
“I did,” admitted Webb, “up to the time he found out I wastryin’ to get my rope over Santa’s head. Then he kept me out on therange as far from the ranch-house as he could. When the old man died theycommenced to call Santa the ‘cattle queen.’ I’m boss of thecattle—that’s all. She ’tends to all the business; shehandles all the money; I can’t sell even a beef-steer to a party ofcampers, myself. Santa’s the ‘queen’; and I’m Mr.Nobody.”
“I’d be king if I was you,” repeated Baldy Woods, theroyalist. “When a man marries a queen he ought to grade up withher—on the hoof— dressed—dried—corned—any old wayfrom the chaparral to the packing-house. Lots of folks thinks it’sfunny, Webb, that you don’t have the say-so on the Nopalito. Iain’t reflectin’ none on Miz Yeager—she’s the finestlittle lady between the Rio Grande and next Christmas—but a man ought tobe boss of his own camp.”
The smooth, brown face of Yeager lengthened to a mask of wounded melancholy.With that expression, and his rumpled yellow hair and guileless blue eyes, hemight have been likened to a schoolboy whose leadership had been usurped by ayoungster of superior strength. But his active and sinewy seventy-two inches,and his girded revolvers forbade the comparison.
“What was that you called me, Baldy?” he asked. “What kind ofa concert was it?”
“A ‘consort,’” corrected Baldy—“a‘prince-consort.’ It’s a kind of short-card pseudonym. Youcome in sort of between Jack-high and a four-card flush.”
Webb Yeager sighed, and gathered the strap of his Winchester scabbard from thefloor.
“I’m ridin’ back to the ranch to-day,” he saidhalf-heartedly. “I’ve got to start a bunch of beeves for San Antonein the morning.”
“I’m your company as far as Dry Lake,” announced Baldy.“I’ve got a round-up camp on the San Marcos cuttin’ outtwo-year-olds.”
The two compañerosmounted their ponies and trotted away from the littlerailroad settlement, where they had foregathered in the thirsty morning.
At Dry Lake, where their routes diverged, they reined up for a partingcigarette. For miles they had ridden in silence save for the soft drum of theponies’ hoofs on the matted mesquite grass, and the rattle of thechaparral against their wooden stirrups. But in Texas discourse is seldomcontinuous. You may fill in a mile, a meal, and a murder between yourparagraphs without detriment to your thesis. So, without apology, Webb offeredan addendum to the conversation that had begun ten miles away.
“You remember, yourself, Baldy, that there was a time when Santawasn’t quite so independent. You remember the days when old McAllisterwas keepin’ us apart, and how she used to send me the sign that shewanted to see me? Old man Mac promised to make me look like a colander if Iever come in gun-shot of the ranch. You remember the sign she used to send,Baldy—the heart with a cross inside of it?”
“Me?” cried Baldy, with intoxicated archness. “You oldsugar-stealing coyote! Don’t I remember! Why, you dad-blamed oldlong-horned turtle-dove, the boys in camp was all cognoscious about themhiroglyphs. The ‘gizzard-and-crossbones’ we used to call it. Weused to see ’em on truck that was sent out from the ranch. They wasmarked in charcoal on the sacks of flour and in lead-pencil on the newspapers.I see one of ’em once chalked on the back of a new cook that old manMcAllister sent out from the ranch—danged if I didn’t.”
“Santa’s father,” explained Webb gently, “got her topromise that she wouldn’t write to me or send me any word. Thatheart-and-cross sign was her scheme. Whenever she wanted to see me inparticular she managed to put that mark on somethin’ at the ranch thatshe knew I’d see. And I never laid eyes on it but what I burnt the windfor the ranch the same night. I used to see her in that coma mott back of thelittle horse-corral.”
“We knowed it,” chanted Baldy; “but we never let on. We wasall for you. We knowed why you always kept that fast paint in camp. And when wesee that gizzard-and-crossbones figured out on the truck from the ranch weknowed old Pinto was goin’ to eat up miles that night instead of grass.You remember Scurry—that educated horse-wrangler we had— thecollege fellow that tangle-foot drove to the range? Whenever Scurry saw thatcome-meet-your-honey brand on anything from the ranch, he’d wave his handlike that, and say, ‘Our friend Lee Andrews will again swim theHell’s point to-night.’”
“The last time Santa sent me the sign,” said Webb, “was oncewhen she was sick. I noticed it as soon as I hit camp, and I galloped Pintoforty mile that night. She wasn’t at the coma mott. I went to the house;and old McAllister met me at the door. ‘Did you come here to getkilled?’ says he; ‘I’ll disoblige you for once. I juststarted a Mexican to bring you. Santa wants you. Go in that room and see her.And then come out here and see me.’
“Santa was lyin’ in bed pretty sick. But she gives out a kind of asmile, and her hand and mine lock horns, and I sets down by the bed— mudand spurs and chaps and all. ‘I’ve heard you ridin’ acrossthe grass for hours, Webb,’ she says. ‘I was sure you’d come.You saw the sign?’ she whispers. ‘The minute I hit camp,’says I. ‘’Twas marked on the bag of potatoes and onions.’‘They’re always together,’ says she, softlike—‘always together in life.’ ‘They go welltogether,’ I says, ‘in a stew.’ ‘I mean hearts andcrosses,’ says Santa. ‘Our sign—to love and tosuffer—that’s what they mean.’
“And there was old Doc Musgrove amusin’ himself with whisky and apalm-leaf fan. And by and by Santa goes to sleep; and Doc feels her forehead;and he says to me: ‘You’re not such a bad febrifuge. Butyou’d better slide out now; for the diagnosis don’t call for you inregular doses. The little lady’ll be all right when she wakes up.’
“I seen old McAllister outside. ‘She’s asleep,’ says I.‘And now you can start in with your colander-work. Take your time; for Ileft my gun on my saddle-horn.’
“Old Mac laughs, and he says to me: ‘Pumpin’ lead into thebest ranch-boss in West Texas don’t seem to me good business policy. Idon’t know where I could get as good a one. It’s the son-in-lawidea, Webb, that makes me admire for to use you as a target. You ain’t myidea for a member of the family. But I can use you on the Nopalito ifyou’ll keep outside of a radius with the ranch-house in the middle of it.You go upstairs and lay down on a cot, and when you get some sleep we’lltalk it over.’”
Baldy Woods pulled down his hat, and uncurled his leg from his saddle-horn.Webb shortened his rein, and his pony danced, anxious to be off. The two menshook hands with Western ceremony.
“Adios, Baldy,” said Webb, “I’m glad I seen youand had this talk.”
With a pounding rush that sounded like the rise of a covey of quail, the riderssped away toward different points of the compass. A hundred yards on his routeBaldy reined in on the top of a bare knoll, and emitted a yell. He swayed onhis horse; had he been on foot, the earth would have risen and conquered him;but in the saddle he was a master of equilibrium, and laughed at whisky, anddespised the centre of gravity.
Webb turned in his saddle at the signal.
“If I was you,” came Baldy’s strident and perverting tones,“I’d be king!”
At eight o’clock on the following morning Bud Turner rolled from hissaddle in front of the Nopalito ranch-house, and stumbled with whizzing rowelstoward the gallery. Bud was in charge of the bunch of beef-cattle that was tostrike the trail that morning for San Antonio. Mrs. Yeager was on the gallerywatering a cluster of hyacinths growing in a red earthenware jar.
“King” McAllister had bequeathed to his daughter many of his strongcharacteristics—his resolution, his gay courage, his contumaciousself-reliance, his pride as a reigning monarch of hoofs and horns.Allegroand fortissimohad been McAllister’s temp and tone.In Santa they survived, transposed to the feminine key. Substantially, shepreserved the image of the mother who had been summoned to wander in other andless finite green pastures long before the waxing herds of kine had conferredroyalty upon the house. She had her mother’s slim, strong figure andgrave, soft prettiness that relieved in her the severity of the imperiousMcAllister eye and the McAllister air of royal independence.
Webb stood on one end of the gallery giving orders to two or three sub-bossesof various camps and outfits who had ridden in for instructions.
“Morning,” said Bud briefly. “Where do you want them beevesto go in town—to Barber’s, as usual?”
Now, to answer that had been the prerogative of the queen. All the reins ofbusiness—buying, selling, and banking—had been held by her capablefingers. The handling of cattle had been entrusted fully to her husband. In thedays of “King” McAllister, Santa had been his secretary and helper;and she had continued her work with wisdom and profit. But before she couldreply, the prince-consort spake up with calm decision:
“You drive that bunch to Zimmerman and Nesbit’s pens. I spoke toZimmerman about it some time ago.”
Bud turned on his high boot-heels.
“Wait!” called Santa quickly. She looked at her husband withsurprise in her steady gray eyes.
“Why, what do you mean, Webb?” she asked, with a small wrinklegathering between her brows. “I never deal with Zimmerman and Nesbit.Barber has handled every head of stock from this ranch in that market for fiveyears. I’m not going to take the business out of his hands.” Shefaced Bud Turner. “Deliver those cattle to Barber,” she concludedpositively.
Bud gazed impartially at the water-jar hanging on the gallery, stood on hisother leg, and chewed a mesquite-leaf.
“I want this bunch of beeves to go to Zimmerman and Nesbit,” saidWebb, with a frosty light in his blue eyes.
“Nonsense,” said Santa impatiently. “You’d better starton, Bud, so as to noon at the Little Elm water-hole. Tell Barber we’llhave another lot of culls ready in about a month.”
Bud allowed a hesitating eye to steal upward and meet Webb’s. Webb sawapology in his look, and fancied he saw commiseration.
“You deliver them cattle,” he said grimly, “to—”
“Barber,” finished Santa sharply. “Let that settle it. Isthere anything else you are waiting for, Bud?”
“No, m’m,” said Bud. But before going he lingered while acow’s tail could have switched thrice; for man is man’s ally; andeven the Philistines must have blushed when they took Samson in the way theydid.
“You hear your boss!” cried Webb sardonically. He took off his hat,and bowed until it touched the floor before his wife.
“Webb,” said Santa rebukingly, “you’re acting mightyfoolish to-day.”
“Court fool, your Majesty,” said Webb, in his slow tones, which hadchanged their quality. “What else can you expect? Let me tell you. I wasa man before I married a cattle-queen. What am I now? The laughing-stock of thecamps. I’ll be a man again.”
Santa looked at him closely.
“Don’t be unreasonable, Webb,” she said calmly. “Youhaven’t been slighted in any way. Do I ever interfere in your managementof the cattle? I know the business side of the ranch much better than you do. Ilearned it from Dad. Be sensible.”
“Kingdoms and queendoms,” said Webb, “don’t suit meunless I am in the pictures, too. I punch the cattle and you wear the crown.All right. I’d rather be High Lord Chancellor of a cow-camp than theeight-spot in a queen-high flush. It’s your ranch; and Barber gets thebeeves.”
Webb’s horse was tied to the rack. He walked into the house and broughtout his roll of blankets that he never took with him except on long rides, andhis “slicker,” and his longest stake-rope of plaited raw-hide.These he began to tie deliberately upon his saddle. Santa, a little pale,followed him.
Webb swung up into the saddle. His serious, smooth face was without expressionexcept for a stubborn light that smouldered in his eyes.
“There’s a herd of cows and calves,” said he, “near theHondo water-hole on the Frio that ought to be moved away from timber. Loboshave killed three of the calves. I forgot to leave orders. You’d bettertell Simms to attend to it.”
Santa laid a hand on the horse’s bridle, and looked her husband in theeye.
“Are you going to leave me, Webb?” she asked quietly.
“I am going to be a man again,” he answered.
“I wish you success in a praiseworthy attempt,” she said, with asudden coldness. She turned and walked directly into the house.
Webb Yeager rode to the southeast as straight as the topography of West Texaspermitted. And when he reached the horizon he might have ridden on into bluespace as far as knowledge of him on the Nopalito went. And the days, withSundays at their head, formed into hebdomadal squads; and the weeks, captainedby the full moon, closed ranks into menstrual companies crying “Tempusfugit” on their banners; and the months marched on toward the vastcamp-ground of the years; but Webb Yeager came no more to the dominions of hisqueen.
One day a being named Bartholomew, a sheep-man—and therefore of littleaccount—from the lower Rio Grande country, rode in sight of the Nopalitoranch-house, and felt hunger assail him. Ex consuetudinehe was soonseated at the mid-day dining table of that hospitable kingdom. Talk like watergushed from him: he might have been smitten with Aaron’s rod—thatis your gentle shepherd when an audience is vouchsafed him whose ears are notovergrown with wool.
“Missis Yeager,” he babbled, “I see a man the other day onthe Rancho Seco down in Hidalgo County by your name—Webb Yeager was his.He’d just been engaged as manager. He was a tall, light-haired man, notsaying much. Perhaps he was some kin of yours, do you think?”
“A husband,” said Santa cordially. “The Seco has done well.Mr. Yeager is one of the best stockmen in the West.”
The dropping out of a prince-consort rarely disorganises a monarchy. QueenSanta had appointed as mayordomoof the ranch a trusty subject, namedRamsay, who had been one of her father’s faithful vassals. And there wasscarcely a ripple on the Nopalito ranch save when the gulf-breeze createdundulations in the grass of its wide acres.
For several years the Nopalito had been making experiments with an Englishbreed of cattle that looked down with aristocratic contempt upon the Texaslong-horns. The experiments were found satisfactory; and a pasture had been setaside for the blue-bloods. The fame of them had gone forth into the chaparraland pear as far as men ride in saddles. Other ranches woke up, rubbed theireyes, and looked with new dissatisfaction upon the long-horns.
As a consequence, one day a sunburned, capable, silk-kerchiefed nonchalantyouth, garnished with revolvers, and attended by three Mexican vaqueros,alighted at the Nopalito ranch and presented the following business-likeepistle to the queen thereof:
Mrs. Yeager—The Nopalito Ranch:
Dear Madam:
I am instructed by the owners of the Rancho Seco to purchase 100 head oftwo and three-year-old cows of the Sussex breed owned by you. If you can fillthe order please deliver the cattle to the bearer; and a check will beforwarded to you at once.
Respectfully,
Webster Yeager,
Manager the Rancho Seco.
Business is business, even—very scantily did it escape being written“especially”—in a kingdom.
That night the 100 head of cattle were driven up from the pasture and penned ina corral near the ranch-house for delivery in the morning.
When night closed down and the house was still, did Santa Yeager throw herselfdown, clasping that formal note to her bosom, weeping, and calling out a namethat pride (either in one or the other) had kept from her lips many a day? Ordid she file the letter, in her business way, retaining her royal balance andstrength?
Wonder, if you will; but royalty is sacred; and there is a veil. But this muchyou shall learn:
At midnight Santa slipped softly out of the ranch-house, clothed in somethingdark and plain. She paused for a moment under the live-oak trees. The prairieswere somewhat dim, and the moonlight was pale orange, diluted with particles ofan impalpable, flying mist. But the mock-bird whistled on every bough ofvantage; leagues of flowers scented the air; and a kindergarten of littleshadowy rabbits leaped and played in an open space near by. Santa turned herface to the southeast and threw three kisses thitherward; for there was none tosee.
Then she sped silently to the blacksmith-shop, fifty yards away; and what shedid there can only be surmised. But the forge glowed red; and there was a fainthammering such as Cupid might make when he sharpens his arrow-points.
Later she came forth with a queer-shaped, handled thing in one hand, and aportable furnace, such as are seen in branding-camps, in the other. To thecorral where the Sussex cattle were penned she sped with these things swiftlyin the moonlight.
She opened the gate and slipped inside the corral. The Sussex cattle weremostly a dark red. But among this bunch was one that was milkywhite—notable among the others.
And now Santa shook from her shoulder something that we had not seenbefore—a rope lasso. She freed the loop of it, coiling the length in herleft hand, and plunged into the thick of the cattle.
The white cow was her object. She swung the lasso, which caught one horn andslipped off. The next throw encircled the forefeet and the animal fell heavily.Santa made for it like a panther; but it scrambled up and dashed against her,knocking her over like a blade of grass.
Again she made her cast, while the aroused cattle milled around the four sidesof the corral in a plunging mass. This throw was fair; the white cow came toearth again; and before it could rise Santa had made the lasso fast around apost of the corral with a swift and simple knot, and had leaped upon the cowagain with the rawhide hobbles.
In one minute the feet of the animal were tied (no record-breaking deed) andSanta leaned against the corral for the same space of time, panting and lax.
And then she ran swiftly to her furnace at the gate and brought thebranding-iron, queerly shaped and white-hot.
The bellow of the outraged white cow, as the iron was applied, should havestirred the slumbering auricular nerves and consciences of the near-by subjectsof the Nopalito, but it did not. And it was amid the deepest nocturnal silencethat Santa ran like a lapwing back to the ranch-house and there fell upon a cotand sobbed—sobbed as though queens had hearts as simple ranchmen’swives have, and as though she would gladly make kings of prince-consorts,should they ride back again from over the hills and far away.
In the morning the capable, revolvered youth and his vaquerosset forth,driving the bunch of Sussex cattle across the prairies to the Rancho Seco.Ninety miles it was; a six days’ journey, grazing and watering theanimals on the way.
The beasts arrived at Rancho Seco one evening at dusk; and were received andcounted by the foreman of the ranch.
The next morning at eight o’clock a horseman loped out of the brush tothe Nopalito ranch-house. He dismounted stiffly, and strode, with whizzingspurs, to the house. His horse gave a great sigh and swayed foam-streaked, withdown-drooping head and closed eyes.
But waste not your pity upon Belshazzar, the flea-bitten sorrel. To-day, inNopalito horse-pasture he survives, pampered, beloved, unridden, cherishedrecord-holder of long-distance rides.
The horseman stumbled into the house. Two arms fell around his neck, andsomeone cried out in the voice of woman and queen alike: “Webb— oh,Webb!”
“I was a skunk,” said Webb Yeager.
“Hush,” said Santa, “did you see it?”
“I saw it,” said Webb.
What they meant God knows; and you shall know, if you rightly read the primerof events.
“Be the cattle-queen,” said Webb; “and overlook it if youcan. I was a mangy, sheep-stealing coyote.”
“Hush!” said Santa again, laying her fingers upon his mouth.“There’s no queen here. Do you know who I am? I am Santa Yeager,First Lady of the Bedchamber. Come here.”
She dragged him from the gallery into the room to the right. There stood acradle with an infant in it—a red, ribald, unintelligible, babbling,beautiful infant, sputtering at life in an unseemly manner.
“There’s no queen on this ranch,” said Santa again.“Look at the king. He’s got your eyes, Webb. Down on your knees andlook at his Highness.”
But jingling rowels sounded on the gallery, and Bud Turner stumbled there againwith the same query that he had brought, lacking a few days, a year ago.
“‘Morning. Them beeves is just turned out on the trail. Shall Idrive ’em to Barber’s, or—”
He saw Webb and stopped, open-mouthed.
“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!” shrieked the king in his cradle, beating theair with his fists.
“You hear your boss, Bud,” said Webb Yeager, with a broadgrin—just as he had said a year ago.
And that is all, except that when old man Quinn, owner of the Rancho Seco, wentout to look over the herd of Sussex cattle that he had bought from the Nopalitoranch, he asked his new manager:
“What’s the Nopalito ranch brand, Wilson?”
“X Bar Y,” said Wilson.
“I thought so,” said Quinn. “But look at that white heiferthere; she’s got another brand—a heart with a cross inside of it.What brand is that?”
II
THE RANSOM OF MACK
Me and old Mack Lonsbury, we got out of that Little Hide-and-Seek gold mineaffair with about $40,000 apiece. I say “old” Mack; but hewasn’t old. Forty-one, I should say; but he always seemed old.
“Andy,” he says to me, “I’m tired of hustling. You andme have been working hard together for three years. Say we knock off for awhile, and spend some of this idle money we’ve coaxed our way.”
“The proposition hits me just right,” says I. “Let’s benabobs for a while and see how it feels. What’ll we do—take in theNiagara Falls, or buck at faro?”
“For a good many years,” says Mack, “I’ve thought thatif I ever had extravagant money I’d rent a two-room cabin somewhere, hirea Chinaman to cook, and sit in my stocking feet and read Buckle’s Historyof Civilisation.”
“That sounds self-indulgent and gratifying without vulgarostentation,” says I; “and I don’t see how money could bebetter invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner’sSelf-Instructor for the Banjo, and I’ll join you.”
A week afterwards me and Mack hits this small town of Piña, about thirty milesout from Denver, and finds an elegant two-room house that just suits us. Wedeposited half-a-peck of money in the Piña bank and shook hands with every oneof the 340 citizens in the town. We brought along the Chinaman and the cuckooclock and Buckle and the Instructor with us from Denver; and they made thecabin seem like home at once.
Never believe it when they tell you riches don’t bring happiness. If youcould have seen old Mack sitting in his rocking-chair with his blue-yarn sockfeet up in the window and absorbing in that Buckle stuff through his specsyou’d have seen a picture of content that would have made Rockefellerjealous. And I was learning to pick out “Old Zip Coon” on thebanjo, and the cuckoo was on time with his remarks, and Ah Sing was messing upthe atmosphere with the handsomest smell of ham and eggs that ever laid thehoneysuckle in the shade. When it got too dark to make out Buckle’snonsense and the notes in the Instructor, me and Mack would light our pipes andtalk about science and pearl diving and sciatica and Egypt and spelling andfish and trade-winds and leather and gratitude and eagles, and a lot ofsubjects that we’d never had time to explain our sentiments about before.
One evening Mack spoke up and asked me if I was much apprised in the habits andpolicies of women folks.
“Why, yes,” says I, in a tone of voice; “I know ’emfrom Alfred to Omaha. The feminine nature and similitude,” says I,“is as plain to my sight as the Rocky Mountains is to a blue-eyed burro.I’m onto all their little side-steps and punctual discrepancies.”
“I tell you, Andy,” says Mack, with a kind of sigh, “I neverhad the least amount of intersection with their predispositions. Maybe I mighthave had a proneness in respect to their vicinity, but I never took the time. Imade my own living since I was fourteen; and I never seemed to get myratiocinations equipped with the sentiments usually depicted toward the sect. Isometimes wish I had,” says old Mack.
“They’re an adverse study,” says I, “and adapted topoints of view. Although they vary in rationale, I have found ’em quiteoften obviously differing from each other in divergences of contrast.”
“It seems to me,” goes on Mack, “that a man had better take’em in and secure his inspirations of the sect when he’s young andso preordained. I let my chance go by; and I guess I’m too old now to gohopping into the curriculum.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I tells him. “Maybe you bettercredit yourself with a barrel of money and a lot of emancipation from aquantity of uncontent. Still, I don’t regret my knowledge of’em,” I says. “It takes a man who understands the symptomsand by-plays of women-folks to take care of himself in this world.”
We stayed on in Piña because we liked the place. Some folks might enjoy theirmoney with noise and rapture and locomotion; but me and Mack we had had plentyof turmoils and hotel towels. The people were friendly; Ah Sing got the swingof the grub we liked; Mack and Buckle were as thick as two body-snatchers, andI was hitting out a cordial resemblance to “Buffalo Gals, Can’t YouCome Out To-night,” on the banjo.
One day I got a telegram from Speight, the man that was working on a mine I hadan interest in out in New Mexico. I had to go out there; and I was gone twomonths. I was anxious to get back to Piña and enjoy life once more.
When I struck the cabin I nearly fainted. Mack was standing in the door; and ifangels ever wept, I saw no reason why they should be smiling then.
That man was a spectacle. Yes; he was worse; he was a spyglass; he was thegreat telescope in the Lick Observatory. He had on a coat and shiny shoes and awhite vest and a high silk hat; and a geranium as big as an order of spinachwas spiked onto his front. And he was smirking and warping his face like aninfernal storekeeper or a kid with colic.
“Hello, Andy,” says Mack, out of his face. “Glad to see youback. Things have happened since you went away.”
“I know it,” says I, “and a sacrilegious sight it is. Godnever made you that way, Mack Lonsbury. Why do you scarify His works with thispresumptuous kind of ribaldry?”
“Why, Andy,” says he, “they’ve elected me justice ofthe peace since you left.”
I looked at Mack close. He was restless and inspired. A justice of the peaceought to be disconsolate and assuaged.
Just then a young woman passed on the sidewalk; and I saw Mack kind of halfsnicker and blush, and then he raised up his hat and smiled and bowed, and shesmiled and bowed, and went on by.
“No hope for you,” says I, “if you’ve got the Mary-Janeinfirmity at your age. I thought it wasn’t going to take on you. Andpatent leather shoes! All this in two little short months!”
“I’m going to marry the young lady who just passed to-night,”says Mack, in a kind of flutter.
“I forgot something at the post-office,” says I, and walked awayquick.
I overtook that young woman a hundred yards away. I raised my hat and told hermy name. She was about nineteen; and young for her age. She blushed, and thenlooked at me cool, like I was the snow scene from the “TwoOrphans.”
“I understand you are to be married to-night,” I said.
“Correct,” says she. “You got any objections?”
“Listen, sissy,” I begins.
“My name is Miss Rebosa Redd,” says she in a pained way.
“I know it,” says I. “Now, Rebosa, I’m old enough tohave owed money to your father. And that old, specious, dressed-up, garbled,sea-sick ptomaine prancing about avidiously like an irremediable turkey gobblerwith patent leather shoes on is my best friend. Why did you go and get himinvested in this marriage business?”
“Why, he was the only chance there was,” answers Miss Rebosa.
“Nay,” says I, giving a sickening look of admiration at hercomplexion and style of features; “with your beauty you might pick anykind of a man. Listen, Rebosa. Old Mack ain’t the man you want. He wastwenty-two when you was néeReed, as the papers say. This bursting intobloom won’t last with him. He’s all ventilated with oldness andrectitude and decay. Old Mack’s down with a case of Indian summer. Heoverlooked his bet when he was young; and now he’s suing Nature for theinterest on the promissory note he took from Cupid instead of the cash. Rebosa,are you bent on having this marriage occur?”
“Why, sure I am,” says she, oscillating the pansies on her hat,“and so is somebody else, I reckon.”
“What time is it to take place?” I asks.
“At six o’clock,” says she.
I made up my mind right away what to do. I’d save old Mack if I could. Tohave a good, seasoned, ineligible man like that turn chicken for a girl thathadn’t quit eating slate pencils and buttoning in the back was more thanI could look on with easiness.
“Rebosa,” says I, earnest, drawing upon my display of knowledgeconcerning the feminine intuitions of reason—“ain’t there ayoung man in Piña—a nice young man that you think a heap of?”
“Yep,” says Rebosa, nodding her pansies—“Sure there is!What do you think! Gracious!”
“Does he like you?” I asks. “How does he stand in thematter?”
“Crazy,” says Rebosa. “Ma has to wet down the front steps tokeep him from sitting there all the time. But I guess that’ll be all overafter to-night,” she winds up with a sigh.
“Rebosa,” says I, “you don’t really experience any ofthis adoration called love for old Mack, do you?”
“Lord! no,” says the girl, shaking her head. “I thinkhe’s as dry as a lava bed. The idea!”
“Who is this young man that you like, Rebosa?” I inquires.
“It’s Eddie Bayles,” says she. “He clerks inCrosby’s grocery. But he don’t make but thirty-five a month. EllaNoakes was wild about him once.”
“Old Mack tells me,” I says, “that he’s going to marryyou at six o’clock this evening.”
“That’s the time,” says she. “It’s to be at ourhouse.”
“Rebosa,” says I, “listen to me. If Eddie Bayles had athousand dollars cash—a thousand dollars, mind you, would buy him a storeof his own—if you and Eddie had that much to excuse matrimony on, wouldyou consent to marry him this evening at five o’clock?”
The girl looks at me a minute; and I can see these inaudible cogitations goingon inside of her, as women will.
“A thousand dollars?” says she. “Of course I would.”
“Come on,” says I. “We’ll go and see Eddie.”
We went up to Crosby’s store and called Eddie outside. He looked to beestimable and freckled; and he had chills and fever when I made my proposition.
“At five o’clock?” says he, “for a thousand dollars?Please don’t wake me up! Well, you arethe rich uncle retired fromthe spice business in India! I’ll buy out old Crosby and run the storemyself.”
We went inside and got old man Crosby apart and explained it. I wrote my checkfor a thousand dollars and handed it to him. If Eddie and Rebosa married eachother at five he was to turn the money over to them.
And then I gave ’em my blessing, and went to wander in the wildwood for aseason. I sat on a log and made cogitations on life and old age and the zodiacand the ways of women and all the disorder that goes with a lifetime. I passedmyself congratulations that I had probably saved my old friend Mack from hisattack of Indian summer. I knew when he got well of it and shed his infatuationand his patent leather shoes, he would feel grateful. “To keep old Mackdisinvolved,” thinks I, “from relapses like this, is worth morethan a thousand dollars.” And most of all I was glad that I’d madea study of women, and wasn’t to be deceived any by their means of conceitand evolution.
It must have been half-past five when I got back home. I stepped in; and theresat old Mack on the back of his neck in his old clothes with his blue socks onthe window and the History of Civilisation propped up on his knees.
“This don’t look like getting ready for a wedding at six,” Isays, to seem innocent.
“Oh,” says Mack, reaching for his tobacco, “that waspostponed back to five o’clock. They sent me over a note saying the hourhad been changed. It’s all over now. What made you stay away so long,Andy?”
“You heard about the wedding?” I asks.
“I operated it,” says he. “I told you I was justice of thepeace. The preacher is off East to visit his folks, and I’m the only onein town that can perform the dispensations of marriage. I promised Eddie andRebosa a month ago I’d marry ’em. He’s a busy lad; andhe’ll have a grocery of his own some day.”
“He will,” says I.
“There was lots of women at the wedding,” says Mack, smoking up.“But I didn’t seem to get any ideas from ’em. I wish I wasinformed in the structure of their attainments like you said you was.”
“That was two months ago,” says I, reaching up for the banjo.
III
TELEMACHUS, FRIEND
Returning from a hunting trip, I waited at the little town of Los Piños, in NewMexico, for the south-bound train, which was one hour late. I sat on the porchof the Summit House and discussed the functions of life with Telemachus Hicks,the hotel proprietor.
Perceiving that personalities were not out of order, I asked him what speciesof beast had long ago twisted and mutilated his left ear. Being a hunter, I wasconcerned in the evils that may befall one in the pursuit of game.
“That ear,” says Hicks, “is the relic of truefriendship.”
“An accident?” I persisted.
“No friendship is an accident,” said Telemachus; and I was silent.
“The only perfect case of true friendship I ever knew,” went on myhost, “was a cordial intent between a Connecticut man and a monkey. Themonkey climbed palms in Barranquilla and threw down cocoanuts to the man. Theman sawed them in two and made dippers, which he sold for two realeseach and bought rum. The monkey drank the milk of the nuts. Through each beingsatisfied with his own share of the graft, they lived like brothers.
“But in the case of human beings, friendship is a transitory art, subjectto discontinuance without further notice.
“I had a friend once, of the entitlement of Paisley Fish, that I imaginedwas sealed to me for an endless space of time. Side by side for seven years wehad mined, ranched, sold patent churns, herded sheep, took photographs andother things, built wire fences, and picked prunes. Thinks I, neither homocidenor flattery nor riches nor sophistry nor drink can make trouble between me andPaisley Fish. We was friends an amount you could hardly guess at. We wasfriends in business, and we let our amicable qualities lap over and season ourhours of recreation and folly. We certainly had days of Damon and nights ofPythias.
“One summer me and Paisley gallops down into these San Andrés mountainsfor the purpose of a month’s surcease and levity, dressed in the naturalstore habiliments of man. We hit this town of Los Piños, which certainly was aroof-garden spot of the world, and flowing with condensed milk and honey. Ithad a street or two, and air, and hens, and a eating-house; and that was enoughfor us.
“We strikes the town after supper-time, and we concludes to samplewhatever efficacy there is in this eating-house down by the railroad tracks. Bythe time we had set down and pried up our plates with a knife from the redoil-cloth, along intrudes Widow Jessup with the hot biscuit and the friedliver.
“Now, there was a woman that would have tempted an anchovy to forget hisvows. She was not so small as she was large; and a kind of welcome air seemedto mitigate her vicinity. The pink of her face was the in hoc signoof aculinary temper and a warm disposition, and her smile would have brought outthe dogwood blossoms in December.
“Widow Jessup talks to us a lot of garrulousness about the climate andhistory and Tennyson and prunes and the scarcity of mutton, and finally wantsto know where we came from.
“‘Spring Valley,’ says I.
“‘Big Spring Valley,’ chips in Paisley, out of a lot ofpotatoes and knuckle-bone of ham in his mouth.
“That was the first sign I noticed that the old fidus Diogenesbusiness between me and Paisley Fish was ended forever. He knew how I hated atalkative person, and yet he stampedes into the conversation with hisamendments and addendums of syntax. On the map it was Big Spring Valley; but Ihad heard Paisley himself call it Spring Valley a thousand times.
“Without saying any more, we went out after supper and set on therailroad track. We had been pardners too long not to know what was going on ineach other’s mind.
“‘I reckon you understand,’ says Paisley, ‘thatI’ve made up my mind to accrue that widow woman as part and parcel in andto my hereditaments forever, both domestic, sociable, legal, and otherwise,until death us do part.’
“‘Why, yes,’ says I, ‘I read it between the lines,though you only spoke one. And I suppose you are aware,’ says I,‘that I have a movement on foot that leads up to the widow’schanging her name to Hicks, and leaves you writing to the society column toinquire whether the best man wears a japonica or seamless socks at thewedding!’
“‘There’ll be some hiatuses in your program,’ saysPaisley, chewing up a piece of a railroad tie. ‘I’d give in toyou,’ says he, ‘in ’most any respect if it was secularaffairs, but this is not so. The smiles of woman,’ goes on Paisley,‘is the whirlpool of Squills and Chalybeates, into which vortex the goodship Friendship is often drawn and dismembered. I’d assault a bear thatwas annoying you,’ says Paisley, ‘or I’d endorse your note,or rub the place between your shoulder-blades with opodeldoc the same as ever;but there my sense of etiquette ceases. In this fracas with Mrs. Jessup we playit alone. I’ve notified you fair.’
“And then I collaborates with myself, and offers the followingresolutions and by-laws:
“‘Friendship between man and man,’ says I, ‘is anancient historical virtue enacted in the days when men had to protect eachother against lizards with eighty-foot tails and flying turtles. Andthey’ve kept up the habit to this day, and stand by each other till thebellboy comes up and tells them the animals are not really there. I’veoften heard,’ I says, ‘about ladies stepping in and breaking up afriendship between men. Why should that be? I’ll tell you, Paisley, thefirst sight and hot biscuit of Mrs. Jessup appears to have inserted aoscillation into each of our bosoms. Let the best man of us have her.I’ll play you a square game, and won’t do any underhanded work.I’ll do all of my courting of her in your presence, so you will have anequal opportunity. With that arrangement I don’t see why our steamboat offriendship should fall overboard in the medicinal whirlpools you speak of,whichever of us wins out.’
“‘Good old hoss!’ says Paisley, shaking my hand. ‘AndI’ll do the same,’ says he. ‘We’ll court the ladysynonymously, and without any of the prudery and bloodshed usual to suchoccasions. And we’ll be friends still, win or lose.’
“At one side of Mrs. Jessup’s eating-house was a bench under sometrees where she used to sit in the breeze after the south-bound had been fedand gone. And there me and Paisley used to congregate after supper and makepartial payments on our respects to the lady of our choice. And we was sohonorable and circuitous in our calls that if one of us got there first wewaited for the other before beginning any gallivantery.
“The first evening that Mrs. Jessup knew about our arrangement I got tothe bench before Paisley did. Supper was just over, and Mrs. Jessup was outthere with a fresh pink dress on, and almost cool enough to handle.
“I sat down by her and made a few specifications about the moral surfaceof nature as set forth by the landscape and the contiguous perspective. Thatevening was surely a case in point. The moon was attending to business in thesection of sky where it belonged, and the trees was making shadows on theground according to science and nature, and there was a kind of conspicuoushullabaloo going on in the bushes between the bullbats and the orioles and thejack-rabbits and other feathered insects of the forest. And the wind out of themountains was singing like a Jew’s-harp in the pile of old tomato-cans bythe railroad track.
“I felt a kind of sensation in my left side—something like doughrising in a crock by the fire. Mrs. Jessup had moved up closer.
“‘Oh, Mr. Hicks,’ says she, ‘when one is alone in theworld, don’t they feel it more aggravated on a beautiful night likethis?’
“I rose up off the bench at once.
“‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ says I, ‘but I’ll haveto wait till Paisley comes before I can give a audible hearing to leadingquestions like that.’
“And then I explained to her how we was friends cinctured by years ofembarrassment and travel and complicity, and how we had agreed to take noadvantage of each other in any of the more mushy walks of life, such as mightbe fomented by sentiment and proximity. Mrs. Jessup appears to think seriousabout the matter for a minute, and then she breaks into a species of laughterthat makes the wildwood resound.
“In a few minutes Paisley drops around, with oil of bergamot on his hair,and sits on the other side of Mrs. Jessup, and inaugurates a sad tale ofadventure in which him and Pieface Lumley has a skinning-match of dead cows in’95 for a silver-mounted saddle in the Santa Rita valley during the ninemonths’ drought.
“Now, from the start of that courtship I had Paisley Fish hobbled andtied to a post. Each one of us had a different system of reaching out for theeasy places in the female heart. Paisley’s scheme was to petrify’em with wonderful relations of events that he had either come acrosspersonally or in large print. I think he must have got his idea of subjugationfrom one of Shakespeare’s shows I see once called ‘Othello.’There is a coloured man in it who acquires a duke’s daughter bydisbursing to her a mixture of the talk turned out by Rider Haggard, LewDockstader, and Dr. Parkhurst. But that style of courting don’t work welloff the stage.
“Now, I give you my own recipe for inveigling a woman into that state ofaffairs when she can be referred to as ‘néeJones.’ Learnhow to pick up her hand and hold it, and she’s yours. It ain’t soeasy. Some men grab at it so much like they was going to set a dislocation ofthe shoulder that you can smell the arnica and hear ’em tearing offbandages. Some take it up like a hot horseshoe, and hold it off at arm’slength like a druggist pouring tincture of asafœtida in a bottle. And most of’em catch hold of it and drag it right out before the lady’s eyeslike a boy finding a baseball in the grass, without giving her a chance toforget that the hand is growing on the end of her arm. Them ways are all wrong.
“I’ll tell you the right way. Did you ever see a man sneak out inthe back yard and pick up a rock to throw at a tomcat that was sitting on afence looking at him? He pretends he hasn’t got a thing in his hand, andthat the cat don’t see him, and that he don’t see the cat.That’s the idea. Never drag her hand out where she’ll have to takenotice of it. Don’t let her know that you think she knows you have theleast idea she is aware you are holding her hand. That was my rule of tactics;and as far as Paisley’s serenade about hostilities and misadventure went,he might as well have been reading to her a time-table of the Sunday trainsthat stop at Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
“One night when I beat Paisley to the bench by one pipeful, my friendshipgets subsidised for a minute, and I asks Mrs. Jessup if she didn’t thinka ‘H’ was easier to write than a ‘J.’ In a second herhead was mashing the oleander flower in my button-hole, and I leaned overand—but I didn’t.
“‘If you don’t mind,’ says I, standing up,‘we’ll wait for Paisley to come before finishing this. I’venever done anything dishonourable yet to our friendship, and this won’tbe quite fair.’
“‘Mr. Hicks,’ says Mrs. Jessup, looking at me peculiar in thedark, ‘if it wasn’t for but one thing, I’d ask you to hikeyourself down the gulch and never disresume your visits to my house.’
“‘And what is that, ma’am?’ I asks.
“‘You are too good a friend not to make a good husband,’ saysshe.
“In five minutes Paisley was on his side of Mrs. Jessup.
“‘In Silver City, in the summer of ’98,’ he begins,‘I see Jim Batholomew chew off a Chinaman’s ear in the Blue LightSaloon on account of a crossbarred muslin shirt that—what was thatnoise?’
“I had resumed matters again with Mrs. Jessup right where we had leftoff.
“‘Mrs. Jessup,’ says I, ‘has promised to make it Hicks.And this is another of the same sort.’
“Paisley winds his feet round a leg of the bench and kind of groans.
“‘Lem,’ says he, ‘we been friends for seven years.Would you mind not kissing Mrs. Jessup quite so loud? I’d do the same foryou.’
“‘All right,’ says I. ‘The other kind will do aswell.’
“‘This Chinaman,’ goes on Paisley, ‘was the one thatshot a man named Mullins in the spring of ’97, and that was—’
“Paisley interrupted himself again.
“‘Lem,’ says he, ‘if you was a true friend youwouldn’t hug Mrs. Jessup quite so hard. I felt the bench shake all overjust then. You know you told me you would give me an even chance as long asthere was any.’
“‘Mr. Man,’ says Mrs. Jessup, turning around to Paisley,‘if you was to drop in to the celebration of mine and Mr. Hicks’ssilver wedding, twenty-five years from now, do you think you could get it intothat Hubbard squash you call your head that you are nix cum rousin thisbusiness? I’ve put up with you a long time because you was Mr.Hicks’s friend; but it seems to me it’s time for you to wear thewillow and trot off down the hill.’
“‘Mrs. Jessup,’ says I, without losing my grasp on thesituation as fiancé, ‘Mr. Paisley is my friend, and I offered him asquare deal and a equal opportunity as long as there was a chance.’
“‘A chance!’ says she. ‘Well, he may think he has achance; but I hope he won’t think he’s got a cinch, after whathe’s been next to all the evening.’
“Well, a month afterwards me and Mrs. Jessup was married in the Los PiñosMethodist Church; and the whole town closed up to see the performance.
“When we lined up in front and the preacher was beginning to sing out hisrituals and observances, I looks around and misses Paisley. I calls time on thepreacher. ‘Paisley ain’t here,’ says I. ‘We’vegot to wait for Paisley. A friend once, a friend always—that’sTelemachus Hicks,’ says I. Mrs. Jessup’s eyes snapped some; but thepreacher holds up the incantations according to instructions.
“In a few minutes Paisley gallops up the aisle, putting on a cuff as hecomes. He explains that the only dry-goods store in town was closed for thewedding, and he couldn’t get the kind of a boiled shirt that his tastecalled for until he had broke open the back window of the store and helpedhimself. Then he ranges up on the other side of the bride, and the wedding goeson. I always imagined that Paisley calculated as a last chance that thepreacher might marry him to the widow by mistake.
“After the proceedings was over we had tea and jerked antelope and cannedapricots, and then the populace hiked itself away. Last of all Paisley shook meby the hand and told me I’d acted square and on the level with him and hewas proud to call me a friend.
“The preacher had a small house on the side of the street that he’dfixed up to rent; and he allowed me and Mrs. Hicks to occupy it till theten-forty train the next morning, when we was going on a bridal tour to ElPaso. His wife had decorated it all up with hollyhocks and poison ivy, and itlooked real festal and bowery.
“About ten o’clock that night I sets down in the front door andpulls off my boots a while in the cool breeze, while Mrs. Hicks was fixingaround in the room. Right soon the light went out inside; and I sat there awhile reverberating over old times and scenes. And then I heard Mrs. Hicks callout, ‘Ain’t you coming in soon, Lem?’
“‘Well, well!’ says I, kind of rousing up. ‘Durn me ifI wasn’t waiting for old Paisley to—’
“But when I got that far,” concluded Telemachus Hicks, “Ithought somebody had shot this left ear of mine off with a forty-five. But itturned out to be only a lick from a broomhandle in the hands of Mrs.Hicks.”
IV
THE HANDBOOK OF HYMEN
’Tis the opinion of myself, Sanderson Pratt, who sets this down, that theeducational system of the United States should be in the hands of the weatherbureau. I can give you good reasons for it; and you can’t tell me why ourcollege professors shouldn’t be transferred to the meteorologicaldepartment. They have been learned to read; and they could very easily glanceat the morning papers and then wire in to the main office what kind of weatherto expect. But there’s the other side of the proposition. I am going onto tell you how the weather furnished me and Idaho Green with an eleganteducation.
We was up in the Bitter Root Mountains over the Montana line prospecting forgold. A chin-whiskered man in Walla-Walla, carrying a line of hope as excessbaggage, had grubstaked us; and there we was in the foothills pecking away,with enough grub on hand to last an army through a peace conference.
Along one day comes a mail-rider over the mountains from Carlos, and stops toeat three cans of greengages, and leave us a newspaper of modern date. Thispaper prints a system of premonitions of the weather, and the card it dealtBitter Root Mountains from the bottom of the deck was “warmer and fair,with light westerly breezes.”
That evening it began to snow, with the wind strong in the east. Me and Idahomoved camp into an old empty cabin higher up the mountain, thinking it was onlya November flurry. But after falling three foot on a level it went to work inearnest; and we knew we was snowed in. We got in plenty of firewood before itgot deep, and we had grub enough for two months, so we let the elements rageand cut up all they thought proper.
If you want to instigate the art of manslaughter just shut two men up in aeighteen by twenty-foot cabin for a month. Human nature won’t stand it.
When the first snowflakes fell me and Idaho Green laughed at each other’sjokes and praised the stuff we turned out of a skillet and called bread. At theend of three weeks Idaho makes this kind of a edict to me. Says he:
“I never exactly heard sour milk dropping out of a balloon on the bottomof a tin pan, but I have an idea it would be music of the spears compared tothis attenuated stream of asphyxiated thought that emanates out of your organsof conversation. The kind of half-masticated noises that you emit every dayputs me in mind of a cow’s cud, only she’s lady enough to keep hersto herself, and you ain’t.”
“Mr. Green,” says I, “you having been a friend of mine once,I have some hesitations in confessing to you that if I had my choice forsociety between you and a common yellow, three-legged cur pup, one of theinmates of this here cabin would be wagging a tail just at present.”
This way we goes on for two or three days, and then we quits speaking to oneanother. We divides up the cooking implements, and Idaho cooks his grub on oneside of the fireplace, and me on the other. The snow is up to the windows, andwe have to keep a fire all day.
You see me and Idaho never had any education beyond reading and doing “ifJohn had three apples and James five” on a slate. We never felt anyspecial need for a university degree, though we had acquired a species ofintrinsic intelligence in knocking around the world that we could use inemergencies. But, snowbound in that cabin in the Bitter Roots, we felt for thefirst time that if we had studied Homer or Greek and fractions and the higherbranches of information, we’d have had some resources in the line ofmeditation and private thought. I’ve seen them Eastern college fellowsworking in camps all through the West, and I never noticed but what educationwas less of a drawback to ’em than you would think. Why, once over onSnake River, when Andrew McWilliams’ saddle horse got the botts, he senta buckboard ten miles for one of these strangers that claimed to be a botanist.But that horse died.
One morning Idaho was poking around with a stick on top of a little shelf thatwas too high to reach. Two books fell down to the floor. I started toward’em, but caught Idaho’s eye. He speaks for the first time in aweek.
“Don’t burn your fingers,” says he. “In spite of thefact that you’re only fit to be the companion of a sleeping mud-turtle,I’ll give you a square deal. And that’s more than your parents didwhen they turned you loose in the world with the sociability of a rattle-snakeand the bedside manner of a frozen turnip. I’ll play you a game ofseven-up, the winner to pick up his choice of the book, the loser to take theother.”
We played; and Idaho won. He picked up his book; and I took mine. Then each ofus got on his side of the house and went to reading.
I never was as glad to see a ten-ounce nugget as I was that book. And Idahotook at his like a kid looks at a stick of candy.
Mine was a little book about five by six inches called “Herkimer’sHandbook of Indispensable Information.” I may be wrong, but I think thatwas the greatest book that ever was written. I’ve got it to-day; and Ican stump you or any man fifty times in five minutes with the information init. Talk about Solomon or the New York Tribune!Herkimer had cases onboth of ’em. That man must have put in fifty years and travelled amillion miles to find out all that stuff. There was the population of allcities in it, and the way to tell a girl’s age, and the number of teeth acamel has. It told you the longest tunnel in the world, the number of thestars, how long it takes for chicken pox to break out, what a lady’s neckought to measure, the veto powers of Governors, the dates of the Romanaqueducts, how many pounds of rice going without three beers a day would buy,the average annual temperature of Augusta, Maine, the quantity of seed requiredto plant an acre of carrots in drills, antidotes for poisons, the number ofhairs on a blond lady’s head, how to preserve eggs, the height of all themountains in the world, and the dates of all wars and battles, and how torestore drowned persons, and sunstroke, and the number of tacks in a pound, andhow to make dynamite and flowers and beds, and what to do before the doctorcomes—and a hundred times as many things besides. If there was anythingHerkimer didn’t know I didn’t miss it out of the book.
I sat and read that book for four hours. All the wonders of education wascompressed in it. I forgot the snow, and I forgot that me and old Idaho was onthe outs. He was sitting still on a stool reading away with a kind of partlysoft and partly mysterious look shining through his tan-bark whiskers.
“Idaho,” says I, “what kind of a book is yours?”
Idaho must have forgot, too, for he answered moderate, without any slander ormalignity.
“Why,” says he, “this here seems to be a volume by Homer K.M.”
“Homer K. M. what?” I asks.
“Why, just Homer K. M.,” says he.
“You’re a liar,” says I, a little riled that Idaho should tryto put me up a tree. “No man is going ’round signing books with hisinitials. If it’s Homer K. M. Spoopendyke, or Homer K. M. McSweeney, orHomer K. M. Jones, why don’t you say so like a man instead of biting offthe end of it like a calf chewing off the tail of a shirt on aclothes-line?”
“I put it to you straight, Sandy,” says Idaho, quiet.“It’s a poem book,” says he, “by Homer K. M. Icouldn’t get colour out of it at first, but there’s a vein if youfollow it up. I wouldn’t have missed this book for a pair of redblankets.”
“You’re welcome to it,” says I. “What I want is adisinterested statement of facts for the mind to work on, and that’s whatI seem to find in the book I’ve drawn.”
“What you’ve got,” says Idaho, “is statistics, thelowest grade of information that exists. They’ll poison your mind. Giveme old K. M.’s system of surmises. He seems to be a kind of a wine agent.His regular toast is ‘nothing doing,’ and he seems to have agrouch, but he keeps it so well lubricated with booze that his worst kickssound like an invitation to split a quart. But it’s poetry,” saysIdaho, “and I have sensations of scorn for that truck of yours that triesto convey sense in feet and inches. When it comes to explaining the instinct ofphilosophy through the art of nature, old K. M. has got your man beat bydrills, rows, paragraphs, chest measurement, and average annualrainfall.”
So that’s the way me and Idaho had it. Day and night all the excitementwe got was studying our books. That snowstorm sure fixed us with a fine lot ofattainments apiece. By the time the snow melted, if you had stepped up to mesuddenly and said: “Sanderson Pratt, what would it cost per square footto lay a roof with twenty by twenty-eight tin at nine dollars and fifty centsper box?” I’d have told you as quick as light could travel thelength of a spade handle at the rate of one hundred and ninety-two thousandmiles per second. How many can do it? You wake up ’most any man you knowin the middle of the night, and ask him quick to tell you the number of bonesin the human skeleton exclusive of the teeth, or what percentage of the vote ofthe Nebraska Legislature overrules a veto. Will he tell you? Try him and see.
About what benefit Idaho got out of his poetry book I didn’t exactlyknow. Idaho boosted the wine-agent every time he opened his mouth; but Iwasn’t so sure.
This Homer K. M., from what leaked out of his libretto through Idaho, seemed tome to be a kind of a dog who looked at life like it was a tin can tied to histail. After running himself half to death, he sits down, hangs his tongue out,and looks at the can and says:
“Oh, well, since we can’t shake the growler, let’s get itfilled at the corner, and all have a drink on me.”
Besides that, it seems he was a Persian; and I never hear of Persia producinganything worth mentioning unless it was Turkish rugs and Maltese cats.
That spring me and Idaho struck pay ore. It was a habit of ours to sell outquick and keep moving. We unloaded our grubstaker for eight thousand dollarsapiece; and then we drifted down to this little town of Rosa, on the Salmonriver, to rest up, and get some human grub, and have our whiskers harvested.
Rosa was no mining-camp. It laid in the valley, and was as free of uproar andpestilence as one of them rural towns in the country. There was a three-miletrolley line champing its bit in the environs; and me and Idaho spent a weekriding on one of the cars, dropping off at nights at the Sunset View Hotel.Being now well read as well as travelled, we was soon pro re natawiththe best society in Rosa, and was invited out to the most dressed-up andhigh-toned entertainments. It was at a piano recital and quail-eating contestin the city hall, for the benefit of the fire company, that me and Idaho firstmet Mrs. De Ormond Sampson, the queen of Rosa society.
Mrs. Sampson was a widow, and owned the only two-story house in town. It waspainted yellow, and whichever way you looked from you could see it as plain asegg on the chin of an O’Grady on a Friday. Twenty-two men in Rosa besidesme and Idaho was trying to stake a claim on that yellow house.
There was a dance after the song books and quail bones had been raked out ofthe Hall. Twenty-three of the bunch galloped over to Mrs. Sampson and asked fora dance. I side-stepped the two-step, and asked permission to escort her home.That’s where I made a hit.
On the way home says she:
“Ain’t the stars lovely and bright to-night, Mr. Pratt?”
“For the chance they’ve got,” says I, “they’rehumping themselves in a mighty creditable way. That big one you see issixty-six million miles distant. It took thirty-six years for its light toreach us. With an eighteen-foot telescope you can see forty-three millions of’em, including them of the thirteenth magnitude, which, if one was to goout now, you would keep on seeing it for twenty-seven hundred years.”
“My!” says Mrs. Sampson. “I never knew that before. How warmit is! I’m as damp as I can be from dancing so much.”
“That’s easy to account for,” says I, “when you happento know that you’ve got two million sweat-glands working all at once. Ifevery one of your perspiratory ducts, which are a quarter of an inch long, wasplaced end to end, they would reach a distance of seven miles.”
“Lawsy!” says Mrs. Sampson. “It sounds like an irrigationditch you was describing, Mr. Pratt. How do you get all this knowledge ofinformation?”
“From observation, Mrs. Sampson,” I tells her. “I keep myeyes open when I go about the world.”
“Mr. Pratt,” says she, “I always did admire a man ofeducation. There are so few scholars among the sap-headed plug-uglies of thistown that it is a real pleasure to converse with a gentleman of culture.I’d be gratified to have you call at my house whenever you feel soinclined.”
And that was the way I got the goodwill of the lady in the yellow house. EveryTuesday and Friday evening I used to go there and tell her about the wonders ofthe universe as discovered, tabulated, and compiled from nature by Herkimer.Idaho and the other gay Lutherans of the town got every minute of the rest ofthe week that they could.
I never imagined that Idaho was trying to work on Mrs. Sampson with old K.M.’s rules of courtship till one afternoon when I was on my way over totake her a basket of wild hog-plums. I met the lady coming down the lane thatled to her house. Her eyes was snapping, and her hat made a dangerous dip overone eye.
“Mr. Pratt,” she opens up, “this Mr. Green is a friend ofyours, I believe.”
“For nine years,” says I.
“Cut him out,” says she. “He’s no gentleman!”
“Why ma’am,” says I, “he’s a plain incumbent ofthe mountains, with asperities and the usual failings of a spendthrift and aliar, but I never on the most momentous occasion had the heart to deny that hewas a gentleman. It may be that in haberdashery and the sense of arrogance anddisplay Idaho offends the eye, but inside, ma’am, I’ve found himimpervious to the lower grades of crime and obesity. After nine years ofIdaho’s society, Mrs. Sampson,” I winds up, “I should hate toimpute him, and I should hate to see him imputed.”
“It’s right plausible of you, Mr. Pratt,” says Mrs. Sampson,“to take up the curmudgeons in your friend’s behalf; but itdon’t alter the fact that he has made proposals to me sufficientlyobnoxious to ruffle the ignominy of any lady.”
“Why, now, now, now!” says I. “Old Idaho do that! I couldbelieve it of myself, sooner. I never knew but one thing to deride in him; anda blizzard was responsible for that. Once while we was snow-bound in themountains he became a prey to a kind of spurious and uneven poetry, which mayhave corrupted his demeanour.”
“It has,” says Mrs. Sampson. “Ever since I knew him he hasbeen reciting to me a lot of irreligious rhymes by some person he calls RubyOtt, and who is no better than she should be, if you judge by herpoetry.”
“Then Idaho has struck a new book,” says I, “for the one hehad was by a man who writes under the nom de plumeof K. M.”
“He’d better have stuck to it,” says Mrs. Sampson,“whatever it was. And to-day he caps the vortex. I get a bunch of flowersfrom him, and on ’em is pinned a note. Now, Mr. Pratt, you know a ladywhen you see her; and you know how I stand in Rosa society. Do you think for amoment that I’d skip out to the woods with a man along with a jug of wineand a loaf of bread, and go singing and cavorting up and down under the treeswith him? I take a little claret with my meals, but I’m not in the habitof packing a jug of it into the brush and raising Cain in any such style asthat. And of course he’d bring his book of verses along, too. He said so.Let him go on his scandalous picnics alone! Or let him take his Ruby Ott withhim. I reckon she wouldn’t kick unless it was on account of there beingtoo much bread along. And what do you think of your gentleman friend now, Mr.Pratt?”
“Well, ’m,” says I, “it may be that Idaho’sinvitation was a kind of poetry, and meant no harm. May be it belonged to theclass of rhymes they call figurative. They offend law and order, but they getsent through the mails on the grounds that they mean something that theydon’t say. I’d be glad on Idaho’s account if you’doverlook it,” says I, “and let us extricate our minds from the lowregions of poetry to the higher planes of fact and fancy. On a beautifulafternoon like this, Mrs. Sampson,” I goes on, “we should let ourthoughts dwell accordingly. Though it is warm here, we should remember that atthe equator the line of perpetual frost is at an altitude of fifteen thousandfeet. Between the latitudes of forty degrees and forty-nine degrees it is fromfour thousand to nine thousand feet.”
“Oh, Mr. Pratt,” says Mrs. Sampson, “it’s such acomfort to hear you say them beautiful facts after getting such a jar from thatminx of a Ruby’s poetry!”
“Let us sit on this log at the roadside,” says I, “and forgetthe inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns ofascertained facts and legalised measures that beauty is to be found. In thisvery log we sit upon, Mrs. Sampson,” says I, “is statistics morewonderful than any poem. The rings show it was sixty years old. At the depth oftwo thousand feet it would become coal in three thousand years. The deepestcoal mine in the world is at Killingworth, near Newcastle. A box four feetlong, three feet wide, and two feet eight inches deep will hold one ton ofcoal. If an artery is cut, compress it above the wound. A man’s legcontains thirty bones. The Tower of London was burned in 1841.”
“Go on, Mr. Pratt,” says Mrs. Sampson. “Them ideas is sooriginal and soothing. I think statistics are just as lovely as they canbe.”
But it wasn’t till two weeks later that I got all that was coming to meout of Herkimer.
One night I was waked up by folks hollering “Fire!” all around. Ijumped up and dressed and went out of the hotel to enjoy the scene. When I seeit was Mrs. Sampson’s house, I gave forth a kind of yell, and I was therein two minutes.
The whole lower story of the yellow house was in flames, and every masculine,feminine, and canine in Rosa was there, screeching and barking and getting inthe way of the firemen. I saw Idaho trying to get away from six firemen whowere holding him. They was telling him the whole place was on fire down-stairs,and no man could go in it and come out alive.
“Where’s Mrs. Sampson?” I asks.
“She hasn’t been seen,” says one of the firemen. “Shesleeps up-stairs. We’ve tried to get in, but we can’t, and ourcompany hasn’t got any ladders yet.”
I runs around to the light of the big blaze, and pulls the Handbook out of myinside pocket. I kind of laughed when I felt it in my hands —I reckon Iwas some daffy with the sensation of excitement.
“Herky, old boy,” I says to it, as I flipped over the pages,“you ain’t ever lied to me yet, and you ain’t ever throwed medown at a scratch yet. Tell me what, old boy, tell me what!” says I.
I turned to “What to do in Case of Accidents,” on page 117. I runmy finger down the page, and struck it. Good old Herkimer, he never overlookedanything! It said:
Suffocation from Inhaling Smoke or Gas.—There is nothing better thanflaxseed. Place a few seed in the outer corner of the eye.
I shoved the Handbook back in my pocket, and grabbed a boy that was running by.
“Here,” says I, giving him some money, “run to the drug storeand bring a dollar’s worth of flaxseed. Hurry, and you’ll getanother one for yourself. Now,” I sings out to the crowd,“we’ll have Mrs. Sampson!” And I throws away my coat and hat.
Four of the firemen and citizens grabs hold of me. It’s sure death, theysay, to go in the house, for the floors was beginning to fall through.
“How in blazes,” I sings out, kind of laughing yet, but not feelinglike it, “do you expect me to put flaxseed in a eye without theeye?”
I jabbed each elbow in a fireman’s face, kicked the bark off of onecitizen’s shin, and tripped the other one with a side hold. And then Ibusted into the house. If I die first I’ll write you a letter and tellyou if it’s any worse down there than the inside of that yellow housewas; but don’t believe it yet. I was a heap more cooked than the hurry-uporders of broiled chicken that you get in restaurants. The fire and smoke hadme down on the floor twice, and was about to shame Herkimer, but the firemenhelped me with their little stream of water, and I got to Mrs. Sampson’sroom. She’d lost conscientiousness from the smoke, so I wrapped her inthe bed clothes and got her on my shoulder. Well, the floors wasn’t asbad as they said, or I never could have done it—not by no means.
I carried her out fifty yards from the house and laid her on the grass. Then,of course, every one of them other twenty-two plaintiff’s to thelady’s hand crowded around with tin dippers of water ready to save her.And up runs the boy with the flaxseed.
I unwrapped the covers from Mrs. Sampson’s head. She opened her eyes andsays:
“Is that you, Mr. Pratt?”
“S-s-sh,” says I. “Don’t talk till you’ve had theremedy.”
I runs my arm around her neck and raises her head, gentle, and breaks the bagof flaxseed with the other hand; and as easy as I could I bends over and slipsthree or four of the seeds in the outer corner of her eye.
Up gallops the village doc by this time, and snorts around, and grabs at Mrs.Sampson’s pulse, and wants to know what I mean by any such sandblastednonsense.
“Well, old Jalap and Jerusalem oakseed,” says I, “I’mno regular practitioner, but I’ll show you my authority, anyway.”
They fetched my coat, and I gets out the Handbook.
“Look on page 117,” says I, “at the remedy for suffocation bysmoke or gas. Flaxseed in the outer corner of the eye, it says. I don’tknow whether it works as a smoke consumer or whether it hikes the compoundgastro-hippopotamus nerve into action, but Herkimer says it, and he was calledto the case first. If you want to make it a consultation, there’s noobjection.”
Old doc takes the book and looks at it by means of his specs and afireman’s lantern.
“Well, Mr. Pratt,” says he, “you evidently got on the wrongline in reading your diagnosis. The recipe for suffocation says: ‘Get thepatient into fresh air as quickly as possible, and place in a recliningposition.’ The flaxseed remedy is for ‘Dust and Cinders in theEye,’ on the line above. But, after all—”
“See here,” interrupts Mrs. Sampson, “I reckon I’ve gotsomething to say in this consultation. That flaxseed done me more good thananything I ever tried.” And then she raises up her head and lays it backon my arm again, and says: “Put some in the other eye, Sandy dear.”
And so if you was to stop off at Rosa to-morrow, or any other day, you’dsee a fine new yellow house with Mrs. Pratt, that was Mrs. Sampson,embellishing and adorning it. And if you was to step inside you’d see onthe marble-top centre table in the parlour “Herkimer’s Handbook ofIndispensable Information,” all rebound in red morocco, and ready to beconsulted on any subject pertaining to human happiness and wisdom.
V
THE PIMIENTA PANCAKES
While we were rounding up a bunch of the Triangle-O cattle in the Frio bottomsa projecting branch of a dead mesquite caught my wooden stirrup and gave myankle a wrench that laid me up in camp for a week.
On the third day of my compulsory idleness I crawled out near the grub wagon,and reclined helpless under the conversational fire of Judson Odom, the campcook. Jud was a monologist by nature, whom Destiny, with customary blundering,had set in a profession wherein he was bereaved, for the greater portion of histime, of an audience.
Therefore, I was manna in the desert of Jud’s obmutescence.
Betimes I was stirred by invalid longings for something to eat that did notcome under the caption of “grub.” I had visions of the maternalpantry “deep as first love, and wild with all regret,” and then Iasked:
“Jud, can you make pancakes?”
Jud laid down his six-shooter, with which he was preparing to pound an antelopesteak, and stood over me in what I felt to be a menacing attitude. He furtherendorsed my impression that his pose was resentful by fixing upon me with hislight blue eyes a look of cold suspicion.
“Say, you,” he said, with candid, though not excessive, choler,“did you mean that straight, or was you trying to throw the gaff into me?Some of the boys been telling you about me and that pancake racket?”
“No, Jud,” I said, sincerely, “I meant it. It seems to meI’d swap my pony and saddle for a stack of buttered brown pancakes withsome first crop, open kettle, New Orleans sweetening. Was there a story aboutpancakes?”
Jud was mollified at once when he saw that I had not been dealing in allusions.He brought some mysterious bags and tin boxes from the grub wagon and set themin the shade of the hackberry where I lay reclined. I watched him as he beganto arrange them leisurely and untie their many strings.
“No, not a story,” said Jud, as he worked, “but just thelogical disclosures in the case of me and that pink-eyed snoozer from MiredMule Canada and Miss Willella Learight. I don’t mind telling you.
“I was punching then for old Bill Toomey, on the San Miguel. One day Igets all ensnared up in aspirations for to eat some canned grub thathasn’t ever mooed or baaed or grunted or been in peck measures. So, Igets on my bronc and pushes the wind for Uncle Emsley Telfair’s store atthe Pimienta Crossing on the Nueces.
“About three in the afternoon I throwed my bridle rein over a mesquitelimb and walked the last twenty yards into Uncle Emsley’s store. I got upon the counter and told Uncle Emsley that the signs pointed to the devastationof the fruit crop of the world. In a minute I had a bag of crackers and along-handled spoon, with an open can each of apricots and pineapples andcherries and greengages beside of me with Uncle Emsley busy chopping away withthe hatchet at the yellow clings. I was feeling like Adam before the applestampede, and was digging my spurs into the side of the counter and workingwith my twenty-four-inch spoon when I happened to look out of the window intothe yard of Uncle Emsley’s house, which was next to the store.
“There was a girl standing there—an imported girl with fixingson— philandering with a croquet maul and amusing herself by watching mystyle of encouraging the fruit canning industry.
“I slid off the counter and delivered up my shovel to Uncle Emsley.
“‘That’s my niece,’ says he; ‘Miss WillellaLearight, down from Palestine on a visit. Do you want that I should make youacquainted?’
“‘The Holy Land,’ I says to myself, my thoughts milling someas I tried to run ’em into the corral. ‘Why not? There was sureangels in Pales—Why, yes, Uncle Emsley,’ I says out loud,‘I’d be awful edified to meet Miss Learight.’
“So Uncle Emsley took me out in the yard and gave us each other’sentitlements.
“I never was shy about women. I never could understand why some men whocan break a mustang before breakfast and shave in the dark, get all left-handedand full of perspiration and excuses when they see a bold of calico drapedaround what belongs to it. Inside of eight minutes me and Miss Willella wasaggravating the croquet balls around as amiable as second cousins. She gave mea dig about the quantity of canned fruit I had eaten, and I got back at her,flat-footed, about how a certain lady named Eve started the fruit trouble inthe first free-grass pasture—‘Over in Palestine, wasn’tit?’ says I, as easy and pat as roping a one-year-old.
“That was how I acquired cordiality for the proximities of Miss WillellaLearight; and the disposition grew larger as time passed. She was stopping atPimienta Crossing for her health, which was very good, and for the climate,which was forty per cent. hotter than Palestine. I rode over to see her onceevery week for a while; and then I figured it out that if I doubled the numberof trips I would see her twice as often.
“One week I slipped in a third trip; and that’s where the pancakesand the pink-eyed snoozer busted into the game.
“That evening, while I set on the counter with a peach and two damsons inmy mouth, I asked Uncle Emsley how Miss Willella was.
“‘Why,’ says Uncle Emsley, ‘she’s gone ridingwith Jackson Bird, the sheep man from over at Mired Mule Canada.’
“I swallowed the peach seed and the two damson seeds. I guess somebodyheld the counter by the bridle while I got off; and then I walked out straightahead till I butted against the mesquite where my roan was tied.
“‘She’s gone riding,’ I whisper in my bronc’sear, ‘with Birdstone Jack, the hired mule from Sheep Man’s Canada.Did you get that, old Leather-and-Gallops?’
“That bronc of mine wept, in his way. He’d been raised a cow ponyand he didn’t care for snoozers.
“I went back and said to Uncle Emsley: ‘Did you say a sheepman?’
“‘I said a sheep man,’ says Uncle Emsley again. ‘Youmust have heard tell of Jackson Bird. He’s got eight sections of grazingand four thousand head of the finest Merinos south of the Arctic Circle.’
“I went out and sat on the ground in the shade of the store and leanedagainst a prickly pear. I sifted sand into my boots with unthinking hands whileI soliloquised a quantity about this bird with the Jackson plumage to his name.
“I never had believed in harming sheep men. I see one, one day, reading aLatin grammar on hossback, and I never touched him! They never irritated melike they do most cowmen. You wouldn’t go to work now, and impair anddisfigure snoozers, would you, that eat on tables and wear little shoes andspeak to you on subjects? I had always let ’em pass, just as you would ajack-rabbit; with a polite word and a guess about the weather, but no stoppingto swap canteens. I never thought it was worth while to be hostile with asnoozer. And because I’d been lenient, and let ’em live, here wasone going around riding with Miss Willella Learight!
“An hour by sun they come loping back, and stopped at UncleEmsley’s gate. The sheep person helped her off; and they stood throwingeach other sentences all sprightful and sagacious for a while. And then thisfeathered Jackson flies up in his saddle and raises his little stewpot of ahat, and trots off in the direction of his mutton ranch. By this time I hadturned the sand out of my boots and unpinned myself from the prickly pear; andby the time he gets half a mile out of Pimienta, I singlefoots up beside him onmy bronc.
“I said that snoozer was pink-eyed, but he wasn’t. His seeingarrangement was grey enough, but his eye-lashes was pink and his hair wassandy, and that gave you the idea. Sheep man?—he wasn’t more than alamb man, anyhow—a little thing with his neck involved in a yellow silkhandkerchief, and shoes tied up in bowknots.
“‘Afternoon!’ says I to him. ‘You now ride with aequestrian who is commonly called Dead-Moral-Certainty Judson, on account ofthe way I shoot. When I want a stranger to know me I always introduce myselfbefore the draw, for I never did like to shake hands with ghosts.’
“‘Ah,’ says he, just like that—‘Ah, I’mglad to know you, Mr. Judson. I’m Jackson Bird, from over at Mired MuleRanch.’
“Just then one of my eyes saw a roadrunner skipping down the hill with ayoung tarantula in his bill, and the other eye noticed a rabbit-hawk sitting ona dead limb in a water-elm. I popped over one after the other with myforty-five, just to show him. ‘Two out of three,’ says I.‘Birds just naturally seem to draw my fire wherever I go.’
“‘Nice shooting,’ says the sheep man, without a flutter.‘But don’t you sometimes ever miss the third shot? Elegant finerain that was last week for the young grass, Mr. Judson?’ says he.
“‘Willie,’ says I, riding over close to his palfrey,‘your infatuated parents may have denounced you by the name of Jackson,but you sure moulted into a twittering Willie—let us slough off this hereanalysis of rain and the elements, and get down to talk that is outside thevocabulary of parrots. That is a bad habit you have got of riding with youngladies over at Pimienta. I’ve known birds,’ says I, ‘to beserved on toast for less than that. Miss Willella,’ says I,‘don’t ever want any nest made out of sheep’s wool by atomtit of the Jacksonian branch of ornithology. Now, are you going to quit, ordo you wish for to gallop up against this Dead-Moral-Certainty attachment to myname, which is good for two hyphens and at least one set of funeralobsequies?’
“Jackson Bird flushed up some, and then he laughed.
“‘Why, Mr. Judson,’ says he, ‘you’ve got thewrong idea. I’ve called on Miss Learight a few times; but not for thepurpose you imagine. My object is purely a gastronomical one.’
“I reached for my gun.
“‘Any coyote,’ says I, ‘that would boast ofdishonourable—’
“‘Wait a minute,’ says this Bird, ‘till I explain. Whatwould I do with a wife? If you ever saw that ranch of mine! I do my own cookingand mending. Eating—that’s all the pleasure I get out of sheepraising. Mr. Judson, did you ever taste the pancakes that Miss Learightmakes?’
“‘Me? No,’ I told him. ‘I never was advised that shewas up to any culinary manoeuvres.’
“‘They’re golden sunshine,’ says he,‘honey-browned by the ambrosial fires of Epicurus. I’d give twoyears of my life to get the recipe for making them pancakes. That’s whatI went to see Miss Learight for,’ says Jackson Bird, ‘but Ihaven’t been able to get it from her. It’s an old recipethat’s been in the family for seventy-five years. They hand it down fromone generation to another, but they don’t give it away to outsiders. If Icould get that recipe, so I could make them pancakes for myself on my ranch,I’d be a happy man,’ says Bird.
“‘Are you sure,’ I says to him, ‘that it ain’tthe hand that mixes the pancakes that you’re after?’
“‘Sure,’ says Jackson. ‘Miss Learight is a mighty nicegirl, but I can assure you my intentions go no further than thegastro—’ but he seen my hand going down to my holster and hechanged his similitude—‘than the desire to procure a copy of thepancake recipe,’ he finishes.
“‘You ain’t such a bad little man,’ says I, trying tobe fair. ‘I was thinking some of making orphans of your sheep, butI’ll let you fly away this time. But you stick to pancakes,’ saysI, ‘as close as the middle one of a stack; and don’t go and mistakesentiments for syrup, or there’ll be singing at your ranch, and youwon’t hear it.’
“‘To convince you that I am sincere,’ says the sheep man,‘I’ll ask you to help me. Miss Learight and you being closerfriends, maybe she would do for you what she wouldn’t for me. If you willget me a copy of that pancake recipe, I give you my word that I’ll nevercall upon her again.’
“‘That’s fair,’ I says, and I shook hands with JacksonBird. ‘I’ll get it for you if I can, and glad to oblige.’ Andhe turned off down the big pear flat on the Piedra, in the direction of MiredMule; and I steered northwest for old Bill Toomey’s ranch.
“It was five days afterward when I got another chance to ride over toPimienta. Miss Willella and me passed a gratifying evening at UncleEmsley’s. She sang some, and exasperated the piano quite a lot withquotations from the operas. I gave imitations of a rattlesnake, and told herabout Snaky McFee’s new way of skinning cows, and described the trip Imade to Saint Louis once. We was getting along in one another’sestimations fine. Thinks I, if Jackson Bird can now be persuaded to migrate, Iwin. I recollect his promise about the pancake receipt, and I thinks I willpersuade it from Miss Willella and give it to him; and then if I catches Birdieoff of Mired Mule again, I’ll make him hop the twig.
“So, along about ten o’clock, I put on a wheedling smile and saysto Miss Willella: ‘Now, if there’s anything I do like better thanthe sight of a red steer on green grass it’s the taste of a nice hotpancake smothered in sugar-house molasses.’
“Miss Willella gives a little jump on the piano stool, and looked at mecurious.
“‘Yes,’ says she, ‘they’re real nice. What didyou say was the name of that street in Saint Louis, Mr. Odom, where you lostyour hat?’
“‘Pancake Avenue,’ says I, with a wink, to show her that Iwas on about the family receipt, and couldn’t be side-corralled off ofthe subject. ‘Come, now, Miss Willella,’ I says; ‘let’shear how you make ’em. Pancakes is just whirling in my head like wagonwheels. Start her off, now—pound of flour, eight dozen eggs, and so on.How does the catalogue of constituents run?’
“‘Excuse me for a moment, please,’ says Miss Willella, andshe gives me a quick kind of sideways look, and slides off the stool. Sheambled out into the other room, and directly Uncle Emsley comes in in his shirtsleeves, with a pitcher of water. He turns around to get a glass on the table,and I see a forty-five in his hip pocket. ‘Great post-holes!’thinks I, ‘but here’s a family thinks a heap of cooking receipts,protecting it with firearms. I’ve known outfits that wouldn’t dothat much by a family feud.’
“‘Drink this here down,’ says Uncle Emsley, handing me theglass of water. ‘You’ve rid too far to-day, Jud, and got yourselfover-excited. Try to think about something else now.’
“‘Do you know how to make them pancakes, Uncle Emsley?’ Iasked.
“‘Well, I’m not as apprised in the anatomy of them assome,’ says Uncle Emsley, ‘but I reckon you take a sifter ofplaster of Paris and a little dough and saleratus and corn meal, and mix’em with eggs and buttermilk as usual. Is old Bill going to ship beevesto Kansas City again this spring, Jud?’
“That was all the pancake specifications I could get that night. Ididn’t wonder that Jackson Bird found it uphill work. So I dropped thesubject and talked with Uncle Emsley for a while about hollow-horn andcyclones. And then Miss Willella came and said ‘Good-night,’ and Ihit the breeze for the ranch.
“About a week afterward I met Jackson Bird riding out of Pimienta as Irode in, and we stopped on the road for a few frivolous remarks.
“‘Got the bill of particulars for them flapjacks yet?’ Iasked him.
“‘Well, no,’ says Jackson. ‘I don’t seem to haveany success in getting hold of it. Did you try?’
“‘I did,’ says I, ‘and ’twas like trying to dig aprairie dog out of his hole with a peanut hull. That pancake receipt must be ajookalorum, the way they hold on to it.’
“‘I’m most ready to give it up,’ says Jackson, sodiscouraged in his pronunciations that I felt sorry for him; ‘but I didwant to know how to make them pancakes to eat on my lonely ranch,’ sayshe. ‘I lie awake at nights thinking how good they are.’
“‘You keep on trying for it,’ I tells him, ‘andI’ll do the same. One of us is bound to get a rope over its horns beforelong. Well, so-long, Jacksy.’
“You see, by this time we were on the peacefullest of terms. When I sawthat he wasn’t after Miss Willella, I had more endurable contemplationsof that sandy-haired snoozer. In order to help out the ambitions of hisappetite I kept on trying to get that receipt from Miss Willella. But everytime I would say ‘pancakes’ she would get sort of remote andfidgety about the eye, and try to change the subject. If I held her to it shewould slide out and round up Uncle Emsley with his pitcher of water andhip-pocket howitzer.
“One day I galloped over to the store with a fine bunch of blue verbenasthat I cut out of a herd of wild flowers over on Poisoned Dog Prairie. UncleEmsley looked at ’em with one eye shut and says:
“‘Haven’t ye heard the news?’
“‘Cattle up?’ I asks.
“‘Willella and Jackson Bird was married in Palestineyesterday,’ says he. ‘Just got a letter this morning.’
“I dropped them flowers in a cracker-barrel, and let the news trickle inmy ears and down toward my upper left-hand shirt pocket until it got to myfeet.
“‘Would you mind saying that over again once more, UncleEmsley?’ says I. ‘Maybe my hearing has got wrong, and you only saidthat prime heifers was 4.80 on the hoof, or something like that.’
“‘Married yesterday,’ says Uncle Emsley, ‘and gone toWaco and Niagara Falls on a wedding tour. Why, didn’t you see none of thesigns all along? Jackson Bird has been courting Willella ever since that day hetook her out riding.’
“‘Then,’ says I, in a kind of yell, ‘what was all thiszizzaparoola he gives me about pancakes? Tell me that.’
“When I said ‘pancakes’ Uncle Emsley sort of dodged andstepped back.
“‘Somebody’s been dealing me pancakes from the bottom of thedeck,’ I says, ‘and I’ll find out. I believe you know. Talkup,’ says I, ‘or we’ll mix a panful of batter righthere.’
“I slid over the counter after Uncle Emsley. He grabbed at his gun, butit was in a drawer, and he missed it two inches. I got him by the front of hisshirt and shoved him in a corner.
“‘Talk pancakes,’ says I, ‘or be made into one. DoesMiss Willella make ’em?’
“‘She never made one in her life and I never saw one,’ saysUncle Emsley, soothing. ‘Calm down now, Jud—calm down. You’vegot excited, and that wound in your head is contaminating your sense ofintelligence. Try not to think about pancakes.’
“‘Uncle Emsley,’ says I, ‘I’m not wounded in thehead except so far as my natural cognitive instincts run to runts. Jackson Birdtold me he was calling on Miss Willella for the purpose of finding out hersystem of producing pancakes, and he asked me to help him get the bill oflading of the ingredients. I done so, with the results as you see. Have I beensodded down with Johnson grass by a pink-eyed snoozer, or what?’
“‘Slack up your grip in my dress shirt,’ says Uncle Emsley,‘and I’ll tell you. Yes, it looks like Jackson Bird has gone andhumbugged you some. The day after he went riding with Willella he came back andtold me and her to watch out for you whenever you got to talking aboutpancakes. He said you was in camp once where they was cooking flapjacks, andone of the fellows cut you over the head with a frying pan. Jackson said thatwhenever you got overhot or excited that wound hurt you and made you kind ofcrazy, and you went raving about pancakes. He told us to just get you workedoff of the subject and soothed down, and you wouldn’t be dangerous. So,me and Willella done the best by you we knew how. Well, well,’ says UncleEmsley, ‘that Jackson Bird is sure a seldom kind of asnoozer.’”
During the progress of Jud’s story he had been slowly but deftlycombining certain portions of the contents of his sacks and cans. Toward theclose of it he set before me the finished product—a pair of red-hot,rich-hued pancakes on a tin plate. From some secret hoarding he also brought alump of excellent butter and a bottle of golden syrup.
“How long ago did these things happen?” I asked him.
“Three years,” said Jud. “They’re living on the MiredMule Ranch now. But I haven’t seen either of ’em since. They sayJackson Bird was fixing his ranch up fine with rocking chairs and windowcurtains all the time he was putting me up the pancake tree. Oh, I got over itafter a while. But the boys kept the racket up.”
“Did you make these cakes by the famous recipe?” I asked.
“Didn’t I tell you there wasn’t no receipt?” said Jud.“The boys hollered pancakes till they got pancake hungry, and I cut thisrecipe out of a newspaper. How does the truck taste?”
“They’re delicious,” I answered. “Why don’t youhave some, too, Jud?”
I was sure I heard a sigh.
“Me?” said Jud. “I don’t ever eat ’em.”
VI
SEATS OF THE HAUGHTY
Golden by day and silver by night, a new trail now leads to us across theIndian Ocean. Dusky kings and princes have found our Bombay of the West; andfew be their trails that do not lead down to Broadway on their journey for toadmire and for to see.
If chance should ever lead you near a hotel that transiently shelters some oneof these splendid touring grandees, I counsel you to seek Lucullus Polk amongthe republican tuft-hunters that besiege its entrances. He will be there. Youwill know him by his red, alert, Wellington-nosed face, by his manner ofnervous caution mingled with determination, by his assumed promoter’s orbroker’s air of busy impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, gallantlyredressing the wrongs of his maltreated blue serge suit, like a battle standardstill waving above a lost cause. I found him profitable; and so may you. Whenyou do look for him, look among the light-horse troop of Bedouins that besiegethe picket-line of the travelling potentate’s guards andsecretaries—among the wild-eyed genii of Arabian Afternoons that gatherto make astounding and egregrious demands upon the prince’s coffers.
I first saw Mr. Polk coming down the steps of the hotel at which sojourned HisHighness the Gaekwar of Baroda, most enlightened of the Mahratta princes, who,of late, ate bread and salt in our Metropolis of the Occident.
Lucullus moved rapidly, as though propelled by some potent moral force thatimminently threatened to become physical. Behind him closely followed theimpetus—a hotel detective, if ever white Alpine hat, hawk’s nose,implacable watch chain, and loud refinement of manner spoke the truth. A braceof uniformed porters at his heels preserved the smooth decorum of the hotel,repudiating by their air of disengagement any suspicion that they formed areserve squad of ejectment.
Safe on the sidewalk, Lucullus Polk turned and shook a freckled fist at thecaravansary. And, to my joy, he began to breathe deep invective in strangewords:
“Rides in howdays, does he?” he cried loudly and sneeringly.“Rides on elephants in howdahs and calls himself a prince!Kings—yah! Comes over here and talks horse till you would think he was apresident; and then goes home and rides in a private dining-room strapped ontoan elephant. Well, well, well!”
The ejecting committee quietly retired. The scorner of princes turned to me andsnapped his fingers.
“What do you think of that?” he shouted derisively. “TheGaekwar of Baroda rides in an elephant in a howdah! And there’s oldBikram Shamsher Jang scorching up and down the pig-paths of Khatmandu on amotor-cycle. Wouldn’t that maharajah you? And the Shah of Persia, thatought to have been Muley-on-the-spot for at least three, he’s got thepalanquin habit. And that funny-hat prince from Korea—wouldn’t youthink he could afford to amble around on a milk-white palfrey once in a dynastyor two? Nothing doing! His idea of a Balaklava charge is to tuck his skirtsunder him and do his mile in six days over the hog-wallows of Seoul in abull-cart. That’s the kind of visiting potentates that come to thiscountry now. It’s a hard deal, friend.”
I murmured a few words of sympathy. But it was uncomprehending, for I did notknow his grievance against the rulers who flash, meteor-like, now and then uponour shores.
“The last one I sold,” continued the displeased one, “was tothat three-horse-tailed Turkish pasha that came over a year ago. Five hundreddollars he paid for it, easy. I says to his executioner or secretary—hewas a kind of a Jew or a Chinaman—‘His Turkey Gibbets is fond ofhorses, then?’
“‘Him?’ says the secretary. ‘Well, no. He’s got abig, fat wife in the harem named Bad Dora that he don’t like. I believehe intends to saddle her up and ride her up and down the board-walk in theBulbul Gardens a few times every day. You haven’t got a pair ofextra-long spurs you could throw in on the deal, have you?’ Yes, sir;there’s mighty few real rough-riders among the royal sports thesedays.”
As soon as Lucullus Polk got cool enough I picked him up, and with no greatereffort than you would employ in persuading a drowning man to clutch a straw, Iinveigled him into accompanying me to a cool corner in a dim café.
And it came to pass that man-servants set before us brewage; and Lucullus Polkspake unto me, relating the wherefores of his beleaguering the antechambers ofthe princes of the earth.
“Did you ever hear of the S.A. & A.P. Railroad in Texas? Well, thatdon’t stand for Samaritan Actor’s Aid Philanthropy. I was down thatway managing a summer bunch of the gum and syntax-chewers that play theIdlewild Parks in the Western hamlets. Of course, we went to pieces when thesoubrette ran away with a prominent barber of Beeville. I don’t know whatbecame of the rest of the company. I believe there were some salaries due; andthe last I saw of the troupe was when I told them that forty-three cents wasall the treasury contained. I say I never saw any of them after that; but Iheard them for about twenty minutes. I didn’t have time to look back. Butafter dark I came out of the woods and struck the S.A. & A.P. agent formeans of transportation. He at once extended to me the courtesies of the entirerailroad, kindly warning me, however, not to get aboard any of the rollingstock.
“About ten the next morning I steps off the ties into a village thatcalls itself Atascosa City. I bought a thirty-cent breakfast and a ten-centcigar, and stood on the Main Street jingling the three pennies in mypocket—dead broke. A man in Texas with only three cents in his pocket isno better off than a man that has no money and owes two cents.
“One of luck’s favourite tricks is to soak a man for his lastdollar so quick that he don’t have time to look it. There I was in aswell St. Louis tailor-made, blue-and-green plaid suit, and an eighteen-caratsulphate-of-copper scarf-pin, with no hope in sight except the two great Texasindustries, the cotton fields and grading new railroads. I never picked cotton,and I never cottoned to a pick, so the outlook had ultramarine edges.
“All of a sudden, while I was standing on the edge of the woodensidewalk, down out of the sky falls two fine gold watches in the middle of thestreet. One hits a chunk of mud and sticks. The other falls hard and fliesopen, making a fine drizzle of little springs and screws and wheels. I looks upfor a balloon or an airship; but not seeing any, I steps off the sidewalk toinvestigate.
“But I hear a couple of yells and see two men running up the street inleather overalls and high-heeled boots and cartwheel hats. One man is six oreight feet high, with open-plumbed joints and a heartbroken cast ofcountenance. He picks up the watch that has stuck in the mud. The other man,who is little, with pink hair and white eyes, goes for the empty case, andsays, ‘I win.’ Then the elevated pessimist goes down under hisleather leg-holsters and hands a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces to hisalbino friend. I don’t know how much money it was; it looked as big as anearthquake-relief fund to me.
“‘I’ll have this here case filled up with works,’ saysShorty, ‘and throw you again for five hundred.’
“‘I’m your company,’ says the high man.‘I’ll meet you at the Smoked Dog Saloon an hour from now.’
“The little man hustles away with a kind of Swiss movement toward ajewelry store. The heartbroken person stoops over and takes a telescopic viewof my haberdashery.
“‘Them’s a mighty slick outfit of habiliments you have goton, Mr. Man,’ says he. ‘I’ll bet a hoss you never acquiredthe right, title, and interest in and to them clothes in Atascosa City.’
“‘Why, no,’ says I, being ready enough to exchangepersonalities with this moneyed monument of melancholy. ‘I had this suittailored from a special line of coatericks, vestures, and pantings in St.Louis. Would you mind putting me sane,’ says I, ‘on thiswatch-throwing contest? I’ve been used to seeing time-pieces treated withmore politeness and esteem—except women’s watches, of course, whichby nature they abuse by cracking walnuts with ’em and having ’emtaken showing in tintype pictures.’
“‘Me and George,’ he explains, ‘are up from the ranch,having a spell of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of wateredgrazing down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectorsand begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand—or maybe it was twenty million—barrels of oil a day. And me andGeorge gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars—seventy-five thousanddollars apiece—for the land. So now and then we saddles up and hits thebreeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and damage. Here’sa little bunch of the dinerothat I drawed out of the bank thismorning,’ says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties as big aroundas a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a sunset on the gable endof John D.’s barn. My knees got weak, and I sat down on the edge of theboard sidewalk.
“‘You must have knocked around a right smart,’ goes on thisoil Grease-us. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if you have saw towns morelivelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that there oughtto be some more ways of having a good time than there is here, ’speciallywhen you’ve got plenty of money and don’t mind spending it.’
“Then this Mother Cary’s chick of the desert sits down by me and wehold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. He’d lived inranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme idea ofluxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a round-up, eat a peck of Mexicanbeans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, and go to sleep with hisboots for a pillow. When this barge-load of unexpected money came to him andhis pink but perky partner, George, and they hied themselves to this clump ofouthouses called Atascosa City, you know what happened to them. They had moneyto buy anything they wanted; but they didn’t know what to want. Theirideas of spendthriftiness were limited to three—whisky, saddles, and goldwatches. If there was anything else in the world to throw away fortunes on,they had never heard about it. So, when they wanted to have a hot time,they’d ride into town and get a city directory and stand in front of theprincipal saloon and call up the population alphabetically for free drinks.Then they would order three or four new California saddles from thestorekeeper, and play crack-loo on the sidewalk with twenty-dollar gold pieces.Betting who could throw his gold watch the farthest was an inspiration ofGeorge’s; but even that was getting to be monotonous.
“Was I on to the opportunity? Listen.
“In thirty minutes I had dashed off a word picture of metropolitan joysthat made life in Atascosa City look as dull as a trip to Coney Island withyour own wife. In ten minutes more we shook hands on an agreement that I was toact as his guide, interpreter and friend in and to the aforesaid wassail andamenity. And Solomon Mills, which was his name, was to pay all expenses for amonth. At the end of that time, if I had made good as director-general of therowdy life, he was to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch thebargain, we called the roll of Atascosa City and put all of its citizens exceptthe ladies and minors under the table, except one man named Horace WesterveltSt. Clair. Just for that we bought a couple of hatfuls of cheap silver watchesand egged him out of town with ’em. We wound up by dragging theharness-maker out of bed and setting him to work on three new saddles; and thenwe went to sleep across the railroad track at the depot, just to annoy the S.A.& A.P. Think of having seventy-five thousand dollars and trying to avoidthe disgrace of dying rich in a town like that!
“The next day George, who was married or something, started back to theranch. Me and Solly, as I now called him, prepared to shake off our moth ballsand wing our way against the arc-lights of the joyous and tuneful East.
“‘No way-stops,’ says I to Solly, ‘except long enoughto get you barbered and haberdashed. This is no Texas feet shampetter,’says I, ‘where you eat chili-concarne-con-huevos and then holler“Whoopee!” across the plaza. We’re now going against the realhigh life. We’re going to mingle with the set that carries a Spitz, wearsspats, and hits the ground in high spots.’
“Solly puts six thousand dollars in century bills in one pocket of hisbrown ducks, and bills of lading for ten thousand dollars on Eastern banks inanother. Then I resume diplomatic relations with the S.A. & A.P., and wehike in a northwesterly direction on our circuitous route to the spice gardensof the Yankee Orient.
“We stopped in San Antonio long enough for Solly to buy some clothes, andeight rounds of drinks for the guests and employees of the Menger Hotel, andorder four Mexican saddles with silver trimmings and white Angorasuaderosto be shipped down to the ranch. From there we made a big jumpto St. Louis. We got there in time for dinner; and I put our thumb-prints onthe register of the most expensive hotel in the city.
“‘Now,’ says I to Solly, with a wink at myself,‘here’s the first dinner-station we’ve struck where we canget a real good plate of beans.’ And while he was up in his room tryingto draw water out of the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of thehead waiter’s Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, andclosed him up again.
“‘Frankoyse,’ says I, ‘I have a pal here for dinnerthat’s been subsisting for years on cereals and short stogies. You seethe chef and order a dinner for us such as you serve to Dave Francis and thegeneral passenger agent of the Iron Mountain when they eat here. We’vegot more than Bernhardt’s tent full of money; and we want the nose-bagscrammed with all the Chief Deveries de cuisine. Object is no expense.Now, show us.’
“At six o’clock me and Solly sat down to dinner. Spread!There’s nothing been seen like it since the Cambon snack. It was allserved at once. The chef called it dinnay à la poker. It’s afamous thing among the gormands of the West. The dinner comes in threes of akind. There was guinea-fowls, guinea-pigs, and Guinness’s stout; roastveal, mock turtle soup, and chicken pâté; shad-roe, caviar, and tapioca;canvas-back duck, canvas-back ham, and cotton-tail rabbit; Philadelphia capon,fried snails, and sloe-gin—and so on, in threes. The idea was that youeat nearly all you can of them, and then the waiter takes away the discard andgives you pears to fill on.
“I was sure Solly would be tickled to death with these hands, after thebobtail flushes he’d been eating on the ranch; and I was a little anxiousthat he should, for I didn’t remember his having honoured my efforts witha smile since we left Atascosa City.
“We were in the main dining-room, and there was a fine-dressed crowdthere, all talking loud and enjoyable about the two St. Louis topics, the watersupply and the colour line. They mix the two subjects so fast that strangersoften think they are discussing water-colours; and that has given the old townsomething of a rep as an art centre. And over in the corner was a fine brassband playing; and now, thinks I, Solly will become conscious of the spiritualoats of life nourishing and exhilarating his system. But nong, mongfrang.
“He gazed across the table at me. There was four square yards of it,looking like the path of a cyclone that has wandered through a stock-yard, apoultry-farm, a vegetable-garden, and an Irish linen mill. Solly gets up andcomes around to me.
“‘Luke,’ says he, ‘I’m pretty hungry after ourride. I thought you said they had some beans here. I’m going out and getsomething I can eat. You can stay and monkey with this artificial layout ofgrub if you want to.’
“‘Wait a minute,’ says I.
“I called the waiter, and slapped ‘S. Mills’ on the back ofthe check for thirteen dollars and fifty cents.
“‘What do you mean,’ says I, ‘by serving gentlemen witha lot of truck only suitable for deck-hands on a Mississippi steamboat?We’re going out to get something decent to eat.’
“I walked up the street with the unhappy plainsman. He saw a saddle-shopopen, and some of the sadness faded from his eyes. We went in, and he orderedand paid for two more saddles—one with a solid silver horn and nails andornaments and a six-inch border of rhinestones and imitation rubies around theflaps. The other one had to have a gold-mounted horn, quadruple-platedstirrups, and the leather inlaid with silver beadwork wherever it would standit. Eleven hundred dollars the two cost him.
“Then he goes out and heads toward the river, following his nose. In alittle side street, where there was no street and no sidewalks and no houses,he finds what he is looking for. We go into a shanty and sit on high stoolsamong stevedores and boatmen, and eat beans with tin spoons. Yes, sir,beans—beans boiled with salt pork.
“‘I kind of thought we’d strike some over this way,’says Solly.
“‘Delightful,’ says I, ‘That stylish hotel grub mayappeal to some; but for me, give me the husky table d’goat.’
“When we had succumbed to the beans I leads him out of thetarpaulin-steam under a lamp post and pulls out a daily paper with theamusement column folded out.
“‘But now, what ho for a merry round of pleasure,’ says I.‘Here’s one of Hall Caine’s shows, and a stock-yard companyin “Hamlet,” and skating at the Hollowhorn Rink, and SarahBernhardt, and the Shapely Syrens Burlesque Company. I should think, now, thatthe Shapely—’
“But what does this healthy, wealthy, and wise man do but reach his armsup to the second-story windows and gape noisily.
“‘Reckon I’ll be going to bed,’ says he;‘it’s about my time. St. Louis is a kind of quiet place,ain’t it?’
“‘Oh, yes,’ says I; ‘ever since the railroads ran inhere the town’s been practically ruined. And the building-and-loanassociations and the fair have about killed it. Guess we might as well go tobed. Wait till you see Chicago, though. Shall we get tickets for the Big Breezeto-morrow?’
“‘Mought as well,’ says Solly. ‘I reckon all thesetowns are about alike.’
“Well, maybe the wise cicerone and personal conductor didn’t fallhard in Chicago! Loolooville-on-the-Lake is supposed to have one or two thingsin it calculated to keep the rural visitor awake after the curfew rings. Butnot for the grass-fed man of the pampas! I tried him with theatres, rides inautomobiles, sails on the lake, champagne suppers, and all those littleinventions that hold the simple life in check; but in vain. Solly grew sadderday by day. And I got fearful about my salary, and knew I must play my trumpcard. So I mentioned New York to him, and informed him that these Western townswere no more than gateways to the great walled city of the whirling dervishes.
“After I bought the tickets I missed Solly. I knew his habits by then; soin a couple of hours I found him in a saddle-shop. They had some new ideasthere in the way of trees and girths that had strayed down from the Canadianmounted police; and Solly was so interested that he almost looked reconciled tolive. He invested about nine hundred dollars in there.
“At the depot I telegraphed a cigar-store man I knew in New York to meetme at the Twenty-third Street ferry with a list of all the saddle-stores in thecity. I wanted to know where to look for Solly when he got lost.
“Now I’ll tell you what happened in New York. I says to myself:‘Friend Heherezade, you want to get busy and make Bagdad look pretty tothe sad sultan of the sour countenance, or it’ll be the bowstring foryours.’ But I never had any doubt I could do it.
“I began with him like you’d feed a starving man. I showed him thehorse-cars on Broadway and the Staten Island ferry-boats. And then I piled upthe sensations on him, but always keeping a lot of warmer ones up my sleeve.
“At the end of the third day he looked like a composite picture of fivethousand orphans too late to catch a picnic steamboat, and I was wilting down acollar every two hours wondering how I could please him and whether I was goingto get my thou. He went to sleep looking at the Brooklyn Bridge; he disregardedthe sky-scrapers above the third story; it took three ushers to wake him up atthe liveliest vaudeville in town.
“Once I thought I had him. I nailed a pair of cuffs on him one morningbefore he was awake; and I dragged him that evening to the palm-cage of one ofthe biggest hotels in the city—to see the Johnnies and theAlice-sit-by-the-hours. They were out in numerous quantities, with the fat ofthe land showing in their clothes. While we were looking them over, Sollydivested himself of a fearful, rusty kind of laugh—like moving a foldingbed with one roller broken. It was his first in two weeks, and it gave me hope.
“‘Right you are,’ says I. ‘They’re a funny lot ofpost-cards, aren’t they?’
“‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking of them dudes and culls on thehoof,’ says he. ‘I was thinking of the time me and George putsheep-dip in Horsehead Johnson’s whisky. I wish I was back in AtascosaCity,’ says he.
“I felt a cold chill run down my back. ‘Me to play and mate in onemove,’ says I to myself.
“I made Solly promise to stay in the café for half an hour and I hikedout in a cab to Lolabelle Delatour’s flat on Forty-third Street. I knewher well. She was a chorus-girl in a Broadway musical comedy.
“‘Jane,’ says I when I found her, ‘I’ve got afriend from Texas here. He’s all right, but—well, he carriesweight. I’d like to give him a little whirl after the show thisevening—bubbles, you know, and a buzz out to a casino for the whitebaitand pickled walnuts. Is it a go?’
“‘Can he sing?’ asks Lolabelle.
“‘You know,’ says I, ‘that I wouldn’t take himaway from home unless his notes were good. He’s got pots ofmoney—bean-pots full of it.’
“‘Bring him around after the second act,’ says Lolabelle,‘and I’ll examine his credentials and securities.’
“So about ten o’clock that evening I led Solly to MissDelatour’s dressing-room, and her maid let us in. In ten minutes in comesLolabelle, fresh from the stage, looking stunning in the costume she wears whenshe steps from the ranks of the lady grenadiers and says to the king,‘Welcome to our May-day revels.’ And you can bet it wasn’tthe way she spoke the lines that got her the part.
“As soon as Solly saw her he got up and walked straight out through thestage entrance into the street. I followed him. Lolabelle wasn’t payingmy salary. I wondered whether anybody was.
“‘Luke,’ says Solly, outside, ‘that was an awfulmistake. We must have got into the lady’s private room. I hope I’mgentleman enough to do anything possible in the way of apologies. Do you reckonshe’d ever forgive us?’
“‘She may forget it,’ says I. ‘Of course it was amistake. Let’s go find some beans.’
“That’s the way it went. But pretty soon afterward Solly failed toshow up at dinner-time for several days. I cornered him. He confessed that hehad found a restaurant on Third Avenue where they cooked beans in Texas style.I made him take me there. The minute I set foot inside the door I threw up myhands.
“There was a young woman at the desk, and Solly introduced me to her. Andthen we sat down and had beans.
“Yes, sir, sitting at the desk was the kind of a young woman that cancatch any man in the world as easy as lifting a finger. There’s a way ofdoing it. She knew. I saw her working it. She was healthy-looking and plaindressed. She had her hair drawn back from her forehead and face—no curlsor frizzes; that’s the way she looked. Now I’ll tell you the waythey work the game; it’s simple. When she wants a man, she manages it sothat every time he looks at her he finds her looking at him. That’s all.
“The next evening Solly was to go to Coney Island with me at seven. Ateight o’clock he hadn’t showed up. I went out and found a cab. Ifelt sure there was something wrong.
“‘Drive to the Back Home Restaurant on Third Avenue,’ says I.‘And if I don’t find what I want there, take in thesesaddle-shops.’ I handed him the list.
“‘Boss,’ says the cabby, ‘I et a steak in thatrestaurant once. If you’re real hungry, I advise you to try thesaddle-shops first.’
“‘I’m a detective,’ says I, ‘and I don’teat. Hurry up!’
“As soon as I got to the restaurant I felt in the lines of my palms thatI should beware of a tall, red, damfool man, and I was going to lose a sum ofmoney.
“Solly wasn’t there. Neither was the smooth-haired lady.
“I waited; and in an hour they came in a cab and got out, hand in hand. Iasked Solly to step around the corner for a few words. He was grinning clearacross his face; but I had not administered the grin.
“‘She’s the greatest that ever sniffed the breeze,’says he.
“‘Congrats,’ says I. ‘I’d like to have mythousand now, if you please.’
“‘Well, Luke,’ says he, ‘I don’t know thatI’ve had such a skyhoodlin’ fine time under your tutelage anddispensation. But I’ll do the best I can for you—I’ll do thebest I can,’ he repeats. ‘Me and Miss Skinner was married an hourago. We’re leaving for Texas in the morning.’
“‘Great!’ says I. ‘Consider yourself covered with riceand Congress gaiters. But don’t let’s tie so many satin bows on ourbusiness relations that we lose sight of ’em. How about myhonorarium?’
“‘Missis Mills,’ says he, ‘has taken possession of mymoney and papers except six bits. I told her what I’d agreed to give you;but she says it’s an irreligious and illegal contract, and shewon’t pay a cent of it. But I ain’t going to see you treatedunfair,’ says he. ‘I’ve got eighty-seven saddles on the ranchwhat I’ve bought on this trip; and when I get back I’m going topick out the best six in the lot and send ’em to you.’”
“And did he?” I asked, when Lucullus ceased talking.
“He did. And they are fit for kings to ride on. The six he sent me musthave cost him three thousand dollars. But where is the market for ’em?Who would buy one except one of these rajahs and princes of Asia and Africa?I’ve got ’em all on the list. I know every tan royal dub and smokedprincerino from Mindanao to the Caspian Sea.”
“It’s a long time between customers,” I ventured.
“They’re coming faster,” said Polk. “Nowadays, when oneof the murdering mutts gets civilised enough to abolish suttee and quit usinghis whiskers for a napkin, he calls himself the Roosevelt of the East, andcomes over to investigate our Chautauquas and cocktails. I’ll place’em all yet. Now look here.”
From an inside pocket he drew a tightly folded newspaper with much-worn edges,and indicated a paragraph.
“Read that,” said the saddler to royalty. The paragraph ran thus:
His Highness Seyyid Feysal bin Turkee, Imam of Muskat, is one of the mostprogressive and enlightened rulers of the Old World. His stables contain morethan a thousand horses of the purest Persian breeds. It is said that thispowerful prince contemplates a visit to the United States at an early date.
“There!” said Mr. Polk triumphantly. “My best saddle is asgood as sold—the one with turquoises set in the rim of the cantle. Haveyou three dollars that you could loan me for a short time?”
It happened that I had; and I did.
If this should meet the eye of the Imam of Muskat, may it quicken his whim tovisit the land of the free! Otherwise I fear that I shall be longer than ashort time separated from my dollars three.
VII
HYGEIA AT THE SOLITO
If you are knowing in the chronicles of the ring you will recall to mind anevent in the early ’nineties when, for a minute and sundry odd seconds, achampion and a “would-be” faced each other on the alien side of aninternational river. So brief a conflict had rarely imposed upon the fairpromise of true sport. The reporters made what they could of it, but, divestedof padding, the action was sadly fugacious. The champion merely smote hisvictim, turned his back upon him, remarking, “I know what I done to datstiff,” and extended an arm like a ship’s mast for his glove to beremoved.
Which accounts for a trainload of extremely disgusted gentlemen in an uproar offancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans in San Antonio inthe early morning following the fight. Which also partly accounts for theunhappy predicament in which “Cricket” McGuire found himself as hetumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of thathollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in theuncertain light of dawn, that way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces Countycattleman—may his shadow never measure under six foot two.
The cattleman, out this early to catch the south-bound for his ranch station,stopped at the side of the distressed patron of sport, and spoke in the kindlydrawl of his ilk and region, “Got it pretty bad, bud?”
“Cricket” McGuire, ex-feather-weight prizefighter, tout, jockey,follower of the “ponies,” all-round sport, and manipulator of thegum balls and walnut shells, looked up pugnaciously at the imputation cast by“bud.”
“G’wan,” he rasped, “telegraph pole. I didn’tring for yer.”
Another paroxysm wrung him, and he leaned limply against a convenient baggagetruck. Raidler waited patiently, glancing around at the white hats, shortovercoats, and big cigars thronging the platform. “You’re from theNo’th, ain’t you, bud?” he asked when the other was partiallyrecovered. “Come down to see the fight?”
“Fight!” snapped McGuire. “Puss-in-the-corner! ’Twas ahypodermic injection. Handed him just one like a squirt of dope, and he’sasleep, and no tanbark needed in front of his residence. Fight!” Herattled a bit, coughed, and went on, hardly addressing the cattleman, butrather for the relief of voicing his troubles. “No more dead suret’ings for me. But Rus Sage himself would have snatched at it. Five toone dat de boy from Cork wouldn’t stay t’ree rounds is what Iinvested in. Put my last cent on, and could already smell the sawdust in datall-night joint of Jimmy Delaney’s on T’irty-seventh Street I wasgoin’ to buy. And den—say, telegraph pole, what a gazaboo a guy isto put his whole roll on one turn of the gaboozlum!”
“You’re plenty right,” said the big cattleman; “more’specially when you lose. Son, you get up and light out for a hotel. Yougot a mighty bad cough. Had it long?”
“Lungs,” said McGuire comprehensively. “I got it. The croakersays I’ll come to time for six months longer—maybe a year if I holdmy gait. I wanted to settle down and take care of myself. Dat’s why Ispeculated on dat five to one perhaps. I had a t’ousand iron dollarssaved up. If I winned I was goin’ to buy Delaney’s café.Who’d a t’ought dat stiff would take a nap in de foistround—say?”
“It’s a hard deal,” commented Raidler, looking down at thediminutive form of McGuire crumpled against the truck. “But you go to ahotel and rest. There’s the Menger and the Maverick, and—”
“And the Fi’th Av’noo, and the Waldorf-Astoria,”mimicked McGuire. “Told you I went broke. I’m on de bum proper.I’ve got one dime left. Maybe a trip to Europe or a sail in me privateyacht would fix me up— pa-per!”
He flung his dime at a newsboy, got his Express, propped his backagainst the truck, and was at once rapt in the account of his Waterloo, asexpanded by the ingenious press.
Curtis Raidler interrogated an enormous gold watch, and laid his hand onMcGuire’s shoulder.
“Come on, bud,” he said. “We got three minutes to catch thetrain.”
Sarcasm seemed to be McGuire’s vein.
“You ain’t seen me cash in any chips or call a turn since I toldyou I was broke, a minute ago, have you? Friend, chase yourself away.”
“You’re going down to my ranch,” said the cattleman,“and stay till you get well. Six months’ll fix you good asnew.” He lifted McGuire with one hand, and half-dragged him in thedirection of the train.
“What about the money?” said McGuire, struggling weakly to escape.
“Money for what?” asked Raidler, puzzled. They eyed each other, notunderstanding, for they touched only as at the gear of bevelledcog-wheels—at right angles, and moving upon different axes.
Passengers on the south-bound saw them seated together, and wondered at theconflux of two such antipodes. McGuire was five feet one, with a countenancebelonging to either Yokohama or Dublin. Bright-beady of eye, bony of cheek andjaw, scarred, toughened, broken and reknit, indestructible, grisly,gladiatorial as a hornet, he was a type neither new nor unfamiliar. Raidler wasthe product of a different soil. Six feet two in height, miles broad, and nodeeper than a crystal brook, he represented the union of the West and South.Few accurate pictures of his kind have been made, for art galleries are sosmall and the mutoscope is as yet unknown in Texas. After all, the onlypossible medium of portrayal of Raidler’s kind would be thefresco—something high and simple and cool and unframed.
They were rolling southward on the International. The timber was huddling intolittle, dense green motts at rare distances before the inundation of thedownright, vert prairies. This was the land of the ranches; the domain of thekings of the kine.
McGuire sat, collapsed into his corner of the seat, receiving with acidsuspicion the conversation of the cattleman. What was the “game” ofthis big “geezer” who was carrying him off? Altruism would havebeen McGuire’s last guess. “He ain’t no farmer,”thought the captive, “and he ain’t no con man, for sure.W’at’s his lay? You trail in, Cricket, and see how many cards hedraws. You’re up against it, anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin’consumption, and you better lay low. Lay low and see w’at’s hisgame.”
At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for abuckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled thethirty miles between the station and their destination. If anything could, thisdrive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire to a sense of his ransom.They sped upon velvety wheels across an exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanishponies struck a nimble, tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved bya wild, untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as theyabsorbed it, with the delicate redolence of prairie flowers. The road perished,and the buckboard swam the uncharted billows of the grass itself, steered bythe practised hand of Raidler, to whom each tiny distant mott of trees was asignboard, each convolution of the low hills a voucher of course and distance.But McGuire reclined upon his spine, seeing nothing but a desert, and receivingthe cattleman’s advances with sullen distrust. “W’at’she up to?” was the burden of his thoughts; “w’at kind of agold brick has the big guy got to sell?” McGuire was only applying themeasure of the streets he had walked to a range bounded by the horizon and thefourth dimension.
A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick andweakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had reached andslung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped it at the ranch forthe boys to attend to. It was impossible for McGuire to know or comprehendthat, in the eyes of the cattleman, his case and that of the calf wereidentical in interest and demand upon his assistance. A creature was ill andhelpless; he had the power to render aid—these were the only postulatesrequired for the cattleman to act. They formed his system of logic and the mostof his creed. McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thuscasually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that is saidto linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been guests of SolitoRanch until they had been able to leave, cured or better, and exhausting thevocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came too late, but rested verycomfortably, at last, under a ratama tree in the garden.
So, then, it was no surprise to the ranchhold when the buckboard spun to thedoor, and Raidler took up his debile protégélike a handful of rags andset him down upon the gallery.
McGuire looked upon things strange to him. The ranch-house was the best in thecountry. It was built of brick hauled one hundred miles by wagon, but it was ofbut one story, and its four rooms were completely encircled by a mud floor“gallery.” The miscellaneous setting of horses, dogs, saddles,wagons, guns, and cow-punchers’ paraphernalia oppressed the metropolitaneyes of the wrecked sportsman.
“Well, here we are at home,” said Raidler, cheeringly.
“It’s a h—l of a looking place,” said McGuire promptly,as he rolled upon the gallery floor in a fit of coughing.
“We’ll try to make it comfortable for you, buddy,” said thecattleman gently. “It ain’t fine inside; but it’s theoutdoors, anyway, that’ll do you the most good. This’ll be yourroom, in here. Anything we got, you ask for it.”
He led McGuire into the east room. The floor was bare and clean. White curtainswaved in the gulf breeze through the open windows. A big willow rocker, twostraight chairs, a long table covered with newspapers, pipes, tobacco, spurs,and cartridges stood in the centre. Some well-mounted heads of deer and one ofan enormous black javeli projected from the walls. A wide, cool cot-bed stoodin a corner. Nueces County people regarded this guest chamber as fit for aprince. McGuire showed his eyeteeth at it. He took out his nickel and spun itup to the ceiling.
“T’ought I was lyin’ about the money, did ye? Well, you canfrisk me if you wanter. Dat’s the last simoleon in the treasury.Who’s goin’ to pay?”
The cattleman’s clear grey eyes looked steadily from under his grizzlybrows into the huckleberry optics of his guest. After a little he said simply,and not ungraciously, “I’ll be much obliged to you, son, if youwon’t mention money any more. Once was quite a plenty. Folks I ask to myranch don’t have to pay anything, and they very scarcely ever offers it.Supper’ll be ready in half an hour. There’s water in the pitcher,and some, cooler, to drink, in that red jar hanging on the gallery.”
“Where’s the bell?” asked McGuire, looking about.
“Bell for what?”
“Bell to ring for things. I can’t—see here,” heexploded in a sudden, weak fury, “I never asked you to bring me here. Inever held you up for a cent. I never gave you a hard-luck story till you askedme. Here I am fifty miles from a bellboy or a cocktail. I’m sick. Ican’t hustle. Gee! but I’m up against it!” McGuire fell uponthe cot and sobbed shiveringly.
Raidler went to the door and called. A slender, bright-complexioned Mexicanyouth about twenty came quickly. Raidler spoke to him in Spanish.
“Ylario, it is in my mind that I promised you the position ofvaqueroon the San Carlos range at the fall rodeo.”
“Si, señor, such was your goodness.”
“Listen. This señoritois my friend. He is very sick. Place yourself athis side. Attend to his wants at all times. Have much patience and care withhim. And when he is well, or—and when he is well, instead of vaqueroIwill make you mayordomoof the Rancho de las Piedras.Esta bueno?”
“Si, si—mil gracias, señor.” Ylario tried to kneelupon the floor in his gratitude, but the cattleman kicked at him benevolently,growling, “None of your opery-house antics, now.”
Ten minutes later Ylario came from McGuire’s room and stood beforeRaidler.
“The little señor,” he announced, “presents hiscompliments” (Raidler credited Ylario with the preliminary) “anddesires some pounded ice, one hot bath, one gin feez-z, that the windows be allclosed, toast, one shave, one Newyorkheral’, cigarettes, and to send onetelegram.”
Raidler took a quart bottle of whisky from his medicine cabinet. “Here,take him this,” he said.
Thus was instituted the reign of terror at the Solito Ranch. For a few weeksMcGuire blustered and boasted and swaggered before the cow-punchers who rodein for miles around to see this latest importation of Raidler’s. He wasan absolutely new experience to them. He explained to them all the intricatepoints of sparring and the tricks of training and defence. He opened to theirminds’ view all the indecorous life of a tagger after professionalsports. His jargon of slang was a continuous joy and surprise to them. Hisgestures, his strange poses, his frank ribaldry of tongue and principlefascinated them. He was like a being from a new world.
Strange to say, this new world he had entered did not exist to him. He was anutter egoist of bricks and mortar. He had dropped out, he felt, into open spacefor a time, and all it contained was an audience for his reminiscences. Neitherthe limitless freedom of the prairie days nor the grand hush of theclose-drawn, spangled nights touched him. All the hues of Aurora could not winhim from the pink pages of a sporting journal. “Get something fornothing,” was his mission in life; “Thirty-seventh” Streetwas his goal.
Nearly two months after his arrival he began to complain that he felt worse. Itwas then that he became the ranch’s incubus, its harpy, its Old Man ofthe Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous kobold orflibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. The keynote of hisplaint was that he had been inveigled into a gehenna against his will; that hewas dying of neglect and lack of comforts. With all his dire protestations ofincreasing illness, to the eye of others he remained unchanged. Hiscurrant-like eyes were as bright and diabolic as ever; his voice was asrasping; his callous face, with the skin drawn tense as a drum-head, had noflesh to lose. A flush on his prominent cheek bones each afternoon hinted thata clinical thermometer might have revealed a symptom, and percussion might haveestablished the fact that McGuire was breathing with only one lung, but hisappearance remained the same.
In constant attendance upon him was Ylario, whom the coming reward of themayordomoship must have greatly stimulated, for McGuire chained him to abitter existence. The air—the man’s only chance for life—hecommanded to be kept out by closed windows and drawn curtains. The room wasalways blue and foul with cigarette smoke; whosoever entered it must sit,suffocating, and listen to the imp’s interminable gasconade concerninghis scandalous career.
The oddest thing of all was the relation existing between McGuire and hisbenefactor. The attitude of the invalid toward the cattleman was something likethat of a peevish, perverse child toward an indulgent parent. When Raidlerwould leave the ranch McGuire would fall into a fit of malevolent, silentsullenness. When he returned, he would be met by a string of violent andstinging reproaches. Raidler’s attitude toward his charge was quiteinexplicable in its way. The cattleman seemed actually to assume and feel thecharacter assigned to him by McGuire’s intemperate accusations—thecharacter of tyrant and guilty oppressor. He seemed to have adopted theresponsibility of the fellow’s condition, and he always met his tiradeswith a pacific, patient, and even remorseful kindness that never altered.
One day Raidler said to him, “Try more air, son. You can have thebuckboard and a driver every day if you’ll go. Try a week or two in oneof the cow camps. I’ll fix you up plumb comfortable. The ground, and theair next to it—them’s the things to cure you. I knowed a man fromPhiladelphy, sicker than you are, got lost on the Guadalupe, and slept on thebare grass in sheep camps for two weeks. Well, sir, it started him gettingwell, which he done. Close to the ground—that’s where the medicinein the air stays. Try a little hossback riding now. There’s a gentlepony—”
“What’ve I done to yer?” screamed McGuire. “Did I everdoublecross yer? Did I ask you to bring me here? Drive me out to your camps ifyou wanter; or stick a knife in me and save trouble. Ride! I can’t liftmy feet. I couldn’t sidestep a jab from a five-year-old kid. That’swhat your d—d ranch has done for me. There’s nothing to eat,nothing to see, and nobody to talk to but a lot of Reubens who don’t knowa punching bag from a lobster salad.”
“It’s a lonesome place, for certain,” apologised Raidlerabashedly. “We got plenty, but it’s rough enough. Anything youthink of you want, the boys’ll ride up and fetch it down for you.”
It was Chad Murchison, a cow-puncher from the Circle Bar outfit, who firstsuggested that McGuire’s illness was fraudulent. Chad had brought abasket of grapes for him thirty miles, and four out of his way, tied to hissaddle-horn. After remaining in the smoke-tainted room for a while, he emergedand bluntly confided his suspicions to Raidler.
“His arm,” said Chad, “is harder’n a diamond. Heinterduced me to what he called a shore-perplexus punch, and ’twas likebeing kicked twice by a mustang. He’s playin’ it low down on you,Curt. He ain’t no sicker’n I am. I hate to say it, but therunt’s workin’ you for range and shelter.”
The cattleman’s ingenuous mind refused to entertain Chad’s view ofthe case, and when, later, he came to apply the test, doubt entered not intohis motives.
One day, about noon, two men drove up to the ranch, alighted, hitched, and camein to dinner; standing and general invitations being the custom of the country.One of them was a great San Antonio doctor, whose costly services had beenengaged by a wealthy cowman who had been laid low by an accidental bullet. Hewas now being driven back to the station to take the train back to town. Afterdinner Raidler took him aside, pushed a twenty-dollar bill against his hand,and said:
“Doc, there’s a young chap in that room I guess has got a bad caseof consumption. I’d like for you to look him over and see just how bad heis, and if we can do anything for him.”
“How much was that dinner I just ate, Mr. Raidler?” said the doctorbluffly, looking over his spectacles. Raidler returned the money to his pocket.The doctor immediately entered McGuire’s room, and the cattleman seatedhimself upon a heap of saddles on the gallery, ready to reproach himself in theevent the verdict should be unfavourable.
In ten minutes the doctor came briskly out. “Your man,” he saidpromptly, “is as sound as a new dollar. His lungs are better than mine.Respiration, temperature, and pulse normal. Chest expansion four inches. Not asign of weakness anywhere. Of course I didn’t examine for the bacillus,but it isn’t there. You can put my name to the diagnosis. Even cigarettesand a vilely close room haven’t hurt him. Coughs, does he? Well, you tellhim it isn’t necessary. You asked if there is anything we could do forhim. Well, I advise you to set him digging post-holes or breaking mustangs.There’s our team ready. Good-day, sir.” And like a puff ofwholesome, blustery wind the doctor was off.
Raidler reached out and plucked a leaf from a mesquite bush by the railing, andbegan chewing it thoughtfully.
The branding season was at hand, and the next morning Ross Hargis, foreman ofthe outfit, was mustering his force of some twenty-five men at the ranch, readyto start for the San Carlos range, where the work was to begin. By sixo’clock the horses were all saddled, the grub wagon ready, and thecow-punchers were swinging themselves upon their mounts, when Raidler bade themwait. A boy was bringing up an extra pony, bridled and saddled, to the gate.Raidler walked to McGuire’s room and threw open the door. McGuire waslying on his cot, not yet dressed, smoking.
“Get up,” said the cattleman, and his voice was clear and brassy,like a bugle.
“How’s that?” asked McGuire, a little startled.
“Get up and dress. I can stand a rattlesnake, but I hate a liar. Do Ihave to tell you again?” He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him onthe floor.
“Say, friend,” cried McGuire wildly, “are you bug-house?I’m sick— see? I’ll croak if I got to hustle. What’ve Idone to yer?”—he began his chronic whine—“I never askedyer to—”
“Put on your clothes,” called Raidler in a rising tone.
Swearing, stumbling, shivering, keeping his amazed, shining eyes upon the nowmenacing form of the aroused cattleman, McGuire managed to tumble into hisclothes. Then Raidler took him by the collar and shoved him out and across theyard to the extra pony hitched at the gate. The cow-punchers lolled in theirsaddles, open-mouthed.
“Take this man,” said Raidler to Ross Hargis, “and put him towork. Make him work hard, sleep hard, and eat hard. You boys know I done what Icould for him, and he was welcome. Yesterday the best doctor in San Antoneexamined him, and says he’s got the lungs of a burro and the constitutionof a steer. You know what to do with him, Ross.”
Ross Hargis only smiled grimly.
“Aw,” said McGuire, looking intently at Raidler, with a peculiarexpression upon his face, “the croaker said I was all right, did he? SaidI was fakin’, did he? You put him onto me. You t’ought Iwasn’t sick. You said I was a liar. Say, friend, I talked rough, I know,but I didn’t mean most of it. If you felt like I did—aw! Iforgot—I ain’t sick, the croaker says. Well, friend, now I’llgo work for yer. Here’s where you play even.”
He sprang into the saddle easily as a bird, got the quirt from the horn, andgave his pony a slash with it. “Cricket,” who once brought in GoodBoy by a neck at Hawthorne—and a 10 to 1 shot—had his foot in thestirrups again.
McGuire led the cavalcade as they dashed away for San Carlos, and thecow-punchers gave a yell of applause as they closed in behind his dust.
But in less than a mile he had lagged to the rear, and was last man when theystruck the patch of high chaparral below the horse pens. Behind a clump of thishe drew rein, and held a handkerchief to his mouth. He took it away drenchedwith bright, arterial blood, and threw it carefully into a clump of pricklypear. Then he slashed with his quirt again, gasped “G’wan” tohis astonished pony, and galloped after the gang.
That night Raidler received a message from his old home in Alabama. There hadbeen a death in the family; an estate was to divide, and they called for him tocome. Daylight found him in the buckboard, skimming the prairies for thestation. It was two months before he returned. When he arrived at the ranchhouse he found it well-nigh deserted save for Ylario, who acted as a kind ofsteward during his absence. Little by little the youth made him acquainted withthe work done while he was away. The branding camp, he was informed, was stilldoing business. On account of many severe storms the cattle had been badlyscattered, and the branding had been accomplished but slowly. The camp was nowin the valley of the Guadalupe, twenty miles away.
“By the way,” said Raidler, suddenly remembering, “thatfellow I sent along with them—McGuire—is he working yet?”
“I do not know,” said Ylario. “Mans from the camp come verreefew times to the ranch. So plentee work with the leetle calves. They no say.Oh, I think that fellow McGuire he dead much time ago.”
“Dead!” said Raidler. “What you talking about?”
“Verree sick fellow, McGuire,” replied Ylario, with a shrug of hisshoulder. “I theenk he no live one, two month when he go away.”
“Shucks!” said Raidler. “He humbugged you, too, did he? Thedoctor examined him and said he was sound as a mesquite knot.”
“That doctor,” said Ylario, smiling, “he tell you so? Thatdoctor no see McGuire.”
“Talk up,” ordered Raidler. “What the devil do youmean?”
“McGuire,” continued the boy tranquilly, “he getting drinkwater outside when that doctor come in room. That doctor take me and pound meall over here with his fingers”—putting his hand to hischest—“I not know for what. He put his ear here and here and here,and listen— I not know for what. He put little glass stick in my mouth.He feel my arm here. He make me count like whisper—so—twenty,treinta, cuarenta. Who knows,” concluded Ylario, with adeprecating spread of his hands, “for what that doctor do those verreedroll and such-like things?”
“What horses are up?” asked Raidler shortly.
“Paisano is grazing out behind the little corral, señor.”
“Saddle him for me at once.”
Within a very few minutes the cattleman was mounted and away. Paisano, wellnamed after that ungainly but swift-running bird, struck into his long lopethat ate up the ground like a strip of macaroni. In two hours and a quarterRaidler, from a gentle swell, saw the branding camp by a water hole in theGuadalupe. Sick with expectancy of the news he feared, he rode up, dismounted,and dropped Paisano’s reins. So gentle was his heart that at that momenthe would have pleaded guilty to the murder of McGuire.
The only being in the camp was the cook, who was just arranging the hunks ofbarbecued beef, and distributing the tin coffee cups for supper. Raidler evadeda direct question concerning the one subject in his mind.
“Everything all right in camp, Pete?” he managed to inquire.
“So, so,” said Pete, conservatively. “Grub give out twice.Wind scattered the cattle, and we’ve had to rake the brush for fortymile. I need a new coffee-pot. And the mosquitos is some more hellish thancommon.”
“The boys—all well?”
Pete was no optimist. Besides, inquiries concerning the health of cow-puncherswere not only superfluous, but bordered on flaccidity. It was not like the bossto make them.
“What’s left of ’em don’t miss no calls to grub,”the cook conceded.
“What’s left of ’em?” repeated Raidler in a huskyvoice. Mechanically he began to look around for McGuire’s grave. He hadin his mind a white slab such as he had seen in the Alabama church-yard. Butimmediately he knew that was foolish.
“Sure,” said Pete; “what’s left. Cow camps change intwo months. Some’s gone.”
Raidler nerved himself.
“That—chap—I sentalong—McGuire—did—he—”
“Say,” interrupted Pete, rising with a chunk of corn bread in eachhand, “that was a dirty shame, sending that poor, sick kid to a cow camp.A doctor that couldn’t tell he was graveyard meat ought to be skinnedwith a cinch buckle. Game as he was, too—it’s a scandal amongsnakes—lemme tell you what he done. First night in camp the boys startedto initiate him in the leather breeches degree. Ross Hargis busted him oneswipe with his chaparreras, and what do you reckon the poor child did? Got up,the little skeeter, and licked Ross. Licked Ross Hargis. Licked him good. Hithim plenty and everywhere and hard. Ross’d just get up and pick out afresh place to lay down on agin.
“Then that McGuire goes off there and lays down with his head in thegrass and bleeds. A hem’ridge they calls it. He lays there eighteen hoursby the watch, and they can’t budge him. Then Ross Hargis, who loves anyman who can lick him, goes to work and damns the doctors from Greenland toPoland Chiny; and him and Green Branch Johnson they gets McGuire into a tent,and spells each other feedin’ him chopped raw meat and whisky.
“But it looks like the kid ain’t got no appetite to git well, forthey misses him from the tent in the night and finds him rootin’ in thegrass, and likewise a drizzle fallin’. ‘G’wan,’ hesays, ‘lemme go and die like I wanter. He said I was a liar and a fakeand I was playin’ sick. Lemme alone.’
“Two weeks,” went on the cook, “he laid around, notnoticin’ nobody, and then—”
A sudden thunder filled the air, and a score of galloping centaurs crashedthrough the brush into camp.
“Illustrious rattlesnakes!” exclaimed Pete, springing all ways atonce; “here’s the boys come, and I’m an assassinated man ifsupper ain’t ready in three minutes.”
But Raidler saw only one thing. A little, brown-faced, grinning chap, springingfrom his saddle in the full light of the fire. McGuire was not like that, andyet—
In another instant the cattleman was holding him by the hand and shoulder.
“Son, son, how goes it?” was all he found to say.
“Close to the ground, says you,” shouted McGuire, crunchingRaidler’s fingers in a grip of steel; “and dat’s where Ifound it—healt’ and strengt’, and tumbled to what a cheapskate I been actin’. T’anks fer kickin’ me out, old man.And—say! de joke’s on dat croaker, ain’t it? I lookedt’rough the window and see him playin’ tag on dat Dago kid’ssolar plexus.”
“You son of a tinker,” growled the cattleman, “whyn’tyou talk up and say the doctor never examined you?”
“Ah—g’wan!” said McGuire, with a flash of his oldasperity, “nobody can’t bluff me. You never ast me. You made yourspiel, and you t’rowed me out, and I let it go at dat. And, say, friend,dis chasin’ cows is outer sight. Dis is de whitest bunch of sports I evertravelled with. You’ll let me stay, won’t yer, old man?”
Raidler looked wonderingly toward Ross Hargis.
“That cussed little runt,” remarked Ross tenderly, “is theJo-dartin’est hustler—and the hardest hitter in anybody’s cowcamp.”
VIII
AN AFTERNOON MIRACLE
At the United States end of an international river bridge, four armed rangerssweltered in a little ’dobe hut, keeping a fairly faithful espionage uponthe lagging trail of passengers from the Mexican side.
Bud Dawson, proprietor of the Top Notch Saloon, had, on the evening previous,violently ejected from his premises one Leandro Garcia, for alleged violationof the Top Notch code of behaviour. Garcia had mentioned twenty-four hours as alimit, by which time he would call and collect a painful indemnity for personalsatisfaction.
This Mexican, although a tremendous braggart, was thoroughly courageous, andeach side of the river respected him for one of these attributes. He and afollowing of similar bravoes were addicted to the pastime of retrieving townsfrom stagnation.
The day designated by Garcia for retribution was to be further signalised onthe American side by a cattlemen’s convention, a bull fight, and an oldsettlers’ barbecue and picnic. Knowing the avenger to be a man of hisword, and believing it prudent to court peace while three such gently socialrelaxations were in progress, Captain McNulty, of the ranger company stationedthere, detailed his lieutenant and three men for duty at the end of the bridge.Their instructions were to prevent the invasion of Garcia, either alone orattended by his gang.
Travel was slight that sultry afternoon, and the rangers swore gently, andmopped their brows in their convenient but close quarters. For an hour no onehad crossed save an old woman enveloped in a brown wrapper and a blackmantilla, driving before her a burro loaded with kindling wood tied in smallbundles for peddling. Then three shots were fired down the street, the soundcoming clear and snappy through the still air.
The four rangers quickened from sprawling, symbolic figures of indolence toalert life, but only one rose to his feet. Three turned their eyes beseechinglybut hopelessly upon the fourth, who had gotten nimbly up and was buckling hiscartridge-belt around him. The three knew that Lieutenant Bob Buckley, incommand, would allow no man of them the privilege of investigating a row whenhe himself might go.
The agile, broad-chested lieutenant, without a change of expression in hissmooth, yellow-brown, melancholy face, shot the belt strap through the guard ofthe buckle, hefted his sixes in their holsters as a belle gives the finishingtouches to her toilette, caught up his Winchester, and dived for the door.There he paused long enough to caution his comrades to maintain their watchupon the bridge, and then plunged into the broiling highway.
The three relapsed into resigned inertia and plaintive comment.
“I’ve heard of fellows,” grumbled Broncho Leathers,“what was wedded to danger, but if Bob Buckley ain’t committedbigamy with trouble, I’m a son of a gun.”
“Peculiarness of Bob is,” inserted the Nueces Kid, “heain’t had proper trainin’. He never learned how to git skeered.Now, a man ought to be skeered enough when he tackles a fuss to hanker afterreadin’ his name on the list of survivors, anyway.”
“Buckley,” commented Ranger No. 3, who was a misguided Eastern man,burdened with an education, “scraps in such a solemn manner that I havebeen led to doubt its spontaneity. I’m not quite onto his system, but hefights, like Tybalt, by the book of arithmetic.”
“I never heard,” mentioned Broncho, “about any ofDibble’s ways of mixin’ scrappin’ and cipherin’.”
“Triggernometry?” suggested the Nueces infant.
“That’s rather better than I hoped from you,” nodded theEasterner, approvingly. “The other meaning is that Buckley never goesinto a fight without giving away weight. He seems to dread taking the slightestadvantage. That’s quite close to foolhardiness when you are dealing withhorse-thieves and fence-cutters who would ambush you any night, and shoot youin the back if they could. Buckley’s too full of sand. He’ll playHoratius and hold the bridge once too often some day.”
“I’m on there,” drawled the Kid; “I mind that bridgegang in the reader. Me, I go instructed for the other chap—SpuriousSomebody—the one that fought and pulled his freight, to fight ’emon some other day.”
“Anyway,” summed up Broncho, “Bob’s about the gamestman I ever see along the Rio Bravo. Great Sam Houston! If she gets any hottershe’ll sizzle!” Broncho whacked at a scorpion with his four-poundStetson felt, and the three watchers relapsed into comfortless silence.
How well Bob Buckley had kept his secret, since these men, for two years hisside comrades in countless border raids and dangers, thus spake of him, notknowing that he was the most arrant physical coward in all that Rio Bravocountry! Neither his friends nor his enemies had suspected him of aught elsethan the finest courage. It was purely a physical cowardice, and only by anextreme, grim effort of will had he forced his craven body to do the bravestdeeds. Scourging himself always, as a monk whips his besetting sin, Buckleythrew himself with apparent recklessness into every danger, with the hope ofsome day ridding himself of the despised affliction. But each successive testbrought no relief, and the ranger’s face, by nature adapted tocheerfulness and good-humour, became set to the guise of gloomy melancholy.Thus, while the frontier admired his deeds, and his prowess was celebrated inprint and by word of mouth in many camp-fires in the valley of the Bravo, hisheart was sick within him. Only himself knew of the horrible tightening of thechest, the dry mouth, the weakening of the spine, the agony of the strungnerves—the never-failing symptoms of his shameful malady.
One mere boy in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg perchedflippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging from his lips,which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever invention. Buckley wouldhave given a year’s pay to attain that devil-may-care method. Once thedebonair youth said to him: “Buck, you go into a scrap like it was afuneral. Not,” he added, with a complimentary wave of his tin cup,“but what it generally is.”
Buckley’s conscience was of the New England order with Westernadjustments, and he continued to get his rebellious body into as manydifficulties as possible; wherefore, on that sultry afternoon he chose to drivehis own protesting limbs to investigation of that sudden alarm that hadstartled the peace and dignity of the State.
Two squares down the street stood the Top Notch Saloon. Here Buckley came uponsigns of recent upheaval. A few curious spectators pressed about its frontentrance, grinding beneath their heels the fragments of a plate-glass window.Inside, Buckley found Bud Dawson utterly ignoring a bullet wound in hisshoulder, while he feelingly wept at having to explain why he failed to dropthe “blamed masquerooter,” who shot him. At the entrance of theranger Bud turned appealingly to him for confirmation of the devastation hemight have dealt.
“You know, Buck, I’d ’a’ plum got him, first rattle, ifI’d thought a minute. Come in a-masque-rootin’, playin’female till he got the drop, and turned loose. I never reached for a gun,thinkin’ it was sure Chihuahua Betty, or Mrs. Atwater, or anyhow one ofthe Mayfield girls comin’ a-gunnin’, which they might, liable asnot. I never thought of that blamed Garcia until—”
“Garcia!” snapped Buckley. “How did he get over here?”
Bud’s bartender took the ranger by the arm and led him to the side door.There stood a patient grey burro cropping the grass along the gutter, with aload of kindling wood tied across its back. On the ground lay a black shawl anda voluminous brown dress.
“Masquerootin’ in them things,” called Bud, still resistingattempted ministrations to his wounds. “Thought he was a lady till hegave a yell and winged me.”
“He went down this side street,” said the bartender. “He wasalone, and he’ll hide out till night when his gang comes over. You oughtto find him in that Mexican lay-out below the depot. He’s got a girl downthere—Pancha Sales.”
“How was he armed?” asked Buckley.
“Two pearl-handled sixes, and a knife.”
“Keep this for me, Billy,” said the ranger, handing over hisWinchester. Quixotic, perhaps, but it was Bob Buckley’s way. Anotherman—and a braver one—might have raised a posse to accompany him. Itwas Buckley’s rule to discard all preliminary advantage.
The Mexican had left behind him a wake of closed doors and an empty street, butnow people were beginning to emerge from their places of refuge with assumedunconsciousness of anything having happened. Many citizens who knew the rangerpointed out to him with alacrity the course of Garcia’s retreat.
As Buckley swung along upon the trail he felt the beginning of the suffocatingconstriction about his throat, the cold sweat under the brim of his hat, theold, shameful, dreaded sinking of his heart as it went down, down, down in hisbosom.
The morning train of the Mexican Central had that day been three hours late,thus failing to connect with the I. & G.N. on the other side of the river.Passengers for Los Estados Unidosgrumblingly sought entertainment inthe little swaggering mongrel town of two nations, for, until the morrow, noother train would come to rescue them. Grumblingly, because two days laterwould begin the great fair and races in San Antone. Consider that at that timeSan Antone was the hub of the wheel of Fortune, and the names of its spokeswere Cattle, Wool, Faro, Running Horses, and Ozone. In those times cattlemenplayed at crack-loo on the sidewalks with double-eagles, and gentlemen backedtheir conception of the fortuitous card with stacks limited in height only bythe interference of gravity. Wherefore, thither journeyed the sowers and thereapers—they who stampeded the dollars, and they who rounded them up.Especially did the caterers to the amusement of the people haste to San Antone.Two greatest shows on earth were already there, and dozens of smallest oneswere on the way.
On a side track near the mean little ’dobe depot stood a private car,left there by the Mexican train that morning and doomed by an ineffectualschedule to ignobly await, amid squalid surroundings, connection with the nextday’s regular.
The car had been once a common day-coach, but those who had sat in it andgringed to the conductor’s hat-band slips would never have recognised itin its transformation. Paint and gilding and certain domestic touches hadliberated it from any suspicion of public servitude. The whitest of lacecurtains judiciously screened its windows. From its fore end drooped in thetorrid air the flag of Mexico. From its rear projected the Stars and Stripesand a busy stovepipe, the latter reinforcing in its suggestion of culinarycomforts the general suggestion of privacy and ease. The beholder’s eye,regarding its gorgeous sides, found interest to culminate in a single name ingold and blue letters extending almost its entire length—a single name,the audacious privilege of royalty and genius. Doubly, then, was this arrogantnomenclature here justified; for the name was that of “Alvarita, Queen ofthe Serpent Tribe.” This, her car, was back from a triumphant tour of theprincipal Mexican cities, and now headed for San Antonio, where, according topromissory advertisement, she would exhibit her “Marvellous Dominion andFearless Control over Deadly and Venomous Serpents, Handling them with Ease asthey Coil and Hiss to the Terror of Thousands of Tongue-tied Tremblers!”
One hundred in the shade kept the vicinity somewhat depeopled. This quarter ofthe town was a ragged edge; its denizens the bubbling froth of five nations;its architecture tent, jacal, and ’dobe; its distractions thehurdy-gurdy and the informal contribution to the sudden stranger’s storeof experience. Beyond this dishonourable fringe upon the old town’s jowlrose a dense mass of trees, surmounting and filling a little hollow. Throughthis bickered a small stream that perished down the sheer and disconcertingside of the great cañon of the Rio Bravo del Norte.
In this sordid spot was condemned to remain for certain hours the impotenttransport of the Queen of the Serpent Tribe.
The front door of the car was open. Its forward end was curtained off into asmall reception-room. Here the admiring and propitiatory reporters were wont tosit and transpose the music of Señorita Alvarita’s talk into the moreflorid key of the press. A picture of Abraham Lincoln hung against a wall; oneof a cluster of school-girls grouped upon stone steps was in another place; athird was Easter lilies in a blood-red frame. A neat carpet was under foot. Apitcher, sweating cold drops, and a glass stood on a fragile stand. In a willowrocker, reading a newspaper, sat Alvarita.
Spanish, you would say; Andalusian, or, better still, Basque; that compound,like the diamond, of darkness and fire. Hair, the shade of purple grapes viewedat midnight. Eyes, long, dusky, and disquieting with their untroubleddirectness of gaze. Face, haughty and bold, touched with a pretty insolencethat gave it life. To hasten conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacksof handbills in the corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see anincompetent presentment of the señorita in her professional garb and pose.Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue racer isspiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist and once about herneck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive Kuku, the great eleven-footAsian python.
A hand drew aside the curtain that partitioned the car, and a middle-aged,faded woman holding a knife and a half-peeled potato looked in and said:
“Alviry, are you right busy?”
“I’m reading the home paper, ma. What do you think! that pale,tow-headed Matilda Price got the most votes in the Newsfor theprettiest girl in Gallipo—lees.”
“Shush! She wouldn’t of done it if you’dbeen home,Alviry. Lord knows, I hope we’ll be there before fall’s over.I’m tired gallopin’ round the world playin’ we are dagoes,and givin’ snake shows. But that ain’t what I wanted to say. Thatthere biggest snake’s gone again. I’ve looked all over the car andcan’t find him. He must have been gone an hour. I remember hearin’somethin’ rustlin’ along the floor, but I thought it wasyou.”
“Oh, blame that old rascal!” exclaimed the Queen, throwing down herpaper. “This is the third time he’s got away. George neverwillfasten down the lid to his box properly. I do believe he’safraidof Kuku. Now I’ve got to go hunt him.”
“Better hurry; somebody might hurt him.”
The Queen’s teeth showed in a gleaming, contemptuous smile. “Nodanger. When they see Kuku outside they simply scoot away and buy bromides.There’s a crick over between here and the river. That old scamp’dswap his skin any time for a drink of running water. I guess I’ll findhim there, all right.”
A few minutes later Alvarita stopped upon the forward platform, ready for herquest. Her handsome black skirt was shaped to the most recent proclamation offashion. Her spotless shirt-waist gladdened the eye in that desert of sunshine,a swelling oasis, cool and fresh. A man’s split-straw hat sat firmly onher coiled, abundant hair. Beneath her serene, round, impudent chin aman’s four-in-hand tie was jauntily knotted about a man’s high,stiff collar. A parasol she carried, of white silk, and its fringe was lace,yellowly genuine.
I will grant Gallipolis as to her costume, but firmly to Seville or ValladolidI am held by her eyes; castanets, balconies, mantillas, serenades, ambuscades,escapades—all these their dark depths guaranteed.
“Ain’t you afraid to go out alone, Alviry?” queried theQueen-mother anxiously. “There’s so many rough people about. Mebbeyou’d better—”
“I never saw anything I was afraid of yet, ma. ’Specially people.And men in particular. Don’t you fret. I’ll trot along back as soonas I find that runaway scamp.”
The dust lay thick upon the bare ground near the tracks. Alvarita’s eyesoon discovered the serrated trail of the escaped python. It led across thedepot grounds and away down a smaller street in the direction of the littlecañon, as predicted by her. A stillness and lack of excitement in theneighbourhood encouraged the hope that, as yet, the inhabitants were unawarethat so formidable a guest traversed their highways. The heat had driven themindoors, whence outdrifted occasional shrill laughs, or the depressing whine ofa maltreated concertina. In the shade a few Mexican children, like vivifiedstolid idols in clay, stared from their play, vision-struck and silent, asAlvarita came and went. Here and there a woman peeped from a door and stooddumb, reduced to silence by the aspect of the white silk parasol.
A hundred yards and the limits of the town were passed, scattered chaparralsucceeding, and then a noble grove, overflowing the bijou cañon. Through this asmall bright stream meandered. Park-like it was, with a kind of cockneyruralness further endorsed by the waste papers and rifled tins of picnickers.Up this stream, and down it, among its pseudo-sylvan glades and depressions,wandered the bright and unruffled Alvarita. Once she saw evidence of therecreant reptile’s progress in his distinctive trail across a spread offine sand in the arroyo. The living water was bound to lure him; he could notbe far away.
So sure was she of his immediate proximity that she perched herself to idle fora time in the curve of a great creeper that looped down from a giant water-elm.To reach this she climbed from the pathway a little distance up the side of asteep and rugged incline. Around her chaparral grew thick and high. Alate-blooming ratama tree dispensed from its yellow petals a sweet andpersistent odour. Adown the ravine rustled a seductive wind, melancholy withthe taste of sodden, fallen leaves.
Alvarita removed her hat, and undoing the oppressive convolutions of her hair,began to slowly arrange it in two long, dusky plaits.
From the obscure depths of a thick clump of evergreen shrubs five feet away,two small jewel-bright eyes were steadfastly regarding her. Coiled there layKuku, the great python; Kuku, the magnificent, he of the plated muzzle, thegrooved lips, the eleven-foot stretch of elegantly and brilliantly mottledskin. The great python was viewing his mistress without a sound or motion todisclose his presence. Perhaps the splendid truant forefelt his capture, but,screened by the foliage, thought to prolong the delight of his escapade. Whatpleasure it was, after the hot and dusty car, to lie thus, smelling the runningwater, and feeling the agreeable roughness of the earth and stones against hisbody! Soon, very soon the Queen would find him, and he, powerless as a worm inher audacious hands, would be returned to the dark chest in the narrow housethat ran on wheels.
Alvarita heard a sudden crunching of the gravel below her. Turning her head shesaw a big, swarthy Mexican, with a daring and evil expression, contemplatingher with an ominous, dull eye.
“What do you want?” she asked as sharply as five hairpins betweenher lips would permit, continuing to plait her hair, and looking him over withplacid contempt. The Mexican continued to gaze at her, and showed his teeth ina white, jagged smile.
“I no hurt-y you, Señorita,” he said.
“You bet you won’t,” answered the Queen, shaking back onefinished, massive plait. “But don’t you think you’d bettermove on?”
“Not hurt-y you—no. But maybeso take one beso—oneli’l kees, you call him.”
The man smiled again, and set his foot to ascend the slope. Alvarita leanedswiftly and picked up a stone the size of a cocoanut.
“Vamoose, quick,” she ordered peremptorily, “youcoon!”
The red of insult burned through the Mexican’s dark skin.
“Hidalgo, Yo!” he shot between his fangs. “I am notneg-r-ro! Diabla bonita, for that you shall pay me.”
He made two quick upward steps this time, but the stone, hurled by no weak arm,struck him square in the chest. He staggered back to the footway, swerved halfaround, and met another sight that drove all thoughts of the girl from hishead. She turned her eyes to see what had diverted his interest. A man withred-brown, curling hair and a melancholy, sunburned, smooth-shaven face wascoming up the path, twenty yards away. Around the Mexican’s waist wasbuckled a pistol belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside hissixes—possibly in the jacalof the fair Pancha—and hadforgotten them when the passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to hertrail. His hands now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding theweapons gone, he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring,deprecating Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, thenewcomer unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon theground, and continued to advance.
“Splendid!” murmured Alvarita, with flashing eyes.
As Bob Buckley, according to the mad code of bravery that his sensitiveconscience imposed upon his cowardly nerves, abandoned his guns and closed inupon his enemy, the old, inevitable nausea of abject fear wrung him. His breathwhistled through his constricted air passages. His feet seemed like lumps oflead. His mouth was dry as dust. His heart, congested with blood, hurt his ribsas it thumped against them. The hot June day turned to moist November. Andstill he advanced, spurred by a mandatory pride that strained its uttermostagainst his weakling flesh.
The distance between the two men slowly lessened. The Mexican stood, immovable,waiting. When scarce five yards separated them a little shower of loosenedgravel rattled down from above to the ranger’s feet. He glanced upwardwith instinctive caution. A pair of dark eyes, brilliantly soft, and fierilytender, encountered and held his own. The most fearful heart and the boldestone in all the Rio Bravo country exchanged a silent and inscrutablecommunication. Alvarita, still seated within her vine, leaned forward above thebreast-high chaparral. One hand was laid across her bosom. One great dark braidcurved forward over her shoulder. Her lips were parted; her face was lit withwhat seemed but wonder—great and absolute wonder. Her eyes lingered uponBuckley’s. Let no one ask or presume to tell through what subtle mediumthe miracle was performed. As by a lightning flash two clouds will accomplishcounterpoise and compensation of electric surcharge, so on that eyeglance theman received his complement of manhood, and the maid conceded what enriched herwomanly grace by its loss.
The Mexican, suddenly stirring, ventilated his attitude of apathetic waiting byconjuring swiftly from his bootleg a long knife. Buckley cast aside his hat,and laughed once aloud, like a happy school-boy at a frolic. Then,empty-handed, he sprang nimbly, and Garcia met him without default.
So soon was the engagement ended that disappointment imposed upon theranger’s warlike ecstasy. Instead of dealing the traditional downwardstroke, the Mexican lunged straight with his knife. Buckley took the precariouschance, and caught his wrist, fair and firm. Then he delivered the good Saxonknock-out blow—always so pathetically disastrous to the fistless Latinraces—and Garcia was down and out, with his head under a clump of pricklypears. The ranger looked up again to the Queen of the Serpents.
Alvarita scrambled down to the path.
“I’m mighty glad I happened along when I did,” said theranger.
“He—he frightened me so!” cooed Alvarita.
They did not hear the long, low hiss of the python under the shrubs. Wiliest ofthe beasts, no doubt he was expressing the humiliation he felt at having solong dwelt in subjection to this trembling and colouring mistress of his whomhe had deemed so strong and potent and fearsome.
Then came galloping to the spot the civic authorities; and to them the rangerawarded the prostrate disturber of the peace, whom they bore away limply acrossthe saddle of one of their mounts. But Buckley and Alvarita lingered.
Slowly, slowly they walked. The ranger regained his belt of weapons. With afine timidity she begged the indulgence of fingering the great .45’s,with little “Ohs” and “Ahs” of new-born, deliciousshyness.
The cañoncitowas growing dusky. Beyond its terminus in the river bluffthey could see the outer world yet suffused with the waning glory of sunset.
A scream—a piercing scream of fright from Alvarita. Back she cowered, andthe ready, protecting arm of Buckley formed her refuge. What terror so dire asto thus beset the close of the reign of the never-before-daunted Queen?
Across the path there crawled a caterpillar—a horrid, fuzzy,two-inch caterpillar! Truly, Kuku, thou went avenged. Thus abdicated the Queenof the Serpent Tribe—viva la reina!
IX
THE HIGHER ABDICATION
Curly the tramp sidled toward the free-lunch counter. He caught a fleetingglance from the bartender’s eye, and stood still, trying to look like abusiness man who had just dined at the Menger and was waiting for a friend whohad promised to pick him up in his motor car. Curly’s histrionic powerswere equal to the impersonation; but his make-up was wanting.
The bartender rounded the bar in a casual way, looking up at the ceiling asthough he was pondering some intricate problem of kalsomining, and then fellupon Curly so suddenly that the roadster had no excuses ready. Irresistibly,but so composedly that it seemed almost absendmindedness on his part, thedispenser of drinks pushed Curly to the swinging doors and kicked him out, witha nonchalance that almost amounted to sadness. That was the way of theSouthwest.
Curly arose from the gutter leisurely. He felt no anger or resentment towardhis ejector. Fifteen years of tramphood spent out of the twenty-two years ofhis life had hardened the fibres of his spirit. The slings and arrows ofoutrageous fortune fell blunted from the buckler of his armoured pride. Withespecial resignation did he suffer contumely and injury at the hands ofbartenders. Naturally, they were his enemies; and unnaturally, they were oftenhis friends. He had to take his chances with them. But he had not yet learnedto estimate these cool, languid, Southwestern knights of the bungstarter, whohad the manners of an Earl of Pawtucket, and who, when they disapproved of yourpresence, moved you with the silence and despatch of a chess automatonadvancing a pawn.
Curly stood for a few moments in the narrow, mesquite-paved street. San Antoniopuzzled and disturbed him. Three days he had been a non-paying guest of thetown, having dropped off there from a box car of an I. & G.N. freight,because Greaser Johnny had told him in Des Moines that the Alamo City was mannafallen, gathered, cooked, and served free with cream and sugar. Curly had foundthe tip partly a good one. There was hospitality in plenty of a careless,liberal, irregular sort. But the town itself was a weight upon his spiritsafter his experience with the rushing, business-like, systematised cities ofthe North and East. Here he was often flung a dollar, but too frequently agood-natured kick would follow it. Once a band of hilarious cowboys had ropedhim on Military Plaza and dragged him across the black soil until norespectable rag-bag would have stood sponsor for his clothes. The winding,doubling streets, leading nowhere, bewildered him. And then there was a littleriver, crooked as a pot-hook, that crawled through the middle of the town,crossed by a hundred little bridges so nearly alike that they got onCurly’s nerves. And the last bartender wore a number nine shoe.
The saloon stood on a corner. The hour was eight o’clock. Homefarers andoutgoers jostled Curly on the narrow stone sidewalk. Between the buildings tohis left he looked down a cleft that proclaimed itself another thoroughfare.The alley was dark except for one patch of light. Where there was light therewere sure to be human beings. Where there were human beings after nightfall inSan Antonio there might be food, and there was sure to be drink. So Curlyheaded for the light.
The illumination came from Schwegel’s Café. On the sidewalk in front ofit Curly picked up an old envelope. It might have contained a check for amillion. It was empty; but the wanderer read the address, “Mr. OttoSchwegel,” and the name of the town and State. The postmark was Detroit.
Curly entered the saloon. And now in the light it could be perceived that hebore the stamp of many years of vagabondage. He had none of the tidiness of thecalculating and shrewd professional tramp. His wardrobe represented thecast-off specimens of half a dozen fashions and eras. Two factories hadcombined their efforts in providing shoes for his feet. As you gazed at himthere passed through your mind vague impressions of mummies, wax figures,Russian exiles, and men lost on desert islands. His face was covered almost tohis eyes with a curly brown beard that he kept trimmed short with apocket-knife, and that had furnished him with his nom de route.Light-blue eyes, full of sullenness, fear, cunning, impudence, and fawning,witnessed the stress that had been laid upon his soul.
The saloon was small, and in its atmosphere the odours of meat and drinkstruggled for the ascendancy. The pig and the cabbage wrestled with hydrogenand oxygen. Behind the bar Schwegel laboured with an assistant whose epidermalpores showed no signs of being obstructed. Hot weinerwurst and sauerkraut werebeing served to purchasers of beer. Curly shuffled to the end of the bar,coughed hollowly, and told Schwegel that he was a Detroit cabinet-maker out ofa job.
It followed as the night the day that he got his schooner and lunch.
“Was you acquainted maybe with Heinrich Strauss in Detroit?” askedSchwegel.
“Did I know Heinrich Strauss?” repeated Curly, affectionately.“Why, say, ’Bo, I wish I had a dollar for every game of pinochle meand Heine has played on Sunday afternoons.”
More beer and a second plate of steaming food was set before the diplomat. Andthen Curly, knowing to a fluid-drachm how far a “con” game wouldgo, shuffled out into the unpromising street.
And now he began to perceive the inconveniences of this stony Southern town.There was none of the outdoor gaiety and brilliancy and music that provideddistraction even to the poorest in the cities of the North. Here, even soearly, the gloomy, rock-walled houses were closed and barred against the murkydampness of the night. The streets were mere fissures through which flowed greywreaths of river mist. As he walked he heard laughter and the chink of coin andchips behind darkened windows, and music coming from every chink of wood andstone. But the diversions were selfish; the day of popular pastimes had not yetcome to San Antonio.
But at length Curly, as he strayed, turned the sharp angle of another loststreet and came upon a rollicking band of stockmen from the outlying ranchescelebrating in the open in front of an ancient wooden hotel. One greatroisterer from the sheep country who had just instigated a movement toward thebar, swept Curly in like a stray goat with the rest of his flock. The princesof kine and wool hailed him as a new zoological discovery, and uproariouslystrove to preserve him in the diluted alcohol of their compliments and regards.
An hour afterward Curly staggered from the hotel barroom dismissed by hisfickle friends, whose interest in him had subsided as quickly as it had risen.Full—stoked with alcoholic fuel and cargoed with food, the only questionremaining to disturb him was that of shelter and bed.
A drizzling, cold Texas rain had begun to fall—an endless, lazy,unintermittent downfall that lowered the spirits of men and raised a reluctantsteam from the warm stones of the streets and houses. Thus comes the“norther” dousing gentle spring and amiable autumn with thechilling salutes and adieux of coming and departing winter.
Curly followed his nose down the first tortuous street into which hisirresponsible feet conducted him. At the lower end of it, on the bank of theserpentine stream, he perceived an open gate in a cemented rock wall. Inside hesaw camp fires and a row of low wooden sheds built against three sides of theenclosing wall. He entered the enclosure. Under the sheds many horses werechamping at their oats and corn. Many wagons and buckboards stood about withtheir teams’ harness thrown carelessly upon the shafts and doubletrees.Curly recognised the place as a wagon-yard, such as is provided by merchantsfor their out-of-town friends and customers. No one was in sight. No doubt thedrivers of those wagons were scattered about the town “seeing theelephant and hearing the owl.” In their haste to become patrons of thetown’s dispensaries of mirth and good cheer the last ones to depart musthave left the great wooden gate swinging open.
Curly had satisfied the hunger of an anaconda and the thirst of a camel, so hewas neither in the mood nor the condition of an explorer. He zigzagged his wayto the first wagon that his eyesight distinguished in the semi-darkness underthe shed. It was a two-horse wagon with a top of white canvas. The wagon washalf filled with loose piles of wool sacks, two or three great bundles of greyblankets, and a number of bales, bundles, and boxes. A reasoning eye would haveestimated the load at once as ranch supplies, bound on the morrow for someoutlying hacienda. But to the drowsy intelligence of Curly they representedonly warmth and softness and protection against the cold humidity of the night.After several unlucky efforts, at last he conquered gravity so far as to climbover a wheel and pitch forward upon the best and warmest bed he had fallen uponin many a day. Then he became instinctively a burrowing animal, and dug his waylike a prairie-dog down among the sacks and blankets, hiding himself from thecold air as snug and safe as a bear in his den. For three nights sleep hadvisited Curly only in broken and shivering doses. So now, when Morpheuscondescended to pay him a call, Curly got such a strangle hold on themythological old gentleman that it was a wonder that anyone else in the wholeworld got a wink of sleep that night.
Six cowpunchers of the Cibolo Ranch were waiting around the door of the ranchstore. Their ponies cropped grass near by, tied in the Texasfashion—which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped tothe earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is the power ofhabit and imagination) than you could devise out of a half-inch rope and alive-oak tree.
These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette paper inhis hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the storekeeper. Samstood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on his pink madrasshirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the only pair of tan shoeswithin a forty-mile radius. His offence had been serious, and he was dividedbetween humble apology and admiration for the beauty of his raiment. He hadallowed the ranch stock of “smoking” to become exhausted.
“I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter,boys,” he explained. “But it happened to be catterdges.”
“You’ve sure got a case of happenedicitis,” said PokyRodgers, fence rider of the Largo Verde potrero. “Somebody oughtto happen to give you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt.I’ve rode in nine miles for some tobacco; and it don’t appearnatural and seemly that you ought to be allowed to live.”
“The boys was smokin’ cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed whenI left,” sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp.“They’ll be lookin’ for me back by nine. They’ll besettin’ up, with their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thingbefore bedtime. And I’ve got to tell ’em that this pink-eyed,sheep-headed, sulphur-footed, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, SamRevell, hasn’t got no tobacco on hand.”
Gregorio Falcon, Mexican vaquero and best thrower of the rope on the Cibolo,pushed his heavy, silver-embroidered straw sombrero back upon his thicket ofjet black curls, and scraped the bottoms of his pockets for a few crumbs of theprecious weed.
“Ah, Don Samuel,” he said, reproachfully, but with his touch ofCastilian manners, “escuse me. Dthey say dthe jackrabbeet and dthe sheephave dthe most leetle sesos—how you call dthem—brain-es? Ahdon’t believe dthat, Don Samuel—escuse me. Ah dthink peoplew’at don’t keep esmokin’ tobacco, dthey—bot you weelescuse me, Don Samuel.”
“Now, what’s the use of chewin’ the rag, boys,” saidthe untroubled Sam, stooping over to rub the toes of his shoes with ared-and-yellow handkerchief. “Ranse took the order for some moresmokin’ to San Antone with him Tuesday. Pancho rode Ranse’s hossback yesterday; and Ranse is goin’ to drive the wagon back himself. Therewa’n’t much of a load—just some woolsacks and blankets andnails and canned peaches and a few things we was out of. I look for Ranse toroll in to-day sure. He’s an early starter and a hell-to-split driver,and he ought to be here not far from sundown.”
“What plugs is he drivin’?” asked Mustang Taylor, with asmack of hope in his tones.
“The buckboard greys,” said Sam.
“I’ll wait a spell, then,” said the wrangler. “Themplugs eat up a trail like a road-runner swallowin’ a whip snake. And youmay bust me open a can of greengage plums, Sam, while I’m waitin’for somethin’ better.”
“Open me some yellow clings,” ordered Poky Rodgers.“I’ll wait, too.”
The tobaccoless punchers arranged themselves comfortably on the steps of thestore. Inside Sam chopped open with a hatchet the tops of the cans of fruit.
The store, a big, white wooden building like a barn, stood fifty yards from theranch-house. Beyond it were the horse corrals; and still farther the wool shedsand the brush-topped shearing pens—for the Rancho Cibolo raised bothcattle and sheep. Behind the store, at a little distance, were thegrass-thatched jacalsof the Mexicans who bestowed their allegiance uponthe Cibolo.
The ranch-house was composed of four large rooms, with plastered adobe walls,and a two-room wooden ell. A twenty-feet-wide “gallery”circumvented the structure. It was set in a grove of immense live-oaks andwater-elms near a lake—a long, not very wide, and tremendously deep lakein which at nightfall, great gars leaped to the surface and plunged with thenoise of hippopotamuses frolicking at their bath. From the trees hung garlandsand massive pendants of the melancholy grey moss of the South. Indeed, theCibolo ranch-house seemed more of the South than of the West. It looked as ifold “Kiowa” Truesdell might have brought it with him from thelowlands of Mississippi when he came to Texas with his rifle in the hollow ofhis arm in ’55.
But, though he did not bring the family mansion, Truesdell did bring somethingin the way of a family inheritance that was more lasting than brick or stone.He brought one end of the Truesdell-Curtis family feud. And when a Curtisbought the Rancho de los Olmos, sixteen miles from the Cibolo, there werelively times on the pear flats and in the chaparral thickets off the Southwest.In those days Truesdell cleaned the brush of many a wolf and tiger cat andMexican lion; and one or two Curtises fell heirs to notches on his rifle stock.Also he buried a brother with a Curtis bullet in him on the bank of the lake atCibolo. And then the Kiowa Indians made their last raid upon the ranchesbetween the Frio and the Rio Grande, and Truesdell at the head of his rangersrid the earth of them to the last brave, earning his sobriquet. Then cameprosperity in the form of waxing herds and broadening lands. And then old ageand bitterness, when he sat, with his great mane of hair as white as theSpanish-dagger blossoms and his fierce, pale-blue eyes, on the shaded galleryat Cibolo, growling like the pumas that he had slain. He snapped his fingers atold age; the bitter taste to life did not come from that. The cup that stuck athis lips was that his only son Ransom wanted to marry a Curtis, the lastyouthful survivor of the other end of the feud.
For a while the only sounds to be heard at the store were the rattling of thetin spoons and the gurgling intake of the juicy fruits by the cowpunchers, thestamping of the grazing ponies, and the singing of a doleful song by Sam as hecontentedly brushed his stiff auburn hair for the twentieth time that daybefore a crinkly mirror.
From the door of the store could be seen the irregular, sloping stretch ofprairie to the south, with its reaches of light-green, billowy mesquite flatsin the lower places, and its rises crowned with nearly black masses of shortchaparral. Through the mesquite flat wound the ranch road that, five milesaway, flowed into the old government trail to San Antonio. The sun was so lowthat the gentlest elevation cast its grey shadow miles into the green-gold seaof sunshine.
That evening ears were quicker than eyes.
The Mexican held up a tawny finger to still the scraping of tin against tin.
“One waggeen,” said he, “cross dthe Arroyo Hondo. Ah heardthe wheel. Verree rockee place, dthe Hondo.”
“You’ve got good ears, Gregorio,” said Mustang Taylor.“I never heard nothin’ but the song-bird in the bush and the zephyrskallyhootin’ across the peaceful dell.”
In ten minutes Taylor remarked: “I see the dust of a wagon risin’right above the fur end of the flat.”
“You have verree good eyes, señor,” said Gregorio, smiling.
Two miles away they saw a faint cloud dimming the green ripples of themesquites. In twenty minutes they heard the clatter of the horses’ hoofs:in five minutes more the grey plugs dashed out of the thicket, whickering foroats and drawing the light wagon behind them like a toy.
From the jacalscame a cry of: “El Amo! El Amo!” FourMexican youths raced to unharness the greys. The cowpunchers gave a yell ofgreeting and delight.
Ranse Truesdell, driving, threw the reins to the ground and laughed.
“It’s under the wagon sheet, boys,” he said. “I knowwhat you’re waiting for. If Sam lets it run out again we’ll usethose yellow shoes of his for a target. There’s two cases. Pull ’emout and light up. I know you all want a smoke.”
After striking dry country Ranse had removed the wagon sheet from the bows andthrown it over the goods in the wagon. Six pair of hasty hands dragged it offand grabbled beneath the sacks and blankets for the cases of tobacco.
Long Collins, tobacco messenger from the San Gabriel outfit, who rode with thelongest stirrups west of the Mississippi, delved with an arm like the tongue ofa wagon. He caught something harder than a blanket and pulled out a fearfulthing—a shapeless, muddy bunch of leather tied together with wire andtwine. From its ragged end, like the head and claws of a disturbed turtle,protruded human toes.
“Who-ee!” yelled Long Collins. “Ranse, are youa-packin’ around of corpuses? Here’s a—howlin’grasshoppers!”
Up from his long slumber popped Curly, like some vile worm from its burrow. Heclawed his way out and sat blinking like a disreputable, drunken owl. His facewas as bluish-red and puffed and seamed and cross-lined as the cheapest roundsteak of the butcher. His eyes were swollen slits; his nose a pickled beet; hishair would have made the wildest thatch of a Jack-in-the-box look like thesatin poll of a Cléo de Mérode. The rest of him was scarecrow done to the life.
Ranse jumped down from his seat and looked at his strange cargo with wide-openeyes.
“Here, you maverick, what are you doing in my wagon? How did you get inthere?”
The punchers gathered around in delight. For the time they had forgottentobacco.
Curly looked around him slowly in every direction. He snarled like a Scotchterrier through his ragged beard.
“Where is this?” he rasped through his parched throat.“It’s a damn farm in an old field. What’d you bring me herefor—say? Did I say I wanted to come here? What are you Reubsrubberin’ at—hey? G’wan or I’ll punch some of yerfaces.”
“Drag him out, Collins,” said Ranse.
Curly took a slide and felt the ground rise up and collide with his shoulderblades. He got up and sat on the steps of the store shivering from outragednerves, hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor lifted out a case of tobacco andwrenched off its top. Six cigarettes began to glow, bringing peace andforgiveness to Sam.
“How’d you come in my wagon?” repeated Ranse, this time in avoice that drew a reply.
Curly recognised the tone. He had heard it used by freight brakemen and largepersons in blue carrying clubs.
“Me?” he growled. “Oh, was you talkin’ to me? Why, Iwas on my way to the Menger, but my valet had forgot to pack my pyjamas. So Icrawled into that wagon in the wagon-yard—see? I never told you to bringme out to this bloomin’ farm—see?”
“What is it, Mustang?” asked Poky Rodgers, almost forgetting tosmoke in his ecstasy. “What do it live on?”
“It’s a galliwampus, Poky,” said Mustang. “It’sthe thing that hollers ‘willi-walloo’ up in ellum trees in the lowgrounds of nights. I don’t know if it bites.”
“No, it ain’t, Mustang,” volunteered Long Collins.“Them galliwampuses has fins on their backs, and eighteen toes. This hereis a hicklesnifter. It lives under the ground and eats cherries. Don’tstand so close to it. It wipes out villages with one stroke of its prehensiletail.”
Sam, the cosmopolite, who called bartenders in San Antone by their first name,stood in the door. He was a better zoologist.
“Well, ain’t that a Willie for your whiskers?” he commented.“Where’d you dig up the hobo, Ranse? Goin’ to make anauditorium for inbreviates out of the ranch?”
“Say,” said Curly, from whose panoplied breast all shafts of witfell blunted. “Any of you kiddin’ guys got a drink on you? Haveyour fun. Say, I’ve been hittin’ the stuff till I don’t knowstraight up.”
He turned to Ranse. “Say, you shanghaied me on your d—d old prairieschooner—did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I’mgoin’ all to little pieces. What’s doin’?”
Ranse saw that the tramp’s nerves were racking him. He despatched one ofthe Mexican boys to the ranch-house for a glass of whisky. Curly gulped itdown; and into his eyes came a brief, grateful glow—as human as theexpression in the eye of a faithful setter dog.
“Thanky, boss,” he said, quietly.
“You’re thirty miles from a railroad, and forty miles from asaloon,” said Ranse.
Curly fell back weakly against the steps.
“Since you are here,” continued the ranchman, “come alongwith me. We can’t turn you out on the prairie. A rabbit might tear you topieces.”
He conducted Curly to a large shed where the ranch vehicles were kept. There hespread out a canvas cot and brought blankets.
“I don’t suppose you can sleep,” said Ranse, “sinceyou’ve been pounding your ear for twenty-four hours. But you can camphere till morning. I’ll have Pedro fetch you up some grub.”
“Sleep!” said Curly. “I can sleep a week. Say, sport, haveyou got a coffin nail on you?”
Fifty miles had Ransom Truesdell driven that day. And yet this is what he did.
Old “Kiowa” Truesdell sat in his great wicker chair reading by thelight of an immense oil lamp. Ranse laid a bundle of newspapers fresh from townat his elbow.
“Back, Ranse?” said the old man, looking up.
“Son,” old “Kiowa” continued, “I’ve beenthinking all day about a certain matter that we have talked about. I want youto tell me again. I’ve lived for you. I’ve fought wolves andIndians and worse white men to protect you. You never had any mother that youcan remember. I’ve taught you to shoot straight, ride hard, and liveclean. Later on I’ve worked to pile up dollars that’ll be yours.You’ll be a rich man, Ranse, when my chunk goes out. I’ve made you.I’ve licked you into shape like a leopard cat licks its cubs. Youdon’t belong to yourself —you’ve got to be a Truesdell first.Now, is there to be any more nonsense about this Curtis girl?”
“I’ll tell you once more,” said Ranse, slowly. “As I ama Truesdell and as you are my father, I’ll never marry a Curtis.”
“Good boy,” said old “Kiowa.” “You’d bettergo get some supper.”
Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Pedro, the Mexican cook,sprang up to bring the food he was keeping warm in the stove.
“Just a cup of coffee, Pedro,” he said, and drank it standing. Andthen:
“There’s a tramp on a cot in the wagon-shed. Take him something toeat. Better make it enough for two.”
Ranse walked out toward the jacals. A boy came running.
“Manuel, can you catch Vaminos, in the little pasture, for me?”
“Why not, señor? I saw him near the puertabut two hours past. Hebears a drag-rope.”
“Get him and saddle him as quick as you can.”
“Prontito, señor.”
Soon, mounted on Vaminos, Ranse leaned in the saddle, pressed with his knees,and galloped eastward past the store, where sat Sam trying his guitar in themoonlight.
Vaminos shall have a word—Vaminos the good dun horse. The Mexicans, whohave a hundred names for the colours of a horse, called him gruyo. Hewas a mouse-coloured, slate-coloured, flea-bitten roan-dun, if you can conceiveit. Down his back from his mane to his tail went a line of black. He would liveforever; and surveyors have not laid off as many miles in the world as he couldtravel in a day.
Eight miles east of the Cibolo ranch-house Ranse loosened the pressure of hisknees, and Vaminos stopped under a big ratama tree. The yellow ratama blossomsshowered fragrance that would have undone the roses of France. The moon madethe earth a great concave bowl with a crystal sky for a lid. In a glade fivejack-rabbits leaped and played together like kittens. Eight miles farther eastshone a faint star that appeared to have dropped below the horizon. Nightriders, who often steered their course by it, knew it to be the light in theRancho de los Olmos.
In ten minutes Yenna Curtis galloped to the tree on her sorrel pony Dancer. Thetwo leaned and clasped hands heartily.
“I ought to have ridden nearer your home,” said Ranse. “Butyou never will let me.”
Yenna laughed. And in the soft light you could see her strong white teeth andfearless eyes. No sentimentality there, in spite of the moonlight, the odour ofthe ratamas, and the admirable figure of Ranse Truesdell, the lover. But shewas there, eight miles from her home, to meet him.
“How often have I told you, Ranse,” she said, “that I am yourhalf-way girl? Always half-way.”
“Well?” said Ranse, with a question in his tones.
“I did,” said Yenna, with almost a sigh. “I told him afterdinner when I thought he would be in a good humour. Did you ever wake up alion, Ranse, with the mistaken idea that he would be a kitten? He almost torethe ranch to pieces. It’s all up. I love my daddy, Ranse, and I’mafraid—I’m afraid of him too. He ordered me to promise thatI’d never marry a Truesdell. I promised. That’s all. What luck didyou have?”
“The same,” said Ranse, slowly. “I promised him that his sonwould never marry a Curtis. Somehow I couldn’t go against him. He’smighty old. I’m sorry, Yenna.”
The girl leaned in her saddle and laid one hand on Ranse’s, on the hornof his saddle.
“I never thought I’d like you better for giving me up,” shesaid ardently, “but I do. I must ride back now, Ranse. I slipped out ofthe house and saddled Dancer myself. Good-night, neighbour.”
“Good-night,” said Ranse. “Ride carefully over them badgerholes.”
They wheeled and rode away in opposite directions. Yenna turned in her saddleand called clearly:
“Don’t forget I’m your half-way girl, Ranse.”
“Damn all family feuds and inherited scraps,” muttered Ransevindictively to the breeze as he rode back to the Cibolo.
Ranse turned his horse into the small pasture and went to his own room. Heopened the lowest drawer of an old bureau to get out the packet of letters thatYenna had written him one summer when she had gone to Mississippi for a visit.The drawer stuck, and he yanked at it savagely—as a man will. It came outof the bureau, and bruised both his shins—as a drawer will. An old,folded yellow letter without an envelope fell from somewhere—probablyfrom where it had lodged in one of the upper drawers. Ranse took it to the lampand read it curiously.
Then he took his hat and walked to one of the Mexican jacals.
“Tia Juana,” he said, “I would like to talk with you awhile.”
An old, old Mexican woman, white-haired and wonderfully wrinkled, rose from astool.
“Sit down,” said Ranse, removing his hat and taking the one chairin the jacal. “Who am I, Tia Juana?” he asked, speakingSpanish.
“Don Ransom, our good friend and employer. Why do you ask?”answered the old woman wonderingly.
“Tia Juana, who am I?” he repeated, with his stern eyes lookinginto hers.
A frightened look came in the old woman’s face. She fumbled with herblack shawl.
“Who am I, Tia Juana?” said Ranse once more.
“Thirty-two years I have lived on the Rancho Cibolo,” said TiaJuana. “I thought to be buried under the coma mott beyond the gardenbefore these things should be known. Close the door, Don Ransom, and I willspeak. I see in your face that you know.”
An hour Ranse spent behind Tia Juana’s closed door. As he was on his wayback to the house Curly called to him from the wagon-shed.
The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his feet and smoking.
“Say, sport,” he grumbled. “This is no way to treat a manafter kidnappin’ him. I went up to the store and borrowed a razor fromthat fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain’t all a man needs.Say—can’t you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze?I never asked you to bring me to your d—d farm.”
“Stand up out here in the light,” said Ranse, looking at himclosely.
Curly got up sullenly and took a step or two.
His face, now shaven smooth, seemed transformed. His hair had been combed, andit fell back from the right side of his forehead with a peculiar wave. Themoonlight charitably softened the ravages of drink; and his aquiline,well-shaped nose and small, square cleft chin almost gave distinction to hislooks.
Ranse sat on the foot of the cot and looked at him curiously.
“Where did you come from—have you got any home or folksanywhere?”
“Me? Why, I’m a dook,” said Curly. “I’m SirReginald—oh, cheese it. No; I don’t know anything about myancestors. I’ve been a tramp ever since I can remember. Say, old pal, areyou going to set ’em up again to-night or not?”
“You answer my questions and maybe I will. How did you come to be atramp?”
“Me?” answered Curly. “Why, I adopted that profession when Iwas an infant. Case of had to. First thing I can remember, I belonged to a big,lazy hobo called Beefsteak Charley. He sent me around to houses to beg. Iwasn’t hardly big enough to reach the latch of a gate.”
“Did he ever tell you how he got you?” asked Ranse.
“Once when he was sober he said he bought me for an old six-shooter andsix bits from a band of drunken Mexican sheep-shearers. But what’s thediff? That’s all I know.”
“All right,” said Ranse. “I reckon you’re a maverickfor certain. I’m going to put the Rancho Cibolo brand on you. I’llstart you to work in one of the camps to-morrow.”
“Work!” sniffed Curly, disdainfully. “What do you take mefor? Do you think I’d chase cows, and hop-skip-and-jump around aftercrazy sheep like that pink and yellow guy at the store says these Reubs do?Forget it.”
“Oh, you’ll like it when you get used to it,” said Ranse.“Yes, I’ll send you up one more drink by Pedro. I thinkyou’ll make a first-class cowpuncher before I get through withyou.”
“Me?” said Curly. “I pity the cows you set me to chaperon.They can go chase themselves. Don’t forget my nightcap, please,boss.”
Ranse paid a visit to the store before going to the house. Sam Rivell wastaking off his tan shoes regretting and preparing for bed.
“Any of the boys from the San Gabriel camp riding in early in themorning?” asked Ranse.
“Long Collins,” said Sam briefly. “For the mail.”
“Tell him,” said Ranse, “to take that tramp out to camp withhim and keep him till I get there.”
Curly was sitting on his blankets in the San Gabriel camp cursing talentedlywhen Ranse Truesdell rode up and dismounted on the next afternoon. Thecowpunchers were ignoring the stray. He was grimy with dust and black dirt. Hisclothes were making their last stand in favour of the conventions.
Ranse went up to Buck Rabb, the camp boss, and spoke briefly.
“He’s a plumb buzzard,” said Buck. “He won’twork, and he’s the low-downest passel of inhumanity I ever see. Ididn’t know what you wanted done with him, Ranse, so I just let him set.That seems to suit him. He’s been condemned to death by the boys a dozentimes, but I told ’em maybe you was savin’ him for thetorture.”
Ranse took off his coat.
“I’ve got a hard job before me, Buck, I reckon, but it has to bedone. I’ve got to make a man out of that thing. That’s whatI’ve come to camp for.”
He went up to Curly.
“Brother,” he said, “don’t you think if you had a bathit would allow you to take a seat in the company of your fellow-man with lessinjustice to the atmosphere.”
“Run away, farmer,” said Curly, sardonically. “Willie willsend for nursey when he feels like having his tub.”
The charco, or water hole, was twelve yards away. Ranse took one ofCurly’s ankles and dragged him like a sack of potatoes to the brink. Thenwith the strength and sleight of a hammer-throw he hurled the offending memberof society far into the lake.
Curly crawled out and up the bank spluttering like a porpoise.
Ranse met him with a piece of soap and a coarse towel in his hands.
“Go to the other end of the lake and use this,” he said.“Buck will give you some dry clothes at the wagon.”
The tramp obeyed without protest. By the time supper was ready he had returnedto camp. He was hardly to be recognised in his new shirt and brown duckclothes. Ranse observed him out of the corner of his eye.
“Lordy, I hope he ain’t a coward,” he was saying to himself.“I hope he won’t turn out to be a coward.”
His doubts were soon allayed. Curly walked straight to where he stood. Hislight-blue eyes were blazing.
“Now I’m clean,” he said meaningly, “maybe you’lltalk to me. Think you’ve got a picnic here, do you? You clodhoppers thinkyou can run over a man because you know he can’t get away. All right.Now, what do you think of that?”
Curly planted a stinging slap against Ranse’s left cheek. The print ofhis hand stood out a dull red against the tan.
Ranse smiled happily.
The cowpunchers talk to this day of the battle that followed.
Somewhere in his restless tour of the cities Curly had acquired the art ofself-defence. The ranchman was equipped only with the splendid strength andequilibrium of perfect health and the endurance conferred by decent living. Thetwo attributes nearly matched. There were no formal rounds. At last the fibreof the clean liver prevailed. The last time Curly went down from one of theranchman’s awkward but powerful blows he remained on the grass, butlooking up with an unquenched eye.
Ranse went to the water barrel and washed the red from a cut on his chin in thestream from the faucet.
On his face was a grin of satisfaction.
Much benefit might accrue to educators and moralists if they could know thedetails of the curriculum of reclamation through which Ranse put his waifduring the month that he spent in the San Gabriel camp. The ranchman had nofine theories to work out—perhaps his whole stock of pedagogy embracedonly a knowledge of horse-breaking and a belief in heredity.
The cowpunchers saw that their boss was trying to make a man out of the strangeanimal that he had sent among them; and they tacitly organised themselves intoa faculty of assistants. But their system was their own.
Curly’s first lesson stuck. He became on friendly and then on intimateterms with soap and water. And the thing that pleased Ranse most was that his“subject” held his ground at each successive higher step. But thesteps were sometimes far apart.
Once he got at the quart bottle of whisky kept sacredly in the grub tent forrattlesnake bites, and spent sixteen hours on the grass, magnificently drunk.But when he staggered to his feet his first move was to find his soap and toweland start for the charco. And once, when a treat came from the ranch inthe form of a basket of fresh tomatoes and young onions, Curly devoured theentire consignment before the punchers reached the camp at supper time.
And then the punchers punished him in their own way. For three days they didnot speak to him, except to reply to his own questions or remarks. And theyspoke with absolute and unfailing politeness. They played tricks on oneanother; they pounded one another hurtfully and affectionately; they heapedupon one another’s heads friendly curses and obloquy; but they werepolite to Curly. He saw it, and it stung him as much as Ranse hoped it would.
Then came a night that brought a cold, wet norther. Wilson, the youngest of theoutfit, had lain in camp two days, ill with fever. When Joe got up at daylightto begin breakfast he found Curly sitting asleep against a wheel of the grubwagon with only a saddle blanket around him, while Curly’s blankets werestretched over Wilson to protect him from the rain and wind.
Three nights after that Curly rolled himself in his blanket and went to sleep.Then the other punchers rose up softly and began to make preparations. Ransesaw Long Collins tie a rope to the horn of a saddle. Others were getting outtheir six-shooters.
“Boys,” said Ranse, “I’m much obliged. I was hoping youwould. But I didn’t like to ask.”
Half a dozen six-shooters began to pop—awful yells rent theair—Long Collins galloped wildly across Curly’s bed, dragging thesaddle after him. That was merely their way of gently awaking their victim.Then they hazed him for an hour, carefully and ridiculously, after the code ofcow camps. Whenever he uttered protest they held him stretched over a roll ofblankets and thrashed him woefully with a pair of leather leggings.
And all this meant that Curly had won his spurs, that he was receiving thepuncher’s accolade. Nevermore would they be polite to him. But he wouldbe their “pardner” and stirrup-brother, foot to foot.
When the fooling was ended all hands made a raid on Joe’s big coffee-potby the fire for a Java nightcap. Ranse watched the new knight carefully to seeif he understood and was worthy. Curly limped with his cup of coffee to a logand sat upon it. Long Collins followed and sat by his side. Buck Rabb went andsat at the other. Curly—grinned.
And then Ranse furnished Curly with mounts and saddle and equipment, and turnedhim over to Buck Rabb, instructing him to finish the job.
Three weeks later Ranse rode from the ranch into Rabb’s camp, which wasthen in Snake Valley. The boys were saddling for the day’s ride. Hesought out Long Collins among them.
“How about that bronco?” he asked.
Long Collins grinned.
“Reach out your hand, Ranse Truesdell,” he said, “andyou’ll touch him. And you can shake his’n, too, if you like, forhe’s plumb white and there’s none better in no camp.”
Ranse looked again at the clear-faced, bronzed, smiling cowpuncher who stood atCollins’s side. Could that be Curly? He held out his hand, and Curlygrasped it with the muscles of a bronco-buster.
“I want you at the ranch,” said Ranse.
“All right, sport,” said Curly, heartily. “But I want to comeback again. Say, pal, this is a dandy farm. And I don’t want any betterfun than hustlin’ cows with this bunch of guys. They’re all to themerry-merry.”
At the Cibolo ranch-house they dismounted. Ranse bade Curly wait at the door ofthe living room. He walked inside. Old “Kiowa” Truesdell wasreading at a table.
“Good-morning, Mr. Truesdell,” said Ranse.
The old man turned his white head quickly.
“How is this?” he began. “Why do you call me‘Mr.—’?”
When he looked at Ranse’s face he stopped, and the hand that held hisnewspaper shook slightly.
“Boy,” he said slowly, “how did you find it out?”
“It’s all right,” said Ranse, with a smile. “I made TiaJuana tell me. It was kind of by accident, but it’s all right.”
“You’ve been like a son to me,” said old “Kiowa,”trembling.
“Tia Juana told me all about it,” said Ranse. “She told mehow you adopted me when I was knee-high to a puddle duck out of a wagon trainof prospectors that was bound West. And she told me how the kid—your ownkid, you know—got lost or was run away with. And she said it was the sameday that the sheep-shearers got on a bender and left the ranch.”
“Our boy strayed from the house when he was two years old,” saidthe old man. “And then along came those emigrant wagons with a youngsterthey didn’t want; and we took you. I never intended you to know, Ranse.We never heard of our boy again.”
“He’s right outside, unless I’m mighty mistaken,” saidRanse, opening the door and beckoning.
Curly walked in.
No one could have doubted. The old man and the young had the same sweep ofhair, the same nose, chin, line of face, and prominent light-blue eyes.
Old “Kiowa” rose eagerly.
Curly looked about the room curiously. A puzzled expression came over his face.He pointed to the wall opposite.
“Where’s the tick-tock?” he asked, absent-mindedly.
“The clock,” cried old “Kiowa” loudly. “Theeight-day clock used to stand there. Why—”
He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there.
Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was bearinghim eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards the Rancho de losOlmos.
X
CUPID À LA CARTE
“The dispositions of woman,” said Jeff Peters, after variousopinions on the subject had been advanced, “run, regular, to diversions.What a woman wants is what you’re out of. She wants more of a thing whenit’s scarce. She likes to have souvenirs of things that never happened.She likes to be reminded of things she never heard of. A one-sided view ofobjects is disjointing to the female composition.
“’Tis a misfortune of mine, begotten by nature and travel,”continued Jeff, looking thoughtfully between his elevated feet at the grocerystove, “to look deeper into some subjects than most people do. I’vebreathed gasoline smoke talking to street crowds in nearly every town in theUnited States. I’ve held ’em spellbound with music, oratory,sleight of hand, and prevarications, while I’ve sold ’em jewelry,medicine, soap, hair tonic, and junk of other nominations. And during mytravels, as a matter of recreation and expiation, I’ve taken cognisancesome of women. It takes a man a lifetime to find out about one particularwoman; but if he puts in, say, ten years, industrious and curious, he canacquire the general rudiments of the sex. One lesson I picked up was when I wasworking the West with a line of Brazilian diamonds and a patent fire kindlerjust after my trip from Savannah down through the cotton belt withDalby’s Anti-explosive Lamp Oil Powder. ’Twas when the Oklahomacountry was in first bloom. Guthrie was rising in the middle of it like a lumpof self-raising dough. It was a boom town of the regular kind—you stoodin line to get a chance to wash your face; if you ate over ten minutes you hada lodging bill added on; if you slept on a plank at night they charged it toyou as board the next morning.
“By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering choiceplaces wherein to feed. So I looked around and found a proposition that exactlycut the mustard. I found a restaurant tent just opened up by an outfit that haddrifted in on the tail of the boom. They had knocked together a box house,where they lived and did the cooking, and served the meals in a tent pitchedagainst the side. That tent was joyful with placards on it calculated to redeemthe world-worn pilgrim from the sinfulness of boarding houses and pick-me-uphotels. ‘Try Mother’s Home-Made Biscuits,’‘What’s the Matter with Our Apple Dumplings and Hard Sauce?’‘Hot Cakes and Maple Syrup Like You Ate When a Boy,’ ‘OurFried Chicken Never Was Heard to Crow’— there was literature doomedto please the digestions of man! I said to myself that mother’s wanderingboy should munch there that night. And so it came to pass. And there is where Icontracted my case of Mame Dugan.
“Old Man Dugan was six feet by one of Indiana loafer, and he spent histime sitting on his shoulder blades in a rocking-chair in the shantymemorialising the great corn-crop failure of ’96. Ma Dugan did thecooking, and Mame waited on the table.
“As soon as I saw Mame I knew there was a mistake in the census reports.There wasn’t but one girl in the United States. When you come tospecifications it isn’t easy. She was about the size of an angel, and shehad eyes, and ways about her. When you come to the kind of a girl she was,you’ll find a belt of ’em reaching from the Brooklyn Bridge west asfar as the courthouse in Council Bluffs, Ia. They earn their own living instores, restaurants, factories, and offices. They’re chummy and honestand free and tender and sassy, and they look life straight in the eye.They’ve met man face to face, and discovered that he’s a poorcreature. They’ve dropped to it that the reports in the Seaside Libraryabout his being a fairy prince lack confirmation.
“Mame was that sort. She was full of life and fun, and breezy; she passedthe repartee with the boarders quick as a wink; you’d have smotheredlaughing. I am disinclined to make excavations into the insides of a personalaffection. I am glued to the theory that the diversions and discrepancies ofthe indisposition known as love should be as private a sentiment as atoothbrush. ’Tis my opinion that the biographies of the heart should beconfined with the historical romances of the liver to the advertising pages ofthe magazines. So, you’ll excuse the lack of an itemised bill of myfeelings toward Mame.
“Pretty soon I got a regular habit of dropping into the tent to eat atirregular times when there wasn’t so many around. Mame would sail in witha smile, in a black dress and white apron, and say: ‘Hello, Jeff—why don’t you come at mealtime? Want to see how much trouble youcan be, of course.Friedchickenbeefsteakporkchopshamandeggspotpie’—and so on. Shecalled me Jeff, but there was no significations attached. Designations was allshe meant. The front names of any of us she used as they came to hand.I’d eat about two meals before I left, and string ’em out like asociety spread where they changed plates and wives, and josh one anotherfestively between bites. Mame stood for it, pleasant, for it wasn’t up toher to take any canvas off the tent by declining dollars just because they werewhipped in after meal times.
“It wasn’t long until there was another fellow named Ed Collier gotthe between-meals affliction, and him and me put in bridges between breakfastand dinner, and dinner and supper, that made a three-ringed circus of thattent, and Mame’s turn as waiter a continuous performance. That Collierman was saturated with designs and contrivings. He was in well-boring orinsurance or claim-jumping, or something—I’ve forgotten which. Hewas a man well lubricated with gentility, and his words were such asrecommended you to his point of view. So, Collier and me infested the grub tentwith care and activity. Mame was level full of impartiality. ’Twas like acasino hand the way she dealt out her favours—one to Collier and one tome and one to the board, and not a card up her sleeve.
“Me and Collier naturally got acquainted, and gravitated together some onthe outside. Divested of his stratagems, he seemed to be a pleasant chap, fullof an amiable sort of hostility.
“‘I notice you have an affinity for grubbing in the banquet hallafter the guests have fled,’ says I to him one day, to draw hisconclusions.
“‘Well, yes,’ says Collier, reflecting; ‘the tumult ofa crowded board seems to harass my sensitive nerves.’
“‘It exasperates mine some, too,’ says I. ‘Nice littlegirl, don’t you think?’
“‘I see,’ says Collier, laughing. ‘Well, now that youmention it, I have noticed that she doesn’t seem to displease the opticnerve.’
“‘She’s a joy to mine,’ says I, ‘and I’mgoing after her. Notice is hereby served.’
“‘I’ll be as candid as you,’ admits Collier, ‘andif the drug stores don’t run out of pepsin I’ll give you a run foryour money that’ll leave you a dyspeptic at the wind-up.’
“So Collier and me begins the race; the grub department lays in newsupplies; Mame waits on us, jolly and kind and agreeable, and it looks like aneven break, with Cupid and the cook working overtime in Dugan’srestaurant.
“’Twas one night in September when I got Mame to take a walk aftersupper when the things were all cleared away. We strolled out a distance andsat on a pile of lumber at the edge of town. Such opportunities was seldom, soI spoke my piece, explaining how the Brazilian diamonds and the fire kindlerwere laying up sufficient treasure to guarantee the happiness of two, and thatboth of ’em together couldn’t equal the light from somebody’seyes, and that the name of Dugan should be changed to Peters, or reasons whynot would be in order.
“Mame didn’t say anything right away. Directly she gave a kind ofshudder, and I began to learn something.
“‘Jeff,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry you spoke. I likeyou as well as any of them, but there isn’t a man in the world I’dever marry, and there never will be. Do you know what a man is in my eye?He’s a tomb. He’s a sarcophagus for the interment ofBeafsteakporkchopsliver’nbaconham-andeggs. He’s that and nothingmore. For two years I’ve watched men eat, eat, eat, until they representnothing on earth to me but ruminant bipeds. They’re absolutely nothingbut something that goes in front of a knife and fork and plate at the table.They’re fixed that way in my mind and memory. I’ve tried toovercome it, but I can’t. I’ve heard girls rave about theirsweethearts, but I never could understand it. A man and a sausage grinder and apantry awake in me exactly the same sentiments. I went to a matinée once to seean actor the girls were crazy about. I got interested enough to wonder whetherhe liked his steak rare, medium, or well done, and his eggs over or straightup. That was all. No, Jeff; I’ll marry no man and see him sit at thebreakfast table and eat, and come back to dinner and eat, and happen in againat supper to eat, eat, eat.’
“‘But, Mame,’ says I, ‘it’ll wear off.You’ve had too much of it. You’ll marry some time, of course. Mendon’t eat always.’
“‘As far as my observation goes, they do. No, I’ll tell youwhat I’m going to do.’ Mame turns, sudden, to animation and brighteyes. ‘There’s a girl named Susie Foster in Terre Haute, a chum ofmine. She waits in the railroad eating house there. I worked two years in arestaurant in that town. Susie has it worse than I do, because the men who eatat railroad stations gobble. They try to flirt and gobble at the same time.Whew! Susie and I have it all planned out. We’re saving our money, andwhen we get enough we’re going to buy a little cottage and five acres weknow of, and live together, and grow violets for the Eastern market. A manbetter not bring his appetite within a mile of that ranch.’
“‘Don’t girls ever—’ I commenced, but Mame headsme off, sharp.
“‘No, they don’t. They nibble a little bit sometimes;that’s all.’
“‘I thought the confect—’
“‘For goodness’ sake, change the subject,’ says Mame.
“As I said before, that experience puts me wise that the femininearrangement ever struggles after deceptions and illusions. TakeEngland—beef made her; wieners elevated Germany; Uncle Sam owes hisgreatness to fried chicken and pie, but the young ladies of the Shetalkyouschools, they’ll never believe it. Shakespeare, they allow, andRubinstein, and the Rough Riders is what did the trick.
“’Twas a situation calculated to disturb. I couldn’t bear togive up Mame; and yet it pained me to think of abandoning the practice ofeating. I had acquired the habit too early. For twenty-seven years I had beenblindly rushing upon my fate, yielding to the insidious lures of that deadlymonster, food. It was too late. I was a ruminant biped for keeps. It waslobster salad to a doughnut that my life was going to be blighted by it.
“I continued to board at the Dugan tent, hoping that Mame would relent. Ihad sufficient faith in true love to believe that since it has often outlivedthe absence of a square meal it might, in time, overcome the presence of one. Iwent on ministering to my fatal vice, although I felt that each time I shoved apotato into my mouth in Mame’s presence I might be burying my fondesthopes.
“I think Collier must have spoken to Mame and got the same answer, forone day he orders a cup of coffee and a cracker, and sits nibbling the cornerof it like a girl in the parlour, that’s filled up in the kitchen,previous, on cold roast and fried cabbage. I caught on and did the same, andmaybe we thought we’d made a hit! The next day we tried it again, and outcomes old man Dugan fetching in his hands the fairy viands.
“‘Kinder off yer feed, ain’t ye, gents?’ he asks,fatherly and some sardonic. ‘Thought I’d spell Mame a bit,seein’ the work was light, and my rheumatiz can stand the strain.’
“So back me and Collier had to drop to the heavy grub again. I noticedabout that time that I was seized by a most uncommon and devastating appetite.I ate until Mame must have hated to see me darken the door. Afterward I foundout that I had been made the victim of the first dark and irreligious trickplayed on me by Ed Collier. Him and me had been taking drinks together uptownregular, trying to drown our thirst for food. That man had bribed about tenbartenders to always put a big slug of Appletree’s Anaconda AppetiteBitters in every one of my drinks. But the last trick he played me was hardestto forget.
“One day Collier failed to show up at the tent. A man told me he lefttown that morning. My only rival now was the bill of fare. A few days before heleft Collier had presented me with a two-gallon jug of fine whisky which hesaid a cousin had sent him from Kentucky. I now have reason to believe that itcontained Appletree’s Anaconda Appetite Bitters almost exclusively. Icontinued to devour tons of provisions. In Mame’s eyes I remained a merebiped, more ruminant than ever.
“About a week after Collier pulled his freight there came a kind ofside-show to town, and hoisted a tent near the railroad. I judged it was a sortof fake museum and curiosity business. I called to see Mame one night, and MaDugan said that she and Thomas, her younger brother, had gone to the show. Thatsame thing happened for three nights that week. Saturday night I caught her onthe way coming back, and got to sit on the steps a while and talk to her. Inoticed she looked different. Her eyes were softer, and shiny like. Instead ofa Mame Dugan to fly from the voracity of man and raise violets, she seemed tobe a Mame more in line as God intended her, approachable, and suited to bask inthe light of the Brazilians and the Kindler.
“‘You seem to be right smart inveigled,’ says I, ‘withthe Unparalleled Exhibition of the World’s Living Curiosities andWonders.’
“‘It’s a change,’ says Mame.
“‘You’ll need another,’ says I, ‘if you keep ongoing every night.’
“‘Don’t be cross, Jeff,’ says she; ‘it takes mymind off business.’
“‘Don’t the curiosities eat?’ I ask.
“‘Not all of them. Some of them are wax.’
“‘Look out, then, that you don’t get stuck,’ says I,kind of flip and foolish.
“Mame blushed. I didn’t know what to think about her. My hopesraised some that perhaps my attentions had palliated man’s awful crime ofvisibly introducing nourishment into his system. She talked some about thestars, referring to them with respect and politeness, and I drivelled aquantity about united hearts, homes made bright by true affection, and theKindler. Mame listened without scorn, and I says to myself, ‘Jeff, oldman, you’re removing the hoodoo that has clung to the consumer ofvictuals; you’re setting your heel upon the serpent that lurks in thegravy bowl.’
“Monday night I drop around. Mame is at the Unparalleled Exhibition withThomas.
“‘Now, may the curse of the forty-one seven-sided sea cooks,’says I, ‘and the bad luck of the nine impenitent grasshoppers rest uponthis self-same sideshow at once and forever more. Amen. I’ll go to see itmyself to-morrow night and investigate its baleful charm. Shall man that wasmade to inherit the earth be bereft of his sweetheart first by a knife and forkand then by a ten-cent circus?’
“The next night before starting out for the exhibition tent I inquire andfind out that Mame is not at home. She is not at the circus with Thomas thistime, for Thomas waylays me in the grass outside of the grub tent with a schemeof his own before I had time to eat supper.
“‘What’ll you give me, Jeff,’ says he, ‘if I tellyou something?’
“‘The value of it, son,’ I says.
“‘Sis is stuck on a freak,’ says Thomas, ‘one of theside-show freaks. I don’t like him. She does. I overheard ’emtalking. Thought maybe you’d like to know. Say, Jeff, does it put youwise two dollars’ worth? There’s a target rifle up townthat—’
“I frisked my pockets and commenced to dribble a stream of halves andquarters into Thomas’s hat. The information was of the pile-driver systemof news, and it telescoped my intellects for a while. While I was leaking smallchange and smiling foolish on the outside, and suffering disturbancesinternally, I was saying, idiotically and pleasantly:
“‘Thank you, Thomas—thank you—er—a freak, yousaid, Thomas. Now, could you make out the monstrosity’s entitlements alittle clearer, if you please, Thomas?’
“‘This is the fellow,’ says Thomas, pulling out a yellowhandbill from his pocket and shoving it under my nose. ‘He’s theChampion Faster of the Universe. I guess that’s why Sis got soft on him.He don’t eat nothing. He’s going to fast forty-nine days. This isthe sixth. That’s him.’
“I looked at the name Thomas pointed out—‘Professor EduardoCollieri.’ ‘Ah!’ says I, in admiration, ‘that’snot so bad, Ed Collier. I give you credit for the trick. But I don’t giveyou the girl until she’s Mrs. Freak.’
“I hit the sod in the direction of the show. I came up to the rear of thetent, and, as I did so, a man wiggled out like a snake from under the bottom ofthe canvas, scrambled to his feet, and ran into me like a locoed bronco. Igathered him by the neck and investigated him by the light of the stars. It isProfessor Eduardo Collieri, in human habiliments, with a desperate look in oneeye and impatience in the other.
“‘Hello, Curiosity,’ says I. ‘Get still a minute andlet’s have a look at your freakship. How do you like being thewillopus-wallopus or the bim-bam from Borneo, or whatever name you aredenounced by in the side-show business?’
“‘Jeff Peters,’ says Collier, in a weak voice. ‘Turn meloose, or I’ll slug you one. I’m in the extremest kind of a largehurry. Hands off!’
“‘Tut, tut, Eddie,’ I answers, holding him hard; ‘letan old friend gaze on the exhibition of your curiousness. It’s an eminentgraft you fell onto, my son. But don’t speak of assaults and battery,because you’re not fit. The best you’ve got is a lot of nerve and amighty empty stomach.’ And so it was. The man was as weak as a vegetariancat.
“‘I’d argue this case with you, Jeff,’ says he,regretful in his style, ‘for an unlimited number of rounds if I had halfan hour to train in and a slab of beefsteak two feet square to train with.Curse the man, I say, that invented the art of going foodless. May his soul ineternity be chained up within two feet of a bottomless pit of red-hot hash.I’m abandoning the conflict, Jeff; I’m deserting to the enemy.You’ll find Miss Dugan inside contemplating the only living mummy and theinformed hog. She’s a fine girl, Jeff. I’d have beat you out if Icould have kept up the grubless habit a little while longer. You’ll haveto admit that the fasting dodge was aces-up for a while. I figured it out thatway. But say, Jeff, it’s said that love makes the world go around. Let metell you, the announcement lacks verification. It’s the wind from thedinner horn that does it. I love that Mame Dugan. I’ve gone six dayswithout food in order to coincide with her sentiments. Only one bite did Ihave. That was when I knocked the tattooed man down with a war club and got asandwich he was gobbling. The manager fined me all my salary; but salarywasn’t what I was after. ’Twas that girl. I’d give my lifefor her, but I’d endanger my immortal soul for a beef stew. Hunger is ahorrible thing, Jeff. Love and business and family and religion and art andpatriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving!’
“In such language Ed Collier discoursed to me, pathetic. I gathered thediagnosis that his affections and his digestions had been implicated in ascramble and the commissary had won out. I never disliked Ed Collier. Isearched my internal admonitions of suitable etiquette to see if I could find aremark of a consoling nature, but there was none convenient.
“‘I’d be glad, now,’ says Ed, ‘if you’lllet me go. I’ve been hard hit, but I’ll hit the ration supplyharder. I’m going to clean out every restaurant in town. I’m goingto wade waist deep in sirloins and swim in ham and eggs. It’s an awfulthing, Jeff Peters, for a man to come to this pass—to give up his girlfor something to eat—it’s worse than that man Esau, that swappedhis copyright for a partridge— but then, hunger’s a fierce thing.You’ll excuse me, now, Jeff, for I smell a pervasion of ham frying in thedistance, and my legs are crying out to stampede in that direction.’
“‘A hearty meal to you, Ed Collier,’ I says to him,‘and no hard feelings. For myself, I am projected to be an unseldomeater, and I have condolence for your predicaments.’
“There was a sudden big whiff of frying ham smell on the breeze; and theChampion Faster gives a snort and gallops off in the dark toward fodder.
“I wish some of the cultured outfit that are always advertising theextenuating circumstances of love and romance had been there to see. There wasEd Collier, a fine man full of contrivances and flirtations, abandoning thegirl of his heart and ripping out into the contiguous territory in the pursuitof sordid grub. ’Twas a rebuke to the poets and a slap at the best-payingelement of fiction. An empty stomach is a sure antidote to an overfull heart.
“I was naturally anxious to know how far Mame was infatuated with Collierand his stratagems. I went inside the Unparalleled Exhibition, and there shewas. She looked surprised to see me, but unguilty.
“‘It’s an elegant evening outside,’ says I. ‘Thecoolness is quite nice and gratifying, and the stars are lined out, firstclass, up where they belong. Wouldn’t you shake these by-products of theanimal kingdom long enough to take a walk with a common human who never was ona programme in his life?’
“Mame gave a sort of sly glance around, and I knew what that meant.
“‘Oh,’ says I, ‘I hate to tell you; but the curiositythat lives on wind has flew the coop. He just crawled out under the tent. Bythis time he has amalgamated himself with half the delicatessen truck intown.’
“‘You mean Ed Collier?’ says Mame.
“‘I do,’ I answers; ‘and a pity it is that he has goneback to crime again. I met him outside the tent, and he exposed his intentionsof devastating the food crop of the world. ’Tis enormously sad whenone’s ideal descends from his pedestal to make a seventeen-year locust ofhimself.’
“Mame looked me straight in the eye until she had corkscrewed myreflections.
“‘Jeff,’ says she, ‘it isn’t quite like you totalk that way. I don’t care to hear Ed Collier ridiculed. A man may doridiculous things, but they don’t look ridiculous to the girl he does’em for. That was one man in a hundred. He stopped eating just to pleaseme. I’d be hard-hearted and ungrateful if I didn’t feel kindlytoward him. Could you do what he did?’
“‘I know,’ says I, seeing the point, ‘I’mcondemned. I can’t help it. The brand of the consumer is upon my brow.Mrs. Eve settled that business for me when she made the dicker with the snake.I fell from the fire into the frying-pan. I guess I’m the ChampionFeaster of the Universe.’ I spoke humble, and Mame mollified herself alittle.
“‘Ed Collier and I are good friends,’ she said, ‘thesame as me and you. I gave him the same answer I did you—no marrying forme. I liked to be with Ed and talk with him. There was something mightypleasant to me in the thought that here was a man who never used a knife andfork, and all for my sake.’
“‘Wasn’t you in love with him?’ I asks, allinjudicious. ‘Wasn’t there a deal on for you to become Mrs.Curiosity?’
“All of us do it sometimes. All of us get jostled out of the line ofprofitable talk now and then. Mame put on that little lemon glacésmilethat runs between ice and sugar, and says, much too pleasant:‘You’re short on credentials for asking that question, Mr. Peters.Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand on, andthen maybe I’ll answer it.’
“So, even after Collier was kidnapped out of the way by the revolt of hisappetite, my own prospects with Mame didn’t seem to be improved. And thenbusiness played out in Guthrie.
“I had stayed too long there. The Brazilians I had sold commenced to showsigns of wear, and the Kindler refused to light up right frequent on wetmornings. There is always a time, in my business, when the star of successsays, ‘Move on to the next town.’ I was travelling by wagon at thattime so as not to miss any of the small towns; so I hitched up a few days laterand went down to tell Mame good-bye. I wasn’t abandoning the game; Iintended running over to Oklahoma City and work it for a week or two. Then Iwas coming back to institute fresh proceedings against Mame.
“What do I find at the Dugans’ but Mame all conspicuous in a bluetravelling dress, with her little trunk at the door. It seems that sisterLottie Bell, who is a typewriter in Terre Haute, is going to be married nextThursday, and Mame is off for a week’s visit to be an accomplice at theceremony. Mame is waiting for a freight wagon that is going to take her toOklahoma, but I condemns the freight wagon with promptness and scorn, andoffers to deliver the goods myself. Ma Dugan sees no reason why not, as Mr.Freighter wants pay for the job; so, thirty minutes later Mame and I pull outin my light spring wagon with white canvas cover, and head due south.
“That morning was of a praiseworthy sort. The breeze was lively, andsmelled excellent of flowers and grass, and the little cottontail rabbitsentertained themselves with skylarking across the road. My two Kentucky bayswent for the horizon until it come sailing in so fast you wanted to dodge itlike a clothesline. Mame was full of talk and rattled on like a kid about herold home and her school pranks and the things she liked and the hateful ways ofthose Johnson girls just across the street, ‘way up in Indiana. Not aword was said about Ed Collier or victuals or such solemn subjects. About noonMame looks and finds that the lunch she had put up in a basket had been leftbehind. I could have managed quite a collation, but Mame didn’t seem tobe grieving over nothing to eat, so I made no lamentations. It was a soresubject with me, and I ruled provender in all its branches out of myconversation.
“I am minded to touch light on explanations how I came to lose the way.The road was dim and well grown with grass; and there was Mame by my sideconfiscating my intellects and attention. The excuses are good or they are not,as they may appear to you. But I lost it, and at dusk that afternoon, when weshould have been in Oklahoma City, we were seesawing along the edge of nowherein some undiscovered river bottom, and the rain was falling in large, wetbunches. Down there in the swamps we saw a little log house on a small knoll ofhigh ground. The bottom grass and the chaparral and the lonesome timber crowdedall around it. It seemed to be a melancholy little house, and you felt sorryfor it. ’Twas that house for the night, the way I reasoned it. Iexplained to Mame, and she leaves it to me to decide. She doesn’t becomegalvanic and prosecuting, as most women would, but she says it’s allright; she knows I didn’t mean to do it.
“We found the house was deserted. It had two empty rooms. There was alittle shed in the yard where beasts had once been kept. In a loft of it was alot of old hay. I put my horses in there and gave them some of it, for whichthey looked at me sorrowful, expecting apologies. The rest of the hay I carriedinto the house by armfuls, with a view to accommodations. I also brought in thepatent kindler and the Brazilians, neither of which are guaranteed against theaction of water.
“Mame and I sat on the wagon seats on the floor, and I lit a lot of thekindler on the hearth, for the night was chilly. If I was any judge, that girlenjoyed it. It was a change for her. It gave her a different point of view. Shelaughed and talked, and the kindler made a dim light compared to her eyes. Ihad a pocketful of cigars, and as far as I was concerned there had never beenany fall of man. We were at the same old stand in the Garden of Eden. Out theresomewhere in the rain and the dark was the river of Zion, and the angel withthe flaming sword had not yet put up the keep-off-the-grass sign. I opened up agross or two of the Brazilians and made Mame put them on—rings, brooches,necklaces, eardrops, bracelets, girdles, and lockets. She flashed and sparkledlike a million-dollar princess until she had pink spots in her cheeks andalmost cried for a looking-glass.
“When it got late I made a fine bunk on the floor for Mame with the hayand my lap robes and blankets out of the wagon, and persuaded her to lie down.I sat in the other room burning tobacco and listening to the pouring rain andmeditating on the many vicissitudes that came to a man during the seventy yearsor so immediately preceding his funeral.
“I must have dozed a little while before morning, for my eyes were shut,and when I opened them it was daylight, and there stood Mame with her hair alldone up neat and correct, and her eyes bright with admiration of existence.
“‘Gee whiz, Jeff!’ she exclaims, ‘but I’m hungry.I could eat a—’
“I looked up and caught her eye. Her smile went back in and she gave me acold look of suspicion. Then I laughed, and laid down on the floor to laugheasier. It seemed funny to me. By nature and geniality I am a hearty laugher,and I went the limit. When I came to, Mame was sitting with her back to me, allcontaminated with dignity.
“‘Don’t be angry, Mame,’ I says, ‘for Icouldn’t help it. It’s the funny way you’ve done up yourhair. If you could only see it!’
“‘You needn’t tell stories, sir,’ said Mame, cool andadvised. ‘My hair is all right. I know what you were laughing about. Why,Jeff, look outside,’ she winds up, peeping through a chink between thelogs. I opened the little wooden window and looked out. The entire river bottomwas flooded, and the knob of land on which the house stood was an island in themiddle of a rushing stream of yellow water a hundred yards wide. And it wasstill raining hard. All we could do was to stay there till the doves brought inthe olive branch.
“I am bound to admit that conversations and amusements languished duringthat day. I was aware that Mame was getting a too prolonged one-sided view ofthings again, but I had no way to change it. Personally, I was wrapped up inthe desire to eat. I had hallucinations of hash and visions of ham, and I keptsaying to myself all the time, ‘What’ll you have to eat,Jeff?—what’ll you order now, old man, when the waiter comes?’I picks out to myself all sorts of favourites from the bill of fare, andimagines them coming. I guess it’s that way with all hungry men. Theycan’t get their cogitations trained on anything but something to eat. Itshows that the little table with the broken-legged caster and the imitationWorcester sauce and the napkin covering up the coffee stains is the paramountissue, after all, instead of the question of immortality or peace betweennations.
“I sat there, musing along, arguing with myself quite heated as to howI’d have my steak—with mushrooms, or à la créole. Mame wason the other seat, pensive, her head leaning on her hand. ‘Let thepotatoes come home-fried,’ I states in my mind, ‘and brown the hashin the pan, with nine poached eggs on the side.’ I felt, careful, in myown pockets to see if I could find a peanut or a grain or two of popcorn.
“Night came on again with the river still rising and the rain stillfalling. I looked at Mame and I noticed that desperate look on her face that agirl always wears when she passes an ice-cream lair. I knew that poor girl washungry—maybe for the first time in her life. There was that anxious lookin her eye that a woman has only when she has missed a meal or feels her skirtcoming unfastened in the back.
“It was about eleven o’clock or so on the second night when we sat,gloomy, in our shipwrecked cabin. I kept jerking my mind away from the subjectof food, but it kept flopping back again before I could fasten it. I thought ofeverything good to eat I had ever heard of. I went away back to my kidhood andremembered the hot biscuit sopped in sorghum and bacon gravy with partialityand respect. Then I trailed along up the years, pausing at green apples andsalt, flapjacks and maple, lye hominy, fried chicken Old Virginia style, cornon the cob, spareribs and sweet potato pie, and wound up with Georgia Brunswickstew, which is the top notch of good things to eat, because it comprises’em all.
“They say a drowning man sees a panorama of his whole life pass beforehim. Well, when a man’s starving he sees the ghost of every meal he everate set out before him, and he invents new dishes that would make the fortuneof a chef. If somebody would collect the last words of men who starved todeath, they’d have to sift ’em mighty fine to discover thesentiment, but they’d compile into a cook book that would sell into themillions.
“I guess I must have had my conscience pretty well inflicted withculinary meditations, for, without intending to do so, I says, out loud, to theimaginary waiter, ‘Cut it thick and have it rare, with the French fried,and six, soft-scrambled, on toast.’
“Mame turned her head quick as a wing. Her eyes were sparkling and shesmiled sudden.
“‘Medium for me,’ she rattles out, ‘with the Juliennes,and three, straight up. Draw one, and brown the wheats, double order to come.Oh, Jeff, wouldn’t it be glorious! And then I’d like to have a halffry, and a little chicken curried with rice, and a cup custard with ice cream,and—’
“‘Go easy,’ I interrupts; ‘where’s the chickenliver pie, and the kidney sautéon toast, and the roast lamb,and—’
“‘Oh,’ cuts in Mame, all excited, ‘with mint sauce, andthe turkey salad, and stuffed olives, and raspberry tarts, and—’
“‘Keep it going,’ says I. ‘Hurry up with the friedsquash, and the hot corn pone with sweet milk, and don’t forget the appledumpling with hard sauce, and the cross-barred dew-berry pie—’
“Yes, for ten minutes we kept up that kind of restaurant repartee. Weranges up and down and backward and forward over the main trunk lines and thebranches of the victual subject, and Mame leads the game, for she is apprisedin the ramifications of grub, and the dishes she nominates aggravates myyearnings. It seems that there is a feeling that Mame will line up friendlyagain with food. It seems that she looks upon the obnoxious science of eatingwith less contempt than before.
“The next morning we find that the flood has subsided. I geared up thebays, and we splashed out through the mud, some precarious, until we found theroad again. We were only a few miles wrong, and in two hours we were inOklahoma City. The first thing we saw was a big restaurant sign, and we piledinto there in a hurry. Here I finds myself sitting with Mame at table, withknives and forks and plates between us, and she not scornful, but smiling withstarvation and sweetness.
“’Twas a new restaurant and well stocked. I designated a list ofquotations from the bill of fare that made the waiter look out toward the wagonto see how many more might be coming.
“There we were, and there was the order being served. ’Twas abanquet for a dozen, but we felt like a dozen. I looked across the table atMame and smiled, for I had recollections. Mame was looking at the table like aboy looks at his first stem-winder. Then she looked at me, straight in theface, and two big tears came in her eyes. The waiter was gone after more grub.
“‘Jeff,’ she says, soft like, ‘I’ve been afoolish girl. I’ve looked at things from the wrong side. I never feltthis way before. Men get hungry every day like this, don’t they?They’re big and strong, and they do the hard work of the world, and theydon’t eat just to spite silly waiter girls in restaurants, do they, Jeff?You said once—that is, you asked me—you wanted me to—well,Jeff, if you still care—I’d be glad and willing to have you alwayssitting across the table from me. Now give me something to eat, quick,please.’
“So, as I’ve said, a woman needs to change her point of view nowand then. They get tired of the same old sights—the same old dinnertable, washtub, and sewing machine. Give ’em a touch of thevarious—a little travel and a little rest, a little tomfoolery along withthe tragedies of keeping house, a little petting after the blowing-up, a littleupsetting and a little jostling around—and everybody in the game willhave chips added to their stack by the play.”
XI
THE CABALLERO’S WAY
The Cisco Kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages, had murderedtwice as many (mostly Mexicans), and had winged a larger number whom hemodestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him.
The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance company wouldhave estimated the probable time of his demise at, say, twenty-six. His habitatwas anywhere between the Frio and the Rio Grande. He killed for the love ofit—because he was quick-tempered— to avoid arrest—for his ownamusement—any reason that came to his mind would suffice. He had escapedcapture because he could shoot five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriffor ranger in the service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knewevery cow-path in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to Matamoras.
Tonia Perez, the girl who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half Madonna,and the rest—oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half Madonna canalways be something more—the rest, let us say, was humming-bird. Shelived in a grass-roofed jacalnear a little Mexican settlement at theLone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her lived a father or grandfather, alineal Aztec, somewhat less than a thousand years old, who herded a hundredgoats and lived in a continuous drunken dream from drinking mescal. Backof the jacala tremendous forest of bristling pear, twenty feet high atits worst, crowded almost to its door. It was along the bewildering maze ofthis spinous thicket that the speckled roan would bring the Kid to see hisgirl. And once, clinging like a lizard to the ridge-pole, high up under thepeaked grass roof, he had heard Tonia, with her Madonna face and Carmen beautyand humming-bird soul, parley with the sheriff’s posse, denying knowledgeof her man in her soft mélangeof Spanish and English.
One day the adjutant-general of the State, who is, ex offico, commanderof the ranger forces, wrote some sarcastic lines to Captain Duval of Company X,stationed at Laredo, relative to the serene and undisturbed existence led bymurderers and desperadoes in the said captain’s territory.
The captain turned the colour of brick dust under his tan, and forwarded theletter, after adding a few comments, per ranger Private Bill Adamson, to rangerLieutenant Sandridge, camped at a water hole on the Nueces with a squad of fivemen in preservation of law and order.
Lieutenant Sandridge turned a beautiful couleur de rosethrough hisordinary strawberry complexion, tucked the letter in his hip pocket, and chewedoff the ends of his gamboge moustache.
The next morning he saddled his horse and rode alone to the Mexican settlementat the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, twenty miles away.
Six feet two, blond as a Viking, quiet as a deacon, dangerous as a machine gun,Sandridge moved among the Jacales, patiently seeking news of the CiscoKid.
Far more than the law, the Mexicans dreaded the cold and certain vengeance ofthe lone rider that the ranger sought. It had been one of the Kid’spastimes to shoot Mexicans “to see them kick”: if he demanded fromthem moribund Terpsichorean feats, simply that he might be entertained, whatterrible and extreme penalties would be certain to follow should they angerhim! One and all they lounged with upturned palms and shrugging shoulders,filling the air with “quien sabes” and denials of theKid’s acquaintance.
But there was a man named Fink who kept a store at the Crossing—a man ofmany nationalities, tongues, interests, and ways of thinking.
“No use to ask them Mexicans,” he said to Sandridge.“They’re afraid to tell. This hombrethey call theKid—Goodall is his name, ain’t it?—he’s been in mystore once or twice. I have an idea you might run across him at—but Iguess I don’t keer to say, myself. I’m two seconds later in pullinga gun than I used to be, and the difference is worth thinking about. But thisKid’s got a half-Mexican girl at the Crossing that he comes to see. Shelives in that jacala hundred yards down the arroyo at the edge of thepear. Maybe she—no, I don’t suppose she would, but thatjacalwould be a good place to watch, anyway.”
Sandridge rode down to the jacalof Perez. The sun was low, and thebroad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass-thatched hut.The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral near by. A few kidswalked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral leaves. The old Mexican lay upon ablanket on the grass, already in a stupor from his mescal, and dreaming,perhaps, of the nights when he and Pizarro touched glasses to their New Worldfortunes—so old his wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And inthe door of the jacalstood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in hissaddle staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman.
The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful assassins are,and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that at a simple exchange ofglances two persons, in whose minds he had been looming large, suddenlyabandoned (at least for the time) all thought of him.
Never before had Tonia seen such a man as this. He seemed to be made ofsunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather. He seemed to illuminate theshadow of the pear when he smiled, as though the sun were rising again. The menshe had known had been small and dark. Even the Kid, in spite of hisachievements, was a stripling no larger than herself, with black, straight hairand a cold, marble face that chilled the noonday.
As for Tonia, though she sends description to the poorhouse, let her make amillionaire of your fancy. Her blue-black hair, smoothly divided in the middleand bound close to her head, and her large eyes full of the Latin melancholy,gave her the Madonna touch. Her motions and air spoke of the concealed fire andthe desire to charm that she had inherited from the gitanasof theBasque province. As for the humming-bird part of her, that dwelt in her heart;you could not perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse gaveyou a symbolic hint of the vagarious bird.
The newly lighted sun-god asked for a drink of water. Tonia brought it from thered jar hanging under the brush shelter. Sandridge considered it necessary todismount so as to lessen the trouble of her ministrations.
I play no spy; nor do I assume to master the thoughts of any human heart; but Iassert, by the chronicler’s right, that before a quarter of an hour hadsped, Sandridge was teaching her how to plaint a six-strand rawhide stake-rope,and Tonia had explained to him that were it not for her little English bookthat the peripatetic padrehad given her and the little crippledchivo, that she fed from a bottle, she would be very, very lonelyindeed.
Which leads to a suspicion that the Kid’s fences needed repairing, andthat the adjutant-general’s sarcasm had fallen upon unproductive soil.
In his camp by the water hole Lieutenant Sandridge announced and reiterated hisintention of either causing the Cisco Kid to nibble the black loam of the Friocountry prairies or of haling him before a judge and jury. That soundedbusiness-like. Twice a week he rode over to the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio,and directed Tonia’s slim, slightly lemon-tinted fingers among theintricacies of the slowly growing lariata. A six-strand plait is hard to learnand easy to teach.
The ranger knew that he might find the Kid there at any visit. He kept hisarmament ready, and had a frequent eye for the pear thicket at the rear of thejacal. Thus he might bring down the kite and the humming-bird with onestone.
While the sunny-haired ornithologist was pursuing his studies the Cisco Kid wasalso attending to his professional duties. He moodily shot up a saloon in asmall cow village on Quintana Creek, killed the town marshal (plugging himneatly in the centre of his tin badge), and then rode away, morose andunsatisfied. No true artist is uplifted by shooting an aged man carrying anold-style .38 bulldog.
On his way the Kid suddenly experienced the yearning that all men feel whenwrong-doing loses its keen edge of delight. He yearned for the woman he lovedto reassure him that she was his in spite of it. He wanted her to call hisbloodthirstiness bravery and his cruelty devotion. He wanted Tonia to bring himwater from the red jar under the brush shelter, and tell him how thechivowas thriving on the bottle.
The Kid turned the speckled roan’s head up the ten-mile pear flat thatstretches along the Arroyo Hondo until it ends at the Lone Wolf Crossing of theFrio. The roan whickered; for he had a sense of locality and direction equal tothat of a belt-line street-car horse; and he knew he would soon be nibbling therich mesquite grass at the end of a forty-foot stake-rope while Ulysses restedhis head in Circe’s straw-roofed hut.
More weird and lonesome than the journey of an Amazonian explorer is the rideof one through a Texas pear flat. With dismal monotony and startling varietythe uncanny and multiform shapes of the cacti lift their twisted trunks, andfat, bristly hands to encumber the way. The demon plant, appearing to livewithout soil or rain, seems to taunt the parched traveller with its lush greygreenness. It warps itself a thousand times about what look to be open andinviting paths, only to lure the rider into blind and impassable spine-defended“bottoms of the bag,” leaving him to retreat, if he can, with thepoints of the compass whirling in his head.
To be lost in the pear is to die almost the death of the thief on the cross,pierced by nails and with grotesque shapes of all the fiends hovering about.
But it was not so with the Kid and his mount. Winding, twisting, circling,tracing the most fantastic and bewildering trail ever picked out, the good roanlessened the distance to the Lone Wolf Crossing with every coil and turn thathe made.
While they fared the Kid sang. He knew but one tune and sang it, as he knew butone code and lived it, and but one girl and loved her. He was a single-mindedman of conventional ideas. He had a voice like a coyote with bronchitis, butwhenever he chose to sing his song he sang it. It was a conventional song ofthe camps and trail, running at its beginning as near as may be to these words:
Don’t you monkey with my Lulu girl
Or I’ll tell you what I’ll do—
and so on. The roan was inured to it, and did not mind.
But even the poorest singer will, after a certain time, gain his own consent torefrain from contributing to the world’s noises. So the Kid, by the timehe was within a mile or two of Tonia’s jacal, had reluctantlyallowed his song to die away—not because his vocal performance had becomeless charming to his own ears, but because his laryngeal muscles were aweary.
As though he were in a circus ring the speckled roan wheeled and danced throughthe labyrinth of pear until at length his rider knew by certain landmarks thatthe Lone Wolf Crossing was close at hand. Then, where the pear was thinner, hecaught sight of the grass roof of the jacaland the hackberry tree onthe edge of the arroyo. A few yards farther the Kid stopped the roan and gazedintently through the prickly openings. Then he dismounted, dropped theroan’s reins, and proceeded on foot, stooping and silent, like an Indian.The roan, knowing his part, stood still, making no sound.
The Kid crept noiselessly to the very edge of the pear thicket and reconnoitredbetween the leaves of a clump of cactus.
Ten yards from his hiding-place, in the shade of the jacal, sat hisTonia calmly plaiting a rawhide lariat. So far she might surely escapecondemnation; women have been known, from time to time, to engage in moremischievous occupations. But if all must be told, there is to be added that herhead reposed against the broad and comfortable chest of a tall red-and-yellowman, and that his arm was about her, guiding her nimble fingers that requiredso many lessons at the intricate six-strand plait.
Sandridge glanced quickly at the dark mass of pear when he heard a slightsqueaking sound that was not altogether unfamiliar. A gun-scabbard will makethat sound when one grasps the handle of a six-shooter suddenly. But the soundwas not repeated; and Tonia’s fingers needed close attention.
And then, in the shadow of death, they began to talk of their love; and in thestill July afternoon every word they uttered reached the ears of the Kid.
“Remember, then,” said Tonia, “you must not come again untilI send for you. Soon he will be here. A vaqueroat the tiendasaid to-day he saw him on the Guadalupe three days ago. When he is that near healways comes. If he comes and finds you here he will kill you. So, for my sake,you must come no more until I send you the word.”
“All right,” said the stranger. “And then what?”
“And then,” said the girl, “you must bring your men here andkill him. If not, he will kill you.”
“He ain’t a man to surrender, that’s sure,” saidSandridge. “It’s kill or be killed for the officer that goes upagainst Mr. Cisco Kid.”
“He must die,” said the girl. “Otherwise there will not beany peace in the world for thee and me. He has killed many. Let him so die.Bring your men, and give him no chance to escape.”
“You used to think right much of him,” said Sandridge.
Tonia dropped the lariat, twisted herself around, and curved a lemon-tintedarm over the ranger’s shoulder.
“But then,” she murmured in liquid Spanish, “I had not beheldthee, thou great, red mountain of a man! And thou art kind and good, as well asstrong. Could one choose him, knowing thee? Let him die; for then I will not befilled with fear by day and night lest he hurt thee or me.”
“How can I know when he comes?” asked Sandridge.
“When he comes,” said Tonia, “he remains two days, sometimesthree. Gregorio, the small son of old Luisa, the lavendera, has a swiftpony. I will write a letter to thee and send it by him, saying how it will bebest to come upon him. By Gregorio will the letter come. And bring many menwith thee, and have much care, oh, dear red one, for the rattlesnake is notquicker to strike than is ‘El Chivato,’ as they call him, tosend a ball from his pistola.”
“The Kid’s handy with his gun, sure enough,” admittedSandridge, “but when I come for him I shall come alone. I’ll gethim by myself or not at all. The Cap wrote one or two things to me that make mewant to do the trick without any help. You let me know when Mr. Kid arrives,and I’ll do the rest.”
“I will send you the message by the boy Gregorio,” said the girl.“I knew you were braver than that small slayer of men who never smiles.How could I ever have thought I cared for him?”
It was time for the ranger to ride back to his camp on the water hole. Beforehe mounted his horse he raised the slight form of Tonia with one arm high fromthe earth for a parting salute. The drowsy stillness of the torpid summer airstill lay thick upon the dreaming afternoon. The smoke from the fire in thejacal, where the frijolesblubbered in the iron pot, rosestraight as a plumb-line above the clay-daubed chimney. No sound or movementdisturbed the serenity of the dense pear thicket ten yards away.
When the form of Sandridge had disappeared, loping his big dun down the steepbanks of the Frio crossing, the Kid crept back to his own horse, mounted him,and rode back along the tortuous trail he had come.
But not far. He stopped and waited in the silent depths of the pear until halfan hour had passed. And then Tonia heard the high, untrue notes of hisunmusical singing coming nearer and nearer; and she ran to the edge of the pearto meet him.
The Kid seldom smiled; but he smiled and waved his hat when he saw her. Hedismounted, and his girl sprang into his arms. The Kid looked at her fondly.His thick, black hair clung to his head like a wrinkled mat. The meetingbrought a slight ripple of some undercurrent of feeling to his smooth, darkface that was usually as motionless as a clay mask.
“How’s my girl?” he asked, holding her close.
“Sick of waiting so long for you, dear one,” she answered.“My eyes are dim with always gazing into that devil’s pincushionthrough which you come. And I can see into it such a little way, too. But youare here, beloved one, and I will not scold. Que mal muchacho!not tocome to see your almamore often. Go in and rest, and let me water yourhorse and stake him with the long rope. There is cool water in the jar foryou.”
The Kid kissed her affectionately.
“Not if the court knows itself do I let a lady stake my horse forme,” said he. “But if you’ll run in, chica, and throwa pot of coffee together while I attend to the caballo, I’ll be agood deal obliged.”
Besides his marksmanship the Kid had another attribute for which he admiredhimself greatly. He was muy caballero, as the Mexicans express it, wherethe ladies were concerned. For them he had always gentle words andconsideration. He could not have spoken a harsh word to a woman. He mightruthlessly slay their husbands and brothers, but he could not have laid theweight of a finger in anger upon a woman. Wherefore many of that interestingdivision of humanity who had come under the spell of his politeness declaredtheir disbelief in the stories circulated about Mr. Kid. One shouldn’tbelieve everything one heard, they said. When confronted by their indignant menfolk with proof of the caballero’sdeeds of infamy, they saidmaybe he had been driven to it, and that he knew how to treat a lady, anyhow.
Considering this extremely courteous idiosyncrasy of the Kid and the pride hetook in it, one can perceive that the solution of the problem that waspresented to him by what he saw and heard from his hiding-place in the pearthat afternoon (at least as to one of the actors) must have been obscured bydifficulties. And yet one could not think of the Kid overlooking little mattersof that kind.
At the end of the short twilight they gathered around a supper offrijoles, goat steaks, canned peaches, and coffee, by the light of alantern in the jacal. Afterward, the ancestor, his flock corralled,smoked a cigarette and became a mummy in a grey blanket. Tonia washed the fewdishes while the Kid dried them with the flour-sacking towel. Her eyes shone;she chatted volubly of the inconsequent happenings of her small world since theKid’s last visit; it was as all his other home-comings had been.
Then outside Tonia swung in a grass hammock with her guitar and sang sadcanciones de amor.
“Do you love me just the same, old girl?” asked the Kid, huntingfor his cigarette papers.
“Always the same, little one,” said Tonia, her dark eyes lingeringupon him.
“I must go over to Fink’s,” said the Kid, rising, “forsome tobacco. I thought I had another sack in my coat. I’ll be back in aquarter of an hour.”
“Hasten,” said Tonia, “and tell me—how long shall Icall you my own this time? Will you be gone again to-morrow, leaving me togrieve, or will you be longer with your Tonia?”
“Oh, I might stay two or three days this trip,” said the Kid,yawning. “I’ve been on the dodge for a month, and I’d like torest up.”
He was gone half an hour for his tobacco. When he returned Tonia was stilllying in the hammock.
“It’s funny,” said the Kid, “how I feel. I feel likethere was somebody lying behind every bush and tree waiting to shoot me. Inever had mullygrubs like them before. Maybe it’s one of thempresumptions. I’ve got half a notion to light out in the morning beforeday. The Guadalupe country is burning up about that old Dutchman I plugged downthere.”
“You are not afraid—no one could make my brave little onefear.”
“Well, I haven’t been usually regarded as a jack-rabbit when itcomes to scrapping; but I don’t want a posse smoking me out whenI’m in your jacal. Somebody might get hurt that oughtn’tto.”
“Remain with your Tonia; no one will find you here.”
The Kid looked keenly into the shadows up and down the arroyo and toward thedim lights of the Mexican village.
“I’ll see how it looks later on,” was his decision.
At midnight a horseman rode into the rangers’ camp, blazing his way bynoisy “halloes” to indicate a pacific mission. Sandridge and one ortwo others turned out to investigate the row. The rider announced himself to beDomingo Sales, from the Lone Wolf Crossing. he bore a letter for SeñorSandridge. Old Luisa, the lavendera, had persuaded him to bring it, hesaid, her son Gregorio being too ill of a fever to ride.
Sandridge lighted the camp lantern and read the letter. These were its words:
Dear One:He has come. Hardly had you ridden away when he came out ofthe pear. When he first talked he said he would stay three days or more. Thenas it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox, and walked about without rest,looking and listening. Soon he said he must leave before daylight when it isdark and stillest. And then he seemed to suspect that I be not true to him. Helooked at me so strange that I am frightened. I swear to him that I love him,his own Tonia. Last of all he said I must prove to him I am true. He thinksthat even now men are waiting to kill him as he rides from my house. To escapehe says he will dress in my clothes, my red skirt and the blue waist I wear andthe brown mantilla over the head, and thus ride away. But before that he saysthat I must put on his clothes, his pantalonesand camisaandhat, and ride away on his horse from the jacalas far as the big roadbeyond the crossing and back again. This before he goes, so he can tell if I amtrue and if men are hidden to shoot him. It is a terrible thing. An hour beforedaybreak this is to be. Come, my dear one, and kill this man and take me foryour Tonia. Do not try to take hold of him alive, but kill him quickly. Knowingall, you should do that. You must come long before the time and hide yourselfin the little shed near the jacalwhere the wagon and saddles are kept.It is dark in there. He will wear my red skirt and blue waist and brownmantilla. I send you a hundred kisses. Come surely and shoot quickly andstraight.
THINEOWNTONIA.
Sandridge quickly explained to his men the official part of the missive. Therangers protested against his going alone.
“I’ll get him easy enough,” said the lieutenant. “Thegirl’s got him trapped. And don’t even think he’ll get thedrop on me.”
Sandridge saddled his horse and rode to the Lone Wolf Crossing. He tied his bigdun in a clump of brush on the arroyo, took his Winchester from its scabbard,and carefully approached the Perez jacal. There was only the half of ahigh moon drifted over by ragged, milk-white gulf clouds.
The wagon-shed was an excellent place for ambush; and the ranger got inside itsafely. In the black shadow of the brush shelter in front of the jacalhe could see a horse tied and hear him impatiently pawing the hard-troddenearth.
He waited almost an hour before two figures came out of the jacal. One,in man’s clothes, quickly mounted the horse and galloped past thewagon-shed toward the crossing and village. And then the other figure, inskirt, waist, and mantilla over its head, stepped out into the faint moonlight,gazing after the rider. Sandridge thought he would take his chance then beforeTonia rode back. He fancied she might not care to see it.
“Throw up your hands,” he ordered loudly, stepping out of thewagon-shed with his Winchester at his shoulder.
There was a quick turn of the figure, but no movement to obey, so the rangerpumped in the bullets—one—two—three—and then twicemore; for you never could be too sure of bringing down the Cisco Kid. There wasno danger of missing at ten paces, even in that half moonlight.
The old ancestor, asleep on his blanket, was awakened by the shots. Listeningfurther, he heard a great cry from some man in mortal distress or anguish, androse up grumbling at the disturbing ways of moderns.
The tall, red ghost of a man burst into the jacal, reaching one hand,shaking like a tulereed, for the lantern hanging on its nail. The otherspread a letter on the table.
“Look at this letter, Perez,” cried the man. “Who wroteit?”
“Ah, Dios!it is Señor Sandridge,” mumbled the old man,approaching. “Pues, señor, that letter was written by ‘ElChivato,’ as he is called—by the man of Tonia. They say he is abad man; I do not know. While Tonia slept he wrote the letter and sent it bythis old hand of mine to Domingo Sales to be brought to you. Is there anythingwrong in the letter? I am very old; and I did not know. Valgame Dios!itis a very foolish world; and there is nothing in the house to drink—nothing to drink.”
Just then all that Sandridge could think of to do was to go outside and throwhimself face downward in the dust by the side of his humming-bird, of whom nota feather fluttered. He was not a caballeroby instinct, and he couldnot understand the niceties of revenge.
A mile away the rider who had ridden past the wagon-shed struck up a harsh,untuneful song, the words of which began:
Don’t you monkey with my Lulu girl
Or I’ll tell you what I’ll do—
XII
THE SPHINX APPLE
Twenty miles out from Paradise, and fifteen miles short of Sunrise City, BildadRose, the stage-driver, stopped his team. A furious snow had been falling allday. Eight inches it measured now, on a level. The remainder of the road wasnot without peril in daylight, creeping along the ribs of a bijou range ofragged mountains. Now, when both snow and night masked its dangers, furthertravel was not to be thought of, said Bildad Rose. So he pulled up his fourstout horses, and delivered to his five passengers oral deductions of hiswisdom.
Judge Menefee, to whom men granted leadership and the initiatory as upon asilver salver, sprang from the coach at once. Four of his fellow-passengersfollowed, inspired by his example, ready to explore, to objurgate, to resist,to submit, to proceed, according as their prime factor might be inclined tosway them. The fifth passenger, a young woman, remained in the coach.
Bildad had halted upon the shoulder of the first mountain spur. Tworail-fences, ragged-black, hemmed the road. Fifty yards above the upper fence,showing a dark blot in the white drifts, stood a small house. Upon this housedescended—or rather ascended—Judge Menefee and his cohorts withboyish whoops born of the snow and stress. They called; they pounded at windowand door. At the inhospitable silence they waxed restive; they assaulted andforced the pregnable barriers, and invaded the premises.
The watchers from the coach heard stumblings and shoutings from the interior ofthe ravaged house. Before long a light within flickered, glowed, flamed highand bright and cheerful. Then came running back through the driving flakes theexuberant explorers. More deeply pitched than the clarion—even orchestralin volume—the voice of Judge Menefee proclaimed the succour that lay inapposition with their state of travail. The one room of the house wasuninhabited, he said, and bare of furniture; but it contained a greatfireplace, and they had discovered an ample store of chopped wood in a lean-toat the rear. Housing and warmth against the shivering night were thus assured.For the placation of Bildad Rose there was news of a stable, not ruined beyondservice, with hay in a loft, near the house.
“Gentlemen,” cried Bildad Rose from his seat, swathed in coats androbes, “tear me down two panels of that fence, so I can drive in. That isold man Redruth’s shanty. I thought we must be nigh it. They took him tothe foolish house in August.”
Cheerfully the four passengers sprang at the snow-capped rails. The exhortedteam tugged the coach up the slant to the door of the edifice from which amid-summer madness had ravished its proprietor. The driver and two of thepassengers began to unhitch. Judge Menefee opened the door of the coach, andremoved his hat.
“I have to announce, Miss Garland,” said he, “the enforcedsuspension of our journey. The driver asserts that the risk in travelling themountain road by night is too great even to consider. It will be necessary toremain in the shelter of this house until morning. I beg that you will feelthat there is nothing to fear beyond a temporary inconvenience. I havepersonally inspected the house, and find that there are means to provideagainst the rigour of the weather, at least. You shall be made as comfortableas possible. Permit me to assist you to alight.”
To the Judge’s side came the passenger whose pursuit in life was theplacing of the Little Goliath windmill. His name was Dunwoody; but that mattersnot much. In travelling merely from Paradise to Sunrise City one needs littleor no name. Still, one who would seek to divide honours with Judge Madison L.Menefee deserves a cognomenal peg upon which Fame may hang a wreath. Thusspake, loudly and buoyantly, the aerial miller:
“Guess you’ll have to climb out of the ark, Mrs. McFarland. Thiswigwam isn’t exactly the Palmer House, but it turns snow, and theywon’t search your grip for souvenir spoons when you leave.We’vegot a fire going; and we’llfix you up with dryTilbys and keep the mice away, anyhow, all right, all right.”
One of the two passengers who were struggling in a meléeof horses,harness, snow, and the sarcastic injunctions of Bildad Rose, called loudly fromthe whirl of his volunteer duties: “Say! some of you fellows get MissSolomon into the house, will you? Whoa, there! you confounded brute!”
Again must it be gently urged that in travelling from Paradise to Sunrise Cityan accurate name is prodigality. When Judge Menefee— sanctioned to theact by his grey hair and widespread repute—had introduced himself to thelady passenger, she had, herself, sweetly breathed a name, in response, thatthe hearing of the male passengers had variously interpreted. In the notunjealous spirit of rivalry that eventuated, each clung stubbornly to his owntheory. For the lady passenger to have reasseverated or corrected would haveseemed didactic if not unduly solicitous of a specific acquaintance. Thereforethe lady passenger permitted herself to be Garlanded and McFarlanded andSolomoned with equal and discreet complacency. It is thirty-five miles fromParadise to Sunrise City. Compagnon de voyageis name enough, by thegripsack of the Wandering Jew! for so brief a journey.
Soon the little party of wayfarers were happily seated in a cheerful arc beforethe roaring fire. The robes, cushions, and removable portions of the coach hadbeen brought in and put to service. The lady passenger chose a place near thehearth at one end of the arc. There she graced almost a throne that hersubjects had prepared. She sat upon cushions and leaned against an empty boxand barrel, robe bespread, which formed a defence from the invading draughts.She extended her feet, delectably shod, to the cordial heat. She ungloved herhands, but retained about her neck her long fur boa. The unstable flames halfrevealed, while the warding boa half submerged, her face— a youthfulface, altogether feminine, clearly moulded and calm with beauty’sunchallenged confidence. Chivalry and manhood were here vying to please andcomfort her. She seemed to accept their devoirs—not piquantly, as onecourted and attended; nor preeningly, as many of her sex unworthily reap theirhonours; not yet stolidly, as the ox receives his hay; but concordantly withnature’s own plan—as the lily ingests the drop of dew foreordainedto its refreshment.
Outside the wind roared mightily, the fine snow whizzed through the cracks, thecold besieged the backs of the immolated six; but the elements did not lack achampion that night. Judge Menefee was attorney for the storm. The weather washis client, and he strove by special pleading to convince his companions inthat frigid jury-box that they sojourned in a bower of roses, beset only bybenignant zephyrs. He drew upon a fund of gaiety, wit, and anecdote,sophistical, but crowned with success. His cheerfulness communicated itselfirresistibly. Each one hastened to contribute his own quota toward the generaloptimism. Even the lady passenger was moved to expression.
“I think it is quite charming,” she said, in her slow, crystaltones.
At intervals some one of the passengers would rise and humorously explore theroom. There was little evidence to be collected of its habitation by old manRedruth.
Bildad Rose was called upon vivaciously for the ex-hermit’s history. Now,since the stage-driver’s horses were fairly comfortable and hispassengers appeared to be so, peace and comity returned to him.
“The old didapper,” began Bildad, somewhat irreverently,“infested this here house about twenty year. He never allowed nobody tocome nigh him. He’d duck his head inside and slam the door whenever ateam drove along. There was spinning-wheels up in his loft, all right. He usedto buy his groceries and tobacco at Sam Tilly’s store, on the LittleMuddy. Last August he went up there dressed in a red bedquilt, and told Sam hewas King Solomon, and that the Queen of Sheba was coming to visit him. Hefetched along all the money he had—a little bag full of silver—anddropped it in Sam’s well. ‘She won’t come,’ says oldman Redruth to Sam, ‘if she knows I’ve got any money.’
“As soon as folks heard he had that sort of a theory about women andmoney they knowed he was crazy; so they sent down and packed him to the foolishasylum.”
“Was there a romance in his life that drove him to a solitaryexistence?” asked one of the passengers, a young man who had an Agency.
“No,” said Bildad, “not that I ever heard spoke of. Justordinary trouble. They say he had had unfortunateness in the way of lovederangements with a young lady when he was young; before he contracted redbed-quilts and had his financial conclusions disqualified. I never heard of noromance.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Judge Menefee, impressively; “a case ofunrequited affection, no doubt.”
“No, sir,” returned Bildad, “not at all. She never marriedhim. Marmaduke Mulligan, down at Paradise, seen a man once that come from oldRedruth’s town. He said Redruth was a fine young man, but when you kickedhim on the pocket all you could hear jingle was a cuff-fastener and a bunch ofkeys. He was engaged to this young lady—Miss Alice— something washer name; I’ve forgot. This man said she was the kind of girl you like tohave reach across you in a car to pay the fare. Well, there come to the town ayoung chap all affluent and easy, and fixed up with buggies and mining stockand leisure time. Although she was a staked claim, Miss Alice and the new entryseemed to strike a mutual kind of a clip. They had calls and coincidences ofgoing to the post office and such things as sometimes make a girl send back theengagement ring and other presents—‘a rift within the loot,’the poetry man calls it.
“One day folks seen Redruth and Miss Alice standing talking at the gate.Then he lifts his hat and walks away, and that was the last anybody in thattown seen of him, as far as this man knew.”
“What about the young lady?” asked the young man who had an Agency.
“Never heard,” answered Bildad. “Right there is where my lodeof information turns to an old spavined crowbait, and folds its wings, forI’ve pumped it dry.”
“A very sad—” began Judge Menefee, but his remark wascurtailed by a higher authority.
“What a charming story!” said the lady passenger, in flute-liketones.
A little silence followed, except for the wind and the crackling of the fire.
The men were seated upon the floor, having slightly mitigated its inhospitablesurface with wraps and stray pieces of boards. The man who was placing LittleGoliath windmills arose and walked about to ease his cramped muscles.
Suddenly a triumphant shout came from him. He hurried back from a dusky cornerof the room, bearing aloft something in his hand. It was an apple—alarge, red-mottled, firm pippin, pleasing to behold. In a paper bag on a highshelf in that corner he had found it. It could have been no relic of thelovewrecked Redruth, for its glorious soundness repudiated the theory that ithad lain on that musty shelf since August. No doubt some recent bivouackers,lunching in the deserted house, had left it there.
Dunwoody—again his exploits demand for him the honours ofnomenclature—flaunted his apple in the faces of his fellow-marooners.“See what I found, Mrs. McFarland!” he cried, vaingloriously. Heheld the apple high up in the light of the fire, where it glowed a still richerred. The lady passenger smiled calmly—always calmly.
“What a charming apple!” she murmured, clearly.
For a brief space Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated. Secondplace galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished man of windmillsbeen selected by Fate instead of himself to discover the sensational apple? Hecould have made of the act a scene, a function, a setting for some impromptu,fanciful discourse or piece of comedy—and have retained the role ofcynosure. Actually, the lady passenger was regarding this ridiculous Dunboddyor Woodbundy with an admiring smile, as if the fellow had performed a feat! Andthe windmill man swelled and gyrated like a sample of his own goods, puffed upwith the wind that ever blows from the chorus land toward the domain of thestar.
While the transported Dunwoody, with his Aladdin’s apple, was receivingthe fickle attentions of all, the resourceful jurist formed a plan to recoverhis own laurels.
With his courtliest smile upon his heavy but classic features, Judge Menefeeadvanced, and took the apple, as if to examine it, from the hand of Dunwoody.In his hand it became Exhibit A.
“A fine apple,” he said, approvingly. “Really, my dear Mr.Dudwindy, you have eclipsed all of us as a forager. But I have an idea. Thisapple shall become an emblem, a token, a symbol, a prize bestowed by the mindand heart of beauty upon the most deserving.”
The audience, except one, applauded. “Good on the stump, ain’the?” commented the passenger who was nobody in particular to the youngman who had an Agency.
The unresponsive one was the windmill man. He saw himself reduced to the ranks.Never would the thought have occurred to him to declare his apple an emblem. Hehad intended, after it had been divided and eaten, to create diversion bysticking the seeds against his forehead and naming them for young ladies of hisacquaintance. One he was going to name Mrs. McFarland. The seed that fell offfirst would be—but ’twas too late now.
“The apple,” continued Judge Menefee, charging his jury, “inmodern days occupies, though undeservedly, a lowly place in our esteem. Indeed,it is so constantly associated with the culinary and the commercial that it ishardly to be classed among the polite fruits. But in ancient times this was notso. Biblical, historical, and mythological lore abounds with evidences that theapple was the aristocrat of fruits. We still say ‘the apple of theeye’ when we wish to describe something superlatively precious. We findin Proverbs the comparison to ‘apples of silver.’ No other productof tree or vine has been so utilised in figurative speech. Who has not heard ofand longed for the ‘apples of the Hesperides’? I need not call yourattention to the most tremendous and significant instance of the apple’sancient prestige when its consumption by our first parents occasioned the fallof man from his state of goodness and perfection.”
“Apples like them,” said the windmill man, lingering with theobjective article, “are worth $3.50 a barrel in the Chicagomarket.”
“Now, what I have to propose,” said Judge Menefee, conceding anindulgent smile to his interrupter, “is this: We must remain here,perforce, until morning. We have wood in plenty to keep us warm. Our next needis to entertain ourselves as best we can, in order that the time shall not passtoo slowly. I propose that we place this apple in the hands of Miss Garland. Itis no longer a fruit, but, as I said, a prize, in award, representing a greathuman idea. Miss Garland, herself, shall cease to be an individual—butonly temporarily, I am happy to add”—(a low bow, full of theold-time grace). “She shall represent her sex; she shall be theembodiment, the epitome of womankind—the heart and brain, I may say, ofGod’s masterpiece of creation. In this guise she shall judge and decidethe question which follows:
“But a few minutes ago our friend, Mr. Rose, favoured us with anentertaining but fragmentary sketch of the romance in the life of the formerprofessor of this habitation. The few facts that we have learned seem to me toopen up a fascinating field for conjecture, for the study of human hearts, forthe exercise of the imagination—in short, for story-telling. Let us makeuse of the opportunity. Let each one of us relate his own version of the storyof Redruth, the hermit, and his lady-love, beginning where Mr. Rose’snarrative ends—at the parting of the lovers at the gate. This much shouldbe assumed and conceded—that the young lady was not necessarily to blamefor Redruth’s becoming a crazed and world-hating hermit. When we havedone, Miss Garland shall render the JUDGEMENT OFWOMAN. As the Spirit of her Sex she shall decide which versionof the story best and most truly depicts human and love interest, and mostfaithfully estimates the character and acts of Redruth’s betrothedaccording to the feminine view. The apple shall be bestowed upon him who isawarded the decision. If you are all agreed, we shall be pleased to hear thefirst story from Mr. Dinwiddie.”
The last sentence captured the windmill man. He was not one to linger in thedumps.
“That’s a first-rate scheme, Judge,” he said, heartily.“Be a regular short-story vaudeville, won’t it? I used to becorrespondent for a paper in Springfield, and when there wasn’t any newsI faked it. Guess I can do my turn all right.”
“I think the idea is charming,” said the lady passenger, brightly.“It will be almost like a game.”
Judge Menefee stepped forward and placed the apple in her hand impressively.
“In olden days,” he said, orotundly, “Paris awarded thegolden apple to the most beautiful.”
“I was at the Exposition,” remarked the windmill man, now cheerfulagain, “but I never heard of it. And I was on the Midway, too, all thetime I wasn’t at the machinery exhibit.”
“But now,” continued the Judge, “the fruit shall translate tous the mystery and wisdom of the feminine heart. Take the apple, Miss Garland.Hear our modest tales of romance, and then award the prize as you may deem itjust.”
The lady passenger smiled sweetly. The apple lay in her lap beneath her robesand wraps. She reclined against her protecting bulwark, brightly and cosily atease. But for the voices and the wind one might have listened hopefully to hearher purr. Someone cast fresh logs upon the fire. Judge Menefee nodded suavely.“Will you oblige us with the initial story?” he asked.
The windmill man sat as sits a Turk, with his hat well back on his head onaccount of the draughts.
“Well,” he began, without any embarrassment, “this is aboutthe way I size up the difficulty: Of course Redruth was jostled a good deal bythis duck who had money to play ball with who tried to cut him out of his girl.So he goes around, naturally, and asks her if the game is still square. Well,nobody wants a guy cutting in with buggies and gold bonds when he’s gotan option on a girl. Well, he goes around to see her. Well, maybe he’shot, and talks like the proprietor, and forgets that an engagement ain’talways a lead-pipe cinch. Well, I guess that makes Alice warm under the lacyyoke. Well, she answers back sharp. Well, he—”
“Say!” interrupted the passenger who was nobody in particular,“if you could put up a windmill on every one of them ‘wells’you’re using, you’d be able to retire from business, wouldn’tyou?”
The windmill man grinned good-naturedly.
“Oh, I ain’t no Guy de Mopassong,” he said,cheerfully. “I’m giving it to you in straight American. Well, shesays something like this: ‘Mr. Gold Bonds is only a friend,’ saysshe; ‘but he takes me riding and buys me theatre tickets, andthat’s what you never do. Ain’t I to never have any pleasure inlife while I can?’ ‘Pass this chatfield-chatfield thingalong,’ says Redruth;—‘hand out the mitt to the Willie withcreases in it or you don’t put your slippers under my wardrobe.’
“Now that kind of train orders don’t go with a girl that’sgot any spirit. I bet that girl loved her honey all the time. Maybe she onlywanted, as girls do, to work the good thing for a little fun and caramelsbefore she settled down to patch George’s other pair, and be a good wife.But he is glued to the high horse, and won’t come down. Well, she handshim back the ring, proper enough; and George goes away and hits the booze. Yep.That’s what done it. I bet that girl fired the cornucopia with the fancyvest two days after her steady left. George boards a freight and checks his bagof crackers for parts unknown. He sticks to Old Booze for a number of years;and then the aniline and aquafortis gets the decision. ‘Me for thehermit’s hut,’ says George, ‘and the long whiskers, and theburied can of money that isn’t there.’
“But that Alice, in my mind, was on the level. She never married, buttook up typewriting as soon as the wrinkles began to show, and kept a cat thatcame when you said ‘weeny—weeny—weeny!’ I got too muchfaith in good women to believe they throw down the fellow they’re stuckon every time for the dough.” The windmill man ceased.
“I think,” said the lady passenger, slightly moving upon her lowlythrone, “that that is a char—”
“Oh, Miss Garland!” interposed Judge Menefee, with uplifted hand,“I beg of you, no comments! It would not be fair to the othercontestants. Mr.—er—will you take the next turn?” The Judgeaddressed the young man who had the Agency.
“My version of the romance,” began the young man, diffidentlyclasping his hands, “would be this: They did not quarrel when theyparted. Mr. Redruth bade her good-by and went out into the world to seek hisfortune. He knew his love would remain true to him. He scorned the thought thathis rival could make an impression upon a heart so fond and faithful. I wouldsay that Mr. Redruth went out to the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming to seek forgold. One day a crew of pirates landed and captured him while at work,and—”
“Hey! what’s that?” sharply called the passenger who wasnobody in particular—“a crew of pirates landed in the RockyMountains! Will you tell us how they sailed—”
“Landed from a train,” said the narrator, quietly and not withoutsome readiness. “They kept him prisoner in a cave for months, and thenthey took him hundreds of miles away to the forests of Alaska. There abeautiful Indian girl fell in love with him, but he remained true to Alice.After another year of wandering in the woods, he set out with thediamonds—”
“What diamonds?” asked the unimportant passenger, almost withacerbity.
“The ones the saddlemaker showed him in the Peruvian temple,” saidthe other, somewhat obscurely. “When he reached home, Alice’smother led him, weeping, to a green mound under a willow tree. ‘Her heartwas broken when you left,’ said her mother. ‘And what of myrival—of Chester McIntosh?’ asked Mr. Redruth, as he knelt sadly byAlice’s grave. ‘When he found out,’ she answered, ‘thather heart was yours, he pined away day by day until, at length, he started afurniture store in Grand Rapids. We heard lately that he was bitten to death byan infuriated moose near South Bend, Ind., where he had gone to try to forgetscenes of civilisation.’ With which, Mr. Redruth forsook the face ofmankind and became a hermit, as we have seen.
“My story,” concluded the young man with an Agency, “may lackthe literary quality; but what I wanted it to show is that the young ladyremained true. She cared nothing for wealth in comparison with true affection.I admire and believe in the fair sex too much to think otherwise.”
The narrator ceased, with a sidelong glance at the corner where reclined thelady passenger.
Bildad Rose was next invited by Judge Menefee to contribute his story in thecontest for the apple of judgment. The stage-driver’s essay was brief.
“I’m not one of them lobo wolves,” he said, “who arealways blaming on women the calamities of life. My testimony in regards to thefiction story you ask for, Judge, will be about as follows: What ailed Redruthwas pure laziness. If he had up and slugged this Percival De Lacey that triedto give him the outside of the road, and had kept Alice in the grape-vine swingwith the blind-bridle on, all would have been well. The woman you want is sureworth taking pains for.
“‘Send for me if you want me again,’ says Redruth, and hoistshis Stetson, and walks off. He’d have called it pride, but thenixycomlogical name for it is laziness. No woman don’t like to run aftera man. ‘Let him come back, hisself,’ says the girl; and I’llbe bound she tells the boy with the pay ore to trot; and then spends her timewatching out the window for the man with the empty pocket-book and the ticklymoustache.
“I reckon Redruth waits about nine year expecting her to send him a noteby a nigger asking him to forgive her. But she don’t. ‘This gamewon’t work,’ says Redruth; ‘then so won’t I.’ Andhe goes in the hermit business and raises whiskers. Yes; laziness and whiskerswas what done the trick. They travel together. You ever hear of a man with longwhiskers and hair striking a bonanza? No. Look at the Duke of Marlborough andthis Standard Oil snoozer. Have they got ’em?
“Now, this Alice didn’t never marry, I’ll bet a hoss. IfRedruth had married somebody else she might have done so, too. But he neverturns up. She has these here things they call fond memories, and maybe a lockof hair and a corset steel that he broke, treasured up. Them sort of articlesis as good as a husband to some women. I’d say she played out a lonehand. I don’t blame no woman for old man Redruth’s abandonment ofbarber shops and clean shirts.”
Next in order came the passenger who was nobody in particular. Nameless to us,he travels the road from Paradise to Sunrise City.
But him you shall see, if the firelight be not too dim, as he responds to theJudge’s call.
A lean form, in rusty-brown clothing, sitting like a frog, his arms wrappedabout his legs, his chin resting upon his knees. Smooth, oakum-coloured hair;long nose; mouth like a satyr’s, with upturned, tobacco-stained corners.An eye like a fish’s; a red necktie with a horseshoe pin. He began with arasping chuckle that gradually formed itself into words.
“Everybody wrong so far. What! a romance without any orange blossoms! Ho,ho! My money on the lad with the butterfly tie and the certified checks in histrouserings.
“Take ’em as they parted at the gate? All right. ‘You neverloved me,’ says Redruth, wildly, ‘or you wouldn’t speak to aman who can buy you the ice-cream.’ ‘I hate him,’ says she.‘I loathe his side-bar buggy; I despise the elegant cream bonbons hesends me in gilt boxes covered with real lace; I feel that I could stab him tothe heart when he presents me with a solid medallion locket with turquoises andpearls running in a vine around the border. Away with him! ’Tis only youI love.’ ‘Back to the cosy corner!’ says Redruth. ‘WasI bound and lettered in East Aurora? Get platonic, if you please. No jack-potsfor mine. Go and hate your friend some more. For me the Nickerson girl onAvenue B, and gum, and a trolley ride.’
“Around that night comes John W. Croesus. ‘What! tears?’ sayshe, arranging his pearl pin. ‘You have driven my lover away,’ sayslittle Alice, sobbing: ‘I hate the sight of you.’ ‘Marry me,then,’ says John W., lighting a Henry Clay. ‘What!’ she criesindignantly, ‘marry you! Never,’ she says, ‘until this blowsover, and I can do some shopping, and you see about the licence. There’sa telephone next door if you want to call up the county clerk.’”
The narrator paused to give vent to his cynical chuckle.
“Did they marry?” he continued. “Did the duck swallow theJune-bug? And then I take up the case of Old Boy Redruth. There’s whereyou are all wrong again, according to my theory. What turned him into a hermit?One says laziness; one says remorse; one says booze. I say women did it. Howold is the old man now?” asked the speaker, turning to Bildad Rose.
“I should say about sixty-five.”
“All right. He conducted his hermit shop here for twenty years. Say hewas twenty-five when he took off his hat at the gate. That leaves twenty yearsfor him to account for, or else be docked. Where did he spend that ten and twofives? I’ll give you my idea. Up for bigamy. Say there was the fat blondein Saint Jo, and the panatela brunette at Skillet Ridge, and the gold toothdown in the Kaw valley. Redruth gets his cases mixed, and they send him up theroad. He gets out after they are through with him, and says: ‘Any linefor me except the crinoline. The hermit trade is not overdone, and thestenographers never apply to ’em for work. The jolly hermit’s lifefor me. No more long hairs in the comb or dill pickles lying around in thecigar tray.’ You tell me they pinched old Redruth for the noodle villajust because he said he was King Solomon? Figs! He wasSolomon.That’s all of mine. I guess it don’t call for any apples. Enclosedfind stamps. It don’t sound much like a prize winner.”
Respecting the stricture laid by Judge Menefee against comments upon thestories, all were silent when the passenger who was nobody in particular hadconcluded. And then the ingenious originator of the contest cleared his throatto begin the ultimate entry for the prize. Though seated with small comfortupon the floor, you might search in vain for any abatement of dignity in JudgeMenefee. The now diminishing firelight played softly upon his face, as clearlychiselled as a Roman emperor’s on some old coin, and upon the thick wavesof his honourable grey hair.
“A woman’s heart!” he began, in even but thrillingtones—“who can hope to fathom it? The ways and desires of men arevarious. I think that the hearts of all women beat with the same rhythm, and tothe same old tune of love. Love, to a woman, means sacrifice. If she be worthyof the name, no gold or rank will outweigh with her a genuine devotion.
“Gentlemen of the—er—I should say, my friends, the case ofRedruth versuslove and affection has been called. Yet, who is on trial?Not Redruth, for he has been punished. Not those immortal passions that clotheour lives with the joy of the angels. Then who? Each man of us here to-nightstands at the bar to answer if chivalry or darkness inhabits his bosom. Tojudge us sits womankind in the form of one of its fairest flowers. In her handshe holds the prize, intrinsically insignificant, but worthy of our noblestefforts to win as a guerdon of approval from so worthy a representative offeminine judgment and taste.
“In taking up the imaginary history of Redruth and the fair being to whomhe gave his heart, I must, in the beginning, raise my voice against theunworthy insinuation that the selfishness or perfidy or love of luxury of anywoman drove him to renounce the world. I have not found woman to be sounspiritual or venal. We must seek elsewhere, among man’s baser natureand lower motives for the cause.
“There was, in all probability, a lover’s quarrel as they stood atthe gate on that memorable day. Tormented by jealousy, young Redruth vanishedfrom his native haunts. But had he just cause to do so? There is no evidencefor or against. But there is something higher than evidence; there is thegrand, eternal belief in woman’s goodness, in her steadfastness againsttemptation, in her loyalty even in the face of proffered riches.
“I picture to myself the rash lover, wandering, self-tortured, about theworld. I picture his gradual descent, and, finally, his complete despair whenhe realises that he has lost the most precious gift life had to offer him. Thenhis withdrawal from the world of sorrow and the subsequent derangement of hisfaculties becomes intelligible.
“But what do I see on the other hand? A lonely woman fading away as theyears roll by; still faithful, still waiting, still watching for a form andlistening for a step that will come no more. She is old now. Her hair is whiteand smoothly banded. Each day she sits at the door and gazes longingly down thedusty road. In spirit she is waiting there at the gate, just as he lefther—his forever, but not here below. Yes; my belief in woman paints thatpicture in my mind. Parted forever on earth, but waiting! She in anticipationof a meeting in Elysium; he in the Slough of Despond.”
“I thought he was in the bughouse,” said the passenger who wasnobody in particular.
Judge Menefee stirred, a little impatiently. The men sat, drooping, ingrotesque attitudes. The wind had abated its violence; coming now in fitful,virulent puffs. The fire had burned to a mass of red coals which shed but a dimlight within the room. The lady passenger in her cosy nook looked to be but aformless dark bulk, crowned by a mass of coiled, sleek hair and showing but asmall space of snowy forehead above her clinging boa.
Judge Menefee got stiffly to his feet.
“And now, Miss Garland,” he announced, “we have concluded. Itis for you to award the prize to the one of us whose argument—especially,I may say, in regard to his estimate of true womanhood—approaches nearestto your own conception.”
No answer came from the lady passenger. Judge Menefee bent over solicitously.The passenger who was nobody in particular laughed low and harshly. The ladywas sleeping sweetly. The Judge essayed to take her hand to awaken her. Indoing so he touched a small, cold, round, irregular something in her lap.
“She has eaten the apple,” announced Judge Menefee, in awed tones,as he held up the core for them to see.
XIII
THE MISSING CHORD
I stopped overnight at the sheep-ranch of Rush Kinney, on the Sandy Fork of theNueces. Mr. Kinney and I had been strangers up to the time when I called“Hallo!” at his hitching-rack; but from that moment until mydeparture on the next morning we were, according to the Texas code, undeniablefriends.
After supper the ranchman and I lugged our chairs outside the two-room house,to its floorless gallery roofed with chaparral and sacuista grass. With therear legs of our chairs sinking deep into the hardpacked loam, each of usreposed against an elm pillar of the structure and smoked El Toro tobacco,while we wrangled amicably concerning the affairs of the rest of the world.
As for conveying adequate conception of the engaging charm of that prairieevening, despair waits upon it. It is a bold chronicler who will undertake thedescription of a Texas night in the early spring. An inventory must suffice.
The ranch rested upon the summit of a lenient slope. The ambient prairie,diversified by arroyos and murky patches of brush and pear, lay around us likea darkened bowl at the bottom of which we reposed as dregs. Like a turquoisecover the sky pinned us there. The miraculous air, heady with ozone and madememorably sweet by leagues of wild flowerets, gave tang and savour to thebreath. In the sky was a great, round, mellow searchlight which we knew to beno moon, but the dark lantern of summer, who came to hunt northward thecowering spring. In the nearest corral a flock of sheep lay silent until agroundless panic would send a squad of them huddling together with a drummingrush. For other sounds a shrill family of coyotes yapped beyond theshearing-pen, and whippoorwills twittered in the long grass. But even thesedissonances hardly rippled the clear torrent of the mocking-birds’ notesthat fell from a dozen neighbouring shrubs and trees. It would not have beenpreposterous for one to tiptoe and essay to touch the stars, they hung sobright and imminent.
Mr. Kinney’s wife, a young and capable woman, we had left in the house.She remained to busy herself with the domestic round of duties, in which I hadobserved that she seemed to take a buoyant and contented pride. In one room wehad supped. Presently, from the other, as Kinney and I sat without, there bursta volume of sudden and brilliant music. If I could justly estimate the art ofpiano-playing, the construer of that rollicking fantasia had creditablymastered the secrets of the keyboard. A piano, and one so well played, seemedto me to be an unusual thing to find in that small and unpromising ranch-house.I must have looked my surprise at Rush Kinney, for he laughed in his soft,Southern way, and nodded at me through the moonlit haze of our cigarettes.
“You don’t often hear as agreeable a noise as that on asheep-ranch,” he remarked; “but I never see any reason for notplaying up to the arts and graces just because we happen to live out in thebrush. It’s a lonesome life for a woman; and if a little music can makeit any better, why not have it? That’s the way I look at it.”
“A wise and generous theory,” I assented. “And Mrs. Kinneyplays well. I am not learned in the science of music, but I should call her anuncommonly good performer. She has technic and more than ordinary power.”
The moon was very bright, you will understand, and I saw upon Kinney’sface a sort of amused and pregnant expression, as though there were thingsbehind it that might be expounded.
“You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork,” he saidpromisingly. “As you crossed it you must have seen an old desertedjacalto your left under a comma mott.”
“I did,” said I. “There was a drove of javalisrootingaround it. I could see by the broken corrals that no one lived there.”
“That’s where this music proposition started,” said Kinney.“I don’t mind telling you about it while we smoke. That’swhere old Cal Adams lived. He had about eight hundred graded merinos and adaughter that was solid silk and as handsome as a new stake-rope on athirty-dollar pony. And I don’t mind telling you that I was guilty in thesecond degree of hanging around old Cal’s ranch all the time I couldspare away from lambing and shearing. Miss Marilla was her name; and I hadfigured it out by the rule of two that she was destined to become thechatelaine and lady superior of Rancho Lomito, belonging to R. Kinney, Esq.,where you are now a welcome and honoured guest.
“I will say that old Cal wasn’t distinguished as a sheepman. He wasa little, old stoop-shouldered hombreabout as big as a gun scabbard,with scraggy white whiskers, and condemned to the continuous use of language.Old Cal was so obscure in his chosen profession that he wasn’t even hatedby the cowmen. And when a sheepman don’t get eminent enough to acquirethe hostility of the cattlemen, he is mighty apt to die unwept and considerablyunsung.
“But that Marilla girl was a benefit to the eye. And she was the mostelegant kind of a housekeeper. I was the nearest neighbour, and I used to rideover to the Double-Elm anywhere from nine to sixteen times a week with freshbutter or a quarter of venison or a sample of new sheep-dip just as a frivolousexcuse to see Marilla. Marilla and me got to be extensively inveigled with eachother, and I was pretty sure I was going to get my rope around her neck andlead her over to the Lomito. Only she was so everlastingly permeated withfilial sentiments toward old Cal that I never could get her to talk aboutserious matters.
“You never saw anybody in your life that was as full of knowledge and hadless sense than old Cal. He was advised about all the branches of informationcontained in learning, and he was up to all the rudiments of doctrines andenlightenment. You couldn’t advance him any ideas on any of the parts ofspeech or lines of thought. You would have thought he was a professor of theweather and politics and chemistry and natural history and the origin ofderivations. Any subject you brought up old Cal could give you an abundantsynopsis of it from the Greek root up to the time it was sacked and on themarket.
“One day just after the fall shearing I rides over to the Double-Elm witha lady’s magazine about fashions for Marilla and a scientific paper forold Cal.
“While I was tying my pony to a mesquite, out runs Marilla,‘tickled to death’ with some news that couldn’t wait.
“‘Oh, Rush,’ she says, all flushed up with esteem andgratification, ‘what do you think! Dad’s going to buy me a piano.Ain’t it grand? I never dreamed I’d ever have one.”
“‘It’s sure joyful,’ says I. ‘I always admiredthe agreeable uproar of a piano. It’ll be lots of company for you.That’s mighty good of Uncle Cal to do that.’
“‘I’m all undecided,’ says Marilla, ‘between apiano and an organ. A parlour organ is nice.’
“‘Either of ’em,’ says I, ‘is first-class formitigating the lack of noise around a sheep-ranch. For my part,’ I says,‘I shouldn’t like anything better than to ride home of an eveningand listen to a few waltzes and jigs, with somebody about your size sitting onthe piano-stool and rounding up the notes.’
“‘Oh, hush about that,’ says Marilla, ‘and go on in thehouse. Dad hasn’t rode out to-day. He’s not feeling well.’
“Old Cal was inside, lying on a cot. He had a pretty bad cold and cough.I stayed to supper.
“‘Going to get Marilla a piano, I hear,’ says I to him.
“‘Why, yes, something of the kind, Rush,’ says he.‘She’s been hankering for music for a long spell; and I allow tofix her up with something in that line right away. The sheep sheared six poundsall round this fall; and I’m going to get Marilla an instrument if ittakes the price of the whole clip to do it.’
“‘Star wayno,’ says I. ‘The little girl deservesit.’
“‘I’m going to San Antone on the last load of wool,’says Uncle Cal, ‘and select an instrument for her myself.’
“‘Wouldn’t it be better,’ I suggests, ‘to takeMarilla along and let her pick out one that she likes?’
“I might have known that would set Uncle Cal going. Of course, a man likehim, that knew everything about everything, would look at that as a reflectionon his attainments.
“‘No, sir, it wouldn’t,’ says he, pulling at his whitewhiskers. ‘There ain’t a better judge of musical instruments in thewhole world than what I am. I had an uncle,’ says he, ‘that was apartner in a piano-factory, and I’ve seen thousands of ’em puttogether. I know all about musical instruments from a pipe-organ to acorn-stalk fiddle. There ain’t a man lives, sir, that can tell me anynews about any instrument that has to be pounded, blowed, scraped, grinded,picked, or wound with a key.’
“‘You get me what you like, dad,’ says Marilla, whocouldn’t keep her feet on the floor from joy. ‘Of course you knowwhat to select. I’d just as lief it was a piano or a organ orwhat.’
“‘I see in St. Louis once what they call a orchestrion,’ saysUncle Cal, ‘that I judged was about the finest thing in the way of musicever invented. But there ain’t room in this house for one. Anyway, Iimagine they’d cost a thousand dollars. I reckon something in the pianoline would suit Marilla the best. She took lessons in that respect for twoyears over at Birdstail. I wouldn’t trust the buying of an instrument toanybody else but myself. I reckon if I hadn’t took up sheep-raisingI’d have been one of the finest composers or piano-and-organmanufacturers in the world.’
“That was Uncle Cal’s style. But I never lost any patience withhim, on account of his thinking so much of Marilla. And she thought just asmuch of him. He sent her to the academy over at Birdstail for two years when ittook nearly every pound of wool to pay the expenses.
“Along about Tuesday Uncle Cal put out for San Antone on the lastwagonload of wool. Marilla’s uncle Ben, who lived in Birdstail, come overand stayed at the ranch while Uncle Cal was gone.
“It was ninety miles to San Antone, and forty to the nearestrailroad-station, so Uncle Cal was gone about four days. I was over at theDouble-Elm when he came rolling back one evening about sundown. And up there inthe wagon, sure enough, was a piano or a organ—we couldn’t tellwhich—all wrapped up in woolsacks, with a wagon-sheet tied over it incase of rain. And out skips Marilla, hollering, ‘Oh, oh!’ with hereyes shining and her hair a-flying. ‘Dad—dad,’ she sings out,‘have you brought it—have you brought it?’—and it rightthere before her eyes, as women will do.
“‘Finest piano in San Antone,’ says Uncle Cal, waving hishand, proud. ‘Genuine rosewood, and the finest, loudest tone you everlistened to. I heard the storekeeper play it, and I took it on the spot andpaid cash down.’
“Me and Ben and Uncle Cal and a Mexican lifted it out of the wagon andcarried it in the house and set it in a corner. It was one of them uprightinstruments, and not very heavy or very big.
“And then all of a sudden Uncle Cal flops over and says he’s mightysick. He’s got a high fever, and he complains of his lungs. He gets intobed, while me and Ben goes out to unhitch and put the horses in the pasture,and Marilla flies around to get Uncle Cal something hot to drink. But first sheputs both arms on that piano and hugs it with a soft kind of a smile, like yousee kids doing with their Christmas toys.
“When I came in from the pasture, Marilla was in the room where the pianowas. I could see by the strings and woolsacks on the floor that she had had itunwrapped. But now she was tying the wagon-sheet over it again, and there was akind of solemn, whitish look on her face.
“‘Ain’t wrapping up the music again, are you, Marilla?’I asks. ‘What’s the matter with just a couple of tunes for to seehow she goes under the saddle?’
“‘Not to-night, Rush,’ says she. ‘I don’t want toplay any to-night. Dad’s too sick. Just think, Rush, he paid threehundred dollars for it —nearly a third of what the wool-clipbrought!’
“‘Well, it ain’t anyways in the neighbourhood of a third ofwhat you are worth,’ I told her. ‘And I don’t think Uncle Calis too sick to hear a little agitation of the piano-keys just to christen themachine.
“‘Not to-night, Rush,’ says Marilla, in a way that she hadwhen she wanted to settle things.
“But it seems that Uncle Cal was plenty sick, after all. He got so badthat Ben saddled up and rode over to Birdstail for Doc Simpson. I stayed aroundto see if I’d be needed for anything.
“When Uncle Cal’s pain let up on him a little he called Marilla andsays to her: ‘Did you look at your instrument, honey? And do you likeit?’
“‘It’s lovely, dad,’ says she, leaning down by hispillow; ‘I never saw one so pretty. How dear and good it was of you tobuy it for me!’
“‘I haven’t heard you play on it any yet,’ says UncleCal; ‘and I’ve been listening. My side don’t hurt quite sobad now—won’t you play a piece, Marilla?’
“But no; she puts Uncle Cal off and soothes him down like you’veseen women do with a kid. It seems she’s made up her mind not to touchthat piano at present.
“When Doc Simpson comes over he tells us that Uncle Cal has pneumonia theworst kind; and as the old man was past sixty and nearly on the lift anyhow,the odds was against his walking on grass any more.
“On the fourth day of his sickness he calls for Marilla again and wantsto talk piano. Doc Simpson was there, and so was Ben and Mrs. Ben, trying to doall they could.
“‘I’d have made a wonderful success in anything connectedwith music,’ says Uncle Cal. ‘I got the finest instrument for themoney in San Antone. Ain’t that piano all right in every respect,Marilla?’
“‘It’s just perfect, dad,’ says she. ‘It’sgot the finest tone I ever heard. But don’t you think you could sleep alittle while now, dad?’
“‘No, I don’t,’ says Uncle Cal. ‘I want to hearthat piano. I don’t believe you’ve even tried it yet. I went allthe way to San Antone and picked it out for you myself. It took a third of thefall clip to buy it; but I don’t mind that if it makes my good girlhappier. Won’t you play a little bit for dad, Marilla?’
“Doc Simpson beckoned Marilla to one side and recommended her to do whatUncle Cal wanted, so it would get him quieted. And her uncle Ben and his wifeasked her, too.
“‘Why not hit out a tune or two with the soft pedal on?’ Iasks Marilla. ‘Uncle Cal has begged you so often. It would please him agood deal to hear you touch up the piano he’s bought for you. Don’tyou think you might?’
“But Marilla stands there with big tears rolling down from her eyes andsays nothing. And then she runs over and slips her arm under Uncle Cal’sneck and hugs him tight.
“‘Why, last night, dad,’ we heard her say, ‘I played itever so much. Honest—I have been playing it. And it’s such asplendid instrument, you don’t know how I love it. Last night I played“Bonnie Dundee” and the “Anvil Polka” and the“Blue Danube”—and lots of pieces. You must surely have heardme playing a little, didn’t you, dad? I didn’t like to play loudwhen you was so sick.’
“‘Well, well,’ says Uncle Cal, ‘maybe I did. Maybe Idid and forgot about it. My head is a little cranky at times. I heard the manin the store play it fine. I’m mighty glad you like it, Marilla. Yes, Ibelieve I could go to sleep a while if you’ll stay right beside me till Ido.’
“There was where Marilla had me guessing. Much as she thought of that oldman, she wouldn’t strike a note on that piano that he’d bought her.I couldn’t imagine why she told him she’d been playing it, for thewagon-sheet hadn’t ever been off of it since she put it back on the sameday it come. I knew she could play a little anyhow, for I’d once heardher snatch some pretty fair dance-music out of an old piano at the Charco LargoRanch.
“Well, in about a week the pneumonia got the best of Uncle Cal. They hadthe funeral over at Birdstail, and all of us went over. I brought Marilla backhome in my buckboard. Her uncle Ben and his wife were going to stay there a fewdays with her.
“That night Marilla takes me in the room where the piano was, while theothers were out on the gallery.
“‘Come here, Rush,’ says she; ‘I want you to see thisnow.’
“She unties the rope, and drags off the wagon-sheet.
“If you ever rode a saddle without a horse, or fired off a gun thatwasn’t loaded, or took a drink out of an empty bottle, why, then youmight have been able to scare an opera or two out of the instrument Uncle Calhad bought.
“Instead of a piano, it was one of the machines they’ve invented toplay the piano with. By itself it was about as musical as the holes of a flutewithout the flute.
“And that was the piano that Uncle Cal had selected; and standing by itwas the good, fine, all-wool girl that never let him know it.
“And what you heard playing a while ago,” concluded Mr. Kinney,“was that same deputy-piano machine; only just at present it’sshoved up against a six-hundred-dollar piano that I bought for Marilla as soonas we was married.”
XIV
A CALL LOAN
In those days the cattlemen were the anointed. They were the grandees of thegrass, kings of the kine, lords of the lea, barons of beef and bone. They mighthave ridden in golden chariots had their tastes so inclined. The cattleman wascaught in a stampede of dollars. It seemed to him that he had more money thanwas decent. But when he had bought a watch with precious stones set in the caseso large that they hurt his ribs, and a California saddle with silver nails andAngora skin suaderos, and ordered everybody up to the bar forwhisky—what else was there for him to spend money for?
Not so circumscribed in expedient for the reduction of surplus wealth werethose lairds of the lariat who had womenfolk to their name. In the breast ofthe rib-sprung sex the genius of purse lightening may slumber through years ofinopportunity, but never, my brothers, does it become extinct.
So, out of the chaparral came Long Bill Longley from the Bar Circle Branch onthe Frio—a wife-driven man—to taste the urban joys of success.Something like half a million dollars he had, with an income steadilyincreasing.
Long Bill was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a cool head,and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from cowboy to be a cowman.Then came the boom in cattle, and Fortune, stepping gingerly among the cactusthorns, came and emptied her cornucopia at the doorstep of the ranch.
In the little frontier city of Chaparosa, Longley built a costly residence.Here he became a captive, bound to the chariot of social existence. He wasdoomed to become a leading citizen. He struggled for a time like a mustang inhis first corral, and then he hung up his quirt and spurs. Time hung heavily onhis hands. He organised the First National Bank of Chaparosa, and was electedits president.
One day a dyspeptic man, wearing double-magnifying glasses, inserted anofficial-looking card between the bars of the cashier’s window of theFirst National Bank. Five minutes later the bank force was dancing at the beckand call of a national bank examiner.
This examiner, Mr. J. Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one.
At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the president, Mr.William R. Longley, into the private office.
“Well, how do you find things?” asked Longley, in his slow, deeptones. “Any brands in the round-up you didn’t like the looksof?”
“The bank checks up all right, Mr. Longley,” said Todd; “andI find your loans in very good shape—with one exception. You are carryingone very bad bit of paper—one that is so bad that I have been thinkingthat you surely do not realise the serious position it places you in. I referto a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not only is the amount inexcess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any individual legally, but it isabsolutely without endorsement or security. Thus you have doubly violated thenational banking laws, and have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution bythe Government. A report of the matter to the Comptroller of theCurrency—which I am bound to make—would, I am sure, result in thematter being turned over to the Department of Justice for action. You see whata serious thing it is.”
Bill Longley was leaning his lengthy, slowly moving frame back in his swivelchair. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he turned a little to lookthe examiner in the face. The examiner was surprised to see a smile creep aboutthe rugged mouth of the banker, and a kindly twinkle in his light-blue eyes. Ifhe saw the seriousness of the affair, it did not show in his countenance.
“Of course, you don’t know Tom Merwin,” said Longley, almostgenially. “Yes, I know about that loan. It hasn’t any securityexcept Tom Merwin’s word. Somehow, I’ve always found that when aman’s word is good it’s the best security there is. Oh, yes, I knowthe Government doesn’t think so. I guess I’ll see Tom about thatnote.”
Mr. Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at thechaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.
“You see,” said Longley, easily explaining the thing away,“Tom heard of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the RioGrande that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon ’twas one of old LeandroGarcia’s outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a quickturn on ’em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas City. Tomknew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have the $10,000 to makethe deal with. His brother Ed took ’em on to market three weeks ago. Heought to be back ’most any day now with the money. When he comesTom’ll pay that note.”
The bank examiner was shocked. It was, perhaps, his duty to step out to thetelegraph office and wire the situation to the Comptroller. But he did not. Hetalked pointedly and effectively to Longley for three minutes. He succeeded inmaking the banker understand that he stood upon the border of a catastrophe.And then he offered a tiny loophole of escape.
“I am going to Hilldale’s to-night,” he told Longley,“to examine a bank there. I will pass through Chaparosa on my way back.At twelve o’clock to-morrow I shall call at this bank. If this loan hasbeen cleared out of the way by that time it will not be mentioned in my report.If not—I will have to do my duty.”
With that the examiner bowed and departed.
The President of the First National lounged in his chair half an hour longer,and then he lit a mild cigar, and went over to Tom Merwin’s house.Merwin, a ranchman in brown duck, with a contemplative eye, sat with his feetupon a table, plaiting a rawhide quirt.
“Tom,” said Longley, leaning against the table, “you heardanything from Ed yet?”
“Not yet,” said Merwin, continuing his plaiting. “I guessEd’ll be along back now in a few days.”
“There was a bank examiner,” said Longley, “nosing around ourplace to-day, and he bucked a sight about that note of yours. You know I knowit’s all right, but the thing isagainst the banking laws. I waspretty sure you’d have paid it off before the bank was examined again,but the son-of-a-gun slipped in on us, Tom. Now, I’m short of cash myselfjust now, or I’d let you have the money to take it up with. I’vegot till twelve o’clock to-morrow, and then I’ve got to show thecash in place of that note or—”
“Or what, Bill?” asked Merwin, as Longley hesitated.
“Well, I suppose it means be jumped on with both of Uncle Sam’sfeet.”
“I’ll try to raise the money for you on time,” said Merwin,interested in his plaiting.
“All right, Tom,” concluded Longley, as he turned toward the door;“I knew you would if you could.”
Merwin threw down his whip and went to the only other bank in town, a privateone, run by Cooper & Craig.
“Cooper,” he said, to the partner by that name, “I’vegot to have $10,000 to-day or to-morrow. I’ve got a house and lot therethat’s worth about $6,000 and that’s all the actual collateral. ButI’ve got a cattle deal on that’s sure to bring me in more than thatmuch profit within a few days.”
Cooper began to cough.
“Now, for God’s sake don’t say no,” said Merwin.“I owe that much money on a call loan. It’s been called, and theman that called it is a man I’ve laid on the same blanket with incow-camps and ranger-camps for ten years. He can call anything I’ve got.He can call the blood out of my veins and it’ll come. He’s got tohave the money. He’s in a devil of a—Well, he needs the money, andI’ve got to get it for him. You know my word’s good, Cooper.”
“No doubt of it,” assented Cooper, urbanely, “but I’vea partner, you know. I’m not free in making loans. And even if you hadthe best security in your hands, Merwin, we couldn’t accommodate you inless than a week. We’re just making a shipment of $15,000 to MyerBrothers in Rockdell, to buy cotton with. It goes down on the narrow-gaugeto-night. That leaves our cash quite short at present. Sorry we can’tarrange it for you.”
Merwin went back to his little bare office and plaited at his quirt again.About four o’clock in the afternoon he went to the First National Bankand leaned over the railing of Longley’s desk.
“I’ll try to get that money for you to-night—I meanto-morrow, Bill.”
“All right, Tom,” said Longley quietly.
At nine o’clock that night Tom Merwin stepped cautiously out of the smallframe house in which he lived. It was near the edge of the little town, and fewcitizens were in the neighbourhood at that hour. Merwin wore two six-shootersin a belt, and a slouch hat. He moved swiftly down a lonely street, and thenfollowed the sandy road that ran parallel to the narrow-gauge track until hereached the water-tank, two miles below the town. There Tom Merwin stopped,tied a black silk handkerchief about the lower part of his face, and pulled hishat down low.
In ten minutes the night train for Rockdell pulled up at the tank, having comefrom Chaparosa.
With a gun in each hand Merwin raised himself from behind a clump of chaparraland started for the engine. But before he had taken three steps, two long,strong arms clasped him from behind, and he was lifted from his feet andthrown, face downward upon the grass. There was a heavy knee pressing againsthis back, and an iron hand grasping each of his wrists. He was held thus, likea child, until the engine had taken water, and until the train had moved, withaccelerating speed, out of sight. Then he was released, and rose to his feet toface Bill Longley.
“The case never needed to be fixed up this way, Tom,” said Longley.“I saw Cooper this evening, and he told me what you and him talked about.Then I went down to your house to-night and saw you come out with your guns on,and I followed you. Let’s go back, Tom.”
They walked away together, side by side.
“’Twas the only chance I saw,” said Merwin presently.“You called your loan, and I tried to answer you. Now, what’ll youdo, Bill, if they sock it to you?”
“What would you have done if they’d socked it to you?” wasthe answer Longley made.
“I never thought I’d lay in a bush to stick up a train,”remarked Merwin; “but a call loan’s different. A call’s acall with me. We’ve got twelve hours yet, Bill, before this spy jumpsonto you. We’ve got to raise them spondulicks somehow. Maybe wecan—Great Sam Houston! do you hear that?”
Merwin broke into a run, and Longley kept with him, hearing only a ratherpleasing whistle somewhere in the night rendering the lugubrious air of“The Cowboy’s Lament.”
“It’s the only tune he knows,” shouted Merwin, as he ran.“I’ll bet—”
They were at the door of Merwin’s house. He kicked it open and fell overan old valise lying in the middle of the floor. A sunburned, firm-jawed youth,stained by travel, lay upon the bed puffing at a brown cigarette.
“What’s the word, Ed?” gasped Merwin.
“So, so,” drawled that capable youngster. “Just got in on the9:30. Sold the bunch for fifteen, straight. Now, buddy, you want to quitkickin’ a valise around that’s got $29,000 in greenbacks in itsin’ards.”
XV
THE PRINCESS AND THE PUMA
There had to be a king and queen, of course. The king was a terrible old manwho wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a tremendous voice thatthe rattlers on the prairie would run into their holes under the prickly pear.Before there was a royal family they called the man “WhisperingBen.” When he came to own 50,000 acres of land and more cattle than hecould count, they called him O’Donnell “the Cattle King.”
The queen had been a Mexican girl from Laredo. She made a good, mild,Colorado-claro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his voicesufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being broken. When Bengot to be king she would sit on the gallery of Espinosa Ranch and weave rushmats. When wealth became so irresistible and oppressive that upholstered chairsand a centre table were brought down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowedher smooth, dark head, and shared the fate of the Danae.
To avoid lèse-majestéyou have been presented first to the king andqueen. They do not enter the story, which might be called “The Chronicleof the Princess, the Happy Thought, and the Lion that Bungled his Job.”
Josefa O’Donnell was the surviving daughter, the princess. From hermother she inherited warmth of nature and a dusky, semi-tropic beauty. From BenO’Donnell the royal she acquired a store of intrepidity, common sense,and the faculty of ruling. The combination was one worth going miles to see.Josefa while riding her pony at a gallop could put five out of six bulletsthrough a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string. She could play for hourswith a white kitten she owned, dressing it in all manner of absurd clothes.Scorning a pencil, she could tell you out of her head what 1545 two-year-oldswould bring on the hoof, at $8.50 per head. Roughly speaking, the EspinosaRanch is forty miles long and thirty broad—but mostly leased land.Josefa, on her pony, had prospected over every mile of it. Every cow-puncher onthe range knew her by sight and was a loyal vassal. Ripley Givens, foreman ofone of the Espinosa outfits, saw her one day, and made up his mind to form aroyal matrimonial alliance. Presumptuous? No. In those days in the Nuecescountry a man was a man. And, after all, the title of cattle king does notpresuppose blood royalty. Often it only signifies that its owner wears thecrown in token of his magnificent qualities in the art of cattle stealing.
One day Ripley Givens rode over to the Double Elm Ranch to inquire about abunch of strayed yearlings. He was late in setting out on his return trip, andit was sundown when he struck the White Horse Crossing of the Nueces. Fromthere to his own camp it was sixteen miles. To the Espinosa ranch it wastwelve. Givens was tired. He decided to pass the night at the Crossing.
There was a fine water hole in the river-bed. The banks were thickly coveredwith great trees, undergrown with brush. Back from the water hole fifty yardswas a stretch of curly mesquite grass—supper for his horse and bed forhimself. Givens staked his horse, and spread out his saddle blankets to dry. Hesat down with his back against a tree and rolled a cigarette. From somewhere inthe dense timber along the river came a sudden, rageful, shivering wail. Thepony danced at the end of his rope and blew a whistling snort of comprehendingfear. Givens puffed at his cigarette, but he reached leisurely for hispistol-belt, which lay on the grass, and twirled the cylinder of his weapontentatively. A great gar plunged with a loud splash into the water hole. Alittle brown rabbit skipped around a bunch of catclaw and sat twitching hiswhiskers and looking humorously at Givens. The pony went on eating grass.
It is well to be reasonably watchful when a Mexican lion sings soprano alongthe arroyos at sundown. The burden of his song may be that young calves and fatlambs are scarce, and that he has a carnivorous desire for your acquaintance.
In the grass lay an empty fruit can, cast there by some former sojourner.Givens caught sight of it with a grunt of satisfaction. In his coat pocket tiedbehind his saddle was a handful or two of ground coffee. Black coffee andcigarettes! What ranchero could desire more?
In two minutes he had a little fire going clearly. He started, with his can,for the water hole. When within fifteen yards of its edge he saw, between thebushes, a side-saddled pony with down-dropped reins cropping grass a littledistance to his left. Just rising from her hands and knees on the brink of thewater hole was Josefa O’Donnell. She had been drinking water, and shebrushed the sand from the palms of her hands. Ten yards away, to her right,half concealed by a clump of sacuista, Givens saw the crouching form of theMexican lion. His amber eyeballs glared hungrily; six feet from them was thetip of the tail stretched straight, like a pointer’s. His hind-quartersrocked with the motion of the cat tribe preliminary to leaping.
Givens did what he could. His six-shooter was thirty-five yards away lying onthe grass. He gave a loud yell, and dashed between the lion and the princess.
The “rucus,” as Givens called it afterward, was brief and somewhatconfused. When he arrived on the line of attack he saw a dim streak in the air,and heard a couple of faint cracks. Then a hundred pounds of Mexican lionplumped down upon his head and flattened him, with a heavy jar, to the ground.He remembered calling out: “Let up, now—no fair gouging!” andthen he crawled from under the lion like a worm, with his mouth full of grassand dirt, and a big lump on the back of his head where it had struck the rootof a water-elm. The lion lay motionless. Givens, feeling aggrieved, andsuspicious of fouls, shook his fist at the lion, and shouted: “I’llrastle you again for twenty—” and then he got back to himself.
Josefa was standing in her tracks, quietly reloading her silver-mounted .38.It had not been a difficult shot. The lion’s head made an easier markthan a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string. There was a provoking,teasing, maddening smile upon her mouth and in her dark eyes. Thewould-be-rescuing knight felt the fire of his fiasco burn down to his soul.Here had been his chance, the chance that he had dreamed of; and Momus, and notCupid, had presided over it. The satyrs in the wood were, no doubt, holdingtheir sides in hilarious, silent laughter. There had been something likevaudeville—say Signor Givens and his funny knockabout act with thestuffed lion.
“Is that you, Mr. Givens?” said Josefa, in her deliberate,saccharine contralto. “You nearly spoilt my shot when you yelled. Did youhurt your head when you fell?”
“Oh, no,” said Givens, quietly; “that didn’thurt.” He stooped ignominiously and dragged his best Stetson hat fromunder the beast. It was crushed and wrinkled to a fine comedy effect. Then heknelt down and softly stroked the fierce, open-jawed head of the dead lion.
“Poor old Bill!” he exclaimed mournfully.
“What’s that?” asked Josefa, sharply.
“Of course you didn’t know, Miss Josefa,” said Givens, withan air of one allowing magnanimity to triumph over grief. “Nobody canblame you. I tried to save him, but I couldn’t let you know intime.”
“Save who?”
“Why, Bill. I’ve been looking for him all day. You see, he’sbeen our camp pet for two years. Poor old fellow, he wouldn’t have hurt acottontail rabbit. It’ll break the boys all up when they hear about it.But you couldn’t tell, of course, that Bill was just trying to play withyou.”
Josefa’s black eyes burned steadily upon him. Ripley Givens met the testsuccessfully. He stood rumpling the yellow-brown curls on his head pensively.In his eye was regret, not unmingled with a gentle reproach. His smoothfeatures were set to a pattern of indisputable sorrow. Josefa wavered.
“What was your pet doing here?” she asked, making a last stand.“There’s no camp near the White Horse Crossing.”
“The old rascal ran away from camp yesterday,” answered Givensreadily. “It’s a wonder the coyotes didn’t scare him todeath. You see, Jim Webster, our horse wrangler, brought a little terrier pupinto camp last week. The pup made life miserable for Bill—he used tochase him around and chew his hind legs for hours at a time. Every night whenbedtime came Bill would sneak under one of the boy’s blankets and sleepto keep the pup from finding him. I reckon he must have been worried prettydesperate or he wouldn’t have run away. He was always afraid to get outof sight of camp.”
Josefa looked at the body of the fierce animal. Givens gently patted one of theformidable paws that could have killed a yearling calf with one blow. Slowly ared flush widened upon the dark olive face of the girl. Was it the signal ofshame of the true sportsman who has brought down ignoble quarry? Her eyes grewsofter, and the lowered lids drove away all their bright mockery.
“I’m very sorry,” she said humbly; “but he looked sobig, and jumped so high that—”
“Poor old Bill was hungry,” interrupted Givens, in quick defence ofthe deceased. “We always made him jump for his supper in camp. He wouldlie down and roll over for a piece of meat. When he saw you he thought he wasgoing to get something to eat from you.”
Suddenly Josefa’s eyes opened wide.
“I might have shot you!” she exclaimed. “You ran right inbetween. You risked your life to save your pet! That was fine, Mr. Givens. Ilike a man who is kind to animals.”
Yes; there was even admiration in her gaze now. After all, there was a herorising out of the ruins of the anti-climax. The look on Givens’s facewould have secured him a high position in the S.P.C.A.
“I always loved ’em,” said he; “horses, dogs, Mexicanlions, cows, alligators—”
“I hate alligators,” instantly demurred Josefa; “crawly,muddy things!”
“Did I say alligators?” said Givens. “I meant antelopes, ofcourse.”
Josefa’s conscience drove her to make further amends. She held out herhand penitently. There was a bright, unshed drop in each of her eyes.
“Please forgive me, Mr. Givens, won’t you? I’m only a girl,you know, and I was frightened at first. I’m very, very sorry I shotBill. You don’t know how ashamed I feel. I wouldn’t have done itfor anything.”
Givens took the proffered hand. He held it for a time while he allowed thegenerosity of his nature to overcome his grief at the loss of Bill. At last itwas clear that he had forgiven her.
“Please don’t speak of it any more, Miss Josefa. ’Twas enoughto frighten any young lady the way Bill looked. I’ll explain it all rightto the boys.”
“Are you really sure you don’t hate me?” Josefa came closerto him impulsively. Her eyes were sweet—oh, sweet and pleading withgracious penitence. “I would hate anyone who would kill my kitten. Andhow daring and kind of you to risk being shot when you tried to save him! Howvery few men would have done that!” Victory wrested from defeat!Vaudeville turned into drama! Bravo, Ripley Givens!
It was now twilight. Of course Miss Josefa could not be allowed to ride on tothe ranch-house alone. Givens resaddled his pony in spite of thatanimal’s reproachful glances, and rode with her. Side by side theygalloped across the smooth grass, the princess and the man who was kind toanimals. The prairie odours of fruitful earth and delicate bloom were thick andsweet around them. Coyotes yelping over there on the hill! No fear. Andyet—
Josefa rode closer. A little hand seemed to grope. Givens found it with hisown. The ponies kept an even gait. The hands lingered together, and the ownerof one explained:
“I never was frightened before, but just think! How terrible it would beto meet a really wild lion! Poor Bill! I’m so glad you came withme!”
O’Donnell was sitting on the ranch gallery.
“Hello, Rip!” he shouted—“that you?”
“He rode in with me,” said Josefa. “I lost my way and waslate.”
“Much obliged,” called the cattle king. “Stop over, Rip, andride to camp in the morning.”
But Givens would not. He would push on to camp. There was a bunch of steers tostart off on the trail at daybreak. He said good-night, and trotted away.
An hour later, when the lights were out, Josefa, in her night-robe, came to herdoor and called to the king in his own room across the brick-paved hallway:
“Say, pop, you know that old Mexican lion they call the‘Gotch-eared Devil’—the one that killed Gonzales, Mr.Martin’s sheep herder, and about fifty calves on the Salado range? Well,I settled his hash this afternoon over at the White Horse Crossing. Put twoballs in his head with my .38 while he was on the jump. I knew him by the slicegone from his left ear that old Gonzales cut off with his machete. Youcouldn’t have made a better shot yourself, daddy.”
“Bully for you!” thundered Whispering Ben from the darkness of theroyal chamber.
XVI
THE INDIAN SUMMER OF DRY VALLEY JOHNSON
Dry Valley Johnson shook the bottle. You have to shake the bottle before using;for sulphur will not dissolve. Then Dry Valley saturated a small sponge withthe liquid and rubbed it carefully into the roots of his hair. Besides sulphurthere was sugar of lead in it and tincture of nux vomica and bay rum. DryValley found the recipe in a Sunday newspaper. You must next be told why astrong man came to fall a victim to a Beauty Hint.
Dry Valley had been a sheepman. His real name was Hector, but he had beenrechristened after his range to distinguish him from “Elm Creek”Johnson, who ran sheep further down the Frio.
Many years of living face to face with sheep on their own terms wearied DryValley Johnson. So, he sold his ranch for eighteen thousand dollars and movedto Santa Rosa to live a life of gentlemanly ease. Being a silent and melancholyperson of thirty-five—or perhaps thirty-eight—he soon became thatcursed and earth-cumbering thing—an elderlyish bachelor with a hobby.Some one gave him his first strawberry to eat, and he was done for.
Dry Valley bought a four-room cottage in the village, and a library onstrawberry culture. Behind the cottage was a garden of which he made astrawberry patch. In his old grey woolen shirt, his brown duck trousers, andhigh-heeled boots he sprawled all day on a canvas cot under a live-oak tree athis back door studying the history of the seductive, scarlet berry.
The school teacher, Miss De Witt, spoke of him as “a fine, presentableman, for all his middle age.” But, the focus of Dry Valley’s eyesembraced no women. They were merely beings who flew skirts as a signal for himto lift awkwardly his heavy, round-crowned, broad-brimmed felt Stetson wheneverhe met them, and then hurry past to get back to his beloved berries.
And all this recitative by the chorus is only to bring us to the point whereyou may be told why Dry Valley shook up the insoluble sulphur in the bottle. Solong-drawn and inconsequential a thing is history—the anamorphous shadowof a milestone reaching down the road between us and the setting sun.
When his strawberries were beginning to ripen Dry Valley bought the heaviestbuggy whip in the Santa Rosa store. He sat for many hours under the live oaktree plaiting and weaving in an extension to its lash. When it was done hecould snip a leaf from a bush twenty feet away with the cracker. For thebright, predatory eyes of Santa Rosa youth were watching the ripening berries,and Dry Valley was arming himself against their expected raids. No greater carehad he taken of his tender lambs during his ranching days than he did of hischerished fruit, warding it from the hungry wolves that whistled and howled andshot their marbles and peered through the fence that surrounded his property.
In the house next to Dry Valley’s lived a widow with a pack of childrenthat gave the husbandman frequent anxious misgivings. In the woman there was astrain of the Spanish. She had wedded one of the name of O’Brien. DryValley was a connoisseur in cross strains; and he foresaw trouble in theoffspring of this union.
Between the two homesteads ran a crazy picket fence overgrown with morningglory and wild gourd vines. Often he could see little heads with mops of blackhair and flashing dark eyes dodging in and out between the pickets, keepingtabs on the reddening berries.
Late one afternoon Dry Valley went to the post office. When he came back, likeMother Hubbard he found the deuce to pay. The descendants of Iberian banditsand Hibernian cattle raiders had swooped down upon his strawberry patch. To theoutraged vision of Dry Valley there seemed to be a sheep corral full of them;perhaps they numbered five or six. Between the rows of green plants they werestooped, hopping about like toads, gobbling silently and voraciously his finestfruit.
Dry Valley slipped into the house, got his whip, and charged the marauders. Thelash curled about the legs of the nearest—a greedyten-year-old—before they knew they were discovered. His screech gavewarning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of javelisflushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley’s whip drew a toll of two more elfinshrieks before they dived through the vine-clad fence and disappeared.
Dry Valley, less fleet, followed them nearly to the pickets. Checking hisuseless pursuit, he rounded a bush, dropped his whip and stood, voiceless,motionless, the capacity of his powers consumed by the act of breathing andpreserving the perpendicular.
Behind the bush stood Panchita O’Brien, scorning to fly. She wasnineteen, the oldest of the raiders. Her night-black hair was gathered back ina wild mass and tied with a scarlet ribbon. She stood, with reluctant feet, yetnearer the brook than to the river; for childhood had environed and detainedher.
She looked at Dry Valley Johnson for a moment with magnificent insolence, andbefore his eyes slowly crunched a luscious berry between her white teeth. Thenshe turned and walked slowly to the fence with a swaying, conscious motion,such as a duchess might make use of in leading a promenade. There she turnedagain and grilled Dry Valley Johnson once more in the dark flame of heraudacious eyes, laughed a trifle school-girlishly, and twisted herself withpantherish quickness between the pickets to the O’Brien side of the wildgourd vine.
Dry Valley picked up his whip and went into his house. He stumbled as he wentup the two wooden steps. The old Mexican woman who cooked his meals and swepthis house called him to supper as he went through the rooms. Dry Valley wenton, stumbled down the front steps, out the gate and down the road into amesquite thicket at the edge of town. He sat down in the grass and laboriouslyplucked the spines from a prickly pear, one by one. This was his attitude ofthought, acquired in the days when his problems were only those of wind andwool and water.
A thing had happened to the man—a thing that, if you are eligible, youmust pray may pass you by. He had become enveloped in the Indian Summer of theSoul.
Dry Valley had had no youth. Even his childhood had been one of dignity andseriousness. At six he had viewed the frivolous gambols of the lambs on hisfather’s ranch with silent disapproval. His life as a young man had beenwasted. The divine fires and impulses, the glorious exaltations and despairs,the glow and enchantment of youth had passed above his head. Never a thrill ofRomeo had he known; he was but a melancholy Jaques of the forest with a ruderphilosophy, lacking the bitter-sweet flavour of experience that tempered theveteran years of the rugged ranger of Arden. And now in his sere and yellowleaf one scornful look from the eyes of Panchita O’Brien had flooded theautumnal landscape with a tardy and delusive summer heat.
But a sheepman is a hardy animal. Dry Valley Johnson had weathered too manynorthers to turn his back on a late summer, spiritual or real. Old? He wouldshow them.
By the next mail went an order to San Antonio for an outfit of the latestclothes, colours and styles and prices no object. The next day went the recipefor the hair restorer clipped from a newspaper; for Dry Valley’ssunburned auburn hair was beginning to turn silvery above his ears.
Dry Valley kept indoors closely for a week except for frequent sallies afteryouthful strawberry snatchers. Then, a few days later, he suddenly emergedbrilliantly radiant in the hectic glow of his belated midsummer madness.
A jay-bird-blue tennis suit covered him outwardly, almost as far as his wristsand ankles. His shirt was ox-blood; his collar winged and tall; his necktie afloating oriflamme; his shoes a venomous bright tan, pointed and shaped onpenitential lasts. A little flat straw hat with a striped band desecrated hisweather-beaten head. Lemon-coloured kid gloves protected his oak-tough handsfrom the benignant May sunshine. This sad and optic-smiting creature teeteredout of its den, smiling foolishly and smoothing its gloves for men and angelsto see. To such a pass had Dry Valley Johnson been brought by Cupid, who alwaysshoots game that is out of season with an arrow from the quiver of Momus.Reconstructing mythology, he had risen, a prismatic macaw, from the ashes ofthe grey-brown phoenix that had folded its tired wings to roost under the treesof Santa Rosa.
Dry Valley paused in the street to allow Santa Rosans within sight of him to bestunned; and then deliberately and slowly, as his shoes required, entered Mrs.O’Brien’s gate.
Not until the eleven months’ drought did Santa Rosa cease talking aboutDry Valley Johnson’s courtship of Panchita O’Brien. It was anunclassifiable procedure; something like a combination of cake-walking,deaf-and-dumb oratory, postage stamp flirtation and parlour charades. It lastedtwo weeks and then came to a sudden end.
Of course Mrs. O’Brien favoured the match as soon as Dry Valley’sintentions were disclosed. Being the mother of a woman child, and therefore acharter member of the Ancient Order of the Rat-trap, she joyfully decked outPanchita for the sacrifice. The girl was temporarily dazzled by having herdresses lengthened and her hair piled up on her head, and came near forgettingthat she was only a slice of cheese. It was nice, too, to have as good a matchas Mr. Johnson paying you attentions and to see the other girls fluttering thecurtains at their windows to see you go by with him.
Dry Valley bought a buggy with yellow wheels and a fine trotter in San Antonio.Every day he drove out with Panchita. He was never seen to speak to her whenthey were walking or driving. The consciousness of his clothes kept his mindbusy; the knowledge that he could say nothing of interest kept him dumb; thefeeling that Panchita was there kept him happy.
He took her to parties and dances, and to church. He tried—oh, no manever tried so hard to be young as Dry Valley did. He could not dance; but heinvented a smile which he wore on these joyous occasions, a smile that, in him,was as great a concession to mirth and gaiety as turning hand-springs would bein another. He began to seek the company of the young men in thetown—even of the boys. They accepted him as a decided damper, for hisattempts at sportiveness were so forced that they might as well have essayedtheir games in a cathedral. Neither he nor any other could estimate whatprogress he had made with Panchita.
The end came suddenly in one day, as often disappears the false afterglowbefore a November sky and wind.
Dry Valley was to call for the girl one afternoon at six for a walk. Anafternoon walk in Santa Rosa was a feature of social life that called for thepink of one’s wardrobe. So Dry Valley began gorgeously to array himself;and so early that he finished early, and went over to the O’Briencottage. As he neared the porch on the crooked walk from the gate he heardsounds of revelry within. He stopped and looked through the honeysuckle vinesin the open door.
Panchita was amusing her younger brothers and sisters. She wore a man’sclothes—no doubt those of the late Mr. O’Brien. On her head was thesmallest brother’s straw hat decorated with an ink-striped paper band. Onher hands were flapping yellow cloth gloves, roughly cut out and sewn for themasquerade. The same material covered her shoes, giving them the semblance oftan leather. High collar and flowing necktie were not omitted.
Panchita was an actress. Dry Valley saw his affectedly youthful gait, his limpwhere the right shoe hurt him, his forced smile, his awkward simulation of agallant air, all reproduced with startling fidelity. For the first time amirror had been held up to him. The corroboration of one of the youngsterscalling, “Mamma, come and see Pancha do like Mr. Johnson,” was notneeded.
As softly as the caricatured tans would permit, Dry Valley tiptoed back to thegate and home again.
Twenty minutes after the time appointed for the walk Panchita tripped demurelyout of her gate in a thin, trim white lawn and sailor hat. She strolled up thesidewalk and slowed her steps at Dry Valley’s gate, her manner expressingwonder at his unusual delinquency.
Then out of his door and down the walk strode—not the polychromaticvictim of a lost summertime, but the sheepman, rehabilitated. He wore his oldgrey woolen shirt, open at the throat, his brown duck trousers stuffed into hisrun-over boots, and his white felt sombrero on the back of his head. Twentyyears or fifty he might look; Dry Valley cared not. His light blue eyes metPanchita’s dark ones with a cold flash in them. He came as far as thegate. He pointed with his long arm to her house.
“Go home,” said Dry Valley. “Go home to your mother. I wonderlightnin’ don’t strike a fool like me. Go home and play in thesand. What business have you got cavortin’ around with grown men? Ireckon I was locoed to be makin’ a he poll-parrot out of myself for a kidlike you. Go home and don’t let me see you no more. Why I done it, willsomebody tell me? Go home, and let me try and forget it.”
Panchita obeyed and walked slowly toward her home, saying nothing. For somedistance she kept her head turned and her large eyes fixed intrepidly upon DryValley’s. At her gate she stood for a moment looking back at him, thenran suddenly and swiftly into the house.
Old Antonia was building a fire in the kitchen stove. Dry Valley stopped at thedoor and laughed harshly.
“I’m a pretty looking old rhinoceros to be gettin’ stuck on akid, ain’t I, ’Tonia?” said he.
“Not verree good thing,” agreed Antonia, sagely, “for toomuch old man to likee muchacha.”
“You bet it ain’t,” said Dry Valley, grimly.“It’s dum foolishness; and, besides, it hurts.”
He brought at one armful the regalia of his aberration—the blue tennissuit, shoes, hat, gloves and all, and threw them in a pile at Antonia’sfeet.
“Give them to your old man,” said he, “to hunt antelopein.”
Just as the first star presided palely over the twilight Dry Valley got hisbiggest strawberry book and sat on the back steps to catch the last of thereading light. He thought he saw the figure of someone in his strawberry patch.He laid aside the book, got his whip and hurried forth to see.
It was Panchita. She had slipped through the picket fence and was half-wayacross the patch. She stopped when she saw him and looked at him withoutwavering.
A sudden rage—a humiliating flush of unreasoning wrath—came overDry Valley. For this child he had made himself a motley to the view. He hadtried to bribe Time to turn backward for himself; he had—been made a foolof. At last he had seen his folly. There was a gulf between him and youth overwhich he could not build a bridge even with yellow gloves to protect his hands.And the sight of his torment coming to pester him with her elfinpranks—coming to plunder his strawberry vines like a mischievousschoolboy—roused all his anger.
“I told you to keep away from here,” said Dry Valley. “Goback to your home.”
Panchita moved slowly toward him.
Dry Valley cracked his whip.
“Go back home,” said Dry Valley, savagely, “and playtheatricals some more. You’d make a fine man. You’ve made a fineone of me.”
She came a step nearer, silent, and with that strange, defiant, steady shine inher eyes that had always puzzled him. Now it stirred his wrath.
His whiplash whistled through the air. He saw a red streak suddenly come outthrough her white dress above her knee where it had struck.
Without flinching and with the same unchanging dark glow in her eyes, Panchitacame steadily toward him through the strawberry vines. Dry Valley’strembling hand released his whip handle. When within a yard of him Panchitastretched out her arms.
“God, kid!” stammered Dry Valley, “do you mean—?”
But the seasons are versatile; and it may have been Springtime, after all,instead of Indian Summer, that struck Dry Valley Johnson.
XVII
CHRISTMAS BY INJUNCTION
Cherokee was the civic father of Yellowhammer. Yellowhammer was a new miningtown constructed mainly of canvas and undressed pine. Cherokee was aprospector. One day while his burro was eating quartz and pine burrs Cherokeeturned up with his pick a nugget, weighing thirty ounces. He staked his claimand then, being a man of breadth and hospitality, sent out invitations to hisfriends in three States to drop in and share his luck.
Not one of the invited guests sent regrets. They rolled in from the Gilacountry, from Salt River, from the Pecos, from Albuquerque and Phoenix andSanta Fe, and from the camps intervening.
When a thousand citizens had arrived and taken up claims they named the townYellowhammer, appointed a vigilance committee, and presented Cherokee with awatch-chain made of nuggets.
Three hours after the presentation ceremonies Cherokee’s claim playedout. He had located a pocket instead of a vein. He abandoned it and stakedothers one by one. Luck had kissed her hand to him. Never afterward did he turnup enough dust in Yellowhammer to pay his bar bill. But his thousand invitedguests were mostly prospering, and Cherokee smiled and congratulated them.
Yellowhammer was made up of men who took off their hats to a smiling loser; sothey invited Cherokee to say what he wanted.
“Me?” said Cherokee, “oh, grubstakes will be about the thing.I reckon I’ll prospect along up in the Mariposas. If I strike it up thereI will most certainly let you all know about the facts. I never was any hand tohold out cards on my friends.”
In May Cherokee packed his burro and turned its thoughtful, mouse-colouredforehead to the north. Many citizens escorted him to the undefined limits ofYellowhammer and bestowed upon him shouts of commendation and farewells. Fivepocket flasks without an air bubble between contents and cork were forced uponhim; and he was bidden to consider Yellowhammer in perpetual commission for hisbed, bacon and eggs, and hot water for shaving in the event that luck did notsee fit to warm her hands by his campfire in the Mariposas.
The name of the father of Yellowhammer was given him by the gold hunters inaccordance with their popular system of nomenclature. It was not necessary fora citizen to exhibit his baptismal certificate in order to acquire a cognomen.A man’s name was his personal property. For convenience in calling him upto the bar and in designating him among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporaryappellation, title, or epithet was conferred upon him by the public. Personalpeculiarities formed the source of the majority of such informal baptisms. Manywere easily dubbed geographically from the regions from which they confessed tohave hailed. Some announced themselves to be “Thompsons,” and“Adamses,” and the like, with a brazenness and loudness that cast acloud upon their titles. A few vaingloriously and shamelessly uncovered theirproper and indisputable names. This was held to be unduly arrogant, and did notwin popularity. One man who said he was Chesterton L. C. Belmont, and proved itby letters, was given till sundown to leave the town. Such names as“Shorty,” “Bow-legs,” “Texas,” “LazyBill,” “Thirsty Rogers,” “Limping Riley,”“The Judge,” and “California Ed” were in favour.Cherokee derived his title from the fact that he claimed to have lived for atime with that tribe in the Indian Nation.
On the twentieth day of December Baldy, the mail rider, brought Yellowhammer apiece of news.
“What do I see in Albuquerque,” said Baldy, to the patrons of thebar, “but Cherokee all embellished and festooned up like the Czar ofTurkey, and lavishin’ money in bulk. Him and me seen the elephant and theowl, and we had specimens of this seidlitz powder wine; and Cherokee he auditsall the bills, C.O.D. His pockets looked like a pool table’s after afifteen-ball run.
“Cherokee must have struck pay ore,” remarked California Ed.“Well, he’s white. I’m much obliged to him for hissuccess.”
“Seems like Cherokee would ramble down to Yellowhammer and see hisfriends,” said another, slightly aggrieved. “But that’s theway. Prosperity is the finest cure there is for lost forgetfulness.”
“You wait,” said Baldy; “I’m comin’ to that.Cherokee strikes a three-foot vein up in the Mariposas that assays a trip toEurope to the ton, and he closes it out to a syndicate outfit for a hundredthousand hasty dollars in cash. Then he buys himself a baby sealskin overcoatand a red sleigh, and what do you think he takes it in his head to donext?”
“Chuck-a-luck,” said Texas, whose ideas of recreation were thegamester’s.
“Come and Kiss Me, Ma Honey,” sang Shorty, who carried tintypes inhis pocket and wore a red necktie while working on his claim.
“Bought a saloon?” suggested Thirsty Rogers.
“Cherokee took me to a room,” continued Baldy, “and showedme. He’s got that room full of drums and dolls and skates and bags ofcandy and jumping-jacks and toy lambs and whistles and such infantile truck.And what do you think he’s goin’ to do with them inefficaciousknick-knacks? Don’t surmise none—Cherokee told me. He’sgoin’ to lead ’em up in his red sleigh and—wait a minute,don’t order no drinks yet— he’s goin’ to drive downhere to Yellowhammer and give the kids—the kids of this heretown—the biggest Christmas tree and the biggest cryin’ doll andLittle Giant Boys’ Tool Chest blowout that was ever seen west of the CapeHatteras.”
Two minutes of absolute silence ticked away in the wake of Baldy’s words.It was broken by the House, who, happily conceiving the moment to be ripe forextending hospitality, sent a dozen whisky glasses spinning down the bar, withthe slower travelling bottle bringing up the rear.
“Didn’t you tell him?” asked the miner called Trinidad.
“Well, no,” answered Baldy, pensively; “I never exactly seenmy way to.
“You see, Cherokee had this Christmas mess already bought and paid for;and he was all flattered up with self-esteem over his idea; and we had in a wayflew the flume with that fizzy wine I speak of; so I never let on.”
“I cannot refrain from a certain amount of surprise,” said theJudge, as he hung his ivory-handled cane on the bar, “that our friendCherokee should possess such an erroneous conception of—ah—his, asit were, own town.”
“Oh, it ain’t the eighth wonder of the terrestrial world,”said Baldy. “Cherokee’s been gone from Yellowhammer over sevenmonths. Lots of things could happen in that time. How’s he to know thatthere ain’t a single kid in this town, and so far as emigration isconcerned, none expected?”
“Come to think of it,” remarked California Ed, “it’sfunny some ain’t drifted in. Town ain’t settled enough yet for tobring in the rubber-ring brigade, I reckon.”
“To top off this Christmas-tree splurge of Cherokee’s,” wenton Baldy, “he’s goin’ to give an imitation of Santa Claus.He’s got a white wig and whiskers that disfigure him up exactly like thepictures of this William Cullen Longfellow in the books, and a red suit offur-trimmed outside underwear, and eight-ounce gloves, and a stand-up, lay-downcroshayed red cap. Ain’t it a shame that a outfit like that can’tget a chance to connect with a Annie and Willie’s prayer layout?”
“When does Cherokee allow to come over with his truck?” inquiredTrinidad.
“Mornin’ before Christmas,” said Baldy. “And he wantsyou folks to have a room fixed up and a tree hauled and ready. And such ladiesto assist as can stop breathin’ long enough to let it be a surprise forthe kids.”
The unblessed condition of Yellowhammer had been truly described. The voice ofchildhood had never gladdened its flimsy structures; the patter of restlesslittle feet had never consecrated the one rugged highway between the two rowsof tents and rough buildings. Later they would come. But now Yellowhammer wasbut a mountain camp, and nowhere in it were the roguish, expectant eyes,opening wide at dawn of the enchanting day; the eager, small hands to reach forSanta’s bewildering hoard; the elated, childish voicings of theseason’s joy, such as the coming good things of the warm-hearted Cherokeedeserved.
Of women there were five in Yellowhammer. The assayer’s wife, theproprietress of the Lucky Strike Hotel, and a laundress whose washtub pannedout an ounce of dust a day. These were the permanent feminines; the remainingtwo were the Spangler Sisters, Misses Fanchon and Erma, of the TranscontinentalComedy Company, then playing in repertoire at the (improvised) Empire Theatre.But of children there were none. Sometimes Miss Fanchon enacted with spirit andaddress the part of robustious childhood; but between her delineation and thevisions of adolescence that the fancy offered as eligible recipients ofCherokee’s holiday stores there seemed to be fixed a gulf.
Christmas would come on Thursday. On Tuesday morning Trinidad, instead of goingto work, sought the Judge at the Lucky Strike Hotel.
“It’ll be a disgrace to Yellowhammer,” said Trinidad,“if it throws Cherokee down on his Christmas tree blowout. You might saythat that man made this town. For one, I’m goin’ to see what can bedone to give Santa Claus a square deal.”
“My co-operation,” said the Judge, “would be gladlyforthcoming. I am indebted to Cherokee for past favours. But, I do notsee—I have heretofore regarded the absence of children rather as aluxury—but in this instance—still, I do not see—”
“Look at me,” said Trinidad, “and you’ll see old Waysand Means with the fur on. I’m goin’ to hitch up a team and rustlea load of kids for Cherokee’s Santa Claus act, if I have to rob an orphanasylum.”
“Eureka!” cried the Judge, enthusiastically.
“No, you didn’t,” said Trinidad, decidedly. “I found itmyself. I learned about that Latin word at school.”
“I will accompany you,” declared the Judge, waving his cane.“Perhaps such eloquence and gift of language as I possess will be ofbenefit in persuading our young friends to lend themselves to ourproject.”
Within an hour Yellowhammer was acquainted with the scheme of Trinidad and theJudge, and approved it. Citizens who knew of families with offspring within aforty-mile radius of Yellowhammer came forward and contributed theirinformation. Trinidad made careful notes of all such, and then hastened tosecure a vehicle and team.
The first stop scheduled was at a double log-house fifteen miles out fromYellowhammer. A man opened the door at Trinidad’s hail, and then camedown and leaned upon the rickety gate. The doorway was filled with a close massof youngsters, some ragged, all full of curiosity and health.
“It’s this way,” explained Trinidad. “We’re fromYellowhammer, and we come kidnappin’ in a gentle kind of a way. One ofour leading citizens is stung with the Santa Claus affliction, and he’sdue in town to-morrow with half the folderols that’s painted red and madein Germany. The youngest kid we got in Yellowhammer packs a forty-five and asafety razor. Consequently we’re mighty shy on anybody to say‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ when we light the candles on theChristmas tree. Now, partner, if you’ll loan us a few kids we guaranteeto return ’em safe and sound on Christmas Day. And they’ll comeback loaded down with a good time and Swiss Family Robinsons and cornucopiasand red drums and similar testimonials. What do you say?”
“In other words,” said the Judge, “we have discovered for thefirst time in our embryonic but progressive little city the inconveniences ofthe absence of adolescence. The season of the year having approximately arrivedduring which it is a custom to bestow frivolous but often appreciated giftsupon the young and tender—”
“I understand,” said the parent, packing his pipe with aforefinger. “I guess I needn’t detain you gentlemen. Me and the oldwoman have got seven kids, so to speak; and, runnin’ my mind over thebunch, I don’t appear to hit upon none that we could spare for you totake over to your doin’s. The old woman has got some popcorn candy andrag dolls hid in the clothes chest, and we allow to give Christmas a littlewhirl of our own in a insignificant sort of style. No, I couldn’t, withany degree of avidity, seem to fall in with the idea of lettin’ none of’em go. Thank you kindly, gentlemen.”
Down the slope they drove and up another foothill to the ranch-house of WileyWilson. Trinidad recited his appeal and the Judge boomed out his ponderousantiphony. Mrs. Wiley gathered her two rosy-cheeked youngsters close to herskirts and did not smile until she had seen Wiley laugh and shake his head.Again a refusal.
Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list beforetwilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a stage road hostelry,and set out again early the next morning. The wagon had not acquired a singlepassenger.
“It’s creepin’ upon my faculties,” remarked Trinidad,“that borrowin’ kids at Christmas is somethin’ liketryin’ to steal butter from a man that’s got hot pancakesa-comin’.”
“It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact,” said the Judge,“that the— ah—family ties seem to be more coherent andassertive at that period of the year.”
On the day before Christmas they drove thirty miles, making four fruitlesshalts and appeals. Everywhere they found “kids” at a premium.
The sun was low when the wife of a section boss on a lonely railroad huddledher unavailable progeny behind her and said:
“There’s a woman that’s just took charge of the railroadeatin’ house down at Granite Junction. I hear she’s got a littleboy. Maybe she might let him go.”
Trinidad pulled up his mules at Granite Junction at five o’clock in theafternoon. The train had just departed with its load of fed and appeasedpassengers.
On the steps of the eating house they found a thin and glowering boy of tensmoking a cigarette. The dining-room had been left in chaos by the peripateticappetites. A youngish woman reclined, exhausted, in a chair. Her face woresharp lines of worry. She had once possessed a certain style of beauty thatwould never wholly leave her and would never wholly return. Trinidad set forthhis mission.
“I’d count it a mercy if you’d take Bobby for a while,”she said, wearily. “I’m on the go from morning till night, and Idon’t have time to ’tend to him. He’s learning bad habitsfrom the men. It’ll be the only chance he’ll have to get anyChristmas.”
The men went outside and conferred with Bobby. Trinidad pictured the glories ofthe Christmas tree and presents in lively colours.
“And, moreover, my young friend,” added the Judge, “SantaClaus himself will personally distribute the offerings that will typify thegifts conveyed by the shepherds of Bethlehem to—”
“Aw, come off,” said the boy, squinting his small eyes. “Iain’t no kid. There ain’t any Santa Claus. It’s your folksthat buys toys and sneaks ’em in when you’re asleep. And they makemarks in the soot in the chimney with the tongs to look like Santa’ssleigh tracks.”
“That might be so,” argued Trinidad, “but Christmas treesain’t no fairy tale. This one’s goin’ to look like theten-cent store in Albuquerque, all strung up in a redwood. There’s topsand drums and Noah’s arks and—”
“Oh, rats!” said Bobby, wearily. “I cut them out long ago.I’d like to have a rifle—not a target one—a real one, toshoot wildcats with; but I guess you won’t have any of them on your oldtree.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure,” said Trinidad diplomatically;“it might be. You go along with us and see.”
The hope thus held out, though faint, won the boy’s hesitating consent togo. With this solitary beneficiary for Cherokee’s holiday bounty, thecanvassers spun along the homeward road.
In Yellowhammer the empty storeroom had been transformed into what might havepassed as the bower of an Arizona fairy. The ladies had done their work well. Atall Christmas tree, covered to the topmost branch with candles, spangles, andtoys sufficient for more than a score of children, stood in the centre of thefloor. Near sunset anxious eyes had begun to scan the street for the returningteam of the child-providers. At noon that day Cherokee had dashed into townwith his new sleigh piled high with bundles and boxes and bales of all sizesand shapes. So intent was he upon the arrangements for his altruistic plansthat the dearth of children did not receive his notice. No one gave away thehumiliating state of Yellowhammer, for the efforts of Trinidad and the Judgewere expected to supply the deficiency.
When the sun went down Cherokee, with many wings and arch grins on his seasonedface, went into retirement with the bundle containing the Santa Claus raimentand a pack containing special and undisclosed gifts.
“When the kids are rounded up,” he instructed the volunteerarrangement committee, “light up the candles on the tree and set’em to playin’ ‘Pussy Wants a Corner’ and ‘KingWilliam.’ When they get good and at it, why—old Santa’llslide in the door. I reckon there’ll be plenty of gifts to go’round.”
The ladies were flitting about the tree, giving it final touches that werenever final. The Spangled Sisters were there in costume as Lady Violet de Vereand Marie, the maid, in their new drama, “The Miner’s Bride.”The theatre did not open until nine, and they were welcome assistants of theChristmas tree committee. Every minute heads would pop out the door to look andlisten for the approach of Trinidad’s team. And now this became ananxious function, for night had fallen and it would soon be necessary to lightthe candles on the tree, and Cherokee was apt to make an irruption at any timein his Kriss Kringle garb.
At length the wagon of the child “rustlers” rattled down the streetto the door. The ladies, with little screams of excitement, flew to thelighting of the candles. The men of Yellowhammer passed in and out restlesslyor stood about the room in embarrassed groups.
Trinidad and the Judge, bearing the marks of protracted travel, entered,conducting between them a single impish boy, who stared with sullen,pessimistic eyes at the gaudy tree.
“Where are the other children?” asked the assayer’s wife, theacknowledged leader of all social functions.
“Ma’am,” said Trinidad with a sigh, “prospectin’for kids at Christmas time is like huntin’ in a limestone for silver.This parental business is one that I haven’t no chance to comprehend. Itseems that fathers and mothers are willin’ for their offsprings to bedrownded, stole, fed on poison oak, and et by catamounts 364 days in the year;but on Christmas Day they insists on enjoyin’ the exclusive mortificationof their company. This here young biped, ma’am, is all that washes out ofour two days’ manoeuvres.”
“Oh, the sweet little boy!” cooed Miss Erma, trailing her De Vererobes to centre of stage.
“Aw, shut up,” said Bobby, with a scowl. “Who’s a kid?You ain’t, you bet.”
“Fresh brat!” breathed Miss Erma, beneath her enamelled smile.
“We done the best we could,” said Trinidad. “It’s toughon Cherokee, but it can’t be helped.”
Then the door opened and Cherokee entered in the conventional dress of SaintNick. A white rippling beard and flowing hair covered his face almost to hisdark and shining eyes. Over his shoulder he carried a pack.
No one stirred as he came in. Even the Spangler Sisters ceased their coquettishposes and stared curiously at the tall figure. Bobby stood with his hands inhis pockets gazing gloomily at the effeminate and childish tree. Cherokee putdown his pack and looked wonderingly about the room. Perhaps he fancied that abevy of eager children were being herded somewhere, to be loosed upon hisentrance. He went up to Bobby and extended his red-mittened hand.
“Merry Christmas, little boy,” said Cherokee. “Anything onthe tree you want they’ll get it down for you. Won’t you shakehands with Santa Claus?”
“There ain’t any Santa Claus,” whined the boy.“You’ve got old false billy goat’s whiskers on your face. Iain’t no kid. What do I want with dolls and tin horses? The driver saidyou’d have a rifle, and you haven’t. I want to go home.”
Trinidad stepped into the breach. He shook Cherokee’s hand in warmgreeting.
“I’m sorry, Cherokee,” he explained. “There never was akid in Yellowhammer. We tried to rustle a bunch of ’em for your swaree,but this sardine was all we could catch. He’s a atheist, and hedon’t believe in Santa Claus. It’s a shame for you to be out allthis truck. But me and the Judge was sure we could round up a wagonful ofcandidates for your gimcracks.”
“That’s all right,” said Cherokee gravely. “The expensedon’t amount to nothin’ worth mentionin’. We can dump thestuff down a shaft or throw it away. I don’t know what I wasthinkin’ about; but it never occurred to my cogitations that therewasn’t any kids in Yellowhammer.”
Meanwhile the company had relaxed into a hollow but praiseworthy imitation of apleasure gathering.
Bobby had retreated to a distant chair, and was coldly regarding the scene withennui plastered thick upon him. Cherokee, lingering with his original idea,went over and sat beside him.
“Where do you live, little boy?” he asked respectfully.
“Granite Junction,” said Bobby without emphasis.
The room was warm. Cherokee took off his cap, and then removed his beard andwig.
“Say!” exclaimed Bobby, with a show of interest, “I know yourmug, all right.”
“Did you ever see me before?” asked Cherokee.
“I don’t know; but I’ve seen your picture lots oftimes.”
“Where?”
The boy hesitated. “On the bureau at home,” he answered.
“Let’s have your name, if you please, buddy.”
“Robert Lumsden. The picture belongs to my mother. She puts it under herpillow of nights. And once I saw her kiss it. I wouldn’t. But women arethat way.”
Cherokee rose and beckoned to Trinidad.
“Keep this boy by you till I come back,” he said. “I’mgoin’ to shed these Christmas duds, and hitch up my sleigh. I’mgoin’ to take this kid home.”
“Well, infidel,” said Trinidad, taking Cherokee’s vacantchair, “and so you are too superannuated and effete to yearn for suchmockeries as candy and toys, it seems.”
“I don’t like you,” said Bobby, with acrimony. “Yousaid there would be a rifle. A fellow can’t even smoke. I wish I was athome.”
Cherokee drove his sleigh to the door, and they lifted Bobby in beside him. Theteam of fine horses sprang away prancingly over the hard snow. Cherokee had onhis $500 overcoat of baby sealskin. The laprobe that he drew about them was aswarm as velvet.
Bobby slipped a cigarette from his pocket and was trying to snap a match.
“Throw that cigarette away,” said Cherokee, in a quiet but newvoice.
Bobby hesitated, and then dropped the cylinder overboard.
“Throw the box, too,” commanded the new voice.
More reluctantly the boy obeyed.
“Say,” said Bobby, presently, “I like you. I don’t knowwhy. Nobody never made me do anything I didn’t want to do before.”
“Tell me, kid,” said Cherokee, not using his new voice, “areyou sure your mother kissed that picture that looks like me?”
“Dead sure. I seen her do it.”
“Didn’t you remark somethin’ a while ago about wanting arifle?”
“You bet I did. Will you get me one?”
“To-morrow—silver-mounted.”
Cherokee took out his watch.
“Half-past nine. We’ll hit the Junction plumb on time withChristmas Day. Are you cold? Sit closer, son.”
XVIII
A CHAPARRAL PRINCE
Nine o’clock at last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lenaclimbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen’s Hotel.Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, scrubbingthe floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, making the beds, andsupplying the insatiate demands for wood and water in that turbulent anddepressing hostelry.
The din of the day’s quarrying was over—the blasting and drilling,the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing andshifting of the flat-cars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone. Down in thehotel office three or four of the labourers were growling and swearing over abelated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheapcoffee hung like a depressing fog about the house.
Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. She waseleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs were sore andaching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest trouble. The last straw hadbeen added to the burden upon her small shoulders. They had taken away Grimm.Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm forcomfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or thefairy would come and deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night shehad taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm.
To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. Thewoodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecutedstepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut—allthese were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid inthe Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came thegood fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue.
So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena hadleaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail.But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and hadcarried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read atnight; they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one onlyeleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any timeto play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? Just try it once and you will seewhat a difficult thing it is.
Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on thePedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all Germanpeople who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at little tables alongthe sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and scat. They are very thriftypeople.
Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that iswhy Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles away. Sheearned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her wages to hiswell-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as rich as his neighbour,Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe three feet long and had wienerschnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner every day in the week. And now Lena wasquite old enough to work and assist in the accumulation of riches. Butconjecture, if you can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of agefrom a home in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in theogre’s castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devourcattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust fromtheir great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers.And then—to have Grimm taken away from you!
Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned cornand got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going to write aletter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her atBallinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home toBallinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows underLena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the onlyway she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not like forher to write letters.
The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood fromaround the lead of her pencil and began. This is the letter she wrote:
DEARESTMAMMA:—I want so much to see you.And Gretel and Claus and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want tosee you. To-day I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could notbring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean“Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did nothurt any one for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but thereis so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I shalltell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me to-morrow to bring mehome I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked todrown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one else. I am verytired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I doit.
Your respectful and loving daughter,
LENA.
Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and when Lenadropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep hillside. Withoutundressing she blew out the candle and curled herself upon the mattress on thefloor.
At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his stockingfeet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked down the big road,white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with the toe of his other foot. Itwas time for the Fredericksburg mail to come pattering up the road.
Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the livelyhoofbeats of Fritz’s team of little black mules, and very soon afterwardhis covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz’s bigspectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice shouted a greetingto the postmaster of Ballinger’s. The mail-carrier jumped out and tookthe bridles from the mules, for he always fed them oats at Ballinger’s.
While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger brought outthe mail sack and threw it into the wagon.
Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments—or to be moreaccurate— four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually.Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came theEmperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.
“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “containsthe sack a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries?One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her mammais very anxious to hear again.”
“Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter forMrs. Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come.Her little gal workin’ over thar, you say?”
“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines;“eleven years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of aPeter Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound thatman’s dummkopf—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lenawill say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. Aufwiedersehen, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in thenight air.”
“So long, Fritzy,” said old man Ballinger. “You got a nicecool night for your drive.”
Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while Fritzthundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer.
These fancies occupied the mind of the mail-carrier until he reached the bigpost oak forest, eight miles from Ballinger’s. Here his ruminations werescattered by the sudden flash and report of pistols and a whooping as if from awhole tribe of Indians. A band of galloping centaurs closed in around the mailwagon. One of them leaned over the front wheel, covered the driver with hisrevolver, and ordered him to stop. Others caught at the bridles of Donder andBlitzen.
“Donnerwetter!” shouted Fritz, with all his tremendousvoice—“wass ist? Release your hands from dose mules. Ve vas derUnited States mail!”
“Hurry up, Dutch!” drawled a melancholy voice. “Don’tyou know when you’re in a stick-up? Reverse your mules and climb out ofthe cart.”
It is due to the breadth of Hondo Bill’s demerit and the largeness of hisachievements to state that the holding up of the Fredericksburg mail was notperpetrated by way of an exploit. As the lion while in the pursuit of preycommensurate to his prowess might set a frivolous foot upon a casual rabbit inhis path, so Hondo Bill and his gang had swooped sportively upon the pacifictransport of Meinherr Fritz.
The real work of their sinister night ride was over. Fritz and his mail bag andhis mules came as gentle relaxation, grateful after the arduous duties of theirprofession. Twenty miles to the southeast stood a train with a killed engine,hysterical passengers and a looted express and mail car. That represented theserious occupation of Hondo Bill and his gang. With a fairly rich prize ofcurrency and silver the robbers were making a wide detour to the west throughthe less populous country, intending to seek safety in Mexico by means of somefordable spot on the Rio Grande. The booty from the train had melted thedesperate bushrangers to jovial and happy skylarkers.
Trembling with outraged dignity and no little personal apprehension, Fritzclimbed out to the road after replacing his suddenly removed spectacles. Theband had dismounted and were singing, capering, and whooping, thus expressingtheir satisfied delight in the life of a jolly outlaw. Rattlesnake Rogers, whostood at the heads of the mules, jerked a little too vigorously at the rein ofthe tender-mouthed Donder, who reared and emitted a loud, protesting snort ofpain. Instantly Fritz, with a scream of anger, flew at the bulky Rogers andbegan to assiduously pummel that surprised freebooter with his fists.
“Villain!” shouted Fritz, “dog, bigstiff! Dot mule he has asoreness by his mouth. I vill knock off your shoulders mit your head—robbermans!”
“Yi-yi!” howled Rattlesnake, roaring with laughter and ducking hishead, “somebody git this here sour-krout off’n me!”
One of the band yanked Fritz back by the coat-tail, and the woods rang withRattlesnake’s vociferous comments.
“The dog-goned little wienerwurst,” he yelled, amiably.“He’s not so much of a skunk, for a Dutchman. Took up for hisanimile plum quick, didn’t he? I like to see a man like his hoss, even ifit is a mule. The dad-blamed little Limburger he went for me, didn’t he!Whoa, now, muley—I ain’t a-goin’ to hurt your mouth agin anymore.”
Perhaps the mail would not have been tampered with had not Ben Moody, thelieutenant, possessed certain wisdom that seemed to promise more spoils.
“Say, Cap,” he said, addressing Hondo Bill, “there’slikely to be good pickings in these mail sacks. I’ve done some hosstradin’ with these Dutchmen around Fredericksburg, and I know the styleof the varmints. There’s big money goes through the mails to that town.Them Dutch risk a thousand dollars sent wrapped in a piece of paper beforethey’d pay the banks to handle the money.”
Hondo Bill, six feet two, gentle of voice and impulsive in action, was draggingthe sacks from the rear of the wagon before Moody had finished his speech. Aknife shone in his hand, and they heard the ripping sound as it bit through thetough canvas. The outlaws crowded around and began tearing open letters andpackages, enlivening their labours by swearing affably at the writers, whoseemed to have conspired to confute the prediction of Ben Moody. Not a dollarwas found in the Fredericksburg mail.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Hondo Bill to themail-carrier in solemn tones, “to be packing around such a lot of old,trashy paper as this. What d’you mean by it, anyhow? Where do youDutchers keep your money at?”
The Ballinger mail sack opened like a cocoon under Hondo’s knife. Itcontained but a handful of mail. Fritz had been fuming with terror andexcitement until this sack was reached. He now remembered Lena’s letter.He addressed the leader of the band, asking that that particular missive bespared.
“Much obliged, Dutch,” he said to the disturbed carrier. “Iguess that’s the letter we want. Got spondulicks in it, ain’t it?Here she is. Make a light, boys.”
Hondo found and tore open the letter to Mrs. Hildesmuller. The others stoodabout, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed with mutedisapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the angular Germanscript.
“Whatever is this you’ve humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call thishere a valuable letter? That’s a mighty low-down trick to play on yourfriends what come along to help you distribute your mail.”
“That’s Chiny writin’,” said Sandy Grundy, peering overHondo’s shoulder.
“You’re off your kazip,” declared another of the gang, aneffective youth, covered with silk handkerchiefs and nickel plating.“That’s shorthand. I see ’em do it once in court.”
“Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is nomore as a little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sickand vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good Mr. Robberman, youvill please let me have dot letter?”
“What the devil do you take us for, old Pretzels?” said Hondo withsudden and surprising severity. “You ain’t presumin’ toinsinuate that we gents ain’t possessed of sufficient politeness for totake an interest in the miss’s health, are you? Now, you go on, and youread that scratchin’ out loud and in plain United States language to thishere company of educated society.”
Hondo twirled his six-shooter by its trigger guard and stood towering above thelittle German, who at once began to read the letter, translating the simplewords into English. The gang of rovers stood in absolute silence, listeningintently.
“How old is that kid?” asked Hondo when the letter was done.
“Eleven,” said Fritz.
“And where is she at?”
“At dose rock quarries—working. Ach, mein Gott—little Lena,she speak of drowning. I do not know if she vill do it, but if she shall Ischwear I vill dot Peter Hildesmuller shoot mit a gun.”
“You Dutchers,” said Hondo Bill, his voice swelling with finecontempt, “make me plenty tired. Hirin’ out your kids to work whenthey ought to be playin’ dolls in the sand. You’re a hell of a sectof people. I reckon we’ll fix your clock for a while just to show what wethink of your old cheesy nation. Here, boys!”
Hondo Bill parleyed aside briefly with his band, and then they seized Fritz andconveyed him off the road to one side. Here they bound him fast to a tree witha couple of lariats. His team they tied to another tree near by.
“We ain’t going to hurt you bad,” said Hondo reassuringly.“’Twon’t hurt you to be tied up for a while. We will now passyou the time of day, as it is up to us to depart. Ausgespielt—nixcumrous,Dutchy. Don’t get any more impatience.”
Fritz heard a great squeaking of saddles as the men mounted their horses. Thena loud yell and a great clatter of hoofs as they galloped pell-mell back alongthe Fredericksburg road.
For more than two hours Fritz sat against his tree, tightly but not painfullybound. Then from the reaction after his exciting adventure he sank intoslumber. How long he slept he knew not, but he was at last awakened by a roughshake. Hands were untying his ropes. He was lifted to his feet, dazed, confusedin mind, and weary of body. Rubbing his eyes, he looked and saw that he wasagain in the midst of the same band of terrible bandits. They shoved him up tothe seat of his wagon and placed the lines in his hands.
“Hit it out for home, Dutch,” said Hondo Bill’s voicecommandingly. “You’ve given us lots of trouble and we’repleased to see the back of your neck. Spiel! Zwei bier! Vamoose!”
Hondo reached out and gave Blitzen a smart cut with his quirt.
The little mules sprang ahead, glad to be moving again. Fritz urged them along,himself dizzy and muddled over his fearful adventure.
According to schedule time, he should have reached Fredericksburg at daylight.As it was, he drove down the long street of the town at eleven o’clockA.M. He had to pass Peter Hildesmuller’s house on his way to thepost-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called. But Frau Hildesmullerwas watching for him. Out rushed the whole family of Hildesmullers.
Frau Hildesmuller, fat and flushed, inquired if he had a letter from Lena, andthen Fritz raised his voice and told the tale of his adventure. He told thecontents of that letter that the robber had made him read, and then FrauHildesmuller broke into wild weeping. Her little Lena drown herself! Why hadthey sent her from home? What could be done? Perhaps it would be too late bythe time they could send for her now. Peter Hildesmuller dropped his meerschaumon the walk and it shivered into pieces.
“Woman!” he roared at his wife, “why did you let that childgo away? It is your fault if she comes home to us no more.”
Every one knew that it was Peter Hildesmuller’s fault, so they paid noattention to his words.
A moment afterward a strange, faint voice was heard to call:“Mamma!” Frau Hildesmuller at first thought it was Lena’sspirit calling, and then she rushed to the rear of Fritz’s covered wagon,and, with a loud shriek of joy, caught up Lena herself, covering her palelittle face with kisses and smothering her with hugs. Lena’s eyes wereheavy with the deep slumber of exhaustion, but she smiled and lay close to theone she had longed to see. There among the mail sacks, covered in a nest ofstrange blankets and comforters, she had lain asleep until wakened by thevoices around her.
Fritz stared at her with eyes that bulged behind his spectacles.
“Gott in Himmel!” he shouted. “How did you get in that wagon?Am I going crazy as well as to be murdered and hanged by robbers thisday?”
“You brought her to us, Fritz,” cried Frau Hildesmuller. “Howcan we ever thank you enough?”
“Tell mamma how you came in Fritz’s wagon,” said FrauHildesmuller.
“I don’t know,” said Lena. “But I know how I got awayfrom the hotel. The Prince brought me.”
“By the Emperor’s crown!” shouted Fritz, “we are allgoing crazy.”
“I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on herbundle of bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armedknights and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kickeddown the doors. They pitched Mr. Maloney into a barrel of rain water and threwflour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out of the windowsand ran into the woods when the knights began firing their guns. They wakenedme up and I peeped down the stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped mein the bedclothes and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. Hisface was as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelledof schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among theknights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wakeup till I got home.”
“Rubbish!” cried Fritz Bergmann. “Fairy tales! How did youcome from the quarries to my wagon?”
“The Prince brought me,” said Lena, confidently.
And to this day the good people of Fredericksburg haven’t been able tomake her give any other explanation.
XIX
THE REFORMATION OF CALLIOPE
Calliope Catesby was in his humours again. Ennui was upon him. This goodlypromontory, the earth—particularly that portion of it known asQuicksand—was to him no more than a pestilent congregation of vapours.Overtaken by the megrims, the philosopher may seek relief in soliloquy; my ladyfind solace in tears; the flaccid Easterner scold at the millinery bills of hiswomen folk. Such recourse was insufficient to the denizens of Quicksand.Calliope, especially, was wont to express his ennui according to his lights.
Over night Calliope had hung out signals of approaching low spirits. He hadkicked his own dog on the porch of the Occidental Hotel, and refused toapologise. He had become capricious and fault-finding in conversation. Whilestrolling about he reached often for twigs of mesquite and chewed the leavesfiercely. That was always an ominous act. Another symptom alarming to those whowere familiar with the different stages of his doldrums was his increasingpoliteness and a tendency to use formal phrases. A husky softness succeeded theusual penetrating drawl in his tones. A dangerous courtesy marked his manners.Later, his smile became crooked, the left side of his mouth slanting upward,and Quicksand got ready to stand from under.
At this stage Calliope generally began to drink. Finally, about midnight, hewas seen going homeward, saluting those whom he met with exaggerated butinoffensive courtesy. Not yet was Calliope’s melancholy at the dangerpoint. He would seat himself at the window of the room he occupied overSilvester’s tonsorial parlours and there chant lugubrious and tunelessballads until morning, accompanying the noises by appropriate maltreatment of ajangling guitar. More magnanimous than Nero, he would thus give musical warningof the forthcoming municipal upheaval that Quicksand was scheduled to endure.
A quiet, amiable man was Calliope Catesby at other times—quiet toindolence, and amiable to worthlessness. At best he was a loafer and anuisance; at worst he was the Terror of Quicksand. His ostensible occupationwas something subordinate in the real estate line; he drove the beguiledEasterner in buckboards out to look over lots and ranch property. Originally hecame from one of the Gulf States, his lank six feet, slurring rhythm of speech,and sectional idioms giving evidence of his birthplace.
And yet, after taking on Western adjustments, this languid pine-box whittler,cracker barrel hugger, shady corner lounger of the cotton fields and sumachills of the South became famed as a bad man among men who had made a life-longstudy of the art of truculence.
At nine the next morning Calliope was fit. Inspired by his own barbarousmelodies and the contents of his jug, he was ready primed to gather freshlaurels from the diffident brow of Quicksand. Encircled and criss-crossed withcartridge belts, abundantly garnished with revolvers, and copiously drunk, hepoured forth into Quicksand’s main street. Too chivalrous to surprise andcapture a town by silent sortie, he paused at the nearest corner and emittedhis slogan—that fearful, brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano,that had gained for him the classic appellation that had superseded his ownbaptismal name. Following close upon his vociferation came three shots from hisforty-five by way of limbering up the guns and testing his aim. A yellow dog,the personal property of Colonel Swazey, the proprietor of the Occidental, fellfeet upward in the dust with one farewell yelp. A Mexican who was crossing thestreet from the Blue Front grocery carrying in his hand a bottle of kerosene,was stimulated to a sudden and admirable burst of speed, still grasping theneck of the shattered bottle. The new gilt weather-cock on Judge Riley’slemon and ultramarine two-story residence shivered, flapped, and hung by asplinter, the sport of the wanton breezes.
The artillery was in trim. Calliope’s hand was steady. The high, calmecstasy of habitual battle was upon him, though slightly embittered by thesadness of Alexander in that his conquests were limited to the small world ofQuicksand.
Down the street went Calliope, shooting right and left. Glass fell like hail;dogs vamosed; chickens flew, squawking; feminine voices shrieked concernedly toyoungsters at large. The din was perforated at intervals by the staccatoof the Terror’s guns, and was drowned periodically by the brazen screechthat Quicksand knew so well. The occasions of Calliope’s low spirits werelegal holidays in Quicksand. All along the main street in advance of his comingclerks were putting up shutters and closing doors. Business would languish fora space. The right of way was Calliope’s, and as he advanced, observingthe dearth of opposition and the few opportunities for distraction, his ennuiperceptibly increased.
But some four squares farther down lively preparations were being made tominister to Mr. Catesby’s love for interchange of compliments andrepartee. On the previous night numerous messengers had hastened to advise BuckPatterson, the city marshal, of Calliope’s impending eruption. Thepatience of that official, often strained in extending leniency toward thedisturber’s misdeeds, had been overtaxed. In Quicksand some indulgencewas accorded the natural ebullition of human nature. Providing that the livesof the more useful citizens were not recklessly squandered, or too muchproperty needlessly laid waste, the community sentiment was against a toostrict enforcement of the law. But Calliope had raised the limit. His outburstshad been too frequent and too violent to come within the classification of anormal and sanitary relaxation of spirit.
Buck Patterson had been expecting and awaiting in his little ten-by-twelveframe office that preliminary yell announcing that Calliope was feeling blue.When the signal came the city marshal rose to his feet and buckled on his guns.Two deputy sheriffs and three citizens who had proven the edible qualities offire also stood up, ready to bandy with Calliope’s leaden jocularities.
“Gather that fellow in,” said Buck Patterson, setting forth thelines of the campaign. “Don’t have no talk, but shoot as soon asyou can get a show. Keep behind cover and bring him down. He’s a nogood’un. It’s up to Calliope to turn up his toes this time, I reckon.Go to him all spraddled out, boys. And don’t git too reckless, for whatCalliope shoots at he hits.”
Buck Patterson, tall, muscular, and solemn-faced, with his bright “CityMarshal” badge shining on the breast of his blue flannel shirt, gave hisposse directions for the onslaught upon Calliope. The plan was to accomplishthe downfall of the Quicksand Terror without loss to the attacking party, ifpossible.
The splenetic Calliope, unconscious of retributive plots, was steaming down thechannel, cannonading on either side, when he suddenly became aware of breakersahead. The city marshal and one of the deputies rose up behind some dry-goodsboxes half a square to the front and opened fire. At the same time the rest ofthe posse, divided, shelled him from two side streets up which they werecautiously manoeuvring from a well-executed detour.
The first volley broke the lock of one of Calliope’s guns, cut a neatunderbit in his right ear, and exploded a cartridge in his crossbelt, scorchinghis ribs as it burst. Feeling braced up by this unexpected tonic to hisspiritual depression, Calliope executed a fortissimo note from his upperregister, and returned the fire like an echo. The upholders of the law dodgedat his flash, but a trifle too late to save one of the deputies a bullet justabove the elbow, and the marshal a bleeding cheek from a splinter that a balltore from the box he had ducked behind.
And now Calliope met the enemy’s tactics in kind. Choosing with a rapideye the street from which the weakest and least accurate fire had come, heinvaded it at a double-quick, abandoning the unprotected middle of the street.With rare cunning the opposing force in that direction—one of thedeputies and two of the valorous volunteers— waited, concealed by beerbarrels, until Calliope had passed their retreat, and then peppered him fromthe rear. In another moment they were reinforced by the marshal and his othermen, and then Calliope felt that in order to successfully prolong the delightsof the controversy he must find some means of reducing the great odds againsthim. His eye fell upon a structure that seemed to hold out this promise,providing he could reach it.
Not far away was the little railroad station, its building a strong box house,ten by twenty feet, resting upon a platform four feet above ground. Windowswere in each of its walls. Something like a fort it might become to a man thussorely pressed by superior numbers.
Calliope made a bold and rapid spurt for it, the marshal’s crowd“smoking” him as he ran. He reached the haven in safety, thestation agent leaving the building by a window, like a flying squirrel, as thegarrison entered the door.
Patterson and his supporters halted under protection of a pile of lumber andheld consultations. In the station was an unterrified desperado who was anexcellent shot and carried an abundance of ammunition. For thirty yards oneither side of the besieged was a stretch of bare, open ground. It was a surething that the man who attempted to enter that unprotected area would bestopped by one of Calliope’s bullets.
The city marshal was resolved. He had decided that Calliope Catesby should nomore wake the echoes of Quicksand with his strident whoop. He had so announced.Officially and personally he felt imperatively bound to put the soft pedal onthat instrument of discord. It played bad tunes.
Standing near was a hand truck used in the manipulation of small freight. Itstood by a shed full of sacked wool, a consignment from one of the sheepranches. On this truck the marshal and his men piled three heavy sacks of wool.Stooping low, Buck Patterson started for Calliope’s fort, slowly pushingthis loaded truck before him for protection. The posse, scattering broadly,stood ready to nip the besieged in case he should show himself in an effort torepel the juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him. Only once didCalliope make demonstration. He fired from a window, and some tufts of woolspurted from the marshal’s trustworthy bulwark. The return shots from theposse pattered against the window frame of the fort. No loss resulted on eitherside.
The marshal was too deeply engrossed in steering his protected battleship to beaware of the approach of the morning train until he was within a few feet ofthe platform. The train was coming up on the other side of it. It stopped onlyone minute at Quicksand. What an opportunity it would offer to Calliope! He hadonly to step out the other door, mount the train, and away.
Abandoning his breastwork, Buck, with his gun ready, dashed up the steps andinto the room, driving upon the closed door with one heave of his weightyshoulder. The members of the posse heard one shot fired inside, and then therewas silence.
At length the wounded man opened his eyes. After a blank space he again couldsee and hear and feel and think. Turning his eyes about, he found himself lyingon a wooden bench. A tall man with a perplexed countenance, wearing a big badgewith “City Marshal” engraved upon it, stood over him. A little oldwoman in black, with a wrinkled face and sparkling black eyes, was holding awet handkerchief against one of his temples. He was trying to get these factsfixed in his mind and connected with past events, when the old woman began totalk.
“There now, great, big, strong man! That bullet never tetched ye! Jestskeeted along the side of your head and sort of paralysed ye for a spell.I’ve heerd of sech things afore; cun-cussion is what they names it. AbelWadkins used to kill squirrels that way—barkin’ ’em, Abecalled it. You jest been barked, sir, and you’ll be all right in a littlebit. Feel lots better already, don’t ye! You just lay still a whilelonger and let me bathe your head. You don’t know me, I reckon, and’tain’t surprisin’ that you shouldn’t. I come in onthat train from Alabama to see my son. Big son, ain’t he? Lands! youwouldn’t hardly think he’d ever been a baby, would ye? This is myson, sir.”
Half turning, the old woman looked up at the standing man, her worn facelighting with a proud and wonderful smile. She reached out one veined andcalloused hand and took one of her son’s. Then smiling cheerily down atthe prostrate man, she continued to dip the handkerchief, in the waiting-roomtin washbasin and gently apply it to his temple. She had the benevolentgarrulity of old age.
“I ain’t seen my son before,” she continued, “in eightyears. One of my nephews, Elkanah Price, he’s a conductor on one of themrailroads and he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it,and then it’ll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy ofmine has got to be a officer—a city marshal of a whole town! That’ssomethin’ like a constable, ain’t it? I never knowed he was aofficer; he didn’t say nothin’ about it in his letters. I reckon hethought his old mother’d be skeered about the danger he was in. But,laws! I never was much of a hand to git skeered. ’Tain’t no use. Iheard them guns a-shootin’ while I was gettin’ off them cars, and Isee smoke a-comin’ out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. ThenI see son’s face lookin’ out through the window. I knowed him atoncet. He met me at the door, and squeezes me ’most to death. And thereyou was, sir, a-lyin’ there jest like you was dead, and I ’lowedwe’d see what might be done to help sot you up.”
“I think I’ll sit up now,” said the concussion patient.“I’m feeling pretty fair by this time.”
He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged man,big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to linger upon theface of the man standing so still above him. His look wandered often from theface he studied to the marshal’s badge upon the other’s breast.
“Yes, yes, you’ll be all right,” said the old woman, pattinghis arm, “if you don’t get to cuttin’ up agin, andhavin’ folks shooting at you. Son told me about you, sir, while you waslayin’ senseless on the floor. Don’t you take it as meddlesome feran old woman with a son as big as you to talk about it. And you mustn’thold no grudge ag’in’ my son for havin’ to shoot at ye. Aofficer has got to take up for the law—it’s his duty—and themthat acts bad and lives wrong has to suffer. Don’t blame my son any,sir—’tain’t his fault. He’s always been a goodboy—good when he was growin’ up, and kind and ’bedient andwell-behaved. Won’t you let me advise you, sir, not to do so no more? Bea good man, and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and goodly. Keep awayfrom bad company and work honest and sleep sweet.”
The black-mitted hand of the old pleader gently touched the breast of the manshe addressed. Very earnest and candid her old, worn face looked. In her rustyblack dress and antique bonnet she sat, near the close of a long life, andepitomised the experience of the world. Still the man to whom she spoke gazedabove her head, contemplating the silent son of the old mother.
“What does the marshal say?” he asked. “Does he believe theadvice is good? Suppose the marshal speaks up and says if the talk’s allright?”
The tall man moved uneasily. He fingered the badge on his breast for a moment,and then he put an arm around the old woman and drew her close to him. Shesmiled the unchanging mother smile of three-score years, and patted his bigbrown hand with her crooked, mittened fingers while her son spake.
“I says this,” he said, looking squarely into the eyes of the otherman, “that if I was in your place I’d follow it. If I was adrunken, desp’rate character, without shame or hope, I’d follow it.If I was in your place and you was in mine I’d say: ‘Marshal,I’m willin’ to swear if you’ll give me the chance I’llquit the racket. I’ll drop the tanglefoot and the gun play, andwon’t play hoss no more. I’ll be a good citizen and go to work andquit my foolishness. So help me God!’ That’s what I’d say toyou if you was marshal and I was in your place.”
“Hear my son talkin’,” said the old woman softly. “Hearhim, sir. You promise to be good and he won’t do you no harm. Forty-oneyear ago his heart first beat ag’in’ mine, and it’s beat trueever since.”
The other man rose to his feet, trying his limbs and stretching his muscles.
“Then,” said he, “if you was in my place and said that, and Iwas marshal, I’d say: ‘Go free, and do your best to keep yourpromise.’”
“Lawsy!” exclaimed the old woman, in a sudden flutter, “ef Ididn’t clear forget that trunk of mine! I see a man settin’ it onthe platform jest as I seen son’s face in the window, and it went plumout of my head. There’s eight jars of home-made quince jam in that trunkthat I made myself. I wouldn’t have nothin’ happen to them jars fora red apple.”
Away to the door she trotted, spry and anxious, and then Calliope Catesby spokeout to Buck Patterson:
“I just couldn’t help it, Buck. I seen her through the windowa-comin’ in. She never had heard a word ’bout my tough ways. Ididn’t have the nerve to let her know I was a worthless cuss bein’hunted down by the community. There you was lyin’ where my shot laid you,like you was dead. The idea struck me sudden, and I just took your badge offand fastened it onto myself, and I fastened my reputation onto you. I told herI was the marshal and you was a holy terror. You can take your badge back now,Buck.”
With shaking fingers Calliope began to unfasten the disc of metal from hisshirt.
“Easy there!” said Buck Patterson. “You keep that badge rightwhere it is, Calliope Catesby. Don’t you dare to take it off till the dayyour mother leaves this town. You’ll be city marshal of Quicksand as longas she’s here to know it. After I stir around town a bit and put’em on I’ll guarantee that nobody won’t give the thing awayto her. And say, you leather-headed, rip-roarin’, low-down son of alocoed cyclone, you follow that advice she give me! I’m goin’ totake some of it myself, too.”
“Buck,” said Calliope feelingly, “ef I don’t I hope Imay—”
“Shut up,” said Buck. “She’s a-comin’back.”
