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diff --git a/1595-h/1595-h.htm b/1595-h/1595-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..15f222b --- /dev/null +++ b/1595-h/1595-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12688 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>Whirligigs | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + +<style> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Whirligigs, by O. Henry</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Sisters</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Martin</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January, 1999 [eBook #1595]<br> +[Most recently updated: June 28, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteers and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHIRLIGIGS ***</div> + +<h1>Whirligigs</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by O. Henry</h2> + +<hr> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I THE WORLD AND THE DOOR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II THE THEORY AND THE HOUND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III THE HYPOTHESES OF FAILURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV CALLOWAY’S CODE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V A MATTER OF MEAN ELEVATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI “GIRL”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII SOCIOLOGY IN SERGE AND STRAW</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX THE MARRY MONTH OF MAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X A TECHNICAL ERROR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI SUITE HOMES AND THEIR ROMANCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII THE WHIRLIGIG OF LIFE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII A SACRIFICE HIT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV THE ROADS WE TAKE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV A BLACKJACK BARGAINER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI THE SONG AND THE SERGEANT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII ONE DOLLAR’S WORTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII A NEWSPAPER STORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX TOMMY’S BURGLAR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX A CHAPARRAL CHRISTMAS GIFT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI A LITTLE LOCAL COLOUR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII GEORGIA’S RULING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII BLIND MAN’S HOLIDAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV MADAME BO-PEEP, OF THE RANCHES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I<br> +THE WORLD AND THE DOOR</h2> + +<p> +A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is +true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the +yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit +steamer <i>El Carrero</i> swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he +had the facts from the U. S. vice-consul at La Paz—a person who could not +possibly have been cognizant of half of them. +</p> + +<p> +As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in puncturing it by affirming +that I read in a purely fictional story the other day the line: +“‘Be it so,’ said the policeman.” Nothing so strange +has yet cropped out in Truth. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor and man-about-New-York, +turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went “down the +line,” bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters +put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the +curbstone in front of all-night cafés, and careful cashiers in his regular +haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface and +introduction. +</p> + +<p> +As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account in a city where the man +who cuts your slice of beef behind the free-lunch counter rides to work in his +own automobile. But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and showily as +though he were only a clerk squandering a week’s wages. And, after all, +the bartender takes no interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you +up on his cash register than in Bradstreet. +</p> + +<p> +On the evening that the material allegation of facts begins, Hedges was bidding +dull care begone in the company of five or six good fellows—acquaintances +and friends who had gathered in his wake. +</p> + +<p> +Among them were two younger men—Ralph Merriam, a broker, and Wade, his +friend. +</p> + +<p> +Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus Circle they hove to long enough +to revile the statue of the great navigator, unpatriotically rebuking him for +having voyaged in search of land instead of liquids. Midnight overtook the +party marooned in the rear of a cheap café far uptown. +</p> + +<p> +Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome. He was burly and tough, +iron-gray but vigorous, “good” for the rest of the night. There was +a dispute—about nothing that matters—and the five-fingered words +were passed—the words that represent the glove cast into the lists. +Merriam played the rôle of the verbal Hotspur. +</p> + +<p> +Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once and smashed wildly down at +Merriam’s head. Merriam dodged, drew a small revolver and shot Hedges in +the chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell in a wry heap, and lay still. +</p> + +<p> +Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of promptness. He juggled Merriam out a +side door, walked him to the corner, ran him a block and caught a hansom. They +rode five minutes and then got out on a dark corner and dismissed the cab. +Across the street the lights of a small saloon betrayed its hectic hospitality. +</p> + +<p> +“Go in the back room of that saloon,” said Wade, “and wait. +I’ll go find out what’s doing and let you know. You may take two +drinks while I am gone—no more.” +</p> + +<p> +At ten minutes to one o’clock Wade returned. “Brace up, old +chap,” he said. “The ambulance got there just as I did. The doctor +says he’s dead. You may have one more drink. You let me run this thing +for you. You’ve got to skip. I don’t believe a chair is legally a +deadly weapon. You’ve got to make tracks, that’s all there is to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Merriam complained of the cold querulously, and asked for another drink. +“Did you notice what big veins he had on the back of his hands?” he +said. “I never could stand—I never could—” +</p> + +<p> +“Take one more,” said Wade, “and then come on. I’ll see +you through.” +</p> + +<p> +Wade kept his promise so well that at eleven o’clock the next morning +Merriam, with a new suit case full of new clothes and hair-brushes, stepped +quietly on board a little 500-ton fruit steamer at an East River pier. The +vessel had brought the season’s first cargo of limes from Port Limon, and +was homeward bound. Merriam had his bank balance of $2,800 in his pocket in +large bills, and brief instructions to pile up as much water as he could +between himself and New York. There was no time for anything more. +</p> + +<p> +From Port Limon Merriam worked down the coast by schooner and sloop to Colon, +thence across the isthmus to Panama, where he caught a tramp bound for Callao +and such intermediate ports as might tempt the discursive skipper from his +course. +</p> + +<p> +It was at La Paz that Merriam decided to land—La Paz the Beautiful, a +little harbourless town smothered in a living green ribbon that banded the foot +of a cloud-piercing mountain. Here the little steamer stopped to tread water +while the captain’s dory took him ashore that he might feel the pulse of +the cocoanut market. Merriam went too, with his suit case, and remained. +</p> + +<p> +Kalb, the vice-consul, a Græco-Armenian citizen of the United States, +born in Hessen-Darmstadt, and educated in Cincinnati ward primaries, considered +all Americans his brothers and bankers. He attached himself to Merriam’s +elbow, introduced him to every one in La Paz who wore shoes, borrowed ten +dollars and went back to his hammock. +</p> + +<p> +There was a little wooden hotel in the edge of a banana grove, facing the sea, +that catered to the tastes of the few foreigners that had dropped out of the +world into the <i>triste</i> Peruvian town. At Kalb’s introductory: +“Shake hands with ––––,” he had obediently +exchanged manual salutations with a German doctor, one French and two Italian +merchants, and three or four Americans who were spoken of as gold men, rubber +men, mahogany men—anything but men of living tissue. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner Merriam sat in a corner of the broad front <i>galeria</i> with +Bibb, a Vermonter interested in hydraulic mining, and smoked and drank Scotch +“smoke.” The moonlit sea, spreading infinitely before him, seemed +to separate him beyond all apprehension from his old life. The horrid tragedy +in which he had played such a disastrous part now began, for the first time +since he stole on board the fruiter, a wretched fugitive, to lose its sharper +outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view. Bibb had opened the +flood-gates of a stream of long-dammed discourse, overjoyed to have captured an +audience that had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his views and +theories. +</p> + +<p> +“One year more,” said Bibb, “and I’ll go back to +God’s country. Oh, I know it’s pretty here, and you get <i>dolce +far niente</i> handed to you in chunks, but this country wasn’t made for +a white man to live in. You’ve got to have to plug through snow now and +then, and see a game of baseball and wear a stiff collar and have a policeman +cuss you. Still, La Paz is a good sort of a pipe-dreamy old hole. And Mrs. +Conant is here. When any of us feels particularly like jumping into the sea we +rush around to her house and propose. It’s nicer to be rejected by Mrs. +Conant than it is to be drowned. And they say drowning is a delightful +sensation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Many like her here?” asked Merriam. +</p> + +<p> +“Not anywhere,” said Bibb, with a comfortable sigh. She’s the +only white woman in La Paz. The rest range from a dappled dun to the colour of +a b-flat piano key. She’s been here a year. Comes from—well, you +know how a woman can talk—ask ’em to say ‘string’ and +they’ll say ‘crow’s foot’ or ‘cat’s +cradle.’ Sometimes you’d think she was from Oshkosh, and again from +Jacksonville, Florida, and the next day from Cape Cod.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mystery?” ventured Merriam. +</p> + +<p> +“M—well, she looks it; but her talk’s translucent enough. But +that’s a woman. I suppose if the Sphinx were to begin talking she’d +merely say: ‘Goodness me! more visitors coming for dinner, and nothing to +eat but the sand which is here.’ But you won’t think about that +when you meet her, Merriam. You’ll propose to her too.” +</p> + +<p> +To make a hard story soft, Merriam did meet her and propose to her. He found +her to be a woman in black with hair the colour of a bronze turkey’s +wings, and mysterious, <i>remembering</i> eyes that—well, that looked as +if she might have been a trained nurse looking on when Eve was created. Her +words and manner, though, were translucent, as Bibb had said. She spoke, +vaguely, of friends in California and some of the lower parishes in Louisiana. +The tropical climate and indolent life suited her; she had thought of buying an +orange grove later on; La Paz, all in all, charmed her. +</p> + +<p> +Merriam’s courtship of the Sphinx lasted three months, although he did +not know that he was courting her. He was using her as an antidote for remorse, +until he found, too late, that he had acquired the habit. During that time he +had received no news from home. Wade did not know where he was; and he was not +sure of Wade’s exact address, and was afraid to write. He thought he had +better let matters rest as they were for a while. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon he and Mrs. Conant hired two ponies and rode out along the +mountain trail as far as the little cold river that came tumbling down the +foothills. There they stopped for a drink, and Merriam spoke his piece—he +proposed, as Bibb had prophesied. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant gave him one glance of brilliant tenderness, and then her face took +on such a strange, haggard look that Merriam was shaken out of his intoxication +and back to his senses. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, Florence,” he said, releasing her hand; +“but I’ll have to hedge on part of what I said. I can’t ask +you to marry me, of course. I killed a man in New York—a man who was my +friend—shot him down—in quite a cowardly manner, I understand. Of +course, the drinking didn’t excuse it. Well, I couldn’t resist +having my say; and I’ll always mean it. I’m here as a fugitive from +justice, and—I suppose that ends our acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant plucked little leaves assiduously from the low-hanging branch of a +lime tree. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” she said, in low and oddly uneven tones; “but +that depends upon you. I’ll be as honest as you were. I poisoned my +husband. I am a self-made widow. A man cannot love a murderess. So I suppose +that ends our acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at him slowly. His face turned a little pale, and he stared at +her blankly, like a deaf-and-dumb man who was wondering what it was all about. +</p> + +<p> +She took a swift step toward him, with stiffened arms and eyes blazing. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look at me like that!” she cried, as though she were +in acute pain. “Curse me, or turn your back on me, but don’t look +that way. Am I a woman to be beaten? If I could show you—here on my arms, +and on my back are scars—and it has been more than a year—scars +that he made in his brutal rages. A holy nun would have risen and struck the +fiend down. Yes, I killed him. The foul and horrible words that he hurled at me +that last day are repeated in my ears every night when I sleep. And then came +his blows, and the end of my endurance. I got the poison that afternoon. It was +his custom to drink every night in the library before going to bed a hot punch +made of rum and wine. Only from my fair hands would he receive it— +because he knew the fumes of spirits always sickened me. That night when the +maid brought it to me I sent her downstairs on an errand. Before taking him his +drink I went to my little private cabinet and poured into it more than a +tea-spoonful of tincture of aconite—enough to kill three men, so I had +learned. I had drawn $6,000 that I had in bank, and with that and a few things +in a satchel I left the house without any one seeing me. As I passed the +library I heard him stagger up and fall heavily on a couch. I took a night +train for New Orleans, and from there I sailed to the Bermudas. I finally cast +anchor in La Paz. And now what have you to say? Can you open your mouth?” +</p> + +<p> +Merriam came back to life. +</p> + +<p> +“Florence,” he said earnestly, “I want you. I don’t +care what you’ve done. If the world—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ralph,” she interrupted, almost with a scream, “be my +world!” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes melted; she relaxed magnificently and swayed toward Merriam so +suddenly that he had to jump to catch her. +</p> + +<p> +Dear me! in such scenes how the talk runs into artificial prose. But it +can’t be helped. It’s the subconscious smell of the +footlights’ smoke that’s in all of us. Stir the depths of your +cook’s soul sufficiently and she will discourse in Bulwer-Lyttonese. +</p> + +<p> +Merriam and Mrs. Conant were very happy. He announced their engagement at the +Hotel Orilla del Mar. Eight foreigners and four native Astors pounded his back +and shouted insincere congratulations at him. Pedrito, the Castilian-mannered +barkeep, was goaded to extra duty until his agility would have turned a Boston +cherry-phosphate clerk a pale lilac with envy. +</p> + +<p> +They were both very happy. According to the strange mathematics of the god of +mutual affinity, the shadows that clouded their pasts when united became only +half as dense instead of darker. They shut the world out and bolted the doors. +Each was the other’s world. Mrs. Conant lived again. The remembering look +left her eyes. Merriam was with her every moment that was possible. On a little +plateau under a grove of palms and calabash trees they were going to build a +fairy bungalow. They were to be married in two months. Many hours of the day +they had their heads together over the house plans. Their joint capital would +set up a business in fruit or woods that would yield a comfortable support. +“Good night, my world,” would say Mrs. Conant every evening when +Merriam left her for his hotel. They were very happy. Their love had, +circumstantially, that element of melancholy in it that it seems to require to +attain its supremest elevation. And it seemed that their mutual great +misfortune or sin was a bond that nothing could sever. +</p> + +<p> +One day a steamer hove in the offing. Bare-legged and bare-shouldered La Paz +scampered down to the beach, for the arrival of a steamer was their +loop-the-loop, circus, Emancipation Day and four-o’clock tea. +</p> + +<p> +When the steamer was near enough, wise ones proclaimed that she was the +<i>Pajaro</i>, bound up-coast from Callao to Panama. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Pajaro</i> put on brakes a mile off shore. Soon a boat came bobbing +shoreward. Merriam strolled down on the beach to look on. In the shallow water +the Carib sailors sprang out and dragged the boat with a mighty rush to the +firm shingle. Out climbed the purser, the captain and two passengers, ploughing +their way through the deep sand toward the hotel. Merriam glanced toward them +with the mild interest due to strangers. There was something familiar to him in +the walk of one of the passengers. He looked again, and his blood seemed to +turn to strawberry ice cream in his veins. Burly, arrogant, debonair as ever, +H. Ferguson Hedges, the man he had killed, was coming toward him ten feet away. +</p> + +<p> +When Hedges saw Merriam his face flushed a dark red. Then he shouted in his +old, bluff way: “Hello, Merriam. Glad to see you. Didn’t expect to +find you out here. Quinby, this is my old friend Merriam, of New +York—Merriam, Mr. Quinby.” +</p> + +<p> +Merriam gave Hedges and then Quinby an ice-cold hand. “Br-r-r-r!” +said Hedges. “But you’ve got a frappéd flipper! Man, you’re +not well. You’re as yellow as a Chinaman. Malarial here? Steer us to a +bar if there is such a thing, and let’s take a prophylactic.” +</p> + +<p> +Merriam, still half comatose, led them toward the Hotel Orilla del Mar. +</p> + +<p> +“Quinby and I,” explained Hedges, puffing through the slippery +sand, “are looking out along the coast for some investments. We’ve +just come up from Concepción and Valparaiso and Lima. The captain of +this subsidized ferry boat told us there was some good picking around here in +silver mines. So we got off. Now, where is that café, Merriam? Oh, in this +portable soda water pavilion?” +</p> + +<p> +Leaving Quinby at the bar, Hedges drew Merriam aside. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what does this mean?” he said, with gruff kindness. +“Are you sulking about that fool row we had?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought,” stammered Merriam—“I heard—they told +me you were—that I had—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you didn’t, and I’m not,” said Hedges. +“That fool young ambulance surgeon told Wade I was a candidate for a +coffin just because I’d got tired and quit breathing. I laid up in a +private hospital for a month; but here I am, kicking as hard as ever. Wade and +I tried to find you, but couldn’t. Now, Merriam, shake hands and forget +it all. I was as much to blame as you were; and the shot really did me +good—I came out of the hospital as healthy and fit as a cab horse. Come +on; that drink’s waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +“Old man,” said Merriam, brokenly, “I don’t know how to +thank you—I—well, you know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, forget it,” boomed Hedges. “Quinby’ll die of +thirst if we don’t join him.” +</p> + +<p> +Bibb was sitting on the shady side of the gallery waiting for the +eleven-o’clock breakfast. Presently Merriam came out and joined him. His +eye was strangely bright. +</p> + +<p> +“Bibb, my boy,” said he, slowly waving his hand, “do you see +those mountains and that sea and sky and sunshine?—they’re mine, +Bibbsy—all mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go in,” said Bibb, “and take eight grains of quinine, +right away. It won’t do in this climate for a man to get to thinking +he’s Rockefeller, or James O’Neill either.” +</p> + +<p> +Inside, the purser was untying a great roll of newspapers, many of them weeks +old, gathered in the lower ports by the <i>Pajaro</i> to be distributed at +casual stopping-places. Thus do the beneficent voyagers scatter news and +entertainment among the prisoners of sea and mountains. +</p> + +<p> +Tio Pancho, the hotel proprietor, set his great silver-rimmed <i>anteojos</i> +upon his nose and divided the papers into a number of smaller rolls. A +barefooted <i>muchacho</i> dashed in, desiring the post of messenger. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Bien venido</i>,” said Tio Pancho. “This to Señora +Conant; that to el Doctor S-S-Schlegel—<i>Dios</i>! what a name to +say!—that to Señor Davis—one for Don Alberto. These two for the +<i>Casa de Huespedes</i>, <i>Numero 6</i>, <i>en la calle de las Buenas +Gracias</i>. And say to them all, <i>muchacho</i>, that the <i>Pajaro</i> sails +for Panama at three this afternoon. If any have letters to send by the post, +let them come quickly, that they may first pass through the +<i>correo</i>.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Mrs. Conant received her roll of newspapers at four o’clock. The boy was +late in delivering them, because he had been deflected from his duty by an +iguana that crossed his path and to which he immediately gave chase. But it +made no hardship, for she had no letters to send. +</p> + +<p> +She was idling in a hammock in the patio of the house that she occupied, half +awake, half happily dreaming of the paradise that she and Merriam had created +out of the wrecks of their pasts. She was content now for the horizon of that +shimmering sea to be the horizon of her life. They had shut out the world and +closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +Merriam was coming to her house at seven, after his dinner at the hotel. She +would put on a white dress and an apricot-coloured lace mantilla, and they +would walk an hour under the cocoanut palms by the lagoon. She smiled +contentedly, and chose a paper at random from the roll the boy had brought. +</p> + +<p> +At first the words of a certain headline of a Sunday newspaper meant nothing to +her; they conveyed only a visualized sense of familiarity. The largest type ran +thus: “Lloyd B. Conant secures divorce.” And then the subheadings: +“Well-known Saint Louis paint manufacturer wins suit, pleading one +year’s absence of wife.” “Her mysterious disappearance +recalled.” “Nothing has been heard of her since.” +</p> + +<p> +Twisting herself quickly out of the hammock, Mrs. Conant’s eye soon +traversed the half-column of the “Recall.” It ended thus: “It +will be remembered that Mrs. Conant disappeared one evening in March of last +year. It was freely rumoured that her marriage with Lloyd B. Conant resulted in +much unhappiness. Stories were not wanting to the effect that his cruelty +toward his wife had more than once taken the form of physical abuse. After her +departure a full bottle of tincture of aconite, a deadly poison, was found in a +small medicine cabinet in her bedroom. This might have been an indication that +she meditated suicide. It is supposed that she abandoned such an intention if +she possessed it, and left her home instead.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant slowly dropped the paper, and sat on a chair, clasping her hands +tightly. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me think—O God!—let me think,” she whispered. +“I took the bottle with me . . . I threw it out of the window of the +train . . . I— . . . there was another bottle in the cabinet . . . there +were two, side by side—the aconite—and the valerian that I took +when I could not sleep . . . If they found the aconite bottle full, +why—but, he is alive, of course—I gave him only a harmless dose of +valerian . . . I am not a murderess in fact . . . Ralph, I—O God, +don’t let this be a dream!” +</p> + +<p> +She went into the part of the house that she rented from the old Peruvian man +and his wife, shut the door, and walked up and down her room swiftly and +feverishly for half an hour. Merriam’s photograph stood in a frame on a +table. She picked it up, looked at it with a smile of exquisite tenderness, +and—dropped four tears on it. And Merriam only twenty rods away! Then she +stood still for ten minutes, looking into space. She looked into space through +a slowly opening door. On her side of the door was the building material for a +castle of Romance—love, an Arcady of waving palms, a lullaby of waves on +the shore of a haven of rest, respite, peace, a lotus land of dreamy ease and +security—a life of poetry and heart’s ease and refuge. Romanticist, +will you tell me what Mrs. Conant saw on the other side of the door? You +cannot?—that is, you will not? Very well; then listen. +</p> + +<p> +<i>She saw herself go into a department store and buy five spools of silk +thread and three yards of gingham to make an apron for the cook. “Shall I +charge it, ma’am?” asked the clerk. As she walked out a lady whom +she met greeted her cordially. “Oh, where did you get the pattern for +those sleeves, dear Mrs. Conant?” she said. At the corner a policeman +helped her across the street and touched his helmet. “Any callers?” +she asked the maid when she reached home. “Mrs. Waldron,” answered +the maid, “and the two Misses Jenkinson.” “Very well,” +she said. “You may bring me a cup of tea, Maggie.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant went to the door and called Angela, the old Peruvian woman. +“If Mateo is there send him to me.” Mateo, a half-breed, shuffling +and old but efficient, came. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there a steamer or a vessel of any kind leaving this coast to-night +or to-morrow that I can get passage on?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mateo considered. +</p> + +<p> +“At Punta Reina, thirty miles down the coast, señora,” he answered, +“there is a small steamer loading with cinchona and dyewoods. She sails +for San Francisco to-morrow at sunrise. So says my brother, who arrived in his +sloop to-day, passing by Punta Reina.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must take me in that sloop to that steamer to-night. Will you do +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—” Mateo shrugged a suggestive shoulder. Mrs. Conant +took a handful of money from a drawer and gave it to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the sloop ready behind the little point of land below the +town,” she ordered. “Get sailors, and be ready to sail at six +o’clock. In half an hour bring a cart partly filled with straw into the +patio here, and take my trunk to the sloop. There is more money yet. Now, +hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +For one time Mateo walked away without shuffling his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Angela,” cried Mrs. Conant, almost fiercely, “come and help +me pack. I am going away. Out with this trunk. My clothes first. Stir yourself. +Those dark dresses first. Hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +From the first she did not waver from her decision. Her view was clear and +final. Her door had opened and let the world in. Her love for Merriam was not +lessened; but it now appeared a hopeless and unrealizable thing. The visions of +their future that had seemed so blissful and complete had vanished. She tried +to assure herself that her renunciation was rather for his sake than for her +own. Now that she was cleared of her burden—at least, +technically—would not his own weigh too heavily upon him? If she should +cling to him, would not the difference forever silently mar and corrode their +happiness? Thus she reasoned; but there were a thousand little voices calling +to her that she could feel rather than hear, like the hum of distant, powerful +machinery—the little voices of the world, that, when raised in unison, +can send their insistent call through the thickest door. +</p> + +<p> +Once while packing, a brief shadow of the lotus dream came back to her. She +held Merriam’s picture to her heart with one hand, while she threw a pair +of shoes into the trunk with her other. +</p> + +<p> +At six o’clock Mateo returned and reported the sloop ready. He and his +brother lifted the trunk into the cart, covered it with straw and conveyed it +to the point of embarkation. From there they transferred it on board in the +sloop’s dory. Then Mateo returned for additional orders. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant was ready. She had settled all business matters with Angela, and +was impatiently waiting. She wore a long, loose black-silk duster that she +often walked about in when the evenings were chilly. On her head was a small +round hat, and over it the apricot-coloured lace mantilla. +</p> + +<p> +Dusk had quickly followed the short twilight. Mateo led her by dark and +grass-grown streets toward the point behind which the sloop was anchored. On +turning a corner they beheld the Hotel Orilla del Mar three streets away, +nebulously aglow with its array of kerosene lamps. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Conant paused, with streaming eyes. “I must, I <i>must</i> see him +once before I go,” she murmured in anguish. But even then she did not +falter in her decision. Quickly she invented a plan by which she might speak to +him, and yet make her departure without his knowing. She would walk past the +hotel, ask some one to call him out and talk a few moments on some trivial +excuse, leaving him expecting to see her at her home at seven. +</p> + +<p> +She unpinned her hat and gave it to Mateo. “Keep this, and wait here till +I come,” she ordered. Then she draped the mantilla over her head as she +usually did when walking after sunset, and went straight to the Orilla del Mar. +</p> + +<p> +She was glad to see the bulky, white-clad figure of Tio Pancho standing alone +on the gallery. +</p> + +<p> +“Tio Pancho,” she said, with a charming smile, “may I trouble +you to ask Mr. Merriam to come out for just a few moments that I may speak with +him?” +</p> + +<p> +Tio Pancho bowed as an elephant bows. +</p> + +<p> +“Buenas tardes, Señora Conant,” he said, as a cavalier talks. And +then he went on, less at his ease: +</p> + +<p> +“But does not the señora know that Señor Merriam sailed on the +<i>Pajaro</i> for Panama at three o’clock of this afternoon?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II<br> +THE THEORY AND THE HOUND</h2> + +<p> +Not many days ago my old friend from the tropics, J. P. Bridger, United States +consul on the island of Ratona, was in the city. We had wassail and jubilee and +saw the Flatiron building, and missed seeing the Bronxless menagerie by about a +couple of nights. And then, at the ebb tide, we were walking up a street that +parallels and parodies Broadway. +</p> + +<p> +A woman with a comely and mundane countenance passed us, holding in leash a +wheezing, vicious, waddling, brute of a yellow pug. The dog entangled himself +with Bridger’s legs and mumbled his ankles in a snarling, peevish, sulky +bite. Bridger, with a happy smile, kicked the breath out of the brute; the +woman showered us with a quick rain of well-conceived adjectives that left us +in no doubt as to our place in her opinion, and we passed on. Ten yards farther +an old woman with disordered white hair and her bankbook tucked well hidden +beneath her tattered shawl begged. Bridger stopped and disinterred for her a +quarter from his holiday waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +On the next corner a quarter of a ton of well-clothed man with a rice-powdered, +fat, white jowl, stood holding the chain of a devil-born bulldog whose forelegs +were strangers by the length of a dachshund. A little woman in a +last-season’s hat confronted him and wept, which was plainly all she +could do, while he cursed her in low sweet, practised tones. +</p> + +<p> +Bridger smiled again—strictly to himself—and this time he took out +a little memorandum book and made a note of it. This he had no right to do +without due explanation, and I said so. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a new theory,” said Bridger, “that I picked up +down in Ratona. I’ve been gathering support for it as I knock about. The +world isn’t ripe for it yet, but—well I’ll tell you; and then +you run your mind back along the people you’ve known and see what you +make of it.” +</p> + +<p> +And so I cornered Bridger in a place where they have artificial palms and wine; +and he told me the story which is here in my words and on his responsibility. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon at three o’clock, on the island of Ratona, a boy raced +along the beach screaming, “<i>Pajaro</i>, ahoy!” +</p> + +<p> +Thus he made known the keenness of his hearing and the justice of his +discrimination in pitch. +</p> + +<p> +He who first heard and made oral proclamation concerning the toot of an +approaching steamer’s whistle, and correctly named the steamer, was a +small hero in Ratona—until the next steamer came. Wherefore, there was +rivalry among the barefoot youth of Ratona, and many fell victims to the softly +blown conch shells of sloops which, as they enter harbour, sound surprisingly +like a distant steamer’s signal. And some could name you the vessel when +its call, in your duller ears, sounded no louder than the sigh of the wind +through the branches of the cocoanut palms. +</p> + +<p> +But to-day he who proclaimed the <i>Pajaro</i> gained his honours. Ratona bent +its ear to listen; and soon the deep-tongued blast grew louder and nearer, and +at length Ratona saw above the line of palms on the low “point” the +two black funnels of the fruiter slowly creeping toward the mouth of the +harbour. +</p> + +<p> +You must know that Ratona is an island twenty miles off the south of a South +American republic. It is a port of that republic; and it sleeps sweetly in a +smiling sea, toiling not nor spinning; fed by the abundant tropics where all +things “ripen, cease and fall toward the grave.” +</p> + +<p> +Eight hundred people dream life away in a green-embowered village that follows +the horseshoe curve of its bijou harbour. They are mostly Spanish and Indian +<i>mestizos</i>, with a shading of San Domingo Negroes, a lightening of +pure-blood Spanish officials and a slight leavening of the froth of three or +four pioneering white races. No steamers touch at Ratona save the fruit +steamers which take on their banana inspectors there on their way to the coast. +They leave Sunday newspapers, ice, quinine, bacon, watermelons and vaccine +matter at the island and that is about all the touch Ratona gets with the +world. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Pajaro</i> paused at the mouth of the harbour, rolling heavily in the +swell that sent the whitecaps racing beyond the smooth water inside. Already +two dories from the village—one conveying fruit inspectors, the other +going for what it could get—were halfway out to the steamer. +</p> + +<p> +The inspectors’ dory was taken on board with them, and the <i>Pajaro</i> +steamed away for the mainland for its load of fruit. +</p> + +<p> +The other boat returned to Ratona bearing a contribution from the +<i>Pajaro’s</i> store of ice, the usual roll of newspapers and one +passenger—Taylor Plunkett, sheriff of Chatham County, Kentucky. +</p> + +<p> +Bridger, the United States consul at Ratona, was cleaning his rifle in the +official shanty under a bread-fruit tree twenty yards from the water of the +harbour. The consul occupied a place somewhat near the tail of his political +party’s procession. The music of the band wagon sounded very faintly to +him in the distance. The plums of office went to others. Bridger’s share +of the spoils—the consulship at Ratona—was little more than a +prune—a dried prune from the boarding-house department of the public +crib. But $900 yearly was opulence in Ratona. Besides, Bridger had contracted a +passion for shooting alligators in the lagoons near his consulate, and was not +unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +He looked up from a careful inspection of his rifle lock and saw a broad man +filling his doorway. A broad, noiseless, slow-moving man, sunburned almost to +the brown of Vandyke. A man of forty-five, neatly clothed in homespun, with +scanty light hair, a close-clipped brown-and-gray beard and pale-blue eyes +expressing mildness and simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“You are Mr. Bridger, the consul,” said the broad man. “They +directed me here. Can you tell me what those big bunches of things like gourds +are in those trees that look like feather dusters along the edge of the +water?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take that chair,” said the consul, reoiling his cleaning rag. +“No, the other one—that bamboo thing won’t hold you. Why, +they’re cocoanuts—green cocoanuts. The shell of ’em is always +a light green before they’re ripe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Much obliged,” said the other man, sitting down carefully. +“I didn’t quite like to tell the folks at home they were olives +unless I was sure about it. My name is Plunkett. I’m sheriff of Chatham +County, Kentucky. I’ve got extradition papers in my pocket authorizing +the arrest of a man on this island. They’ve been signed by the President +of this country, and they’re in correct shape. The man’s name is +Wade Williams. He’s in the cocoanut raising business. What he’s +wanted for is the murder of his wife two years ago. Where can I find +him?” +</p> + +<p> +The consul squinted an eye and looked through his rifle barrel. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nobody on the island who calls himself +‘Williams,’” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t suppose there was,” said Plunkett mildly. +“He’ll do by any other name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides myself,” said Bridger, “there are only two Americans +on Ratona—Bob Reeves and Henry Morgan.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man I want sells cocoanuts,” suggested Plunkett. +</p> + +<p> +“You see that cocoanut walk extending up to the point?” said the +consul, waving his hand toward the open door. “That belongs to Bob +Reeves. Henry Morgan owns half the trees to loo’ard on the island.” +</p> + +<p> +“One, month ago,” said the sheriff, “Wade Williams wrote a +confidential letter to a man in Chatham county, telling him where he was and +how he was getting along. The letter was lost; and the person that found it +gave it away. They sent me after him, and I’ve got the papers. I reckon +he’s one of your cocoanut men for certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got his picture, of course,” said Bridger. “It +might be Reeves or Morgan, but I’d hate to think it. They’re both +as fine fellows as you’d meet in an all-day auto ride.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” doubtfully answered Plunkett; “there wasn’t any +picture of Williams to be had. And I never saw him myself. I’ve been +sheriff only a year. But I’ve got a pretty accurate description of him. +About 5 feet 11; dark-hair and eyes; nose inclined to be Roman; heavy about the +shoulders; strong, white teeth, with none missing; laughs a good deal, +talkative; drinks considerably but never to intoxication; looks you square in +the eye when talking; age thirty-five. Which one of your men does that +description fit?” +</p> + +<p> +The consul grinned broadly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what you do,” he said, laying down his rifle +and slipping on his dingy black alpaca coat. “You come along, Mr. +Plunkett, and I’ll take you up to see the boys. If you can tell which one +of ’em your description fits better than it does the other you have the +advantage of me.” +</p> + +<p> +Bridger conducted the sheriff out and along the hard beach close to which the +tiny houses of the village were distributed. Immediately back of the town rose +sudden, small, thickly wooded hills. Up one of these, by means of steps cut in +the hard clay, the consul led Plunkett. On the very verge of an eminence was +perched a two-room wooden cottage with a thatched roof. A Carib woman was +washing clothes outside. The consul ushered the sheriff to the door of the room +that overlooked the harbour. +</p> + +<p> +Two men were in the room, about to sit down, in their shirt sleeves, to a table +spread for dinner. They bore little resemblance one to the other in detail; but +the general description given by Plunkett could have been justly applied to +either. In height, colour of hair, shape of nose, build and manners each of +them tallied with it. They were fair types of jovial, ready-witted, +broad-gauged Americans who had gravitated together for companionship in an +alien land. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Bridger” they called in unison at sight Of the consul. +“Come and have dinner with us!” And then they noticed Plunkett at +his heels, and came forward with hospitable curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen,” said the consul, his voice taking on unaccustomed +formality, “this is Mr. Plunkett. Mr. Plunkett—Mr. Reeves and Mr. +Morgan.” +</p> + +<p> +The cocoanut barons greeted the newcomer joyously. Reeves seemed about an inch +taller than Morgan, but his laugh was not quite as loud. Morgan’s eyes +were deep brown; Reeves’s were black. Reeves was the host and busied +himself with fetching other chairs and calling to the Carib woman for +supplemental table ware. It was explained that Morgan lived in a bamboo shack +to “loo’ard,” but that every day the two friends dined +together. Plunkett stood still during the preparations, looking about mildly +with his pale-blue eyes. Bridger looked apologetic and uneasy. +</p> + +<p> +At length two other covers were laid and the company was assigned to places. +Reeves and Morgan stood side by side across the table from the visitors. Reeves +nodded genially as a signal for all to seat themselves. And then suddenly +Plunkett raised his hand with a gesture of authority. He was looking straight +between Reeves and Morgan. +</p> + +<p> +“Wade Williams,” he said quietly, “you are under arrest for +murder.” +</p> + +<p> +Reeves and Morgan instantly exchanged a quick, bright glance, the quality of +which was interrogation, with a seasoning of surprise. Then, simultaneously +they turned to the speaker with a puzzled and frank deprecation in their gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t say that we understand you, Mr. Plunkett,” said +Morgan, cheerfully. “Did you say ‘Williams’?” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the joke, Bridgy?” asked Reeves, turning, to the +consul with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +Before Bridger could answer Plunkett spoke again. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll explain,” he said, quietly. “One of you +don’t need any explanation, but this is for the other one. One of you is +Wade Williams of Chatham County, Kentucky. You murdered your wife on May 5, two +years ago, after ill-treating and abusing her continually for five years. I +have the proper papers in my pocket for taking you back with me, and you are +going. We will return on the fruit steamer that comes back by this island +to-morrow to leave its inspectors. I acknowledge, gentlemen, that I’m not +quite sure which one of you is Williams. But Wade Williams goes back to Chatham +County to-morrow. I want you to understand that.” +</p> + +<p> +A great sound of merry laughter from Morgan and Reeves went out over the still +harbour. Two or three fishermen in the fleet of sloops anchored there looked up +at the house of the diablos Americanos on the hill and wondered. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Mr. Plunkett,” cried Morgan, conquering his mirth, +“the dinner is getting, cold. Let us sit down and eat. I am anxious to +get my spoon into that shark-fin soup. Business afterward.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, gentlemen, if you please,” added Reeves, pleasantly. +“I am sure Mr. Plunkett will not object. Perhaps a little time may be of +advantage to him in identifying—the gentleman he wishes to arrest.” +</p> + +<p> +“No objections, I’m sure,” said Plunkett, dropping into his +chair heavily. “I’m hungry myself. I didn’t want to accept +the hospitality of you folks without giving you notice; that’s +all.” +</p> + +<p> +Reeves set bottles and glasses on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s cognac,” he said, “and anisada, and Scotch +‘smoke,’ and rye. Take your choice.” +</p> + +<p> +Bridger chose rye, Reeves poured three fingers of Scotch for himself, Morgan +took the same. The sheriff, against much protestation, filled his glass from +the water bottle. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s to the appetite,” said Reeves, raising his glass, +“of Mr. Williams!” Morgan’s laugh and his drink encountering +sent him into a choking splutter. All began to pay attention to the dinner, +which was well cooked and palatable. +</p> + +<p> +“Williams!” called Plunkett, suddenly and sharply. +</p> + +<p> +All looked up wonderingly. Reeves found the sheriff’s mild eye resting +upon him. He flushed a little. +</p> + +<p> +“See here,” he said, with some asperity, “my name’s +Reeves, and I don’t want you to—” But the comedy of the thing +came to his rescue, and he ended with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, Mr. Plunkett,” said Morgan, carefully seasoning an +alligator pear, “that you are aware of the fact that you will import a +good deal of trouble for yourself into Kentucky if you take back the wrong +man—that is, of course, if you take anybody back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for the salt,” said the sheriff. “Oh, I’ll +take somebody back. It’ll be one of you two gentlemen. Yes, I know +I’d get stuck for damages if I make a mistake. But I’m going to try +to get the right man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what you do,” said Morgan, leaning forward +with a jolly twinkle in his eyes. “You take me. I’ll go without any +trouble. The cocoanut business hasn’t panned out well this year, and +I’d like to make some extra money out of your bondsmen.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not fair,” chimed in Reeves. “I got only $16 a +thousand for my last shipment. Take me, Mr. Plunkett.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take Wade Williams,” said the sheriff, patiently, +“or I’ll come pretty close to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like dining with a ghost,” remarked Morgan, with a +pretended shiver. “The ghost of a murderer, too! Will somebody pass the +toothpicks to the shade of the naughty Mr. Williams?” +</p> + +<p> +Plunkett seemed as unconcerned as if he were dining at his own table in Chatham +County. He was a gallant trencherman, and the strange tropic viands tickled his +palate. Heavy, commonplace, almost slothful in his movements, he appeared to be +devoid of all the cunning and watchfulness of the sleuth. He even ceased to +observe, with any sharpness or attempted discrimination, the two men, one of +whom he had undertaken with surprising self-confidence, to drag away upon the +serious charge of wife-murder. Here, indeed, was a problem set before him that +if wrongly solved would have amounted to his serious discomfiture, yet there he +sat puzzling his soul (to all appearances) over the novel flavour of a broiled +iguana cutlet. +</p> + +<p> +The consul felt a decided discomfort. Reeves and Morgan were his friends and +pals; yet the sheriff from Kentucky had a certain right to his official aid and +moral support. So Bridger sat the silentest around the board and tried to +estimate the peculiar situation. His conclusion was that both Reeves and +Morgan, quickwitted, as he knew them to be, had conceived at the moment of +Plunkett’s disclosure of his mission—and in the brief space of a +lightning flash—the idea that the other might be the guilty Williams; and +that each of them had decided in that moment loyally to protect his comrade +against the doom that threatened him. This was the consul’s theory and if +he had been a bookmaker at a race of wits for life and liberty he would have +offered heavy odds against the plodding sheriff from Chatham County, Kentucky. +</p> + +<p> +When the meal was concluded the Carib woman came and removed the dishes and +cloth. Reeves strewed the table with excellent cigars, and Plunkett, with the +others, lighted one of these with evident gratification. +</p> + +<p> +“I may be dull,” said Morgan, with a grin and a wink at Bridger; +“but I want to know if I am. Now, I say this is all a joke of Mr. +Plunkett’s, concocted to frighten two babes-in-the-woods. Is this +Williamson to be taken seriously or not?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Williams,’” corrected Plunkett gravely. “I +never got off any jokes in my life. I know I wouldn’t travel 2,000 miles +to get off a poor one as this would be if I didn’t take Wade Williams +back with me. Gentlemen!” continued the sheriff, now letting his mild +eyes travel impartially from one of the company to another, “see if you +can find any joke in this case. Wade Williams is listening to the words I utter +now; but out of politeness, I will speak of him as a third person. For five +years he made his wife lead the life of a dog—No; I’ll take that +back. No dog in Kentucky was ever treated as she was. He spent the money that +she brought him—spent it at races, at the card table and on horses and +hunting. He was a good fellow to his friends, but a cold, sullen demon at home. +He wound up the five years of neglect by striking her with his closed +hand—a hand as hard as a stone—when she was ill and weak from +suffering. She died the next day; and he skipped. That’s all there is to +it. It’s enough. I never saw Williams; but I knew his wife. I’m not +a man to tell half. She and I were keeping company when she met him. She went +to Louisville on a visit and saw him there. I’ll admit that he spoilt my +chances in no time. I lived then on the edge of the Cumberland mountains. I was +elected sheriff of Chatham County a year after Wade Williams killed his wife. +My official duty sends me out here after him; but I’ll admit that +there’s personal feeling, too. And he’s going back with me. +Mr.—er—Reeves, will you pass me a match? +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully imprudent of Williams,” said Morgan, putting his feet up +against the wall, “to strike a Kentucky lady. Seems to me I’ve +heard they were scrappers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bad, bad Williams,” said Reeves, pouring out more Scotch. +</p> + +<p> +The two men spoke lightly, but the consul saw and felt the tension and the +carefulness in their actions and words. “Good old fellows,” he said +to himself; “they’re both all right. Each of ’em is standing +by the other like a little brick church.” +</p> + +<p> +And then a dog walked into the room where they sat—a black-and-tan hound, +long-eared, lazy, confident of welcome. +</p> + +<p> +Plunkett turned his head and looked at the animal, which halted, confidently, +within a few feet of his chair. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the sheriff, with a deep-mouthed oath, left his seat and, bestowed +upon the dog a vicious and heavy kick, with his ponderous shoe. +</p> + +<p> +The hound, heartbroken, astonished, with flapping ears and incurved tail, +uttered a piercing yelp of pain and surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Reeves and the consul remained in their chairs, saying nothing, but astonished +at the unexpected show of intolerance from the easy-going man from Chatham +county. +</p> + +<p> +But Morgan, with a suddenly purpling face, leaped, to his feet and raised a +threatening arm above the guest. +</p> + +<p> +“You—brute!” he shouted, passionately; “why did you do +that?” +</p> + +<p> +Quickly the amenities returned, Plunkett muttered some indistinct apology and +regained his seat. Morgan with a decided effort controlled his indignation and +also returned to his chair. +</p> + +<p> +And then Plunkett with the spring of a tiger, leaped around the corner of the +table and snapped handcuffs on the paralyzed Morgan’s wrists. +</p> + +<p> +“Hound-lover and woman-killer!” he cried; “get ready to meet +your God.” +</p> + +<p> +When Bridger had finished I asked him: +</p> + +<p> +“Did he get the right man?” +</p> + +<p> +“He did,” said the Consul. +</p> + +<p> +“And how did he know?” I inquired, being in a kind of bewilderment. +</p> + +<p> +“When he put Morgan in the dory,” answered Bridger, “the next +day to take him aboard the <i>Pajaro</i>, this man Plunkett stopped to shake +hands with me and I asked him the same question.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Mr. Bridger,’ said he, ‘I’m a Kentuckian, and +I’ve seen a great deal of both men and animals. And I never yet saw a man +that was overfond of horses and dogs but what was cruel to women.’” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III<br> +THE HYPOTHESES OF FAILURE</h2> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch bestowed his undivided attention upon the engrossing arts of his +profession. But one flight of fancy did he allow his mind to entertain. He was +fond of likening his suite of office rooms to the bottom of a ship. The rooms +were three in number, with a door opening from one to another. These doors +could also be closed. +</p> + +<p> +“Ships,” Lawyer Gooch would say, “are constructed for safety, +with separate, water-tight compartments in their bottoms. If one compartment +springs a leak it fills with water; but the good ship goes on unhurt. Were it +not for the separating bulkheads one leak would sink the vessel. Now it often +happens that while I am occupied with clients, other clients with conflicting +interests call. With the assistance of Archibald—an office boy with a +future—I cause the dangerous influx to be diverted into separate +compartments, while I sound with my legal plummet the depth of each. If +necessary, they may be baled into the hallway and permitted to escape by way of +the stairs, which we may term the lee scuppers. Thus the good ship of business +is kept afloat; whereas if the element that supports her were allowed to mingle +freely in her hold we might be swamped—ha, ha, ha!” +</p> + +<p> +The law is dry. Good jokes are few. Surely it might be permitted Lawyer Gooch +to mitigate the bore of briefs, the tedium of torts and the prosiness of +processes with even so light a levy upon the good property of humour. +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch’s practice leaned largely to the settlement of marital +infelicities. Did matrimony languish through complications, he mediated, +soothed and arbitrated. Did it suffer from implications, he readjusted, +defended and championed. Did it arrive at the extremity of duplications, he +always got light sentences for his clients. +</p> + +<p> +But not always was Lawyer Gooch the keen, armed, wily belligerent, ready with +his two-edged sword to lop off the shackles of Hymen. He had been known to +build up instead of demolishing, to reunite instead of severing, to lead erring +and foolish ones back into the fold instead of scattering the flock. Often had +he by his eloquent and moving appeals sent husband and wife, weeping, back into +each other’s arms. Frequently he had coached childhood so successfully +that, at the psychological moment (and at a given signal) the plaintive pipe of +“Papa, won’t you tum home adain to me and muvver?” had won +the day and upheld the pillars of a tottering home. +</p> + +<p> +Unprejudiced persons admitted that Lawyer Gooch received as big fees from these +reyoked clients as would have been paid him had the cases been contested in +court. Prejudiced ones intimated that his fees were doubled, because the +penitent couples always came back later for the divorce, anyhow. +</p> + +<p> +There came a season in June when the legal ship of Lawyer Gooch (to borrow his +own figure) was nearly becalmed. The divorce mill grinds slowly in June. It is +the month of Cupid and Hymen. +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch, then, sat idle in the middle room of his clientless suite. A +small anteroom connected—or rather separated—this apartment from +the hallway. Here was stationed Archibald, who wrested from visitors their +cards or oral nomenclature which he bore to his master while they waited. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, on this day, there came a great knocking at the outermost door. +</p> + +<p> +Archibald, opening it, was thrust aside as superfluous by the visitor, who +without due reverence at once penetrated to the office of Lawyer Gooch and +threw himself with good-natured insolence into a comfortable chair facing that +gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +“You are Phineas C. Gooch, attorney-at-law?” said the visitor, his +tone of voice and inflection making his words at once a question, an assertion +and an accusation. +</p> + +<p> +Before committing himself by a reply, the lawyer estimated his possible client +in one of his brief but shrewd and calculating glances. +</p> + +<p> +The man was of the emphatic type—large-sized, active, bold and debonair +in demeanour, vain beyond a doubt, slightly swaggering, ready and at ease. He +was well-clothed, but with a shade too much ornateness. He was seeking a +lawyer; but if that fact would seem to saddle him with troubles they were not +patent in his beaming eye and courageous air. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Gooch,” at length the lawyer admitted. Upon pressure he +would also have confessed to the Phineas C. But he did not consider it good +practice to volunteer information. “I did not receive your card,” +he continued, by way of rebuke, “so I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you didn’t,” remarked the visitor, coolly; “And +you won’t just yet. Light up?” He threw a leg over an arm of his +chair, and tossed a handful of rich-hued cigars upon the table. Lawyer Gooch +knew the brand. He thawed just enough to accept the invitation to smoke. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a divorce lawyer,” said the cardless visitor. This time +there was no interrogation in his voice. Nor did his words constitute a simple +assertion. They formed a charge—a denunciation—as one would say to +a dog: “You are a dog.” Lawyer Gooch was silent under the +imputation. +</p> + +<p> +“You handle,” continued the visitor, “all the various +ramifications of busted-up connubiality. You are a surgeon, we might say, who +extracts Cupid’s darts when he shoots ’em into the wrong parties. +You furnish patent, incandescent lights for premises where the torch of Hymen +has burned so low you can’t light a cigar at it. Am I right, Mr. +Gooch?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have undertaken cases,” said the lawyer, guardedly, “in +the line to which your figurative speech seems to refer. Do you wish to consult +me professionally, Mr. ––––” The lawyer paused, +with significance. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said the other, with an arch wave of his cigar, +“not just yet. Let us approach the subject with the caution that should +have been used in the original act that makes this pow-wow necessary. There +exists a matrimonial jumble to be straightened out. But before I give you names +I want your honest—well, anyhow, your professional opinion on the merits +of the mix-up. I want you to size up the catastrophe—abstractly—you +understand? I’m Mr. Nobody; and I’ve got a story to tell you. Then +you say what’s what. Do you get my wireless?” +</p> + +<p> +“You want to state a hypothetical case?” suggested Lawyer Gooch. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the word I was after. ‘Apothecary’ was the best +shot I could make at it in my mind. The hypothetical goes. I’ll state the +case. Suppose there’s a woman—a deuced fine-looking woman—who +has run away from her husband and home? She’s badly mashed on another man +who went to her town to work up some real estate business. Now, we may as well +call this woman’s husband Thomas R. Billings, for that’s his name. +I’m giving you straight tips on the cognomens. The Lothario chap is Henry +K. Jessup. The Billingses lived in a little town called Susanville—a good +many miles from here. Now, Jessup leaves Susanville two weeks ago. The next day +Mrs. Billings follows him. She’s dead gone on this man Jessup; you can +bet your law library on that.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch’s client said this with such unctuous satisfaction that even +the callous lawyer experienced a slight ripple of repulsion. He now saw clearly +in his fatuous visitor the conceit of the lady-killer, the egoistic complacency +of the successful trifler. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” continued the visitor, “suppose this Mrs. Billings +wasn’t happy at home? We’ll say she and her husband didn’t +gee worth a cent. They’ve got incompatibility to burn. The things she +likes, Billings wouldn’t have as a gift with trading-stamps. It’s +Tabby and Rover with them all the time. She’s an educated woman in +science and culture, and she reads things out loud at meetings. Billings is not +on. He don’t appreciate progress and obelisks and ethics, and things of +that sort. Old Billings is simply a blink when it comes to such things. The +lady is out and out above his class. Now, lawyer, don’t it look like a +fair equalization of rights and wrongs that a woman like that should be allowed +to throw down Billings and take the man that can appreciate her? +</p> + +<p> +“Incompatibility,” said Lawyer Gooch, “is undoubtedly the +source of much marital discord and unhappiness. Where it is positively proved, +divorce would seem to be the equitable remedy. Are you—excuse me—is +this man Jessup one to whom the lady may safely trust her future?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you can bet on Jessup,” said the client, with a confident wag +of his head. “Jessup’s all right. He’ll do the square thing. +Why, he left Susanville just to keep people from talking about Mrs. Billings. +But she followed him up, and now, of course, he’ll stick to her. When she +gets a divorce, all legal and proper, Jessup will do the proper thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said Lawyer Gooch, “continuing the hypothesis, if +you prefer, and supposing that my services should be desired in the case, +what—” +</p> + +<p> +The client rose impulsively to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dang the hypothetical business,” he exclaimed, impatiently. +“Let’s let her drop, and get down to straight talk. You ought to +know who I am by this time. I want that woman to have her divorce. I’ll +pay for it. The day you set Mrs. Billings free I’ll pay you five hundred +dollars.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch’s client banged his fist upon the table to punctuate his +generosity. +</p> + +<p> +“If that is the case—” began the lawyer. +</p> + +<p> +“Lady to see you, sir,” bawled Archibald, bouncing in from his +anteroom. He had orders to always announce immediately any client that might +come. There was no sense in turning business away. +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch took client number one by the arm and led him suavely into one of +the adjoining rooms. “Favour me by remaining here a few minutes, +sir,” said he. “I will return and resume our consultation with the +least possible delay. I am rather expecting a visit from a very wealthy old +lady in connection with a will. I will not keep you waiting long.” +</p> + +<p> +The breezy gentleman seated himself with obliging acquiescence, and took up a +magazine. The lawyer returned to the middle office, carefully closing behind +him the connecting door. +</p> + +<p> +“Show the lady in, Archibald,” he said to the office boy, who was +awaiting the order. +</p> + +<p> +A tall lady, of commanding presence and sternly handsome, entered the room. She +wore robes—robes; not clothes—ample and fluent. In her eye could be +perceived the lambent flame of genius and soul. In her hand was a green bag of +the capacity of a bushel, and an umbrella that also seemed to wear a robe, +ample and fluent. She accepted a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you Mr. Phineas C. Gooch, the lawyer?” she asked, in formal +and unconciliatory tones. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” answered Lawyer Gooch, without circumlocution. He never +circumlocuted when dealing with a woman. Women circumlocute. Time is wasted +when both sides in debate employ the same tactics. +</p> + +<p> +“As a lawyer, sir,” began the lady, “you may have acquired +some knowledge of the human heart. Do you believe that the pusillanimous and +petty conventions of our artificial social life should stand as an obstacle in +the way of a noble and affectionate heart when it finds its true mate among the +miserable and worthless wretches in the world that are called men?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” said Lawyer Gooch, in the tone that he used in curbing his +female clients, “this is an office for conducting the practice of law. I +am a lawyer, not a philosopher, nor the editor of an ‘Answers to the +Lovelorn’ column of a newspaper. I have other clients waiting. I will ask +you kindly to come to the point.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you needn’t get so stiff around the gills about it,” +said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her +umbrella. “Business is what I’ve come for. I want your opinion in +the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is +really only the readjustment of the false and ignoble conditions that the +short-sighted laws of man have interposed between a loving—” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, madam,” interrupted Lawyer Gooch, with some +impatience, “for reminding you again that this is a law office. Perhaps +Mrs. Wilcox—” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Wilcox is all right,” cut in the lady, with a hint of +asperity. “And so are Tolstoi, and Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, and Omar +Khayyam, and Mr. Edward Bok. I’ve read ’em all. I would like to +discuss with you the divine right of the soul as opposed to the +freedom-destroying restrictions of a bigoted and narrow-minded society. But I +will proceed to business. I would prefer to lay the matter before you in an +impersonal way until you pass upon its merits. That is to describe it as a +supposable instance, without—” +</p> + +<p> +“You wish to state a hypothetical case?” said Lawyer Gooch. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going to say that,” said the lady, sharply. “Now, +suppose there is a woman who is all soul and heart and aspirations for a +complete existence. This woman has a husband who is far below her in intellect, +in taste—in everything. Bah! he is a brute. He despises literature. He +sneers at the lofty thoughts of the world’s great thinkers. He thinks +only of real estate and such sordid things. He is no mate for a woman with +soul. We will say that this unfortunate wife one day meets with her +ideal—a man with brain and heart and force. She loves him. Although this +man feels the thrill of a new-found affinity he is too noble, too honourable to +declare himself. He flies from the presence of his beloved. She flies after +him, trampling, with superb indifference, upon the fetters with which an +unenlightened social system would bind her. Now, what will a divorce cost? +Eliza Ann Timmins, the poetess of Sycamore Gap, got one for three hundred and +forty dollars. Can I—I mean can this lady I speak of get one that +cheap?” +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” said Lawyer Gooch, “your last two or three sentences +delight me with their intelligence and clearness. Can we not now abandon the +hypothetical and come down to names and business?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say so,” exclaimed the lady, adopting the practical with +admirable readiness. “Thomas R. Billings is the name of the low brute who +stands between the happiness of his legal—his legal, but not his +spiritual—wife and Henry K. Jessup, the noble man whom nature intended +for her mate. I,” concluded the client, with an air of dramatic +revelation, “am Mrs. Billings!” +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen to see you, sir,” shouted Archibald, invading the room +almost at a handspring. Lawyer Gooch arose from his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Billings,” he said courteously, “allow me to conduct +you into the adjoining office apartment for a few minutes. I am expecting a +very wealthy old gentleman on business connected with a will. In a very short +while I will join you, and continue our consultation.” +</p> + +<p> +With his accustomed chivalrous manner, Lawyer Gooch ushered his soulful client +into the remaining unoccupied room, and came out, closing the door with +circumspection. +</p> + +<p> +The next visitor introduced by Archibald was a thin, nervous, irritable-looking +man of middle age, with a worried and apprehensive expression of countenance. +He carried in one hand a small satchel, which he set down upon the floor beside +the chair which the lawyer placed for him. His clothing was of good quality, +but it was worn without regard to neatness or style, and appeared to be covered +with the dust of travel. +</p> + +<p> +“You make a specialty of divorce cases,” he said, in, an agitated +but business-like tone. +</p> + +<p> +“I may say,” began Lawyer Gooch, “that my practice has not +altogether avoided—” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you do,” interrupted client number three. “You +needn’t tell me. I’ve heard all about you. I have a case to lay +before you without necessarily disclosing any connection that I might have with +it—that is—” +</p> + +<p> +“You wish,” said Lawyer Gooch, “to state a hypothetical case. +</p> + +<p> +“You may call it that. I am a plain man of business. I will be as brief +as possible. We will first take up hypothetical woman. We will say she is +married uncongenially. In many ways she is a superior woman. Physically she is +considered to be handsome. She is devoted to what she calls +literature—poetry and prose, and such stuff. Her husband is a plain man +in the business walks of life. Their home has not been happy, although the +husband has tried to make it so. Some time ago a man—a +stranger—came to the peaceful town in which they lived and engaged in +some real estate operations. This woman met him, and became unaccountably +infatuated with him. Her attentions became so open that the man felt the +community to be no safe place for him, so he left it. She abandoned husband and +home, and followed him. She forsook her home, where she was provided with every +comfort, to follow this man who had inspired her with such a strange affection. +Is there anything more to be deplored,” concluded the client, in a +trembling voice, “than the wrecking of a home by a woman’s +uncalculating folly?” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch delivered the cautious opinion that there was not. +</p> + +<p> +“This man she has gone to join,” resumed the visitor, “is not +the man to make her happy. It is a wild and foolish self-deception that makes +her think he will. Her husband, in spite of their many disagreements, is the +only one capable of dealing with her sensitive and peculiar nature. But this +she does not realize now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you consider a divorce the logical cure in the case you +present?” asked Lawyer Gooch, who felt that the conversation was +wandering too far from the field of business. +</p> + +<p> +“A divorce!” exclaimed the client, feelingly—almost +tearfully. “No, no—not that. I have read, Mr. Gooch, of many +instances where your sympathy and kindly interest led you to act as a mediator +between estranged husband and wife, and brought them together again. Let us +drop the hypothetical case—I need conceal no longer that it is I who am +the sufferer in this sad affair—the names you shall have—Thomas R. +Billings and wife—and Henry K. Jessup, the man with whom she is +infatuated.” +</p> + +<p> +Client number three laid his hand upon Mr. Gooch’s arm. Deep emotion was +written upon his careworn face. “For Heaven’s sake”, he said +fervently, “help me in this hour of trouble. Seek out Mrs. Billings, and +persuade her to abandon this distressing pursuit of her lamentable folly. Tell +her, Mr. Gooch, that her husband is willing to receive her back to his heart +and home—promise her anything that will induce her to return. I have +heard of your success in these matters. Mrs. Billings cannot be very far away. +I am worn out with travel and weariness. Twice during the pursuit I saw her, +but various circumstances prevented our having an interview. Will you undertake +this mission for me, Mr. Gooch, and earn my everlasting gratitude?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Lawyer Gooch, frowning slightly at the +other’s last words, but immediately calling up an expression of virtuous +benevolence, “that on a number of occasions I have been successful in +persuading couples who sought the severing of their matrimonial bonds to think +better of their rash intentions and return to their homes reconciled. But I +assure you that the work is often exceedingly difficult. The amount of +argument, perseverance, and, if I may be allowed to say it, eloquence that it +requires would astonish you. But this is a case in which my sympathies would be +wholly enlisted. I feel deeply for you sir, and I would be most happy to see +husband and wife reunited. But my time,” concluded the lawyer, looking at +his watch as if suddenly reminded of the fact, “is valuable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am aware of that,” said the client, “and if you will take +the case and persuade Mrs. Billings to return home and leave the man alone that +she is following—on that day I will pay you the sum of one thousand +dollars. I have made a little money in real estate during the recent boom in +Susanville, and I will not begrudge that amount.” +</p> + +<p> +“Retain your seat for a few moments, please,” said Lawyer Gooch, +arising, and again consulting his watch. “I have another client waiting +in an adjoining room whom I had very nearly forgotten. I will return in the +briefest possible space.” +</p> + +<p> +The situation was now one that fully satisfied Lawyer Gooch’s love of +intricacy and complication. He revelled in cases that presented such subtle +problems and possibilities. It pleased him to think that he was master of the +happiness and fate of the three individuals who sat, unconscious of one +another’s presence, within his reach. His old figure of the ship glided +into his mind. But now the figure failed, for to have filled every compartment +of an actual vessel would have been to endanger her safety; with his +compartments full, his ship of affairs could but sail on to the advantageous +port of a fine, fat fee. The thing for him to do, of course, was to wring the +best bargain he could from some one of his anxious cargo. +</p> + +<p> +First he called to the office boy: “Lock the outer door, Archibald, and +admit no one.” Then he moved, with long, silent strides into the room in +which client number one waited. That gentleman sat, patiently scanning the +pictures in the magazine, with a cigar in his mouth and his feet upon a table. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he remarked, cheerfully, as the lawyer entered, “have +you made up your mind? Does five hundred dollars go for getting the fair lady a +divorce?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that as a retainer?” asked Lawyer Gooch, softly +interrogative. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey? No; for the whole job. It’s enough, ain’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“My fee,” said Lawyer Gooch, “would be one thousand five +hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars down, and the remainder upon issuance of +the divorce.” +</p> + +<p> +A loud whistle came from client number one. His feet descended to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Guess we can’t close the deal,” he said, arising, “I +cleaned up five hundred dollars in a little real estate dicker down in +Susanville. I’d do anything I could to free the lady, but it out-sizes my +pile.” +</p> + +<p> +“Could you stand one thousand two hundred dollars?” asked the +lawyer, insinuatingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Five hundred is my limit, I tell you. Guess I’ll have to hunt up a +cheaper lawyer.” The client put on his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Out this way, please,” said Lawyer Gooch, opening the door that +led into the hallway. +</p> + +<p> +As the gentleman flowed out of the compartment and down the stairs, Lawyer +Gooch smiled to himself. “Exit Mr. Jessup,” he murmured, as he +fingered the Henry Clay tuft of hair at his ear. “And now for the +forsaken husband.” He returned to the middle office, and assumed a +businesslike manner. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” he said to client number three, “that you +agree to pay one thousand dollars if I bring about, or am instrumental in +bringing about, the return of Mrs. Billings to her home, and her abandonment of +her infatuated pursuit of the man for whom she has conceived such a violent +fancy. Also that the case is now unreservedly in my hands on that basis. Is +that correct?” +</p> + +<p> +“Entirely”, said the other, eagerly. “And I can produce the +cash any time at two hours’ notice.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch stood up at his full height. His thin figure seemed to expand. His +thumbs sought the arm-holes of his vest. Upon his face was a look of +sympathetic benignity that he always wore during such undertakings. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, sir,” he said, in kindly tones, “I think I can promise +you an early relief from your troubles. I have that much confidence in my +powers of argument and persuasion, in the natural impulses of the human heart +toward good, and in the strong influence of a husband’s unfaltering love. +Mrs. Billings, sir, is here—in that room—” the lawyer’s +long arm pointed to the door. “I will call her in at once; and our united +pleadings—” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch paused, for client number three had leaped from his chair as if +propelled by steel springs, and clutched his satchel. +</p> + +<p> +“What the devil,” he exclaimed, harshly, “do you mean? That +woman in there! I thought I shook her off forty miles back.” +</p> + +<p> +He ran to the open window, looked out below, and threw one leg over the sill. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” cried Lawyer Gooch, in amazement. “What would you do? +Come, Mr. Billings, and face your erring but innocent wife. Our combined +entreaties cannot fail to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Billings!” shouted the now thoroughly moved client. +“I’ll Billings you, you old idiot!” +</p> + +<p> +Turning, he hurled his satchel with fury at the lawyer’s head. It struck +that astounded peacemaker between the eyes, causing him to stagger backward a +pace or two. When Lawyer Gooch recovered his wits he saw that his client had +disappeared. Rushing to the window, he leaned out, and saw the recreant +gathering himself up from the top of a shed upon which he had dropped from the +second-story window. Without stopping to collect his hat he then plunged +downward the remaining ten feet to the alley, up which he flew with prodigious +celerity until the surrounding building swallowed him up from view. +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch passed his hand tremblingly across his brow. It was a habitual act +with him, serving to clear his thoughts. Perhaps also it now seemed to soothe +the spot where a very hard alligator-hide satchel had struck. +</p> + +<p> +The satchel lay upon the floor, wide open, with its contents spilled about. +Mechanically, Lawyer Gooch stooped to gather up the articles. The first was a +collar; and the omniscient eye of the man of law perceived, wonderingly, the +initials H. K. J. marked upon it. Then came a comb, a brush, a folded map, and +a piece of soap. Lastly, a handful of old business letters, +addressed—every one of them—to “Henry K. Jessup, Esq.” +</p> + +<p> +Lawyer Gooch closed the satchel, and set it upon the table. He hesitated for a +moment, and then put on his hat and walked into the office boy’s +anteroom. +</p> + +<p> +“Archibald,” he said mildly, as he opened the hall door, “I +am going around to the Supreme Court rooms. In five minutes you may step into +the inner office, and inform the lady who is waiting there +that”—here Lawyer Gooch made use of the +vernacular—“that there’s nothing doing.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV<br> +CALLOWAY’S CODE</h2> + +<p> +The New York <i>Enterprise</i> sent H. B. Calloway as special correspondent to +the Russo-Japanese-Portsmouth war. +</p> + +<p> +For two months Calloway hung about Yokohama and Tokio, shaking dice with the +other correspondents for drinks of ‘rickshaws—oh, no, that’s +something to ride in; anyhow, he wasn’t earning the salary that his paper +was paying him. But that was not Calloway’s fault. The little brown men +who held the strings of Fate between their fingers were not ready for the +readers of the <i>Enterprise</i> to season their breakfast bacon and eggs with +the battles of the descendants of the gods. +</p> + +<p> +But soon the column of correspondents that were to go out with the First Army +tightened their field-glass belts and went down to the Yalu with Kuroki. +Calloway was one of these. +</p> + +<p> +Now, this is no history of the battle of the Yalu River. That has been told in +detail by the correspondents who gazed at the shrapnel smoke rings from a +distance of three miles. But, for justice’s sake, let it be understood +that the Japanese commander prohibited a nearer view. +</p> + +<p> +Calloway’s feat was accomplished before the battle. What he did was to +furnish the <i>Enterprise</i> with the biggest beat of the war. That paper +published exclusively and in detail the news of the attack on the lines of the +Russian General on the same day that it was made. No other paper printed a word +about it for two days afterward, except a London paper, whose account was +absolutely incorrect and untrue. +</p> + +<p> +Calloway did this in face of the fact that General Kuroki was making his moves +and laying his plans with the profoundest secrecy as far as the world outside +his camps was concerned. The correspondents were forbidden to send out any news +whatever of his plans; and every message that was allowed on the wires was +censored with rigid severity. +</p> + +<p> +The correspondent for the London paper handed in a cablegram describing +Kuroki’s plans; but as it was wrong from beginning to end the censor +grinned and let it go through. +</p> + +<p> +So, there they were—Kuroki on one side of the Yalu with forty-two +thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, and one hundred and twenty-four guns. +On the other side, Zassulitch waited for him with only twenty-three thousand +men, and with a long stretch of river to guard. And Calloway had got hold of +some important inside information that he knew would bring the +<i>Enterprise</i> staff around a cablegram as thick as flies around a Park Row +lemonade stand. If he could only get that message past the censor—the new +censor who had arrived and taken his post that day! +</p> + +<p> +Calloway did the obviously proper thing. He lit his pipe and sat down on a gun +carriage to think it over. And there we must leave him; for the rest of the +story belongs to Vesey, a sixteen-dollar-a-week reporter on the +<i>Enterprise</i>. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Calloway’s cablegram was handed to the managing editor at four +o’clock in the afternoon. He read it three times; and then drew a pocket +mirror from a pigeon-hole in his desk, and looked at his reflection carefully. +Then he went over to the desk of Boyd, his assistant (he usually called Boyd +when he wanted him), and laid the cablegram before him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s from Calloway,” he said. “See what you make of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The message was dated at Wi-ju, and these were the words of it: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Foregone preconcerted rash witching goes muffled rumour mine dark silent +unfortunate richmond existing great hotly brute select mooted parlous beggars +ye angel incontrovertible. +</p> + +<p> +Boyd read it twice. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s either a cipher or a sunstroke,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever hear of anything like a code in the office—a secret +code?” asked the m. e., who had held his desk for only two years. +Managing editors come and go. +</p> + +<p> +“None except the vernacular that the lady specials write in,” said +Boyd. “Couldn’t be an acrostic, could it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of that,” said the m. e., “but the beginning +letters contain only four vowels. It must be a code of some sort.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try em in groups,” suggested Boyd. “Let’s +see—‘Rash witching goes’—not with me it doesn’t. +‘Muffled rumour mine’—must have an underground wire. +‘Dark silent unfortunate richmond’—no reason why he should +knock that town so hard. ‘Existing great hotly’—no it +doesn’t pan out. I’ll call Scott.” +</p> + +<p> +The city editor came in a hurry, and tried his luck. A city editor must know +something about everything; so Scott knew a little about cipher-writing. +</p> + +<p> +“It may be what is called an inverted alphabet cipher,” said he. +“I’ll try that. ‘R’ seems to be the oftenest used +initial letter, with the exception of ‘m.’ Assuming ‘r’ +to mean ‘e’, the most frequently used vowel, we transpose the +letters—so.” +</p> + +<p> +Scott worked rapidly with his pencil for two minutes; and then showed the first +word according to his reading—the word “Scejtzez.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great!” cried Boyd. “It’s a charade. My first is a +Russian general. Go on, Scott.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, that won’t work,” said the city editor. +“It’s undoubtedly a code. It’s impossible to read it without +the key. Has the office ever used a cipher code?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just what I was asking,” said the m.e. “Hustle everybody up +that ought to know. We must get at it some way. Calloway has evidently got hold +of something big, and the censor has put the screws on, or he wouldn’t +have cabled in a lot of chop suey like this.” +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the office of the <i>Enterprise</i> a dragnet was sent, hauling in +such members of the staff as would be likely to know of a code, past or +present, by reason of their wisdom, information, natural intelligence, or +length of servitude. They got together in a group in the city room, with the m. +e. in the centre. No one had heard of a code. All began to explain to the head +investigator that newspapers never use a code, anyhow—that is, a cipher +code. Of course the Associated Press stuff is a sort of code—an +abbreviation, rather—but— +</p> + +<p> +The m. e. knew all that, and said so. He asked each man how long he had worked +on the paper. Not one of them had drawn pay from an <i>Enterprise</i> envelope +for longer than six years. Calloway had been on the paper twelve years. +</p> + +<p> +“Try old Heffelbauer,” said the m. e. “He was here when Park +Row was a potato patch.” +</p> + +<p> +Heffelbauer was an institution. He was half janitor, half handy-man about the +office, and half watchman—thus becoming the peer of thirteen and one-half +tailors. Sent for, he came, radiating his nationality. +</p> + +<p> +“Heffelbauer,” said the m. e., “did you ever hear of a code +belonging to the office a long time ago—a private code? You know what a +code is, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yah,” said Heffelbauer. “Sure I know vat a code is. Yah, +apout dwelf or fifteen year ago der office had a code. Der reborters in der +city-room haf it here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said the m. e. “We’re getting on the trail now. +Where was it kept, Heffelbauer? What do you know about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Somedimes,” said the retainer, “dey keep it in der little +room behind der library room.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you find it?” asked the m. e. eagerly. “Do you know +where it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mein Gott!” said Heffelbauer. “How long you dink a code +live? Der reborters call him a maskeet. But von day he butt mit his head der +editor, und—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’s talking about a goat,” said Boyd. “Get out, +Heffelbauer.” +</p> + +<p> +Again discomfited, the concerted wit and resource of the <i>Enterprise</i> +huddled around Calloway’s puzzle, considering its mysterious words in +vain. +</p> + +<p> +Then Vesey came in. +</p> + +<p> +Vesey was the youngest reporter. He had a thirty-two-inch chest and wore a +number fourteen collar; but his bright Scotch plaid suit gave him presence and +conferred no obscurity upon his whereabouts. He wore his hat in such a position +that people followed him about to see him take it off, convinced that it must +be hung upon a peg driven into the back of his head. He was never without an +immense, knotted, hard-wood cane with a German-silver tip on its crooked +handle. Vesey was the best photograph hustler in the office. Scott said it was +because no living human being could resist the personal triumph it was to hand +his picture over to Vesey. Vesey always wrote his own news stories, except the +big ones, which were sent to the rewrite men. Add to this fact that among all +the inhabitants, temples, and groves of the earth nothing existed that could +abash Vesey, and his dim sketch is concluded. +</p> + +<p> +Vesey butted into the circle of cipher readers very much as Heffelbauer’s +“code” would have done, and asked what was up. Some one explained, +with the touch of half-familiar condescension that they always used toward him. +Vesey reached out and took the cablegram from the m. e.’s hand. Under the +protection of some special Providence, he was always doing appalling things +like that, and coming, off unscathed. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a code,” said Vesey. “Anybody got the key?” +</p> + +<p> +“The office has no code,” said Boyd, reaching for the message. +Vesey held to it. +</p> + +<p> +“Then old Calloway expects us to read it, anyhow,” said he. +“He’s up a tree, or something, and he’s made this up so as to +get it by the censor. It’s up to us. Gee! I wish they had sent me, too. +Say—we can’t afford to fall down on our end of it. ‘Foregone, +preconcerted rash, witching’—h’m.” +</p> + +<p> +Vesey sat down on a table corner and began to whistle softly, frowning at the +cablegram. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have it, please,” said the m. e. “We’ve +got to get to work on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe I’ve got a line on it,” said Vesey. “Give me +ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked to his desk, threw his hat into a waste-basket, spread out flat on +his chest like a gorgeous lizard, and started his pencil going. The wit and +wisdom of the <i>Enterprise</i> remained in a loose group, and smiled at one +another, nodding their heads toward Vesey. Then they began to exchange their +theories about the cipher. +</p> + +<p> +It took Vesey exactly fifteen minutes. He brought to the m. e. a pad with the +code-key written on it. +</p> + +<p> +“I felt the swing of it as soon as I saw it,” said Vesey. +“Hurrah for old Calloway! He’s done the Japs and every paper in +town that prints literature instead of news. Take a look at that.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus had Vesey set forth the reading of the code: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Foregone—conclusion<br> +Preconcerted—arrangement<br> +Rash—act<br> +Witching—hour of midnight<br> +Goes—without saying<br> +Muffled—report<br> +Rumour—hath it<br> +Mine—host<br> +Dark—horse<br> +Silent—majority<br> +Unfortunate—pedestrians*<br> +Richmond—in the field<br> +Existing—conditions<br> +Great—White Way<br> +Hotly—contested<br> +Brute—force<br> +Select—few<br> +Mooted—question<br> +Parlous—times<br> +Beggars—description<br> +Ye—correspondent<br> +Angel—unawares<br> +Incontrovertible—fact +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +* Mr. Vesey afterward explained that the logical journalistic complement of the +word “unfortunate” was once the word “victim.” But, +since the automobile became so popular, the correct following word is now +“pedestrians”. Of course, in Calloway’s code it meant +infantry. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s simply newspaper English,” explained Vesey. +“I’ve been reporting on the <i>Enterprise</i> long enough to know +it by heart. Old Calloway gives us the cue word, and we use the word that +naturally follows it just as we use ’em in the paper. Read it over, and +you’ll see how pat they drop into their places. Now, here’s the +message he intended us to get.” +</p> + +<p> +Vesey handed out another sheet of paper. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Concluded arrangement to act at hour of midnight without saying. Report hath it +that a large body of cavalry and an overwhelming force of infantry will be +thrown into the field. Conditions white. Way contested by only a small force. +Question the <i>Times</i> description. Its correspondent is unaware of the +facts. +</p> + +<p> +“Great stuff!” cried Boyd excitedly. “Kuroki crosses the Yalu +to-night and attacks. Oh, we won’t do a thing to the sheets that make up +with Addison’s essays, real estate transfers, and bowling scores!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Vesey,” said the m. e., with his +jollying-which-you-should-regard-as-a-favour manner, “you have cast a +serious reflection upon the literary standards of the paper that employs you. +You have also assisted materially in giving us the biggest ‘beat’ +of the year. I will let you know in a day or two whether you are to be +discharged or retained at a larger salary. Somebody send Ames to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Ames was the king-pin, the snowy-petalled Marguerite, the star-bright looloo of +the rewrite men. He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, +cyclones in the summer zephyr, lost children in every top-spinning urchin, an +uprising of the down-trodden masses in every hurling of a derelict potato at a +passing automobile. When not rewriting, Ames sat on the porch of his Brooklyn +villa playing checkers with his ten-year-old son. +</p> + +<p> +Ames and the “war editor” shut themselves in a room. There was a +map in there stuck full of little pins that represented armies and divisions. +Their fingers had been itching for days to move those pins along the crooked +line of the Yalu. They did so now; and in words of fire Ames translated +Calloway’s brief message into a front page masterpiece that set the world +talking. He told of the secret councils of the Japanese officers; gave +Kuroki’s flaming speeches in full; counted the cavalry and infantry to a +man and a horse; described the quick and silent building of the bridge at +Suikauchen, across which the Mikado’s legions were hurled upon the +surprised Zassulitch, whose troops were widely scattered along the river. And +the battle!—well, you know what Ames can do with a battle if you give him +just one smell of smoke for a foundation. And in the same story, with seemingly +supernatural knowledge, he gleefully scored the most profound and ponderous +paper in England for the false and misleading account of the intended movements +of the Japanese First Army printed in its issue of <i>the same date</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Only one error was made; and that was the fault of the cable operator at Wi-ju. +Calloway pointed it out after he came back. The word “great” in his +code should have been “gage,” and its complemental words “of +battle.” But it went to Ames “conditions white,” and of +course he took that to mean snow. His description of the Japanese army +struggling through the snowstorm, blinded by the whirling flakes, was +thrillingly vivid. The artists turned out some effective illustrations that +made a hit as pictures of the artillery dragging their guns through the drifts. +But, as the attack was made on the first day of May, “conditions +white” excited some amusement. But it in made no difference to the +<i>Enterprise</i>, anyway. +</p> + +<p> +It was wonderful. And Calloway was wonderful in having made the new censor +believe that his jargon of words meant no more than a complaint of the dearth +of news and a petition for more expense money. And Vesey was wonderful. And +most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends one with another, +being oft associated, until not even obituary notices them do part. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +On the second day following, the city editor halted at Vesey’s desk where +the reporter was writing the story of a man who had broken his leg by falling +into a coal-hole—Ames having failed to find a murder motive in it. +</p> + +<p> +“The old man says your salary is to be raised to twenty a week,” +said Scott. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Vesey. “Every little helps. Say—Mr. +Scott, which would you say—‘We can state without fear of successful +contradiction,’ or, ‘On the whole it can be safely +asserted’?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V<br> +A MATTER OF MEAN ELEVATION</h2> + +<p> +One winter the Alcazar Opera Company of New Orleans made a speculative trip +along the Mexican, Central American and South American coasts. The venture +proved a most successful one. The music-loving, impressionable +Spanish-Americans deluged the company with dollars and “vivas.” The +manager waxed plump and amiable. But for the prohibitive climate he would have +put forth the distinctive flower of his prosperity—the overcoat of fur, +braided, frogged and opulent. Almost was he persuaded to raise the salaries of +his company. But with a mighty effort he conquered the impulse toward such an +unprofitable effervescence of joy. +</p> + +<p> +At Macuto, on the coast of Venezuela, the company scored its greatest success. +Imagine Coney Island translated into Spanish and you will comprehend Macuto. +The fashionable season is from November to March. Down from La Guayra and +Caracas and Valencia and other interior towns flock the people for their +holiday season. There are bathing and fiestas and bull fights and scandal. And +then the people have a passion for music that the bands in the plaza and on the +sea beach stir but do not satisfy. The coming of the Alcazar Opera Company +aroused the utmost ardour and zeal among the pleasure seekers. +</p> + +<p> +The illustrious Guzman Blanco, President and Dictator of Venezuela, sojourned +in Macuto with his court for the season. That potent ruler—who himself +paid a subsidy of 40,000 pesos each year to grand opera in +Caracas—ordered one of the Government warehouses to be cleared for a +temporary theatre. A stage was quickly constructed and rough wooden benches +made for the audience. Private boxes were added for the use of the President +and the notables of the army and Government. +</p> + +<p> +The company remained in Macuto for two weeks. Each performance filled the house +as closely as it could be packed. Then the music-mad people fought for room in +the open doors and windows, and crowded about, hundreds deep, on the outside. +Those audiences formed a brilliantly diversified patch of colour. The hue of +their faces ranged from the clear olive of the pure-blood Spaniards down +through the yellow and brown shades of the Mestizos to the coal-black Carib and +the Jamaica Negro. Scattered among them were little groups of Indians with +faces like stone idols, wrapped in gaudy fibre-woven blankets—Indians +down from the mountain states of Zamora and Los Andes and Miranda to trade +their gold dust in the coast towns. +</p> + +<p> +The spell cast upon these denizens of the interior fastnesses was remarkable. +They sat in petrified ecstasy, conspicuous among the excitable Macutians, who +wildly strove with tongue and hand to give evidence of their delight. Only once +did the sombre rapture of these aboriginals find expression. During the +rendition of “Faust,” Guzman Blanco, extravagantly pleased by the +“Jewel Song,” cast upon the stage a purse of gold pieces. Other +distinguished citizens followed his lead to the extent of whatever loose coin +they had convenient, while some of the fair and fashionable señoras were moved, +in imitation, to fling a jewel or a ring or two at the feet of the +Marguerite—who was, according to the bills, Mlle. Nina Giraud. Then, from +different parts of the house rose sundry of the stolid hillmen and cast upon +the stage little brown and dun bags that fell with soft “thumps” +and did not rebound. It was, no doubt, pleasure at the tribute to her art that +caused Mlle. Giraud’s eyes to shine so brightly when she opened these +little deerskin bags in her dressing room and found them to contain pure gold +dust. If so, the pleasure was rightly hers, for her voice in song, pure, strong +and thrilling with the feeling of the emotional artist, deserved the tribute +that it earned. +</p> + +<p> +But the triumph of the Alcazar Opera Company is not the theme—it but +leans upon and colours it. There happened in Macuto a tragic thing, an +unsolvable mystery, that sobered for a time the gaiety of the happy season. +</p> + +<p> +One evening between the short twilight and the time when she should have +whirled upon the stage in the red and black of the ardent Carmen, Mlle. Nina +Giraud disappeared from the sight and ken of 6,000 pairs of eyes and as many +minds in Macuto. There was the usual turmoil and hurrying to seek her. +Messengers flew to the little French-kept hotel where she stayed; others of the +company hastened here or there where she might be lingering in some tienda or +unduly prolonging her bath upon the beach. All search was fruitless. +Mademoiselle had vanished. +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour passed and she did not appear. The dictator, unused to the +caprices of prime donne, became impatient. He sent an aide from his box to say +to the manager that if the curtain did not at once rise he would immediately +hale the entire company to the calabosa, though it would desolate his heart, +indeed, to be compelled to such an act. Birds in Macuto could be made to sing. +</p> + +<p> +The manager abandoned hope for the time of Mlle. Giraud. A member of the +chorus, who had dreamed hopelessly for years of the blessed opportunity, +quickly Carmenized herself and the opera went on. +</p> + +<p> +Afterward, when the lost cantatrice appeared not, the aid of the authorities +was invoked. The President at once set the army, the police and all citizens to +the search. Not one clue to Mlle. Giraud’s disappearance was found. The +Alcazar left to fill engagements farther down the coast. +</p> + +<p> +On the way back the steamer stopped at Macuto and the manager made anxious +inquiry. Not a trace of the lady had been discovered. The Alcazar could do no +more. The personal belongings of the missing lady were stored in the hotel +against her possible later reappearance and the opera company continued upon +its homeward voyage to New Orleans. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +On the <i>camino real</i> along the beach the two saddle mules and the four +pack mules of Don Señor Johnny Armstrong stood, patiently awaiting the crack of +the whip of the <i>arriero</i>, Luis. That would be the signal for the start on +another long journey into the mountains. The pack mules were loaded with a +varied assortment of hardware and cutlery. These articles Don Johnny traded to +the interior Indians for the gold dust that they washed from the Andean streams +and stored in quills and bags against his coming. It was a profitable business, +and Señor Armstrong expected soon to be able to purchase the coffee plantation +that he coveted. +</p> + +<p> +Armstrong stood on the narrow sidewalk, exchanging garbled Spanish with old +Peralto, the rich native merchant who had just charged him four prices for half +a gross of pot-metal hatchets, and abridged English with Rucker, the little +German who was Consul for the United States. +</p> + +<p> +“Take with you, señor,” said Peralto, “the blessings of the +saints upon your journey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better try quinine,” growled Rucker through his pipe. “Take +two grains every night. And don’t make your trip too long, Johnny, +because we haf needs of you. It is ein villainous game dot Melville play of +whist, and dere is no oder substitute. <i>Auf wiedersehen</i>, und keep your +eyes dot mule’s ears between when you on der edge of der brecipices +ride.” +</p> + +<p> +The bells of Luis’s mule jingled and the pack train filed after the +warning note. Armstrong, waved a good-bye and took his place at the tail of the +procession. Up the narrow street they turned, and passed the two-story wooden +Hotel Ingles, where Ives and Dawson and Richards and the rest of the chaps were +dawdling on the broad piazza, reading week-old newspapers. They crowded to the +railing and shouted many friendly and wise and foolish farewells after him. +Across the plaza they trotted slowly past the bronze statue of Guzman Blanco, +within its fence of bayoneted rifles captured from revolutionists, and out of +the town between the rows of thatched huts swarming with the unclothed youth of +Macuto. They plunged into the damp coolness of banana groves at length to +emerge upon a bright stream, where brown women in scant raiment laundered +clothes destructively upon the rocks. Then the pack train, fording the stream, +attacked the sudden ascent, and bade adieu to such civilization as the coast +afforded. +</p> + +<p> +For weeks Armstrong, guided by Luis, followed his regular route among the +mountains. After he had collected an arroba of the precious metal, winning a +profit of nearly $5,000, the heads of the lightened mules were turned +down-trail again. Where the head of the Guarico River springs from a great gash +in the mountain-side, Luis halted the train. +</p> + +<p> +“Half a day’s journey from here, Señor,” said he, “is +the village of Tacuzama, which we have never visited. I think many ounces of +gold may be procured there. It is worth the trial.” +</p> + +<p> +Armstrong concurred, and they turned again upward toward Tacuzama. The trail +was abrupt and precipitous, mounting through a dense forest. As night fell, +dark and gloomy, Luis once more halted. Before them was a black chasm, +bisecting the path as far as they could see. +</p> + +<p> +Luis dismounted. “There should be a bridge,” he called, and ran +along the cleft a distance. “It is here,” he cried, and remounting, +led the way. In a few moments Armstrong, heard a sound as though a thunderous +drum were beating somewhere in the dark. It was the falling of the mules’ +hoofs upon the bridge made of strong hides lashed to poles and stretched across +the chasm. Half a mile further was Tacuzama. The village was a congregation of +rock and mud huts set in the profundity of an obscure wood. As they rode in a +sound inconsistent with that brooding solitude met their ears. From a long, low +mud hut that they were nearing rose the glorious voice of a woman in song. The +words were English, the air familiar to Armstrong’s memory, but not to +his musical knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +He slipped from his mule and stole to a narrow window in one end of the house. +Peering cautiously inside, he saw, within three feet of him, a woman of +marvellous, imposing beauty, clothed in a splendid loose robe of leopard skins. +The hut was packed close to the small space in which she stood with the +squatting figures of Indians. +</p> + +<p> +The woman finished her song and seated herself close to the little window, as +if grateful for the unpolluted air that entered it. When she had ceased several +of the audience rose and cast little softly-falling bags at her feet. A harsh +murmur—no doubt a barbarous kind of applause and comment—went +through the grim assembly. +</p> + +<p> +Armstrong, was used to seizing opportunities promptly. Taking advantage of the +noise he called to the woman in a low but distinct voice: “Do not turn +your head this way, but listen. I am an American. If you need assistance tell +me how I can render it. Answer as briefly as you can.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman was worthy of his boldness. Only by a sudden flush of her pale cheek +did she acknowledge understanding of his words. Then she spoke, scarcely moving +her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“I am held a prisoner by these Indians. God knows I need help. In two +hours come to the little hut twenty yards toward the Mountainside. There will +be a light and a red curtain in the window. There is always a guard at the +door, whom you will have to overcome. For the love of heaven, do not fail to +come.” +</p> + +<p> +The story seems to shrink from adventure and rescue and mystery. The theme is +one too gentle for those brave and quickening tones. And yet it reaches as far +back as time itself. It has been named “environment,” which is as +weak a word as any to express the unnameable kinship of man to nature, that +queer fraternity that causes stones and trees and salt water and clouds to play +upon our emotions. Why are we made serious and solemn and sublime by mountain +heights, grave and contemplative by an abundance of overhanging trees, reduced +to inconstancy and monkey capers by the ripples on a sandy beach? Did the +protoplasm—but enough. The chemists are looking into the matter, and +before long they will have all life in the table of the symbols. +</p> + +<p> +Briefly, then, in order to confine the story within scientific bounds, John +Armstrong, went to the hut, choked the Indian guard and carried away Mlle. +Giraud. With her was also conveyed a number of pounds of gold dust she had +collected during her six months’ forced engagement in Tacuzama. The +Carabobo Indians are easily the most enthusiastic lovers of music between the +equator and the French Opera House in New Orleans. They are also strong +believers that the advice of Emerson was good when he said: “The thing +thou wantest, O discontented man —take it, and pay the price.” A +number of them had attended the performance of the Alcazar Opera Company in +Macuto, and found Mlle. Giraud’s style and technique satisfactory. They +wanted her, so they took her one evening suddenly and without any fuss. They +treated her with much consideration, exacting only one song recital each day. +She was quite pleased at being rescued by Mr. Armstrong. So much for mystery +and adventure. Now to resume the theory of the protoplasm. +</p> + +<p> +John Armstrong and Mlle. Giraud rode among the Andean peaks, enveloped in their +greatness and sublimity. The mightiest cousins, furthest removed, in +nature’s great family become conscious of the tie. Among those huge piles +of primordial upheaval, amid those gigantic silences and elongated fields of +distance the littlenesses of men are precipitated as one chemical throws down a +sediment from another. They moved reverently, as in a temple. Their souls were +uplifted in unison with the stately heights. They travelled in a zone of +majesty and peace. +</p> + +<p> +To Armstrong the woman seemed almost a holy thing. Yet bathed in the white, +still dignity of her martyrdom that purified her earthly beauty and gave out, +it seemed, an aura of transcendent loveliness, in those first hours of +companionship she drew from him an adoration that was half human love, half the +worship of a descended goddess. +</p> + +<p> +Never yet since her rescue had she smiled. Over her dress she still wore the +robe of leopard skins, for the mountain air was cold. She looked to be some +splendid princess belonging to those wild and awesome altitudes. The spirit of +the region chimed with hers. Her eyes were always turned upon the sombre +cliffs, the blue gorges and the snow-clad turrets, looking a sublime melancholy +equal to their own. At times on the journey she sang thrilling te deums and +misereres that struck the true note of the hills, and made their route seem +like a solemn march down a cathedral aisle. The rescued one spoke but seldom, +her mood partaking of the hush of nature that surrounded them. Armstrong looked +upon her as an angel. He could not bring himself to the sacrilege of attempting +to woo her as other women may be wooed. +</p> + +<p> +On the third day they had descended as far as the <i>tierra templada</i>, the +zona of the table lands and foot hills. The mountains were receding in their +rear, but still towered, exhibiting yet impressively their formidable heads. +Here they met signs of man. They saw the white houses of coffee plantations +gleam across the clearings. They struck into a road where they met travellers +and pack-mules. Cattle were grazing on the slopes. They passed a little village +where the round-eyed <i>niños</i> shrieked and called at sight of them. +</p> + +<p> +Mlle. Giraud laid aside her leopard-skin robe. It seemed to be a trifle +incongruous now. In the mountains it had appeared fitting and natural. And if +Armstrong was not mistaken she laid aside with it something of the high dignity +of her demeanour. As the country became more populous and significant of +comfortable life he saw, with a feeling of joy, that the exalted princess and +priestess of the Andean peaks was changing to a woman—an earth woman, but +no less enticing. A little colour crept to the surface of her marble cheek. She +arranged the conventional dress that the removal of the robe now disclosed with +the solicitous touch of one who is conscious of the eyes of others. She +smoothed the careless sweep of her hair. A mundane interest, long latent in the +chilling atmosphere of the ascetic peaks, showed in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +This thaw in his divinity sent Armstrong’s heart going faster. So might +an Arctic explorer thrill at his first ken of green fields and liquescent +waters. They were on a lower plane of earth and life and were succumbing to its +peculiar, subtle influence. The austerity of the hills no longer thinned the +air they breathed. About them was the breath of fruit and corn and builded +homes, the comfortable smell of smoke and warm earth and the consolations man +has placed between himself and the dust of his brother earth from which he +sprung. While traversing those awful mountains, Mlle. Giraud had seemed to be +wrapped in their spirit of reverent reserve. Was this that same woman—now +palpitating, warm, eager, throbbing with conscious life and charm, feminine to +her finger-tips? Pondering over this, Armstrong felt certain misgivings intrude +upon his thoughts. He wished he could stop there with this changing creature, +descending no farther. Here was the elevation and environment to which her +nature seemed to respond with its best. He feared to go down upon the +man-dominated levels. Would her spirit not yield still further in that +artificial zone to which they were descending? +</p> + +<p> +Now from a little plateau they saw the sea flash at the edge of the green +lowlands. Mlle. Giraud gave a little, catching sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! look, Mr. Armstrong, there is the sea! Isn’t it lovely? +I’m so tired of mountains.” She heaved a pretty shoulder in a +gesture of repugnance. “Those horrid Indians! Just think of what I +suffered! Although I suppose I attained my ambition of becoming a stellar +attraction, I wouldn’t care to repeat the engagement. It was very nice of +you to bring me away. Tell me, Mr. Armstrong—honestly, now —do I +look such an awful, awful fright? I haven’t looked into a mirror, you +know, for months.” +</p> + +<p> +Armstrong made answer according to his changed moods. Also he laid his hand +upon hers as it rested upon the horn of her saddle. Luis was at the head of the +pack train and could not see. She allowed it to remain there, and her eyes +smiled frankly into his. +</p> + +<p> +Then at sundown they dropped upon the coast level under the palms and lemons +among the vivid greens and scarlets and ochres of the <i>tierra caliente</i>. +They rode into Macuto, and saw the line of volatile bathers frolicking in the +surf. The mountains were very far away. +</p> + +<p> +Mlle. Giraud’s eyes were shining with a joy that could not have existed +under the chaperonage of the mountain-tops. There were other spirits calling to +her—nymphs of the orange groves, pixies from the chattering surf, imps, +born of the music, the perfumes, colours and the insinuating presence of +humanity. She laughed aloud, musically, at a sudden thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t there be a sensation?” she called to Armstrong. +“Don’t I wish I had an engagement just now, though! What a picnic +the press agent would have! ‘Held a prisoner by a band of savage Indians +subdued by the spell of her wonderful voice’—wouldn’t that +make great stuff? But I guess I quit the game winner, anyhow—there ought +to be a couple of thousand dollars in that sack of gold dust I collected as +encores, don’t you think?” +</p> + +<p> +He left her at the door of the little Hotel de Buen Descansar, where she had +stopped before. Two hours later he returned to the hotel. He glanced in at the +open door of the little combined reception room and café. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Half a dozen of Macuto’s representative social and official +<i>caballeros</i> were distributed about the room. Señor Villablanca, the +wealthy rubber concessionist, reposed his fat figure on two chairs, with an +emollient smile beaming upon his chocolate-coloured face. Guilbert, the French +mining engineer, leered through his polished nose-glasses. Colonel Mendez, of +the regular army, in gold-laced uniform and fatuous grin, was busily extracting +corks from champagne bottles. Other patterns of Macutian gallantry and fashion +pranced and posed. The air was hazy with cigarette smoke. Wine dripped upon the +floor. +</p> + +<p> +Perched upon a table in the centre of the room in an attitude of easy +preëminence was Mlle. Giraud. A chic costume of white lawn and cherry ribbons +supplanted her travelling garb. There was a suggestion of lace, and a frill or +two, with a discreet, small implication of hand-embroidered pink hosiery. Upon +her lap rested a guitar. In her face was the light of resurrection, the peace +of elysium attained through fire and suffering. She was singing to a lively +accompaniment a little song: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“When you see de big round moon<br> +Comin’ up like a balloon,<br> +Dis nigger skips fur to kiss de lips<br> +Ob his stylish, black-faced coon.” +</p> + +<p> +The singer caught sight of Armstrong. +</p> + +<p> +“Hi! there, Johnny,” she called; “I’ve been expecting +you for an hour. What kept you? Gee! but these smoked guys are the slowest you +ever saw. They ain’t on, at all. Come along in, and I’ll make this +coffee-coloured old sport with the gold epaulettes open one for you right off +the ice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Armstrong; “not just now, I believe. +I’ve several things to attend to.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked out and down the street, and met Rucker coming up from the Consulate. +</p> + +<p> +“Play you a game of billiards,” said Armstrong. “I want +something to take the taste of the sea level out of my mouth.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI<br> +“GIRL”</h2> + +<p> +In gilt letters on the ground glass of the door of room No. 962 were the words: +“Robbins & Hartley, Brokers.” The clerks had gone. It was past +five, and with the solid tramp of a drove of prize Percherons, scrub-women were +invading the cloud-capped twenty-story office building. A puff of red-hot air +flavoured with lemon peelings, soft-coal smoke and train oil came in through +the half-open windows. +</p> + +<p> +Robbins, fifty, something of an overweight beau, and addicted to first nights +and hotel palm-rooms, pretended to be envious of his partner’s +commuter’s joys. +</p> + +<p> +“Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night,” he +said. “You out-of-town chaps will be the people, with your katydids and +moonlight and long drinks and things out on the front porch.” +</p> + +<p> +Hartley, twenty-nine, serious, thin, good-looking, nervous, sighed and frowned +a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said he, “we always have cool nights in Floralhurst, +especially in the winter.” +</p> + +<p> +A man with an air of mystery came in the door and went up to Hartley. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve found where she lives,” he announced in the portentous +half-whisper that makes the detective at work a marked being to his fellow men. +</p> + +<p> +Hartley scowled him into a state of dramatic silence and quietude. But by that +time Robbins had got his cane and set his tie pin to his liking, and with a +debonair nod went out to his metropolitan amusements. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is the address,” said the detective in a natural tone, being +deprived of an audience to foil. +</p> + +<p> +Hartley took the leaf torn out of the sleuth’s dingy memorandum book. On +it were pencilled the words “Vivienne Arlington, No. 341 East +––––th Street, care of Mrs. McComus.” +</p> + +<p> +“Moved there a week ago,” said the detective. “Now, if you +want any shadowing done, Mr. Hartley, I can do you as fine a job in that line +as anybody in the city. It will be only $7 a day and expenses. Can send in a +daily typewritten report, covering—” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t go on,” interrupted the broker. “It +isn’t a case of that kind. I merely wanted the address. How much shall I +pay you?” +</p> + +<p> +“One day’s work,” said the sleuth. “A tenner will cover +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Hartley paid the man and dismissed him. Then he left the office and boarded a +Broadway car. At the first large crosstown artery of travel he took an +eastbound car that deposited him in a decaying avenue, whose ancient structures +once sheltered the pride and glory of the town. +</p> + +<p> +Walking a few squares, he came to the building that he sought. It was a new +flathouse, bearing carved upon its cheap stone portal its sonorous name, +“The Vallambrosa.” Fire-escapes zigzagged down its +front—these laden with household goods, drying clothes, and squalling +children evicted by the midsummer heat. Here and there a pale rubber plant +peeped from the miscellaneous mass, as if wondering to what kingdom it +belonged—vegetable, animal or artificial. +</p> + +<p> +Hartley pressed the “McComus” button. The door latch clicked +spasmodically—now hospitably, now doubtfully, as though in anxiety +whether it might be admitting friends or duns. Hartley entered and began to +climb the stairs after the manner of those who seek their friends in city +flat-houses—which is the manner of a boy who climbs an apple-tree, +stopping when he comes upon what he wants. +</p> + +<p> +On the fourth floor he saw Vivienne standing in an open door. She invited him +inside, with a nod and a bright, genuine smile. She placed a chair for him near +a window, and poised herself gracefully upon the edge of one of those +Jekyll-and-Hyde pieces of furniture that are masked and mysteriously hooded, +unguessable bulks by day and inquisitorial racks of torture by night. +</p> + +<p> +Hartley cast a quick, critical, appreciative glance at her before speaking, and +told himself that his taste in choosing had been flawless. +</p> + +<p> +Vivienne was about twenty-one. She was of the purest Saxon type. Her hair was a +ruddy golden, each filament of the neatly gathered mass shining with its own +lustre and delicate graduation of colour. In perfect harmony were her +ivory-clear complexion and deep sea-blue eyes that looked upon the world with +the ingenuous calmness of a mermaid or the pixie of an undiscovered mountain +stream. Her frame was strong and yet possessed the grace of absolute +naturalness. And yet with all her Northern clearness and frankness of line and +colouring, there seemed to be something of the tropics in her—something +of languor in the droop of her pose, of love of ease in her ingenious +complacency of satisfaction and comfort in the mere act of +breathing—something that seemed to claim for her a right as a perfect +work of nature to exist and be admired equally with a rare flower or some +beautiful, milk-white dove among its sober-hued companions. +</p> + +<p> +She was dressed in a white waist and dark skirt—that discreet masquerade +of goose-girl and duchess. +</p> + +<p> +“Vivienne,” said Hartley, looking at her pleadingly, “you did +not answer my last letter. It was only by nearly a week’s search that I +found where you had moved to. Why have you kept me in suspense when you knew +how anxiously I was waiting to see you and hear from you?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl looked out the window dreamily. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Hartley,” she said hesitatingly, “I hardly know what to +say to you. I realize all the advantages of your offer, and sometimes I feel +sure that I could be contented with you. But, again, I am doubtful. I was born +a city girl, and I am afraid to bind myself to a quiet suburban life.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear girl,” said Hartley, ardently, “have I not told you +that you shall have everything that your heart can desire that is in my power +to give you? You shall come to the city for the theatres, for shopping and to +visit your friends as often as you care to. You can trust me, can you +not?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the fullest,” she said, turning her frank eyes upon him with a +smile. “I know you are the kindest of men, and that the girl you get will +be a lucky one. I learned all about you when I was at the +Montgomerys’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” exclaimed Hartley, with a tender, reminiscent light in his +eye; “I remember well the evening I first saw you at the +Montgomerys’. Mrs. Montgomery was sounding your praises to me all the +evening. And she hardly did you justice. I shall never forget that supper. +Come, Vivienne, promise me. I want you. You’ll never regret coming with +me. No one else will ever give you as pleasant a home.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl sighed and looked down at her folded hands. +</p> + +<p> +A sudden jealous suspicion seized Hartley. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Vivienne,” he asked, regarding her keenly, “is +there another—is there some one else?” +</p> + +<p> +A rosy flush crept slowly over her fair cheeks and neck. +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t ask that, Mr. Hartley,” she said, in some +confusion. “But I will tell you. There is one other—but he has no +right—I have promised him nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“His name?” demanded Hartley, sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“Townsend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rafford Townsend!” exclaimed Hartley, with a grim tightening of +his jaw. “How did that man come to know you? After all I’ve done +for him—” +</p> + +<p> +“His auto has just stopped below,” said Vivienne, bending over the +window-sill. “He’s coming for his answer. Oh I don’t know +what to do!” +</p> + +<p> +The bell in the flat kitchen whirred. Vivienne hurried to press the latch +button. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay here,” said Hartley. “I will meet him in the +hall.” +</p> + +<p> +Townsend, looking like a Spanish grandee in his light tweeds, Panama hat and +curling black mustache, came up the stairs three at a time. He stopped at sight +of Hartley and looked foolish. +</p> + +<p> +“Go back,” said Hartley, firmly, pointing downstairs with his +forefinger. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said Townsend, feigning surprise. “What’s up? +What are you doing here, old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go back,” repeated Hartley, inflexibly. “The Law of the +Jungle. Do you want the Pack to tear you in pieces? The kill is mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I came here to see a plumber about the bathroom connections,” said +Townsend, bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Hartley. “You shall have that lying plaster +to stick upon your traitorous soul. But, go back.” Townsend went +downstairs, leaving a bitter word to be wafted up the draught of the staircase. +Hartley went back to his wooing. +</p> + +<p> +“Vivienne,” said he, masterfully. “I have got to have you. I +will take no more refusals or dilly-dallying.” +</p> + +<p> +“When do you want me?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Now. As soon as you can get ready.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood calmly before him and looked him in the eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think for one moment,” she said, “that I would enter +your home while Héloise is there?” +</p> + +<p> +Hartley cringed as if from an unexpected blow. He folded his arms and paced the +carpet once or twice. +</p> + +<p> +“She shall go,” he declared grimly. Drops stood upon his brow. +“Why should I let that woman make my life miserable? Never have I seen +one day of freedom from trouble since I have known her. You are right, +Vivienne. Héloise must be sent away before I can take you home. But she shall +go. I have decided. I will turn her from my doors.” +</p> + +<p> +“When will you do this?” asked the girl. +</p> + +<p> +Hartley clinched his teeth and bent his brows together. +</p> + +<p> +“To-night,” he said, resolutely. “I will send her away +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Vivienne, “my answer is ‘yes.’ Come +for me when you will.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked into his eyes with a sweet, sincere light in her own. Hartley could +scarcely believe that her surrender was true, it was so swift and complete. +</p> + +<p> +“Promise me,” he said feelingly, “on your word and +honour.” +</p> + +<p> +“On my word and honour,” repeated Vivienne, softly. +</p> + +<p> +At the door he turned and gazed at her happily, but yet as one who scarcely +trusts the foundations of his joy. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow,” he said, with a forefinger of reminder uplifted. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow,” she repeated with a smile of truth and candour. +</p> + +<p> +In an hour and forty minutes Hartley stepped off the train at Floralhurst. A +brisk walk of ten minutes brought him to the gate of a handsome two-story +cottage set upon a wide and well-tended lawn. Halfway to the house he was met +by a woman with jet-black braided hair and flowing white summer gown, who half +strangled him without apparent cause. +</p> + +<p> +When they stepped into the hall she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma’s here. The auto is coming for her in half an hour. She came +to dinner, but there’s no dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve something to tell you,” said Hartley. “I thought +to break it to you gently, but since your mother is here we may as well out +with it.” +</p> + +<p> +He stooped and whispered something at her ear. +</p> + +<p> +His wife screamed. Her mother came running into the hall. The dark-haired woman +screamed again—the joyful scream of a well-beloved and petted woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mamma!” she cried ecstatically, “what do you think? +Vivienne is coming to cook for us! She is the one that stayed with the +Montgomerys a whole year. And now, Billy, dear,” she concluded, +“you must go right down into the kitchen and discharge Héloise. She has +been drunk again the whole day long.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII<br> +SOCIOLOGY IN SERGE AND STRAW</h2> + +<p> +The season of irresponsibility is at hand. Come, let us twine round our brows +wreaths of poison ivy (that is for idiocy), and wander hand in hand with +sociology in the summer fields. +</p> + +<p> +Likely as not the world is flat. The wise men have tried to prove that it is +round, with indifferent success. They pointed out to us a ship going to sea, +and bade us observe that, at length, the convexity of the earth hid from our +view all but the vessel’s topmast. But we picked up a telescope and +looked, and saw the decks and hull again. Then the wise men said: “Oh, +pshaw! anyhow, the variation of the intersection of the equator and the +ecliptic proves it.” We could not see this through our telescope, so we +remained silent. But it stands to reason that, if the world were round, the +queues of Chinamen would stand straight up from their heads instead of hanging +down their backs, as travellers assure us they do. +</p> + +<p> +Another hot-weather corroboration of the flat theory is the fact that all of +life, as we know it, moves in little, unavailing circles. More justly than to +anything else, it can be likened to the game of baseball. Crack! we hit the +ball, and away we go. If we earn a run (in life we call it success) we get back +to the home plate and sit upon a bench. If we are thrown out, we walk back to +the home plate—and sit upon a bench. +</p> + +<p> +The circumnavigators of the alleged globe may have sailed the rim of a watery +circle back to the same port again. The truly great return at the high tide of +their attainments to the simplicity of a child. The billionaire sits down at +his mahogany to his bowl of bread and milk. When you reach the end of your +career, just take down the sign “Goal” and look at the other side +of it. You will find “Beginning Point” there. It has been reversed +while you were going around the track. +</p> + +<p> +But this is humour, and must be stopped. Let us get back to the serious +questions that arise whenever Sociology turns summer boarder. You are invited +to consider the scene of the story—wild, Atlantic waves, thundering +against a wooded and rock-bound shore—in the Greater City of New York. +</p> + +<p> +The town of Fishampton, on the south shore of Long Island, is noted for its +clam fritters and the summer residence of the Van Plushvelts. +</p> + +<p> +The Van Plushvelts have a hundred million dollars, and their name is a +household word with tradesmen and photographers. +</p> + +<p> +On the fifteenth of June the Van Plushvelts boarded up the front door of their +city house, carefully deposited their cat on the sidewalk, instructed the +caretaker not to allow it to eat any of the ivy on the walls, and whizzed away +in a 40-horse-power to Fishampton to stray alone in the shade—Amaryllis +not being in their class. If you are a subscriber to the <i>Toadies’ +Magazine</i>, you have often—You say you are not? Well, you buy it at a +news-stand, thinking that the newsdealer is not wise to you. But he knows about +it all. HE knows—HE knows! I say that you have often seen in the +<i>Toadies’ Magazine</i> pictures of the Van Plushvelts’ summer +home; so it will not be described here. Our business is with young Haywood Van +Plushvelt, sixteen years old, heir to the century of millions, darling of the +financial gods and great grandson of Peter Van Plushvelt, former owner of a +particularly fine cabbage patch that has been ruined by an intrusive lot of +downtown skyscrapers. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon young Haywood Van Plushvelt strolled out between the granite gate +posts of “Dolce far Niente”—that’s what they called the +place; and it was an improvement on dolce Far Rockaway, I can tell you. +</p> + +<p> +Haywood walked down into the village. He was human, after all, and his +prospective millions weighed upon him. Wealth had wreaked upon him its +direfullest. He was the product of private tutors. Even under his first +hobby-horse had tan bark been strewn. He had been born with a gold spoon, +lobster fork and fish-set in his mouth. For which I hope, later, to submit +justification, I must ask your consideration of his haberdashery and tailoring. +</p> + +<p> +Young Fortunatus was dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat, white +straw hat, neat low-cut tan shoes, of the well-known “immaculate” +trade mark, a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, neat, +bamboo cane. +</p> + +<p> +Down Persimmon Street (there’s never tree north of Hagerstown, Md.) came +from the village “Smoky” Dodson, fifteen and a half, worst boy in +Fishampton. “Smoky” was dressed in a ragged red sweater, wrecked +and weather-worn golf cap, run-over shoes, and trousers of the +“serviceable” brand. Dust, clinging to the moisture induced by free +exercise, darkened wide areas of his face. “Smoky” carried a +baseball bat, and a league ball that advertised itself in the rotundity of his +trousers pocket. Haywood stopped and passed the time of day. +</p> + +<p> +“Going to play ball?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky’s” eyes and countenance confronted him with a frank +blue-and-freckled scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” he said, with deadly mildness; “sure not. Can’t +you see I’ve got a divin’ suit on? I’m goin’ up in a +submarine balloon to catch butterflies with a two-inch auger. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” said Haywood, with the insulting politeness of his +caste, “for mistaking you for a gentleman. I might have known +better.” +</p> + +<p> +“How might you have known better if you thought I was one?” said +“Smoky,” unconsciously a logician. +</p> + +<p> +“By your appearance,” said Haywood. “No gentleman is dirty, +ragged and a liar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” hooted once like a ferry-boat, spat on his hand, got a firm +grip on his baseball bat and then dropped it against the fence. +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” said he, “I knows you. You’re the pup that +belongs in that swell private summer sanitarium for city-guys over there. I +seen you come out of the gate. You can’t bluff nobody because +you’re rich. And because you got on swell clothes. Arabella! Yah!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ragamuffin!” said Haywood. +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” picked up a fence-rail splinter and laid it on his +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Dare you to knock it off,” he challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t soil my hands with you,” said the aristocrat. +</p> + +<p> +“’Fraid,” said “Smoky” concisely. “Youse +city-ducks ain’t got the sand. I kin lick you with one-hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to have any trouble with you,” said Haywood. +“I asked you a civil question; and you replied, like a—like +a—a cad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s a cad?” asked “Smoky.” +</p> + +<p> +“A cad is a disagreeable person,” answered Haywood, “who +lacks manners and doesn’t know his place. They sometimes play +baseball.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can tell you what a mollycoddle is,” said “Smoky.” +“It’s a monkey dressed up by its mother and sent out to pick +daisies on the lawn.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you have the honour to refer to the members of my family,” +said Haywood, with some dim ideas of a code in his mind, “you’d +better leave the ladies out of your remarks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ho! ladies!” mocked the rude one. “I say ladies! I know what +them rich women in the city does. They drink cocktails and swear and give +parties to gorillas. The papers say so.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Haywood knew that it must be. He took off his coat, folded it neatly and +laid it on the roadside grass, placed his hat upon it and began to unknot his +blue silk tie. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t yer better ring fer yer maid, Arabella?” taunted +“Smoky.” “Wot yer going to do—go to bed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to give you a good trouncing,” said the hero. He +did not hesitate, although the enemy was far beneath him socially. He +remembered that his father once thrashed a cabman, and the papers gave it two +columns, first page. And the <i>Toadies’ Magazine</i> had a special +article on Upper Cuts by the Upper Classes, and ran new pictures of the Van +Plushvelt country seat, at Fishampton. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s trouncing?” asked “Smoky,” suspiciously. +“I don’t want your old clothes. I’m no—oh, you mean to +scrap! My, my! I won’t do a thing to mamma’s pet. Criminy! +I’d hate to be a hand-laundered thing like you. +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” waited with some awkwardness for his adversary to prepare +for battle. His own decks were always clear for action. When he should spit +upon the palm of his terrible right it was equivalent to “You may fire +now, Gridley.” +</p> + +<p> +The hated patrician advanced, with his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up. +“Smoky” waited, in an attitude of ease, expecting the affair to be +conducted according to Fishampton’s rules of war. These allowed combat to +be prefaced by stigma, recrimination, epithet, abuse and insult gradually +increasing in emphasis and degree. After a round of these “you’re +anothers” would come the chip knocked from the shoulder, or the advance +across the “dare” line drawn with a toe on the ground. Next light +taps given and taken, these also increasing in force until finally the blood +was up and fists going at their best. +</p> + +<p> +But Haywood did not know Fishampton’s rules. Noblesse oblige kept a faint +smile on his face as he walked slowly up to “Smoky” and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Going to play ball?” +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” quickly understood this to be a putting of the previous +question, giving him the chance to make practical apology by answering it with +civility and relevance. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen this time,” said he. “I’m goin’ +skatin’ on the river. Don’t you see me automobile with Chinese +lanterns on it standin’ and waitin’ for me?” +</p> + +<p> +Haywood knocked him down. +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” felt wronged. To thus deprive him of preliminary wrangle +and objurgation was to send an armoured knight full tilt against a crashing +lance without permitting him first to caracole around the list to the flourish +of trumpets. But he scrambled up and fell upon his foe, head, feet and fists. +</p> + +<p> +The fight lasted one round of an hour and ten minutes. It was lengthened until +it was more like a war or a family feud than a fight. Haywood had learned some +of the science of boxing and wrestling from his tutors, but these he discarded +for the more instinctive methods of battle handed down by the cave-dwelling Van +Plushvelts. +</p> + +<p> +So, when he found himself, during the mêlée, seated upon the kicking and +roaring “Smoky’s” chest, he improved the opportunity by +vigorously kneading handfuls of sand and soil into his adversary’s ears, +eyes and mouth, and when “Smoky” got the proper leg hold and +“turned” him, he fastened both hands in the Plushvelt hair and +pounded the Plushvelt head against the lap of mother earth. Of course, the +strife was not incessantly active. There were seasons when one sat upon the +other, holding him down, while each blew like a grampus, spat out the more +inconveniently large sections of gravel and earth, and strove to subdue the +spirit of his opponent with a frightful and soul-paralyzing glare. +</p> + +<p> +At last, it seemed that in the language of the ring, their efforts lacked +steam. They broke away, and each disappeared in a cloud as he brushed away the +dust of the conflict. As soon as his breath permitted, Haywood walked close to +“Smoky” and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Going to play ball?” +</p> + +<p> +“Smoky” looked pensively at the sky, at his bat lying on the +ground, and at the “leaguer” rounding his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” he said, offhandedly. “The +‘Yellowjackets’ plays the ‘Long Islands.’ I’m +cap’n of the ‘Long Islands.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I didn’t mean to say you were ragged,” said Haywood. +“But you are dirty, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said “Smoky.” “Yer get that way +knockin’ around. Say, I don’t believe them New York papers about +ladies drinkin’ and havin’ monkeys dinin’ at the table with +’em. I guess they’re lies, like they print about people +eatin’ out of silver plates, and ownin’ dogs that cost $100.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Haywood. “What do you play on your +team?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ketcher. Ever play any?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never in my life,” said Haywood. “I’ve never known any +fellows except one or two of my cousins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jer like to learn? We’re goin’ to have a practice-game +before the match. Wanter come along? I’ll put yer in left-field, and yer +won’t be long ketchin’ on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like it bully,” said Haywood. “I’ve always +wanted to play baseball.” +</p> + +<p> +The ladies’ maids of New York and the families of Western mine owners +with social ambitions will remember well the sensation that was created by the +report that the young multi-millionaire, Haywood Van Plushvelt, was playing +ball with the village youths of Fishampton. It was conceded that the millennium +of democracy had come. Reporters and photographers swarmed to the island. The +papers printed half-page pictures of him as short-stop stopping a hot grounder. +The <i>Toadies’ Magazine</i> got out a Bat and Ball number that covered +the subject historically, beginning with the vampire bat and ending with the +Patriarchs’ ball—illustrated with interior views of the Van +Plushvelt country seat. Ministers, educators and sociologists everywhere hailed +the event as the tocsin call that proclaimed the universal brotherhood of man. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon I was reclining under the trees near the shore at Fishampton in +the esteemed company of an eminent, bald-headed young sociologist. By way of +note it may be inserted that all sociologists are more or less bald, and +exactly thirty-two. Look ’em over. +</p> + +<p> +The sociologist was citing the Van Plushvelt case as the most important +“uplift” symptom of a generation, and as an excuse for his own +existence. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately before us were the village baseball grounds. And now came the +sportive youth of Fishampton and distributed themselves, shouting, about the +diamond. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” said the sociologist, pointing, “there is young Van +Plushvelt.” +</p> + +<p> +I raised myself (so far a cosycophant with Mary Ann) and gazed. +</p> + +<p> +Young Van Plushvelt sat upon the ground. He was dressed in a ragged red +sweater, wrecked and weather-worn golf cap, run-over shoes, and trousers of the +“serviceable” brand. Dust clinging to the moisture induced by free +exercise, darkened wide areas of his face. +</p> + +<p> +“That is he,” repeated the sociologist. If he had said +“him” I could have been less vindictive. +</p> + +<p> +On a bench, with an air, sat the young millionaire’s chum. +</p> + +<p> +He was dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat white straw hat, neat +low-cut tan shoes, linen of the well-known “immaculate” trade mark, +a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, neat bamboo cane. +</p> + +<p> +I laughed loudly and vulgarly. +</p> + +<p> +“What you want to do,” said I to the sociologist, “is to +establish a reformatory for the Logical Vicious Circle. Or else I’ve got +wheels. It looks to me as if things are running round and round in circles +instead of getting anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” asked the man of progress. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, look what he has done to ‘Smoky’,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“You will always be a fool,” said my friend, the sociologist, +getting up and walking away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII<br> +THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF</h2> + +<p> +It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in +Alabama—Bill Driscoll and myself—when this kidnapping idea struck +us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, “during a moment of temporary +mental apparition”; but we didn’t find that out till later. +</p> + +<p> +There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of +course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class +of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole. +</p> + +<p> +Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed +just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in +Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. +Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore +and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in +the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up +talk about such things. We knew that Summit couldn’t get after us with +anything stronger than constables and maybe some lackadaisical bloodhounds and +a diatribe or two in the <i>Weekly Farmers’ Budget</i>. So, it looked +good. +</p> + +<p> +We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer +Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, +upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with +bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy +at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that +Ebenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But +wait till I tell you. +</p> + +<p> +About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar +brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored +provisions. One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old +Dorset’s house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on +the opposite fence. +</p> + +<p> +“Hey, little boy!” says Bill, “would you like to have a bag +of candy and a nice ride?” +</p> + +<p> +The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick. +</p> + +<p> +“That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars,” says +Bill, climbing over the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we +got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the +cave and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy +to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back +to the mountain. +</p> + +<p> +Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. +There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and +the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tail-feathers +stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says: +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the +terror of the plains? +</p> + +<p> +“He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his trousers and +examining some bruises on his shins. “We’re playing Indian. +We’re making Buffalo Bill’s show look like magic-lantern views of +Palestine in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s +captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can +kick hard.” +</p> + +<p> +Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping +out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately +christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned +from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, +and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this: +</p> + +<p> +“I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet +’possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats +ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. +Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the +trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so +red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker +twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dassent catch toads unless with +a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to +sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a +monkey or a fish can’t. How many does it take to make twelve?” +</p> + +<p> +Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up +his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of +the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old +Hank the Trapper shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start. +</p> + +<p> +“Red Chief,” says I to the kid, “would you like to go +home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t have any fun at home. +I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home +again, Snake-eye, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave +a while.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had +such fun in all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide blankets +and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid he’d run +away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle +and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in mine and Bill’s ears, as the +fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young +imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a +troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by +a ferocious pirate with red hair. +</p> + +<p> +Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They +weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as +you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs—they were simply +indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see +ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, +fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak. +</p> + +<p> +I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s +chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other he had the sharp +case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and +realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according to the sentence that +had been pronounced upon him the evening before. +</p> + +<p> +I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that +moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, +but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I +dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had +said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t +nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock. +</p> + +<p> +“What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill. +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” says I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I +thought sitting up would rest it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You +was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, +too, if he could find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody +will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that +parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go +up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.” +</p> + +<p> +I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous +vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the +village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the +dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one +man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers +dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. +There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of +the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. +“Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered +that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help +the wolves!” says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing +hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a +cocoanut. +</p> + +<p> +“He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,” explained Bill, +“and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a +gun about you, Sam?” +</p> + +<p> +I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. +“I’ll fix you,” says the kid to Bill. “No man ever yet +struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!” +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it +out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s he up to now?” says Bill, anxiously. “You +don’t think he’ll run away, do you, Sam?” +</p> + +<p> +“No fear of it,” says I. “He don’t seem to be much of a +home body. But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There +don’t seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his +disappearance; but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. +His folks may think he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the +neighbours. Anyhow, he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a +message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then we heard a kind Of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when +he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled +out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head. +</p> + +<p> +I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse +gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg +had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell +in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I +dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour. +</p> + +<p> +By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: “Sam, do you +know who my favourite Biblical character is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it easy,” says I. “You’ll come to your senses +presently.” +</p> + +<p> +“King Herod,” says he. “You won’t go away and leave me +here alone, will you, Sam?” +</p> + +<p> +I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t behave,” says I, “I’ll take you +straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was only funning,” says he sullenly. “I didn’t mean +to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if +you won’t send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout +to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know the game,” says I. “That’s for you +and Mr. Bill to decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going +away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and +say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.” +</p> + +<p> +I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was +going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out +what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I +thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, +demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Sam,” says Bill, “I’ve stood by you without +batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood—in poker games, dynamite +outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet +till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me going. +You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be back some time this afternoon,” says I. “You +must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the +letter to old Dorset.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with +a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the +cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars +instead of two thousand. “I ain’t attempting,” says he, +“to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but +we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give +up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. +I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge +the difference up to me.” +</p> + +<p> +So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:</i><br> +<br> + We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for +you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only +terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen +hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight +to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply—as +hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing +by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After +crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees +about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the +right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will +be found a small pasteboard box.<br> + The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to +Summit. <br> + If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, +you will never see your boy again.<br> + If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and +well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to +them no further communication will be attempted. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +T<small>WO</small> D<small>ESPERATE</small> M<small>EN</small>. +</p> + +<p> +I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to +start, the kid comes up to me and says: +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was +gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Play it, of course,” says I. “Mr. Bill will play with you. +What kind of a game is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m the Black Scout,” says Red Chief, “and I have to +ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. +I’m tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” says I. “It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. +Bill will help you foil the pesky savages.” +</p> + +<p> +“What am I to do?” asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands +and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we +get the scheme going. Loosen up.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a +rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap. +</p> + +<p> +“How far is it to the stockade, kid?” he asks, in a husky manner of +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ninety miles,” says the Black Scout. “And you have to hump +yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!” +</p> + +<p> +The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side. +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake,” says Bill, “hurry back, Sam, as +soon as you can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. +Say, you quit kicking me or I’ll get up and warm you good.” +</p> + +<p> +I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the postoffice and store, talking +with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears +Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been +lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, +referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter +surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come +by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit. +</p> + +<p> +When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored +the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response. +</p> + +<p> +So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments. +</p> + +<p> +In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the +little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like +a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and +wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam,” says Bill, “I suppose you’ll think I’m a +renegade, but I couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine +proclivities and habits of self-defense, but there is a time when all systems +of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is +off. There was martyrs in old times,” goes on Bill, “that suffered +death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of ’em +ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be +faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble, Bill?” I asks him. +</p> + +<p> +“I was rode,” says Bill, “the ninety miles to the stockade, +not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. +Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to +explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run both +ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so +much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. +On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I’ve +got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized. +</p> + +<p> +“But he’s gone”—continues Bill—“gone home. +I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at +one kick. I’m sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill +Driscoll to the madhouse.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing +content on his rose-pink features. +</p> + +<p> +“Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your +family, is there? +</p> + +<p> +“No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and +accidents. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a took behind +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on +the round and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour +I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the +whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with +it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up +enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian +in a Japanese war with him is soon as he felt a little better. +</p> + +<p> +I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by +counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree +under which the answer was to be left—and the money later on—was +close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of +constables should be watching for any one to come for the note they could see +him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At +half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting +for the messenger to arrive. +</p> + +<p> +Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the +pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper +into it and pedals away again back toward Summit. +</p> + +<p> +I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, +got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at +the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and +read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and +substance of it was this: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Two Desperate Men.<br> +<br> + Gentlemen:</i> I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the +ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your +demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to +believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty +dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at +night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be +responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Very respectfully,<br> +E<small>BENEZER</small> D<small>ORSET</small>. +</p> + +<p> +“Great pirates of Penzance!” says I; “of all the +impudent—” +</p> + +<p> +But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his +eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, +after all? We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me +to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a +spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let +the chance go, are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little he ewe lamb +has somewhat got on my nerves too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom +and make our get-away.” +</p> + +<p> +We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father +had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were +going to hunt bears the next day. +</p> + +<p> +It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front +door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen +hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original +proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into +Dorset’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl +like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill’s leg. +His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster. +</p> + +<p> +“How long can you hold him?” asks Bill. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset, +“but I think I can promise you ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I shall cross the +Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for +the Canadian border.” +</p> + +<p> +And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, +he was a good mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch up with him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX<br> +THE MARRY MONTH OF MAY</h2> + +<p> +Prithee, smite the poet in the eye when he would sing to you praises of the +month of May. It is a month presided over by the spirits of mischief and +madness. Pixies and flibbertigibbets haunt the budding woods: Puck and his +train of midgets are busy in town and country. +</p> + +<p> +In May nature holds up at us a chiding finger, bidding us remember that we are +not gods, but overconceited members of her own great family. She reminds us +that we are brothers to the chowder-doomed clam and the donkey; lineal scions +of the pansy and the chimpanzee, and but cousins-german to the cooing doves, +the quacking ducks and the housemaids and policemen in the parks. +</p> + +<p> +In May Cupid shoots blindfolded—millionaires marry stenographers; wise +professors woo white-aproned gum-chewers behind quick-lunch counters; +schoolma’ams make big bad boys remain after school; lads with ladders +steal lightly over lawns where Juliet waits in her trellissed window with her +telescope packed; young couples out for a walk come home married; old chaps put +on white spats and promenade near the Normal School; even married men, grown +unwontedly tender and sentimental, whack their spouses on the back and growl: +“How goes it, old girl:” +</p> + +<p> +This May, who is no goddess, but Circe, masquerading at the dance given in +honour of the fair débutante, Summer, puts the kibosh on us all. +</p> + +<p> +Old Mr. Coulson groaned a little, and then sat up straight in his +invalid’s chair. He had the gout very bad in one foot, a house near +Gramercy Park, half a million dollars and a daughter. And he had a housekeeper, +Mrs. Widdup. The fact and the name deserve a sentence each. They have it. +</p> + +<p> +When May poked Mr. Coulson he became elder brother to the turtle-dove. In the +window near which he sat were boxes of jonquils, of hyacinths, geraniums and +pansies. The breeze brought their odour into the room. Immediately there was a +well-contested round between the breath of the flowers and the able and active +effluvium from gout liniment. The liniment won easily; but not before the +flowers got an uppercut to old Mr. Coulson’s nose. The deadly work of the +implacable, false enchantress May was done. +</p> + +<p> +Across the park to the olfactories of Mr. Coulson came other unmistakable, +characteristic, copyrighted smells of spring that belong to +the-big-city-above-the-Subway, alone. The smells of hot asphalt, underground +caverns, gasoline, patchouli, orange peel, sewer gas, Albany grabs, Egyptian +cigarettes, mortar and the undried ink on newspapers. The inblowing air was +sweet and mild. Sparrows wrangled happily everywhere outdoors. Never trust May. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Coulson twisted the ends of his white mustache, cursed his foot, and +pounded a bell on the table by his side. +</p> + +<p> +In came Mrs. Widdup. She was comely to the eye, fair, flustered, forty and +foxy. +</p> + +<p> +“Higgins is out, sir,” she said, with a smile suggestive of +vibratory massage. “He went to post a letter. Can I do anything for you, +sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s time for my aconite,” said old Mr. Coulson. “Drop +it for me. The bottle’s there. Three drops. In water. +D–––– that is, confound Higgins! There’s nobody +in this house cares if I die here in this chair for want of attention.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Widdup sighed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be saying that, sir,” she said. “There’s +them that would care more than any one knows. Thirteen drops, you said, +sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three,” said old man Coulson. +</p> + +<p> +He took his dose and then Mrs. Widdup’s hand. She blushed. Oh, yes, it +can be done. Just hold your breath and compress the diaphragm. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Widdup,” said Mr. Coulson, “the springtime’s full +upon us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t that right?” said Mrs. Widdup. “The air’s +real warm. And there’s bock-beer signs on every corner. And the +park’s all yaller and pink and blue with flowers; and I have such +shooting pains up my legs and body.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘In the spring,’” quoted Mr. Coulson, curling his +mustache, “‘a y–––– that is, a +man’s—fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Lawsy, now!” exclaimed Mrs. Widdup; “ain’t that right? +Seems like it’s in the air.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘In the spring,’” continued old Mr. Coulson, +“‘a livelier iris shines upon the burnished dove.’” +</p> + +<p> +“They do be lively, the Irish,” sighed Mrs. Widdup pensively. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Widdup,” said Mr. Coulson, making a face at a twinge of his +gouty foot, “this would be a lonesome house without you. I’m +an—that is, I’m an elderly man—but I’m worth a +comfortable lot of money. If half a million dollars’ worth of Government +bonds and the true affection of a heart that, though no longer beating with the +first ardour of youth, can still throb with genuine—” +</p> + +<p> +The loud noise of an overturned chair near the portières of the adjoining room +interrupted the venerable and scarcely suspecting victim of May. +</p> + +<p> +In stalked Miss Van Meeker Constantia Coulson, bony, durable, tall, high-nosed, +frigid, well-bred, thirty-five, in-the-neighbourhood-of-Gramercy-Parkish. She +put up a lorgnette. Mrs. Widdup hastily stooped and arranged the bandages on +Mr. Coulson’s gouty foot. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought Higgins was with you,” said Miss Van Meeker Constantia. +</p> + +<p> +“Higgins went out,” explained her father, “and Mrs. Widdup +answered the bell. That is better now, Mrs. Widdup, thank you. No; there is +nothing else I require.” +</p> + +<p> +The housekeeper retired, pink under the cool, inquiring stare of Miss Coulson. +</p> + +<p> +“This spring weather is lovely, isn’t it, daughter?” said the +old man, consciously conscious. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it,” replied Miss Van Meeker Constantia Coulson, +somewhat obscurely. “When does Mrs. Widdup start on her vacation, +papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe she said a week from to-day,” said Mr. Coulson. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Van Meeker Constantia stood for a minute at the window gazing, toward the +little park, flooded with the mellow afternoon sunlight. With the eye of a +botanist she viewed the flowers—most potent weapons of insidious May. +With the cool pulses of a virgin of Cologne she withstood the attack of the +ethereal mildness. The arrows of the pleasant sunshine fell back, frostbitten, +from the cold panoply of her unthrilled bosom. The odour of the flowers waked +no soft sentiments in the unexplored recesses of her dormant heart. The chirp +of the sparrows gave her a pain. She mocked at May. +</p> + +<p> +But although Miss Coulson was proof against the season, she was keen enough to +estimate its power. She knew that elderly men and thick-waisted women jumped as +educated fleas in the ridiculous train of May, the merry mocker of the months. +She had heard of foolish old gentlemen marrying their housekeepers before. What +a humiliating thing, after all, was this feeling called love! +</p> + +<p> +The next morning at 8 o’clock, when the iceman called, the cook told him +that Miss Coulson wanted to see him in the basement. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ain’t I the Olcott and Depew; not mentioning the first name +at all?” said the iceman, admiringly, of himself. +</p> + +<p> +As a concession he rolled his sleeves down, dropped his icehooks on a syringa +and went back. When Miss Van Meeker Constantia Coulson addressed him he took +off his hat. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a rear entrance to this basement,” said Miss Coulson, +“which can be reached by driving into the vacant lot next door, where +they are excavating for a building. I want you to bring in that way within two +hours 1,000 pounds of ice. You may have to bring another man or two to help +you. I will show you where I want it placed. I also want 1,000 pounds a day +delivered the same way for the next four days. Your company may charge the ice +on our regular bill. This is for your extra trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Coulson tendered a ten-dollar bill. The iceman bowed, and held his hat in +his two hands behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“Not if you’ll excuse me, lady. It’ll be a pleasure to fix +things up for you any way you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Alas for May! +</p> + +<p> +About noon Mr. Coulson knocked two glasses off his table, broke the spring of +his bell and yelled for Higgins at the same time. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring an axe,” commanded Mr. Coulson, sardonically, “or send +out for a quart of prussic acid, or have a policeman come in and shoot me. +I’d rather that than be frozen to death.” +</p> + +<p> +“It does seem to be getting cool, Sir,” said Higgins. “I +hadn’t noticed it before. I’ll close the window, Sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do,” said Mr. Coulson. “They call this spring, do they? If +it keeps up long I’ll go back to Palm Beach. House feels like a +morgue.” +</p> + +<p> +Later Miss Coulson dutifully came in to inquire how the gout was progressing. +</p> + +<p> +“’Stantia,” said the old man, “how is the weather +outdoors?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bright,” answered Miss Coulson, “but chilly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Feels like the dead of winter to me,” said Mr. Coulson. +</p> + +<p> +“An instance,” said Constantia, gazing abstractedly out the window, +“of ‘winter lingering in the lap of spring,’ though the +metaphor is not in the most refined taste.” +</p> + +<p> +A little later she walked down by the side of the little park and on westward +to Broadway to accomplish a little shopping. +</p> + +<p> +A little later than that Mrs. Widdup entered the invalid’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ring, Sir?” she asked, dimpling in many places. “I +asked Higgins to go to the drug store, and I thought I heard your bell.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not,” said Mr. Coulson. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Widdup, “I interrupted you sir, +yesterday when you were about to say something.” +</p> + +<p> +“How comes it, Mrs. Widdup,” said old man Coulson sternly, +“that I find it so cold in this house?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cold, Sir?” said the housekeeper, “why, now, since you speak +of it it do seem cold in this room. But, outdoors it’s as warm and fine +as June, sir. And how this weather do seem to make one’s heart jump out +of one’s shirt waist, sir. And the ivy all leaved out on the side of the +house, and the hand-organs playing, and the children dancing on the +sidewalk—’tis a great time for speaking out what’s in the +heart. You were saying yesterday, sir—” +</p> + +<p> +“Woman!” roared Mr. Coulson; “you are a fool. I pay you to +take care of this house. I am freezing to death in my own room, and you come in +and drivel to me about ivy and hand-organs. Get me an overcoat at once. See +that all doors and windows are closed below. An old, fat, irresponsible, +one-sided object like you prating about springtime and flowers in the middle of +winter! When Higgins comes back, tell him to bring me a hot rum punch. And now +get out!” +</p> + +<p> +But who shall shame the bright face of May? Rogue though she be and disturber +of sane men’s peace, no wise virgins cunning nor cold storage shall make +her bow her head in the bright galaxy of months. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, yes, the story was not quite finished. +</p> + +<p> +A night passed, and Higgins helped old man Coulson in the morning to his chair +by the window. The cold of the room was gone. Heavenly odours and fragrant +mildness entered. +</p> + +<p> +In hurried Mrs. Widdup, and stood by his chair. Mr. Coulson reached his bony +hand and grasped her plump one. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Widdup,” he said, “this house would be no home without +you. I have half a million dollars. If that and the true affection of a heart +no longer in its youthful prime, but still not cold, could—” +</p> + +<p> +“I found out what made it cold,” said Mrs. Widdup, leaning against +his chair. “’Twas ice—tons of it—in the basement and in +the furnace room, everywhere. I shut off the registers that it was coming +through into your room, Mr. Coulson, poor soul! And now it’s Maytime +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“A true heart,” went on old man Coulson, a little wanderingly, +“that the springtime has brought to life again, and—but what will +my daughter say, Mrs. Widdup?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear, sir,” said Mrs. Widdup, cheerfully. “Miss +Coulson, she ran away with the iceman last night, sir!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X<br> +A TECHNICAL ERROR</h2> + +<p> +I never cared especially for feuds, believing them to be even more overrated +products of our country than grapefruit, scrapple, or honeymoons. Nevertheless, +if I may be allowed, I will tell you of an Indian Territory feud of which I was +press-agent, camp-follower, and inaccessory during the fact. +</p> + +<p> +I was on a visit to Sam Durkee’s ranch, where I had a great time falling +off unmanicured ponies and waving my bare hand at the lower jaws of wolves +about two miles away. Sam was a hardened person of about twenty-five, with a +reputation for going home in the dark with perfect equanimity, though often +with reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +Over in the Creek Nation was a family bearing the name of Tatum. I was told +that the Durkees and Tatums had been feuding for years. Several of each family +had bitten the grass, and it was expected that more Nebuchadnezzars would +follow. A younger generation of each family was growing up, and the grass was +keeping pace with them. But I gathered that they had fought fairly; that they +had not lain in cornfields and aimed at the division of their enemies’ +suspenders in the back—partly, perhaps, because there were no cornfields, +and nobody wore more than one suspender. Nor had any woman or child of either +house ever been harmed. In those days—and you will find it so +yet—their women were safe. +</p> + +<p> +Sam Durkee had a girl. (If it were an all-fiction magazine that I expect to +sell this story to, I should say, “Mr. Durkee rejoiced in a +fiancée.”) Her name was Ella Baynes. They appeared to be devoted to each +other, and to have perfect confidence in each other, as all couples do who are +and have or aren’t and haven’t. She was tolerably pretty, with a +heavy mass of brown hair that helped her along. He introduced me to her, which +seemed not to lessen her preference for him; so I reasoned that they were +surely soul-mates. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Baynes lived in Kingfisher, twenty miles from the ranch. Sam lived on a +gallop between the two places. +</p> + +<p> +One day there came to Kingfisher a courageous young man, rather small, with +smooth face and regular features. He made many inquiries about the business of +the town, and especially of the inhabitants cognominally. He said he was from +Muscogee, and he looked it, with his yellow shoes and crocheted four-in-hand. I +met him once when I rode in for the mail. He said his name was Beverly Travers, +which seemed rather improbable. +</p> + +<p> +There were active times on the ranch, just then, and Sam was too busy to go to +town often. As an incompetent and generally worthless guest, it devolved upon +me to ride in for little things such as post cards, barrels of flour, +baking-powder, smoking-tobacco, and—letters from Ella. +</p> + +<p> +One day, when I was messenger for half a gross of cigarette papers and a couple +of wagon tires, I saw the alleged Beverly Travers in a yellow-wheeled buggy +with Ella Baynes, driving about town as ostentatiously as the black, waxy mud +would permit. I knew that this information would bring no balm of Gilead to +Sam’s soul, so I refrained from including it in the news of the city that +I retailed on my return. But on the next afternoon an elongated ex-cowboy of +the name of Simmons, an old-time pal of Sam’s, who kept a feed store in +Kingfisher, rode out to the ranch and rolled and burned many cigarettes before +he would talk. When he did make oration, his words were these: +</p> + +<p> +“Say, Sam, there’s been a description of a galoot miscallin’ +himself Bevel-edged Travels impairing the atmospheric air of Kingfisher for the +past two weeks. You know who he was? He was not otherwise than Ben Tatum, from +the Creek Nation, son of old Gopher Tatum that your Uncle Newt shot last +February. You know what he done this morning? He killed your brother +Lester—shot him in the co’t-house yard.” +</p> + +<p> +I wondered if Sam had heard. He pulled a twig from a mesquite bush, chewed it +gravely, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“He did, did he? He killed Lester?” +</p> + +<p> +“The same,” said Simmons. “And he did more. He run away with +your girl, the same as to say Miss Ella Baynes. I thought you might like to +know, so I rode out to impart the information.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged, Jim,” said Sam, taking the chewed twig from his +mouth. “Yes, I’m glad you rode Out. Yes, I’m right +glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll be ridin’ back, I reckon. That boy I left in the +feed store don’t know hay from oats. He shot Lester in the back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shot him in the back?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, while he was hitchin’ his hoss.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m much obliged, Jim.” +</p> + +<p> +“I kind of thought you’d like to know as soon as you could.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in and have some coffee before you ride back, Jim?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no, I reckon not; I must get back to the store.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you say—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Sam. Everybody seen ’em drive away together in a buckboard, +with a big bundle, like clothes, tied up in the back of it. He was +drivin’ the team he brought over with him from Muscogee. They’ll be +hard to overtake right away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And which—” +</p> + +<p> +“I was goin’ on to tell you. They left on the Guthrie road; but +there’s no tellin’ which forks they’ll take—you know +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Jim; much obliged.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re welcome, Sam.” +</p> + +<p> +Simmons rolled a cigarette and stabbed his pony with both heels. Twenty yards +away he reined up and called back: +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want no—assistance, as you might say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not any, thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think you would. Well, so long!” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Sam took out and opened a bone-handled pocket-knife and scraped a dried piece +of mud from his left boot. I thought at first he was going to swear a vendetta +on the blade of it, or recite “The Gipsy’s Curse.” The few +feuds I had ever seen or read about usually opened that way. This one seemed to +be presented with a new treatment. Thus offered on the stage, it would have +been hissed off, and one of Belasco’s thrilling melodramas demanded +instead. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” said Sam, with a profoundly thoughtful expression, +“if the cook has any cold beans left over!” +</p> + +<p> +He called Wash, the Negro cook, and finding that he had some, ordered him to +heat up the pot and make some strong coffee. Then we went into Sam’s +private room, where he slept, and kept his armoury, dogs, and the saddles of +his favourite mounts. He took three or four six-shooters out of a bookcase and +began to look them over, whistling “The Cowboy’s Lament” +abstractedly. Afterward he ordered the two best horses on the ranch saddled and +tied to the hitching-post. +</p> + +<p> +Now, in the feud business, in all sections of the country, I have observed that +in one particular there is a delicate but strict etiquette belonging. You must +not mention the word or refer to the subject in the presence of a feudist. It +would be more reprehensible than commenting upon the mole on the chin of your +rich aunt. I found, later on, that there is another unwritten rule, but I think +that belongs solely to the West. +</p> + +<p> +It yet lacked two hours to supper-time; but in twenty minutes Sam and I were +plunging deep into the reheated beans, hot coffee, and cold beef. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing like a good meal before a long ride,” said Sam. “Eat +hearty.” +</p> + +<p> +I had a sudden suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you have two horses saddled?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“One, two—one, two,” said Sam. “You can count, +can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +His mathematics carried with it a momentary qualm and a lesson. The thought had +not occurred to him that the thought could possibly occur to me not to ride at +his side on that red road to revenge and justice. It was the higher calculus. I +was booked for the trail. I began to eat more beans. +</p> + +<p> +In an hour we set forth at a steady gallop eastward. Our horses were +Kentucky-bred, strengthened by the mesquite grass of the west. Ben +Tatum’s steeds may have been swifter, and he had a good lead; but if he +had heard the punctual thuds of the hoofs of those trailers of ours, born in +the heart of feudland, he might have felt that retribution was creeping up on +the hoof-prints of his dapper nags. +</p> + +<p> +I knew that Ben Tatum’s card to play was flight—flight until he +came within the safer territory of his own henchmen and supporters. He knew +that the man pursuing him would follow the trail to any end where it might +lead. +</p> + +<p> +During the ride Sam talked of the prospect for rain, of the price of beef, and +of the musical glasses. You would have thought he had never had a brother or a +sweetheart or an enemy on earth. There are some subjects too big even for the +words in the “Unabridged.” Knowing this phase of the feud code, but +not having practised it sufficiently, I overdid the thing by telling some +slightly funny anecdotes. Sam laughed at exactly the right place—laughed +with his mouth. When I caught sight of his mouth, I wished I had been blessed +with enough sense of humour to have suppressed those anecdotes. +</p> + +<p> +Our first sight of them we had in Guthrie. Tired and hungry, we stumbled, +unwashed, into a little yellow-pine hotel and sat at a table. In the opposite +corner we saw the fugitives. They were bent upon their meal, but looked around +at times uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was dressed in brown—one of these smooth, half-shiny, +silky-looking affairs with lace collar and cuffs, and what I believe they call +an accordion-plaited skirt. She wore a thick brown veil down to her nose, and a +broad-brimmed straw hat with some kind of feathers adorning it. The man wore +plain, dark clothes, and his hair was trimmed very short. He was such a man as +you might see anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +There they were—the murderer and the woman he had stolen. There we +were—the rightful avenger, according to the code, and the supernumerary +who writes these words. +</p> + +<p> +For one time, at least, in the heart of the supernumerary there rose the +killing instinct. For one moment he joined the force of +combatants—orally. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you waiting for, Sam?” I said in a whisper. “Let +him have it now!” +</p> + +<p> +Sam gave a melancholy sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand; but <i>he</i> does,” he said. +“<i>He</i> knows. Mr. Tenderfoot, there’s a rule out here among +white men in the Nation that you can’t shoot a man when he’s with a +woman. I never knew it to be broke yet. You <i>can’t</i> do it. +You’ve got to get him in a gang of men or by himself. That’s why. +He knows it, too. We all know. So, that’s Mr. Ben Tatum! One of the +‘pretty men’! I’ll cut him out of the herd before they leave +the hotel, and regulate his account!” +</p> + +<p> +After supper the flying pair disappeared quickly. Although Sam haunted lobby +and stairway and halls half the night, in some mysterious way the fugitives +eluded him; and in the morning the veiled lady in the brown dress with the +accordion-plaited skirt and the dapper young man with the close-clipped hair, +and the buckboard with the prancing nags, were gone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It is a monotonous story, that of the ride; so it shall be curtailed. Once +again we overtook them on a road. We were about fifty yards behind. They turned +in the buckboard and looked at us; then drove on without whipping up their +horses. Their safety no longer lay in speed. Ben Tatum knew. He knew that the +only rock of safety left to him was the code. There is no doubt that, had he +been alone, the matter would have been settled quickly with Sam Durkee in the +usual way; but he had something at his side that kept still the trigger-finger +of both. It seemed likely that he was no coward. +</p> + +<p> +So, you may perceive that woman, on occasions, may postpone instead of +precipitating conflict between man and man. But not willingly or consciously. +She is oblivious of codes. +</p> + +<p> +Five miles farther, we came upon the future great Western city of Chandler. The +horses of pursuers and pursued were starved and weary. There was one hotel that +offered danger to man and entertainment to beast; so the four of us met again +in the dining room at the ringing of a bell so resonant and large that it had +cracked the welkin long ago. The dining room was not as large as the one at +Guthrie. +</p> + +<p> +Just as we were eating apple pie—how Ben Davises and tragedy impinge upon +each other!—I noticed Sam looking with keen intentness at our quarry +where they were seated at a table across the room. The girl still wore the +brown dress with lace collar and cuffs, and the veil drawn down to her nose. +The man bent over his plate, with his close cropped head held low. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a code,” I heard Sam say, either to me or to +himself, “that won’t let you shoot a man in the company of a woman; +but, by thunder, there ain’t one to keep you from killing a woman in the +company of a man!” +</p> + +<p> +And, quicker than my mind could follow his argument, he whipped a Colt’s +automatic from under his left arm and pumped six bullets into the body that the +brown dress covered—the brown dress with the lace collar and cuffs and +the accordion-plaited skirt. +</p> + +<p> +The young person in the dark sack suit, from whose head and from whose life a +woman’s glory had been clipped, laid her head on her arms stretched upon +the table; while people came running to raise Ben Tatum from the floor in his +feminine masquerade that had given Sam the opportunity to set aside, +technically, the obligations of the code. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI<br> +SUITE HOMES AND THEIR ROMANCE</h2> + +<p> +Few young couples in the Big-City-of-Bluff began their married existence with +greater promise of happiness than did Mr. and Mrs. Claude Turpin. They felt no +especial animosity toward each other; they were comfortably established in a +handsome apartment house that had a name and accommodations like those of a +sleeping-car; they were living as expensively as the couple on the next floor +above who had twice their income; and their marriage had occurred on a wager, a +ferry-boat and first acquaintance, thus securing a sensational newspaper notice +with their names attached to pictures of the Queen of Roumania and M. +Santos-Dumont. +</p> + +<p> +Turpin’s income was $200 per month. On pay day, after calculating the +amounts due for rent, instalments on furniture and piano, gas, and bills owed +to the florist, confectioner, milliner, tailor, wine merchant and cab company, +the Turpins would find that they still had $200 left to spend. How to do this +is one of the secrets of metropolitan life. +</p> + +<p> +The domestic life of the Turpins was a beautiful picture to see. But you +couldn’t gaze upon it as you could at an oleograph of “Don’t +Wake Grandma,” or “Brooklyn by Moonlight.” +</p> + +<p> +You had to blink when looked at it; and you heard a fizzing sound just like the +machine with a “scope” at the end of it. Yes; there wasn’t +much repose about the picture of the Turpins’ domestic life. It was +something like “Spearing Salmon in the Columbia River,” or +“Japanese Artillery in Action.” +</p> + +<p> +Every day was just like another; as the days are in New York. In the morning +Turpin would take bromo-seltzer, his pocket change from under the clock, his +hat, no breakfast and his departure for the office. At noon Mrs. Turpin would +get out of bed and humour, put on a kimono, airs, and the water to boil for +coffee. +</p> + +<p> +Turpin lunched downtown. He came home at 6 to dress for dinner. They always +dined out. They strayed from the chop-house to chop-sueydom, from terrace to +table d’hôte, from rathskeller to roadhouse, from café to casino, from +Maria’s to the Martha Washington. Such is domestic life in the great +city. Your vine is the mistletoe; your fig tree bears dates. Your household +gods are Mercury and John Howard Payne. For the wedding march you now hear only +“Come with the Gypsy Bride.” You rarely dine at the same place +twice in succession. You tire of the food; and, besides, you want to give them +time for the question of that souvenir silver sugar bowl to blow over. +</p> + +<p> +The Turpins were therefore happy. They made many warm and delightful friends, +some of whom they remembered the next day. Their home life was an ideal one, +according to the rules and regulations of the Book of Bluff. +</p> + +<p> +There came a time when it dawned upon Turpin that his wife was getting away +with too much money. If you belong to the near-swell class in the Big City, and +your income is $200 per month, and you find at the end of the month, after +looking over the bills for current expenses, that you, yourself, have spent +$150, you very naturally wonder what has become of the other $50. So you +suspect your wife. And perhaps you give her a hint that something needs +explanation. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Vivien,” said Turpin, one afternoon when they were enjoying +in rapt silence the peace and quiet of their cozy apartment, +“you’ve been creating a hiatus big enough for a dog to crawl +through in this month’s honorarium. You haven’t been paying your +dressmaker anything on account, have you?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a moment’s silence. No sounds could be heard except the +breathing of the fox terrier, and the subdued, monotonous sizzling of +Vivien’s fulvous locks against the insensate curling irons. Claude +Turpin, sitting upon a pillow that he had thoughtfully placed upon the +convolutions of the apartment sofa, narrowly watched the riante, lovely face of +his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Claudie, dear,” said she, touching her finger to her ruby tongue +and testing the unresponsive curling irons, “you do me an injustice. Mme. +Toinette has not seen a cent of mine since the day you paid your tailor ten +dollars on account.” +</p> + +<p> +Turpin’s suspicions were allayed for the time. But one day soon there +came an anonymous letter to him that read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Watch your wife. She is blowing in your money secretly. I was a sufferer just +as you are. The place is No. 345 Blank Street. A word to the wise, etc. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +A M<small>AN</small> W<small>HO</small> K<small>NOWS</small>. +</p> + +<p> +Turpin took this letter to the captain of police of the precinct that he lived +in. +</p> + +<p> +“My precinct is as clean as a hound’s tooth,” said the +captain. “The lid’s shut down as close there as it is over the eye +of a Williamsburg girl when she’s kissed at a party. But if you think +there’s anything queer at the address, I’ll go there with +ye.” +</p> + +<p> +On the next afternoon at 3, Turpin and the captain crept softly up the stairs +of No. 345 Blank Street. A dozen plain-clothes men, dressed in full police +uniforms, so as to allay suspicion, waited in the hall below. +</p> + +<p> +At the top of the stairs was a door, which was found to be locked. The captain +took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. The two men entered. +</p> + +<p> +They found themselves in a large room, occupied by twenty or twenty-five +elegantly clothed ladies. Racing charts hung against the walls, a ticker +clicked in one corner; with a telephone receiver to his ear a man was calling +out the various positions of the horses in a very exciting race. The occupants +of the room looked up at the intruders; but, as if reassured by the sight of +the captain’s uniform, they reverted their attention to the man at the +telephone. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said the captain to Turpin, “the value of an +anonymous letter! No high-minded and self-respecting gentleman should consider +one worthy of notice. Is your wife among this assembly, Mr. Turpin?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not,” said Turpin. +</p> + +<p> +“And if she was,” continued the captain, “would she be within +the reach of the tongue of slander? These ladies constitute a Browning Society. +They meet to discuss the meaning of the great poet. The telephone is connected +with Boston, whence the parent society transmits frequently its interpretations +of the poems. Be ashamed of yer suspicions, Mr. Turpin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go soak your shield,” said Turpin. “Vivien knows how to take +care of herself in a pool-room. She’s not dropping anything on the +ponies. There must be something queer going on here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing but Browning,” said the captain. “Hear that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanatopsis by a nose,” drawled the man at the telephone. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not Browning; that’s Longfellow,” said Turpin, +who sometimes read books. +</p> + +<p> +“Back to the pasture!” exclaimed the captain. “Longfellow +made the pacing-to-wagon record of 7.53 ’way back in 1868.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe there’s something queer about this joint,” +repeated Turpin. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see it,” said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it looks like a pool-room, all right,” persisted Turpin, +“but that’s all a blind. Vivien has been dropping a lot of coin +somewhere. I believe there’s some under-handed work going on here.” +</p> + +<p> +A number of racing sheets were tacked close together, covering a large space on +one of the walls. Turpin, suspicious, tore several of them down. A door, +previously hidden, was revealed. Turpin placed an ear to the crack and listened +intently. He heard the soft hum of many voices, low and guarded laughter, and a +sharp, metallic clicking and scraping as if from a multitude of tiny but busy +objects. +</p> + +<p> +“My God! It is as I feared!” whispered Turpin to himself. +“Summon your men at once!” he called to the captain. “She is +in there, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +At the blowing of the captain’s whistle the uniformed plain-clothes men +rushed up the stairs into the pool-room. When they saw the betting +paraphernalia distributed around they halted, surprised and puzzled to know why +they had been summoned. +</p> + +<p> +But the captain pointed to the locked door and bade them break it down. In a +few moments they demolished it with the axes they carried. Into the other room +sprang Claude Turpin, with the captain at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +The scene was one that lingered long in Turpin’s mind. Nearly a score of +women—women expensively and fashionably clothed, many beautiful and of +refined appearance—had been seated at little marble-topped tables. When +the police burst open the door they shrieked and ran here and there like gayly +plumed birds that had been disturbed in a tropical grove. Some became +hysterical; one or two fainted; several knelt at the feet of the officers and +besought them for mercy on account of their families and social position. +</p> + +<p> +A man who had been seated behind a desk had seized a roll of currency as large +as the ankle of a Paradise Roof Gardens chorus girl and jumped out of the +window. Half a dozen attendants huddled at one end of the room, breathless from +fear. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the tables remained the damning and incontrovertible evidences of the +guilt of the habituées of that sinister room—dish after dish heaped high +with ice cream, and surrounded by stacks of empty ones, scraped to the last +spoonful. +</p> + +<p> +“Ladies,” said the captain to his weeping circle of prisoners, +“I’ll not hold any of yez. Some of yez I recognize as having fine +houses and good standing in the community, with hard-working husbands and +childer at home. But I’ll read ye a bit of a lecture before ye go. In the +next room there’s a 20-to-1 shot just dropped in under the wire three +lengths ahead of the field. Is this the way ye waste your husbands’ money +instead of helping earn it? Home wid yez! The lid’s on the ice-cream +freezer in this precinct.” +</p> + +<p> +Claude Turpin’s wife was among the patrons of the raided room. He led her +to their apartment in stern silence. There she wept so remorsefully and +besought his forgiveness so pleadingly that he forgot his just anger, and soon +he gathered his penitent golden-haired Vivien in his arms and forgave her. +</p> + +<p> +“Darling,” she murmured, half sobbingly, as the moonlight drifted +through the open window, glorifying her sweet, upturned face, “I know I +done wrong. I will never touch ice cream again. I forgot you were not a +millionaire. I used to go there every day. But to-day I felt some strange, sad +presentiment of evil, and I was not myself. I ate only eleven saucers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say no more,” said Claude, gently as he fondly caressed her waving +curls. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are sure that you fully forgive me?” asked Vivien, gazing +at him entreatingly with dewy eyes of heavenly blue. +</p> + +<p> +“Almost sure, little one,” answered Claude, stooping and lightly +touching her snowy forehead with his lips. “I’ll let you know later +on. I’ve got a month’s salary down on Vanilla to win the +three-year-old steeplechase to-morrow; and if the ice-cream hunch is to the +good you are It again—see?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII<br> +THE WHIRLIGIG OF LIFE</h2> + +<p> +Justice-of-the-Peace Benaja Widdup sat in the door of his office smoking his +elder-stem pipe. Half-way to the zenith the Cumberland range rose blue-gray in +the afternoon haze. A speckled hen swaggered down the main street of the +“settlement,” cackling foolishly. +</p> + +<p> +Up the road came a sound of creaking axles, and then a slow cloud of dust, and +then a bull-cart bearing Ransie Bilbro and his wife. The cart stopped at the +Justice’s door, and the two climbed down. Ransie was a narrow six feet of +sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The imperturbability of the mountains hung +upon him like a suit of armour. The woman was calicoed, angled, snuff-brushed, +and weary with unknown desires. Through it all gleamed a faint protest of +cheated youth unconscious of its loss. +</p> + +<p> +The Justice of the Peace slipped his feet into his shoes, for the sake of +dignity, and moved to let them enter. +</p> + +<p> +“We-all,” said the woman, in a voice like the wind blowing through +pine boughs, “wants a divo’ce.” She looked at Ransie to see +if he noted any flaw or ambiguity or evasion or partiality or self-partisanship +in her statement of their business. +</p> + +<p> +“A divo’ce,” repeated Ransie, with a solemn nod. +“We-all can’t git along together nohow. It’s lonesome enough +fur to live in the mount’ins when a man and a woman keers fur one +another. But when she’s a-spittin’ like a wildcat or +a-sullenin’ like a hoot-owl in the cabin, a man ain’t got no call +to live with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“When he’s a no-’count varmint,” said the woman, +“without any especial warmth, a-traipsin’ along of scalawags and +moonshiners and a-layin’ on his back pizen ’ith co’n whiskey, +and a-pesterin’ folks with a pack o’ hungry, triflin’ +houn’s to feed!” +</p> + +<p> +“When she keeps a-throwin’ skillet lids,” came Ransie’s +antiphony, “and slings b’ilin’ water on the best coon-dog in +the Cumberlands, and sets herself agin’ cookin’ a man’s +victuals, and keeps him awake o’ nights accusin’ him of a sight of +doin’s!” +</p> + +<p> +“When he’s al’ays a-fightin’ the revenues, and gits a +hard name in the mount’ins fur a mean man, who’s gwine to be able +fur to sleep o’ nights?” +</p> + +<p> +The Justice of the Peace stirred deliberately to his duties. He placed his one +chair and a wooden stool for his petitioners. He opened his book of statutes on +the table and scanned the index. Presently he wiped his spectacles and shifted +his inkstand. +</p> + +<p> +“The law and the statutes,” said he, “air silent on the +subjeck of divo’ce as fur as the jurisdiction of this co’t air +concerned. But, accordin’ to equity and the Constitution and the golden +rule, it’s a bad barg’in that can’t run both ways. If a +justice of the peace can marry a couple, it’s plain that he is bound to +be able to divo’ce ’em. This here office will issue a decree of +divo’ce and abide by the decision of the Supreme Co’t to hold it +good.” +</p> + +<p> +Ransie Bilbro drew a small tobacco-bag from his trousers pocket. Out of this he +shook upon the table a five-dollar note. “Sold a b’arskin and two +foxes fur that,” he remarked. “It’s all the money we +got.” +</p> + +<p> +“The regular price of a divo’ce in this co’t,” said the +Justice, “air five dollars.” He stuffed the bill into the pocket of +his homespun vest with a deceptive air of indifference. With much bodily toil +and mental travail he wrote the decree upon half a sheet of foolscap, and then +copied it upon the other. Ransie Bilbro and his wife listened to his reading of +the document that was to give them freedom: +</p> + +<p> +“Know all men by these presents that Ransie Bilbro and his wife, Ariela +Bilbro, this day personally appeared before me and promises that hereinafter +they will neither love, honour, nor obey each other, neither for better nor +worse, being of sound mind and body, and accept summons for divorce according +to the peace and dignity of the State. Herein fail not, so help you God. Benaja +Widdup, justice of the peace in and for the county of Piedmont, State of +Tennessee.” +</p> + +<p> +The Justice was about to hand one of the documents to Ransie. The voice of +Ariela delayed the transfer. Both men looked at her. Their dull masculinity was +confronted by something sudden and unexpected in the woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Judge, don’t you give him that air paper yit. ’Tain’t +all settled, nohow. I got to have my rights first. I got to have my ali-money. +’Tain’t no kind of a way to do fur a man to divo’ce his wife +’thout her havin’ a cent fur to do with. I’m a-layin’ +off to be a-goin’ up to brother Ed’s up on Hogback Mount’in. +I’m bound fur to hev a pa’r of shoes and some snuff and things +besides. Ef Rance kin affo’d a divo’ce, let him pay me +ali-money.” +</p> + +<p> +Ransie Bilbro was stricken to dumb perplexity. There had been no previous hint +of alimony. Women were always bringing up startling and unlooked-for issues. +</p> + +<p> +Justice Benaja Widdup felt that the point demanded judicial decision. The +authorities were also silent on the subject of alimony. But the woman’s +feet were bare. The trail to Hogback Mountain was steep and flinty. +</p> + +<p> +“Ariela Bilbro,” he asked, in official tones, “how much did +you ’low would be good and sufficient ali-money in the case befo’ +the co’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ’lowed,” she answered, “fur the shoes and all, to +say five dollars. That ain’t much fur ali-money, but I reckon +that’ll git me to up brother Ed’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“The amount,” said the Justice, “air not onreasonable. Ransie +Bilbro, you air ordered by the co’t to pay the plaintiff the sum of five +dollars befo’ the decree of divo’ce air issued.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hain’t no mo’ money,” breathed Ransie, heavily. +“I done paid you all I had.” +</p> + +<p> +“Otherwise,” said the Justice, looking severely over his +spectacles, “you air in contempt of co’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon if you gimme till to-morrow,” pleaded the husband, +“I mout be able to rake or scrape it up somewhars. I never looked for to +be a-payin’ no ali-money.” +</p> + +<p> +“The case air adjourned,” said Benaja Widdup, “till +to-morrow, when you-all will present yo’selves and obey the order of the +co’t. Followin’ of which the decrees of divo’ce will be +delivered.” He sat down in the door and began to loosen a shoestring. +</p> + +<p> +“We mout as well go down to Uncle Ziah’s,” decided Ransie, +“and spend the night.” He climbed into the cart on one side, and +Ariela climbed in on the other. Obeying the flap of his rope, the little red +bull slowly came around on a tack, and the cart crawled away in the nimbus +arising from its wheels. +</p> + +<p> +Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup smoked his elder-stem pipe. Late in the +afternoon he got his weekly paper, and read it until the twilight dimmed its +lines. Then he lit the tallow candle on his table, and read until the moon +rose, marking the time for supper. He lived in the double log cabin on the +slope near the girdled poplar. Going home to supper he crossed a little branch +darkened by a laurel thicket. The dark figure of a man stepped from the laurels +and pointed a rifle at his breast. His hat was pulled down low, and something +covered most of his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I want yo’ money,” said the figure, “’thout any +talk. I’m gettin’ nervous, and my finger’s a-wabblin’ +on this here trigger.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve only got f-f-five dollars,” said the Justice, producing +it from his vest pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“Roll it up,” came the order, “and stick it in the end of +this here gun-bar’l.” +</p> + +<p> +The bill was crisp and new. Even fingers that were clumsy and trembling found +little difficulty in making a spill of it and inserting it (this with less +ease) into the muzzle of the rifle. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I reckon you kin be goin’ along,” said the robber. +</p> + +<p> +The Justice lingered not on his way. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The next day came the little red bull, drawing the cart to the office door. +Justice Benaja Widdup had his shoes on, for he was expecting the visit. In his +presence Ransie Bilbro handed to his wife a five-dollar bill. The +official’s eye sharply viewed it. It seemed to curl up as though it had +been rolled and inserted into the end of a gun-barrel. But the Justice +refrained from comment. It is true that other bills might be inclined to curl. +He handed each one a decree of divorce. Each stood awkwardly silent, slowly +folding the guarantee of freedom. The woman cast a shy glance full of +constraint at Ransie. +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon you’ll be goin’ back up to the cabin,” she +said, along ’ith the bull-cart. There’s bread in the tin box +settin’ on the shelf. I put the bacon in the b’ilin’-pot to +keep the hounds from gittin’ it. Don’t forget to wind the clock +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You air a-goin’ to your brother Ed’s?” asked Ransie, +with fine unconcern. +</p> + +<p> +“I was ’lowin’ to get along up thar afore night. I +ain’t sayin’ as they’ll pester theyselves any to make me +welcome, but I hain’t nowhar else fur to go. It’s a right smart +ways, and I reckon I better be goin’. I’ll be a-sayin’ +good-bye, Ranse—that is, if you keer fur to say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know as anybody’s a hound dog,” said Ransie, +in a martyr’s voice, “fur to not want to say +good-bye—’less you air so anxious to git away that you don’t +want me to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +Ariela was silent. She folded the five-dollar bill and her decree carefully, +and placed them in the bosom of her dress. Benaja Widdup watched the money +disappear with mournful eyes behind his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +And then with his next words he achieved rank (as his thoughts ran) with either +the great crowd of the world’s sympathizers or the little crowd of its +great financiers. +</p> + +<p> +“Be kind o’ lonesome in the old cabin to-night, Ranse,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +Ransie Bilbro stared out at the Cumberlands, clear blue now in the sunlight. He +did not look at Ariela. +</p> + +<p> +“I ’low it might be lonesome,” he said; “but when folks +gits mad and wants a divo’ce, you can’t make folks stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s others wanted a divo’ce,” said Ariela, +speaking to the wooden stool. “Besides, nobody don’t want nobody to +stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody never said they didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody never said they did. I reckon I better start on now to brother +Ed’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody can’t wind that old clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Want me to go back along ’ith you in the cart and wind it fur you, +Ranse?” +</p> + +<p> +The mountaineer’s countenance was proof against emotion. But he reached +out a big hand and enclosed Ariela’s thin brown one. Her soul peeped out +once through her impassive face, hallowing it. +</p> + +<p> +“Them hounds shan’t pester you no more,” said Ransie. +“I reckon I been mean and low down. You wind that clock, Ariela.” +</p> + +<p> +“My heart hit’s in that cabin, Ranse,” she whispered, +“along ’ith you. I ai’nt a-goin’ to git mad no more. +Le’s be startin’, Ranse, so’s we kin git home by +sundown.” +</p> + +<p> +Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup interposed as they started for the door, +forgetting his presence. +</p> + +<p> +“In the name of the State of Tennessee,” he said, “I forbid +you-all to be a-defyin’ of its laws and statutes. This co’t is +mo’ than willin’ and full of joy to see the clouds of discord and +misunderstandin’ rollin’ away from two lovin’ hearts, but it +air the duty of the co’t to p’eserve the morals and integrity of +the State. The co’t reminds you that you air no longer man and wife, but +air divo’ced by regular decree, and as such air not entitled to the +benefits and ’purtenances of the mattermonal estate.” +</p> + +<p> +Ariela caught Ransie’s arm. Did those words mean that she must lose him +now when they had just learned the lesson of life? +</p> + +<p> +“But the co’t air prepared,” went on the Justice, “fur +to remove the disabilities set up by the decree of divo’ce. The +co’t air on hand to perform the solemn ceremony of marri’ge, thus +fixin’ things up and enablin’ the parties in the case to resume the +honour’ble and elevatin’ state of mattermony which they desires. +The fee fur performin’ said ceremony will be, in this case, to wit, five +dollars.” +</p> + +<p> +Ariela caught the gleam of promise in his words. Swiftly her hand went to her +bosom. Freely as an alighting dove the bill fluttered to the Justice’s +table. Her sallow cheek coloured as she stood hand in hand with Ransie and +listened to the reuniting words. +</p> + +<p> +Ransie helped her into the cart, and climbed in beside her. The little red bull +turned once more, and they set out, hand-clasped, for the mountains. +</p> + +<p> +Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup sat in his door and took off his shoes. Once +again he fingered the bill tucked down in his vest pocket. Once again he smoked +his elder-stem pipe. Once again the speckled hen swaggered down the main street +of the “settlement,” cackling foolishly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII<br> +A SACRIFICE HIT</h2> + +<p> +The editor of the <i>Hearthstone Magazine</i> has his own ideas about the +selection of manuscript for his publication. His theory is no secret; in fact, +he will expound it to you willingly sitting at his mahogany desk, smiling +benignantly and tapping his knee gently with his gold-rimmed eye-glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“The <i>Hearthstone</i>,” he will say, “does not employ a +staff of readers. We obtain opinions of the manuscripts submitted to us +directly from types of the various classes of our readers.” +</p> + +<p> +That is the editor’s theory; and this is the way he carries it out: +</p> + +<p> +When a batch of MSS. is received the editor stuffs every one of his pockets +full of them and distributes them as he goes about during the day. The office +employees, the hall porter, the janitor, the elevator man, messenger boys, the +waiters at the café where the editor has luncheon, the man at the news-stand +where he buys his evening paper, the grocer and milkman, the guard on the 5.30 +uptown elevated train, the ticket-chopper at Sixty +––––th street, the cook and maid at his +home—these are the readers who pass upon MSS. sent in to the +<i>Hearthstone Magazine</i>. If his pockets are not entirely emptied by the +time he reaches the bosom of his family the remaining ones are handed over to +his wife to read after the baby goes to sleep. A few days later the editor +gathers in the MSS. during his regular rounds and considers the verdict of his +assorted readers. +</p> + +<p> +This system of making up a magazine has been very successful; and the +circulation, paced by the advertising rates, is making a wonderful record of +speed. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Hearthstone</i> Company also publishes books, and its imprint is to be +found on several successful works—all recommended, says the editor, by +the <i>Hearthstone’s</i> army of volunteer readers. Now and then +(according to talkative members of the editorial staff) the <i>Hearthstone</i> +has allowed manuscripts to slip through its fingers on the advice of its +heterogeneous readers, that afterward proved to be famous sellers when brought +out by other houses. +</p> + +<p> +For instance (the gossips say), “The Rise and Fall of Silas Latham” +was unfavourably passed upon by the elevator-man; the office-boy unanimously +rejected “The Boss”; “In the Bishop’s Carriage” +was contemptuously looked upon by the street-car conductor; “The +Deliverance” was turned down by a clerk in the subscription department +whose wife’s mother had just begun a two-months’ visit at his home; +“The Queen’s Quair” came back from the janitor with the +comment: “So is the book.” +</p> + +<p> +But nevertheless the <i>Hearthstone</i> adheres to its theory and system, and +it will never lack volunteer readers; for each one of the widely scattered +staff, from the young lady stenographer in the editorial office to the man who +shovels in coal (whose adverse decision lost to the <i>Hearthstone</i> Company +the manuscript of “The Under World”), has expectations of becoming +editor of the magazine some day. +</p> + +<p> +This method of the <i>Hearthstone</i> was well known to Allen Slayton when he +wrote his novelette entitled “Love Is All.” Slayton had hung about +the editorial offices of all the magazines so persistently that he was +acquainted with the inner workings of every one in Gotham. +</p> + +<p> +He knew not only that the editor of the Hearthstone handed his MSS. around +among different types of people for reading, but that the stories of +sentimental love-interest went to Miss Puffkin, the editor’s +stenographer. Another of the editor’s peculiar customs was to conceal +invariably the name of the writer from his readers of MSS. so that a glittering +name might not influence the sincerity of their reports. +</p> + +<p> +Slayton made “Love Is All” the effort of his life. He gave it six +months of the best work of his heart and brain. It was a pure love-story, fine, +elevated, romantic, passionate—a prose poem that set the divine blessing +of love (I am transposing from the manuscript) high above all earthly gifts and +honours, and listed it in the catalogue of heaven’s choicest rewards. +Slayton’s literary ambition was intense. He would have sacrificed all +other worldly possessions to have gained fame in his chosen art. He would +almost have cut off his right hand, or have offered himself to the knife of the +appendicitis fancier to have realized his dream of seeing one of his efforts +published in the <i>Hearthstone</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Slayton finished “Love Is All,” and took it to the +<i>Hearthstone</i> in person. The office of the magazine was in a large, +conglomerate building, presided under by a janitor. +</p> + +<p> +As the writer stepped inside the door on his way to the elevator a potato +masher flew through the hall, wrecking Slayton’s hat, and smashing the +glass of the door. Closely following in the wake of the utensil flew the +janitor, a bulky, unwholesome man, suspenderless and sordid, panic-stricken and +breathless. A frowsy, fat woman with flying hair followed the missile. The +janitor’s foot slipped on the tiled floor, he fell in a heap with an +exclamation of despair. The woman pounced upon him and seized his hair. The man +bellowed lustily. +</p> + +<p> +Her vengeance wreaked, the virago rose and stalked triumphant as Minerva, back +to some cryptic domestic retreat at the rear. The janitor got to his feet, +blown and humiliated. +</p> + +<p> +“This is married life,” he said to Slayton, with a certain bruised +humour. “That’s the girl I used to lay awake of nights thinking +about. Sorry about your hat, mister. Say, don’t snitch to the tenants +about this, will yer? I don’t want to lose me job.” +</p> + +<p> +Slayton took the elevator at the end of the hall and went up to the offices of +the <i>Hearthstone</i>. He left the MS. of “Love Is All” with the +editor, who agreed to give him an answer as to its availability at the end of a +week. +</p> + +<p> +Slayton formulated his great winning scheme on his way down. It struck him with +one brilliant flash, and he could not refrain from admiring his own genius in +conceiving the idea. That very night he set about carrying it into execution. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Puffkin, the <i>Hearthstone</i> stenographer, boarded in the same house +with the author. She was an oldish, thin, exclusive, languishing, sentimental +maid; and Slayton had been introduced to her some time before. +</p> + +<p> +The writer’s daring and self-sacrificing project was this: He knew that +the editor of the <i>Hearthstone</i> relied strongly upon Miss Puffkin’s +judgment in the manuscript of romantic and sentimental fiction. Her taste +represented the immense average of mediocre women who devour novels and stories +of that type. The central idea and keynote of “Love Is All” was +love at first sight—the enrapturing, irresistible, soul-thrilling feeling +that compels a man or a woman to recognize his or her spirit-mate as soon as +heart speaks to heart. Suppose he should impress this divine truth upon Miss +Puffkin personally!—would she not surely indorse her new and rapturous +sensations by recommending highly to the editor of the <i>Hearthstone</i> the +novelette “Love Is All”? +</p> + +<p> +Slayton thought so. And that night he took Miss Puffkin to the theatre. The +next night he made vehement love to her in the dim parlour of the +boarding-house. He quoted freely from “Love Is All”; and he wound +up with Miss Puffkin’s head on his shoulder, and visions of literary fame +dancing in his head. +</p> + +<p> +But Slayton did not stop at love-making. This, he said to himself, was the +turning point of his life; and, like a true sportsman, he “went the +limit.” On Thursday night he and Miss Puffkin walked over to the Big +Church in the Middle of the Block and were married. +</p> + +<p> +Brave Slayton! Châteaubriand died in a garret, Byron courted a widow, Keats +starved to death, Poe mixed his drinks, De Quincey hit the pipe, Ade lived in +Chicago, James kept on doing it, Dickens wore white socks, De Maupassant wore a +strait-jacket, Tom Watson became a Populist, Jeremiah wept, all these authors +did these things for the sake of literature, but thou didst cap them all; thou +marriedst a wife for to carve for thyself a niche in the temple of fame! +</p> + +<p> +On Friday morning Mrs. Slayton said she would go over to the <i>Hearthstone</i> +office, hand in one or two manuscripts that the editor had given to her to +read, and resign her position as stenographer. +</p> + +<p> +“Was there anything—er—that—er—you particularly +fancied in the stories you are going to turn in?” asked Slayton with a +thumping heart. +</p> + +<p> +“There was one—a novelette, that I liked so much,” said his +wife. “I haven’t read anything in years that I thought was half as +nice and true to life.” +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon Slayton hurried down to the <i>Hearthstone</i> office. He felt +that his reward was close at hand. With a novelette in the <i>Hearthstone</i>, +literary reputation would soon be his. +</p> + +<p> +The office boy met him at the railing in the outer office. It was not for +unsuccessful authors to hold personal colloquy with the editor except at rare +intervals. +</p> + +<p> +Slayton, hugging himself internally, was nursing in his heart the exquisite +hope of being able to crush the office boy with his forthcoming success. +</p> + +<p> +He inquired concerning his novelette. The office boy went into the sacred +precincts and brought forth a large envelope, thick with more than the bulk of +a thousand checks. +</p> + +<p> +“The boss told me to tell you he’s sorry,” said the boy, +“but your manuscript ain’t available for the magazine.” +</p> + +<p> +Slayton stood, dazed. “Can you tell me,” he stammered, +“whether or no Miss Puff—that is my—I mean Miss +Puffkin—handed in a novelette this morning that she had been asked to +read?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure she did,” answered the office boy wisely. “I heard the +old man say that Miss Puffkin said it was a daisy. The name of it was, +‘Married for the Mazuma, or a Working Girl’s Triumph.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you!” said the office boy confidentially, “your +name’s Slayton, ain’t it? I guess I mixed cases on you without +meanin’ to do it. The boss give me some manuscript to hand around the +other day and I got the ones for Miss Puffkin and the janitor mixed. I guess +it’s all right, though.” +</p> + +<p> +And then Slayton looked closer and saw on the cover of his manuscript, under +the title “Love Is All,” the janitor’s comment scribbled with +a piece of charcoal: +</p> + +<p> +“The –––– you say!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV<br> +THE ROADS WE TAKE</h2> + +<p> +Twenty miles west of Tucson, the “Sunset Express” stopped at a tank +to take on water. Besides the aqueous addition the engine of that famous flyer +acquired some other things that were not good for it. +</p> + +<p> +While the fireman was lowering the feeding hose, Bob Tidball, +“Shark” Dodson and a quarter-bred Creek Indian called John Big Dog +climbed on the engine and showed the engineer three round orifices in pieces of +ordnance that they carried. These orifices so impressed the engineer with their +possibilities that he raised both hands in a gesture such as accompanies the +ejaculation “Do tell!” +</p> + +<p> +At the crisp command of Shark Dodson, who was leader of the attacking force the +engineer descended to the ground and uncoupled the engine and tender. Then John +Big Dog, perched upon the coal, sportively held two guns upon the engine driver +and the fireman, and suggested that they run the engine fifty yards away and +there await further orders. +</p> + +<p> +Shark Dodson and Bob Tidball, scorning to put such low-grade ore as the +passengers through the mill, struck out for the rich pocket of the express car. +They found the messenger serene in the belief that the “Sunset +Express” was taking on nothing more stimulating and dangerous than aqua +pura. While Bob was knocking this idea out of his head with the butt-end of his +six-shooter Shark Dodson was already dosing the express-car safe with dynamite. +</p> + +<p> +The safe exploded to the tune of $30,000, all gold and currency. The passengers +thrust their heads casually out of the windows to look for the thunder-cloud. +The conductor jerked at the bell-rope, which sagged down loose and unresisting, +at his tug. Shark Dodson and Bob Tidball, with their booty in a stout canvas +bag, tumbled out of the express car and ran awkwardly in their high-heeled +boots to the engine. +</p> + +<p> +The engineer, sullenly angry but wise, ran the engine, according to orders, +rapidly away from the inert train. But before this was accomplished the express +messenger, recovered from Bob Tidball’s persuader to neutrality, jumped +out of his car with a Winchester rifle and took a trick in the game. Mr. John +Big Dog, sitting on the coal tender, unwittingly made a wrong lead by giving an +imitation of a target, and the messenger trumped him. With a ball exactly +between his shoulder blades the Creek chevalier of industry rolled off to the +ground, thus increasing the share of his comrades in the loot by one-sixth +each. +</p> + +<p> +Two miles from the tank the engineer was ordered to stop. +</p> + +<p> +The robbers waved a defiant adieu and plunged down the steep slope into the +thick woods that lined the track. Five minutes of crashing through a thicket of +chaparral brought them to open woods, where three horses were tied to +low-hanging branches. One was waiting for John Big Dog, who would never ride by +night or day again. This animal the robbers divested of saddle and bridle and +set free. They mounted the other two with the bag across one pommel, and rode +fast and with discretion through the forest and up a primeval, lonely gorge. +Here the animal that bore Bob Tidball slipped on a mossy boulder and broke a +foreleg. They shot him through the head at once and sat down to hold a council +of flight. Made secure for the present by the tortuous trail they had +travelled, the question of time was no longer so big. Many miles and hours lay +between them and the spryest posse that could follow. Shark Dodson’s +horse, with trailing rope and dropped bridle, panted and cropped thankfully of +the grass along the stream in the gorge. Bob Tidball opened the sack, drew out +double handfuls of the neat packages of currency and the one sack of gold and +chuckled with the glee of a child. +</p> + +<p> +“Say, you old double-decked pirate,” he called joyfully to Dodson, +“you said we could do it—you got a head for financing that knocks +the horns off of anything in Arizona.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are we going to do about a hoss for you, Bob? We ain’t got +long to wait here. They’ll be on our trail before daylight in the +mornin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I guess that cayuse of yourn’ll carry double for a +while,” answered the sanguine Bob. “We’ll annex the first +animal we come across. By jingoes, we made a haul, didn’t we? +Accordin’ to the marks on this money there’s $30,000—$15,000 +apiece!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s short of what I expected,” said Shark Dodson, kicking +softly at the packages with the toe of his boot. And then he looked pensively +at the wet sides of his tired horse. +</p> + +<p> +“Old Bolivar’s mighty nigh played out,” he said, slowly. +“I wish that sorrel of yours hadn’t got hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I,” said Bob, heartily, “but it can’t be helped. +Bolivar’s got plenty of bottom—he’ll get us both far enough +to get fresh mounts. Dang it, Shark, I can’t help thinkin’ how +funny it is that an Easterner like you can come out here and give us Western +fellows cards and spades in the desperado business. What part of the East was +you from, anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“New York State,” said Shark Dodson, sitting down on a boulder and +chewing a twig. “I was born on a farm in Ulster County. I ran away from +home when I was seventeen. It was an accident my coming West. I was +walkin’ along the road with my clothes in a bundle, makin’ for New +York City. I had an idea of goin’ there and makin’ lots of money. I +always felt like I could do it. I came to a place one evenin’ where the +road forked and I didn’t know which fork to take. I studied about it for +half an hour, and then I took the left-hand. That night I run into the camp of +a Wild West show that was travellin’ among the little towns, and I went +West with it. I’ve often wondered if I wouldn’t have turned out +different if I’d took the other road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I reckon you’d have ended up about the same,” said Bob +Tidball, cheerfully philosophical. “It ain’t the roads we take; +it’s what’s inside of us that makes us turn out the way we +do.” +</p> + +<p> +Shark Dodson got up and leaned against a tree. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d a good deal rather that sorrel of yourn hadn’t hurt +himself, Bob,” he said again, almost pathetically. +</p> + +<p> +“Same here,” agreed Bob; “he was sure a first-rate kind of a +crowbait. But Bolivar, he’ll pull us through all right. Reckon we’d +better be movin’ on, hadn’t we, Shark? I’ll bag this boodle +ag’in and we’ll hit the trail for higher timber.” +</p> + +<p> +Bob Tidball replaced the spoil in the bag and tied the mouth of it tightly with +a cord. When he looked up the most prominent object that he saw was the muzzle +of Shark Dodson’s .45 held upon him without a waver. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop your funnin’,” said Bob, with a grin. “We got to +be hittin’ the breeze.” +</p> + +<p> +“Set still,” said Shark. “You ain’t goin’ to hit +no breeze, Bob. I hate to tell you, but there ain’t any chance for but +one of us. Bolivar, he’s plenty tired, and he can’t carry +double.” +</p> + +<p> +“We been pards, me and you, Shark Dodson, for three year,” Bob said +quietly. “We’ve risked our lives together time and again. +I’ve always give you a square deal, and I thought you was a man. +I’ve heard some queer stories about you shootin’ one or two men in +a peculiar way, but I never believed ’em. Now if you’re just +havin’ a little fun with me, Shark, put your gun up, and we’ll get +on Bolivar and vamose. If you mean to shoot—shoot, you blackhearted son +of a tarantula!” +</p> + +<p> +Shark Dodson’s face bore a deeply sorrowful look. “You don’t +know how bad I feel,” he sighed, “about that sorrel of yourn +breakin’ his leg, Bob.” +</p> + +<p> +The expression on Dodson’s face changed in an instant to one of cold +ferocity mingled with inexorable cupidity. The soul of the man showed itself +for a moment like an evil face in the window of a reputable house. +</p> + +<p> +Truly Bob Tidball was never to “hit the breeze” again. The deadly +.45 of the false friend cracked and filled the gorge with a roar that the walls +hurled back with indignant echoes. And Bolivar, unconscious accomplice, swiftly +bore away the last of the holders-up of the “Sunset Express,” not +put to the stress of “carrying double.” +</p> + +<p> +But as “Shark” Dodson galloped away the woods seemed to fade from +his view; the revolver in his right hand turned to the curved arm of a mahogany +chair; his saddle was strangely upholstered, and he opened his eyes and saw his +feet, not in stirrups, but resting quietly on the edge of a quartered-oak desk. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +I am telling you that Dodson, of the firm of Dodson & Decker, Wall Street +brokers, opened his eyes. Peabody, the confidential clerk, was standing by his +chair, hesitating to speak. There was a confused hum of wheels below, and the +sedative buzz of an electric fan. +</p> + +<p> +“Ahem! Peabody,” said Dodson, blinking. “I must have fallen +asleep. I had a most remarkable dream. What is it, Peabody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Williams, sir, of Tracy & Williams, is outside. He has come to +settle his deal in X. Y. Z. The market caught him short, sir, if you +remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I remember. What is X. Y. Z. quoted at to-day, Peabody?” +</p> + +<p> +“One eighty-five, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that’s his price.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” said Peabody, rather nervously “for speaking of +it, but I’ve been talking to Williams. He’s an old friend of yours, +Mr. Dodson, and you practically have a corner in X. Y. Z. I thought you +might—that is, I thought you might not remember that he sold you the +stock at 98. If he settles at the market price it will take every cent he has +in the world and his home too to deliver the shares.” +</p> + +<p> +The expression on Dodson’s face changed in an instant to one of cold +ferocity mingled with inexorable cupidity. The soul of the man showed itself +for a moment like an evil face in the window of a reputable house. +</p> + +<p> +“He will settle at one eighty-five,” said Dodson. “Bolivar +cannot carry double.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a> XV<br> +A BLACKJACK BARGAINER</h2> + +<p> +The most disreputable thing in Yancey Goree’s law office was Goree +himself, sprawled in his creaky old arm-chair. The rickety little office, built +of red brick, was set flush with the street—the main street of the town +of Bethel. +</p> + +<p> +Bethel rested upon the foot-hills of the Blue Ridge. Above it the mountains +were piled to the sky. Far below it the turbid Catawba gleamed yellow along its +disconsolate valley. +</p> + +<p> +The June day was at its sultriest hour. Bethel dozed in the tepid shade. Trade +was not. It was so still that Goree, reclining in his chair, distinctly heard +the clicking of the chips in the grand-jury room, where the “court-house +gang” was playing poker. From the open back door of the office a +well-worn path meandered across the grassy lot to the court-house. The treading +out of that path had cost Goree all he ever had—first inheritance of a +few thousand dollars, next the old family home, and, latterly the last shreds +of his self-respect and manhood. The “gang” had cleaned him out. +The broken gambler had turned drunkard and parasite; he had lived to see this +day come when the men who had stripped him denied him a seat at the game. His +word was no longer to be taken. The daily bouts at cards had arranged itself +accordingly, and to him was assigned the ignoble part of the onlooker. The +sheriff, the county clerk, a sportive deputy, a gay attorney, and a chalk-faced +man hailing “from the valley,” sat at table, and the sheared one +was thus tacitly advised to go and grow more wool. +</p> + +<p> +Soon wearying of his ostracism, Goree had departed for his office, muttering to +himself as he unsteadily traversed the unlucky pathway. After a drink of corn +whiskey from a demijohn under the table, he had flung himself into the chair, +staring, in a sort of maudlin apathy, out at the mountains immersed in the +summer haze. The little white patch he saw away up on the side of Blackjack was +Laurel, the village near which he had been born and bred. There, also, was the +birthplace of the feud between the Gorees and the Coltranes. Now no direct heir +of the Gorees survived except this plucked and singed bird of misfortune. To +the Coltranes, also, but one male supporter was left—Colonel Abner +Coltrane, a man of substance and standing, a member of the State Legislature, +and a contemporary with Goree’s father. The feud had been a typical one +of the region; it had left a red record of hate, wrong and slaughter. +</p> + +<p> +But Yancey Goree was not thinking of feuds. His befuddled brain was hopelessly +attacking the problem of the future maintenance of himself and his favourite +follies. Of late, old friends of the family had seen to it that he had whereof +to eat and a place to sleep—but whiskey they would not buy for him, and +he must have whiskey. His law business was extinct; no case had been intrusted +to him in two years. He had been a borrower and a sponge, and it seemed that if +he fell no lower it would be from lack of opportunity. One more chance—he +was saying to himself—if he had one more stake at the game, he thought he +could win; but he had nothing left to sell, and his credit was more than +exhausted. +</p> + +<p> +He could not help smiling, even in his misery, as he thought of the man to +whom, six months before, he had sold the old Goree homestead. There had come +from “back yan’” in the mountains two of the strangest +creatures, a man named Pike Garvey and his wife. “Back yan’,” +with a wave of the hand toward the hills, was understood among the mountaineers +to designate the remotest fastnesses, the unplumbed gorges, the haunts of +lawbreakers, the wolf’s den, and the boudoir of the bear. In the cabin +far up on Blackjack’s shoulder, in the wildest part of these retreats, +this odd couple had lived for twenty years. They had neither dog nor children +to mitigate the heavy silence of the hills. Pike Garvey was little known in the +settlements, but all who had dealt with him pronounced him “crazy as a +loon.” He acknowledged no occupation save that of a squirrel hunter, but +he “moonshined” occasionally by way of diversion. Once the +“revenues” had dragged him from his lair, fighting silently and +desperately like a terrier, and he had been sent to state’s prison for +two years. Released, he popped back into his hole like an angry weasel. +</p> + +<p> +Fortune, passing over many anxious wooers, made a freakish flight into +Blackjack’s bosky pockets to smile upon Pike and his faithful partner. +</p> + +<p> +One day a party of spectacled, knickerbockered, and altogether absurd +prospectors invaded the vicinity of the Garvey’s cabin. Pike lifted his +squirrel rifle off the hooks and took a shot at them at long range on the +chance of their being revenues. Happily he missed, and the unconscious agents +of good luck drew nearer, disclosing their innocence of anything resembling law +or justice. Later on, they offered the Garveys an enormous quantity of ready, +green, crisp money for their thirty-acre patch of cleared land, mentioning, as +an excuse for such a mad action, some irrelevant and inadequate nonsense about +a bed of mica underlying the said property. +</p> + +<p> +When the Garveys became possessed of so many dollars that they faltered in +computing them, the deficiencies of life on Blackjack began to grow prominent. +Pike began to talk of new shoes, a hogshead of tobacco to set in the corner, a +new lock to his rifle; and, leading Martella to a certain spot on the +mountain-side, he pointed out to her how a small cannon—doubtless a thing +not beyond the scope of their fortune in price—might be planted so as to +command and defend the sole accessible trail to the cabin, to the confusion of +revenues and meddling strangers forever. +</p> + +<p> +But Adam reckoned without his Eve. These things represented to him the applied +power of wealth, but there slumbered in his dingy cabin an ambition that soared +far above his primitive wants. Somewhere in Mrs. Garvey’s bosom still +survived a spot of femininity unstarved by twenty years of Blackjack. For so +long a time the sounds in her ears had been the scaly-barks dropping in the +woods at noon, and the wolves singing among the rocks at night, and it was +enough to have purged her of vanities. She had grown fat and sad and yellow and +dull. But when the means came, she felt a rekindled desire to assume the +perquisites of her sex—to sit at tea tables; to buy futile things; to +whitewash the hideous veracity of life with a little form and ceremony. So she +coldly vetoed Pike’s proposed system of fortifications, and announced +that they would descend upon the world, and gyrate socially. +</p> + +<p> +And thus, at length, it was decided, and the thing done. The village of Laurel +was their compromise between Mrs. Garvey’s preference for one of the +large valley towns and Pike’s hankering for primeval solitudes. Laurel +yielded a halting round of feeble social distractions comportable with +Martella’s ambitions, and was not entirely without recommendation to +Pike, its contiguity to the mountains presenting advantages for sudden retreat +in case fashionable society should make it advisable. +</p> + +<p> +Their descent upon Laurel had been coincident with Yancey Goree’s +feverish desire to convert property into cash, and they bought the old Goree +homestead, paying four thousand dollars ready money into the +spendthrift’s shaking hands. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it happened that while the disreputable last of the Gorees sprawled in his +disreputable office, at the end of his row, spurned by the cronies whom he had +gorged, strangers dwelt in the halls of his fathers. +</p> + +<p> +A cloud of dust was rolling, slowly up the parched street, with something +travelling in the midst of it. A little breeze wafted the cloud to one side, +and a new, brightly painted carryall, drawn by a slothful gray horse, became +visible. The vehicle deflected from the middle of the street as it neared +Goree’s office, and stopped in the gutter directly in front of his door. +</p> + +<p> +On the front seat sat a gaunt, tall man, dressed in black broadcloth, his rigid +hands incarcerated in yellow kid gloves. On the back seat was a lady who +triumphed over the June heat. Her stout form was armoured in a skin-tight silk +dress of the description known as “changeable,” being a gorgeous +combination of shifting hues. She sat erect, waving a much-ornamented fan, with +her eyes fixed stonily far down the street. However Martella Garvey’s +heart might be rejoicing at the pleasures of her new life, Blackjack had done +his work with her exterior. He had carved her countenance to the image of +emptiness and inanity; had imbued her with the stolidity of his crags, and the +reserve of his hushed interiors. She always seemed to hear, whatever her +surroundings were, the scaly-barks falling and pattering down the +mountain-side. She could always hear the awful silence of Blackjack sounding +through the stillest of nights. +</p> + +<p> +Goree watched this solemn equipage, as it drove to his door, with only faint +interest; but when the lank driver wrapped the reins about his whip, awkwardly +descended, and stepped into the office, he rose unsteadily to receive him, +recognizing Pike Garvey, the new, the transformed, the recently civilized. +</p> + +<p> +The mountaineer took the chair Goree offered him. They who cast doubts upon +Garvey’s soundness of mind had a strong witness in the man’s +countenance. His face was too long, a dull saffron in hue, and immobile as a +statue’s. Pale-blue, unwinking round eyes without lashes added to the +singularity of his gruesome visage. Goree was at a loss to account for the +visit. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything all right at Laurel, Mr. Garvey?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me +with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the +neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is +gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev +been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The +best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I +cyan’t say, Mr. Goree, that sech things suits me—fur me, give me +them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the +direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, +’mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t +what I come fur to say, Mr. Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me +and Missis Garvey wants to buy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Buy!” echoed Goree. “From me?” Then he laughed +harshly. “I reckon you are mistaken about that. I reckon you are mistaken +about that. I sold out to you, as you yourself expressed it, ‘lock, stock +and barrel.’ There isn’t even a ramrod left to sell.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got it; and we ’uns want it. ‘Take the +money,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy it fa’r and +squar’.’” +</p> + +<p> +Goree shook his head. “The cupboard’s bare,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve riz,” pursued the mountaineer, undeflected from his +object, “a heap. We was pore as possums, and now we could hev folks to +dinner every day. We been recognized, Missis Garvey says, by the best society. +But there’s somethin’ we need we ain’t got. She says it ought +to been put in the ’ventory ov the sale, but it tain’t thar. +‘Take the money, then,’ says she, ‘and buy it fa’r and +squar’.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Out with it,” said Goree, his racked nerves growing impatient. +</p> + +<p> +Garvey threw his slouch hat upon the table, and leaned forward, fixing his +unblinking eyes upon Goree’s. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a old feud,” he said distinctly and slowly, +“’tween you ’uns and the Coltranes.” +</p> + +<p> +Goree frowned ominously. To speak of his feud to a feudist is a serious breach +of the mountain etiquette. The man from “back yan’” knew it +as well as the lawyer did. +</p> + +<p> +“Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. +Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the +mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the +Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds +f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ +uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ’journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane +f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ +white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ’uns, no +mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says +Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ’uns ain’t quality, but we’re +buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says +Missis Garvey, ‘and buy Mr. Goree’s feud, fa’r and +squar’.’” +</p> + +<p> +The squirrel hunter straightened a leg half across the room, drew a roll of +bills from his pocket, and threw them on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Thar’s two hundred dollars, Mr. Goree; what you would call a +fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’lowed to run down like +yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, +and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off +yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. +Thar’s the money.” +</p> + +<p> +The little roll of currency on the table slowly untwisted itself, writhing and +jumping as its folds relaxed. In the silence that followed Garvey’s last +speech the rattling of the poker chips in the court-house could be plainly +heard. Goree knew that the sheriff had just won a pot, for the subdued whoop +with which he always greeted a victory floated across the square upon the +crinkly heat waves. Beads of moisture stood on Goree’s brow. Stooping, he +drew the wicker-covered demijohn from under the table, and filled a tumbler +from it. +</p> + +<p> +“A little corn liquor, Mr. Garvey? Of course you are joking +about—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? +Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged—two hundred, I +believe you said, Mr. Garvey?” +</p> + +<p> +Goree laughed self-consciously. +</p> + +<p> +The mountaineer took the glass Goree handed him, and drank the whisky without a +tremor of the lids of his staring eyes. The lawyer applauded the feat by a look +of envious admiration. He poured his own drink, and took it like a drunkard, by +gulps, and with shudders at the smell and taste. +</p> + +<p> +“Two hundred,” repeated Garvey. “Thar’s the +money.” +</p> + +<p> +A sudden passion flared up in Goree’s brain. He struck the table with his +fist. One of the bills flipped over and touched his hand. He flinched as if +something had stung him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you come to me,” he shouted, “seriously with such a +ridiculous, insulting, darned-fool proposition?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s fa’r and squar’,” said the squirrel hunter, +but he reached out his hand as if to take back the money; and then Goree knew +that his own flurry of rage had not been from pride or resentment, but from +anger at himself, knowing that he would set foot in the deeper depths that were +being opened to him. He turned in an instant from an outraged gentleman to an +anxious chafferer recommending his goods. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be in a hurry, Garvey,” he said, his face crimson and +his speech thick. “I accept your p-p-proposition, though it’s dirt +cheap at two hundred. A t-trade’s all right when both p-purchaser and +b-buyer are s-satisfied. Shall I w-wrap it up for you, Mr. Garvey?” +</p> + +<p> +Garvey rose, and shook out his broadcloth. “Missis Garvey will be +pleased. You air out of it, and it stands Coltrane and Garvey. Just a scrap ov +writin’, Mr. Goree, you bein’ a lawyer, to show we traded.” +</p> + +<p> +Goree seized a sheet of paper and a pen. The money was clutched in his moist +hand. Everything else suddenly seemed to grow trivial and light. +</p> + +<p> +“Bill of sale, by all means. ‘Right, title, and interest in and +to’ . . . ‘forever warrant and—’ No, Garvey, +we’ll have to leave out that ‘defend,’” said Goree with +a loud laugh. “You’ll have to defend this title yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +The mountaineer received the amazing screed that the lawyer handed him, folded +it with immense labour, and laced it carefully in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +Goree was standing near the window. “Step here,” he said, raising +his finger, “and I’ll show you your recently purchased enemy. There +he goes, down the other side of the street.” +</p> + +<p> +The mountaineer crooked his long frame to look through the window in the +direction indicated by the other. Colonel Abner Coltrane, an erect, portly +gentleman of about fifty, wearing the inevitable long, double-breasted frock +coat of the Southern lawmaker, and an old high silk hat, was passing on the +opposite sidewalk. As Garvey looked, Goree glanced at his face. If there be +such a thing as a yellow wolf, here was its counterpart. Garvey snarled as his +unhuman eyes followed the moving figure, disclosing long, amber-coloured fangs. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that him? Why, that’s the man who sent me to the +pen’tentiary once!” +</p> + +<p> +“He used to be district attorney,” said Goree carelessly. +“And, by the way, he’s a first-class shot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I kin hit a squirrel’s eye at a hundred yard,” said Garvey. +“So that thar’s Coltrane! I made a better trade than I was +thinkin’. I’ll take keer ov this feud, Mr. Goree, better’n +you ever did!” +</p> + +<p> +He moved toward the door, but lingered there, betraying a slight perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything else to-day?” inquired Goree with frothy sarcasm. +“Any family traditions, ancestral ghosts, or skeletons in the closet? +Prices as low as the lowest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thar was another thing,” replied the unmoved squirrel hunter, +“that Missis Garvey was thinkin’ of. ’Tain’t so much in +my line as t’other, but she wanted partic’lar that I should +inquire, and ef you was willin’, ‘pay fur it,’ she says, +‘fa’r and squar’.’ Thar’s a buryin’ +groun’, as you know, Mr. Goree, in the yard of yo’ old place, under +the cedars. Them that lies thar is yo’ folks what was killed by the +Coltranes. The monyments has the names on ’em. Missis Garvey says a +fam’ly buryin’ groun’ is a sho’ sign of quality. She +says ef we git the feud, thar’s somethin’ else ought to go with it. +The names on them monyments is ‘Goree,’ but they can be changed to +ourn by—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go! Go!” screamed Goree, his face turning purple. He stretched out +both hands toward the mountaineer, his fingers hooked and shaking. “Go, +you ghoul! Even a Ch-Chinaman protects the g-graves of his +ancestors—go!” +</p> + +<p> +The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall. While he was +climbing over the wheel Goree was collecting, with feverish celerity, the money +that had fallen from his hand to the floor. As the vehicle slowly turned about, +the sheep, with a coat of newly grown wool, was hurrying, in indecent haste, +along the path to the court-house. +</p> + +<p> +At three o’clock in the morning they brought him back to his office, +shorn and unconscious. The sheriff, the sportive deputy, the county clerk, and +the gay attorney carried him, the chalk-faced man “from the valley” +acting as escort. +</p> + +<p> +“On the table,” said one of them, and they deposited him there +among the litter of his unprofitable books and papers. +</p> + +<p> +“Yance thinks a lot of a pair of deuces when he’s liquored +up,” sighed the sheriff reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +“Too much,” said the gay attorney. “A man has no business to +play poker who drinks as much as he does. I wonder how much he dropped +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Close to two hundred. What I wonder is whar he got it. Yance ain’t +had a cent fur over a month, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Struck a client, maybe. Well, let’s get home before daylight. +He’ll be all right when he wakes up, except for a sort of beehive about +the cranium.” +</p> + +<p> +The gang slipped away through the early morning twilight. The next eye to gaze +upon the miserable Goree was the orb of day. He peered through the uncurtained +window, first deluging the sleeper in a flood of faint gold, but soon pouring +upon the mottled red of his flesh a searching, white, summer heat. Goree +stirred, half unconsciously, among the table’s débris, and turned his +face from the window. His movement dislodged a heavy law book, which crashed +upon the floor. Opening his eyes, he saw, bending over him, a man in a black +frock coat. Looking higher, he discovered a well-worn silk hat, and beneath it +the kindly, smooth face of Colonel Abner Coltrane. +</p> + +<p> +A little uncertain of the outcome, the colonel waited for the other to make +some sign of recognition. Not in twenty years had male members of these two +families faced each other in peace. Goree’s eyelids puckered as he +strained his blurred sight toward this visitor, and then he smiled serenely. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you brought Stella and Lucy over to play?” he said calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know me, Yancey?” asked Coltrane. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I do. You brought me a whip with a whistle in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +So he had—twenty-four years ago; when Yancey’s father was his best +friend. +</p> + +<p> +Goree’s eyes wandered about the room. The colonel understood. “Lie +still, and I’ll bring you some,” said he. There was a pump in the +yard at the rear, and Goree closed his eyes, listening with rapture to the +click of its handle, and the bubbling of the falling stream. Coltrane brought a +pitcher of the cool water, and held it for him to drink. Presently Goree sat +up—a most forlorn object, his summer suit of flax soiled and crumpled, +his discreditable head tousled and unsteady. He tried to wave one of his hands +toward the colonel. +</p> + +<p> +“Ex-excuse—everything, will you?” he said. “I must have +drunk too much whiskey last night, and gone to bed on the table.” His +brows knitted into a puzzled frown. +</p> + +<p> +“Out with the boys awhile?” asked Coltrane kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I went nowhere. I haven’t had a dollar to spend in the last +two months. Struck the demijohn too often, I reckon, as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Coltrane touched him on the shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“A little while ago, Yancey,” he began, “you asked me if I +had brought Stella and Lucy over to play. You weren’t quite awake then, +and must have been dreaming you were a boy again. You are awake now, and I want +you to listen to me. I have come from Stella and Lucy to their old playmate, +and to my old friend’s son. They know that I am going to bring you home +with me, and you will find them as ready with a welcome as they were in the old +days. I want you to come to my house and stay until you are yourself again, and +as much longer as you will. We heard of your being down in the world, and in +the midst of temptation, and we agreed that you should come over and play at +our house once more. Will you come, my boy? Will you drop our old family +trouble and come with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Trouble!” said Goree, opening his eyes wide. “There was +never any trouble between us that I know of. I’m sure we’ve always +been the best friends. But, good Lord, Colonel, how could I go to your home as +I am—a drunken wretch, a miserable, degraded spendthrift and +gambler—” +</p> + +<p> +He lurched from the table into his armchair, and began to weep maudlin tears, +mingled with genuine drops of remorse and shame. Coltrane talked to him +persistently and reasonably, reminding him of the simple mountain pleasures of +which he had once been so fond, and insisting upon the genuineness of the +invitation. +</p> + +<p> +Finally he landed Goree by telling him he was counting upon his help in the +engineering and transportation of a large amount of felled timber from a high +mountain-side to a waterway. He knew that Goree had once invented a device for +this purpose—a series of slides and chutes upon which he had justly +prided himself. In an instant the poor fellow, delighted at the idea of his +being of use to any one, had paper spread upon the table, and was drawing rapid +but pitifully shaky lines in demonstration of what he could and would do. +</p> + +<p> +The man was sickened of the husks; his prodigal heart was turning again toward +the mountains. His mind was yet strangely clogged, and his thoughts and +memories were returning to his brain one by one, like carrier pigeons over a +stormy sea. But Coltrane was satisfied with the progress he had made. +</p> + +<p> +Bethel received the surprise of its existence that afternoon when a Coltrane +and a Goree rode amicably together through the town. Side by side they rode, +out from the dusty streets and gaping townspeople, down across the creek +bridge, and up toward the mountain. The prodigal had brushed and washed and +combed himself to a more decent figure, but he was unsteady in the saddle, and +he seemed to be deep in the contemplation of some vexing problem. Coltrane left +him in his mood, relying upon the influence of changed surroundings to restore +his equilibrium. +</p> + +<p> +Once Goree was seized with a shaking fit, and almost came to a collapse. He had +to dismount and rest at the side of the road. The colonel, foreseeing such a +condition, had provided a small flask of whisky for the journey but when it was +offered to him Goree refused it almost with violence, declaring he would never +touch it again. By and by he was recovered, and went quietly enough for a mile +or two. Then he pulled up his horse suddenly, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I lost two hundred dollars last night, playing poker. Now, where did I +get that money?” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it easy, Yancey. The mountain air will soon clear it up. +We’ll go fishing, first thing, at the Pinnacle Falls. The trout are +jumping there like bullfrogs. We’ll take Stella and Lucy along, and have +a picnic on Eagle Rock. Have you forgotten how a hickory-cured-ham sandwich +tastes, Yancey, to a hungry fisherman?” +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the colonel did not believe the story of his lost wealth; so Goree +retired again into brooding silence. +</p> + +<p> +By late Afternoon they had travelled ten of the twelve miles between Bethel and +Laurel. Half a mile this side of Laurel lay the old Goree place; a mile or two +beyond the village lived the Coltranes. The road was now steep and laborious, +but the compensations were many. The tilted aisles of the forest were opulent +with leaf and bird and bloom. The tonic air put to shame the +pharmacopæia. The glades were dark with mossy shade, and bright with shy +rivulets winking from the ferns and laurels. On the lower side they viewed, +framed in the near foliage, exquisite sketches of the far valley swooning in +its opal haze. +</p> + +<p> +Coltrane was pleased to see that his companion was yielding to the spell of the +hills and woods. For now they had but to skirt the base of Painter’s +Cliff; to cross Elder Branch and mount the hill beyond, and Goree would have to +face the squandered home of his fathers. Every rock he passed, every tree, +every foot of the rocky way, was familiar to him. Though he had forgotten the +woods, they thrilled him like the music of “Home, Sweet Home.” +</p> + +<p> +They rounded the cliff, descended into Elder Branch, and paused there to let +the horses drink and splash in the swift water. On the right was a rail fence +that cornered there, and followed the road and stream. Inclosed by it was the +old apple orchard of the home place; the house was yet concealed by the brow of +the steep hill. Inside and along the fence, pokeberries, elders, sassafras, and +sumac grew high and dense. At a rustle of their branches, both Goree and +Coltrane glanced up, and saw a long, yellow, wolfish face above the fence, +staring at them with pale, unwinking eyes. The head quickly disappeared; there +was a violent swaying of the bushes, and an ungainly figure ran up through the +apple orchard in the direction of the house, zig-zagging among the trees. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Garvey,” said Coltrane; “the man you sold out +to. There’s no doubt but he’s considerably cracked. I had to send +him up for moonshining once, several years ago, in spite of the fact that I +believed him irresponsible. Why, what’s the matter, Yancey?” +</p> + +<p> +Goree was wiping his forehead, and his face had lost its colour. “Do I +look queer, too?” he asked, trying to smile. “I’m just +remembering a few more things.” Some of the alcohol had evaporated from +his brain. “I recollect now where I got that two hundred dollars.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t think of it,” said Coltrane cheerfully. “Later +on we’ll figure it all out together.” +</p> + +<p> +They rode out of the branch, and when they reached the foot of the hill Goree +stopped again. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever suspect I was a very vain kind of fellow, Colonel?” +he asked. “Sort of foolish proud about appearances?” +</p> + +<p> +The colonel’s eyes refused to wander to the soiled, sagging suit of flax +and the faded slouch hat. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me,” he replied, mystified, but humouring him, +“I remember a young buck about twenty, with the tightest coat, the +sleekest hair, and the prancingest saddle horse in the Blue Ridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right you are,” said Goree eagerly. “And it’s in me +yet, though it don’t show. Oh, I’m as vain as a turkey gobbler, and +as proud as Lucifer. I’m going to ask you to indulge this weakness of +mine in a little matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speak out, Yancey. We’ll create you Duke of Laurel and Baron of +Blue Ridge, if you choose; and you shall have a feather out of Stella’s +peacock’s tail to wear in your hat.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m in earnest. In a few minutes we’ll pass the house up +there on the hill where I was born, and where my people have lived for nearly a +century. Strangers live there now—and look at me! I am about to show +myself to them ragged and poverty-stricken, a wastrel and a beggar. Colonel +Coltrane, I’m ashamed to do it. I want you to let me wear your coat and +hat until we are out of sight beyond. I know you think it a foolish pride, but +I want to make as good a showing as I can when I pass the old place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, what does this mean?” said Coltrane to himself, as he +compared his companion’s sane looks and quiet demeanour with his strange +request. But he was already unbuttoning the coat, assenting readily, as if the +fancy were in no wise to be considered strange. +</p> + +<p> +The coat and hat fitted Goree well. He buttoned the former about him with a +look of satisfaction and dignity. He and Coltrane were nearly the same +size—rather tall, portly, and erect. Twenty-five years were between them, +but in appearance they might have been brothers. Goree looked older than his +age; his face was puffy and lined; the colonel had the smooth, fresh complexion +of a temperate liver. He put on Goree’s disreputable old flax coat and +faded slouch hat. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Goree, taking up the reins, “I’m all right. +I want you to ride about ten feet in the rear as we go by, Colonel, so that +they can get a good look at me. They’ll see I’m no back number yet, +by any means. I guess I’ll show up pretty well to them once more, anyhow. +Let’s ride on.” +</p> + +<p> +He set out up the hill at a smart trot, the colonel following, as he had been +requested. +</p> + +<p> +Goree sat straight in the saddle, with head erect, but his eyes were turned to +the right, sharply scanning every shrub and fence and hiding-place in the old +homestead yard. Once he muttered to himself, “Will the crazy fool try it, +or did I dream half of it?” +</p> + +<p> +It was when he came opposite the little family burying ground that he saw what +he had been looking for—a puff of white smoke, coming from the thick +cedars in one corner. He toppled so slowly to the left that Coltrane had time +to urge his horse to that side, and catch him with one arm. +</p> + +<p> +The squirrel hunter had not overpraised his aim. He had sent the bullet where +he intended, and where Goree had expected that it would pass—through the +breast of Colonel Abner Coltrane’s black frock coat. +</p> + +<p> +Goree leaned heavily against Coltrane, but he did not fall. The horses kept +pace, side by side, and the Colonel’s arm kept him steady. The little +white houses of Laurel shone through the trees, half a mile away. Goree reached +out one hand and groped until it rested upon Coltrane’s fingers, which +held his bridle. +</p> + +<p> +“Good friend,” he said, and that was all. +</p> + +<p> +Thus did Yancey Goree, as he rode past his old home, make, considering all +things, the best showing that was in his power. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI<br> +THE SONG AND THE SERGEANT</h2> + +<p> +Half a dozen people supping at a table in one of the upper-Broadway all-night +restaurants were making too much noise. Three times the manager walked past +them with a politely warning glance; but their argument had waxed too warm to +be quelled by a manager’s gaze. It was midnight, and the restaurant was +filled with patrons from the theatres of that district. Some among the +dispersed audiences must have recognized among the quarrelsome sextet the faces +of the players belonging to the Carroll Comedy Company. +</p> + +<p> +Four of the six made up the company. Another was the author of the comedietta, +“A Gay Coquette,” which the quartette of players had been +presenting with fair success at several vaudeville houses in the city. The +sixth at the table was a person inconsequent in the realm of art, but one at +whose bidding many lobsters had perished. +</p> + +<p> +Loudly the six maintained their clamorous debate. No one of the Party was +silent except when answers were stormed from him by the excited ones. That was +the comedian of “A Gay Coquette.” He was a young man with a face +even too melancholy for his profession. +</p> + +<p> +The oral warfare of four immoderate tongues was directed at Miss Clarice +Carroll, the twinkling star of the small aggregation. Excepting the downcast +comedian, all members of the party united in casting upon her with vehemence +the blame of some momentous misfortune. Fifty times they told her: “It is +your fault, Clarice—it is you alone who spoilt the scene. It is only of +late that you have acted this way. At this rate the sketch will have to be +taken off.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carroll was a match for any four. Gallic ancestry gave her a vivacity that +could easily mount to fury. Her large eyes flashed a scorching denial at her +accusers. Her slender, eloquent arms constantly menaced the tableware. Her +high, clear soprano voice rose to what would have been a scream had it not +possessed so pure a musical quality. She hurled back at the attacking four +their denunciations in tones sweet, but of too great carrying power for a +Broadway restaurant. +</p> + +<p> +Finally they exhausted her patience both as a woman and an artist. She sprang +up like a panther, managed to smash half a dozen plates and glasses with one +royal sweep of her arm, and defied her critics. They rose and wrangled more +loudly. The comedian sighed and looked a trifle sadder and disinterested. The +manager came tripping and suggested peace. He was told to go to the popular +synonym for war so promptly that the affair might have happened at The Hague. +</p> + +<p> +Thus was the manager angered. He made a sign with his hand and a waiter slipped +out of the door. In twenty minutes the party of six was in a police station +facing a grizzled and philosophical desk sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“Disorderly conduct in a restaurant,” said the policeman who had +brought the party in. +</p> + +<p> +The author of “A Gay Coquette” stepped to the front. He wore +nose-glasses and evening clothes, even if his shoes had been tans before they +met the patent-leather-polish bottle. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Sergeant,” said he, out of his throat, like Actor Irving, +“I would like to protest against this arrest. The company of actors who +are performing in a little play that I have written, in company with a friend +and myself were having a little supper. We became deeply interested in the +discussion as to which one of the cast is responsible for a scene in the sketch +that lately has fallen so flat that the piece is about to become a failure. We +may have been rather noisy and intolerant of interruption by the restaurant +people; but the matter was of considerable importance to all of us. You see +that we are sober and are not the kind of people who desire to raise +disturbances. I hope that the case will not be pressed and that we may be +allowed to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who makes the charge?” asked the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“Me,” said a white-aproned voice in the rear. “De restaurant +sent me to. De gang was raisin’ a rough-house and breakin’ +dishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The dishes were paid for,” said the playwright. “They were +not broken purposely. In her anger, because we remonstrated with her for +spoiling the scene, Miss—” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not true, sergeant,” cried the clear voice of Miss +Clarice Carroll. In a long coat of tan silk and a red-plumed hat, she bounded +before the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not my fault,” she cried indignantly. “How dare +they say such a thing! I’ve played the title rôle ever since it was +staged, and if you want to know who made it a success, ask the +public—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“What Miss Carroll says is true in part,” said the author. +“For five months the comedietta was a drawing-card in the best houses. +But during the last two weeks it has lost favour. There is one scene in it in +which Miss Carroll made a big hit. Now she hardly gets a hand out of it. She +spoils it by acting it entirely different from her old way.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not my fault,” reiterated the actress. +</p> + +<p> +“There are only two of you on in the scene,” argued the playwright +hotly, “you and Delmars, here—” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s his fault,” declared Miss Carroll, with a +lightning glance of scorn from her dark eyes. The comedian caught it, and gazed +with increased melancholy at the panels of the sergeant’s desk. +</p> + +<p> +The night was a dull one in that particular police station. +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant’s long-blunted curiosity awoke a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard you,” he said to the author. And then he +addressed the thin-faced and ascetic-looking lady of the company who played +“Aunt Turnip-top” in the little comedy. +</p> + +<p> +“Who do you think spoils the scene you are fussing about?” he +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m no knocker,” said that lady, “and everybody knows +it. So, when I say that Clarice falls down every time in that scene I’m +judging her art and not herself. She was great in it once. She does it +something fierce now. It’ll dope the show if she keeps it up.” +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant looked at the comedian. +</p> + +<p> +“You and the lady have this scene together, I understand. I suppose +there’s no use asking you which one of you queers it?” +</p> + +<p> +The comedian avoided the direct rays from the two fixed stars of Miss +Carroll’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his patent-leather +toes. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you one of the actors?” asked the sergeant of a dwarfish youth +with a middle-aged face. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, say!” replied the last Thespian witness, “you +don’t notice any tin spear in my hands, do you? You haven’t heard +me shout: ‘See, the Emperor comes!’ since I’ve been in here, +have you? I guess I’m on the stage long enough for ’em not to start +a panic by mistaking me for a thin curl of smoke rising above the +footlights.” +</p> + +<p> +“In your opinion, if you’ve got one,” said the sergeant, +“is the frost that gathers on the scene in question the work of the lady +or the gentleman who takes part in it?” +</p> + +<p> +The middle-aged youth looked pained. +</p> + +<p> +“I regret to say,” he answered, “that Miss Carroll seems to +have lost her grip on that scene. She’s all right in the rest of the +play, but—but I tell you, sergeant, she can do it—she has done it +equal to any of ’em—and she can do it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carroll ran forward, glowing and palpitating. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Jimmy, for the first good word I’ve had in many a +day,” she cried. And then she turned her eager face toward the desk. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll show you, sergeant, whether I am to blame. I’ll show +them whether I can do that scene. Come, Mr. Delmars; let us begin. You will let +us, won’t you, sergeant?” +</p> + +<p> +“How long will it take?” asked the sergeant, dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight minutes,” said the playwright. “The entire play +consumes but thirty.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may go ahead,” said the sergeant. “Most of you seem to +side against the little lady. Maybe she had a right to crack up a saucer or two +in that restaurant. We’ll see how she does the turn before we take that +up.” +</p> + +<p> +The matron of the police station had been standing near, listening to the +singular argument. She came nigher and stood near the sergeant’s chair. +Two or three of the reserves strolled in, big and yawning. +</p> + +<p> +“Before beginning the scene,” said the playwright, “and +assuming that you have not seen a production of ‘A Gay Coquette,’ I +will make a brief but necessary explanation. It is a +musical-farce-comedy—burlesque-comedietta. As the title implies, Miss +Carroll’s rôle is that of a gay, rollicking, mischievous, heartless +coquette. She sustains that character throughout the entire comedy part of the +production. And I have designed the extravaganza features so that she may +preserve and present the same coquettish idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, the scene in which we take exception to Miss Carroll’s acting +is called the ‘gorilla dance.’ She is costumed to represent a wood +nymph, and there is a great song-and-dance scene with a gorilla—played by +Mr. Delmars, the comedian. A tropical-forest stage is set. +</p> + +<p> +“That used to get four and five recalls. The main thing was the acting +and the dance—it was the funniest thing in New York for five months. +Delmars’s song, ‘I’ll Woo Thee to My Sylvan Home,’ +while he and Miss Carroll were cutting hide-and-seek capers among the tropical +plants, was a winner.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble with the scene now?” asked the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Carroll spoils it right in the middle of it,” said the +playwright wrathfully. +</p> + +<p> +With a wide gesture of her ever-moving arms the actress waved back the little +group of spectators, leaving a space in front of the desk for the scene of her +vindication or fall. Then she whipped off her long tan cloak and tossed it +across the arm of the policeman who still stood officially among them. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carroll had gone to supper well cloaked, but in the costume of the tropic +wood nymph. A skirt of fern leaves touched her knee; she was like a +humming-bird—green and golden and purple. +</p> + +<p> +And then she danced a fluttering, fantastic dance, so agile and light and mazy +in her steps that the other three members of the Carroll Comedy Company broke +into applause at the art of it. +</p> + +<p> +And at the proper time Delmars leaped out at her side, mimicking the uncouth, +hideous bounds of the gorilla so funnily that the grizzled sergeant himself +gave a short laugh like the closing of a padlock. They danced together the +gorilla dance, and won a hand from all. +</p> + +<p> +Then began the most fantastic part of the scene—the wooing of the nymph +by the gorilla. It was a kind of dance itself—eccentric and prankish, +with the nymph in coquettish and seductive retreat, followed by the gorilla as +he sang “I’ll Woo Thee to My Sylvan Home.” +</p> + +<p> +The song was a lyric of merit. The words were nonsense, as befitted the play, +but the music was worthy of something better. Delmars struck into it in a rich +tenor that owned a quality that shamed the flippant words. +</p> + +<p> +During one verse of the song the wood nymph performed the grotesque evolutions +designed for the scene. At the middle of the second verse she stood still, with +a strange look on her face, seeming to gaze dreamily into the depths of the +scenic forest. The gorilla’s last leap had brought him to her feet, and +there he knelt, holding her hand, until he had finished the haunting-lyric that +was set in the absurd comedy like a diamond in a piece of putty. +</p> + +<p> +When Delmars ceased Miss Carroll started, and covered a sudden flow of tears +with both hands. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” cried the playwright, gesticulating with violence; +“there you have it, sergeant. For two weeks she has spoiled that scene in +just that manner at every performance. I have begged her to consider that it is +not Ophelia or Juliet that she is playing. Do you wonder now at our impatience? +Tears for the gorilla song! The play is lost!” +</p> + +<p> +Out of her bewitchment, whatever it was, the wood nymph flared suddenly, and +pointed a desperate finger at Delmars. +</p> + +<p> +“It is you—you who have done this,” she cried wildly. +“You never sang that song that way until lately. It is your doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I give it up,” said the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +And then the gray-haired matron of the police station came forward from behind +the sergeant’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Must an old woman teach you all?” she said. She went up to Miss +Carroll and took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“The man’s wearing his heart out for you, my dear. Couldn’t +you tell it the first note you heard him sing? All of his monkey flip-flops +wouldn’t have kept it from me. Must you be deaf as well as blind? +That’s why you couldn’t act your part, child. Do you love him or +must he be a gorilla for the rest of his days?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Carroll whirled around and caught Delmars with a lightning glance of her +eye. He came toward her, melancholy. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you hear, Mr. Delmars?” she asked, with a catching breath. +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said the comedian. “It is true. I didn’t think +there was any use. I tried to let you know with the song.” +</p> + +<p> +“Silly!” said the matron; “why didn’t you speak?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” cried the wood nymph, “his way was the best. I +didn’t know, but—it was just what I wanted, Bobby.” +</p> + +<p> +She sprang like a green grasshopper; and the comedian opened his arms, +and—smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Get out of this,” roared the desk sergeant to the waiting waiter +from the restaurant. “There’s nothing doing here for you.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII<br> +ONE DOLLAR’S WORTH</h2> + +<p> +The judge of the United States court of the district lying along the Rio Grande +border found the following letter one morning in his mail: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +J<small>UDGE</small>:<br> +<br> +When you sent me up for four years you made a talk. Among other hard things, +you called me a rattlesnake. Maybe I am one—anyhow, you hear me rattling +now. One year after I got to the pen, my daughter died of—well, they said +it was poverty and the disgrace together. You’ve got a daughter, Judge, +and I’m going to make you know how it feels to lose one. And I’m +going to bite that district attorney that spoke against me. I’m free now, +and I guess I’ve turned to rattlesnake all right. I feel like one. I +don’t say much, but this is my rattle. Look out when I strike. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Yours respectfully,<br> +R<small>ATTLESNAKE</small>. +</p> + +<p> +Judge Derwent threw the letter carelessly aside. It was nothing new to receive +such epistles from desperate men whom he had been called upon to judge. He felt +no alarm. Later on he showed the letter to Littlefield, the young district +attorney, for Littlefield’s name was included in the threat, and the +judge was punctilious in matters between himself and his fellow men. +</p> + +<p> +Littlefield honoured the rattle of the writer, as far as it concerned himself, +with a smile of contempt; but he frowned a little over the reference to the +Judge’s daughter, for he and Nancy Derwent were to be married in the +fall. +</p> + +<p> +Littlefield went to the clerk of the court and looked over the records with +him. They decided that the letter might have been sent by Mexico Sam, a +half-breed border desperado who had been imprisoned for manslaughter four years +before. Then official duties crowded the matter from his mind, and the rattle +of the revengeful serpent was forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +Court was in session at Brownsville. Most of the cases to be tried were charges +of smuggling, counterfeiting, post-office robberies, and violations of Federal +laws along the border. One case was that of a young Mexican, Rafael Ortiz, who +had been rounded up by a clever deputy marshal in the act of passing a +counterfeit silver dollar. He had been suspected of many such deviations from +rectitude, but this was the first time that anything provable had been fixed +upon him. Ortiz languished cozily in jail, smoking brown cigarettes and waiting +for trial. Kilpatrick, the deputy, brought the counterfeit dollar and handed it +to the district attorney in his office in the court-house. The deputy and a +reputable druggist were prepared to swear that Ortiz paid for a bottle of +medicine with it. The coin was a poor counterfeit, soft, dull-looking, and made +principally of lead. It was the day before the morning on which the docket +would reach the case of Ortiz, and the district attorney was preparing himself +for trial. +</p> + +<p> +“Not much need of having in high-priced experts to prove the coin’s +queer, is there, Kil?” smiled Littlefield, as he thumped the dollar down +upon the table, where it fell with no more ring than would have come from a +lump of putty. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess the Greaser’s as good as behind the bars,” said the +deputy, easing up his holsters. “You’ve got him dead. If it had +been just one time, these Mexicans can’t tell good money from bad; but +this little yaller rascal belongs to a gang of counterfeiters, I know. This is +the first time I’ve been able to catch him doing the trick. He’s +got a girl down there in them Mexican jacals on the river bank. I seen her one +day when I was watching him. She’s as pretty as a red heifer in a flower +bed.” +</p> + +<p> +Littlefield shoved the counterfeit dollar into his pocket, and slipped his +memoranda of the case into an envelope. Just then a bright, winsome face, as +frank and jolly as a boy’s, appeared in the doorway, and in walked Nancy +Derwent. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bob, didn’t court adjourn at twelve to-day until +to-morrow?” she asked of Littlefield. +</p> + +<p> +“It did,” said the district attorney, “and I’m very +glad of it. I’ve got a lot of rulings to look up, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, that’s just like you. I wonder you and father don’t +turn to law books or rulings or something! I want you to take me out +plover-shooting this afternoon. Long Prairie is just alive with them. +Don’t say no, please! I want to try my new twelve-bore hammerless. +I’ve sent to the livery stable to engage Fly and Bess for the buckboard; +they stand fire so nicely. I was sure you would go.” +</p> + +<p> +They were to be married in the fall. The glamour was at its height. The plovers +won the day—or, rather, the afternoon—over the calf-bound +authorities. Littlefield began to put his papers away. +</p> + +<p> +There was a knock at the door. Kilpatrick answered it. A beautiful, dark-eyed +girl with a skin tinged with the faintest lemon colour walked into the room. A +black shawl was thrown over her head and wound once around her neck. +</p> + +<p> +She began to talk in Spanish, a voluble, mournful stream of melancholy music. +Littlefield did not understand Spanish. The deputy did, and he translated her +talk by portions, at intervals holding up his hand to check the flow of her +words. +</p> + +<p> +“She came to see you, Mr. Littlefield. Her name’s Joya Treviñas. +She wants to see you about—well, she’s mixed up with that Rafael +Ortiz. She’s his—she’s his girl. She says he’s +innocent. She says she made the money and got him to pass it. Don’t you +believe her, Mr. Littlefield. That’s the way with these Mexican girls; +they’ll lie, steal, or kill for a fellow when they get stuck on him. +Never trust a woman that’s in love!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Kilpatrick!” +</p> + +<p> +Nancy Derwent’s indignant exclamation caused the deputy to flounder for a +moment in attempting to explain that he had misquoted his own sentiments, and +then he went on with the translation: +</p> + +<p> +“She says she’s willing to take his place in the jail if +you’ll let him out. She says she was down sick with the fever, and the +doctor said she’d die if she didn’t have medicine. That’s why +he passed the lead dollar on the drug store. She says it saved her life. This +Rafael seems to be her honey, all right; there’s a lot of stuff in her +talk about love and such things that you don’t want to hear.” +</p> + +<p> +It was an old story to the district attorney. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell her,” said he, “that I can do nothing. The case comes +up in the morning, and he will have to make his fight before the court.” +</p> + +<p> +Nancy Derwent was not so hardened. She was looking with sympathetic interest at +Joya Treviñas and at Littlefield alternately. The deputy repeated the district +attorney’s words to the girl. She spoke a sentence or two in a low voice, +pulled her shawl closely about her face, and left the room. +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say then?” asked the district attorney. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing special,” said the deputy. “She said: ‘If the +life of the one’—let’s see how it went—‘<i>Si la +vida de ella á quien tu amas</i>—if the life of the girl you love is ever +in danger, remember Rafael Ortiz.’” +</p> + +<p> +Kilpatrick strolled out through the corridor in the direction of the +marshal’s office. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you do anything for them, Bob?” asked Nancy. +“It’s such a little thing—just one counterfeit +dollar—to ruin the happiness of two lives! She was in danger of death, +and he did it to save her. Doesn’t the law know the feeling of +pity?” +</p> + +<p> +“It hasn’t a place in jurisprudence, Nan,” said Littlefield, +“especially <i>in re</i> the district attorney’s duty. I’ll +promise you that the prosecution will not be vindictive; but the man is as good +as convicted when the case is called. Witnesses will swear to his passing the +bad dollar which I have in my pocket at this moment as ‘Exhibit A.’ +There are no Mexicans on the jury, and it will vote Mr. Greaser guilty without +leaving the box.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The plover-shooting was fine that afternoon, and in the excitement of the sport +the case of Rafael and the grief of Joya Treviñas was forgotten. The district +attorney and Nancy Derwent drove out from the town three miles along a smooth, +grassy road, and then struck across a rolling prairie toward a heavy line of +timber on Piedra Creek. Beyond this creek lay Long Prairie, the favourite haunt +of the plover. As they were nearing the creek they heard the galloping of a +horse to their right, and saw a man with black hair and a swarthy face riding +toward the woods at a tangent, as if he had come up behind them. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen that fellow somewhere,” said Littlefield, who had +a memory for faces, “but I can’t exactly place him. Some ranchman, +I suppose, taking a short cut home.” +</p> + +<p> +They spent an hour on Long Prairie, shooting from the buckboard. Nancy Derwent, +an active, outdoor Western girl, was pleased with her twelve-bore. She had +bagged within two brace of her companion’s score. +</p> + +<p> +They started homeward at a gentle trot. When within a hundred yards of Piedra +Creek a man rode out of the timber directly toward them. +</p> + +<p> +“It looks like the man we saw coming over,” remarked Miss Derwent. +</p> + +<p> +As the distance between them lessened, the district attorney suddenly pulled up +his team sharply, with his eyes fixed upon the advancing horseman. That +individual had drawn a Winchester from its scabbard on his saddle and thrown it +over his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I know you, Mexico Sam!” muttered Littlefield to himself. +“It was you who shook your rattles in that gentle epistle.” +</p> + +<p> +Mexico Sam did not leave things long in doubt. He had a nice eye in all matters +relating to firearms, so when he was within good rifle range, but outside of +danger from No. 8 shot, he threw up his Winchester and opened fire upon the +occupants of the buckboard. +</p> + +<p> +The first shot cracked the back of the seat within the two-inch space between +the shoulders of Littlefield and Miss Derwent. The next went through the +dashboard and Littlefield’s trouser leg. +</p> + +<p> +The district attorney hustled Nancy out of the buck-board to the ground. She +was a little pale, but asked no questions. She had the frontier instinct that +accepts conditions in an emergency without superfluous argument. They kept +their guns in hand, and Littlefield hastily gathered some handfuls of +cartridges from the pasteboard box on the seat and crowded them into his +pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep behind the horses, Nan,” he commanded. “That fellow is +a ruffian I sent to prison once. He’s trying to get even. He knows our +shot won’t hurt him at that distance.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Bob,” said Nancy steadily. “I’m not afraid. +But you come close, too. Whoa, Bess; stand still, now!” +</p> + +<p> +She stroked Bess’s mane. Littlefield stood with his gun ready, praying +that the desperado would come within range. +</p> + +<p> +But Mexico Sam was playing his vendetta along safe lines. He was a bird of +different feather from the plover. His accurate eye drew an imaginary line of +circumference around the area of danger from bird-shot, and upon this line he +rode. His horse wheeled to the right, and as his victims rounded to the safe +side of their equine breast-work he sent a ball through the district +attorney’s hat. Once he miscalculated in making a détour, and +over-stepped his margin. Littlefield’s gun flashed, and Mexico Sam ducked +his head to the harmless patter of the shot. A few of them stung his horse, +which pranced promptly back to the safety line. +</p> + +<p> +The desperado fired again. A little cry came from Nancy Derwent. Littlefield +whirled, with blazing eyes, and saw the blood trickling down her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not hurt, Bob—only a splinter struck me. I think he hit +one of the wheel-spokes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” groaned Littlefield. “If I only had a charge of +buckshot!” +</p> + +<p> +The ruffian got his horse still, and took careful aim. Fly gave a snort and +fell in the harness, struck in the neck. Bess, now disabused of the idea that +plover were being fired at, broke her traces and galloped wildly away. Mexican +Sam sent a ball neatly through the fulness of Nancy Derwent’s shooting +jacket. +</p> + +<p> +“Lie down—lie down!” snapped Littlefield. “Close to the +horse—flat on the ground—so.” He almost threw her upon the +grass against the back of the recumbent Fly. Oddly enough, at that moment the +words of the Mexican girl returned to his mind: +</p> + +<p> +“If the life of the girl you love is ever in danger, remember Rafael +Ortiz.” +</p> + +<p> +Littlefield uttered an exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +“Open fire on him, Nan, across the horse’s back. Fire as fast as +you can! You can’t hurt him, but keep him dodging shot for one minute +while I try to work a little scheme.” +</p> + +<p> +Nancy gave a quick glance at Littlefield, and saw him take out his pocket-knife +and open it. Then she turned her face to obey orders, keeping up a rapid fire +at the enemy. +</p> + +<p> +Mexico Sam waited patiently until this innocuous fusillade ceased. He had +plenty of time, and he did not care to risk the chance of a bird-shot in his +eye when it could be avoided by a little caution. He pulled his heavy Stetson +low down over his face until the shots ceased. Then he drew a little nearer, +and fired with careful aim at what he could see of his victims above the fallen +horse. +</p> + +<p> +Neither of them moved. He urged his horse a few steps nearer. He saw the +district attorney rise to one knee and deliberately level his shotgun. He +pulled his hat down and awaited the harmless rattle of the tiny pellets. +</p> + +<p> +The shotgun blazed with a heavy report. Mexico Sam sighed, turned limp all +over, and slowly fell from his horse—a dead rattlesnake. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +At ten o’clock the next morning court opened, and the case of the United +States versus Rafael Ortiz was called. The district attorney, with his arm in a +sling, rose and addressed the court. +</p> + +<p> +“May it please your honour,” he said, “I desire to enter a +<i>nolle pros.</i> in this case. Even though the defendant should be guilty, +there is not sufficient evidence in the hands of the government to secure a +conviction. The piece of counterfeit coin upon the identity of which the case +was built is not now available as evidence. I ask, therefore, that the case be +stricken off.” +</p> + +<p> +At the noon recess Kilpatrick strolled into the district attorney’s +office. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just been down to take a squint at old Mexico Sam,” +said the deputy. “They’ve got him laid out. Old Mexico was a tough +outfit, I reckon. The boys was wonderin’ down there what you shot him +with. Some said it must have been nails. I never see a gun carry anything to +make holes like he had.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shot him,” said the district attorney, “with Exhibit A of +your counterfeiting case. Lucky thing for me—and somebody else—that +it was as bad money as it was! It sliced up into slugs very nicely. Say, Kil, +can’t you go down to the jacals and find where that Mexican girl lives? +Miss Derwent wants to know.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII<br> +A NEWSPAPER STORY</h2> + +<p> +At 8 A. M. it lay on Giuseppi’s news-stand, still damp from the presses. +Giuseppi, with the cunning of his ilk, philandered on the opposite corner, +leaving his patrons to help themselves, no doubt on a theory related to the +hypothesis of the watched pot. +</p> + +<p> +This particular newspaper was, according to its custom and design, an educator, +a guide, a monitor, a champion and a household counsellor and <i>vade +mecum</i>. +</p> + +<p> +From its many excellencies might be selected three editorials. One was in +simple and chaste but illuminating language directed to parents and teachers, +deprecating corporal punishment for children. +</p> + +<p> +Another was an accusive and significant warning addressed to a notorious labour +leader who was on the point of instigating his clients to a troublesome strike. +</p> + +<p> +The third was an eloquent demand that the police force be sustained and aided +in everything that tended to increase its efficiency as public guardians and +servants. +</p> + +<p> +Besides these more important chidings and requisitions upon the store of good +citizenship was a wise prescription or form of procedure laid out by the editor +of the heart-to-heart column in the specific case of a young man who had +complained of the obduracy of his lady love, teaching him how he might win her. +</p> + +<p> +Again, there was, on the beauty page, a complete answer to a young lady +inquirer who desired admonition toward the securing of bright eyes, rosy cheeks +and a beautiful countenance. +</p> + +<p> +One other item requiring special cognizance was a brief “personal,” +running thus: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> J<small>ACK</small>:—Forgive me. You were right. Meet +me corner Madison and —th at 8.30 this morning. We leave at noon. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +P<small>ENITENT</small>. +</p> + +<p> +At 8 o’clock a young man with a haggard look and the feverish gleam of +unrest in his eye dropped a penny and picked up the top paper as he passed +Giuseppi’s stand. A sleepless night had left him a late riser. There was +an office to be reached by nine, and a shave and a hasty cup of coffee to be +crowded into the interval. +</p> + +<p> +He visited his barber shop and then hurried on his way. He pocketed his paper, +meditating a belated perusal of it at the luncheon hour. At the next corner it +fell from his pocket, carrying with it his pair of new gloves. Three blocks he +walked, missed the gloves and turned back fuming. +</p> + +<p> +Just on the half-hour he reached the corner where lay the gloves and the paper. +But he strangely ignored that which he had come to seek. He was holding two +little hands as tightly as ever he could and looking into two penitent brown +eyes, while joy rioted in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Jack,” she said, “I knew you would be here on +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what she means by that,” he was saying to himself; +“but it’s all right, it’s all right.” +</p> + +<p> +A big wind puffed out of the west, picked up the paper from the sidewalk, +opened it out and sent it flying and whirling down a side street. Up that +street was driving a skittish bay to a spider-wheel buggy, the young man who +had written to the heart-to-heart editor for a recipe that he might win her for +whom he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +The wind, with a prankish flurry, flapped the flying newspaper against the face +of the skittish bay. There was a lengthened streak of bay mingled with the red +of running gear that stretched itself out for four blocks. Then a water-hydrant +played its part in the cosmogony, the buggy became matchwood as foreordained, +and the driver rested very quietly where he had been flung on the asphalt in +front of a certain brownstone mansion. +</p> + +<p> +They came out and had him inside very promptly. And there was one who made +herself a pillow for his head, and cared for no curious eyes, bending over and +saying, “Oh, it was you; it was you all the time, Bobby! Couldn’t +you see it? And if you die, why, so must I, and—” +</p> + +<p> +But in all this wind we must hurry to keep in touch with our paper. +</p> + +<p> +Policeman O’Brine arrested it as a character dangerous to traffic. +Straightening its dishevelled leaves with his big, slow fingers, he stood a few +feet from the family entrance of the Shandon Bells Café. One headline he +spelled out ponderously: “The Papers to the Front in a Move to Help the +Police.” +</p> + +<p> +But, whisht! The voice of Danny, the head bartender, through the crack of the +door: “Here’s a nip for ye, Mike, ould man.” +</p> + +<p> +Behind the widespread, amicable columns of the press Policeman O’Brine +receives swiftly his nip of the real stuff. He moves away, stalwart, refreshed, +fortified, to his duties. Might not the editor man view with pride the early, +the spiritual, the literal fruit that had blessed his labours. +</p> + +<p> +Policeman O’Brine folded the paper and poked it playfully under the arm +of a small boy that was passing. That boy was named Johnny, and he took the +paper home with him. His sister was named Gladys, and she had written to the +beauty editor of the paper asking for the practicable touchstone of beauty. +That was weeks ago, and she had ceased to look for an answer. Gladys was a pale +girl, with dull eyes and a discontented expression. She was dressing to go up +to the avenue to get some braid. Beneath her skirt she pinned two leaves of the +paper Johnny had brought. When she walked the rustling sound was an exact +imitation of the real thing. +</p> + +<p> +On the street she met the Brown girl from the flat below and stopped to talk. +The Brown girl turned green. Only silk at $5 a yard could make the sound that +she heard when Gladys moved. The Brown girl, consumed by jealousy, said +something spiteful and went her way, with pinched lips. +</p> + +<p> +Gladys proceeded toward the avenue. Her eyes now sparkled like jagerfonteins. A +rosy bloom visited her cheeks; a triumphant, subtle, vivifying, smile +transfigured her face. She was beautiful. Could the beauty editor have seen her +then! There was something in her answer in the paper, I believe, about +cultivating kind feelings toward others in order to make plain features +attractive. +</p> + +<p> +The labour leader against whom the paper’s solemn and weighty editorial +injunction was laid was the father of Gladys and Johnny. He picked up the +remains of the journal from which Gladys had ravished a cosmetic of silken +sounds. The editorial did not come under his eye, but instead it was greeted by +one of those ingenious and specious puzzle problems that enthrall alike the +simpleton and the sage. +</p> + +<p> +The labour leader tore off half of the page, provided himself with table, +pencil and paper and glued himself to his puzzle. +</p> + +<p> +Three hours later, after waiting vainly for him at the appointed place, other +more conservative leaders declared and ruled in favour of arbitration, and the +strike with its attendant dangers was averted. Subsequent editions of the paper +referred, in coloured inks, to the clarion tone of its successful denunciation +of the labour leader’s intended designs. +</p> + +<p> +The remaining leaves of the active journal also went loyally to the proving of +its potency. +</p> + +<p> +When Johnny returned from school he sought a secluded spot and removed the +missing columns from the inside of his clothing, where they had been artfully +distributed so as to successfully defend such areas as are generally attacked +during scholastic castigations. Johnny attended a private school and had had +trouble with his teacher. As has been said, there was an excellent editorial +against corporal punishment in that morning’s issue, and no doubt it had +its effect. +</p> + +<p> +After this can any one doubt the power of the press? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX<br> +TOMMY’S BURGLAR</h2> + +<p> +At ten o’clock P. M. Felicia, the maid, left by the basement door with +the policeman to get a raspberry phosphate around the corner. She detested the +policeman and objected earnestly to the arrangement. She pointed out, not +unreasonably, that she might have been allowed to fall asleep over one of St. +George Rathbone’s novels on the third floor, but she was overruled. +Raspberries and cops were not created for nothing. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar got into the house without much difficulty; because we must have +action and not too much description in a 2,000-word story. +</p> + +<p> +In the dining room he opened the slide of his dark lantern. With a brace and +centrebit he began to bore into the lock of the silver-closet. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a click was heard. The room was flooded with electric light. The dark +velvet portières parted to admit a fair-haired boy of eight in pink pajamas, +bearing a bottle of olive oil in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a burglar?” he asked, in a sweet, childish voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to that,” exclaimed the man, in a hoarse voice. “Am I +a burglar? Wot do you suppose I have a three-days’ growth of bristly +beard on my face for, and a cap with flaps? Give me the oil, quick, and let me +grease the bit, so I won’t wake up your mamma, who is lying down with a +headache, and left you in charge of Felicia who has been faithless to her +trust.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear,” said Tommy, with a sigh. “I thought you would be +more up-to-date. This oil is for the salad when I bring lunch from the pantry +for you. And mamma and papa have gone to the Metropolitan to hear De Reszke. +But that isn’t my fault. It only shows how long the story has been +knocking around among the editors. If the author had been wise he’d have +changed it to Caruso in the proofs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet,” hissed the burglar, under his breath. “If you +raise an alarm I’ll wring your neck like a rabbit’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like a chicken’s,” corrected Tommy. “You had that +wrong. You don’t wring rabbits’ necks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you afraid of me?” asked the burglar. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I’m not,” answered Tommy. “Don’t you +suppose I know fact from fiction. If this wasn’t a story I’d yell +like an Indian when I saw you; and you’d probably tumble downstairs and +get pinched on the sidewalk.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said the burglar, “that you’re on to your job. +Go on with the performance.” +</p> + +<p> +Tommy seated himself in an armchair and drew his toes up under him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you go around robbing strangers, Mr. Burglar? Have you no +friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“I see what you’re driving at,” said the burglar, with a dark +frown. “It’s the same old story. Your innocence and childish +insouciance is going to lead me back into an honest life. Every time I crack a +crib where there’s a kid around, it happens.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you mind gazing with wolfish eyes at the plate of cold beef that +the butler has left on the dining table?” said Tommy. “I’m +afraid it’s growing late.” +</p> + +<p> +The burglar accommodated. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor man,” said Tommy. “You must be hungry. If you will +please stand in a listless attitude I will get you something to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy brought a roast chicken, a jar of marmalade and a bottle of wine from +the pantry. The burglar seized a knife and fork sullenly. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only been an hour,” he grumbled, “since I had a +lobster and a pint of musty ale up on Broadway. I wish these story writers +would let a fellow have a pepsin tablet, anyhow, between feeds.” +</p> + +<p> +“My papa writes books,” remarked Tommy. +</p> + +<p> +The burglar jumped to his feet quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“You said he had gone to the opera,” he hissed, hoarsely and with +immediate suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to have explained,” said Tommy. “He didn’t buy +the tickets.” The burglar sat again and toyed with the wishbone. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you burgle houses?” asked the boy, wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” replied the burglar, with a sudden flow of tears. +“God bless my little brown-haired boy Bessie at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Tommy, wrinkling his nose, “you got that answer in +the wrong place. You want to tell your hard-luck story before you pull out the +child stop.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said the burglar, “I forgot. Well, once I lived in +Milwaukee, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Take the silver,” said Tommy, rising from his chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on,” said the burglar. “But I moved away.” I +could find no other employment. For a while I managed to support my wife and +child by passing confederate money; but, alas! I was forced to give that up +because it did not belong to the union. I became desperate and a +burglar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever fallen into the hands of the police?” asked Tommy. +</p> + +<p> +“I said ‘burglar,’ not ‘beggar,’” answered +the cracksman. +</p> + +<p> +“After you finish your lunch,” said Tommy, “and experience +the usual change of heart, how shall we wind up the story?” +</p> + +<p> +“Suppose,” said the burglar, thoughtfully, “that Tony Pastor +turns out earlier than usual to-night, and your father gets in from +‘Parsifal’ at 10.30. I am thoroughly repentant because you have +made me think of my own little boy Bessie, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” said Tommy, “haven’t you got that wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not on your coloured crayon drawings by B. Cory Kilvert,” said the +burglar. “It’s always a Bessie that I have at home, artlessly +prattling to the pale-cheeked burglar’s bride. As I was saying, your +father opens the front door just as I am departing with admonitions and +sandwiches that you have wrapped up for me. Upon recognizing me as an old +Harvard classmate he starts back in—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not in surprise?” interrupted Tommy, with wide, open eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“He starts back in the doorway,” continued the burglar. And then he +rose to his feet and began to shout “Rah, rah, rah! rah, rah, rah! rah, +rah, rah!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Tommy, wonderingly, “that’s, the first +time I ever knew a burglar to give a college yell when he was burglarizing a +house, even in a story.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s one on you,” said the burglar, with a laugh. “I +was practising the dramatization. If this is put on the stage that college +touch is about the only thing that will make it go.” +</p> + +<p> +Tommy looked his admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re on, all right,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s another mistake you’ve made,” said the +burglar. “You should have gone some time ago and brought me the $9 gold +piece your mother gave you on your birthday to take to Bessie.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she didn’t give it to me to take to Bessie,” said Tommy, +pouting. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come!” said the burglar, sternly. “It’s not nice +of you to take advantage because the story contains an ambiguous sentence. You +know what I mean. It’s mighty little I get out of these fictional jobs, +anyhow. I lose all the loot, and I have to reform every time; and all the swag +I’m allowed is the blamed little fol-de-rols and luck-pieces that you +kids hand over. Why, in one story, all I got was a kiss from a little girl who +came in on me when I was opening a safe. And it tasted of molasses candy, too. +I’ve a good notion to tie this table cover over your head and keep on +into the silver-closet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, you haven’t,” said Tommy, wrapping his arms around +his knees. “Because if you did no editor would buy the story. You know +you’ve got to preserve the unities.” +</p> + +<p> +“So’ve you,” said the burglar, rather glumly. “Instead +of sitting here talking impudence and taking the bread out of a poor +man’s mouth, what you’d like to be doing is hiding under the bed +and screeching at the top of your voice.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, old man,” said Tommy, heartily. “I +wonder what they make us do it for? I think the S. P. C. C. ought to interfere. +I’m sure it’s neither agreeable nor usual for a kid of my age to +butt in when a full-grown burglar is at work and offer him a red sled and a +pair of skates not to awaken his sick mother. And look how they make the +burglars act! You’d think editors would know—but what’s the +use?” +</p> + +<p> +The burglar wiped his hands on the tablecloth and arose with a yawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let’s get through with it,” he said. “God bless +you, my little boy! you have saved a man from committing a crime this night. +Bessie shall pray for you as soon as I get home and give her her orders. I +shall never burglarize another house—at least not until the June +magazines are out. It’ll be your little sister’s turn then to run +in on me while I am abstracting the U. S. 4 per cent. from the tea urn and buy +me off with her coral necklace and a falsetto kiss.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t got all the kicks coming to you,” sighed Tommy, +crawling out of his chair. “Think of the sleep I’m losing. But +it’s tough on both of us, old man. I wish you could get out of the story +and really rob somebody. Maybe you’ll have the chance if they dramatize +us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” said the burglar, gloomily. “Between the box office +and my better impulses that your leading juveniles are supposed to awaken and +the magazines that pay on publication, I guess I’ll always be +broke.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” said Tommy, sympathetically. “But I +can’t help myself any more than you can. It’s one of the canons of +household fiction that no burglar shall be successful. The burglar must be +foiled by a kid like me, or by a young lady heroine, or at the last moment by +his old pal, Red Mike, who recognizes the house as one in which he used to be +the coachman. You have got the worst end of it in any kind of a story.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose I must be clearing out now,” said the burglar, +taking up his lantern and bracebit. +</p> + +<p> +“You have to take the rest of this chicken and the bottle of wine with +you for Bessie and her mother,” said Tommy, calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“But confound it,” exclaimed the burglar, in an annoyed tone, +“they don’t want it. I’ve got five cases of Château de +Beychsvelle at home that was bottled in 1853. That claret of yours is corked. +And you couldn’t get either of them to look at a chicken unless it was +stewed in champagne. You know, after I get out of the story I don’t have +so many limitations. I make a turn now and then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but you must take them,” said Tommy, loading his arms with +the bundles. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless you, young master!” recited the burglar, obedient. +“Second-Story Saul will never forget you. And now hurry and let me out, +kid. Our 2,000 words must be nearly up.” +</p> + +<p> +Tommy led the way through the hall toward the front door. Suddenly the burglar +stopped and called to him softly: “Ain’t there a cop out there in +front somewhere sparking the girl?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Tommy, “but what—” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid he’ll catch me,” said the burglar. +“You mustn’t forget that this is fiction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Great head!” said Tommy, turning. “Come out by the back +door.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX<br> +A CHAPARRAL CHRISTMAS GIFT</h2> + +<p> +The original cause of the trouble was about twenty years in growing. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of that time it was worth it. +</p> + +<p> +Had you lived anywhere within fifty miles of Sundown Ranch you would have heard +of it. It possessed a quantity of jet-black hair, a pair of extremely frank, +deep-brown eyes and a laugh that rippled across the prairie like the sound of a +hidden brook. The name of it was Rosita McMullen; and she was the daughter of +old man McMullen of the Sundown Sheep Ranch. +</p> + +<p> +There came riding on red roan steeds—or, to be more explicit, on a paint +and a flea-bitten sorrel—two wooers. One was Madison Lane, and the other +was the Frio Kid. But at that time they did not call him the Frio Kid, for he +had not earned the honours of special nomenclature. His name was simply Johnny +McRoy. +</p> + +<p> +It must not be supposed that these two were the sum of the agreeable +Rosita’s admirers. The bronchos of a dozen others champed their bits at +the long hitching rack of the Sundown Ranch. Many were the sheeps’-eyes +that were cast in those savannas that did not belong to the flocks of Dan +McMullen. But of all the cavaliers, Madison Lane and Johnny McRoy galloped far +ahead, wherefore they are to be chronicled. +</p> + +<p> +Madison Lane, a young cattleman from the Nueces country, won the race. He and +Rosita were married one Christmas day. Armed, hilarious, vociferous, +magnanimous, the cowmen and the sheepmen, laying aside their hereditary hatred, +joined forces to celebrate the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Sundown Ranch was sonorous with the cracking of jokes and sixshooters, the +shine of buckles and bright eyes, the outspoken congratulations of the herders +of kine. +</p> + +<p> +But while the wedding feast was at its liveliest there descended upon it Johnny +McRoy, bitten by jealousy, like one possessed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you a Christmas present,” he yelled, shrilly, at +the door, with his .45 in his hand. Even then he had some reputation as an +offhand shot. +</p> + +<p> +His first bullet cut a neat underbit in Madison Lane’s right ear. The +barrel of his gun moved an inch. The next shot would have been the +bride’s had not Carson, a sheepman, possessed a mind with triggers +somewhat well oiled and in repair. The guns of the wedding party had been hung, +in their belts, upon nails in the wall when they sat at table, as a concession +to good taste. But Carson, with great promptness, hurled his plate of roast +venison and frijoles at McRoy, spoiling his aim. The second bullet, then, only +shattered the white petals of a Spanish dagger flower suspended two feet above +Rosita’s head. +</p> + +<p> +The guests spurned their chairs and jumped for their weapons. It was considered +an improper act to shoot the bride and groom at a wedding. In about six seconds +there were twenty or so bullets due to be whizzing in the direction of Mr. +McRoy. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll shoot better next time,” yelled Johnny; “and +there’ll be a next time.” He backed rapidly out the door. +</p> + +<p> +Carson, the sheepman, spurred on to attempt further exploits by the success of +his plate-throwing, was first to reach the door. McRoy’s bullet from the +darkness laid him low. +</p> + +<p> +The cattlemen then swept out upon him, calling for vengeance, for, while the +slaughter of a sheepman has not always lacked condonement, it was a decided +misdemeanour in this instance. Carson was innocent; he was no accomplice at the +matrimonial proceedings; nor had any one heard him quote the line +“Christmas comes but once a year” to the guests. +</p> + +<p> +But the sortie failed in its vengeance. McRoy was on his horse and away, +shouting back curses and threats as he galloped into the concealing chaparral. +</p> + +<p> +That night was the birthnight of the Frio Kid. He became the “bad +man” of that portion of the State. The rejection of his suit by Miss +McMullen turned him to a dangerous man. When officers went after him for the +shooting of Carson, he killed two of them, and entered upon the life of an +outlaw. He became a marvellous shot with either hand. He would turn up in towns +and settlements, raise a quarrel at the slightest opportunity, pick off his man +and laugh at the officers of the law. He was so cool, so deadly, so rapid, so +inhumanly blood-thirsty that none but faint attempts were ever made to capture +him. When he was at last shot and killed by a little one-armed Mexican who was +nearly dead himself from fright, the Frio Kid had the deaths of eighteen men on +his head. About half of these were killed in fair duels depending upon the +quickness of the draw. The other half were men whom he assassinated from +absolute wantonness and cruelty. +</p> + +<p> +Many tales are told along the border of his impudent courage and daring. But he +was not one of the breed of desperadoes who have seasons of generosity and even +of softness. They say he never had mercy on the object of his anger. Yet at +this and every Christmastide it is well to give each one credit, if it can be +done, for whatever speck of good he may have possessed. If the Frio Kid ever +did a kindly act or felt a throb of generosity in his heart it was once at such +a time and season, and this is the way it happened. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +One who has been crossed in love should never breathe the odour from the +blossoms of the ratama tree. It stirs the memory to a dangerous degree. +</p> + +<p> +One December in the Frio country there was a ratama tree in full bloom, for the +winter had been as warm as springtime. That way rode the Frio Kid and his +satellite and co-murderer, Mexican Frank. The kid reined in his mustang, and +sat in his saddle, thoughtful and grim, with dangerously narrowing eyes. The +rich, sweet scent touched him somewhere beneath his ice and iron. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what I’ve been thinking about, Mex,” he +remarked in his usual mild drawl, “to have forgot all about a Christmas +present I got to give. I’m going to ride over to-morrow night and shoot +Madison Lane in his own house. He got my girl—Rosita would have had me if +he hadn’t cut into the game. I wonder why I happened to overlook it up to +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, shucks, Kid,” said Mexican, “don’t talk +foolishness. You know you can’t get within a mile of Mad Lane’s +house to-morrow night. I see old man Allen day before yesterday, and he says +Mad is going to have Christmas doings at his house. You remember how you shot +up the festivities when Mad was married, and about the threats you made? +Don’t you suppose Mad Lane’ll kind of keep his eye open for a +certain Mr. Kid? You plumb make me tired, Kid, with such remarks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going,” repeated the Frio Kid, without heat, “to +go to Madison Lane’s Christmas doings, and kill him. I ought to have done +it a long time ago. Why, Mex, just two weeks ago I dreamed me and Rosita was +married instead of her and him; and we was living in a house, and I could see +her smiling at me, and—oh! h––––l, Mex, he got +her; and I’ll get him—yes, sir, on Christmas Eve he got her, and +then’s when I’ll get him.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s other ways of committing suicide,” advised Mexican. +“Why don’t you go and surrender to the sheriff?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll get him,” said the Kid. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas Eve fell as balmy as April. Perhaps there was a hint of far-away +frostiness in the air, but it tingles like seltzer, perfumed faintly with late +prairie blossoms and the mesquite grass. +</p> + +<p> +When night came the five or six rooms of the ranch-house were brightly lit. In +one room was a Christmas tree, for the Lanes had a boy of three, and a dozen or +more guests were expected from the nearer ranches. +</p> + +<p> +At nightfall Madison Lane called aside Jim Belcher and three other cowboys +employed on his ranch. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, boys,” said Lane, “keep your eyes open. Walk around the +house and watch the road well. All of you know the ‘Frio Kid,’ as +they call him now, and if you see him, open fire on him without asking any +questions. I’m not afraid of his coming around, but Rosita is. +She’s been afraid he’d come in on us every Christmas since we were +married.” +</p> + +<p> +The guests had arrived in buckboards and on horseback, and were making +themselves comfortable inside. +</p> + +<p> +The evening went along pleasantly. The guests enjoyed and praised +Rosita’s excellent supper, and afterward the men scattered in groups +about the rooms or on the broad “gallery,” smoking and chatting. +</p> + +<p> +The Christmas tree, of course, delighted the youngsters, and above all were +they pleased when Santa Claus himself in magnificent white beard and furs +appeared and began to distribute the toys. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my papa,” announced Billy Sampson, aged six. +“I’ve seen him wear ’em before.” +</p> + +<p> +Berkly, a sheepman, an old friend of Lane, stopped Rosita as she was passing by +him on the gallery, where he was sitting smoking. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mrs. Lane,” said he, “I suppose by this Christmas +you’ve gotten over being afraid of that fellow McRoy, haven’t you? +Madison and I have talked about it, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very nearly,” said Rosita, smiling, “but I am still nervous +sometimes. I shall never forget that awful time when he came so near to killing +us.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s the most cold-hearted villain in the world,” said +Berkly. “The citizens all along the border ought to turn out and hunt him +down like a wolf.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has committed awful crimes,” said Rosita, +“but—I—don’t—know. I think there is a spot of +good somewhere in everybody. He was not always bad—that I know.” +</p> + +<p> +Rosita turned into the hallway between the rooms. Santa Claus, in muffling +whiskers and furs, was just coming through. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard what you said through the window, Mrs. Lane,” he said. +“I was just going down in my pocket for a Christmas present for your +husband. But I’ve left one for you, instead. It’s in the room to +your right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you, kind Santa Claus,” said Rosita, brightly. +</p> + +<p> +Rosita went into the room, while Santa Claus stepped into the cooler air of the +yard. +</p> + +<p> +She found no one in the room but Madison. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is my present that Santa said he left for me in here?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t seen anything in the way of a present,” said her +husband, laughing, “unless he could have meant me.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The next day Gabriel Radd, the foreman of the X O Ranch, dropped into the +post-office at Loma Alta. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the Frio Kid’s got his dose of lead at last,” he +remarked to the postmaster. +</p> + +<p> +“That so? How’d it happen?” +</p> + +<p> +“One of old Sanchez’s Mexican sheep herders did it!—think of +it! the Frio Kid killed by a sheep herder! The Greaser saw him riding along +past his camp about twelve o’clock last night, and was so skeered that he +up with a Winchester and let him have it. Funniest part of it was that the Kid +was dressed all up with white Angora-skin whiskers and a regular Santy Claus +rig-out from head to foot. Think of the Frio Kid playing Santy!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI<br> +A LITTLE LOCAL COLOUR</h2> + +<p> +I mentioned to Rivington that I was in search of characteristic New York scenes +and incidents—something typical, I told him, without necessarily having +to spell the first syllable with an “i.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, for your writing business,” said Rivington; “you +couldn’t have applied to a better shop. What I don’t know about +little old New York wouldn’t make a sonnet to a sunbonnet. I’ll put +you right in the middle of so much local colour that you won’t know +whether you are a magazine cover or in the erysipelas ward. When do you want to +begin?” +</p> + +<p> +Rivington is a young-man-about-town and a New Yorker by birth, preference and +incommutability. +</p> + +<p> +I told him that I would be glad to accept his escort and guardianship so that I +might take notes of Manhattan’s grand, gloomy and peculiar +idiosyncrasies, and that the time of so doing would be at his own convenience. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll begin this very evening,” said Rivington, himself +interested, like a good fellow. “Dine with me at seven, and then +I’ll steer you up against metropolitan phases so thick you’ll have +to have a kinetoscope to record ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +So I dined with Rivington pleasantly at his club, in Forty-eleventh street, and +then we set forth in pursuit of the elusive tincture of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +As we came out of the club there stood two men on the sidewalk near the steps +in earnest conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“And by what process of ratiocination,” said one of them, “do +you arrive at the conclusion that the division of society into producing and +non-possessing classes predicates failure when compared with competitive +systems that are monopolizing in tendency and result inimically to industrial +evolution?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come off your perch!” said the other man, who wore glasses. +“Your premises won’t come out in the wash. You wind-jammers who +apply bandy-legged theories to concrete categorical syllogisms send logical +conclusions skallybootin’ into the infinitesimal ragbag. You can’t +pull my leg with an old sophism with whiskers on it. You quote Marx and Hyndman +and Kautsky—what are they?—shines! Tolstoi?—his garret is +full of rats. I put it to you over the home-plate that the idea of a +cooperative commonwealth and an abolishment of competitive systems simply takes +the rag off the bush and gives me hyperesthesia of the roopteetoop! The skookum +house for yours!” +</p> + +<p> +I stopped a few yards away and took out my little notebook. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come ahead,” said Rivington, somewhat nervously; “you +don’t want to listen to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, man,” I whispered, “this is just what I do want to +hear. These slang types are among your city’s most distinguishing +features. Is this the Bowery variety? I really must hear more of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I follow you,” said the man who had spoken first, “you do +not believe it possible to reorganize society on the basis of common +interest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shinny on your own side!” said the man with glasses. “You +never heard any such music from my foghorn. What I said was that I did not +believe it practicable just now. The guys with wads are not in the frame of +mind to slack up on the mazuma, and the man with the portable tin banqueting +canister isn’t exactly ready to join the Bible class. You can bet your +variegated socks that the situation is all spifflicated up from the Battery to +breakfast! What the country needs is for some bully old bloke like Cobden or +some wise guy like old Ben Franklin to sashay up to the front and biff the +nigger’s head with the baseball. Do you catch my smoke? What?” +</p> + +<p> +Rivington pulled me by the arm impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Please come on,” he said. “Let’s go see something. +This isn’t what you want.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, it is,” I said resisting. “This tough talk is the +very stuff that counts. There is a picturesqueness about the speech of the +lower order of people that is quite unique. Did you say that this is the Bowery +variety of slang?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Rivington, giving it up, “I’ll tell +you straight. That’s one of our college professors talking. He ran down +for a day or two at the club. It’s a sort of fad with him lately to use +slang in his conversation. He thinks it improves language. The man he is +talking to is one of New York’s famous social economists. Now will you +come on. You can’t use that, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I agreed; “I can’t use that. Would you call that +typical of New York?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not,” said Rivington, with a sigh of relief. +“I’m glad you see the difference. But if you want to hear the real +old tough Bowery slang I’ll take you down where you’ll get your +fill of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would like it,” I said; “that is, if it’s the real +thing. I’ve often read it in books, but I never heard it. Do you think it +will be dangerous to go unprotected among those characters?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Rivington; “not at this time of night. To tell +the truth, I haven’t been along the Bowery in a long time, but I know it +as well as I do Broadway. We’ll look up some of the typical Bowery boys +and get them to talk. It’ll be worth your while. They talk a peculiar +dialect that you won’t hear anywhere else on earth.” +</p> + +<p> +Rivington and I went east in a Forty-second street car and then south on the +Third avenue line. +</p> + +<p> +At Houston street we got off and walked. +</p> + +<p> +“We are now on the famous Bowery,” said Rivington; “the +Bowery celebrated in song and story.” +</p> + +<p> +We passed block after block of “gents’” furnishing +stores—the windows full of shirts with prices attached and cuffs inside. +In other windows were neckties and no shirts. People walked up and down the +sidewalks. +</p> + +<p> +“In some ways,” said I, “this reminds me of Kokomono, Ind., +during the peach-crating season.” +</p> + +<p> +Rivington was nettled. +</p> + +<p> +“Step into one of these saloons or vaudeville shows,” said he, +“with a large roll of money, and see how quickly the Bowery will sustain +its reputation.” +</p> + +<p> +“You make impossible conditions,” said I, coldly. +</p> + +<p> +By and by Rivington stopped and said we were in the heart of the Bowery. There +was a policeman on the corner whom Rivington knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Hallo, Donahue!” said my guide. “How goes it? My friend and +I are down this way looking up a bit of local colour. He’s anxious to +meet one of the Bowery types. Can’t you put us on to something genuine in +that line—something that’s got the colour, you know?” +</p> + +<p> +Policeman Donahue turned himself about ponderously, his florid face full of +good-nature. He pointed with his club down the street. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure!” he said huskily. “Here comes a lad now that was born +on the Bowery and knows every inch of it. If he’s ever been above +Bleecker street he’s kept it to himself.” +</p> + +<p> +A man about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, with a smooth face, was sauntering +toward us with his hands in his coat pockets. Policeman Donahue stopped him +with a courteous wave of his club. +</p> + +<p> +“Evening, Kerry,” he said. “Here’s a couple of gents, +friends of mine, that want to hear you spiel something about the Bowery. Can +you reel ’em off a few yards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, Donahue,” said the young man, pleasantly. “Good +evening, gentlemen,” he said to us, with a pleasant smile. Donahue walked +off on his beat. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the goods,” whispered Rivington, nudging me with his +elbow. “Look at his jaw!” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, cull,” said Rivington, pushing back his hat, +“wot’s doin’? Me and my friend’s taking a look down de +old line—see? De copper tipped us off dat you was wise to de bowery. Is +dat right?” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help admiring Rivington’s power of adapting himself to his +surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +“Donahue was right,” said the young man, frankly; “I was +brought up on the Bowery. I have been news-boy, teamster, pugilist, member of +an organized band of ‘toughs,’ bartender, and a ‘sport’ +in various meanings of the word. The experience certainly warrants the +supposition that I have at least a passing acquaintance with a few phases of +Bowery life. I will be pleased to place whatever knowledge and experience I +have at the service of my friend Donahue’s friends.” +</p> + +<p> +Rivington seemed ill at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he said—somewhat entreatingly, “I +thought—you’re not stringing us, are you? It isn’t just the +kind of talk we expected. You haven’t even said ‘Hully gee!’ +once. Do you really belong on the Bowery?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” said the Bowery boy, smilingly, “that at some +time you have been enticed into one of the dives of literature and had the +counterfeit coin of the Bowery passed upon you. The ‘argot’ to +which you doubtless refer was the invention of certain of your literary +‘discoverers’ who invaded the unknown wilds below Third avenue and +put strange sounds into the mouths of the inhabitants. Safe in their homes far +to the north and west, the credulous readers who were beguiled by this new +‘dialect’ perused and believed. Like Marco Polo and Mungo +Park—pioneers indeed, but ambitious souls who could not draw the line of +demarcation between discovery and invention—the literary bones of these +explorers are dotting the trackless wastes of the subway. While it is true that +after the publication of the mythical language attributed to the dwellers along +the Bowery certain of its pat phrases and apt metaphors were adopted and, to a +limited extent, used in this locality, it was because our people are prompt in +assimilating whatever is to their commercial advantage. To the tourists who +visited our newly discovered clime, and who expected a realization of their +literary guide books, they supplied the demands of the market. +</p> + +<p> +“But perhaps I am wandering from the question. In what way can I assist +you, gentlemen? I beg you will believe that the hospitality of the street is +extended to all. There are, I regret to say, many catchpenny places of +entertainment, but I cannot conceive that they would entice you.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt Rivington lean somewhat heavily against me. +</p> + +<p> +“Say!” he remarked, with uncertain utterance; “come and have +a drink with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, but I never drink. I find that alcohol, even in the smallest +quantities, alters the perspective. And I must preserve my perspective, for I +am studying the Bowery. I have lived in it nearly thirty years, and I am just +beginning to understand its heartbeats. It is like a great river fed by a +hundred alien streams. Each influx brings strange seeds on its flood, strange +silt and weeds, and now and then a flower of rare promise. To construe this +river requires a man who can build dykes against the overflow, who is a +naturalist, a geologist, a humanitarian, a diver and a strong swimmer. I love +my Bowery. It was my cradle and is my inspiration. I have published one book. +The critics have been kind. I put my heart in it. I am writing another, into +which I hope to put both heart and brain. Consider me your guide, gentlemen. Is +there anything I can take you to see, any place to which I can conduct +you?” +</p> + +<p> +I was afraid to look at Rivington except with one eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Rivington. “We were looking up . . . that is . +. . my friend . . . confound it; it’s against all precedent, you know . . +. awfully obliged . . . just the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“In case,” said our friend, “you would like to meet some of +our Bowery young men I would be pleased to have you visit the quarters of our +East Side Kappa Delta Phi Society, only two blocks east of here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Awfully sorry,” said Rivington, “but my friend’s got +me on the jump to-night. He’s a terror when he’s out after local +colour. Now, there’s nothing I would like better than to drop in at the +Kappa Delta Phi, but—some other time!” +</p> + +<p> +We said our farewells and boarded a home-bound car. We had a rabbit on upper +Broadway, and then I parted with Rivington on a street corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, anyhow,” said he, braced and recovered, “it +couldn’t have happened anywhere but in little old New York.” +</p> + +<p> +Which to say the least, was typical of Rivington. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII<br> +GEORGIA’S RULING</h2> + +<p> +If you should chance to visit the General Land Office, step into the +draughtsmen’s room and ask to be shown the map of Salado County. A +leisurely German—possibly old Kampfer himself—will bring it to you. +It will be four feet square, on heavy drawing-cloth. The lettering and the +figures will be beautifully clear and distinct. The title will be in splendid, +undecipherable German text, ornamented with classic Teutonic designs—very +likely Ceres or Pomona leaning against the initial letters with cornucopias +venting grapes and wieners. You must tell him that this is not the map you wish +to see; that he will kindly bring you its official predecessor. He will then +say, “Ach, so!” and bring out a map half the size of the first, +dim, old, tattered, and faded. +</p> + +<p> +By looking carefully near its northwest corner you will presently come upon the +worn contours of Chiquito River, and, maybe, if your eyes are good, discern the +silent witness to this story. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The Commissioner of the Land Office was of the old style; his antique courtesy +was too formal for his day. He dressed in fine black, and there was a +suggestion of Roman drapery in his long coat-skirts. His collars were +“undetached” (blame haberdashery for the word); his tie was a +narrow, funereal strip, tied in the same knot as were his shoe-strings. His +gray hair was a trifle too long behind, but he kept it smooth and orderly. His +face was clean-shaven, like the old statesmen’s. Most people thought it a +stern face, but when its official expression was off, a few had seen altogether +a different countenance. Especially tender and gentle it had appeared to those +who were about him during the last illness of his only child. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner had been a widower for years, and his life, outside his +official duties, had been so devoted to little Georgia that people spoke of it +as a touching and admirable thing. He was a reserved man, and dignified almost +to austerity, but the child had come below it all and rested upon his very +heart, so that she scarcely missed the mother’s love that had been taken +away. There was a wonderful companionship between them, for she had many of his +own ways, being thoughtful and serious beyond her years. +</p> + +<p> +One day, while she was lying with the fever burning brightly in her checks, she +said suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, I wish I could do something good for a whole lot of +children!” +</p> + +<p> +“What would you like to do, dear?” asked the Commissioner. +“Give them a party?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mean those kind. I mean poor children who +haven’t homes, and aren’t loved and cared for as I am. I tell you +what, papa!” +</p> + +<p> +“What, my own child?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I shouldn’t get well, I’ll leave them you—not +<i>give</i> you, but just lend you, for you must come to mamma and me when you +die too. If you can find time, wouldn’t you do something to help them, if +I ask you, papa?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, hush dear, dear child,” said the Commissioner, holding her +hot little hand against his cheek; “you’ll get well real soon, and +you and I will see what we can do for them together.” +</p> + +<p> +But in whatsoever paths of benevolence, thus vaguely premeditated, the +Commissioner might tread, he was not to have the company of his beloved. That +night the little frail body grew suddenly too tired to struggle further, and +Georgia’s exit was made from the great stage when she had scarcely begun +to speak her little piece before the footlights. But there must be a stage +manager who understands. She had given the cue to the one who was to speak +after her. +</p> + +<p> +A week after she was laid away, the Commissioner reappeared at the office, a +little more courteous, a little paler and sterner, with the black frock-coat +hanging a little more loosely from his tall figure. +</p> + +<p> +His desk was piled with work that had accumulated during the four heartbreaking +weeks of his absence. His chief clerk had done what he could, but there were +questions of law, of fine judicial decisions to be made concerning the issue of +patents, the marketing and leasing of school lands, the classification into +grazing, agricultural, watered, and timbered, of new tracts to be opened to +settlers. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner went to work silently and obstinately, putting back his grief +as far as possible, forcing his mind to attack the complicated and important +business of his office. On the second day after his return he called the +porter, pointed to a leather-covered chair that stood near his own, and ordered +it removed to a lumber-room at the top of the building. In that chair Georgia +would always sit when she came to the office for him of afternoons. +</p> + +<p> +As time passed, the Commissioner seemed to grow more silent, solitary, and +reserved. A new phase of mind developed in him. He could not endure the +presence of a child. Often when a clattering youngster belonging to one of the +clerks would come chattering into the big business-room adjoining his little +apartment, the Commissioner would steal softly and close the door. He would +always cross the street to avoid meeting the school-children when they came +dancing along in happy groups upon the sidewalk, and his firm mouth would close +into a mere line. +</p> + +<p> +It was nearly three months after the rains had washed the last dead +flower-petals from the mound above little Georgia when the +“land-shark” firm of Hamlin and Avery filed papers upon what they +considered the “fattest” vacancy of the year. +</p> + +<p> +It should not be supposed that all who were termed “land-sharks” +deserved the name. Many of them were reputable men of good business character. +Some of them could walk into the most august councils of the State and say: +“Gentlemen, we would like to have this, and that, and matters go +thus.” But, next to a three years’ drought and the boll-worm, the +Actual Settler hated the Land-shark. The land-shark haunted the Land Office, +where all the land records were kept, and hunted +“vacancies”—that is, tracts of unappropriated public domain, +generally invisible upon the official maps, but actually existing “upon +the ground.” The law entitled any one possessing certain State scrip to +file by virtue of same upon any land not previously legally appropriated. Most +of the scrip was now in the hands of the land-sharks. Thus, at the cost of a +few hundred dollars, they often secured lands worth as many thousands. +Naturally, the search for “vacancies” was lively. +</p> + +<p> +But often—very often—the land they thus secured, though legally +“unappropriated,” would be occupied by happy and contented +settlers, who had laboured for years to build up their homes, only to discover +that their titles were worthless, and to receive peremptory notice to quit. +Thus came about the bitter and not unjustifiable hatred felt by the toiling +settlers toward the shrewd and seldom merciful speculators who so often turned +them forth destitute and homeless from their fruitless labours. The history of +the state teems with their antagonism. Mr. Land-shark seldom showed his face on +“locations” from which he should have to eject the unfortunate +victims of a monstrously tangled land system, but let his emissaries do the +work. There was lead in every cabin, moulded into balls for him; many of his +brothers had enriched the grass with their blood. The fault of it all lay far +back. +</p> + +<p> +When the state was young, she felt the need of attracting newcomers, and of +rewarding those pioneers already within her borders. Year after year she issued +land scrip—Headrights, Bounties, Veteran Donations, Confederates; and to +railroads, irrigation companies, colonies, and tillers of the soil galore. All +required of the grantee was that he or it should have the scrip properly +surveyed upon the public domain by the county or district surveyor, and the +land thus appropriated became the property of him or it, or his or its heirs +and assigns, forever. +</p> + +<p> +In those days—and here is where the trouble began—the state’s +domain was practically inexhaustible, and the old surveyors, with +princely—yea, even Western American—liberality, gave good measure +and over-flowing. Often the jovial man of metes and bounds would dispense +altogether with the tripod and chain. Mounted on a pony that could cover +something near a “vara” at a step, with a pocket compass to direct +his course, he would trot out a survey by counting the beat of his pony’s +hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his field notes with the complacency +produced by an act of duty well performed. Sometimes—and who could blame +the surveyor?—when the pony was “feeling his oats,” he might +step a little higher and farther, and in that case the beneficiary of the scrip +might get a thousand or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for. +But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare! However, no one ever +had to complain of the pony under-stepping. Nearly every old survey in the +state contained an excess of land. +</p> + +<p> +In later years, when the state became more populous, and land values increased, +this careless work entailed incalculable trouble, endless litigation, a period +of riotous land-grabbing, and no little bloodshed. The land-sharks voraciously +attacked these excesses in the old surveys, and filed upon such portions with +new scrip as unappropriated public domain. Wherever the identifications of the +old tracts were vague, and the corners were not to be clearly established, the +Land Office would recognize the newer locations as valid, and issue title to +the locators. Here was the greatest hardship to be found. These old surveys, +taken from the pick of the land, were already nearly all occupied by +unsuspecting and peaceful settlers, and thus their titles were demolished, and +the choice was placed before them either to buy their land over at a double +price or to vacate it, with their families and personal belongings, +immediately. Land locators sprang up by hundreds. The country was held up and +searched for “vacancies” at the point of a compass. Hundreds of +thousands of dollars’ worth of splendid acres were wrested from their +innocent purchasers and holders. There began a vast hegira of evicted settlers +in tattered wagons; going nowhere, cursing injustice, stunned, purposeless, +homeless, hopeless. Their children began to look up to them for bread, and cry. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It was in consequence of these conditions that Hamlin and Avery had filed +upon a strip of land about a mile wide and three miles long, comprising about +two thousand acres, it being the excess over complement of the Elias Denny +three-league survey on Chiquito River, in one of the middle-western counties. +This two-thousand-acre body of land was asserted by them to be vacant land, and +improperly considered a part of the Denny survey. They based this assertion and +their claim upon the land upon the demonstrated facts that the beginning corner +of the Denny survey was plainly identified; that its field notes called to run +west 5,760 varas, and then called for Chiquito River; thence it ran south, with +the meanders—and so on—and that the Chiquito River was, on the +ground, fully a mile farther west from the point reached by course and +distance. To sum up: there were two thousand acres of vacant land between the +Denny survey proper and Chiquito River. +</p> + +<p> +One sweltering day in July the Commissioner called for the papers in connection +with this new location. They were brought, and heaped, a foot deep, upon his +desk—field notes, statements, sketches, affidavits, connecting +lines—documents of every description that shrewdness and money could call +to the aid of Hamlin and Avery. +</p> + +<p> +The firm was pressing the Commissioner to issue a patent upon their location. +They possesed inside information concerning a new railroad that would probably +pass somewhere near this land. +</p> + +<p> +The General Land Office was very still while the Commissioner was delving into +the heart of the mass of evidence. The pigeons could be heard on the roof of +the old, castle-like building, cooing and fretting. The clerks were droning +everywhere, scarcely pretending to earn their salaries. Each little sound +echoed hollow and loud from the bare, stone-flagged floors, the plastered +walls, and the iron-joisted ceiling. The impalpable, perpetual limestone dust +that never settled, whitened a long streamer of sunlight that pierced the +tattered window-awning. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed that Hamlin and Avery had builded well. The Denny survey was +carelessly made, even for a careless period. Its beginning corner was identical +with that of a well-defined old Spanish grant, but its other calls were +sinfully vague. The field notes contained no other object that +survived—no tree, no natural object save Chiquito River, and it was a +mile wrong there. According to precedent, the Office would be justified in +giving it its complement by course and distance, and considering the remainder +vacant instead of a mere excess. +</p> + +<p> +The Actual Settler was besieging the office with wild protests <i>in re</i>. +Having the nose of a pointer and the eye of a hawk for the land-shark, he had +observed his myrmidons running the lines upon his ground. Making inquiries, he +learned that the spoiler had attacked his home, and he left the plough in the +furrow and took his pen in hand. +</p> + +<p> +One of the protests the Commissioner read twice. It was from a woman, a widow, +the granddaughter of Elias Denny himself. She told how her grandfather had sold +most of the survey years before at a trivial price—land that was now a +principality in extent and value. Her mother had also sold a part, and she +herself had succeeded to this western portion, along Chiquito River. Much of it +she had been forced to part with in order to live, and now she owned only about +three hundred acres, on which she had her home. Her letter wound up rather +pathetically: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got eight children, the oldest fifteen years. I work all day +and half the night to till what little land I can and keep us in clothes and +books. I teach my children too. My neighbours is all poor and has big families. +The drought kills the crops every two or three years and then we has hard times +to get enough to eat. There is ten families on this land what the land-sharks +is trying to rob us of, and all of them got titles from me. I sold to them +cheap, and they aint paid out yet, but part of them is, and if their land +should be took from them I would die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he +helped to build up this state, and he taught his children to be honest, and how +could I make it up to them who bought from me? Mr. Commissioner, if you let +them land-sharks take the roof from over my children and the little from them +as they has to live on, whoever again calls this state great or its government +just will have a lie in their mouths” +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner laid this letter aside with a sigh. Many, many such letters he +had received. He had never been hurt by them, nor had he ever felt that they +appealed to him personally. He was but the state’s servant, and must +follow its laws. And yet, somehow, this reflection did not always eliminate a +certain responsible feeling that hung upon him. Of all the state’s +officers he was supremest in his department, not even excepting the Governor. +Broad, general land laws he followed, it was true, but he had a wide latitude +in particular ramifications. Rather than law, what he followed was Rulings: +Office Rulings and precedents. In the complicated and new questions that were +being engendered by the state’s development the Commissioner’s +ruling was rarely appealed from. Even the courts sustained it when its equity +was apparent. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner stepped to the door and spoke to a clerk in the other +room—spoke as he always did, as if he were addressing a prince of the +blood: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Weldon, will you be kind enough to ask Mr. Ashe, the state +school-land appraiser, to please come to my office as soon as +convenient?” +</p> + +<p> +Ashe came quickly from the big table where he was arranging his reports. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Ashe,” said the Commissioner, “you worked along the +Chiquito River, in Salado County, during your last trip, I believe. Do you +remember anything of the Elias Denny three-league survey?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, I do,” the blunt, breezy, surveyor answered. “I +crossed it on my way to Block H, on the north side of it. The road runs with +the Chiquito River, along the valley. The Denny survey fronts three miles on +the Chiquito.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is claimed,” continued the commissioner, “that it fails +to reach the river by as much as a mile.” +</p> + +<p> +The appraiser shrugged his shoulder. He was by birth and instinct an Actual +Settler, and the natural foe of the land-shark. +</p> + +<p> +“It has always been considered to extend to the river,” he said, +dryly. +</p> + +<p> +“But that is not the point I desired to discuss,” said the +Commissioner. “What kind of country is this valley portion of (let us +say, then) the Denny tract?” +</p> + +<p> +The spirit of the Actual Settler beamed in Ashe’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful,” he said, with enthusiasm. “Valley as level as +this floor, with just a little swell on, like the sea, and rich as cream. Just +enough brakes to shelter the cattle in winter. Black loamy soil for six feet, +and then clay. Holds water. A dozen nice little houses on it, with windmills +and gardens. People pretty poor, I guess—too far from market—but +comfortable. Never saw so many kids in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“They raise flocks?” inquired the Commissioner. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho, ho! I mean two-legged kids,” laughed the surveyor; +“two-legged, and bare-legged, and tow-headed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Children! oh, children!” mused the Commissioner, as though a new +view had opened to him; “they raise children! +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a lonesome country, Commissioner,” said the surveyor. +“Can you blame ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully +pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, “not all of them are +tow-headed. It would not be unreasonable, Mr. Ashe, I conjecture, to believe +that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Brown and black, sure,” said Ashe; “also red.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt,” said the Commissioner. “Well, I thank you for +your courtesy in informing me, Mr. Ashe. I will not detain you any longer from +your duties.” +</p> + +<p> +Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, +sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the +whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks +and left a wake of abbreviated given names and fat brown cigars. +</p> + +<p> +These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big things. Full +of serene confidence in themselves, there was no corporation, no syndicate, no +railroad company or attorney general too big for them to tackle. The peculiar +smoke of their rare, fat brown cigars was to be perceived in the sanctum of +every department of state, in every committee-room of the Legislature, in every +bank parlour and every private caucus-room in the state Capital. Always +pleasant, never in a hurry, in seeming to possess unlimited leisure, people +wondered when they gave their attention to the many audacious enterprises in +which they were known to be engaged. +</p> + +<p> +By and by the two dropped carelessly into the Commissioner’s room and +reclined lazily in the big, leather-upholstered arm-chairs. They drawled a +good-natured complaint of the weather, and Hamlin told the Commissioner an +excellent story he had amassed that morning from the Secretary of State. +</p> + +<p> +But the Commissioner knew why they were there. He had half promised to render a +decision that day upon their location. +</p> + +<p> +The chief clerk now brought in a batch of duplicate certificates for the +Commissioner to sign. As he traced his sprawling signature, “Hollis +Summerfield, Comr. Genl. Land Office,” on each one, the chief clerk +stood, deftly removing them and applying the blotter. +</p> + +<p> +“I notice,” said the chief clerk, “you’ve been going +through that Salado County location. Kampfer is making a new map of Salado, and +I believe is platting in that section of the county now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will see it,” said the Commissioner. A few moments later he went +to the draughtsmen’s room. +</p> + +<p> +As he entered he saw five or six of the draughtsmen grouped about +Kampfer’s desk, gargling away at each other in pectoral German, and +gazing at something thereupon. At the Commissioner’s approach they +scattered to their several places. Kampfer, a wizened little German, with long, +frizzled ringlets and a watery eye, began to stammer forth some sort of an +apology, the Commissioner thought, for the congregation of his fellows about +his desk. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said the Commissioner, “I wish to see the map +you are making”; and, passing around the old German, seated himself upon +the high draughtsman’s stool. Kampfer continued to break English in +trying to explain. +</p> + +<p> +“Herr Gommissioner, I assure you blenty sat I haf not it +bremeditated—sat it wass—sat it itself make. Look you! from se +field notes wass it blatted—blease to observe se calls: South, 10 degrees +west 1,050 varas; south, 10 degrees east 300 varas; south, 100; south, 9 west, +200; south, 40 degrees west 400—and so on. Herr Gommissioner, nefer would +I have—” +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner raised one white hand, silently, Kampfer dropped his pipe and +fled. +</p> + +<p> +With a hand at each side of his face, and his elbows resting upon the desk, the +Commissioner sat staring at the map which was spread and fastened +there—staring at the sweet and living profile of little Georgia drawn +thereupon—at her face, pensive, delicate, and infantile, outlined in a +perfect likeness. +</p> + +<p> +When his mind at length came to inquire into the reason of it, he saw that it +must have been, as Kampfer had said, unpremeditated. The old draughtsman had +been platting in the Elias Denny survey, and Georgia’s likeness, striking +though it was, was formed by nothing more than the meanders of Chiquito River. +Indeed, Kampfer’s blotter, whereon his preliminary work was done, showed +the laborious tracings of the calls and the countless pricks of the compasses. +Then, over his faint pencilling, Kampfer had drawn in India ink with a full, +firm pen the similitude of Chiquito River, and forth had blossomed mysteriously +the dainty, pathetic profile of the child. +</p> + +<p> +The Commissioner sat for half an hour with his face in his hands, gazing +downward, and none dared approach him. Then he arose and walked out. In the +business office he paused long enough to ask that the Denny file be brought to +his desk. +</p> + +<p> +He found Hamlin and Avery still reclining in their chairs, apparently oblivious +of business. They were lazily discussing summer opera, it being, their +habit—perhaps their pride also—to appear supernaturally indifferent +whenever they stood with large interests imperilled. And they stood to win more +on this stake than most people knew. They possessed inside information to the +effect that a new railroad would, within a year, split this very Chiquito River +valley and send land values ballooning all along its route. A dollar under +thirty thousand profit on this location, if it should hold good, would be a +loss to their expectations. So, while they chatted lightly and waited for the +Commissioner to open the subject, there was a quick, sidelong sparkle in their +eyes, evincing a desire to read their title clear to those fair acres on the +Chiquito. +</p> + +<p> +A clerk brought in the file. The Commissioner seated himself and wrote upon it +in red ink. Then he rose to his feet and stood for a while looking straight out +of the window. The Land Office capped the summit of a bold hill. The eyes of +the Commissioner passed over the roofs of many houses set in a packing of deep +green, the whole checkered by strips of blinding white streets. The horizon, +where his gaze was focussed, swelled to a fair wooded eminence flecked with +faint dots of shining white. There was the cemetery, where lay many who were +forgotten, and a few who had not lived in vain. And one lay there, occupying +very small space, whose childish heart had been large enough to desire, while +near its last beats, good to others. The Commissioner’s lips moved +slightly as he whispered to himself: “It was her last will and testament, +and I have neglected it so long!” +</p> + +<p> +The big brown cigars of Hamlin and Avery were fireless, but they still gripped +them between their teeth and waited, while they marvelled at the absent +expression upon the Commissioner’s face. +</p> + +<p> +By and by he spoke suddenly and promptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, I have just indorsed the Elias Denny survey for patenting. +This office will not regard your location upon a part of it as legal.” He +paused a moment, and then, extending his hand as those dear old-time ones used +to do in debate, he enunciated the spirit of that Ruling that subsequently +drove the land-sharks to the wall, and placed the seal of peace and security +over the doors of ten thousand homes. +</p> + +<p> +“And, furthermore,” he continued, with a clear, soft light upon his +face, “it may interest you to know that from this time on this office +will consider that when a survey of land made by virtue of a certificate +granted by this state to the men who wrested it from the wilderness and the +savage—made in good faith, settled in good faith, and left in good faith +to their children or innocent purchasers—when such a survey, although +overrunning its complement, shall call for any natural object visible to the +eye of man, to that object it shall hold, and be good and valid. And the +children of this state shall lie down to sleep at night, and rumours of +disturbers of title shall not disquiet them. For,” concluded the +Commissioner, “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +In the silence that followed, a laugh floated up from the patent-room below. +The man who carried down the Denny file was exhibiting it among the clerks. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” he said, delightedly, “the old man has forgotten +his name. He’s written ‘Patent to original grantee,’ and +signed it ‘Georgia Summerfield, Comr.’” +</p> + +<p> +The speech of the Commissioner rebounded lightly from the impregnable Hamlin +and Avery. They smiled, rose gracefully, spoke of the baseball team, and argued +feelingly that quite a perceptible breeze had arisen from the east. They lit +fresh fat brown cigars, and drifted courteously away. But later they made +another tiger-spring for their quarry in the courts. But the courts, according +to reports in the papers, “coolly roasted them” (a remarkable +performance, suggestive of liquid-air didoes), and sustained the +Commissioner’s Ruling. +</p> + +<p> +And this Ruling itself grew to be a Precedent, and the Actual Settler framed +it, and taught his children to spell from it, and there was sound sleep +o’ nights from the pines to the sage-brush, and from the chaparral to the +great brown river of the north. +</p> + +<p> +But I think, and I am sure the Commissioner never thought otherwise, that +whether Kampfer was a snuffy old instrument of destiny, or whether the meanders +of the Chiquito accidentally platted themselves into that memorable sweet +profile or not, there was brought about “something good for a whole lot +of children,” and the result ought to be called “Georgia’s +Ruling.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII<br> +BLIND MAN’S HOLIDAY</h2> + +<p> +Alas for the man and for the artist with the shifting point of perspective! +Life shall be a confusion of ways to the one; the landscape shall rise up and +confound the other. Take the case of Lorison. At one time he appeared to +himself to be the feeblest of fools; at another he conceived that he followed +ideals so fine that the world was not yet ready to accept them. During one mood +he cursed his folly; possessed by the other, he bore himself with a serene +grandeur akin to greatness: in neither did he attain the perspective. +</p> + +<p> +Generations before, the name had been “Larsen.” His race had +bequeathed him its fine-strung, melancholy temperament, its saving balance of +thrift and industry. +</p> + +<p> +From his point of perspective he saw himself an outcast from society, forever +to be a shady skulker along the ragged edge of respectability; a denizen <i>des +trois-quarts de monde</i>, that pathetic spheroid lying between the <i>haut</i> +and the <i>demi</i>, whose inhabitants envy each of their neighbours, and are +scorned by both. He was self-condemned to this opinion, as he was self-exiled, +through it, to this quaint Southern city a thousand miles from his former home. +Here he had dwelt for longer than a year, knowing but few, keeping in a +subjective world of shadows which was invaded at times by the perplexing bulks +of jarring realities. Then he fell in love with a girl whom he met in a cheap +restaurant, and his story begins. +</p> + +<p> +The Rue Chartres, in New Orleans, is a street of ghosts. It lies in the quarter +where the Frenchman, in his prime, set up his translated pride and glory; +where, also, the arrogant don had swaggered, and dreamed of gold and grants and +ladies’ gloves. Every flagstone has its grooves worn by footsteps going +royally to the wooing and the fighting. Every house has a princely heartbreak; +each doorway its untold tale of gallant promise and slow decay. +</p> + +<p> +By night the Rue Chartres is now but a murky fissure, from which the groping +wayfarer sees, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of Moorish iron +balconies. The old houses of monsieur stand yet, indomitable against the +century, but their essence is gone. The street is one of ghosts to whosoever +can see them. +</p> + +<p> +A faint heartbeat of the street’s ancient glory still survives in a +corner occupied by the Café Carabine d’Or. Once men gathered there to +plot against kings, and to warn presidents. They do so yet, but they are not +the same kind of men. A brass button will scatter these; those would have set +their faces against an army. Above the door hangs the sign board, upon which +has been depicted a vast animal of unfamiliar species. In the act of firing +upon this monster is represented an unobtrusive human levelling an obtrusive +gun, once the colour of bright gold. Now the legend above the picture is faded +beyond conjecture; the gun’s relation to the title is a matter of faith; +the menaced animal, wearied of the long aim of the hunter, has resolved itself +into a shapeless blot. +</p> + +<p> +The place is known as “Antonio’s,” as the name, white upon +the red-lit transparency, and gilt upon the windows, attests. There is a +promise in “Antonio”; a justifiable expectancy of savoury things in +oil and pepper and wine, and perhaps an angel’s whisper of garlic. But +the rest of the name is “O’Riley.” Antonio O’Riley! +</p> + +<p> +The Carabine d’Or is an ignominious ghost of the Rue Chartres. The café +where Bienville and Conti dined, where a prince has broken bread, is become a +“family ristaurant.” +</p> + +<p> +Its customers are working men and women, almost to a unit. Occasionally you +will see chorus girls from the cheaper theatres, and men who follow avocations +subject to quick vicissitudes; but at Antonio’s—name rich in +Bohemian promise, but tame in fulfillment—manners debonair and gay are +toned down to the “family” standard. Should you light a cigarette, +mine host will touch you on the “arrum” and remind you that the +proprieties are menaced. “Antonio” entices and beguiles from fiery +legend without, but “O’Riley” teaches decorum within. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this restaurant that Lorison first saw the girl. A flashy fellow with +a predatory eye had followed her in, and had advanced to take the other chair +at the little table where she stopped, but Lorison slipped into the seat before +him. Their acquaintance began, and grew, and now for two months they had sat at +the same table each evening, not meeting by appointment, but as if by a series +of fortuitous and happy accidents. After dining, they would take a walk +together in one of the little city parks, or among the panoramic markets where +exhibits a continuous vaudeville of sights and sounds. Always at eight +o’clock their steps led them to a certain street corner, where she +prettily but firmly bade him good night and left him. “I do not live far +from here,” she frequently said, “and you must let me go the rest +of the way alone.” +</p> + +<p> +But now Lorison had discovered that he wanted to go the rest of the way with +her, or happiness would depart, leaving, him on a very lonely corner of life. +And at the same time that he made the discovery, the secret of his banishment +from the society of the good laid its finger in his face and told him it must +not be. +</p> + +<p> +Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist; if he love, the +object shall know it. During a lifetime he may conceal it through stress of +expediency and honour, but it shall bubble from his dying lips, though it +disrupt a neighbourhood. It is known, however, that most men do not wait so +long to disclose their passion. In the case of Lorison, his particular ethics +positively forbade him to declare his sentiments, but he must needs dally with +the subject, and woo by innuendo at least. +</p> + +<p> +On this night, after the usual meal at the Carabine d’Or, he strolled +with his companion down the dim old street toward the river. +</p> + +<p> +The Rue Chartres perishes in the old Place d’Armes. The ancient Cabildo, +where Spanish justice fell like hail, faces it, and the Cathedral, another +provincial ghost, overlooks it. Its centre is a little, iron-railed park of +flowers and immaculate gravelled walks, where citizens take the air of +evenings. Pedestalled high above it, the general sits his cavorting steed, with +his face turned stonily down the river toward English Turn, whence come no more +Britons to bombard his cotton bales. +</p> + +<p> +Often the two sat in this square, but to-night Lorison guided her past the +stone-stepped gate, and still riverward. As they walked, he smiled to himself +to think that all he knew of her—except that he loved her—was her +name, Norah Greenway, and that she lived with her brother. They had talked +about everything except themselves. Perhaps her reticence had been caused by +his. +</p> + +<p> +They came, at length, upon the levee, and sat upon a great, prostrate beam. The +air was pungent with the dust of commerce. The great river slipped yellowly +past. Across it Algiers lay, a longitudinous black bulk against a vibrant +electric haze sprinkled with exact stars. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was young and of the piquant order. A certain bright melancholy +pervaded her; she possessed an untarnished, pale prettiness doomed to please. +Her voice, when she spoke, dwarfed her theme. It was the voice capable of +investing little subjects with a large interest. She sat at ease, bestowing her +skirts with the little womanly touch, serene as if the begrimed pier were a +summer garden. Lorison poked the rotting boards with his cane. +</p> + +<p> +He began by telling her that he was in love with some one to whom he durst not +speak of it. “And why not?” she asked, accepting swiftly his +fatuous presentation of a third person of straw. “My place in the +world,” he answered, “is none to ask a woman to share. I am an +outcast from honest people; I am wrongly accused of one crime, and am, I +believe, guilty of another.” +</p> + +<p> +Thence he plunged into the story of his abdication from society. The story, +pruned of his moral philosophy, deserves no more than the slightest touch. It +is no new tale, that of the gambler’s declension. During one +night’s sitting he lost, and then had imperilled a certain amount of his +employer’s money, which, by accident, he carried with him. He continued +to lose, to the last wager, and then began to gain, leaving the game winner to +a somewhat formidable sum. The same night his employer’s safe was robbed. +A search was had; the winnings of Lorison were found in his room, their total +forming an accusative nearness to the sum purloined. He was taken, tried and, +through incomplete evidence, released, smutched with the sinister +<i>devoirs</i> of a disagreeing jury. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not in the unjust accusation,” he said to the girl, +“that my burden lies, but in the knowledge that from the moment I staked +the first dollar of the firm’s money I was a criminal—no matter +whether I lost or won. You see why it is impossible for me to speak of love to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a sad thing,” said Norah, after a little pause, “to +think what very good people there are in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good?” said Lorison. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking of this superior person whom you say you love. She must +be a very poor sort of creature.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nearly,” she continued, “as poor a sort of creature as +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do not understand,” said Lorison, removing his hat and +sweeping back his fine, light hair. “Suppose she loved me in return, and +were willing to marry me. Think, if you can, what would follow. Never a day +would pass but she would be reminded of her sacrifice. I would read a +condescension in her smile, a pity even in her affection, that would madden me. +No. The thing would stand between us forever. Only equals should mate. I could +never ask her to come down upon my lower plane.” +</p> + +<p> +An arc light faintly shone upon Lorison’s face. An illumination from +within also pervaded it. The girl saw the rapt, ascetic look; it was the face +either of Sir Galahad or Sir Fool. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite starlike,” she said, “is this unapproachable angel. +Really too high to be grasped.” +</p> + +<p> +“By me, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +She faced him suddenly. “My dear friend, would you prefer your star +fallen?” Lorison made a wide gesture. +</p> + +<p> +“You push me to the bald fact,” he declared; “you are not in +sympathy with my argument. But I will answer you so. If I could reach my +particular star, to drag it down, I would not do it; but if it were fallen, I +would pick it up, and thank Heaven for the privilege.” +</p> + +<p> +They were silent for some minutes. Norah shivered, and thrust her hands deep +into the pockets of her jacket. Lorison uttered a remorseful exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not cold,” she said. “I was just thinking. I ought +to tell you something. You have selected a strange confidante. But you cannot +expect a chance acquaintance, picked up in a doubtful restaurant, to be an +angel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Norah!” cried Lorison. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go on. You have told me about yourself. We have been such good +friends. I must tell you now what I never wanted you to know. I am—worse +than you are. I was on the stage . . . I sang in the chorus . . . I was pretty +bad, I guess . . . I stole diamonds from the prima donna . . . they arrested me +. . . I gave most of them up, and they let me go . . . I drank wine every night +. . . a great deal . . . I was very wicked, but—” +</p> + +<p> +Lorison knelt quickly by her side and took her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Norah!” he said, exultantly. “It is you, it is you I +love! You never guessed it, did you? ’Tis you I meant all the time. Now I +can speak. Let me make you forget the past. We have both suffered; let us shut +out the world, and live for each other. Norah, do you hear me say I love +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“In spite of—” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather say because of it. You have come out of your past noble and good. +Your heart is an angel’s. Give it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“A little while ago you feared the future too much to even speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“But for you; not for myself. Can you love me?” +</p> + +<p> +She cast herself, wildly sobbing, upon his breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Better than life—than truth itself—than everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my own past,” said Lorison, with a note of +solicitude—“can you forgive and—” +</p> + +<p> +“I answered you that,” she whispered, “when I told you I +loved you.” She leaned away, and looked thoughtfully at him. “If I +had not told you about myself, would you have—would you—” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he interrupted; “I would never have let you know I +loved you. I would never have asked you this—Norah, will you be my +wife?” +</p> + +<p> +She wept again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, believe me; I am good now—I am no longer wicked! I will be the +best wife in the world. Don’t think I am—bad any more. If you do I +shall die, I shall die!” +</p> + +<p> +While he was consoling, her, she brightened up, eager and impetuous. +“Will you marry me to-night?” she said. “Will you prove it +that way. I have a reason for wishing it to be to-night. Will you?” +</p> + +<p> +Of one of two things was this exceeding frankness the outcome: either of +importunate brazenness or of utter innocence. The lover’s perspective +contained only the one. +</p> + +<p> +“The sooner,” said Lorison, “the happier I shall be.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is there to do?” she asked. “What do you have to get? +Come! You should know.” +</p> + +<p> +Her energy stirred the dreamer to action. +</p> + +<p> +“A city directory first,” he cried, gayly, “to find where the +man lives who gives licenses to happiness. We will go together and rout him +out. Cabs, cars, policemen, telephones and ministers shall aid us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father Rogan shall marry us,” said the girl, with ardour. “I +will take you to him.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +An hour later the two stood at the open doorway of an immense, gloomy brick +building in a narrow and lonely street. The license was tight in Norah’s +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait here a moment,” she said, “till I find Father +Rogan.” +</p> + +<p> +She plunged into the black hallway, and the lover was left standing, as it +were, on one leg, outside. His impatience was not greatly taxed. Gazing +curiously into what seemed the hallway to Erebus, he was presently reassured by +a stream of light that bisected the darkness, far down the passage. Then he +heard her call, and fluttered lampward, like the moth. She beckoned him through +a doorway into the room whence emanated the light. The room was bare of nearly +everything except books, which had subjugated all its space. Here and there +little spots of territory had been reconquered. An elderly, bald man, with a +superlatively calm, remote eye, stood by a table with a book in his hand, his +finger still marking a page. His dress was sombre and appertained to a +religious order. His eye denoted an acquaintance with the perspective. +</p> + +<p> +“Father Rogan,” said Norah, “this is <i>he</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“The two of ye,” said Father Rogan, “want to get +married?” +</p> + +<p> +They did not deny it. He married them. The ceremony was quickly done. One who +could have witnessed it, and felt its scope, might have trembled at the +terrible inadequacy of it to rise to the dignity of its endless chain of +results. +</p> + +<p> +Afterward the priest spake briefly, as if by rote, of certain other civil and +legal addenda that either might or should, at a later time, cap the ceremony. +Lorison tendered a fee, which was declined, and before the door closed after +the departing couple Father Rogan’s book popped open again where his +finger marked it. +</p> + +<p> +In the dark hall Norah whirled and clung to her companion, tearful. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you never, never be sorry?” +</p> + +<p> +At last she was reassured. +</p> + +<p> +At the first light they reached upon the street, she asked the time, just as +she had each night. Lorison looked at his watch. Half-past eight. +</p> + +<p> +Lorison thought it was from habit that she guided their steps toward the corner +where they always parted. But, arrived there, she hesitated, and then released +his arm. A drug store stood on the corner; its bright, soft light shone upon +them. +</p> + +<p> +“Please leave me here as usual to-night,” said Norah, sweetly. +“I must—I would rather you would. You will not object? At six +to-morrow evening I will meet you at Antonio’s. I want to sit with you +there once more. And then—I will go where you say.” She gave him a +bewildering, bright smile, and walked swiftly away. +</p> + +<p> +Surely it needed all the strength of her charm to carry off this astounding +behaviour. It was no discredit to Lorison’s strength of mind that his +head began to whirl. Pocketing his hands, he rambled vacuously over to the +druggist’s windows, and began assiduously to spell over the names of the +patent medicines therein displayed. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as he had recovered his wits, he proceeded along the street in an +aimless fashion. After drifting for two or three squares, he flowed into a +somewhat more pretentious thoroughfare, a way much frequented by him in his +solitary ramblings. For here was a row of shops devoted to traffic in goods of +the widest range of choice—handiworks of art, skill and fancy, products +of nature and labour from every zone. +</p> + +<p> +Here, for a time, he loitered among the conspicuous windows, where was set, +emphasized by congested floods of light, the cunningest spoil of the interiors. +There were few passers, and of this Lorison was glad. He was not of the world. +For a long time he had touched his fellow man only at the gear of a levelled +cog-wheel—at right angles, and upon a different axis. He had dropped into +a distinctly new orbit. The stroke of ill fortune had acted upon him, in +effect, as a blow delivered upon the apex of a certain ingenious toy, the +musical top, which, when thus buffeted while spinning, gives forth, with +scarcely retarded motion, a complete change of key and chord. +</p> + +<p> +Strolling along the pacific avenue, he experienced singular, supernatural calm, +accompanied by an unusual activity of brain. Reflecting upon recent affairs, +he assured himself of his happiness in having won for a bride the one he had so +greatly desired, yet he wondered mildly at his dearth of active emotion. Her +strange behaviour in abandoning him without valid excuse on his bridal eve +aroused in him only a vague and curious speculation. Again, he found himself +contemplating, with complaisant serenity, the incidents of her somewhat lively +career. His perspective seemed to have been queerly shifted. +</p> + +<p> +As he stood before a window near a corner, his ears were assailed by a waxing +clamour and commotion. He stood close to the window to allow passage to the +cause of the hubbub—a procession of human beings, which rounded the +corner and headed in his direction. He perceived a salient hue of blue and a +glitter of brass about a central figure of dazzling white and silver, and a +ragged wake of black, bobbing figures. +</p> + +<p> +Two ponderous policemen were conducting between them a woman dressed as if for +the stage, in a short, white, satiny skirt reaching to the knees, pink +stockings, and a sort of sleeveless bodice bright with relucent, armour-like +scales. Upon her curly, light hair was perched, at a rollicking angle, a +shining tin helmet. The costume was to be instantly recognized as one of those +amazing conceptions to which competition has harried the inventors of the +spectacular ballet. One of the officers bore a long cloak upon his arm, which, +doubtless, had been intended to veil the candid attractions of their effulgent +prisoner, but, for some reason, it had not been called into use, to the +vociferous delight of the tail of the procession. +</p> + +<p> +Compelled by a sudden and vigorous movement of the woman, the parade halted +before the window by which Lorison stood. He saw that she was young, and, at +the first glance, was deceived by a sophistical prettiness of her face, which +waned before a more judicious scrutiny. Her look was bold and reckless, and +upon her countenance, where yet the contours of youth survived, were the +finger-marks of old age’s credentialed courier, Late Hours. +</p> + +<p> +The young woman fixed her unshrinking gaze upon Lorison, and called to him in +the voice of the wronged heroine in straits: +</p> + +<p> +“Say! You look like a good fellow; come and put up the bail, won’t +you? I’ve done nothing to get pinched for. It’s all a mistake. See +how they’re treating me! You won’t be sorry, if you’ll help +me out of this. Think of your sister or your girl being dragged along the +streets this way! I say, come along now, like a good fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +It may be that Lorison, in spite of the unconvincing bathos of this appeal, +showed a sympathetic face, for one of the officers left the woman’s side, +and went over to him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, Sir,” he said, in a husky, confidential +tone; “she’s the right party. We took her after the first act at +the Green Light Theatre, on a wire from the chief of police of Chicago. +It’s only a square or two to the station. Her rig’s pretty bad, but +she refused to change clothes—or, rather,” added the officer, with +a smile, “to put on some. I thought I’d explain matters to you so +you wouldn’t think she was being imposed upon.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the charge?” asked Lorison. +</p> + +<p> +“Grand larceny. Diamonds. Her husband is a jeweller in Chicago. She +cleaned his show case of the sparklers, and skipped with a comic-opera +troupe.” +</p> + +<p> +The policeman, perceiving that the interest of the entire group of spectators +was centred upon himself and Lorison—their conference being regarded as a +possible new complication—was fain to prolong the situation—which +reflected his own importance—by a little afterpiece of philosophical +comment. +</p> + +<p> +“A gentleman like you, Sir,” he went on affably, “would never +notice it, but it comes in my line to observe what an immense amount of trouble +is made by that combination—I mean the stage, diamonds and light-headed +women who aren’t satisfied with good homes. I tell you, Sir, a man these +days and nights wants to know what his women folks are up to.” +</p> + +<p> +The policeman smiled a good night, and returned to the side of his charge, who +had been intently watching Lorison’s face during the conversation, no +doubt for some indication of his intention to render succour. Now, at the +failure of the sign, and at the movement made to continue the ignominious +progress, she abandoned hope, and addressed him thus, pointedly: +</p> + +<p> +“You damn chalk-faced quitter! You was thinking of giving me a hand, but +you let the cop talk you out of it the first word. You’re a dandy to tie +to. Say, if you ever get a girl, she’ll have a picnic. Won’t she +work you to the queen’s taste! Oh, my!” She concluded with a +taunting, shrill laugh that rasped Lorison like a saw. The policemen urged her +forward; the delighted train of gaping followers closed up the rear; and the +captive Amazon, accepting her fate, extended the scope of her maledictions so +that none in hearing might seem to be slighted. +</p> + +<p> +Then there came upon Lorison an overwhelming revulsion of his perspective. It +may be that he had been ripe for it, that the abnormal condition of mind in +which he had for so long existed was already about to revert to its balance; +however, it is certain that the events of the last few minutes had furnished +the channel, if not the impetus, for the change. +</p> + +<p> +The initial determining influence had been so small a thing as the fact and +manner of his having been approached by the officer. That agent had, by the +style of his accost, restored the loiterer to his former place in society. In +an instant he had been transformed from a somewhat rancid prowler along the +fishy side streets of gentility into an honest gentleman, with whom even so +lordly a guardian of the peace might agreeably exchange the compliments. +</p> + +<p> +This, then, first broke the spell, and set thrilling in him a resurrected +longing for the fellowship of his kind, and the rewards of the virtuous. To +what end, he vehemently asked himself, was this fanciful self-accusation, this +empty renunciation, this moral squeamishness through which he had been led to +abandon what was his heritage in life, and not beyond his deserts? Technically, +he was uncondemned; his sole guilty spot was in thought rather than deed, and +cognizance of it unshared by others. For what good, moral or sentimental, did +he slink, retreating like the hedgehog from his own shadow, to and fro in this +musty Bohemia that lacked even the picturesque? +</p> + +<p> +But the thing that struck home and set him raging was the part played by the +Amazonian prisoner. To the counterpart of that astounding +belligerent—identical at least, in the way of experience—to one, by +her own confession, thus far fallen, had he, not three hours since, been united +in marriage. How desirable and natural it had seemed to him then, and how +monstrous it seemed now! How the words of diamond thief number two yet burned +in his ears: “If you ever get a girl, she’ll have a picnic.” +What did that mean but that women instinctively knew him for one they could +hoodwink? Still again, there reverberated the policeman’s sapient +contribution to his agony: “A man these days and nights wants to know +what his women folks are up to.” Oh, yes, he had been a fool; he had +looked at things from the wrong standpoint. +</p> + +<p> +But the wildest note in all the clamour was struck by pain’s forefinger, +jealousy. Now, at least, he felt that keenest sting—a mounting love +unworthily bestowed. Whatever she might be, he loved her; he bore in his own +breast his doom. A grating, comic flavour to his predicament struck him +suddenly, and he laughed creakingly as he swung down the echoing pavement. An +impetuous desire to act, to battle with his fate, seized him. He stopped upon +his heel, and smote his palms together triumphantly. His wife was—where? +But there was a tangible link; an outlet more or less navigable, through which +his derelict ship of matrimony might yet be safely towed—the priest! +</p> + +<p> +Like all imaginative men with pliable natures, Lorison was, when thoroughly +stirred, apt to become tempestuous. With a high and stubborn indignation upon +him, be retraced his steps to the intersecting street by which he had come. +Down this he hurried to the corner where he had parted with—an astringent +grimace tinctured the thought—his wife. Thence still back he harked, +following through an unfamiliar district his stimulated recollections of the +way they had come from that preposterous wedding. Many times he went abroad, +and nosed his way back to the trail, furious. +</p> + +<p> +At last, when he reached the dark, calamitous building in which his madness had +culminated, and found the black hallway, he dashed down it, perceiving no light +or sound. But he raised his voice, hailing loudly; reckless of everything but +that he should find the old mischief-maker with the eyes that looked too far +away to see the disaster he had wrought. The door opened, and in the stream of +light Father Rogan stood, his book in hand, with his finger marking the place. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” cried Lorison. “You are the man I want. I had a wife of +you a few hours ago. I would not trouble you, but I neglected to note how it +was done. Will you oblige me with the information whether the business is +beyond remedy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Come inside,” said the priest; “there are other lodgers in +the house, who might prefer sleep to even a gratified curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +Lorison entered the room and took the chair offered him. The priest’s +eyes looked a courteous interrogation. +</p> + +<p> +“I must apologize again,” said the young man, “for so soon +intruding upon you with my marital infelicities, but, as my wife has neglected +to furnish me with her address, I am deprived of the legitimate recourse of a +family row.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am quite a plain man,” said Father Rogan, pleasantly; “but +I do not see how I am to ask you questions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon my indirectness,” said Lorison; “I will ask one. In +this room to-night you pronounced me to be a husband. You afterward spoke of +additional rites or performances that either should or could be effected. I +paid little attention to your words then, but I am hungry to hear them repeated +now. As matters stand, am I married past all help?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are as legally and as firmly bound,” said the priest, +“as though it had been done in a cathedral, in the presence of thousands. +The additional observances I referred to are not necessary to the strictest +legality of the act, but were advised as a precaution for the future—for +convenience of proof in such contingencies as wills, inheritances and the +like.” +</p> + +<p> +Lorison laughed harshly. +</p> + +<p> +“Many thanks,” he said. “Then there is no mistake, and I am +the happy benedict. I suppose I should go stand upon the bridal corner, and +when my wife gets through walking the streets she will look me up.” +</p> + +<p> +Father Rogan regarded him calmly. +</p> + +<p> +“My son,” he said, “when a man and woman come to me to be +married I always marry them. I do this for the sake of other people whom they +might go away and marry if they did not marry each other. As you see, I do not +seek your confidence; but your case seems to me to be one not altogether devoid +of interest. Very few marriages that have come to my notice have brought such +well-expressed regret within so short a time. I will hazard one question: were +you not under the impression that you loved the lady you married, at the time +you did so;” +</p> + +<p> +“Loved her!” cried Lorison, wildly. “Never so well as now, +though she told me she deceived and sinned and stole. Never more than now, +when, perhaps, she is laughing at the fool she cajoled and left, with scarcely +a word, to return to God only knows what particular line of her former +folly.” +</p> + +<p> +Father Rogan answered nothing. During the silence that succeeded, he sat with a +quiet expectation beaming in his full, lambent eye. +</p> + +<p> +“If you would listen—” began Lorison. The priest held up his +hand. +</p> + +<p> +“As I hoped,” he said. “I thought you would trust me. Wait +but a moment.” He brought a long clay pipe, filled and lighted it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my son,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Lorison poured a twelve month’s accumulated confidence into Father +Rogan’s ear. He told all; not sparing himself or omitting the facts of +his past, the events of the night, or his disturbing conjectures and fears. +</p> + +<p> +“The main point,” said the priest, when he had concluded, +“seems to me to be this—are you reasonably sure that you love this +woman whom you have married?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” exclaimed Lorison, rising impulsively to his +feet—“why should I deny it? But look at me—am I fish, flesh +or fowl? That is the main point to me, I assure you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you,” said the priest, also rising, and laying down +his pipe. “The situation is one that has taxed the endurance of much +older men than you—in fact, especially much older men than you. I will +try to relieve you from it, and this night. You shall see for yourself into +exactly what predicament you have fallen, and how you shall, possibly, be +extricated. There is no evidence so credible as that of the eyesight.” +</p> + +<p> +Father Rogan moved about the room, and donned a soft black hat. Buttoning his +coat to his throat, he laid his hand on the doorknob. “Let us +walk,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The two went out upon the street. The priest turned his face down it, and +Lorison walked with him through a squalid district, where the houses loomed, +awry and desolate-looking, high above them. Presently they turned into a less +dismal side street, where the houses were smaller, and, though hinting of the +most meagre comfort, lacked the concentrated wretchedness of the more populous +byways. +</p> + +<p> +At a segregated, two-story house Father Rogan halted, and mounted the steps +with the confidence of a familiar visitor. He ushered Lorison into a narrow +hallway, faintly lighted by a cobwebbed hanging lamp. Almost immediately a door +to the right opened and a dingy Irishwoman protruded her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Good evening to ye, Mistress Geehan,” said the priest, +unconsciously, it seemed, falling into a delicately flavoured brogue. +“And is it yourself can tell me if Norah has gone out again, the night, +maybe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s yer blissid riverence! Sure and I can tell ye the same. +The purty darlin’ wint out, as usual, but a bit later. And she says: +‘Mother Geehan,’ says she, ‘it’s me last noight out, +praise the saints, this noight is!’ And, oh, yer riverence, the swate, +beautiful drame of a dress she had this toime! White satin and silk and +ribbons, and lace about the neck and arrums—’twas a sin, yer +reverence, the gold was spint upon it.” +</p> + +<p> +The priest heard Lorison catch his breath painfully, and a faint smile +flickered across his own clean-cut mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, Mistress Geehan,” said he, “I’ll just step +upstairs and see the bit boy for a minute, and I’ll take this gentleman +up with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s awake, thin,” said the woman. “I’ve just +come down from sitting wid him the last hour, tilling him fine shtories of ould +County Tyrone. ’Tis a greedy gossoon, it is, yer riverence, for me +shtories.” +</p> + +<p> +“Small the doubt,” said Father Rogan. “There’s no +rocking would put him to slape the quicker, I’m thinking.” +</p> + +<p> +Amid the woman’s shrill protest against the retort, the two men ascended +the steep stairway. The priest pushed open the door of a room near its top. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you already, sister?” drawled a sweet, childish voice from +the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only ould Father Denny come to see ye, darlin’; and a +foine gentleman I’ve brought to make ye a gr-r-and call. And ye resaves +us fast aslape in bed! Shame on yez manners!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Father Denny, is that you? I’m glad. And will you light the +lamp, please? It’s on the table by the door. And quit talking like Mother +Geehan, Father Denny.” +</p> + +<p> +The priest lit the lamp, and Lorison saw a tiny, towsled-haired boy, with a +thin, delicate face, sitting up in a small bed in a corner. Quickly, also, his +rapid glance considered the room and its contents. It was furnished with more +than comfort, and its adornments plainly indicated a woman’s discerning +taste. An open door beyond revealed the blackness of an adjoining room’s +interior. +</p> + +<p> +The boy clutched both of Father Rogan’s hands. “I’m so glad +you came,” he said; “but why did you come in the night? Did sister +send you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Off wid ye! Am I to be sint about, at me age, as was Terence McShane, of +Ballymahone? I come on me own r-r-responsibility.” +</p> + +<p> +Lorison had also advanced to the boy’s bedside. He was fond of children; +and the wee fellow, laying himself down to sleep alone in that dark room, +stirred-his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you afraid, little man?” he asked, stooping down +beside him. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes,” answered the boy, with a shy smile, “when the +rats make too much noise. But nearly every night, when sister goes out, Mother +Geehan stays a while with me, and tells me funny stories. I’m not often +afraid, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“This brave little gentleman,” said Father Rogan, “is a +scholar of mine. Every day from half-past six to half-past eight—when +sister comes for him—he stops in my study, and we find out what’s +in the inside of books. He knows multiplication, division and fractions; and +he’s troubling me to begin wid the chronicles of Ciaran of Clonmacnoise, +Corurac McCullenan and Cuan O’Lochain, the gr-r-reat Irish +histhorians.” The boy was evidently accustomed to the priest’s +Celtic pleasantries. A little, appreciative grin was all the attention the +insinuation of pedantry received. +</p> + +<p> +Lorison, to have saved his life, could not have put to the child one of those +vital questions that were wildly beating about, unanswered, in his own brain. +The little fellow was very like Norah; he had the same shining hair and candid +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Father Denny,” cried the boy, suddenly, “I forgot to +tell you! Sister is not going away at night any more! She told me so when she +kissed me good night as she was leaving. And she said she was so happy, and +then she cried. Wasn’t that queer? But I’m glad; aren’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, lad. And now, ye omadhaun, go to sleep, and say good night; we must +be going.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which shall I do first, Father Denny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, he’s caught me again! Wait till I get the sassenach into +the annals of Tageruach, the hagiographer; I’ll give him enough of the +Irish idiom to make him more respectful.” +</p> + +<p> +The light was out, and the small, brave voice bidding them good night from the +dark room. They groped downstairs, and tore away from the garrulity of Mother +Geehan. +</p> + +<p> +Again the priest steered them through the dim ways, but this time in another +direction. His conductor was serenely silent, and Lorison followed his example +to the extent of seldom speaking. Serene he could not be. His heart beat +suffocatingly in his breast. The following of this blind, menacing trail was +pregnant with he knew not what humiliating revelation to be delivered at its +end. +</p> + +<p> +They came into a more pretentious street, where trade, it could be surmised, +flourished by day. And again the priest paused; this time before a lofty +building, whose great doors and windows in the lowest floor were carefully +shuttered and barred. Its higher apertures were dark, save in the third story, +the windows of which were brilliantly lighted. Lorison’s ear caught a +distant, regular, pleasing thrumming, as of music above. They stood at an angle +of the building. Up, along the side nearest them, mounted an iron stairway. At +its top was an upright, illuminated parallelogram. Father Rogan had stopped, +and stood, musing. +</p> + +<p> +“I will say this much,” he remarked, thoughtfully: “I believe +you to be a better man than you think yourself to be, and a better man than I +thought some hours ago. But do not take this,” he added, with a smile, +“as much praise. I promised you a possible deliverance from an unhappy +perplexity. I will have to modify that promise. I can only remove the mystery +that enhanced that perplexity. Your deliverance depends upon yourself. +Come.” +</p> + +<p> +He led his companion up the stairway. Halfway up, Lorison caught him by the +sleeve. “Remember,” he gasped, “I love that woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“You desired to know. +</p> + +<p> +“I—Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +The priest reached the landing at the top of the stairway. Lorison, behind him, +saw that the illuminated space was the glass upper half of a door opening into +the lighted room. The rhythmic music increased as they neared it; the stairs +shook with the mellow vibrations. +</p> + +<p> +Lorison stopped breathing when he set foot upon the highest step, for the +priest stood aside, and motioned him to look through the glass of the door. +</p> + +<p> +His eye, accustomed to the darkness, met first a blinding glare, and then he +made out the faces and forms of many people, amid an extravagant display of +splendid robings—billowy laces, brilliant-hued finery, ribbons, silks and +misty drapery. And then he caught the meaning of that jarring hum, and he saw +the tired, pale, happy face of his wife, bending, as were a score of others, +over her sewing machine—toiling, toiling. Here was the folly she pursued, +and the end of his quest. +</p> + +<p> +But not his deliverance, though even then remorse struck him. His shamed soul +fluttered once more before it retired to make room for the other and better +one. For, to temper his thrill of joy, the shine of the satin and the glimmer +of ornaments recalled the disturbing figure of the bespangled Amazon, and the +base duplicate histories lit by the glare of footlights and stolen diamonds. It +is past the wisdom of him who only sets the scenes, either to praise or blame +the man. But this time his love overcame his scruples. He took a quick step, +and reached out his hand for the doorknob. Father Rogan was quicker to arrest +it and draw him back. +</p> + +<p> +“You use my trust in you queerly,” said the priest sternly. +“What are you about to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to my wife,” said Lorison. “Let me pass.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen,” said the priest, holding him firmly by the arm. “I +am about to put you in possession of a piece of knowledge of which, thus far, +you have scarcely proved deserving. I do not think you ever will; but I will +not dwell upon that. You see in that room the woman you married, working for a +frugal living for herself, and a generous comfort for an idolized brother. This +building belongs to the chief costumer of the city. For months the advance +orders for the coming Mardi Gras festivals have kept the work going day and +night. I myself secured employment here for Norah. She toils here each night +from nine o’clock until daylight, and, besides, carries home with her +some of the finer costumes, requiring more delicate needlework, and works there +part of the day. Somehow, you two have remained strangely ignorant of each +other’s lives. Are you convinced now that your wife is not walking the +streets?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go to her,” cried Lorison, again struggling, “and beg +her forgiveness!’ +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said the priest, “do you owe me nothing? Be quiet. It +seems so often that Heaven lets fall its choicest gifts into hands that must be +taught to hold them. Listen again. You forgot that repentant sin must not +compromise, but look up, for redemption, to the purest and best. You went to +her with the fine-spun sophistry that peace could be found in a mutual guilt; +and she, fearful of losing what her heart so craved, thought it worth the price +to buy it with a desperate, pure, beautiful lie. I have known her since the day +she was born; she is as innocent and unsullied in life and deed as a holy +saint. In that lowly street where she dwells she first saw the light, and she +has lived there ever since, spending her days in generous self-sacrifice for +others. Och, ye spalpeen!” continued Father Rogan, raising his finger in +kindly anger at Lorison. “What for, I wonder, could she be after making a +fool of hersilf, and shamin’ her swate soul with lies, for the like of +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said Lorison, trembling, “say what you please of me. +Doubt it as you must, I will yet prove my gratitude to you, and my devotion to +her. But let me speak to her once now, let me kneel for just one moment at her +feet, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Tut, tut!” said the priest. “How many acts of a love drama +do you think an old bookworm like me capable of witnessing? Besides, what kind +of figures do we cut, spying upon the mysteries of midnight millinery! Go to +meet your wife to-morrow, as she ordered you, and obey her thereafter, and +maybe some time I shall get forgiveness for the part I have played in this +night’s work. Off wid yez down the shtairs, now! ’Tis late, and an +ould man like me should be takin’ his rest.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>XXIV<br> +MADAME BO-PEEP, OF THE RANCHES</h2> +</div> +<p> +“Aunt Ellen,” said Octavia, cheerfully, as she threw her black kid +gloves carefully at the dignified Persian cat on the window-seat, +“I’m a pauper.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are so extreme in your statements, Octavia, dear,” said Aunt +Ellen, mildly, looking up from her paper. “If you find yourself +temporarily in need of some small change for bonbons, you will find my purse in +the drawer of the writing desk.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia Beaupree removed her hat and seated herself on a footstool near her +aunt’s chair, clasping her hands about her knees. Her slim and flexible +figure, clad in a modish mourning costume, accommodated itself easily and +gracefully to the trying position. Her bright and youthful face, with its pair +of sparkling, life-enamoured eyes, tried to compose itself to the seriousness +that the occasion seemed to demand. +</p> + +<p> +“You good auntie, it isn’t a case of bonbons; it is abject, +staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes, gasolined gloves, and +probably one o’clock dinners all waiting with the traditional wolf at the +door. I’ve just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, ‘Please, +ma’am, I ain’t got nothink ’t all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole, +gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?’ Do I do +it nicely, auntie, or, as a bread-winner accomplishment, were my lessons in +elocution entirely wasted?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be serious, my dear,” said Aunt Ellen, letting her paper fall +to the floor, “long enough to tell me what you mean. Colonel +Beaupree’s estate—” +</p> + +<p> +“Colonel Beaupree’s estate,” interrupted Octavia, emphasizing +her words with appropriate dramatic gestures, “is of Spanish castellar +architecture. Colonel Beaupree’s resources are—wind. Colonel +Beaupree’s stocks are—water. Colonel Beaupree’s income +is—all in. The statement lacks the legal technicalities to which I have +been listening for an hour, but that is what it means when translated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Octavia!” Aunt Ellen was now visibly possessed by consternation. +“I can hardly believe it. And it was the impression that he was worth a +million. And the De Peysters themselves introduced him!” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia rippled out a laugh, and then became properly grave. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>De mortuis nil</i>, auntie—not even the rest of it. The dear +old colonel—what a gold brick he was, after all! I paid for my bargain +fairly—I’m all here, am I not?—items: eyes, fingers, toes, +youth, old family, unquestionable position in society as called for in the +contract—no wild-cat stock here.” Octavia picked up the morning +paper from the floor. “But I’m not going to +‘squeal’—isn’t that what they call it when you rail at +Fortune because you’ve, lost the game?” She turned the pages of the +paper calmly. “‘Stock market’—no use for that. +‘Society’s doings’—that’s done. Here is my +page— the wish column. A Van Dresser could not be said to +‘want’ for anything, of course. ‘Chamber-maids, cooks, +canvassers, stenographers—’” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear,” said Aunt Ellen, with a little tremor in her voice, +“please do not talk in that way. Even if your affairs are in so +unfortunate a condition, there is my three thousand—” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia sprang up lithely, and deposited a smart kiss on the delicate cheek of +the prim little elderly maid. +</p> + +<p> +“Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient to insure your +Hyson to be free from willow leaves and keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I +know I’d be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather +than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. +I’m going to earn my own living. There’s nothing else to do. +I’m a—Oh, oh, oh!—I had forgotten. There’s one thing +saved from the wreck. It’s a corral—no, a ranch in—let me +see—Texas: an asset, dear old Mr. Bannister called it. How pleased he was +to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I’ve a +description of it among those stupid papers he made me bring away with me from +his office. I’ll try to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia found her shopping-bag, and drew from it a long envelope filled with +typewritten documents. +</p> + +<p> +“A ranch in Texas,” sighed Aunt Ellen. “It sounds to me more +like a liability than an asset. Those are the places where the centipedes are +found, and cowboys, and fandangos.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Rancho de las Sombras,’” read Octavia from a +sheet of violently purple typewriting, “‘is situated one hundred +and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest +railroad station, Nopal, on the I. and G. N. Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of +well-watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two +sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought +under State’s twenty-year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino +sheep, with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and general ranch +paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished +according to the requirements of the climate. All within a strong barbed-wire +fence. +</p> + +<p> +“‘The present ranch manager seems to be competent and reliable, and +is rapidly placing upon a paying basis a business that, in other hands, had +been allowed to suffer from neglect and misconduct. +</p> + +<p> +“‘This property was secured by Colonel Beaupree in a deal with a +Western irrigation syndicate, and the title to it seems to be perfect. With +careful management and the natural increase of land values, it ought to be made +the foundation for a comfortable fortune for its owner.’” +</p> + +<p> +When Octavia ceased reading, Aunt Ellen uttered something as near a sniff as +her breeding permitted. +</p> + +<p> +“The prospectus,” she said, with uncompromising metropolitan +suspicion, “doesn’t mention the centipedes, or the Indians. And you +never did like mutton, Octavia. I don’t see what advantage you can derive +from this—desert.” +</p> + +<p> +But Octavia was in a trance. Her eyes were steadily regarding something quite +beyond their focus. Her lips were parted, and her face was lighted by the +kindling furor of the explorer, the ardent, stirring disquiet of the +adventurer. Suddenly she clasped her hands together exultantly. +</p> + +<p> +“The problem solves itself, auntie,” she cried. “I’m +going to that ranch. I’m going to live on it. I’m going to learn to +like mutton, and even concede the good qualities of centipedes—at a +respectful distance. It’s just what I need. It’s a new life that +comes when my old one is just ending. It’s a release, auntie; it +isn’t a narrowing. Think of the gallops over those leagues of prairies, +with the wind tugging at the roots of your hair, the coming close to the earth +and learning over again the stories of the growing grass and the little wild +flowers without names! Glorious is what it will be. Shall I be a shepherdess +with a Watteau hat, and a crook to keep the bad wolves from the lambs, or a +typical Western ranch girl, with short hair, like the pictures of her in the +Sunday papers? I think the latter. And they’ll have my picture, too, with +the wild-cats I’ve slain, single-handed, hanging from my saddle horn. +‘From the Four Hundred to the Flocks’ is the way they’ll +headline it, and they’ll print photographs of the old Van Dresser mansion +and the church where I was married. They won’t have my picture, but +they’ll get an artist to draw it. I’ll be wild and woolly, and +I’ll grow my own wool.” +</p> + +<p> +“Octavia!” Aunt Ellen condensed into the one word all the protests +she was unable to utter. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say a word, auntie. I’m going. I’ll see the sky +at night fit down on the world like a big butter-dish cover, and I’ll +make friends again with the stars that I haven’t had a chat with since I +was a wee child. I wish to go. I’m tired of all this. I’m glad I +haven’t any money. I could bless Colonel Beaupree for that ranch, and +forgive him for all his bubbles. What if the life will be rough and lonely! +I—I deserve it. I shut my heart to everything except that miserable +ambition. I—oh, I wish to go away, and forget—forget!” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia swerved suddenly to her knees, laid her flushed face in her +aunt’s lap, and shook with turbulent sobs. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Ellen bent over her, and smoothed the coppery-brown hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know,” she said, gently; “I didn’t +know—that. Who was it, dear?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +When Mrs. Octavia Beaupree, née Van Dresser, stepped from the train at Nopal, +her manner lost, for the moment, some of that easy certitude which had always +marked her movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have +been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element +that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, +was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms. +</p> + +<p> +Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to +choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string of loungers, the +manager of the Rancho de las Sombras, who had been instructed by Mr. Bannister +to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel +shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his +gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The +manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have +no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in +ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal! +</p> + +<p> +Thus keeping a speculative watch on all persons of possible managerial aspect, +Octavia, with a catching breath and a start of surprise, suddenly became aware +of Teddy Westlake hurrying along the platform in the direction of the +train—of Teddy Westlake or his sun-browned ghost in cheviot, boots and +leather-girdled hat—Theodore Westlake, Jr., amateur polo (almost) +champion, all-round butterfly and cumberer of the soil; but a broader, surer, +more emphasized and determined Teddy than the one she had known a year ago when +last she saw him. +</p> + +<p> +He perceived Octavia at almost the same time, deflected his course, and steered +for her in his old, straightforward way. Something like awe came upon her as +the strangeness of his metamorphosis was brought into closer range; the rich, +red-brown of his complexion brought out so vividly his straw-coloured mustache +and steel-gray eyes. He seemed more grown-up, and, somehow, farther away. But, +when he spoke, the old, boyish Teddy came back again. They had been friends +from childhood. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ’Tave!” he exclaimed, unable to reduce his perplexity +to coherence. “How—what—when—where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Train,” said Octavia; “necessity; ten minutes ago; home. +Your complexion’s gone, Teddy. Now, +how—what—when—where?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m working down here,” said Teddy. He cast side glances +about the station as one does who tries to combine politeness with duty. +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t notice on the train,” he asked, “an old +lady with gray curls and a poodle, who occupied two seats with her bundles and +quarrelled with the conductor, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think not,” answered Octavia, reflecting. “And you +haven’t, by any chance, noticed a big, gray-mustached man in a blue shirt +and six-shooters, with little flakes of merino wool sticking in his hair, have +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of ’em,” said Teddy, with symptoms of mental delirium +under the strain. Do you happen to know any such individual?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; the description is imaginary. Is your interest in the old lady whom +you describe a personal one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never saw her in my life. She’s painted entirely from fancy. She +owns the little piece of property where I earn my bread and butter—the +Rancho de las Sombras. I drove up to meet her according to arrangement with her +lawyer.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia leaned against the wall of the telegraph office. Was this possible? And +didn’t he know? +</p> + +<p> +“Are you the manager of that ranch?” she asked weakly. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Teddy, with pride. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Mrs. Beaupree,” said Octavia faintly; “but my hair +never would curl, and I was polite to the conductor.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment that strange, grown-up look came back, and removed Teddy miles +away from her. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said, rather awkwardly. +“You see, I’ve been down here in the chaparral a year. I +hadn’t heard. Give me your checks, please, and I’ll have your traps +loaded into the wagon. José will follow with them. We travel ahead in the +buckboard.” +</p> + +<p> +Seated by Teddy in a feather-weight buckboard, behind a pair of wild, +cream-coloured Spanish ponies, Octavia abandoned all thought for the +exhilaration of the present. They swept out of the little town and down the +level road toward the south. Soon the road dwindled and disappeared, and they +struck across a world carpeted with an endless reach of curly mesquite grass. +The wheels made no sound. The tireless ponies bounded ahead at an unbroken +gallop. The temperate wind, made fragrant by thousands of acres of blue and +yellow wild flowers, roared gloriously in their ears. The motion was aërial, +ecstatic, with a thrilling sense of perpetuity in its effect. Octavia sat +silent, possessed by a feeling of elemental, sensual bliss. Teddy seemed to be +wrestling with some internal problem. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going to call you madama,” he announced as the result of +his labours. “That is what the Mexicans will call you—they’re +nearly all Mexicans on the ranch, you know. That seems to me about the proper +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, Mr. Westlake,” said Octavia, primly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, now,” said Teddy, in some consternation, “that’s +carrying the thing too far, isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t worry me with your beastly etiquette. I’m just +beginning to live. Don’t remind me of anything artificial. If only this +air could be bottled! This much alone is worth coming for. Oh, look I there +goes a deer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Jack-rabbit,” said Teddy, without turning his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Could I—might I drive?” suggested Octavia, panting, with +rose-tinted cheeks and the eye of an eager child. +</p> + +<p> +“On one condition. Could I—might I smoke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forever!” cried Octavia, taking the lines with solemn joy. +“How shall I know which way to drive?” +</p> + +<p> +“Keep her sou’ by sou’east, and all sail set. You see that +black speck on the horizon under that lowermost Gulf cloud? That’s a +group of live-oaks and a landmark. Steer halfway between that and the little +hill to the left. I’ll recite you the whole code of driving rules for the +Texas prairies: keep the reins from under the horses’ feet, and swear at +’em frequent.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m too happy to swear, Ted. Oh, why do people buy yachts or +travel in palace-cars, when a buckboard and a pair of plugs and a spring +morning like this can satisfy all desire?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’ll ask you,” protested Teddy, who was futilely +striking match after match on the dashboard, “not to call those denizens +of the air plugs. They can kick out a hundred miles between daylight and +dark.” At last he succeeded in snatching a light for his cigar from the +flame held in the hollow of his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Room!” said Octavia, intensely. “That’s what produces +the effect. I know now what I’ve +wanted—scope—range—room!” +</p> + +<p> +“Smoking-room,” said Teddy, unsentimentally. “I love to smoke +in a buckboard. The wind blows the smoke into you and out again. It saves +exertion.” +</p> + +<p> +The two fell so naturally into their old-time goodfellowship that it was only +by degrees that a sense of the strangeness of the new relations between them +came to be felt. +</p> + +<p> +“Madama,” said Teddy, wonderingly, “however did you get it +into your head to cut the crowd and come down here? Is it a fad now among the +upper classes to trot off to sheep ranches instead of to Newport?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was broke, Teddy,” said Octavia, sweetly, with her interest +centred upon steering safely between a Spanish dagger plant and a clump of +chaparral; “I haven’t a thing in the world but this ranch—not +even any other home to go to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, now,” said Teddy, anxiously but incredulously, “you +don’t mean it?” +</p> + +<p> +“When my husband,” said Octavia, with a shy slurring of the word, +“died three months ago I thought I had a reasonable amount of the +world’s goods. His lawyer exploded that theory in a sixty-minute fully +illustrated lecture. I took to the sheep as a last resort. Do you happen to +know of any fashionable caprice among the gilded youth of Manhattan that +induces them to abandon polo and club windows to become managers of sheep +ranches?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s easily explained in my case,” responded Teddy, +promptly. “I had to go to work. I couldn’t have earned my board in +New York, so I chummed a while with old Sandford, one of the syndicate that +owned the ranch before Colonel Beaupree bought it, and got a place down here. I +wasn’t manager at first. I jogged around on ponies and studied the +business in detail, until I got all the points in my head. I saw where it was +losing and what the remedies were, and then Sandford put me in charge. I get a +hundred dollars a month, and I earn it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Teddy!” said Octavia, with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t. I like it. I save half my wages, and I’m as +hard as a water plug. It beats polo.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will it furnish bread and tea and jam for another outcast from +civilization?” +</p> + +<p> +“The spring shearing,” said the manager, “just cleaned up a +deficit in last year’s business. Wastefulness and inattention have been +the rule heretofore. The autumn clip will leave a small profit over all +expenses. Next year there will be jam.” +</p> + +<p> +When, about four o’clock in the afternoon, the ponies rounded a gentle, +brush-covered hill, and then swooped, like a double cream-coloured cyclone, +upon the Rancho de las Sombras, Octavia gave a little cry of delight. A lordly +grove of magnificent live-oaks cast an area of grateful, cool shade, whence the +ranch had drawn its name, “de las Sombras”—of the shadows. +The house, of red brick, one story, ran low and long beneath the trees. Through +its middle, dividing its six rooms in half, extended a broad, arched +passageway, picturesque with flowering cactus and hanging red earthen jars. A +“gallery,” low and broad, encircled the building. Vines climbed +about it, and the adjacent ground was, for a space, covered with transplanted +grass and shrubs. A little lake, long and narrow, glimmered in the sun at the +rear. Further away stood the shacks of the Mexican workers, the corrals, wool +sheds and shearing pens. To the right lay the low hills, splattered with dark +patches of chaparral; to the left the unbounded green prairie blending against +the blue heavens. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a home, Teddy,” said Octavia, breathlessly; +that’s what it is—it’s a home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so bad for a sheep ranch,” admitted Teddy, with excusable +pride. “I’ve been tinkering on it at odd times.” +</p> + +<p> +A Mexican youth sprang from somewhere in the grass, and took charge of the +creams. The mistress and the manager entered the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s Mrs. MacIntyre,” said Teddy, as a placid, neat, +elderly lady came out upon the gallery to meet them. “Mrs. Mac, +here’s the boss. Very likely she will be wanting a hunk of ham and a dish +of beans after her drive.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. MacIntyre, the housekeeper, as much a fixture on the place as the lake or +the live-oaks, received the imputation of the ranch’s resources of +refreshment with mild indignation, and was about to give it utterance when +Octavia spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mrs. MacIntyre, don’t apologize for Teddy. Yes, I call him +Teddy. So does every one whom he hasn’t duped into taking him seriously. +You see, we used to cut paper dolls and play jackstraws together ages ago. No +one minds what he says.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Teddy, “no one minds what he says, just so he +doesn’t do it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia cast one of those subtle, sidelong glances toward him from beneath her +lowered eyelids—a glance that Teddy used to describe as an upper-cut. But +there was nothing in his ingenuous, weather-tanned face to warrant a suspicion +that he was making an allusion—nothing. Beyond a doubt, thought Octavia, +he had forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Westlake likes his fun,” said Mrs. Maclntyre, as she conducted +Octavia to her rooms. “But,” she added, loyally, “people +around here usually pay attention to what he says when he talks in earnest. I +don’t know what would have become of this place without him.” +</p> + +<p> +Two rooms at the east end of the house had been arranged for the occupancy of +the ranch’s mistress. When she entered them a slight dismay seized her at +their bare appearance and the scantiness of their furniture; but she quickly +reflected that the climate was a semi-tropical one, and was moved to +appreciation of the well-conceived efforts to conform to it. The sashes had +already been removed from the big windows, and white curtains waved in the Gulf +breeze that streamed through the wide jalousies. The bare floor was amply +strewn with cool rugs; the chairs were inviting, deep, dreamy willows; the +walls were papered with a light, cheerful olive. One whole side of her sitting +room was covered with books on smooth, unpainted pine shelves. She flew to +these at once. Before her was a well-selected library. She caught glimpses of +titles of volumes of fiction and travel not yet seasoned from the dampness of +the press. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, recollecting that she was now in a wilderness given over to mutton, +centipedes and privations, the incongruity of these luxuries struck her, and, +with intuitive feminine suspicion, she began turning to the fly-leaves of +volume after volume. Upon each one was inscribed in fluent characters the name +of Theodore Westlake, Jr. +</p> + +<p> +Octavia, fatigued by her long journey, retired early that night. Lying upon her +white, cool bed, she rested deliciously, but sleep coquetted long with her. She +listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her faculties on the +alert—the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the ceaseless, low symphony +of the wind, the distant booming of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation +of a concertina in the Mexicans’ quarters. There were many conflicting +feelings in her heart—thankfulness and rebellion, peace and disquietude, +loneliness and a sense of protecting care, happiness and an old, haunting pain. +</p> + +<p> +She did what any other woman would have done—sought relief in a wholesome +tide of unreasonable tears, and her last words, murmured to herself before +slumber, capitulating, came softly to woo her, were “He has +forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +The manager of the Rancho de las Sombras was no dilettante. He was a +“hustler.” He was generally up, mounted, and away of mornings +before the rest of the household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks +and camps. This was the duty of the major-domo, a stately old Mexican with a +princely air and manner, but Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in +his own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly always returned to the +ranch to breakfast at eight o’clock, with Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre, at +the little table set in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and +breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the prairies. +</p> + +<p> +A few days after Octavia’s arrival he made her get out one of her riding +skirts, and curtail it to a shortness demanded by the chaparral brakes. +</p> + +<p> +With some misgivings she donned this and the pair of buckskin leggings he +prescribed in addition, and, mounted upon a dancing pony, rode with him to view +her possessions. He showed her everything—the flocks of ewes, muttons and +grazing lambs, the dipping vats, the shearing pens, the uncouth merino rams in +their little pasture, the water-tanks prepared against the summer +drought—giving account of his stewardship with a boyish enthusiasm that +never flagged. +</p> + +<p> +Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was the same, +and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. +Where was his sentimentality—those old, varying moods of impetuous +love-making, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of heart-breaking gloom, of +alternating, absurd tenderness and haughty dignity? His nature had been a +sensitive one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew +that, besides being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had +cultivated tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered +with colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and +once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But +now—and she could not avoid the conclusion—Teddy had barricaded +against her every side of himself except one—the side that showed the +manager of the Rancho de las Sombras and a jolly chum who had forgiven and +forgotten. Queerly enough the words of Mr. Bannister’s description of her +property came into her mind—“all inclosed within a strong +barbed-wire fence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Teddy’s fenced, too,” said Octavia to herself. +</p> + +<p> +It was not difficult for her to reason out the cause of his fortifications. It +had originated one night at the Hammersmiths’ ball. It occurred at a time +soon after she had decided to accept Colonel Beaupree and his million, which +was no more than her looks and the entrée she held to the inner circles were +worth. Teddy had proposed with all his impetuosity and fire, and she looked him +straight in the eyes, and said, coldly and finally: “Never let me hear +any such silly nonsense from you again.” “You won’t,” +said Teddy, with an expression around his mouth, and—now Teddy was +inclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence. +</p> + +<p> +It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was seized by the +inspiration that suggested the name of Mother Goose’s heroine, and he at +once bestowed it upon Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of +names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him as a peculiarly happy +one, and he never tired of using it. The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the +name, adding another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity for the +final “p,” gravely referring to her as “La Madama +Bo-Peepy.” Eventually it spread, and “Madame Bo-Peep’s +ranch” was as often mentioned as the “Rancho de las Sombras.” +</p> + +<p> +Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce on the +ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater’s dream. Books, +hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed interest in her +old water-colour box and easel—these disposed of the sultry hours of +daylight. The evenings were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were +the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the +wind-swept leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling night-hawk and the startled owl. +Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars and sing +the weirdest of heart-breaking songs. There were long, cosy chats on the breezy +gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and Mrs. MacIntyre, +whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often more than overmatched the lighter humour +in which she was lacking. +</p> + +<p> +And the nights came, one after another, and were filed away by weeks and +months—nights soft and languorous and fragrant, that should have driven +Strephon to Chloe over wires however barbed, that might have drawn Cupid +himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous pastures—but Teddy +kept his fences up. +</p> + +<p> +One July night Madame Bo-Peep and her ranch manager were sitting on the east +gallery. Teddy had been exhausting the science of prognostication as to the +probabilities of a price of twenty-four cents for the autumn clip, and had then +subsided into an anesthetic cloud of Havana smoke. Only as incompetent a judge +as a woman would have failed to note long ago that at least a third of his +salary must have gone up in the fumes of those imported Regalias. +</p> + +<p> +“Teddy,” said Octavia, suddenly, and rather sharply, “what +are you working down here on a ranch for?” +</p> + +<p> +“One hundred per,” said Teddy, glibly, “and found.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve a good mind to discharge you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t do it,” said Teddy, with a grin. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” demanded Octavia, with argumentative heat. +</p> + +<p> +“Under contract. Terms of sale respect all unexpired contracts. Mine runs +until 12 P. M., December thirty-first. You might get up at midnight on that +date and fire me. If you try it sooner I’ll be in a position to bring +legal proceedings.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia seemed to be considering the prospects of litigation. +</p> + +<p> +“But,” continued Teddy cheerfully, “I’ve been thinking +of resigning anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia’s rocking-chair ceased its motion. There were centipedes in this +country, she felt sure; and Indians, and vast, lonely, desolate, empty wastes; +all within strong barbed-wire fence. There was a Van Dresser pride, but there +was also a Van Dresser heart. She must know for certain whether or not he had +forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, Teddy,” she said, with a fine assumption of polite +interest, “it’s lonely down here; you’re longing to get back +to the old life—to polo and lobsters and theatres and balls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never cared much for balls,” said Teddy virtuously. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re getting old, Teddy. Your memory is failing. Nobody ever +knew you to miss a dance, unless it occurred on the same night with another one +which you attended. And you showed such shocking bad taste, too, in dancing too +often with the same partner. Let me see, what was that Forbes girl’s +name—the one with wall eyes—Mabel, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; Adèle. Mabel was the one with the bony elbows. That wasn’t +wall in Adèle’s eyes. It was soul. We used to talk sonnets together, and +Verlaine. Just then I was trying to run a pipe from the Pierian spring.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were on the floor with her,” said Octavia, undeflected, +“five times at the Hammersmiths’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hammersmiths’ what?” questioned Teddy, vacuously. +</p> + +<p> +“Ball—ball,” said Octavia, viciously. “What were we +talking of?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eyes, I thought,” said Teddy, after some reflection; “and +elbows.” +</p> + +<p> +“Those Hammersmiths,” went on Octavia, in her sweetest society +prattle, after subduing an intense desire to yank a handful of sunburnt, sandy +hair from the head lying back contentedly against the canvas of the steamer +chair, “had too much money. Mines, wasn’t it? It was something that +paid something to the ton. You couldn’t get a glass of plain water in +their house. Everything at that ball was dreadfully overdone.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was,” said Teddy. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a crowd there was!” Octavia continued, conscious that she was +talking the rapid drivel of a school-girl describing her first dance. +“The balconies were as warm as the rooms. I—lost—something at +that ball.” The last sentence was uttered in a tone calculated to remove +the barbs from miles of wire. +</p> + +<p> +“So did I,” confessed Teddy, in a lower voice. +</p> + +<p> +“A glove,” said Octavia, falling back as the enemy approached her +ditches. +</p> + +<p> +“Caste,” said Teddy, halting his firing line without loss. “I +hobnobbed, half the evening with one of Hammersmith’s miners, a fellow +who kept his hands in his pockets, and talked like an archangel about reduction +plants and drifts and levels and sluice-boxes.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pearl-gray glove, nearly new,” sighed Octavia, mournfully. +</p> + +<p> +“A bang-up chap, that McArdle,” maintained Teddy approvingly. +“A man who hated olives and elevators; a man who handled mountains as +croquettes, and built tunnels in the air; a man who never uttered a word of +silly nonsense in his life. Did you sign those lease-renewal applications yet, +madama? They’ve got to be on file in the land office by the +thirty-first.” +</p> + +<p> +Teddy turned his head lazily. Octavia’s chair was vacant. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +A certain centipede, crawling along the lines marked out by fate, expounded the +situation. It was early one morning while Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre were +trimming the honeysuckle on the west gallery. Teddy had risen and departed +hastily before daylight in response to word that a flock of ewes had been +scattered from their bedding ground during the night by a thunder-storm. +</p> + +<p> +The centipede, driven by destiny, showed himself on the floor of the gallery, +and then, the screeches of the two women giving him his cue, he scuttled with +all his yellow legs through the open door into the furthermost west room, which +was Teddy’s. Arming themselves with domestic utensils selected with +regard to their length, Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre, with much clutching of +skirts and skirmishing for the position of rear guard in the attacking force, +followed. +</p> + +<p> +Once outside, the centipede seemed to have disappeared, and his prospective +murderers began a thorough but cautious search for their victim. +</p> + +<p> +Even in the midst of such a dangerous and absorbing adventure Octavia was +conscious of an awed curiosity on finding herself in Teddy’s sanctum. In +that room he sat alone, silently communing with those secret thoughts that he +now shared with no one, dreamed there whatever dreams he now called on no one +to interpret. +</p> + +<p> +It was the room of a Spartan or a soldier. In one corner stood a wide, +canvas-covered cot; in another, a small bookcase; in another, a grim stand of +Winchesters and shotguns. An immense table, strewn with letters, papers and +documents and surmounted by a set of pigeon-holes, occupied one side. +</p> + +<p> +The centipede showed genius in concealing himself in such bare quarters. Mrs. +Maclntyre was poking a broom-handle behind the bookcase. Octavia approached +Teddy’s cot. The room was just as the manager had left it in his hurry. +The Mexican maid had not yet given it her attention. There was his big pillow +with the imprint of his head still in the centre. She thought the horrid beast +might have climbed the cot and hidden itself to bite Teddy. Centipedes were +thus cruel and vindictive toward managers. +</p> + +<p> +She cautiously overturned the pillow, and then parted her lips to give the +signal for reinforcements at sight of a long, slender, dark object lying there. +But, repressing it in time, she caught up a glove, a pearl-gray glove, +flattened—it might be conceived—by many, many months of nightly +pressure beneath the pillow of the man who had forgotten the +Hammersmiths’ ball. Teddy must have left so hurriedly that morning that +he had, for once, forgotten to transfer it to its resting-place by day. Even +managers, who are notoriously wily and cunning, are sometimes caught up with. +</p> + +<p> +Octavia slid the gray glove into the bosom of her summery morning gown. It was +hers. Men who put themselves within a strong barbed-wire fence, and remember +Hammersmith balls only by the talk of miners about sluice-boxes, should not be +allowed to possess such articles. +</p> + +<p> +After all, what a paradise this prairie country was! How it blossomed like the +rose when you found things that were thought to be lost! How delicious was that +morning breeze coming in the windows, fresh and sweet with the breath of the +yellow ratama blooms! Might one not stand, for a minute, with shining, +far-gazing eyes, and dream that mistakes might be corrected? +</p> + +<p> +Why was Mrs. Maclntyre poking about so absurdly with a broom? +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve found it,” said Mrs. MacIntyre, banging the door. +“Here it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you lose something? asked Octavia, with sweetly polite non-interest. +</p> + +<p> +“The little devil!” said Mrs. Maclntyre, driven to violence. +“Ye’ve no forgotten him alretty?” +</p> + +<p> +Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he rewarded for his agency +toward the recovery of things lost at the Hammersmiths’ ball. +</p> + +<p> +It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the glove, and when he returned +to the house at sunset made a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until +evening, upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was upon the hand +that he had thought lost to him forever, and so he was moved to repeat certain +nonsense that he had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy’s +fences were down. +</p> + +<p> +This time there was no ambition to stand in the way, and the wooing was as +natural and successful as should be between ardent shepherd and gentle +shepherdess. +</p> + +<p> +The prairies changed to a garden. The Rancho de las Sombras became the Ranch of +Light. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later Octavia received a letter from Mr. Bannister, in reply to one +she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of +the letter ran as follows: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two +months after your departure to take up your residence upon it, it was +discovered that Colonel Beaupree’s title was worthless. A deed came to +light showing that he disposed of the property before his death. The matter was +reported to your manager, Mr. Westlake, who at once repurchased the property. +It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained +in ignorance of this fact. I beg that you that will at once confer with that +gentleman, who will, at least, corroborate my statement.” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia sought Teddy, with battle in her eye. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you working on this ranch for?” she asked once more. +</p> + +<p> +“One hundred—” he began to repeat, but saw in her face that +she knew. She held Mr. Bannister’s letter in her hand. He knew that the +game was up. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my ranch,” said Teddy, like a schoolboy detected in +evil. “It’s a mighty poor manager that isn’t able to absorb +the boss’s business if you give him time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why were you working down here?” pursued Octavia still struggling +after the key to the riddle of Teddy. +</p> + +<p> +“To tell the truth, ’Tave,” said Teddy, with quiet candour, +“it wasn’t for the salary. That about kept me in cigars and sunburn +lotions. I was sent south by my doctor. ’Twas that right lung that was +going to the bad on account of over-exercise and strain at polo and gymnastics. +I needed climate and ozone and rest and things of that sort.” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant Octavia was close against the vicinity of the affected organ. Mr. +Bannister’s letter fluttered to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s—it’s well now, isn’t it, Teddy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sound as a mesquite chunk. I deceived you in one thing. I paid fifty +thousand for your ranch as soon as I found you had no title. I had just about +that much income accumulated at my banker’s while I’ve been herding +sheep down here, so it was almost like picking the thing up on a +bargain-counter for a penny. There’s another little surplus of unearned +increment piling up there, ’Tave. I’ve been thinking of a wedding +trip in a yacht with white ribbons tied to the mast, through the Mediterranean, +and then up among the Hebrides and down Norway to the Zuyder Zee.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I was thinking,” said Octavia, softly, “of a wedding +gallop with my manager among the flocks of sheep and back to a wedding +breakfast with Mrs. MacIntyre on the gallery, with, maybe, a sprig of orange +blossom fastened to the red jar above the table.” +</p> + +<p> +Teddy laughed, and began to chant: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,<br> +And doesn’t know where to find ’em.<br> +Let ’em alone, and they’ll come home,<br> +And—” +</p> + +<p> +Octavia drew his head down, and whispered in his ear. +</p> + +<p> +But that is one of the tales they brought behind them. +</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHIRLIGIGS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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