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diff --git a/old/hrtws10.txt b/old/hrtws10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..091c291 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/hrtws10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9055 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Heart of the West, by O Henry** +#5 in our series by O Henry + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Heart of the West + +by O. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz +and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com + + + + + +HEART OF THE WEST +by O. Henry + + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. Hearts and Crosses + II. The Ransom of Mack + III. Telemachus, Friend + IV. The Handbook of Hymen + V. The Pimienta Pancakes + VI. Seats of the Haughty + VII. Hygeia at the Solito + VIII. An Afternoon Miracle + IX. The Higher Abdication + X. Cupid a la Carte + XI. The Caballero's Way + XII. The Sphinx Apple + XIII. The Missing Chord + XIV. A Call Loan + XV. The Princess and the Puma + XVI. The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson + XVII. Christmas by Injunction +XVIII. A Chaparral Prince + XIX. The Reformation of Calliope + + + + +HEART OF THE WEST + + + +I + +HEARTS AND CROSSES + +Baldy Woods reached for the bottle, and got it. Whenever Baldy went +for anything he usually--but this is not Baldy's story. He poured out +a third drink that was larger by a finger than the first and second. +Baldy was in consultation; and the consultee is worthy of his hire. + +"I'd be king if I was you," said Baldy, so positively that his holster +creaked and his spurs rattled. + +Webb Yeager pushed back his flat-brimmed Stetson, and made further +disorder in his straw-coloured hair. The tonsorial recourse being +without avail, he followed the liquid example of the more resourceful +Baldy. + +"If a man marries a queen, it oughtn't to make him a two-spot," +declared Webb, epitomising his grievances. + +"Sure not," said Baldy, sympathetic, still thirsty, and genuinely +solicitous concerning the relative value of the cards. "By rights +you're a king. If I was you, I'd call for a new deal. The cards have +been stacked on you--I'll tell you what you are, Webb Yeager." + +"What?" asked Webb, with a hopeful look in his pale-blue eyes. + +"You're a prince-consort." + +"Go easy," said Webb. "I never blackguarded you none." + +"It's a title," explained Baldy, "up among the picture-cards; but it +don't take no tricks. I'll tell you, Webb. It's a brand they're got +for certain animals in Europe. Say that you or me or one of them Dutch +dukes marries in a royal family. Well, by and by our wife gets to be +queen. Are we king? Not in a million years. At the coronation +ceremonies we march between little casino and the Ninth Grand +Custodian of the Royal Hall Bedchamber. The only use we are is to +appear in photographs, and accept the responsibility for the heir- +apparent. That ain't any square deal. Yes, sir, Webb, you're a prince- +consort; and if I was you, I'd start a interregnum or a habeus corpus +or somethin'; and I'd be king if I had to turn from the bottom of the +deck." + +Baldy emptied his glass to the ratification of his Warwick pose. + +"Baldy," said Webb, solemnly, "me and you punched cows in the same +outfit for years. We been runnin' on the same range, and ridin' the +same trails since we was boys. I wouldn't talk about my family affairs +to nobody but you. You was line-rider on the Nopalito Ranch when I +married Santa McAllister. I was foreman then; but what am I now? I +don't amount to a knot in a stake rope." + +"When old McAllister was the cattle king of West Texas," continued +Baldy with Satanic sweetness, "you was some tallow. You had as much to +say on the ranch as he did." + +"I did," admitted Webb, "up to the time he found out I was tryin' to +get my rope over Santa's head. Then he kept me out on the range as far +from the ranch-house as he could. When the old man died they commenced +to call Santa the 'cattle queen.' I'm boss of the cattle--that's all. +She 'tends to all the business; she handles all the money; I can't +sell even a beef-steer to a party of campers, myself. Santa's the +'queen'; and I'm Mr. Nobody." + +"I'd be king if I was you," repeated Baldy Woods, the royalist. "When +a man marries a queen he ought to grade up with her--on the hoof-- +dressed--dried--corned--any old way from the chaparral to the packing- +house. Lots of folks thinks it's funny, Webb, that you don't have the +say-so on the Nopalito. I ain't reflectin' none on Miz Yeager--she's +the finest little lady between the Rio Grande and next Christmas--but +a man ought to be boss of his own camp." + +The smooth, brown face of Yeager lengthened to a mask of wounded +melancholy. With that expression, and his rumpled yellow hair and +guileless blue eyes, he might have been likened to a schoolboy whose +leadership had been usurped by a youngster of superior strength. But +his active and sinewy seventy-two inches, and his girded revolvers +forbade the comparison. + +"What was that you called me, Baldy?" he asked. "What kind of a +concert was it?" + +"A 'consort,'" corrected Baldy--"a 'prince-consort.' It's a kind of +short-card pseudonym. You come in sort of between Jack-high and a +four-card flush." + +Webb Yeager sighed, and gathered the strap of his Winchester scabbard +from the floor. + +"I'm ridin' back to the ranch to-day," he said half-heartedly. "I've +got to start a bunch of beeves for San Antone in the morning." + +"I'm your company as far as Dry Lake," announced Baldy. "I've got a +round-up camp on the San Marcos cuttin' out two-year-olds." + +The two /companeros/ mounted their ponies and trotted away from the +little railroad settlement, where they had foregathered in the thirsty +morning. + +At Dry Lake, where their routes diverged, they reined up for a parting +cigarette. For miles they had ridden in silence save for the soft drum +of the ponies' hoofs on the matted mesquite grass, and the rattle of +the chaparral against their wooden stirrups. But in Texas discourse is +seldom continuous. You may fill in a mile, a meal, and a murder +between your paragraphs without detriment to your thesis. So, without +apology, Webb offered an addendum to the conversation that had begun +ten miles away. + +"You remember, yourself, Baldy, that there was a time when Santa +wasn't quite so independent. You remember the days when old McAllister +was keepin' us apart, and how she used to send me the sign that she +wanted to see me? Old man Mac promised to make me look like a colander +if I ever come in gun-shot of the ranch. You remember the sign she +used to send, Baldy--the heart with a cross inside of it?" + +"Me?" cried Baldy, with intoxicated archness. "You old sugar-stealing +coyote! Don't I remember! Why, you dad-blamed old long-horned turtle- +dove, the boys in camp was all cognoscious about them hiroglyphs. The +'gizzard-and-crossbones' we used to call it. We used to see 'em on +truck that was sent out from the ranch. They was marked in charcoal on +the sacks of flour and in lead-pencil on the newspapers. I see one of +'em once chalked on the back of a new cook that old man McAllister +sent out from the ranch--danged if I didn't." + +"Santa's father," explained Webb gently, "got her to promise that she +wouldn't write to me or send me any word. That heart-and-cross sign +was her scheme. Whenever she wanted to see me in particular she +managed to put that mark on somethin' at the ranch that she knew I'd +see. And I never laid eyes on it but what I burnt the wind for the +ranch the same night. I used to see her in that coma mott back of the +little horse-corral." + +"We knowed it," chanted Baldy; "but we never let on. We was all for +you. We knowed why you always kept that fast paint in camp. And when +we see that gizzard-and-crossbones figured out on the truck from the +ranch we knowed old Pinto was goin' to eat up miles that night instead +of grass. You remember Scurry--that educated horse-wrangler we had-- +the college fellow that tangle-foot drove to the range? Whenever +Scurry saw that come-meet-your-honey brand on anything from the ranch, +he'd wave his hand like that, and say, 'Our friend Lee Andrews will +again swim the Hell's point to-night.'" + +"The last time Santa sent me the sign," said Webb, "was once when she +was sick. I noticed it as soon as I hit camp, and I galloped Pinto +forty mile that night. She wasn't at the coma mott. I went to the +house; and old McAllister met me at the door. 'Did you come here to +get killed?' says he; 'I'll disoblige you for once. I just started a +Mexican to bring you. Santa wants you. Go in that room and see her. +And then come out here and see me.' + +"Santa was lyin' in bed pretty sick. But she gives out a kind of a +smile, and her hand and mine lock horns, and I sets down by the bed-- +mud and spurs and chaps and all. 'I've heard you ridin' across the +grass for hours, Webb,' she says. 'I was sure you'd come. You saw the +sign?' she whispers. 'The minute I hit camp,' says I. ''Twas marked on +the bag of potatoes and onions.' 'They're always together,' says she, +soft like--'always together in life.' 'They go well together,' I says, +'in a stew.' 'I mean hearts and crosses,' says Santa. 'Our sign--to +love and to suffer--that's what they mean.' + +"And there was old Doc Musgrove amusin' himself with whisky and a +palm-leaf fan. And by and by Santa goes to sleep; and Doc feels her +forehead; and he says to me: 'You're not such a bad febrifuge. But +you'd better slide out now; for the diagnosis don't call for you in +regular doses. The little lady'll be all right when she wakes up.' + +"I seen old McAllister outside. 'She's asleep,' says I. 'And now you +can start in with your colander-work. Take your time; for I left my +gun on my saddle-horn.' + +"Old Mac laughs, and he says to me: 'Pumpin' lead into the best ranch- +boss in West Texas don't seem to me good business policy. I don't know +where I could get as good a one. It's the son-in-law idea, Webb, that +makes me admire for to use you as a target. You ain't my idea for a +member of the family. But I can use you on the Nopalito if you'll keep +outside of a radius with the ranch-house in the middle of it. You go +upstairs and lay down on a cot, and when you get some sleep we'll talk +it over.'" + +Baldy Woods pulled down his hat, and uncurled his leg from his saddle- +horn. Webb shortened his rein, and his pony danced, anxious to be off. +The two men shook hands with Western ceremony. + +"/Adios/, Baldy," said Webb, "I'm glad I seen you and had this talk." + +With a pounding rush that sounded like the rise of a covey of quail, +the riders sped away toward different points of the compass. A hundred +yards on his route Baldy reined in on the top of a bare knoll, and +emitted a yell. He swayed on his horse; had he been on foot, the earth +would have risen and conquered him; but in the saddle he was a master +of equilibrium, and laughed at whisky, and despised the centre of +gravity. + +Webb turned in his saddle at the signal. + +"If I was you," came Baldy's strident and perverting tones, "I'd be +king!" + +At eight o'clock on the following morning Bud Turner rolled from his +saddle in front of the Nopalito ranch-house, and stumbled with +whizzing rowels toward the gallery. Bud was in charge of the bunch of +beef-cattle that was to strike the trail that morning for San Antonio. +Mrs. Yeager was on the gallery watering a cluster of hyacinths growing +in a red earthenware jar. + +"King" McAllister had bequeathed to his daughter many of his strong +characteristics--his resolution, his gay courage, his contumacious +self-reliance, his pride as a reigning monarch of hoofs and horns. +/Allegro/ and /fortissimo/ had been McAllister's temp and tone. In +Santa they survived, transposed to the feminine key. Substantially, +she preserved the image of the mother who had been summoned to wander +in other and less finite green pastures long before the waxing herds +of kine had conferred royalty upon the house. She had her mother's +slim, strong figure and grave, soft prettiness that relieved in her +the severity of the imperious McAllister eye and the McAllister air of +royal independence. + +Webb stood on one end of the gallery giving orders to two or three +sub-bosses of various camps and outfits who had ridden in for +instructions. + +"Morning," said Bud briefly. "Where do you want them beeves to go in +town--to Barber's, as usual?" + +Now, to answer that had been the prerogative of the queen. All the +reins of business--buying, selling, and banking--had been held by her +capable fingers. The handling of cattle had been entrusted fully to +her husband. In the days of "King" McAllister, Santa had been his +secretary and helper; and she had continued her work with wisdom and +profit. But before she could reply, the prince-consort spake up with +calm decision: + +"You drive that bunch to Zimmerman and Nesbit's pens. I spoke to +Zimmerman about it some time ago." + +Bud turned on his high boot-heels. + +"Wait!" called Santa quickly. She looked at her husband with surprise +in her steady gray eyes. + +"Why, what do you mean, Webb?" she asked, with a small wrinkle +gathering between her brows. "I never deal with Zimmerman and Nesbit. +Barber has handled every head of stock from this ranch in that market +for five years. I'm not going to take the business out of his hands." +She faced Bud Turner. "Deliver those cattle to Barber," she concluded +positively. + +Bud gazed impartially at the water-jar hanging on the gallery, stood +on his other leg, and chewed a mesquite-leaf. + +"I want this bunch of beeves to go to Zimmerman and Nesbit," said +Webb, with a frosty light in his blue eyes. + +"Nonsense," said Santa impatiently. "You'd better start on, Bud, so as +to noon at the Little Elm water-hole. Tell Barber we'll have another +lot of culls ready in about a month." + +Bud allowed a hesitating eye to steal upward and meet Webb's. Webb saw +apology in his look, and fancied he saw commiseration. + +"You deliver them cattle," he said grimly, "to--" + +"Barber," finished Santa sharply. "Let that settle it. Is there +anything else you are waiting for, Bud?" + +"No, m'm," said Bud. But before going he lingered while a cow's tail +could have switched thrice; for man is man's ally; and even the +Philistines must have blushed when they took Samson in the way they +did. + +"You hear your boss!" cried Webb sardonically. He took off his hat, +and bowed until it touched the floor before his wife. + +"Webb," said Santa rebukingly, "you're acting mighty foolish to-day." + +"Court fool, your Majesty," said Webb, in his slow tones, which had +changed their quality. "What else can you expect? Let me tell you. I +was a man before I married a cattle-queen. What am I now? The +laughing-stock of the camps. I'll be a man again." + +Santa looked at him closely. + +"Don't be unreasonable, Webb," she said calmly. "You haven't been +slighted in any way. Do I ever interfere in your management of the +cattle? I know the business side of the ranch much better than you do. +I learned it from Dad. Be sensible." + +"Kingdoms and queendoms," said Webb, "don't suit me unless I am in the +pictures, too. I punch the cattle and you wear the crown. All right. +I'd rather be High Lord Chancellor of a cow-camp than the eight-spot +in a queen-high flush. It's your ranch; and Barber gets the beeves." + +Webb's horse was tied to the rack. He walked into the house and +brought out his roll of blankets that he never took with him except on +long rides, and his "slicker," and his longest stake-rope of plaited +raw-hide. These he began to tie deliberately upon his saddle. Santa, a +little pale, followed him. + +Webb swung up into the saddle. His serious, smooth face was without +expression except for a stubborn light that smouldered in his eyes. + +"There's a herd of cows and calves," said he, "near the Hondo water- +hole on the Frio that ought to be moved away from timber. Lobos have +killed three of the calves. I forgot to leave orders. You'd better +tell Simms to attend to it." + +Santa laid a hand on the horse's bridle, and looked her husband in the +eye. + +"Are you going to leave me, Webb?" she asked quietly. + +"I am going to be a man again," he answered. + +"I wish you success in a praiseworthy attempt," she said, with a +sudden coldness. She turned and walked directly into the house. + +Webb Yeager rode to the southeast as straight as the topography of +West Texas permitted. And when he reached the horizon he might have +ridden on into blue space as far as knowledge of him on the Nopalito +went. And the days, with Sundays at their head, formed into hebdomadal +squads; and the weeks, captained by the full moon, closed ranks into +menstrual companies crying "Tempus fugit" on their banners; and the +months marched on toward the vast camp-ground of the years; but Webb +Yeager came no more to the dominions of his queen. + +One day a being named Bartholomew, a sheep-man--and therefore of +little account--from the lower Rio Grande country, rode in sight of +the Nopalito ranch-house, and felt hunger assail him. /Ex +consuetudine/ he was soon seated at the mid-day dining table of that +hospitable kingdom. Talk like water gushed from him: he might have +been smitten with Aaron's rod--that is your gentle shepherd when an +audience is vouchsafed him whose ears are not overgrown with wool. + +"Missis Yeager," he babbled, "I see a man the other day on the Rancho +Seco down in Hidalgo County by your name--Webb Yeager was his. He'd +just been engaged as manager. He was a tall, light-haired man, not +saying much. Perhaps he was some kin of yours, do you think?" + +"A husband," said Santa cordially. "The Seco has done well. Mr. Yeager +is one of the best stockmen in the West." + +The dropping out of a prince-consort rarely disorganises a monarchy. +Queen Santa had appointed as /mayordomo/ of the ranch a trusty +subject, named Ramsay, who had been one of her father's faithful +vassals. And there was scarcely a ripple on the Nopalito ranch save +when the gulf-breeze created undulations in the grass of its wide +acres. + +For several years the Nopalito had been making experiments with an +English breed of cattle that looked down with aristocratic contempt +upon the Texas long-horns. The experiments were found satisfactory; +and a pasture had been set aside for the blue-bloods. The fame of them +had gone forth into the chaparral and pear as far as men ride in +saddles. Other ranches woke up, rubbed their eyes, and looked with new +dissatisfaction upon the long-horns. + +As a consequence, one day a sunburned, capable, silk-kerchiefed +nonchalant youth, garnished with revolvers, and attended by three +Mexican /vaqueros/, alighted at the Nopalito ranch and presented the +following business-like epistle to the queen thereof: + + Mrs. Yeager--The Nopalito Ranch: + + Dear Madam: + + I am instructed by the owners of the Rancho Seco to purchase 100 + head of two and three-year-old cows of the Sussex breed owned by + you. If you can fill the order please deliver the cattle to the + bearer; and a check will be forwarded to you at once. + +Respectfully, +Webster Yeager, +Manager the Rancho Seco. + + +Business is business, even--very scantily did it escape being written +"especially"--in a kingdom. + +That night the 100 head of cattle were driven up from the pasture and +penned in a corral near the ranch-house for delivery in the morning. + +When night closed down and the house was still, did Santa Yeager throw +herself down, clasping that formal note to her bosom, weeping, and +calling out a name that pride (either in one or the other) had kept +from her lips many a day? Or did she file the letter, in her business +way, retaining her royal balance and strength? + +Wonder, if you will; but royalty is sacred; and there is a veil. But +this much you shall learn: + +At midnight Santa slipped softly out of the ranch-house, clothed in +something dark and plain. She paused for a moment under the live-oak +trees. The prairies were somewhat dim, and the moonlight was pale +orange, diluted with particles of an impalpable, flying mist. But the +mock-bird whistled on every bough of vantage; leagues of flowers +scented the air; and a kindergarten of little shadowy rabbits leaped +and played in an open space near by. Santa turned her face to the +southeast and threw three kisses thitherward; for there was none to +see. + +Then she sped silently to the blacksmith-shop, fifty yards away; and +what she did there can only be surmised. But the forge glowed red; and +there was a faint hammering such as Cupid might make when he sharpens +his arrow-points. + +Later she came forth with a queer-shaped, handled thing in one hand, +and a portable furnace, such as are seen in branding-camps, in the +other. To the corral where the Sussex cattle were penned she sped with +these things swiftly in the moonlight. + +She opened the gate and slipped inside the corral. The Sussex cattle +were mostly a dark red. But among this bunch was one that was milky +white--notable among the others. + +And now Santa shook from her shoulder something that we had not seen +before--a rope lasso. She freed the loop of it, coiling the length in +her left hand, and plunged into the thick of the cattle. + +The white cow was her object. She swung the lasso, which caught one +horn and slipped off. The next throw encircled the forefeet and the +animal fell heavily. Santa made for it like a panther; but it +scrambled up and dashed against her, knocking her over like a blade of +grass. + +Again she made her cast, while the aroused cattle milled around the +four sides of the corral in a plunging mass. This throw was fair; the +white cow came to earth again; and before it could rise Santa had made +the lasso fast around a post of the corral with a swift and simple +knot, and had leaped upon the cow again with the rawhide hobbles. + +In one minute the feet of the animal were tied (no record-breaking +deed) and Santa leaned against the corral for the same space of time, +panting and lax. + +And then she ran swiftly to her furnace at the gate and brought the +branding-iron, queerly shaped and white-hot. + +The bellow of the outraged white cow, as the iron was applied, should +have stirred the slumbering auricular nerves and consciences of the +near-by subjects of the Nopalito, but it did not. And it was amid the +deepest nocturnal silence that Santa ran like a lapwing back to the +ranch-house and there fell upon a cot and sobbed--sobbed as though +queens had hearts as simple ranchmen's wives have, and as though she +would gladly make kings of prince-consorts, should they ride back +again from over the hills and far away. + +In the morning the capable, revolvered youth and his /vaqueros/ set +forth, driving the bunch of Sussex cattle across the prairies to the +Rancho Seco. Ninety miles it was; a six days' journey, grazing and +watering the animals on the way. + +The beasts arrived at Rancho Seco one evening at dusk; and were +received and counted by the foreman of the ranch. + +The next morning at eight o'clock a horseman loped out of the brush to +the Nopalito ranch-house. He dismounted stiffly, and strode, with +whizzing spurs, to the house. His horse gave a great sigh and swayed +foam-streaked, with down-drooping head and closed eyes. + +But waste not your pity upon Belshazzar, the flea-bitten sorrel. +To-day, in Nopalito horse-pasture he survives, pampered, beloved, +unridden, cherished record-holder of long-distance rides. + +The horseman stumbled into the house. Two arms fell around his neck, +and someone cried out in the voice of woman and queen alike: "Webb-- +oh, Webb!" + +"I was a skunk," said Webb Yeager. + +"Hush," said Santa, "did you see it?" + +"I saw it," said Webb. + +What they meant God knows; and you shall know, if you rightly read the +primer of events. + +"Be the cattle-queen," said Webb; "and overlook it if you can. I was a +mangy, sheep-stealing coyote." + +"Hush!" said Santa again, laying her fingers upon his mouth. "There's +no queen here. Do you know who I am? I am Santa Yeager, First Lady of +the Bedchamber. Come here." + +She dragged him from the gallery into the room to the right. There +stood a cradle with an infant in it--a red, ribald, unintelligible, +babbling, beautiful infant, sputtering at life in an unseemly manner. + +"There's no queen on this ranch," said Santa again. "Look at the king. +He's got your eyes, Webb. Down on your knees and look at his +Highness." + +But jingling rowels sounded on the gallery, and Bud Turner stumbled +there again with the same query that he had brought, lacking a few +days, a year ago. + +"'Morning. Them beeves is just turned out on the trail. Shall I drive +'em to Barber's, or--" + +He saw Webb and stopped, open-mouthed. + +"Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!" shrieked the king in his cradle, beating the air +with his fists. + +"You hear your boss, Bud," said Webb Yeager, with a broad grin--just +as he had said a year ago. + +And that is all, except that when old man Quinn, owner of the Rancho +Seco, went out to look over the herd of Sussex cattle that he had +bought from the Nopalito ranch, he asked his new manager: + +"What's the Nopalito ranch brand, Wilson?" + +"X Bar Y," said Wilson. + +"I thought so," said Quinn. "But look at that white heifer there; +she's got another brand--a heart with a cross inside of it. What brand +is that?" + + + +II + +THE RANSOM OF MACK + +Me and old Mack Lonsbury, we got out of that Little Hide-and-Seek gold +mine affair with about $40,000 apiece. I say "old" Mack; but he wasn't +old. Forty-one, I should say; but he always seemed old. + +"Andy," he says to me, "I'm tired of hustling. You and me have been +working hard together for three years. Say we knock off for a while, +and spend some of this idle money we've coaxed our way." + +"The proposition hits me just right," says I. "Let's be nabobs for a +while and see how it feels. What'll we do--take in the Niagara Falls, +or buck at faro?" + +"For a good many years," says Mack, "I've thought that if I ever had +extravagant money I'd rent a two-room cabin somewhere, hire a Chinaman +to cook, and sit in my stocking feet and read Buckle's History of +Civilisation." + +"That sounds self-indulgent and gratifying without vulgar +ostentation," says I; "and I don't see how money could be better +invested. Give me a cuckoo clock and a Sep Winner's Self-Instructor +for the Banjo, and I'll join you." + +A week afterwards me and Mack hits this small town of Pina, about +thirty miles out from Denver, and finds an elegant two-room house that +just suits us. We deposited half-a-peck of money in the Pina bank and +shook hands with every one of the 340 citizens in the town. We brought +along the Chinaman and the cuckoo clock and Buckle and the Instructor +with us from Denver; and they made the cabin seem like home at once. + +Never believe it when they tell you riches don't bring happiness. If +you could have seen old Mack sitting in his rocking-chair with his +blue-yarn sock feet up in the window and absorbing in that Buckle +stuff through his specs you'd have seen a picture of content that +would have made Rockefeller jealous. And I was learning to pick out +"Old Zip Coon" on the banjo, and the cuckoo was on time with his +remarks, and Ah Sing was messing up the atmosphere with the handsomest +smell of ham and eggs that ever laid the honeysuckle in the shade. +When it got too dark to make out Buckle's nonsense and the notes in +the Instructor, me and Mack would light our pipes and talk about +science and pearl diving and sciatica and Egypt and spelling and fish +and trade-winds and leather and gratitude and eagles, and a lot of +subjects that we'd never had time to explain our sentiments about +before. + +One evening Mack spoke up and asked me if I was much apprised in the +habits and policies of women folks. + +"Why, yes," says I, in a tone of voice; "I know 'em from Alfred to +Omaha. The feminine nature and similitude," says I, "is as plain to my +sight as the Rocky Mountains is to a blue-eyed burro. I'm onto all +their little side-steps and punctual discrepancies." + +"I tell you, Andy," says Mack, with a kind of sigh, "I never had the +least amount of intersection with their predispositions. Maybe I might +have had a proneness in respect to their vicinity, but I never took +the time. I made my own living since I was fourteen; and I never +seemed to get my ratiocinations equipped with the sentiments usually +depicted toward the sect. I sometimes wish I had," says old Mack. + +"They're an adverse study," says I, "and adapted to points of view. +Although they vary in rationale, I have found 'em quite often +obviously differing from each other in divergences of contrast." + +"It seems to me," goes on Mack, "that a man had better take 'em in and +secure his inspirations of the sect when he's young and so +preordained. I let my chance go by; and I guess I'm too old now to go +hopping into the curriculum." + +"Oh, I don't know," I tells him. "Maybe you better credit yourself +with a barrel of money and a lot of emancipation from a quantity of +uncontent. Still, I don't regret my knowledge of 'em," I says. "It +takes a man who understands the symptoms and by-plays of women-folks +to take care of himself in this world." + +We stayed on in Pina because we liked the place. Some folks might +enjoy their money with noise and rapture and locomotion; but me and +Mack we had had plenty of turmoils and hotel towels. The people were +friendly; Ah Sing got the swing of the grub we liked; Mack and Buckle +were as thick as two body-snatchers, and I was hitting out a cordial +resemblance to "Buffalo Gals, Can't You Come Out To-night," on the +banjo. + +One day I got a telegram from Speight, the man that was working on a +mine I had an interest in out in New Mexico. I had to go out there; +and I was gone two months. I was anxious to get back to Pina and enjoy +life once more. + +When I struck the cabin I nearly fainted. Mack was standing in the +door; and if angels ever wept, I saw no reason why they should be +smiling then. + +That man was a spectacle. Yes; he was worse; he was a spyglass; he was +the great telescope in the Lick Observatory. He had on a coat and +shiny shoes and a white vest and a high silk hat; and a geranium as +big as an order of spinach was spiked onto his front. And he was +smirking and warping his face like an infernal storekeeper or a kid +with colic. + +"Hello, Andy," says Mack, out of his face. "Glad to see you back. +Things have happened since you went away." + +"I know it," says I, "and a sacrilegious sight it is. God never made +you that way, Mack Lonsbury. Why do you scarify His works with this +presumptuous kind of ribaldry?" + +"Why, Andy," says he, "they've elected me justice of the peace since +you left." + +I looked at Mack close. He was restless and inspired. A justice of the +peace ought to be disconsolate and assuaged. + +Just then a young woman passed on the sidewalk; and I saw Mack kind of +half snicker and blush, and then he raised up his hat and smiled and +bowed, and she smiled and bowed, and went on by. + +"No hope for you," says I, "if you've got the Mary-Jane infirmity at +your age. I thought it wasn't going to take on you. And patent leather +shoes! All this in two little short months!" + +"I'm going to marry the young lady who just passed to-night," says +Mack, in a kind of flutter. + +"I forgot something at the post-office," says I, and walked away +quick. + +I overtook that young woman a hundred yards away. I raised my hat and +told her my name. She was about nineteen; and young for her age. She +blushed, and then looked at me cool, like I was the snow scene from +the "Two Orphans." + +"I understand you are to be married to-night," I said. + +"Correct," says she. "You got any objections?" + +"Listen, sissy," I begins. + +"My name is Miss Rebosa Redd," says she in a pained way. + +"I know it," says I. "Now, Rebosa, I'm old enough to have owed money +to your father. And that old, specious, dressed-up, garbled, sea-sick +ptomaine prancing about avidiously like an irremediable turkey gobbler +with patent leather shoes on is my best friend. Why did you go and get +him invested in this marriage business?" + +"Why, he was the only chance there was," answers Miss Rebosa. + +"Nay," says I, giving a sickening look of admiration at her complexion +and style of features; "with your beauty you might pick any kind of a +man. Listen, Rebosa. Old Mack ain't the man you want. He was twenty- +two when you was /nee/ Reed, as the papers say. This bursting into +bloom won't last with him. He's all ventilated with oldness and +rectitude and decay. Old Mack's down with a case of Indian summer. He +overlooked his bet when he was young; and now he's suing Nature for +the interest on the promissory note he took from Cupid instead of the +cash. Rebosa, are you bent on having this marriage occur?" + +"Why, sure I am," says she, oscillating the pansies on her hat, "and +so is somebody else, I reckon." + +"What time is it to take place?" I asks. + +"At six o'clock," says she. + +I made up my mind right away what to do. I'd save old Mack if I could. +To have a good, seasoned, ineligible man like that turn chicken for a +girl that hadn't quit eating slate pencils and buttoning in the back +was more than I could look on with easiness. + +"Rebosa," says I, earnest, drawing upon my display of knowledge +concerning the feminine intuitions of reason--"ain't there a young man +in Pina--a nice young man that you think a heap of?" + +"Yep," says Rebosa, nodding her pansies--"Sure there is! What do you +think! Gracious!" + +"Does he like you?" I asks. "How does he stand in the matter?" + +"Crazy," says Rebosa. "Ma has to wet down the front steps to keep him +from sitting there all the time. But I guess that'll be all over after +to-night," she winds up with a sigh. + +"Rebosa," says I, "you don't really experience any of this adoration +called love for old Mack, do you?" + +"Lord! no," says the girl, shaking her head. "I think he's as dry as a +lava bed. The idea!" + +"Who is this young man that you like, Rebosa?" I inquires. + +"It's Eddie Bayles," says she. "He clerks in Crosby's grocery. But he +don't make but thirty-five a month. Ella Noakes was wild about him +once." + +"Old Mack tells me," I says, "that he's going to marry you at six +o'clock this evening." + +"That's the time," says she. "It's to be at our house." + +"Rebosa," says I, "listen to me. If Eddie Bayles had a thousand +dollars cash--a thousand dollars, mind you, would buy him a store of +his own--if you and Eddie had that much to excuse matrimony on, would +you consent to marry him this evening at five o'clock?" + +The girl looks at me a minute; and I can see these inaudible +cogitations going on inside of her, as women will. + +"A thousand dollars?" says she. "Of course I would." + +"Come on," says I. "We'll go and see Eddie." + +We went up to Crosby's store and called Eddie outside. He looked to be +estimable and freckled; and he had chills and fever when I made my +proposition. + +"At five o'clock?" says he, "for a thousand dollars? Please don't wake +me up! Well, you /are/ the rich uncle retired from the spice business +in India! I'll buy out old Crosby and run the store myself." + +We went inside and got old man Crosby apart and explained it. I wrote +my check for a thousand dollars and handed it to him. If Eddie and +Rebosa married each other at five he was to turn the money over to +them. + +And then I gave 'em my blessing, and went to wander in the wildwood +for a season. I sat on a log and made cogitations on life and old age +and the zodiac and the ways of women and all the disorder that goes +with a lifetime. I passed myself congratulations that I had probably +saved my old friend Mack from his attack of Indian summer. I knew when +he got well of it and shed his infatuation and his patent leather +shoes, he would feel grateful. "To keep old Mack disinvolved," thinks +I, "from relapses like this, is worth more than a thousand dollars." +And most of all I was glad that I'd made a study of women, and wasn't +to be deceived any by their means of conceit and evolution. + +It must have been half-past five when I got back home. I stepped in; +and there sat old Mack on the back of his neck in his old clothes with +his blue socks on the window and the History of Civilisation propped +up on his knees. + +"This don't look like getting ready for a wedding at six," I says, to +seem innocent. + +"Oh," says Mack, reaching for his tobacco, "that was postponed back to +five o'clock. They sent me over a note saying the hour had been +changed. It's all over now. What made you stay away so long, Andy?" + +"You heard about the wedding?" I asks. + +"I operated it," says he. "I told you I was justice of the peace. The +preacher is off East to visit his folks, and I'm the only one in town +that can perform the dispensations of marriage. I promised Eddie and +Rebosa a month ago I'd marry 'em. He's a busy lad; and he'll have a +grocery of his own some day." + +"He will," says I. + +"There was lots of women at the wedding," says Mack, smoking up. "But +I didn't seem to get any ideas from 'em. I wish I was informed in the +structure of their attainments like you said you was." + +"That was two months ago," says I, reaching up for the banjo. + + + +III + +TELEMACHUS, FRIEND + +Returning from a hunting trip, I waited at the little town of Los +Pinos, in New Mexico, for the south-bound train, which was one hour +late. I sat on the porch of the Summit House and discussed the +functions of life with Telemachus Hicks, the hotel proprietor. + +Perceiving that personalities were not out of order, I asked him what +species of beast had long ago twisted and mutilated his left ear. +Being a hunter, I was concerned in the evils that may befall one in +the pursuit of game. + +"That ear," says Hicks, "is the relic of true friendship." + +"An accident?" I persisted. + +"No friendship is an accident," said Telemachus; and I was silent. + +"The only perfect case of true friendship I ever knew," went on my +host, "was a cordial intent between a Connecticut man and a monkey. +The monkey climbed palms in Barranquilla and threw down cocoanuts to +the man. The man sawed them in two and made dippers, which he sold for +two /reales/ each and bought rum. The monkey drank the milk of the +nuts. Through each being satisfied with his own share of the graft, +they lived like brothers. + +"But in the case of human beings, friendship is a transitory art, +subject to discontinuance without further notice. + +"I had a friend once, of the entitlement of Paisley Fish, that I +imagined was sealed to me for an endless space of time. Side by side +for seven years we had mined, ranched, sold patent churns, herded +sheep, took photographs and other things, built wire fences, and +picked prunes. Thinks I, neither homocide nor flattery nor riches nor +sophistry nor drink can make trouble between me and Paisley Fish. We +was friends an amount you could hardly guess at. We was friends in +business, and we let our amicable qualities lap over and season our +hours of recreation and folly. We certainly had days of Damon and +nights of Pythias. + +"One summer me and Paisley gallops down into these San Andres +mountains for the purpose of a month's surcease and levity, dressed in +the natural store habiliments of man. We hit this town of Los Pinos, +which certainly was a roof-garden spot of the world, and flowing with +condensed milk and honey. It had a street or two, and air, and hens, +and a eating-house; and that was enough for us. + +"We strikes the town after supper-time, and we concludes to sample +whatever efficacy there is in this eating-house down by the railroad +tracks. By the time we had set down and pried up our plates with a +knife from the red oil-cloth, along intrudes Widow Jessup with the hot +biscuit and the fried liver. + +"Now, there was a woman that would have tempted an anchovy to forget +his vows. She was not so small as she was large; and a kind of welcome +air seemed to mitigate her vicinity. The pink of her face was the /in +hoc signo/ of a culinary temper and a warm disposition, and her smile +would have brought out the dogwood blossoms in December. + +"Widow Jessup talks to us a lot of garrulousness about the climate and +history and Tennyson and prunes and the scarcity of mutton, and +finally wants to know where we came from. + +"'Spring Valley,' says I. + +"'Big Spring Valley,' chips in Paisley, out of a lot of potatoes and +knuckle-bone of ham in his mouth. + +"That was the first sign I noticed that the old /fidus Diogenes/ +business between me and Paisley Fish was ended forever. He knew how I +hated a talkative person, and yet he stampedes into the conversation +with his amendments and addendums of syntax. On the map it was Big +Spring Valley; but I had heard Paisley himself call it Spring Valley a +thousand times. + +"Without saying any more, we went out after supper and set on the +railroad track. We had been pardners too long not to know what was +going on in each other's mind. + +"'I reckon you understand,' says Paisley, 'that I've made up my mind +to accrue that widow woman as part and parcel in and to my +hereditaments forever, both domestic, sociable, legal, and otherwise, +until death us do part.' + +"'Why, yes,' says I, 'I read it between the lines, though you only +spoke one. And I suppose you are aware,' says I, 'that I have a +movement on foot that leads up to the widow's changing her name to +Hicks, and leaves you writing to the society column to inquire whether +the best man wears a japonica or seamless socks at the wedding!' + +"'There'll be some hiatuses in your program,' says Paisley, chewing up +a piece of a railroad tie. 'I'd give in to you,' says he, 'in 'most +any respect if it was secular affairs, but this is not so. The smiles +of woman,' goes on Paisley, 'is the whirlpool of Squills and +Chalybeates, into which vortex the good ship Friendship is often drawn +and dismembered. I'd assault a bear that was annoying you,' says +Paisley, 'or I'd endorse your note, or rub the place between your +shoulder-blades with opodeldoc the same as ever; but there my sense of +etiquette ceases. In this fracas with Mrs. Jessup we play it alone. +I've notified you fair.' + +"And then I collaborates with myself, and offers the following +resolutions and by-laws: + +"'Friendship between man and man,' says I, 'is an ancient historical +virtue enacted in the days when men had to protect each other against +lizards with eighty-foot tails and flying turtles. And they've kept up +the habit to this day, and stand by each other till the bellboy comes +up and tells them the animals are not really there. I've often heard,' +I says, 'about ladies stepping in and breaking up a friendship between +men. Why should that be? I'll tell you, Paisley, the first sight and +hot biscuit of Mrs. Jessup appears to have inserted a oscillation into +each of our bosoms. Let the best man of us have her. I'll play you a +square game, and won't do any underhanded work. I'll do all of my +courting of her in your presence, so you will have an equal +opportunity. With that arrangement I don't see why our steamboat of +friendship should fall overboard in the medicinal whirlpools you speak +of, whichever of us wins out.' + +"'Good old hoss!' says Paisley, shaking my hand. 'And I'll do the +same,' says he. 'We'll court the lady synonymously, and without any of +the prudery and bloodshed usual to such occasions. And we'll be +friends still, win or lose.' + +"At one side of Mrs. Jessup's eating-house was a bench under some +trees where she used to sit in the breeze after the south-bound had +been fed and gone. And there me and Paisley used to congregate after +supper and make partial payments on our respects to the lady of our +choice. And we was so honorable and circuitous in our calls that if +one of us got there first we waited for the other before beginning any +gallivantery. + +"The first evening that Mrs. Jessup knew about our arrangement I got +to the bench before Paisley did. Supper was just over, and Mrs. Jessup +was out there with a fresh pink dress on, and almost cool enough to +handle. + +"I sat down by her and made a few specifications about the moral +surface of nature as set forth by the landscape and the contiguous +perspective. That evening was surely a case in point. The moon was +attending to business in the section of sky where it belonged, and the +trees was making shadows on the ground according to science and +nature, and there was a kind of conspicuous hullabaloo going on in the +bushes between the bullbats and the orioles and the jack-rabbits and +other feathered insects of the forest. And the wind out of the +mountains was singing like a Jew's-harp in the pile of old tomato-cans +by the railroad track. + +"I felt a kind of sensation in my left side--something like dough +rising in a crock by the fire. Mrs. Jessup had moved up closer. + +"'Oh, Mr. Hicks,' says she, 'when one is alone in the world, don't +they feel it more aggravated on a beautiful night like this?' + +"I rose up off the bench at once. + +"'Excuse me, ma'am,' says I, 'but I'll have to wait till Paisley comes +before I can give a audible hearing to leading questions like that.' + +"And then I explained to her how we was friends cinctured by years of +embarrassment and travel and complicity, and how we had agreed to take +no advantage of each other in any of the more mushy walks of life, +such as might be fomented by sentiment and proximity. Mrs. Jessup +appears to think serious about the matter for a minute, and then she +breaks into a species of laughter that makes the wildwood resound. + +"In a few minutes Paisley drops around, with oil of bergamot on his +hair, and sits on the other side of Mrs. Jessup, and inaugurates a sad +tale of adventure in which him and Pieface Lumley has a skinning-match +of dead cows in '95 for a silver-mounted saddle in the Santa Rita +valley during the nine months' drought. + +"Now, from the start of that courtship I had Paisley Fish hobbled and +tied to a post. Each one of us had a different system of reaching out +for the easy places in the female heart. Paisley's scheme was to +petrify 'em with wonderful relations of events that he had either come +across personally or in large print. I think he must have got his idea +of subjugation from one of Shakespeare's shows I see once called +'Othello.' There is a coloured man in it who acquires a duke's +daughter by disbursing to her a mixture of the talk turned out by +Rider Haggard, Lew Dockstader, and Dr. Parkhurst. But that style of +courting don't work well off the stage. + +"Now, I give you my own recipe for inveigling a woman into that state +of affairs when she can be referred to as '/nee/ Jones.' Learn how to +pick up her hand and hold it, and she's yours. It ain't so easy. Some +men grab at it so much like they was going to set a dislocation of the +shoulder that you can smell the arnica and hear 'em tearing off +bandages. Some take it up like a hot horseshoe, and hold it off at +arm's length like a druggist pouring tincture of asafoetida in a +bottle. And most of 'em catch hold of it and drag it right out before +the lady's eyes like a boy finding a baseball in the grass, without +giving her a chance to forget that the hand is growing on the end of +her arm. Them ways are all wrong. + +"I'll tell you the right way. Did you ever see a man sneak out in the +back yard and pick up a rock to throw at a tomcat that was sitting on +a fence looking at him? He pretends he hasn't got a thing in his hand, +and that the cat don't see him, and that he don't see the cat. That's +the idea. Never drag her hand out where she'll have to take notice of +it. Don't let her know that you think she knows you have the least +idea she is aware you are holding her hand. That was my rule of +tactics; and as far as Paisley's serenade about hostilities and +misadventure went, he might as well have been reading to her a time- +table of the Sunday trains that stop at Ocean Grove, New Jersey. + +"One night when I beat Paisley to the bench by one pipeful, my +friendship gets subsidised for a minute, and I asks Mrs. Jessup if she +didn't think a 'H' was easier to write than a 'J.' In a second her +head was mashing the oleander flower in my button-hole, and I leaned +over and--but I didn't. + +"'If you don't mind,' says I, standing up, 'we'll wait for Paisley to +come before finishing this. I've never done anything dishonourable yet +to our friendship, and this won't be quite fair.' + +"'Mr. Hicks,' says Mrs. Jessup, looking at me peculiar in the dark, +'if it wasn't for but one thing, I'd ask you to hike yourself down the +gulch and never disresume your visits to my house.' + +"'And what is that, ma'am?' I asks. + +"'You are too good a friend not to make a good husband,' says she. + +"In five minutes Paisley was on his side of Mrs. Jessup. + +"'In Silver City, in the summer of '98,' he begins, 'I see Jim +Batholomew chew off a Chinaman's ear in the Blue Light Saloon on +account of a crossbarred muslin shirt that--what was that noise?' + +"I had resumed matters again with Mrs. Jessup right where we had left +off. + +"'Mrs. Jessup,' says I, 'has promised to make it Hicks. And this is +another of the same sort.' + +"Paisley winds his feet round a leg of the bench and kind of groans. + +"'Lem,' says he, 'we been friends for seven years. Would you mind not +kissing Mrs. Jessup quite so loud? I'd do the same for you.' + +"'All right,' says I. 'The other kind will do as well.' + +"'This Chinaman,' goes on Paisley, 'was the one that shot a man named +Mullins in the spring of '97, and that was--' + +"Paisley interrupted himself again. + +"'Lem,' says he, 'if you was a true friend you wouldn't hug Mrs. +Jessup quite so hard. I felt the bench shake all over just then. You +know you told me you would give me an even chance as long as there was +any.' + +"'Mr. Man,' says Mrs. Jessup, turning around to Paisley, 'if you was +to drop in to the celebration of mine and Mr. Hicks's silver wedding, +twenty-five years from now, do you think you could get it into that +Hubbard squash you call your head that you are /nix cum rous/ in this +business? I've put up with you a long time because you was Mr. Hicks's +friend; but it seems to me it's time for you to wear the willow and +trot off down the hill.' + +"'Mrs. Jessup,' says I, without losing my grasp on the situation as +fiance, 'Mr. Paisley is my friend, and I offered him a square deal and +a equal opportunity as long as there was a chance.' + +"'A chance!' says she. 'Well, he may think he has a chance; but I hope +he won't think he's got a cinch, after what he's been next to all the +evening.' + +"Well, a month afterwards me and Mrs. Jessup was married in the Los +Pinos Methodist Church; and the whole town closed up to see the +performance. + +"When we lined up in front and the preacher was beginning to sing out +his rituals and observances, I looks around and misses Paisley. I +calls time on the preacher. 'Paisley ain't here,' says I. 'We've got +to wait for Paisley. A friend once, a friend always--that's Telemachus +Hicks,' says I. Mrs. Jessup's eyes snapped some; but the preacher +holds up the incantations according to instructions. + +"In a few minutes Paisley gallops up the aisle, putting on a cuff as +he comes. He explains that the only dry-goods store in town was closed +for the wedding, and he couldn't get the kind of a boiled shirt that +his taste called for until he had broke open the back window of the +store and helped himself. Then he ranges up on the other side of the +bride, and the wedding goes on. I always imagined that Paisley +calculated as a last chance that the preacher might marry him to the +widow by mistake. + +"After the proceedings was over we had tea and jerked antelope and +canned apricots, and then the populace hiked itself away. Last of all +Paisley shook me by the hand and told me I'd acted square and on the +level with him and he was proud to call me a friend. + +"The preacher had a small house on the side of the street that he'd +fixed up to rent; and he allowed me and Mrs. Hicks to occupy it till +the ten-forty train the next morning, when we was going on a bridal +tour to El Paso. His wife had decorated it all up with hollyhocks and +poison ivy, and it looked real festal and bowery. + +"About ten o'clock that night I sets down in the front door and pulls +off my boots a while in the cool breeze, while Mrs. Hicks was fixing +around in the room. Right soon the light went out inside; and I sat +there a while reverberating over old times and scenes. And then I +heard Mrs. Hicks call out, 'Ain't you coming in soon, Lem?' + +"'Well, well!' says I, kind of rousing up. 'Durn me if I wasn't +waiting for old Paisley to--' + +"But when I got that far," concluded Telemachus Hicks, "I thought +somebody had shot this left ear of mine off with a forty-five. But it +turned out to be only a lick from a broomhandle in the hands of Mrs. +Hicks." + + + +IV + +THE HANDBOOK OF HYMEN + +'Tis the opinion of myself, Sanderson Pratt, who sets this down, that +the educational system of the United States should be in the hands of +the weather bureau. I can give you good reasons for it; and you can't +tell me why our college professors shouldn't be transferred to the +meteorological department. They have been learned to read; and they +could very easily glance at the morning papers and then wire in to the +main office what kind of weather to expect. But there's the other side +of the proposition. I am going on to tell you how the weather +furnished me and Idaho Green with an elegant education. + +We was up in the Bitter Root Mountains over the Montana line +prospecting for gold. A chin-whiskered man in Walla-Walla, carrying a +line of hope as excess baggage, had grubstaked us; and there we was in +the foothills pecking away, with enough grub on hand to last an army +through a peace conference. + +Along one day comes a mail-rider over the mountains from Carlos, and +stops to eat three cans of greengages, and leave us a newspaper of +modern date. This paper prints a system of premonitions of the +weather, and the card it dealt Bitter Root Mountains from the bottom +of the deck was "warmer and fair, with light westerly breezes." + +That evening it began to snow, with the wind strong in the east. Me +and Idaho moved camp into an old empty cabin higher up the mountain, +thinking it was only a November flurry. But after falling three foot +on a level it went to work in earnest; and we knew we was snowed in. +We got in plenty of firewood before it got deep, and we had grub +enough for two months, so we let the elements rage and cut up all they +thought proper. + +If you want to instigate the art of manslaughter just shut two men up +in a eighteen by twenty-foot cabin for a month. Human nature won't +stand it. + +When the first snowflakes fell me and Idaho Green laughed at each +other's jokes and praised the stuff we turned out of a skillet and +called bread. At the end of three weeks Idaho makes this kind of a +edict to me. Says he: + +"I never exactly heard sour milk dropping out of a balloon on the +bottom of a tin pan, but I have an idea it would be music of the +spears compared to this attenuated stream of asphyxiated thought that +emanates out of your organs of conversation. The kind of half- +masticated noises that you emit every day puts me in mind of a cow's +cud, only she's lady enough to keep hers to herself, and you ain't." + +"Mr. Green," says I, "you having been a friend of mine once, I have +some hesitations in confessing to you that if I had my choice for +society between you and a common yellow, three-legged cur pup, one of +the inmates of this here cabin would be wagging a tail just at +present." + +This way we goes on for two or three days, and then we quits speaking +to one another. We divides up the cooking implements, and Idaho cooks +his grub on one side of the fireplace, and me on the other. The snow +is up to the windows, and we have to keep a fire all day. + +You see me and Idaho never had any education beyond reading and doing +"if John had three apples and James five" on a slate. We never felt +any special need for a university degree, though we had acquired a +species of intrinsic intelligence in knocking around the world that we +could use in emergencies. But, snowbound in that cabin in the Bitter +Roots, we felt for the first time that if we had studied Homer or +Greek and fractions and the higher branches of information, we'd have +had some resources in the line of meditation and private thought. I've +seen them Eastern college fellows working in camps all through the +West, and I never noticed but what education was less of a drawback to +'em than you would think. Why, once over on Snake River, when Andrew +McWilliams' saddle horse got the botts, he sent a buckboard ten miles +for one of these strangers that claimed to be a botanist. But that +horse died. + +One morning Idaho was poking around with a stick on top of a little +shelf that was too high to reach. Two books fell down to the floor. I +started toward 'em, but caught Idaho's eye. He speaks for the first +time in a week. + +"Don't burn your fingers," says he. "In spite of the fact that you're +only fit to be the companion of a sleeping mud-turtle, I'll give you a +square deal. And that's more than your parents did when they turned +you loose in the world with the sociability of a rattle-snake and the +bedside manner of a frozen turnip. I'll play you a game of seven-up, +the winner to pick up his choice of the book, the loser to take the +other." + +We played; and Idaho won. He picked up his book; and I took mine. Then +each of us got on his side of the house and went to reading. + +I never was as glad to see a ten-ounce nugget as I was that book. And +Idaho took at his like a kid looks at a stick of candy. + +Mine was a little book about five by six inches called "Herkimer's +Handbook of Indispensable Information." I may be wrong, but I think +that was the greatest book that ever was written. I've got it to-day; +and I can stump you or any man fifty times in five minutes with the +information in it. Talk about Solomon or the New York /Tribune/! +Herkimer had cases on both of 'em. That man must have put in fifty +years and travelled a million miles to find out all that stuff. There +was the population of all cities in it, and the way to tell a girl's +age, and the number of teeth a camel has. It told you the longest +tunnel in the world, the number of the stars, how long it takes for +chicken pox to break out, what a lady's neck ought to measure, the +veto powers of Governors, the dates of the Roman aqueducts, how many +pounds of rice going without three beers a day would buy, the average +annual temperature of Augusta, Maine, the quantity of seed required to +plant an acre of carrots in drills, antidotes for poisons, the number +of hairs on a blond lady's head, how to preserve eggs, the height of +all the mountains in the world, and the dates of all wars and battles, +and how to restore drowned persons, and sunstroke, and the number of +tacks in a pound, and how to make dynamite and flowers and beds, and +what to do before the doctor comes--and a hundred times as many things +besides. If there was anything Herkimer didn't know I didn't miss it +out of the book. + +I sat and read that book for four hours. All the wonders of education +was compressed in it. I forgot the snow, and I forgot that me and old +Idaho was on the outs. He was sitting still on a stool reading away +with a kind of partly soft and partly mysterious look shining through +his tan-bark whiskers. + +"Idaho," says I, "what kind of a book is yours?" + +Idaho must have forgot, too, for he answered moderate, without any +slander or malignity. + +"Why," says he, "this here seems to be a volume by Homer K. M." + +"Homer K. M. what?" I asks. + +"Why, just Homer K. M.," says he. + +"You're a liar," says I, a little riled that Idaho should try to put +me up a tree. "No man is going 'round signing books with his initials. +If it's Homer K. M. Spoopendyke, or Homer K. M. McSweeney, or Homer K. +M. Jones, why don't you say so like a man instead of biting off the +end of it like a calf chewing off the tail of a shirt on a clothes- +line?" + +"I put it to you straight, Sandy," says Idaho, quiet. "It's a poem +book," says he, "by Homer K. M. I couldn't get colour out of it at +first, but there's a vein if you follow it up. I wouldn't have missed +this book for a pair of red blankets." + +"You're welcome to it," says I. "What I want is a disinterested +statement of facts for the mind to work on, and that's what I seem to +find in the book I've drawn." + +"What you've got," says Idaho, "is statistics, the lowest grade of +information that exists. They'll poison your mind. Give me old K. M.'s +system of surmises. He seems to be a kind of a wine agent. His regular +toast is 'nothing doing,' and he seems to have a grouch, but he keeps +it so well lubricated with booze that his worst kicks sound like an +invitation to split a quart. But it's poetry," says Idaho, "and I have +sensations of scorn for that truck of yours that tries to convey sense +in feet and inches. When it comes to explaining the instinct of +philosophy through the art of nature, old K. M. has got your man beat +by drills, rows, paragraphs, chest measurement, and average annual +rainfall." + +So that's the way me and Idaho had it. Day and night all the +excitement we got was studying our books. That snowstorm sure fixed us +with a fine lot of attainments apiece. By the time the snow melted, if +you had stepped up to me suddenly and said: "Sanderson Pratt, what +would it cost per square foot to lay a roof with twenty by twenty- +eight tin at nine dollars and fifty cents per box?" I'd have told you +as quick as light could travel the length of a spade handle at the +rate of one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles per second. How many +can do it? You wake up 'most any man you know in the middle of the +night, and ask him quick to tell you the number of bones in the human +skeleton exclusive of the teeth, or what percentage of the vote of the +Nebraska Legislature overrules a veto. Will he tell you? Try him and +see. + +About what benefit Idaho got out of his poetry book I didn't exactly +know. Idaho boosted the wine-agent every time he opened his mouth; but +I wasn't so sure. + +This Homer K. M., from what leaked out of his libretto through Idaho, +seemed to me to be a kind of a dog who looked at life like it was a +tin can tied to his tail. After running himself half to death, he sits +down, hangs his tongue out, and looks at the can and says: + +"Oh, well, since we can't shake the growler, let's get it filled at +the corner, and all have a drink on me." + +Besides that, it seems he was a Persian; and I never hear of Persia +producing anything worth mentioning unless it was Turkish rugs and +Maltese cats. + +That spring me and Idaho struck pay ore. It was a habit of ours to +sell out quick and keep moving. We unloaded our grubstaker for eight +thousand dollars apiece; and then we drifted down to this little town +of Rosa, on the Salmon river, to rest up, and get some human grub, and +have our whiskers harvested. + +Rosa was no mining-camp. It laid in the valley, and was as free of +uproar and pestilence as one of them rural towns in the country. There +was a three-mile trolley line champing its bit in the environs; and me +and Idaho spent a week riding on one of the cars, dropping off at +nights at the Sunset View Hotel. Being now well read as well as +travelled, we was soon /pro re nata/ with the best society in Rosa, +and was invited out to the most dressed-up and high-toned +entertainments. It was at a piano recital and quail-eating contest in +the city hall, for the benefit of the fire company, that me and Idaho +first met Mrs. De Ormond Sampson, the queen of Rosa society. + +Mrs. Sampson was a widow, and owned the only two-story house in town. +It was painted yellow, and whichever way you looked from you could see +it as plain as egg on the chin of an O'Grady on a Friday. Twenty-two +men in Rosa besides me and Idaho was trying to stake a claim on that +yellow house. + +There was a dance after the song books and quail bones had been raked +out of the Hall. Twenty-three of the bunch galloped over to Mrs. +Sampson and asked for a dance. I side-stepped the two-step, and asked +permission to escort her home. That's where I made a hit. + +On the way home says she: + +"Ain't the stars lovely and bright to-night, Mr. Pratt?" + +"For the chance they've got," says I, "they're humping themselves in a +mighty creditable way. That big one you see is sixty-six million miles +distant. It took thirty-six years for its light to reach us. With an +eighteen-foot telescope you can see forty-three millions of 'em, +including them of the thirteenth magnitude, which, if one was to go +out now, you would keep on seeing it for twenty-seven hundred years." + +"My!" says Mrs. Sampson. "I never knew that before. How warm it is! +I'm as damp as I can be from dancing so much." + +"That's easy to account for," says I, "when you happen to know that +you've got two million sweat-glands working all at once. If every one +of your perspiratory ducts, which are a quarter of an inch long, was +placed end to end, they would reach a distance of seven miles." + +"Lawsy!" says Mrs. Sampson. "It sounds like an irrigation ditch you +was describing, Mr. Pratt. How do you get all this knowledge of +information?" + +"From observation, Mrs. Sampson," I tells her. "I keep my eyes open +when I go about the world." + +"Mr. Pratt," says she, "I always did admire a man of education. There +are so few scholars among the sap-headed plug-uglies of this town that +it is a real pleasure to converse with a gentleman of culture. I'd be +gratified to have you call at my house whenever you feel so inclined." + +And that was the way I got the goodwill of the lady in the yellow +house. Every Tuesday and Friday evening I used to go there and tell +her about the wonders of the universe as discovered, tabulated, and +compiled from nature by Herkimer. Idaho and the other gay Lutherans of +the town got every minute of the rest of the week that they could. + +I never imagined that Idaho was trying to work on Mrs. Sampson with +old K. M.'s rules of courtship till one afternoon when I was on my way +over to take her a basket of wild hog-plums. I met the lady coming +down the lane that led to her house. Her eyes was snapping, and her +hat made a dangerous dip over one eye. + +"Mr. Pratt," she opens up, "this Mr. Green is a friend of yours, I +believe." + +"For nine years," says I. + +"Cut him out," says she. "He's no gentleman!" + +"Why ma'am," says I, "he's a plain incumbent of the mountains, with +asperities and the usual failings of a spendthrift and a liar, but I +never on the most momentous occasion had the heart to deny that he was +a gentleman. It may be that in haberdashery and the sense of arrogance +and display Idaho offends the eye, but inside, ma'am, I've found him +impervious to the lower grades of crime and obesity. After nine years +of Idaho's society, Mrs. Sampson," I winds up, "I should hate to +impute him, and I should hate to see him imputed." + +"It's right plausible of you, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson, "to take +up the curmudgeons in your friend's behalf; but it don't alter the +fact that he has made proposals to me sufficiently obnoxious to ruffle +the ignominy of any lady." + +"Why, now, now, now!" says I. "Old Idaho do that! I could believe it +of myself, sooner. I never knew but one thing to deride in him; and a +blizzard was responsible for that. Once while we was snow-bound in the +mountains he became a prey to a kind of spurious and uneven poetry, +which may have corrupted his demeanour." + +"It has," says Mrs. Sampson. "Ever since I knew him he has been +reciting to me a lot of irreligious rhymes by some person he calls +Ruby Ott, and who is no better than she should be, if you judge by her +poetry." + +"Then Idaho has struck a new book," says I, "for the one he had was by +a man who writes under the /nom de plume/ of K. M." + +"He'd better have stuck to it," says Mrs. Sampson, "whatever it was. +And to-day he caps the vortex. I get a bunch of flowers from him, and +on 'em is pinned a note. Now, Mr. Pratt, you know a lady when you see +her; and you know how I stand in Rosa society. Do you think for a +moment that I'd skip out to the woods with a man along with a jug of +wine and a loaf of bread, and go singing and cavorting up and down +under the trees with him? I take a little claret with my meals, but +I'm not in the habit of packing a jug of it into the brush and raising +Cain in any such style as that. And of course he'd bring his book of +verses along, too. He said so. Let him go on his scandalous picnics +alone! Or let him take his Ruby Ott with him. I reckon she wouldn't +kick unless it was on account of there being too much bread along. And +what do you think of your gentleman friend now, Mr. Pratt?" + +"Well, 'm," says I, "it may be that Idaho's invitation was a kind of +poetry, and meant no harm. May be it belonged to the class of rhymes +they call figurative. They offend law and order, but they get sent +through the mails on the grounds that they mean something that they +don't say. I'd be glad on Idaho's account if you'd overlook it," says +I, "and let us extricate our minds from the low regions of poetry to +the higher planes of fact and fancy. On a beautiful afternoon like +this, Mrs. Sampson," I goes on, "we should let our thoughts dwell +accordingly. Though it is warm here, we should remember that at the +equator the line of perpetual frost is at an altitude of fifteen +thousand feet. Between the latitudes of forty degrees and forty-nine +degrees it is from four thousand to nine thousand feet." + +"Oh, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson, "it's such a comfort to hear you +say them beautiful facts after getting such a jar from that minx of a +Ruby's poetry!" + +"Let us sit on this log at the roadside," says I, "and forget the +inhumanity and ribaldry of the poets. It is in the glorious columns of +ascertained facts and legalised measures that beauty is to be found. +In this very log we sit upon, Mrs. Sampson," says I, "is statistics +more wonderful than any poem. The rings show it was sixty years old. +At the depth of two thousand feet it would become coal in three +thousand years. The deepest coal mine in the world is at Killingworth, +near Newcastle. A box four feet long, three feet wide, and two feet +eight inches deep will hold one ton of coal. If an artery is cut, +compress it above the wound. A man's leg contains thirty bones. The +Tower of London was burned in 1841." + +"Go on, Mr. Pratt," says Mrs. Sampson. "Them ideas is so original and +soothing. I think statistics are just as lovely as they can be." + +But it wasn't till two weeks later that I got all that was coming to +me out of Herkimer. + +One night I was waked up by folks hollering "Fire!" all around. I +jumped up and dressed and went out of the hotel to enjoy the scene. +When I see it was Mrs. Sampson's house, I gave forth a kind of yell, +and I was there in two minutes. + +The whole lower story of the yellow house was in flames, and every +masculine, feminine, and canine in Rosa was there, screeching and +barking and getting in the way of the firemen. I saw Idaho trying to +get away from six firemen who were holding him. They was telling him +the whole place was on fire down-stairs, and no man could go in it and +come out alive. + +"Where's Mrs. Sampson?" I asks. + +"She hasn't been seen," says one of the firemen. "She sleeps up- +stairs. We've tried to get in, but we can't, and our company hasn't +got any ladders yet." + +I runs around to the light of the big blaze, and pulls the Handbook +out of my inside pocket. I kind of laughed when I felt it in my hands +--I reckon I was some daffy with the sensation of excitement. + +"Herky, old boy," I says to it, as I flipped over the pages, "you +ain't ever lied to me yet, and you ain't ever throwed me down at a +scratch yet. Tell me what, old boy, tell me what!" says I. + +I turned to "What to do in Case of Accidents," on page 117. I run my +finger down the page, and struck it. Good old Herkimer, he never +overlooked anything! It said: + + Suffocation from Inhaling Smoke or Gas.--There is nothing better + than flaxseed. Place a few seed in the outer corner of the eye. + +I shoved the Handbook back in my pocket, and grabbed a boy that was +running by. + +"Here," says I, giving him some money, "run to the drug store and +bring a dollar's worth of flaxseed. Hurry, and you'll get another one +for yourself. Now," I sings out to the crowd, "we'll have Mrs. +Sampson!" And I throws away my coat and hat. + +Four of the firemen and citizens grabs hold of me. It's sure death, +they say, to go in the house, for the floors was beginning to fall +through. + +"How in blazes," I sings out, kind of laughing yet, but not feeling +like it, "do you expect me to put flaxseed in a eye without the eye?" + +I jabbed each elbow in a fireman's face, kicked the bark off of one +citizen's shin, and tripped the other one with a side hold. And then I +busted into the house. If I die first I'll write you a letter and tell +you if it's any worse down there than the inside of that yellow house +was; but don't believe it yet. I was a heap more cooked than the +hurry-up orders of broiled chicken that you get in restaurants. The +fire and smoke had me down on the floor twice, and was about to shame +Herkimer, but the firemen helped me with their little stream of water, +and I got to Mrs. Sampson's room. She'd lost conscientiousness from +the smoke, so I wrapped her in the bed clothes and got her on my +shoulder. Well, the floors wasn't as bad as they said, or I never +could have done it--not by no means. + +I carried her out fifty yards from the house and laid her on the +grass. Then, of course, every one of them other twenty-two plaintiff's +to the lady's hand crowded around with tin dippers of water ready to +save her. And up runs the boy with the flaxseed. + +I unwrapped the covers from Mrs. Sampson's head. She opened her eyes +and says: + +"Is that you, Mr. Pratt?" + +"S-s-sh," says I. "Don't talk till you've had the remedy." + +I runs my arm around her neck and raises her head, gentle, and breaks +the bag of flaxseed with the other hand; and as easy as I could I +bends over and slips three or four of the seeds in the outer corner of +her eye. + +Up gallops the village doc by this time, and snorts around, and grabs +at Mrs. Sampson's pulse, and wants to know what I mean by any such +sandblasted nonsense. + +"Well, old Jalap and Jerusalem oakseed," says I, "I'm no regular +practitioner, but I'll show you my authority, anyway." + +They fetched my coat, and I gets out the Handbook. + +"Look on page 117," says I, "at the remedy for suffocation by smoke or +gas. Flaxseed in the outer corner of the eye, it says. I don't know +whether it works as a smoke consumer or whether it hikes the compound +gastro-hippopotamus nerve into action, but Herkimer says it, and he +was called to the case first. If you want to make it a consultation, +there's no objection." + +Old doc takes the book and looks at it by means of his specs and a +fireman's lantern. + +"Well, Mr. Pratt," says he, "you evidently got on the wrong line in +reading your diagnosis. The recipe for suffocation says: 'Get the +patient into fresh air as quickly as possible, and place in a +reclining position.' The flaxseed remedy is for 'Dust and Cinders in +the Eye,' on the line above. But, after all--" + +"See here," interrupts Mrs. Sampson, "I reckon I've got something to +say in this consultation. That flaxseed done me more good than +anything I ever tried." And then she raises up her head and lays it +back on my arm again, and says: "Put some in the other eye, Sandy +dear." + +And so if you was to stop off at Rosa to-morrow, or any other day, +you'd see a fine new yellow house with Mrs. Pratt, that was Mrs. +Sampson, embellishing and adorning it. And if you was to step inside +you'd see on the marble-top centre table in the parlour "Herkimer's +Handbook of Indispensable Information," all rebound in red morocco, +and ready to be consulted on any subject pertaining to human happiness +and wisdom. + + + +V + +THE PIMIENTA PANCAKES + +While we were rounding up a bunch of the Triangle-O cattle in the Frio +bottoms a projecting branch of a dead mesquite caught my wooden +stirrup and gave my ankle a wrench that laid me up in camp for a week. + +On the third day of my compulsory idleness I crawled out near the grub +wagon, and reclined helpless under the conversational fire of Judson +Odom, the camp cook. Jud was a monologist by nature, whom Destiny, +with customary blundering, had set in a profession wherein he was +bereaved, for the greater portion of his time, of an audience. + +Therefore, I was manna in the desert of Jud's obmutescence. + +Betimes I was stirred by invalid longings for something to eat that +did not come under the caption of "grub." I had visions of the +maternal pantry "deep as first love, and wild with all regret," and +then I asked: + +"Jud, can you make pancakes?" + +Jud laid down his six-shooter, with which he was preparing to pound an +antelope steak, and stood over me in what I felt to be a menacing +attitude. He further endorsed my impression that his pose was +resentful by fixing upon me with his light blue eyes a look of cold +suspicion. + +"Say, you," he said, with candid, though not excessive, choler, "did +you mean that straight, or was you trying to throw the gaff into me? +Some of the boys been telling you about me and that pancake racket?" + +"No, Jud," I said, sincerely, "I meant it. It seems to me I'd swap my +pony and saddle for a stack of buttered brown pancakes with some first +crop, open kettle, New Orleans sweetening. Was there a story about +pancakes?" + +Jud was mollified at once when he saw that I had not been dealing in +allusions. He brought some mysterious bags and tin boxes from the grub +wagon and set them in the shade of the hackberry where I lay reclined. +I watched him as he began to arrange them leisurely and untie their +many strings. + +"No, not a story," said Jud, as he worked, "but just the logical +disclosures in the case of me and that pink-eyed snoozer from Mired +Mule Canada and Miss Willella Learight. I don't mind telling you. + +"I was punching then for old Bill Toomey, on the San Miguel. One day I +gets all ensnared up in aspirations for to eat some canned grub that +hasn't ever mooed or baaed or grunted or been in peck measures. So, I +gets on my bronc and pushes the wind for Uncle Emsley Telfair's store +at the Pimienta Crossing on the Nueces. + +"About three in the afternoon I throwed my bridle rein over a mesquite +limb and walked the last twenty yards into Uncle Emsley's store. I got +up on the counter and told Uncle Emsley that the signs pointed to the +devastation of the fruit crop of the world. In a minute I had a bag of +crackers and a long-handled spoon, with an open can each of apricots +and pineapples and cherries and greengages beside of me with Uncle +Emsley busy chopping away with the hatchet at the yellow clings. I was +feeling like Adam before the apple stampede, and was digging my spurs +into the side of the counter and working with my twenty-four-inch +spoon when I happened to look out of the window into the yard of Uncle +Emsley's house, which was next to the store. + +"There was a girl standing there--an imported girl with fixings on-- +philandering with a croquet maul and amusing herself by watching my +style of encouraging the fruit canning industry. + +"I slid off the counter and delivered up my shovel to Uncle Emsley. + +"'That's my niece,' says he; 'Miss Willella Learight, down from +Palestine on a visit. Do you want that I should make you acquainted?' + +"'The Holy Land,' I says to myself, my thoughts milling some as I +tried to run 'em into the corral. 'Why not? There was sure angels in +Pales--Why, yes, Uncle Emsley,' I says out loud, 'I'd be awful edified +to meet Miss Learight.' + +"So Uncle Emsley took me out in the yard and gave us each other's +entitlements. + +"I never was shy about women. I never could understand why some men +who can break a mustang before breakfast and shave in the dark, get +all left-handed and full of perspiration and excuses when they see a +bold of calico draped around what belongs to it. Inside of eight +minutes me and Miss Willella was aggravating the croquet balls around +as amiable as second cousins. She gave me a dig about the quantity of +canned fruit I had eaten, and I got back at her, flat-footed, about +how a certain lady named Eve started the fruit trouble in the first +free-grass pasture--'Over in Palestine, wasn't it?' says I, as easy +and pat as roping a one-year-old. + +"That was how I acquired cordiality for the proximities of Miss +Willella Learight; and the disposition grew larger as time passed. She +was stopping at Pimienta Crossing for her health, which was very good, +and for the climate, which was forty per cent. hotter than Palestine. +I rode over to see her once every week for a while; and then I figured +it out that if I doubled the number of trips I would see her twice as +often. + +"One week I slipped in a third trip; and that's where the pancakes and +the pink-eyed snoozer busted into the game. + +"That evening, while I set on the counter with a peach and two damsons +in my mouth, I asked Uncle Emsley how Miss Willella was. + +"'Why,' says Uncle Emsley, 'she's gone riding with Jackson Bird, the +sheep man from over at Mired Mule Canada.' + +"I swallowed the peach seed and the two damson seeds. I guess somebody +held the counter by the bridle while I got off; and then I walked out +straight ahead till I butted against the mesquite where my roan was +tied. + +"'She's gone riding,' I whisper in my bronc's ear, 'with Birdstone +Jack, the hired mule from Sheep Man's Canada. Did you get that, old +Leather-and-Gallops?' + +"That bronc of mine wept, in his way. He'd been raised a cow pony and +he didn't care for snoozers. + +"I went back and said to Uncle Emsley: 'Did you say a sheep man?' + +"'I said a sheep man,' says Uncle Emsley again. 'You must have heard +tell of Jackson Bird. He's got eight sections of grazing and four +thousand head of the finest Merinos south of the Arctic Circle.' + +"I went out and sat on the ground in the shade of the store and leaned +against a prickly pear. I sifted sand into my boots with unthinking +hands while I soliloquised a quantity about this bird with the Jackson +plumage to his name. + +"I never had believed in harming sheep men. I see one, one day, +reading a Latin grammar on hossback, and I never touched him! They +never irritated me like they do most cowmen. You wouldn't go to work +now, and impair and disfigure snoozers, would you, that eat on tables +and wear little shoes and speak to you on subjects? I had always let +'em pass, just as you would a jack-rabbit; with a polite word and a +guess about the weather, but no stopping to swap canteens. I never +thought it was worth while to be hostile with a snoozer. And because +I'd been lenient, and let 'em live, here was one going around riding +with Miss Willella Learight! + +"An hour by sun they come loping back, and stopped at Uncle Emsley's +gate. The sheep person helped her off; and they stood throwing each +other sentences all sprightful and sagacious for a while. And then +this feathered Jackson flies up in his saddle and raises his little +stewpot of a hat, and trots off in the direction of his mutton ranch. +By this time I had turned the sand out of my boots and unpinned myself +from the prickly pear; and by the time he gets half a mile out of +Pimienta, I singlefoots up beside him on my bronc. + +"I said that snoozer was pink-eyed, but he wasn't. His seeing +arrangement was grey enough, but his eye-lashes was pink and his hair +was sandy, and that gave you the idea. Sheep man?--he wasn't more than +a lamb man, anyhow--a little thing with his neck involved in a yellow +silk handkerchief, and shoes tied up in bowknots. + +"'Afternoon!' says I to him. 'You now ride with a equestrian who is +commonly called Dead-Moral-Certainty Judson, on account of the way I +shoot. When I want a stranger to know me I always introduce myself +before the draw, for I never did like to shake hands with ghosts.' + +"'Ah,' says he, just like that--'Ah, I'm glad to know you, Mr. Judson. +I'm Jackson Bird, from over at Mired Mule Ranch.' + +"Just then one of my eyes saw a roadrunner skipping down the hill with +a young tarantula in his bill, and the other eye noticed a rabbit-hawk +sitting on a dead limb in a water-elm. I popped over one after the +other with my forty-five, just to show him. 'Two out of three,' says +I. 'Birds just naturally seem to draw my fire wherever I go.' + +"'Nice shooting,' says the sheep man, without a flutter. 'But don't +you sometimes ever miss the third shot? Elegant fine rain that was +last week for the young grass, Mr. Judson?' says he. + +"'Willie,' says I, riding over close to his palfrey, 'your infatuated +parents may have denounced you by the name of Jackson, but you sure +moulted into a twittering Willie--let us slough off this here analysis +of rain and the elements, and get down to talk that is outside the +vocabulary of parrots. That is a bad habit you have got of riding with +young ladies over at Pimienta. I've known birds,' says I, 'to be +served on toast for less than that. Miss Willella,' says I, 'don't +ever want any nest made out of sheep's wool by a tomtit of the +Jacksonian branch of ornithology. Now, are you going to quit, or do +you wish for to gallop up against this Dead-Moral-Certainty attachment +to my name, which is good for two hyphens and at least one set of +funeral obsequies?' + +"Jackson Bird flushed up some, and then he laughed. + +"'Why, Mr. Judson,' says he, 'you've got the wrong idea. I've called +on Miss Learight a few times; but not for the purpose you imagine. My +object is purely a gastronomical one.' + +"I reached for my gun. + +"'Any coyote,' says I, 'that would boast of dishonourable--' + +"'Wait a minute,' says this Bird, 'till I explain. What would I do +with a wife? If you ever saw that ranch of mine! I do my own cooking +and mending. Eating--that's all the pleasure I get out of sheep +raising. Mr. Judson, did you ever taste the pancakes that Miss +Learight makes?' + +"'Me? No,' I told him. 'I never was advised that she was up to any +culinary manoeuvres.' + +"'They're golden sunshine,' says he, 'honey-browned by the ambrosial +fires of Epicurus. I'd give two years of my life to get the recipe for +making them pancakes. That's what I went to see Miss Learight for,' +says Jackson Bird, 'but I haven't been able to get it from her. It's +an old recipe that's been in the family for seventy-five years. They +hand it down from one generation to another, but they don't give it +away to outsiders. If I could get that recipe, so I could make them +pancakes for myself on my ranch, I'd be a happy man,' says Bird. + +"'Are you sure,' I says to him, 'that it ain't the hand that mixes the +pancakes that you're after?' + +"'Sure,' says Jackson. 'Miss Learight is a mighty nice girl, but I can +assure you my intentions go no further than the gastro--' but he seen +my hand going down to my holster and he changed his similitude--'than +the desire to procure a copy of the pancake recipe,' he finishes. + +"'You ain't such a bad little man,' says I, trying to be fair. 'I was +thinking some of making orphans of your sheep, but I'll let you fly +away this time. But you stick to pancakes,' says I, 'as close as the +middle one of a stack; and don't go and mistake sentiments for syrup, +or there'll be singing at your ranch, and you won't hear it.' + +"'To convince you that I am sincere,' says the sheep man, 'I'll ask +you to help me. Miss Learight and you being closer friends, maybe she +would do for you what she wouldn't for me. If you will get me a copy +of that pancake recipe, I give you my word that I'll never call upon +her again.' + +"'That's fair,' I says, and I shook hands with Jackson Bird. 'I'll get +it for you if I can, and glad to oblige.' And he turned off down the +big pear flat on the Piedra, in the direction of Mired Mule; and I +steered northwest for old Bill Toomey's ranch. + +"It was five days afterward when I got another chance to ride over to +Pimienta. Miss Willella and me passed a gratifying evening at Uncle +Emsley's. She sang some, and exasperated the piano quite a lot with +quotations from the operas. I gave imitations of a rattlesnake, and +told her about Snaky McFee's new way of skinning cows, and described +the trip I made to Saint Louis once. We was getting along in one +another's estimations fine. Thinks I, if Jackson Bird can now be +persuaded to migrate, I win. I recollect his promise about the pancake +receipt, and I thinks I will persuade it from Miss Willella and give +it to him; and then if I catches Birdie off of Mired Mule again, I'll +make him hop the twig. + +"So, along about ten o'clock, I put on a wheedling smile and says to +Miss Willella: 'Now, if there's anything I do like better than the +sight of a red steer on green grass it's the taste of a nice hot +pancake smothered in sugar-house molasses.' + +"Miss Willella gives a little jump on the piano stool, and looked at +me curious. + +"'Yes,' says she, 'they're real nice. What did you say was the name of +that street in Saint Louis, Mr. Odom, where you lost your hat?' + +"'Pancake Avenue,' says I, with a wink, to show her that I was on +about the family receipt, and couldn't be side-corralled off of the +subject. 'Come, now, Miss Willella,' I says; 'let's hear how you make +'em. Pancakes is just whirling in my head like wagon wheels. Start her +off, now--pound of flour, eight dozen eggs, and so on. How does the +catalogue of constituents run?' + +"'Excuse me for a moment, please,' says Miss Willella, and she gives +me a quick kind of sideways look, and slides off the stool. She ambled +out into the other room, and directly Uncle Emsley comes in in his +shirt sleeves, with a pitcher of water. He turns around to get a glass +on the table, and I see a forty-five in his hip pocket. 'Great post- +holes!' thinks I, 'but here's a family thinks a heap of cooking +receipts, protecting it with firearms. I've known outfits that +wouldn't do that much by a family feud.' + +"'Drink this here down,' says Uncle Emsley, handing me the glass of +water. 'You've rid too far to-day, Jud, and got yourself over-excited. +Try to think about something else now.' + +"'Do you know how to make them pancakes, Uncle Emsley?' I asked. + +"'Well, I'm not as apprised in the anatomy of them as some,' says +Uncle Emsley, 'but I reckon you take a sifter of plaster of Paris and +a little dough and saleratus and corn meal, and mix 'em with eggs and +buttermilk as usual. Is old Bill going to ship beeves to Kansas City +again this spring, Jud?' + +"That was all the pancake specifications I could get that night. I +didn't wonder that Jackson Bird found it uphill work. So I dropped the +subject and talked with Uncle Emsley for a while about hollow-horn and +cyclones. And then Miss Willella came and said 'Good-night,' and I hit +the breeze for the ranch. + +"About a week afterward I met Jackson Bird riding out of Pimienta as I +rode in, and we stopped on the road for a few frivolous remarks. + +"'Got the bill of particulars for them flapjacks yet?' I asked him. + +"'Well, no,' says Jackson. 'I don't seem to have any success in +getting hold of it. Did you try?' + +"'I did,' says I, 'and 'twas like trying to dig a prairie dog out of +his hole with a peanut hull. That pancake receipt must be a +jookalorum, the way they hold on to it.' + +"'I'm most ready to give it up,' says Jackson, so discouraged in his +pronunciations that I felt sorry for him; 'but I did want to know how +to make them pancakes to eat on my lonely ranch,' says he. 'I lie +awake at nights thinking how good they are.' + +"'You keep on trying for it,' I tells him, 'and I'll do the same. One +of us is bound to get a rope over its horns before long. Well, so- +long, Jacksy.' + +"You see, by this time we were on the peacefullest of terms. When I +saw that he wasn't after Miss Willella, I had more endurable +contemplations of that sandy-haired snoozer. In order to help out the +ambitions of his appetite I kept on trying to get that receipt from +Miss Willella. But every time I would say 'pancakes' she would get +sort of remote and fidgety about the eye, and try to change the +subject. If I held her to it she would slide out and round up Uncle +Emsley with his pitcher of water and hip-pocket howitzer. + +"One day I galloped over to the store with a fine bunch of blue +verbenas that I cut out of a herd of wild flowers over on Poisoned Dog +Prairie. Uncle Emsley looked at 'em with one eye shut and says: + +"'Haven't ye heard the news?' + +"'Cattle up?' I asks. + +"'Willella and Jackson Bird was married in Palestine yesterday,' says +he. 'Just got a letter this morning.' + +"I dropped them flowers in a cracker-barrel, and let the news trickle +in my ears and down toward my upper left-hand shirt pocket until it +got to my feet. + +"'Would you mind saying that over again once more, Uncle Emsley?' says +I. 'Maybe my hearing has got wrong, and you only said that prime +heifers was 4.80 on the hoof, or something like that.' + +"'Married yesterday,' says Uncle Emsley, 'and gone to Waco and Niagara +Falls on a wedding tour. Why, didn't you see none of the signs all +along? Jackson Bird has been courting Willella ever since that day he +took her out riding.' + +"'Then,' says I, in a kind of yell, 'what was all this zizzaparoola he +gives me about pancakes? Tell me /that/.' + +"When I said 'pancakes' Uncle Emsley sort of dodged and stepped back. + +"'Somebody's been dealing me pancakes from the bottom of the deck,' I +says, 'and I'll find out. I believe you know. Talk up,' says I, 'or +we'll mix a panful of batter right here.' + +"I slid over the counter after Uncle Emsley. He grabbed at his gun, +but it was in a drawer, and he missed it two inches. I got him by the +front of his shirt and shoved him in a corner. + +"'Talk pancakes,' says I, 'or be made into one. Does Miss Willella +make 'em?' + +"'She never made one in her life and I never saw one,' says Uncle +Emsley, soothing. 'Calm down now, Jud--calm down. You've got excited, +and that wound in your head is contaminating your sense of +intelligence. Try not to think about pancakes.' + +"'Uncle Emsley,' says I, 'I'm not wounded in the head except so far as +my natural cognitive instincts run to runts. Jackson Bird told me he +was calling on Miss Willella for the purpose of finding out her system +of producing pancakes, and he asked me to help him get the bill of +lading of the ingredients. I done so, with the results as you see. +Have I been sodded down with Johnson grass by a pink-eyed snoozer, or +what?' + +"'Slack up your grip in my dress shirt,' says Uncle Emsley, 'and I'll +tell you. Yes, it looks like Jackson Bird has gone and humbugged you +some. The day after he went riding with Willella he came back and told +me and her to watch out for you whenever you got to talking about +pancakes. He said you was in camp once where they was cooking +flapjacks, and one of the fellows cut you over the head with a frying +pan. Jackson said that whenever you got overhot or excited that wound +hurt you and made you kind of crazy, and you went raving about +pancakes. He told us to just get you worked off of the subject and +soothed down, and you wouldn't be dangerous. So, me and Willella done +the best by you we knew how. Well, well,' says Uncle Emsley, 'that +Jackson Bird is sure a seldom kind of a snoozer.'" + +During the progress of Jud's story he had been slowly but deftly +combining certain portions of the contents of his sacks and cans. +Toward the close of it he set before me the finished product--a pair +of red-hot, rich-hued pancakes on a tin plate. From some secret +hoarding he also brought a lump of excellent butter and a bottle of +golden syrup. + +"How long ago did these things happen?" I asked him. + +"Three years," said Jud. "They're living on the Mired Mule Ranch now. +But I haven't seen either of 'em since. They say Jackson Bird was +fixing his ranch up fine with rocking chairs and window curtains all +the time he was putting me up the pancake tree. Oh, I got over it +after a while. But the boys kept the racket up." + +"Did you make these cakes by the famous recipe?" I asked. + +"Didn't I tell you there wasn't no receipt?" said Jud. "The boys +hollered pancakes till they got pancake hungry, and I cut this recipe +out of a newspaper. How does the truck taste?" + +"They're delicious," I answered. "Why don't you have some, too, Jud?" + +I was sure I heard a sigh. + +"Me?" said Jud. "I don't ever eat 'em." + + + +VI + +SEATS OF THE HAUGHTY + +Golden by day and silver by night, a new trail now leads to us across +the Indian Ocean. Dusky kings and princes have found our Bombay of the +West; and few be their trails that do not lead down to Broadway on +their journey for to admire and for to see. + +If chance should ever lead you near a hotel that transiently shelters +some one of these splendid touring grandees, I counsel you to seek +Lucullus Polk among the republican tuft-hunters that besiege its +entrances. He will be there. You will know him by his red, alert, +Wellington-nosed face, by his manner of nervous caution mingled with +determination, by his assumed promoter's or broker's air of busy +impatience, and by his bright-red necktie, gallantly redressing the +wrongs of his maltreated blue serge suit, like a battle standard still +waving above a lost cause. I found him profitable; and so may you. +When you do look for him, look among the light-horse troop of Bedouins +that besiege the picket-line of the travelling potentate's guards and +secretaries--among the wild-eyed genii of Arabian Afternoons that +gather to make astounding and egregrious demands upon the prince's +coffers. + +I first saw Mr. Polk coming down the steps of the hotel at which +sojourned His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda, most enlightened of the +Mahratta princes, who, of late, ate bread and salt in our Metropolis +of the Occident. + +Lucullus moved rapidly, as though propelled by some potent moral force +that imminently threatened to become physical. Behind him closely +followed the impetus--a hotel detective, if ever white Alpine hat, +hawk's nose, implacable watch chain, and loud refinement of manner +spoke the truth. A brace of uniformed porters at his heels preserved +the smooth decorum of the hotel, repudiating by their air of +disengagement any suspicion that they formed a reserve squad of +ejectment. + +Safe on the sidewalk, Lucullus Polk turned and shook a freckled fist +at the caravansary. And, to my joy, he began to breathe deep invective +in strange words: + +"Rides in howdays, does he?" he cried loudly and sneeringly. "Rides on +elephants in howdahs and calls himself a prince! Kings--yah! Comes +over here and talks horse till you would think he was a president; and +then goes home and rides in a private dining-room strapped onto an +elephant. Well, well, well!" + +The ejecting committee quietly retired. The scorner of princes turned +to me and snapped his fingers. + +"What do you think of that?" he shouted derisively. "The Gaekwar of +Baroda rides in an elephant in a howdah! And there's old Bikram +Shamsher Jang scorching up and down the pig-paths of Khatmandu on a +motor-cycle. Wouldn't that maharajah you? And the Shah of Persia, that +ought to have been Muley-on-the-spot for at least three, he's got the +palanquin habit. And that funny-hat prince from Korea--wouldn't you +think he could afford to amble around on a milk-white palfrey once in +a dynasty or two? Nothing doing! His idea of a Balaklava charge is to +tuck his skirts under him and do his mile in six days over the hog- +wallows of Seoul in a bull-cart. That's the kind of visiting +potentates that come to this country now. It's a hard deal, friend." + +I murmured a few words of sympathy. But it was uncomprehending, for I +did not know his grievance against the rulers who flash, meteor-like, +now and then upon our shores. + +"The last one I sold," continued the displeased one, "was to that +three-horse-tailed Turkish pasha that came over a year ago. Five +hundred dollars he paid for it, easy. I says to his executioner or +secretary--he was a kind of a Jew or a Chinaman--'His Turkey Gibbets +is fond of horses, then?' + +"'Him?' says the secretary. 'Well, no. He's got a big, fat wife in the +harem named Bad Dora that he don't like. I believe he intends to +saddle her up and ride her up and down the board-walk in the Bulbul +Gardens a few times every day. You haven't got a pair of extra-long +spurs you could throw in on the deal, have you?' Yes, sir; there's +mighty few real rough-riders among the royal sports these days." + +As soon as Lucullus Polk got cool enough I picked him up, and with no +greater effort than you would employ in persuading a drowning man to +clutch a straw, I inveigled him into accompanying me to a cool corner +in a dim cafe. + +And it came to pass that man-servants set before us brewage; and +Lucullus Polk spake unto me, relating the wherefores of his +beleaguering the antechambers of the princes of the earth. + +"Did you ever hear of the S.A. & A.P. Railroad in Texas? Well, that +don't stand for Samaritan Actor's Aid Philanthropy. I was down that +way managing a summer bunch of the gum and syntax-chewers that play +the Idlewild Parks in the Western hamlets. Of course, we went to +pieces when the soubrette ran away with a prominent barber of +Beeville. I don't know what became of the rest of the company. I +believe there were some salaries due; and the last I saw of the troupe +was when I told them that forty-three cents was all the treasury +contained. I say I never saw any of them after that; but I heard them +for about twenty minutes. I didn't have time to look back. But after +dark I came out of the woods and struck the S.A. & A.P. agent for +means of transportation. He at once extended to me the courtesies of +the entire railroad, kindly warning me, however, not to get aboard any +of the rolling stock. + +"About ten the next morning I steps off the ties into a village that +calls itself Atascosa City. I bought a thirty-cent breakfast and a +ten-cent cigar, and stood on the Main Street jingling the three +pennies in my pocket--dead broke. A man in Texas with only three cents +in his pocket is no better off than a man that has no money and owes +two cents. + +"One of luck's favourite tricks is to soak a man for his last dollar +so quick that he don't have time to look it. There I was in a swell +St. Louis tailor-made, blue-and-green plaid suit, and an eighteen- +carat sulphate-of-copper scarf-pin, with no hope in sight except the +two great Texas industries, the cotton fields and grading new +railroads. I never picked cotton, and I never cottoned to a pick, so +the outlook had ultramarine edges. + +"All of a sudden, while I was standing on the edge of the wooden +sidewalk, down out of the sky falls two fine gold watches in the +middle of the street. One hits a chunk of mud and sticks. The other +falls hard and flies open, making a fine drizzle of little springs and +screws and wheels. I looks up for a balloon or an airship; but not +seeing any, I steps off the sidewalk to investigate. + +"But I hear a couple of yells and see two men running up the street in +leather overalls and high-heeled boots and cartwheel hats. One man is +six or eight feet high, with open-plumbed joints and a heartbroken +cast of countenance. He picks up the watch that has stuck in the mud. +The other man, who is little, with pink hair and white eyes, goes for +the empty case, and says, 'I win.' Then the elevated pessimist goes +down under his leather leg-holsters and hands a handful of twenty- +dollar gold pieces to his albino friend. I don't know how much money +it was; it looked as big as an earthquake-relief fund to me. + +"'I'll have this here case filled up with works,' says Shorty, 'and +throw you again for five hundred.' + +"'I'm your company,' says the high man. 'I'll meet you at the Smoked +Dog Saloon an hour from now.' + +"The little man hustles away with a kind of Swiss movement toward a +jewelry store. The heartbroken person stoops over and takes a +telescopic view of my haberdashery. + +"'Them's a mighty slick outfit of habiliments you have got on, Mr. +Man,' says he. 'I'll bet a hoss you never acquired the right, title, +and interest in and to them clothes in Atascosa City.' + +"'Why, no,' says I, being ready enough to exchange personalities with +this moneyed monument of melancholy. 'I had this suit tailored from a +special line of coatericks, vestures, and pantings in St. Louis. Would +you mind putting me sane,' says I, 'on this watch-throwing contest? +I've been used to seeing time-pieces treated with more politeness and +esteem--except women's watches, of course, which by nature they abuse +by cracking walnuts with 'em and having 'em taken showing in tintype +pictures.' + +"'Me and George,' he explains, 'are up from the ranch, having a spell +of fun. Up to last month we owned four sections of watered grazing +down on the San Miguel. But along comes one of these oil prospectors +and begins to bore. He strikes a gusher that flows out twenty thousand +--or maybe it was twenty million--barrels of oil a day. And me and +George gets one hundred and fifty thousand dollars--seventy-five +thousand dollars apiece--for the land. So now and then we saddles up +and hits the breeze for Atascosa City for a few days of excitement and +damage. Here's a little bunch of the /dinero/ that I drawed out of the +bank this morning,' says he, and shows a roll of twenties and fifties +as big around as a sleeping-car pillow. The yellowbacks glowed like a +sunset on the gable end of John D.'s barn. My knees got weak, and I +sat down on the edge of the board sidewalk. + +"'You must have knocked around a right smart,' goes on this oil +Grease-us. 'I shouldn't be surprised if you have saw towns more +livelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that +there ought to be some more ways of having a good time than there is +here, 'specially when you've got plenty of money and don't mind +spending it.' + +"Then this Mother Cary's chick of the desert sits down by me and we +hold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. He'd lived +in ranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme +idea of luxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a round-up, eat a +peck of Mexican beans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, +and go to sleep with his boots for a pillow. When this barge-load of +unexpected money came to him and his pink but perky partner, George, +and they hied themselves to this clump of outhouses called Atascosa +City, you know what happened to them. They had money to buy anything +they wanted; but they didn't know what to want. Their ideas of +spendthriftiness were limited to three--whisky, saddles, and gold +watches. If there was anything else in the world to throw away +fortunes on, they had never heard about it. So, when they wanted to +have a hot time, they'd ride into town and get a city directory and +stand in front of the principal saloon and call up the population +alphabetically for free drinks. Then they would order three or four +new California saddles from the storekeeper, and play crack-loo on the +sidewalk with twenty-dollar gold pieces. Betting who could throw his +gold watch the farthest was an inspiration of George's; but even that +was getting to be monotonous. + +"Was I on to the opportunity? Listen. + +"In thirty minutes I had dashed off a word picture of metropolitan +joys that made life in Atascosa City look as dull as a trip to Coney +Island with your own wife. In ten minutes more we shook hands on an +agreement that I was to act as his guide, interpreter and friend in +and to the aforesaid wassail and amenity. And Solomon Mills, which was +his name, was to pay all expenses for a month. At the end of that +time, if I had made good as director-general of the rowdy life, he was +to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch the bargain, we +called the roll of Atascosa City and put all of its citizens except +the ladies and minors under the table, except one man named Horace +Westervelt St. Clair. Just for that we bought a couple of hatfuls of +cheap silver watches and egged him out of town with 'em. We wound up +by dragging the harness-maker out of bed and setting him to work on +three new saddles; and then we went to sleep across the railroad track +at the depot, just to annoy the S.A. & A.P. Think of having seventy- +five thousand dollars and trying to avoid the disgrace of dying rich +in a town like that! + +"The next day George, who was married or something, started back to +the ranch. Me and Solly, as I now called him, prepared to shake off +our moth balls and wing our way against the arc-lights of the joyous +and tuneful East. + +"'No way-stops,' says I to Solly, 'except long enough to get you +barbered and haberdashed. This is no Texas feet shampetter,' says I, +'where you eat chili-concarne-con-huevos and then holler "Whoopee!" +across the plaza. We're now going against the real high life. We're +going to mingle with the set that carries a Spitz, wears spats, and +hits the ground in high spots.' + +"Solly puts six thousand dollars in century bills in one pocket of his +brown ducks, and bills of lading for ten thousand dollars on Eastern +banks in another. Then I resume diplomatic relations with the S.A. & +A.P., and we hike in a northwesterly direction on our circuitous route +to the spice gardens of the Yankee Orient. + +"We stopped in San Antonio long enough for Solly to buy some clothes, +and eight rounds of drinks for the guests and employees of the Menger +Hotel, and order four Mexican saddles with silver trimmings and white +Angora /suaderos/ to be shipped down to the ranch. From there we made +a big jump to St. Louis. We got there in time for dinner; and I put +our thumb-prints on the register of the most expensive hotel in the +city. + +"'Now,' says I to Solly, with a wink at myself, 'here's the first +dinner-station we've struck where we can get a real good plate of +beans.' And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of +the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of the head waiter's +Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, and closed him up +again. + +"'Frankoyse,' says I, 'I have a pal here for dinner that's been +subsisting for years on cereals and short stogies. You see the chef +and order a dinner for us such as you serve to Dave Francis and the +general passenger agent of the Iron Mountain when they eat here. We've +got more than Bernhardt's tent full of money; and we want the nose- +bags crammed with all the Chief Deveries /de cuisine/. Object is no +expense. Now, show us.' + +"At six o'clock me and Solly sat down to dinner. Spread! There's +nothing been seen like it since the Cambon snack. It was all served at +once. The chef called it /dinnay a la poker/. It's a famous thing +among the gormands of the West. The dinner comes in threes of a kind. +There was guinea-fowls, guinea-pigs, and Guinness's stout; roast veal, +mock turtle soup, and chicken pate; shad-roe, caviar, and tapioca; +canvas-back duck, canvas-back ham, and cotton-tail rabbit; +Philadelphia capon, fried snails, and sloe-gin--and so on, in threes. +The idea was that you eat nearly all you can of them, and then the +waiter takes away the discard and gives you pears to fill on. + +"I was sure Solly would be tickled to death with these hands, after +the bobtail flushes he'd been eating on the ranch; and I was a little +anxious that he should, for I didn't remember his having honoured my +efforts with a smile since we left Atascosa City. + +"We were in the main dining-room, and there was a fine-dressed crowd +there, all talking loud and enjoyable about the two St. Louis topics, +the water supply and the colour line. They mix the two subjects so +fast that strangers often think they are discussing water-colours; and +that has given the old town something of a rep as an art centre. And +over in the corner was a fine brass band playing; and now, thinks I, +Solly will become conscious of the spiritual oats of life nourishing +and exhilarating his system. But /nong, mong frang/. + +"He gazed across the table at me. There was four square yards of it, +looking like the path of a cyclone that has wandered through a stock- +yard, a poultry-farm, a vegetable-garden, and an Irish linen mill. +Solly gets up and comes around to me. + +"'Luke,' says he, 'I'm pretty hungry after our ride. I thought you +said they had some beans here. I'm going out and get something I can +eat. You can stay and monkey with this artificial layout of grub if +you want to.' + +"'Wait a minute,' says I. + +"I called the waiter, and slapped 'S. Mills' on the back of the check +for thirteen dollars and fifty cents. + +"'What do you mean,' says I, 'by serving gentlemen with a lot of truck +only suitable for deck-hands on a Mississippi steamboat? We're going +out to get something decent to eat.' + +"I walked up the street with the unhappy plainsman. He saw a saddle- +shop open, and some of the sadness faded from his eyes. We went in, +and he ordered and paid for two more saddles--one with a solid silver +horn and nails and ornaments and a six-inch border of rhinestones and +imitation rubies around the flaps. The other one had to have a gold- +mounted horn, quadruple-plated stirrups, and the leather inlaid with +silver beadwork wherever it would stand it. Eleven hundred dollars the +two cost him. + +"Then he goes out and heads toward the river, following his nose. In a +little side street, where there was no street and no sidewalks and no +houses, he finds what he is looking for. We go into a shanty and sit +on high stools among stevedores and boatmen, and eat beans with tin +spoons. Yes, sir, beans--beans boiled with salt pork. + +"'I kind of thought we'd strike some over this way,' says Solly. + +"'Delightful,' says I, 'That stylish hotel grub may appeal to some; +but for me, give me the husky /table d'goat.' + +"When we had succumbed to the beans I leads him out of the tarpaulin- +steam under a lamp post and pulls out a daily paper with the amusement +column folded out. + +"'But now, what ho for a merry round of pleasure,' says I. 'Here's one +of Hall Caine's shows, and a stock-yard company in "Hamlet," and +skating at the Hollowhorn Rink, and Sarah Bernhardt, and the Shapely +Syrens Burlesque Company. I should think, now, that the Shapely--' + +"But what does this healthy, wealthy, and wise man do but reach his +arms up to the second-story windows and gape noisily. + +"'Reckon I'll be going to bed,' says he; 'it's about my time. St. +Louis is a kind of quiet place, ain't it?' + +"'Oh, yes,' says I; 'ever since the railroads ran in here the town's +been practically ruined. And the building-and-loan associations and +the fair have about killed it. Guess we might as well go to bed. Wait +till you see Chicago, though. Shall we get tickets for the Big Breeze +to-morrow?' + +"'Mought as well,' says Solly. 'I reckon all these towns are about +alike.' + +"Well, maybe the wise cicerone and personal conductor didn't fall hard +in Chicago! Loolooville-on-the-Lake is supposed to have one or two +things in it calculated to keep the rural visitor awake after the +curfew rings. But not for the grass-fed man of the pampas! I tried him +with theatres, rides in automobiles, sails on the lake, champagne +suppers, and all those little inventions that hold the simple life in +check; but in vain. Solly grew sadder day by day. And I got fearful +about my salary, and knew I must play my trump card. So I mentioned +New York to him, and informed him that these Western towns were no +more than gateways to the great walled city of the whirling dervishes. + +"After I bought the tickets I missed Solly. I knew his habits by then; +so in a couple of hours I found him in a saddle-shop. They had some +new ideas there in the way of trees and girths that had strayed down +from the Canadian mounted police; and Solly was so interested that he +almost looked reconciled to live. He invested about nine hundred +dollars in there. + +"At the depot I telegraphed a cigar-store man I knew in New York to +meet me at the Twenty-third Street ferry with a list of all the +saddle-stores in the city. I wanted to know where to look for Solly +when he got lost. + +"Now I'll tell you what happened in New York. I says to myself: +'Friend Heherezade, you want to get busy and make Bagdad look pretty +to the sad sultan of the sour countenance, or it'll be the bowstring +for yours.' But I never had any doubt I could do it. + +"I began with him like you'd feed a starving man. I showed him the +horse-cars on Broadway and the Staten Island ferry-boats. And then I +piled up the sensations on him, but always keeping a lot of warmer +ones up my sleeve. + +"At the end of the third day he looked like a composite picture of +five thousand orphans too late to catch a picnic steamboat, and I was +wilting down a collar every two hours wondering how I could please him +and whether I was going to get my thou. He went to sleep looking at +the Brooklyn Bridge; he disregarded the sky-scrapers above the third +story; it took three ushers to wake him up at the liveliest vaudeville +in town. + +"Once I thought I had him. I nailed a pair of cuffs on him one morning +before he was awake; and I dragged him that evening to the palm-cage +of one of the biggest hotels in the city--to see the Johnnies and the +Alice-sit-by-the-hours. They were out in numerous quantities, with the +fat of the land showing in their clothes. While we were looking them +over, Solly divested himself of a fearful, rusty kind of laugh--like +moving a folding bed with one roller broken. It was his first in two +weeks, and it gave me hope. + +"'Right you are,' says I. 'They're a funny lot of post-cards, aren't +they?' + +"'Oh, I wasn't thinking of them dudes and culls on the hoof,' says he. +'I was thinking of the time me and George put sheep-dip in Horsehead +Johnson's whisky. I wish I was back in Atascosa City,' says he. + +"I felt a cold chill run down my back. 'Me to play and mate in one +move,' says I to myself. + +"I made Solly promise to stay in the cafe for half an hour and I hiked +out in a cab to Lolabelle Delatour's flat on Forty-third Street. I +knew her well. She was a chorus-girl in a Broadway musical comedy. + +"'Jane,' says I when I found her, 'I've got a friend from Texas here. +He's all right, but--well, he carries weight. I'd like to give him a +little whirl after the show this evening--bubbles, you know, and a +buzz out to a casino for the whitebait and pickled walnuts. Is it a +go?' + +"'Can he sing?' asks Lolabelle. + +"'You know,' says I, 'that I wouldn't take him away from home unless +his notes were good. He's got pots of money--bean-pots full of it.' + +"'Bring him around after the second act,' says Lolabelle, 'and I'll +examine his credentials and securities.' + +"So about ten o'clock that evening I led Solly to Miss Delatour's +dressing-room, and her maid let us in. In ten minutes in comes +Lolabelle, fresh from the stage, looking stunning in the costume she +wears when she steps from the ranks of the lady grenadiers and says to +the king, 'Welcome to our May-day revels.' And you can bet it wasn't +the way she spoke the lines that got her the part. + +"As soon as Solly saw her he got up and walked straight out through +the stage entrance into the street. I followed him. Lolabelle wasn't +paying my salary. I wondered whether anybody was. + +"'Luke,' says Solly, outside, 'that was an awful mistake. We must have +got into the lady's private room. I hope I'm gentleman enough to do +anything possible in the way of apologies. Do you reckon she'd ever +forgive us?' + +"'She may forget it,' says I. 'Of course it was a mistake. Let's go +find some beans.' + +"That's the way it went. But pretty soon afterward Solly failed to +show up at dinner-time for several days. I cornered him. He confessed +that he had found a restaurant on Third Avenue where they cooked beans +in Texas style. I made him take me there. The minute I set foot inside +the door I threw up my hands. + +"There was a young woman at the desk, and Solly introduced me to her. +And then we sat down and had beans. + +"Yes, sir, sitting at the desk was the kind of a young woman that can +catch any man in the world as easy as lifting a finger. There's a way +of doing it. She knew. I saw her working it. She was healthy-looking +and plain dressed. She had her hair drawn back from her forehead and +face--no curls or frizzes; that's the way she looked. Now I'll tell +you the way they work the game; it's simple. When she wants a man, she +manages it so that every time he looks at her he finds her looking at +him. That's all. + +"The next evening Solly was to go to Coney Island with me at seven. At +eight o'clock he hadn't showed up. I went out and found a cab. I felt +sure there was something wrong. + +"'Drive to the Back Home Restaurant on Third Avenue,' says I. 'And if +I don't find what I want there, take in these saddle-shops.' I handed +him the list. + +"'Boss,' says the cabby, 'I et a steak in that restaurant once. If +you're real hungry, I advise you to try the saddle-shops first.' + +"'I'm a detective,' says I, 'and I don't eat. Hurry up!' + +"As soon as I got to the restaurant I felt in the lines of my palms +that I should beware of a tall, red, damfool man, and I was going to +lose a sum of money. + +"Solly wasn't there. Neither was the smooth-haired lady. + +"I waited; and in an hour they came in a cab and got out, hand in +hand. I asked Solly to step around the corner for a few words. He was +grinning clear across his face; but I had not administered the grin. + +"'She's the greatest that ever sniffed the breeze,' says he. + +"'Congrats,' says I. 'I'd like to have my thousand now, if you +please.' + +"'Well, Luke,' says he, 'I don't know that I've had such a skyhoodlin' +fine time under your tutelage and dispensation. But I'll do the best I +can for you--I'll do the best I can,' he repeats. 'Me and Miss Skinner +was married an hour ago. We're leaving for Texas in the morning.' + +"'Great!' says I. 'Consider yourself covered with rice and Congress +gaiters. But don't let's tie so many satin bows on our business +relations that we lose sight of 'em. How about my honorarium?' + +"'Missis Mills,' says he, 'has taken possession of my money and papers +except six bits. I told her what I'd agreed to give you; but she says +it's an irreligious and illegal contract, and she won't pay a cent of +it. But I ain't going to see you treated unfair,' says he. 'I've got +eighty-seven saddles on the ranch what I've bought on this trip; and +when I get back I'm going to pick out the best six in the lot and send +'em to you.'" + +"And did he?" I asked, when Lucullus ceased talking. + +"He did. And they are fit for kings to ride on. The six he sent me +must have cost him three thousand dollars. But where is the market for +'em? Who would buy one except one of these rajahs and princes of Asia +and Africa? I've got 'em all on the list. I know every tan royal dub +and smoked princerino from Mindanao to the Caspian Sea." + +"It's a long time between customers," I ventured. + +"They're coming faster," said Polk. "Nowadays, when one of the +murdering mutts gets civilised enough to abolish suttee and quit using +his whiskers for a napkin, he calls himself the Roosevelt of the East, +and comes over to investigate our Chautauquas and cocktails. I'll +place 'em all yet. Now look here." + +From an inside pocket he drew a tightly folded newspaper with much- +worn edges, and indicated a paragraph. + +"Read that," said the saddler to royalty. The paragraph ran thus: + + His Highness Seyyid Feysal bin Turkee, Imam of Muskat, is one of + the most progressive and enlightened rulers of the Old World. His + stables contain more than a thousand horses of the purest Persian + breeds. It is said that this powerful prince contemplates a visit + to the United States at an early date. + +"There!" said Mr. Polk triumphantly. "My best saddle is as good as +sold--the one with turquoises set in the rim of the cantle. Have you +three dollars that you could loan me for a short time?" + +It happened that I had; and I did. + +If this should meet the eye of the Imam of Muskat, may it quicken his +whim to visit the land of the free! Otherwise I fear that I shall be +longer than a short time separated from my dollars three. + + + +VII + +HYGEIA AT THE SOLITO + +If you are knowing in the chronicles of the ring you will recall to +mind an event in the early 'nineties when, for a minute and sundry odd +seconds, a champion and a "would-be" faced each other on the alien +side of an international river. So brief a conflict had rarely imposed +upon the fair promise of true sport. The reporters made what they +could of it, but, divested of padding, the action was sadly fugacious. +The champion merely smote his victim, turned his back upon him, +remarking, "I know what I done to dat stiff," and extended an arm like +a ship's mast for his glove to be removed. + +Which accounts for a trainload of extremely disgusted gentlemen in an +uproar of fancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans +in San Antonio in the early morning following the fight. Which also +partly accounts for the unhappy predicament in which "Cricket" McGuire +found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot +platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to +San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that +way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman--may his shadow +never measure under six foot two. + +The cattleman, out this early to catch the south-bound for his ranch +station, stopped at the side of the distressed patron of sport, and +spoke in the kindly drawl of his ilk and region, "Got it pretty bad, +bud?" + +"Cricket" McGuire, ex-feather-weight prizefighter, tout, jockey, +follower of the "ponies," all-round sport, and manipulator of the gum +balls and walnut shells, looked up pugnaciously at the imputation cast +by "bud." + +"G'wan," he rasped, "telegraph pole. I didn't ring for yer." + +Another paroxysm wrung him, and he leaned limply against a convenient +baggage truck. Raidler waited patiently, glancing around at the white +hats, short overcoats, and big cigars thronging the platform. "You're +from the No'th, ain't you, bud?" he asked when the other was partially +recovered. "Come down to see the fight?" + +"Fight!" snapped McGuire. "Puss-in-the-corner! 'Twas a hypodermic +injection. Handed him just one like a squirt of dope, and he's asleep, +and no tanbark needed in front of his residence. Fight!" He rattled a +bit, coughed, and went on, hardly addressing the cattleman, but rather +for the relief of voicing his troubles. "No more dead sure t'ings for +me. But Rus Sage himself would have snatched at it. Five to one dat de +boy from Cork wouldn't stay t'ree rounds is what I invested in. Put my +last cent on, and could already smell the sawdust in dat all-night +joint of Jimmy Delaney's on T'irty-seventh Street I was goin' to buy. +And den--say, telegraph pole, what a gazaboo a guy is to put his whole +roll on one turn of the gaboozlum!" + +"You're plenty right," said the big cattleman; "more 'specially when +you lose. Son, you get up and light out for a hotel. You got a mighty +bad cough. Had it long?" + +"Lungs," said McGuire comprehensively. "I got it. The croaker says +I'll come to time for six months longer--maybe a year if I hold my +gait. I wanted to settle down and take care of myself. Dat's why I +speculated on dat five to one perhaps. I had a t'ousand iron dollars +saved up. If I winned I was goin' to buy Delaney's cafe. Who'd a +t'ought dat stiff would take a nap in de foist round--say?" + +"It's a hard deal," commented Raidler, looking down at the diminutive +form of McGuire crumpled against the truck. "But you go to a hotel and +rest. There's the Menger and the Maverick, and--" + +"And the Fi'th Av'noo, and the Waldorf-Astoria," mimicked McGuire. +"Told you I went broke. I'm on de bum proper. I've got one dime left. +Maybe a trip to Europe or a sail in me private yacht would fix me up-- +pa-per!" + +He flung his dime at a newsboy, got his /Express/, propped his back +against the truck, and was at once rapt in the account of his +Waterloo, as expanded by the ingenious press. + +Curtis Raidler interrogated an enormous gold watch, and laid his hand +on McGuire's shoulder. + +"Come on, bud," he said. "We got three minutes to catch the train." + +Sarcasm seemed to be McGuire's vein. + +"You ain't seen me cash in any chips or call a turn since I told you I +was broke, a minute ago, have you? Friend, chase yourself away." + +"You're going down to my ranch," said the cattleman, "and stay till +you get well. Six months'll fix you good as new." He lifted McGuire +with one hand, and half-dragged him in the direction of the train. + +"What about the money?" said McGuire, struggling weakly to escape. + +"Money for what?" asked Raidler, puzzled. They eyed each other, not +understanding, for they touched only as at the gear of bevelled cog- +wheels--at right angles, and moving upon different axes. + +Passengers on the south-bound saw them seated together, and wondered +at the conflux of two such antipodes. McGuire was five feet one, with +a countenance belonging to either Yokohama or Dublin. Bright-beady of +eye, bony of cheek and jaw, scarred, toughened, broken and reknit, +indestructible, grisly, gladiatorial as a hornet, he was a type +neither new nor unfamiliar. Raidler was the product of a different +soil. Six feet two in height, miles broad, and no deeper than a +crystal brook, he represented the union of the West and South. Few +accurate pictures of his kind have been made, for art galleries are so +small and the mutoscope is as yet unknown in Texas. After all, the +only possible medium of portrayal of Raidler's kind would be the +fresco--something high and simple and cool and unframed. + +They were rolling southward on the International. The timber was +huddling into little, dense green motts at rare distances before the +inundation of the downright, vert prairies. This was the land of the +ranches; the domain of the kings of the kine. + +McGuire sat, collapsed into his corner of the seat, receiving with +acid suspicion the conversation of the cattleman. What was the "game" +of this big "geezer" who was carrying him off? Altruism would have +been McGuire's last guess. "He ain't no farmer," thought the captive, +"and he ain't no con man, for sure. W'at's his lay? You trail in, +Cricket, and see how many cards he draws. You're up against it, +anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin' consumption, and you better +lay low. Lay low and see w'at's his game." + +At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a +buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled +the thirty miles between the station and their destination. If +anything could, this drive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire +to a sense of his ransom. They sped upon velvety wheels across an +exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanish ponies struck a nimble, +tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved by a wild, +untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as they +absorbed it, with the delicate redolence of prairie flowers. The road +perished, and the buckboard swam the uncharted billows of the grass +itself, steered by the practised hand of Raidler, to whom each tiny +distant mott of trees was a signboard, each convolution of the low +hills a voucher of course and distance. But McGuire reclined upon his +spine, seeing nothing but a desert, and receiving the cattleman's +advances with sullen distrust. "W'at's he up to?" was the burden of +his thoughts; "w'at kind of a gold brick has the big guy got to sell?" +McGuire was only applying the measure of the streets he had walked to +a range bounded by the horizon and the fourth dimension. + +A week before, while riding the prairies, Raidler had come upon a sick +and weakling calf deserted and bawling. Without dismounting he had +reached and slung the distressed bossy across his saddle, and dropped +it at the ranch for the boys to attend to. It was impossible for +McGuire to know or comprehend that, in the eyes of the cattleman, his +case and that of the calf were identical in interest and demand upon +his assistance. A creature was ill and helpless; he had the power to +render aid--these were the only postulates required for the cattleman +to act. They formed his system of logic and the most of his creed. +McGuire was the seventh invalid whom Raidler had picked up thus +casually in San Antonio, where so many thousand go for the ozone that +is said to linger about its contracted streets. Five of them had been +guests of Solito Ranch until they had been able to leave, cured or +better, and exhausting the vocabulary of tearful gratitude. One came +too late, but rested very comfortably, at last, under a ratama tree in +the garden. + +So, then, it was no surprise to the ranchhold when the buckboard spun +to the door, and Raidler took up his debile /protege/ like a handful +of rags and set him down upon the gallery. + +McGuire looked upon things strange to him. The ranch-house was the +best in the country. It was built of brick hauled one hundred miles by +wagon, but it was of but one story, and its four rooms were completely +encircled by a mud floor "gallery." The miscellaneous setting of +horses, dogs, saddles, wagons, guns, and cow-punchers' paraphernalia +oppressed the metropolitan eyes of the wrecked sportsman. + +"Well, here we are at home," said Raidler, cheeringly. + +"It's a h--l of a looking place," said McGuire promptly, as he rolled +upon the gallery floor in a fit of coughing. + +"We'll try to make it comfortable for you, buddy," said the cattleman +gently. "It ain't fine inside; but it's the outdoors, anyway, that'll +do you the most good. This'll be your room, in here. Anything we got, +you ask for it." + +He led McGuire into the east room. The floor was bare and clean. White +curtains waved in the gulf breeze through the open windows. A big +willow rocker, two straight chairs, a long table covered with +newspapers, pipes, tobacco, spurs, and cartridges stood in the centre. +Some well-mounted heads of deer and one of an enormous black javeli +projected from the walls. A wide, cool cot-bed stood in a corner. +Nueces County people regarded this guest chamber as fit for a prince. +McGuire showed his eyeteeth at it. He took out his nickel and spun it +up to the ceiling. + +"T'ought I was lyin' about the money, did ye? Well, you can frisk me +if you wanter. Dat's the last simoleon in the treasury. Who's goin' to +pay?" + +The cattleman's clear grey eyes looked steadily from under his grizzly +brows into the huckleberry optics of his guest. After a little he said +simply, and not ungraciously, "I'll be much obliged to you, son, if +you won't mention money any more. Once was quite a plenty. Folks I ask +to my ranch don't have to pay anything, and they very scarcely ever +offers it. Supper'll be ready in half an hour. There's water in the +pitcher, and some, cooler, to drink, in that red jar hanging on the +gallery." + +"Where's the bell?" asked McGuire, looking about. + +"Bell for what?" + +"Bell to ring for things. I can't--see here," he exploded in a sudden, +weak fury, "I never asked you to bring me here. I never held you up +for a cent. I never gave you a hard-luck story till you asked me. Here +I am fifty miles from a bellboy or a cocktail. I'm sick. I can't +hustle. Gee! but I'm up against it!" McGuire fell upon the cot and +sobbed shiveringly. + +Raidler went to the door and called. A slender, bright-complexioned +Mexican youth about twenty came quickly. Raidler spoke to him in +Spanish. + +"Ylario, it is in my mind that I promised you the position of +/vaquero/ on the San Carlos range at the fall /rodeo/." + +"/Si, senor/, such was your goodness." + +"Listen. This /senorito/ is my friend. He is very sick. Place yourself +at his side. Attend to his wants at all times. Have much patience and +care with him. And when he is well, or--and when he is well, instead +of /vaquero/ I will make you /mayordomo/ of the Rancho de las Piedras. +/Esta bueno/?" + +"/Si, si--mil gracias, senor/." Ylario tried to kneel upon the floor +in his gratitude, but the cattleman kicked at him benevolently, +growling, "None of your opery-house antics, now." + +Ten minutes later Ylario came from McGuire's room and stood before +Raidler. + +"The little /senor/," he announced, "presents his compliments" +(Raidler credited Ylario with the preliminary) "and desires some +pounded ice, one hot bath, one gin feez-z, that the windows be all +closed, toast, one shave, one Newyorkheral', cigarettes, and to send +one telegram." + +Raidler took a quart bottle of whisky from his medicine cabinet. +"Here, take him this," he said. + +Thus was instituted the reign of terror at the Solito Ranch. For a few +weeks McGuire blustered and boasted and swaggered before the cow- +punchers who rode in for miles around to see this latest importation +of Raidler's. He was an absolutely new experience to them. He +explained to them all the intricate points of sparring and the tricks +of training and defence. He opened to their minds' view all the +indecorous life of a tagger after professional sports. His jargon of +slang was a continuous joy and surprise to them. His gestures, his +strange poses, his frank ribaldry of tongue and principle fascinated +them. He was like a being from a new world. + +Strange to say, this new world he had entered did not exist to him. He +was an utter egoist of bricks and mortar. He had dropped out, he felt, +into open space for a time, and all it contained was an audience for +his reminiscences. Neither the limitless freedom of the prairie days +nor the grand hush of the close-drawn, spangled nights touched him. +All the hues of Aurora could not win him from the pink pages of a +sporting journal. "Get something for nothing," was his mission in +life; "Thirty-seventh" Street was his goal. + +Nearly two months after his arrival he began to complain that he felt +worse. It was then that he became the ranch's incubus, its harpy, its +Old Man of the Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous +kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. +The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into a +gehenna against his will; that he was dying of neglect and lack of +comforts. With all his dire protestations of increasing illness, to +the eye of others he remained unchanged. His currant-like eyes were as +bright and diabolic as ever; his voice was as rasping; his callous +face, with the skin drawn tense as a drum-head, had no flesh to lose. +A flush on his prominent cheek bones each afternoon hinted that a +clinical thermometer might have revealed a symptom, and percussion +might have established the fact that McGuire was breathing with only +one lung, but his appearance remained the same. + +In constant attendance upon him was Ylario, whom the coming reward of +the /mayordomo/ship must have greatly stimulated, for McGuire chained +him to a bitter existence. The air--the man's only chance for life--he +commanded to be kept out by closed windows and drawn curtains. The +room was always blue and foul with cigarette smoke; whosoever entered +it must sit, suffocating, and listen to the imp's interminable +gasconade concerning his scandalous career. + +The oddest thing of all was the relation existing between McGuire and +his benefactor. The attitude of the invalid toward the cattleman was +something like that of a peevish, perverse child toward an indulgent +parent. When Raidler would leave the ranch McGuire would fall into a +fit of malevolent, silent sullenness. When he returned, he would be +met by a string of violent and stinging reproaches. Raidler's attitude +toward his charge was quite inexplicable in its way. The cattleman +seemed actually to assume and feel the character assigned to him by +McGuire's intemperate accusations--the character of tyrant and guilty +oppressor. He seemed to have adopted the responsibility of the +fellow's condition, and he always met his tirades with a pacific, +patient, and even remorseful kindness that never altered. + +One day Raidler said to him, "Try more air, son. You can have the +buckboard and a driver every day if you'll go. Try a week or two in +one of the cow camps. I'll fix you up plumb comfortable. The ground, +and the air next to it--them's the things to cure you. I knowed a man +from Philadelphy, sicker than you are, got lost on the Guadalupe, and +slept on the bare grass in sheep camps for two weeks. Well, sir, it +started him getting well, which he done. Close to the ground--that's +where the medicine in the air stays. Try a little hossback riding now. +There's a gentle pony--" + +"What've I done to yer?" screamed McGuire. "Did I ever doublecross +yer? Did I ask you to bring me here? Drive me out to your camps if you +wanter; or stick a knife in me and save trouble. Ride! I can't lift my +feet. I couldn't sidestep a jab from a five-year-old kid. That's what +your d--d ranch has done for me. There's nothing to eat, nothing to +see, and nobody to talk to but a lot of Reubens who don't know a +punching bag from a lobster salad." + +"It's a lonesome place, for certain," apologised Raidler abashedly. +"We got plenty, but it's rough enough. Anything you think of you want, +the boys'll ride up and fetch it down for you." + +It was Chad Murchison, a cow-puncher from the Circle Bar outfit, who +first suggested that McGuire's illness was fraudulent. Chad had +brought a basket of grapes for him thirty miles, and four out of his +way, tied to his saddle-horn. After remaining in the smoke-tainted +room for a while, he emerged and bluntly confided his suspicions to +Raidler. + +"His arm," said Chad, "is harder'n a diamond. He interduced me to what +he called a shore-perplexus punch, and 'twas like being kicked twice +by a mustang. He's playin' it low down on you, Curt. He ain't no +sicker'n I am. I hate to say it, but the runt's workin' you for range +and shelter." + +The cattleman's ingenuous mind refused to entertain Chad's view of the +case, and when, later, he came to apply the test, doubt entered not +into his motives. + +One day, about noon, two men drove up to the ranch, alighted, hitched, +and came in to dinner; standing and general invitations being the +custom of the country. One of them was a great San Antonio doctor, +whose costly services had been engaged by a wealthy cowman who had +been laid low by an accidental bullet. He was now being driven back to +the station to take the train back to town. After dinner Raidler took +him aside, pushed a twenty-dollar bill against his hand, and said: + +"Doc, there's a young chap in that room I guess has got a bad case of +consumption. I'd like for you to look him over and see just how bad he +is, and if we can do anything for him." + +"How much was that dinner I just ate, Mr. Raidler?" said the doctor +bluffly, looking over his spectacles. Raidler returned the money to +his pocket. The doctor immediately entered McGuire's room, and the +cattleman seated himself upon a heap of saddles on the gallery, ready +to reproach himself in the event the verdict should be unfavourable. + +In ten minutes the doctor came briskly out. "Your man," he said +promptly, "is as sound as a new dollar. His lungs are better than +mine. Respiration, temperature, and pulse normal. Chest expansion four +inches. Not a sign of weakness anywhere. Of course I didn't examine +for the bacillus, but it isn't there. You can put my name to the +diagnosis. Even cigarettes and a vilely close room haven't hurt him. +Coughs, does he? Well, you tell him it isn't necessary. You asked if +there is anything we could do for him. Well, I advise you to set him +digging post-holes or breaking mustangs. There's our team ready. Good- +day, sir." And like a puff of wholesome, blustery wind the doctor was +off. + +Raidler reached out and plucked a leaf from a mesquite bush by the +railing, and began chewing it thoughtfully. + +The branding season was at hand, and the next morning Ross Hargis, +foreman of the outfit, was mustering his force of some twenty-five men +at the ranch, ready to start for the San Carlos range, where the work +was to begin. By six o'clock the horses were all saddled, the grub +wagon ready, and the cow-punchers were swinging themselves upon their +mounts, when Raidler bade them wait. A boy was bringing up an extra +pony, bridled and saddled, to the gate. Raidler walked to McGuire's +room and threw open the door. McGuire was lying on his cot, not yet +dressed, smoking. + +"Get up," said the cattleman, and his voice was clear and brassy, like +a bugle. + +"How's that?" asked McGuire, a little startled. + +"Get up and dress. I can stand a rattlesnake, but I hate a liar. Do I +have to tell you again?" He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him +on the floor. + +"Say, friend," cried McGuire wildly, "are you bug-house? I'm sick-- +see? I'll croak if I got to hustle. What've I done to yer?"--he began +his chronic whine--"I never asked yer to--" + +"Put on your clothes," called Raidler in a rising tone. + +Swearing, stumbling, shivering, keeping his amazed, shining eyes upon +the now menacing form of the aroused cattleman, McGuire managed to +tumble into his clothes. Then Raidler took him by the collar and +shoved him out and across the yard to the extra pony hitched at the +gate. The cow-punchers lolled in their saddles, open-mouthed. + +"Take this man," said Raidler to Ross Hargis, "and put him to work. +Make him work hard, sleep hard, and eat hard. You boys know I done +what I could for him, and he was welcome. Yesterday the best doctor in +San Antone examined him, and says he's got the lungs of a burro and +the constitution of a steer. You know what to do with him, Ross." + +Ross Hargis only smiled grimly. + +"Aw," said McGuire, looking intently at Raidler, with a peculiar +expression upon his face, "the croaker said I was all right, did he? +Said I was fakin', did he? You put him onto me. You t'ought I wasn't +sick. You said I was a liar. Say, friend, I talked rough, I know, but +I didn't mean most of it. If you felt like I did--aw! I forgot--I +ain't sick, the croaker says. Well, friend, now I'll go work for yer. +Here's where you play even." + +He sprang into the saddle easily as a bird, got the quirt from the +horn, and gave his pony a slash with it. "Cricket," who once brought +in Good Boy by a neck at Hawthorne--and a 10 to 1 shot--had his foot +in the stirrups again. + +McGuire led the cavalcade as they dashed away for San Carlos, and the +cow-punchers gave a yell of applause as they closed in behind his +dust. + +But in less than a mile he had lagged to the rear, and was last man +when they struck the patch of high chaparral below the horse pens. +Behind a clump of this he drew rein, and held a handkerchief to his +mouth. He took it away drenched with bright, arterial blood, and threw +it carefully into a clump of prickly pear. Then he slashed with his +quirt again, gasped "G'wan" to his astonished pony, and galloped after +the gang. + +That night Raidler received a message from his old home in Alabama. +There had been a death in the family; an estate was to divide, and +they called for him to come. Daylight found him in the buckboard, +skimming the prairies for the station. It was two months before he +returned. When he arrived at the ranch house he found it well-nigh +deserted save for Ylario, who acted as a kind of steward during his +absence. Little by little the youth made him acquainted with the work +done while he was away. The branding camp, he was informed, was still +doing business. On account of many severe storms the cattle had been +badly scattered, and the branding had been accomplished but slowly. +The camp was now in the valley of the Guadalupe, twenty miles away. + +"By the way," said Raidler, suddenly remembering, "that fellow I sent +along with them--McGuire--is he working yet?" + +"I do not know," said Ylario. "Mans from the camp come verree few +times to the ranch. So plentee work with the leetle calves. They no +say. Oh, I think that fellow McGuire he dead much time ago." + +"Dead!" said Raidler. "What you talking about?" + +"Verree sick fellow, McGuire," replied Ylario, with a shrug of his +shoulder. "I theenk he no live one, two month when he go away." + +"Shucks!" said Raidler. "He humbugged you, too, did he? The doctor +examined him and said he was sound as a mesquite knot." + +"That doctor," said Ylario, smiling, "he tell you so? That doctor no +see McGuire." + +"Talk up," ordered Raidler. "What the devil do you mean?" + +"McGuire," continued the boy tranquilly, "he getting drink water +outside when that doctor come in room. That doctor take me and pound +me all over here with his fingers"--putting his hand to his chest--"I +not know for what. He put his ear here and here and here, and listen-- +I not know for what. He put little glass stick in my mouth. He feel my +arm here. He make me count like whisper--so--twenty, /treinta/, +/cuarenta/. Who knows," concluded Ylario, with a deprecating spread of +his hands, "for what that doctor do those verree droll and such-like +things?" + +"What horses are up?" asked Raidler shortly. + +"Paisano is grazing out behind the little corral, /senor/." + +"Saddle him for me at once." + +Within a very few minutes the cattleman was mounted and away. Paisano, +well named after that ungainly but swift-running bird, struck into his +long lope that ate up the ground like a strip of macaroni. In two +hours and a quarter Raidler, from a gentle swell, saw the branding +camp by a water hole in the Guadalupe. Sick with expectancy of the +news he feared, he rode up, dismounted, and dropped Paisano's reins. +So gentle was his heart that at that moment he would have pleaded +guilty to the murder of McGuire. + +The only being in the camp was the cook, who was just arranging the +hunks of barbecued beef, and distributing the tin coffee cups for +supper. Raidler evaded a direct question concerning the one subject in +his mind. + +"Everything all right in camp, Pete?" he managed to inquire. + +"So, so," said Pete, conservatively. "Grub give out twice. Wind +scattered the cattle, and we've had to rake the brush for forty mile. +I need a new coffee-pot. And the mosquitos is some more hellish than +common." + +"The boys--all well?" + +Pete was no optimist. Besides, inquiries concerning the health of cow- +punchers were not only superfluous, but bordered on flaccidity. It was +not like the boss to make them. + +"What's left of 'em don't miss no calls to grub," the cook conceded. + +"What's left of 'em?" repeated Raidler in a husky voice. Mechanically +he began to look around for McGuire's grave. He had in his mind a +white slab such as he had seen in the Alabama church-yard. But +immediately he knew that was foolish. + +"Sure," said Pete; "what's left. Cow camps change in two months. +Some's gone." + +Raidler nerved himself. + +"That--chap--I sent along--McGuire--did--he--" + +"Say," interrupted Pete, rising with a chunk of corn bread in each +hand, "that was a dirty shame, sending that poor, sick kid to a cow +camp. A doctor that couldn't tell he was graveyard meat ought to be +skinned with a cinch buckle. Game as he was, too--it's a scandal among +snakes--lemme tell you what he done. First night in camp the boys +started to initiate him in the leather breeches degree. Ross Hargis +busted him one swipe with his chaparreras, and what do you reckon the +poor child did? Got up, the little skeeter, and licked Ross. Licked +Ross Hargis. Licked him good. Hit him plenty and everywhere and hard. +Ross'd just get up and pick out a fresh place to lay down on agin. + +"Then that McGuire goes off there and lays down with his head in the +grass and bleeds. A hem'ridge they calls it. He lays there eighteen +hours by the watch, and they can't budge him. Then Ross Hargis, who +loves any man who can lick him, goes to work and damns the doctors +from Greenland to Poland Chiny; and him and Green Branch Johnson they +gets McGuire into a tent, and spells each other feedin' him chopped +raw meat and whisky. + +"But it looks like the kid ain't got no appetite to git well, for they +misses him from the tent in the night and finds him rootin' in the +grass, and likewise a drizzle fallin'. 'G'wan,' he says, 'lemme go and +die like I wanter. He said I was a liar and a fake and I was playin' +sick. Lemme alone.' + +"Two weeks," went on the cook, "he laid around, not noticin' nobody, +and then--" + +A sudden thunder filled the air, and a score of galloping centaurs +crashed through the brush into camp. + +"Illustrious rattlesnakes!" exclaimed Pete, springing all ways at +once; "here's the boys come, and I'm an assassinated man if supper +ain't ready in three minutes." + +But Raidler saw only one thing. A little, brown-faced, grinning chap, +springing from his saddle in the full light of the fire. McGuire was +not like that, and yet-- + +In another instant the cattleman was holding him by the hand and +shoulder. + +"Son, son, how goes it?" was all he found to say. + +"Close to the ground, says you," shouted McGuire, crunching Raidler's +fingers in a grip of steel; "and dat's where I found it--healt' and +strengt', and tumbled to what a cheap skate I been actin'. T'anks fer +kickin' me out, old man. And--say! de joke's on dat croaker, ain't it? +I looked t'rough the window and see him playin' tag on dat Dago kid's +solar plexus." + +"You son of a tinker," growled the cattleman, "whyn't you talk up and +say the doctor never examined you?" + +"Ah--g'wan!" said McGuire, with a flash of his old asperity, "nobody +can't bluff me. You never ast me. You made your spiel, and you t'rowed +me out, and I let it go at dat. And, say, friend, dis chasin' cows is +outer sight. Dis is de whitest bunch of sports I ever travelled with. +You'll let me stay, won't yer, old man?" + +Raidler looked wonderingly toward Ross Hargis. + +"That cussed little runt," remarked Ross tenderly, "is the +Jo-dartin'est hustler--and the hardest hitter in anybody's cow camp." + + + +VIII + +AN AFTERNOON MIRACLE + +At the United States end of an international river bridge, four armed +rangers sweltered in a little 'dobe hut, keeping a fairly faithful +espionage upon the lagging trail of passengers from the Mexican side. + +Bud Dawson, proprietor of the Top Notch Saloon, had, on the evening +previous, violently ejected from his premises one Leandro Garcia, for +alleged violation of the Top Notch code of behaviour. Garcia had +mentioned twenty-four hours as a limit, by which time he would call +and collect a painful indemnity for personal satisfaction. + +This Mexican, although a tremendous braggart, was thoroughly +courageous, and each side of the river respected him for one of these +attributes. He and a following of similar bravoes were addicted to the +pastime of retrieving towns from stagnation. + +The day designated by Garcia for retribution was to be further +signalised on the American side by a cattlemen's convention, a bull +fight, and an old settlers' barbecue and picnic. Knowing the avenger +to be a man of his word, and believing it prudent to court peace while +three such gently social relaxations were in progress, Captain +McNulty, of the ranger company stationed there, detailed his +lieutenant and three men for duty at the end of the bridge. Their +instructions were to prevent the invasion of Garcia, either alone or +attended by his gang. + +Travel was slight that sultry afternoon, and the rangers swore gently, +and mopped their brows in their convenient but close quarters. For an +hour no one had crossed save an old woman enveloped in a brown wrapper +and a black mantilla, driving before her a burro loaded with kindling +wood tied in small bundles for peddling. Then three shots were fired +down the street, the sound coming clear and snappy through the still +air. + +The four rangers quickened from sprawling, symbolic figures of +indolence to alert life, but only one rose to his feet. Three turned +their eyes beseechingly but hopelessly upon the fourth, who had gotten +nimbly up and was buckling his cartridge-belt around him. The three +knew that Lieutenant Bob Buckley, in command, would allow no man of +them the privilege of investigating a row when he himself might go. + +The agile, broad-chested lieutenant, without a change of expression in +his smooth, yellow-brown, melancholy face, shot the belt strap through +the guard of the buckle, hefted his sixes in their holsters as a belle +gives the finishing touches to her toilette, caught up his Winchester, +and dived for the door. There he paused long enough to caution his +comrades to maintain their watch upon the bridge, and then plunged +into the broiling highway. + +The three relapsed into resigned inertia and plaintive comment. + +"I've heard of fellows," grumbled Broncho Leathers, "what was wedded +to danger, but if Bob Buckley ain't committed bigamy with trouble, I'm +a son of a gun." + +"Peculiarness of Bob is," inserted the Nueces Kid, "he ain't had +proper trainin'. He never learned how to git skeered. Now, a man ought +to be skeered enough when he tackles a fuss to hanker after readin' +his name on the list of survivors, anyway." + +"Buckley," commented Ranger No. 3, who was a misguided Eastern man, +burdened with an education, "scraps in such a solemn manner that I +have been led to doubt its spontaneity. I'm not quite onto his system, +but he fights, like Tybalt, by the book of arithmetic." + +"I never heard," mentioned Broncho, "about any of Dibble's ways of +mixin' scrappin' and cipherin'." + +"Triggernometry?" suggested the Nueces infant. + +"That's rather better than I hoped from you," nodded the Easterner, +approvingly. "The other meaning is that Buckley never goes into a +fight without giving away weight. He seems to dread taking the +slightest advantage. That's quite close to foolhardiness when you are +dealing with horse-thieves and fence-cutters who would ambush you any +night, and shoot you in the back if they could. Buckley's too full of +sand. He'll play Horatius and hold the bridge once too often some +day." + +"I'm on there," drawled the Kid; "I mind that bridge gang in the +reader. Me, I go instructed for the other chap--Spurious Somebody--the +one that fought and pulled his freight, to fight 'em on some other +day." + +"Anyway," summed up Broncho, "Bob's about the gamest man I ever see +along the Rio Bravo. Great Sam Houston! If she gets any hotter she'll +sizzle!" Broncho whacked at a scorpion with his four-pound Stetson +felt, and the three watchers relapsed into comfortless silence. + +How well Bob Buckley had kept his secret, since these men, for two +years his side comrades in countless border raids and dangers, thus +spake of him, not knowing that he was the most arrant physical coward +in all that Rio Bravo country! Neither his friends nor his enemies had +suspected him of aught else than the finest courage. It was purely a +physical cowardice, and only by an extreme, grim effort of will had he +forced his craven body to do the bravest deeds. Scourging himself +always, as a monk whips his besetting sin, Buckley threw himself with +apparent recklessness into every danger, with the hope of some day +ridding himself of the despised affliction. But each successive test +brought no relief, and the ranger's face, by nature adapted to +cheerfulness and good-humour, became set to the guise of gloomy +melancholy. Thus, while the frontier admired his deeds, and his +prowess was celebrated in print and by word of mouth in many camp- +fires in the valley of the Bravo, his heart was sick within him. Only +himself knew of the horrible tightening of the chest, the dry mouth, +the weakening of the spine, the agony of the strung nerves--the never- +failing symptoms of his shameful malady. + +One mere boy in his company was wont to enter a fray with a leg +perched flippantly about the horn of his saddle, a cigarette hanging +from his lips, which emitted smoke and original slogans of clever +invention. Buckley would have given a year's pay to attain that devil- +may-care method. Once the debonair youth said to him: "Buck, you go +into a scrap like it was a funeral. Not," he added, with a +complimentary wave of his tin cup, "but what it generally is." + +Buckley's conscience was of the New England order with Western +adjustments, and he continued to get his rebellious body into as many +difficulties as possible; wherefore, on that sultry afternoon he chose +to drive his own protesting limbs to investigation of that sudden +alarm that had startled the peace and dignity of the State. + +Two squares down the street stood the Top Notch Saloon. Here Buckley +came upon signs of recent upheaval. A few curious spectators pressed +about its front entrance, grinding beneath their heels the fragments +of a plate-glass window. Inside, Buckley found Bud Dawson utterly +ignoring a bullet wound in his shoulder, while he feelingly wept at +having to explain why he failed to drop the "blamed masquerooter," who +shot him. At the entrance of the ranger Bud turned appealingly to him +for confirmation of the devastation he might have dealt. + +"You know, Buck, I'd 'a' plum got him, first rattle, if I'd thought a +minute. Come in a-masque-rootin', playin' female till he got the drop, +and turned loose. I never reached for a gun, thinkin' it was sure +Chihuahua Betty, or Mrs. Atwater, or anyhow one of the Mayfield girls +comin' a-gunnin', which they might, liable as not. I never thought of +that blamed Garcia until--" + +"Garcia!" snapped Buckley. "How did he get over here?" + +Bud's bartender took the ranger by the arm and led him to the side +door. There stood a patient grey burro cropping the grass along the +gutter, with a load of kindling wood tied across its back. On the +ground lay a black shawl and a voluminous brown dress. + +"Masquerootin' in them things," called Bud, still resisting attempted +ministrations to his wounds. "Thought he was a lady till he gave a +yell and winged me." + +"He went down this side street," said the bartender. "He was alone, +and he'll hide out till night when his gang comes over. You ought to +find him in that Mexican lay-out below the depot. He's got a girl down +there--Pancha Sales." + +"How was he armed?" asked Buckley. + +"Two pearl-handled sixes, and a knife." + +"Keep this for me, Billy," said the ranger, handing over his +Winchester. Quixotic, perhaps, but it was Bob Buckley's way. Another +man--and a braver one--might have raised a posse to accompany him. It +was Buckley's rule to discard all preliminary advantage. + +The Mexican had left behind him a wake of closed doors and an empty +street, but now people were beginning to emerge from their places of +refuge with assumed unconsciousness of anything having happened. Many +citizens who knew the ranger pointed out to him with alacrity the +course of Garcia's retreat. + +As Buckley swung along upon the trail he felt the beginning of the +suffocating constriction about his throat, the cold sweat under the +brim of his hat, the old, shameful, dreaded sinking of his heart as it +went down, down, down in his bosom. + +***** + +The morning train of the Mexican Central had that day been three hours +late, thus failing to connect with the I. & G.N. on the other side of +the river. Passengers for /Los Estados Unidos/ grumblingly sought +entertainment in the little swaggering mongrel town of two nations, +for, until the morrow, no other train would come to rescue them. +Grumblingly, because two days later would begin the great fair and +races in San Antone. Consider that at that time San Antone was the hub +of the wheel of Fortune, and the names of its spokes were Cattle, +Wool, Faro, Running Horses, and Ozone. In those times cattlemen played +at crack-loo on the sidewalks with double-eagles, and gentlemen backed +their conception of the fortuitous card with stacks limited in height +only by the interference of gravity. Wherefore, thither journeyed the +sowers and the reapers--they who stampeded the dollars, and they who +rounded them up. Especially did the caterers to the amusement of the +people haste to San Antone. Two greatest shows on earth were already +there, and dozens of smallest ones were on the way. + +On a side track near the mean little 'dobe depot stood a private car, +left there by the Mexican train that morning and doomed by an +ineffectual schedule to ignobly await, amid squalid surroundings, +connection with the next day's regular. + +The car had been once a common day-coach, but those who had sat in it +and gringed to the conductor's hat-band slips would never have +recognised it in its transformation. Paint and gilding and certain +domestic touches had liberated it from any suspicion of public +servitude. The whitest of lace curtains judiciously screened its +windows. From its fore end drooped in the torrid air the flag of +Mexico. From its rear projected the Stars and Stripes and a busy +stovepipe, the latter reinforcing in its suggestion of culinary +comforts the general suggestion of privacy and ease. The beholder's +eye, regarding its gorgeous sides, found interest to culminate in a +single name in gold and blue letters extending almost its entire +length--a single name, the audacious privilege of royalty and genius. +Doubly, then, was this arrogant nomenclature here justified; for the +name was that of "Alvarita, Queen of the Serpent Tribe." This, her +car, was back from a triumphant tour of the principal Mexican cities, +and now headed for San Antonio, where, according to promissory +advertisement, she would exhibit her "Marvellous Dominion and Fearless +Control over Deadly and Venomous Serpents, Handling them with Ease as +they Coil and Hiss to the Terror of Thousands of Tongue-tied +Tremblers!" + +One hundred in the shade kept the vicinity somewhat depeopled. This +quarter of the town was a ragged edge; its denizens the bubbling froth +of five nations; its architecture tent, /jacal/, and 'dobe; its +distractions the hurdy-gurdy and the informal contribution to the +sudden stranger's store of experience. Beyond this dishonourable +fringe upon the old town's jowl rose a dense mass of trees, +surmounting and filling a little hollow. Through this bickered a small +stream that perished down the sheer and disconcerting side of the +great canon of the Rio Bravo del Norte. + +In this sordid spot was condemned to remain for certain hours the +impotent transport of the Queen of the Serpent Tribe. + +The front door of the car was open. Its forward end was curtained off +into a small reception-room. Here the admiring and propitiatory +reporters were wont to sit and transpose the music of Senorita +Alvarita's talk into the more florid key of the press. A picture of +Abraham Lincoln hung against a wall; one of a cluster of school-girls +grouped upon stone steps was in another place; a third was Easter +lilies in a blood-red frame. A neat carpet was under foot. A pitcher, +sweating cold drops, and a glass stood on a fragile stand. In a willow +rocker, reading a newspaper, sat Alvarita. + +Spanish, you would say; Andalusian, or, better still, Basque; that +compound, like the diamond, of darkness and fire. Hair, the shade of +purple grapes viewed at midnight. Eyes, long, dusky, and disquieting +with their untroubled directness of gaze. Face, haughty and bold, +touched with a pretty insolence that gave it life. To hasten +conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacks of handbills in the +corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent +presentment of the senorita in her professional garb and pose. +Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue +racer is spiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist +and once about her neck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive +Kuku, the great eleven-foot Asian python. + +A hand drew aside the curtain that partitioned the car, and a middle- +aged, faded woman holding a knife and a half-peeled potato looked in +and said: + +"Alviry, are you right busy?" + +"I'm reading the home paper, ma. What do you think! that pale, tow- +headed Matilda Price got the most votes in the /News/ for the +prettiest girl in Gallipo--/lees/." + +"Shush! She wouldn't of done it if /you'd/ been home, Alviry. Lord +knows, I hope we'll be there before fall's over. I'm tired gallopin' +round the world playin' we are dagoes, and givin' snake shows. But +that ain't what I wanted to say. That there biggest snake's gone +again. I've looked all over the car and can't find him. He must have +been gone an hour. I remember hearin' somethin' rustlin' along the +floor, but I thought it was you." + +"Oh, blame that old rascal!" exclaimed the Queen, throwing down her +paper. "This is the third time he's got away. George never /will/ +fasten down the lid to his box properly. I do believe he's /afraid/ of +Kuku. Now I've got to go hunt him." + +"Better hurry; somebody might hurt him." + +The Queen's teeth showed in a gleaming, contemptuous smile. "No +danger. When they see Kuku outside they simply scoot away and buy +bromides. There's a crick over between here and the river. That old +scamp'd swap his skin any time for a drink of running water. I guess +I'll find him there, all right." + +A few minutes later Alvarita stopped upon the forward platform, ready +for her quest. Her handsome black skirt was shaped to the most recent +proclamation of fashion. Her spotless shirt-waist gladdened the eye in +that desert of sunshine, a swelling oasis, cool and fresh. A man's +split-straw hat sat firmly on her coiled, abundant hair. Beneath her +serene, round, impudent chin a man's four-in-hand tie was jauntily +knotted about a man's high, stiff collar. A parasol she carried, of +white silk, and its fringe was lace, yellowly genuine. + +I will grant Gallipolis as to her costume, but firmly to Seville or +Valladolid I am held by her eyes; castanets, balconies, mantillas, +serenades, ambuscades, escapades--all these their dark depths +guaranteed. + +"Ain't you afraid to go out alone, Alviry?" queried the Queen-mother +anxiously. "There's so many rough people about. Mebbe you'd better--" + +"I never saw anything I was afraid of yet, ma. 'Specially people. And +men in particular. Don't you fret. I'll trot along back as soon as I +find that runaway scamp." + +The dust lay thick upon the bare ground near the tracks. Alvarita's +eye soon discovered the serrated trail of the escaped python. It led +across the depot grounds and away down a smaller street in the +direction of the little canon, as predicted by her. A stillness and +lack of excitement in the neighbourhood encouraged the hope that, as +yet, the inhabitants were unaware that so formidable a guest traversed +their highways. The heat had driven them indoors, whence outdrifted +occasional shrill laughs, or the depressing whine of a maltreated +concertina. In the shade a few Mexican children, like vivified stolid +idols in clay, stared from their play, vision-struck and silent, as +Alvarita came and went. Here and there a woman peeped from a door and +stood dumb, reduced to silence by the aspect of the white silk +parasol. + +A hundred yards and the limits of the town were passed, scattered +chaparral succeeding, and then a noble grove, overflowing the bijou +canon. Through this a small bright stream meandered. Park-like it was, +with a kind of cockney ruralness further endorsed by the waste papers +and rifled tins of picnickers. Up this stream, and down it, among its +pseudo-sylvan glades and depressions, wandered the bright and +unruffled Alvarita. Once she saw evidence of the recreant reptile's +progress in his distinctive trail across a spread of fine sand in the +arroyo. The living water was bound to lure him; he could not be far +away. + +So sure was she of his immediate proximity that she perched herself to +idle for a time in the curve of a great creeper that looped down from +a giant water-elm. To reach this she climbed from the pathway a little +distance up the side of a steep and rugged incline. Around her +chaparral grew thick and high. A late-blooming ratama tree dispensed +from its yellow petals a sweet and persistent odour. Adown the ravine +rustled a seductive wind, melancholy with the taste of sodden, fallen +leaves. + +Alvarita removed her hat, and undoing the oppressive convolutions of +her hair, began to slowly arrange it in two long, dusky plaits. + +From the obscure depths of a thick clump of evergreen shrubs five feet +away, two small jewel-bright eyes were steadfastly regarding her. +Coiled there lay Kuku, the great python; Kuku, the magnificent, he of +the plated muzzle, the grooved lips, the eleven-foot stretch of +elegantly and brilliantly mottled skin. The great python was viewing +his mistress without a sound or motion to disclose his presence. +Perhaps the splendid truant forefelt his capture, but, screened by the +foliage, thought to prolong the delight of his escapade. What pleasure +it was, after the hot and dusty car, to lie thus, smelling the running +water, and feeling the agreeable roughness of the earth and stones +against his body! Soon, very soon the Queen would find him, and he, +powerless as a worm in her audacious hands, would be returned to the +dark chest in the narrow house that ran on wheels. + +Alvarita heard a sudden crunching of the gravel below her. Turning her +head she saw a big, swarthy Mexican, with a daring and evil +expression, contemplating her with an ominous, dull eye. + +"What do you want?" she asked as sharply as five hairpins between her +lips would permit, continuing to plait her hair, and looking him over +with placid contempt. The Mexican continued to gaze at her, and showed +his teeth in a white, jagged smile. + +"I no hurt-y you, Senorita," he said. + +"You bet you won't," answered the Queen, shaking back one finished, +massive plait. "But don't you think you'd better move on?" + +"Not hurt-y you--no. But maybeso take one /beso/--one li'l kees, you +call him." + +The man smiled again, and set his foot to ascend the slope. Alvarita +leaned swiftly and picked up a stone the size of a cocoanut. + +"Vamoose, quick," she ordered peremptorily, "you /coon/!" + +The red of insult burned through the Mexican's dark skin. + +"/Hidalgo, Yo/!" he shot between his fangs. "I am not neg-r-ro! +/Diabla bonita/, for that you shall pay me." + +He made two quick upward steps this time, but the stone, hurled by no +weak arm, struck him square in the chest. He staggered back to the +footway, swerved half around, and met another sight that drove all +thoughts of the girl from his head. She turned her eyes to see what +had diverted his interest. A man with red-brown, curling hair and a +melancholy, sunburned, smooth-shaven face was coming up the path, +twenty yards away. Around the Mexican's waist was buckled a pistol +belt with two empty holsters. He had laid aside his sixes--possibly in +the /jacal/ of the fair Pancha--and had forgotten them when the +passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail. His hands +now flew instinctively to the holsters, but finding the weapons gone, +he spread his fingers outward with the eloquent, abjuring, deprecating +Latin gesture, and stood like a rock. Seeing his plight, the newcomer +unbuckled his own belt containing two revolvers, threw it upon the +ground, and continued to advance. + +"Splendid!" murmured Alvarita, with flashing eyes. + +***** + +As Bob Buckley, according to the mad code of bravery that his +sensitive conscience imposed upon his cowardly nerves, abandoned his +guns and closed in upon his enemy, the old, inevitable nausea of +abject fear wrung him. His breath whistled through his constricted air +passages. His feet seemed like lumps of lead. His mouth was dry as +dust. His heart, congested with blood, hurt his ribs as it thumped +against them. The hot June day turned to moist November. And still he +advanced, spurred by a mandatory pride that strained its uttermost +against his weakling flesh. + +The distance between the two men slowly lessened. The Mexican stood, +immovable, waiting. When scarce five yards separated them a little +shower of loosened gravel rattled down from above to the ranger's +feet. He glanced upward with instinctive caution. A pair of dark eyes, +brilliantly soft, and fierily tender, encountered and held his own. +The most fearful heart and the boldest one in all the Rio Bravo +country exchanged a silent and inscrutable communication. Alvarita, +still seated within her vine, leaned forward above the breast-high +chaparral. One hand was laid across her bosom. One great dark braid +curved forward over her shoulder. Her lips were parted; her face was +lit with what seemed but wonder--great and absolute wonder. Her eyes +lingered upon Buckley's. Let no one ask or presume to tell through +what subtle medium the miracle was performed. As by a lightning flash +two clouds will accomplish counterpoise and compensation of electric +surcharge, so on that eyeglance the man received his complement of +manhood, and the maid conceded what enriched her womanly grace by its +loss. + +The Mexican, suddenly stirring, ventilated his attitude of apathetic +waiting by conjuring swiftly from his bootleg a long knife. Buckley +cast aside his hat, and laughed once aloud, like a happy school-boy at +a frolic. Then, empty-handed, he sprang nimbly, and Garcia met him +without default. + +So soon was the engagement ended that disappointment imposed upon the +ranger's warlike ecstasy. Instead of dealing the traditional downward +stroke, the Mexican lunged straight with his knife. Buckley took the +precarious chance, and caught his wrist, fair and firm. Then he +delivered the good Saxon knock-out blow--always so pathetically +disastrous to the fistless Latin races--and Garcia was down and out, +with his head under a clump of prickly pears. The ranger looked up +again to the Queen of the Serpents. + +Alvarita scrambled down to the path. + +"I'm mighty glad I happened along when I did," said the ranger. + +"He--he frightened me so!" cooed Alvarita. + +They did not hear the long, low hiss of the python under the shrubs. +Wiliest of the beasts, no doubt he was expressing the humiliation he +felt at having so long dwelt in subjection to this trembling and +colouring mistress of his whom he had deemed so strong and potent and +fearsome. + +Then came galloping to the spot the civic authorities; and to them the +ranger awarded the prostrate disturber of the peace, whom they bore +away limply across the saddle of one of their mounts. But Buckley and +Alvarita lingered. + +Slowly, slowly they walked. The ranger regained his belt of weapons. +With a fine timidity she begged the indulgence of fingering the great +.45's, with little "Ohs" and "Ahs" of new-born, delicious shyness. + +The /canoncito/ was growing dusky. Beyond its terminus in the river +bluff they could see the outer world yet suffused with the waning +glory of sunset. + +A scream--a piercing scream of fright from Alvarita. Back she cowered, +and the ready, protecting arm of Buckley formed her refuge. What +terror so dire as to thus beset the close of the reign of the never- +before-daunted Queen? + +Across the path there crawled a /caterpillar/--a horrid, fuzzy, two- +inch caterpillar! Truly, Kuku, thou went avenged. Thus abdicated the +Queen of the Serpent Tribe--/viva la reina/! + + + +IX + +THE HIGHER ABDICATION + +Curly the tramp sidled toward the free-lunch counter. He caught a +fleeting glance from the bartender's eye, and stood still, trying to +look like a business man who had just dined at the Menger and was +waiting for a friend who had promised to pick him up in his motor car. +Curly's histrionic powers were equal to the impersonation; but his +make-up was wanting. + +The bartender rounded the bar in a casual way, looking up at the +ceiling as though he was pondering some intricate problem of +kalsomining, and then fell upon Curly so suddenly that the roadster +had no excuses ready. Irresistibly, but so composedly that it seemed +almost absendmindedness on his part, the dispenser of drinks pushed +Curly to the swinging doors and kicked him out, with a nonchalance +that almost amounted to sadness. That was the way of the Southwest. + +Curly arose from the gutter leisurely. He felt no anger or resentment +toward his ejector. Fifteen years of tramphood spent out of the +twenty-two years of his life had hardened the fibres of his spirit. +The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune fell blunted from the +buckler of his armoured pride. With especial resignation did he suffer +contumely and injury at the hands of bartenders. Naturally, they were +his enemies; and unnaturally, they were often his friends. He had to +take his chances with them. But he had not yet learned to estimate +these cool, languid, Southwestern knights of the bungstarter, who had +the manners of an Earl of Pawtucket, and who, when they disapproved of +your presence, moved you with the silence and despatch of a chess +automaton advancing a pawn. + +Curly stood for a few moments in the narrow, mesquite-paved street. +San Antonio puzzled and disturbed him. Three days he had been a non- +paying guest of the town, having dropped off there from a box car of +an I. & G.N. freight, because Greaser Johnny had told him in Des +Moines that the Alamo City was manna fallen, gathered, cooked, and +served free with cream and sugar. Curly had found the tip partly a +good one. There was hospitality in plenty of a careless, liberal, +irregular sort. But the town itself was a weight upon his spirits +after his experience with the rushing, business-like, systematised +cities of the North and East. Here he was often flung a dollar, but +too frequently a good-natured kick would follow it. Once a band of +hilarious cowboys had roped him on Military Plaza and dragged him +across the black soil until no respectable rag-bag would have stood +sponsor for his clothes. The winding, doubling streets, leading +nowhere, bewildered him. And then there was a little river, crooked as +a pot-hook, that crawled through the middle of the town, crossed by a +hundred little bridges so nearly alike that they got on Curly's +nerves. And the last bartender wore a number nine shoe. + +The saloon stood on a corner. The hour was eight o'clock. Homefarers +and outgoers jostled Curly on the narrow stone sidewalk. Between the +buildings to his left he looked down a cleft that proclaimed itself +another thoroughfare. The alley was dark except for one patch of +light. Where there was light there were sure to be human beings. Where +there were human beings after nightfall in San Antonio there might be +food, and there was sure to be drink. So Curly headed for the light. + +The illumination came from Schwegel's Cafe. On the sidewalk in front +of it Curly picked up an old envelope. It might have contained a check +for a million. It was empty; but the wanderer read the address, "Mr. +Otto Schwegel," and the name of the town and State. The postmark was +Detroit. + +Curly entered the saloon. And now in the light it could be perceived +that he bore the stamp of many years of vagabondage. He had none of +the tidiness of the calculating and shrewd professional tramp. His +wardrobe represented the cast-off specimens of half a dozen fashions +and eras. Two factories had combined their efforts in providing shoes +for his feet. As you gazed at him there passed through your mind vague +impressions of mummies, wax figures, Russian exiles, and men lost on +desert islands. His face was covered almost to his eyes with a curly +brown beard that he kept trimmed short with a pocket-knife, and that +had furnished him with his /nom de route/. Light-blue eyes, full of +sullenness, fear, cunning, impudence, and fawning, witnessed the +stress that had been laid upon his soul. + +The saloon was small, and in its atmosphere the odours of meat and +drink struggled for the ascendancy. The pig and the cabbage wrestled +with hydrogen and oxygen. Behind the bar Schwegel laboured with an +assistant whose epidermal pores showed no signs of being obstructed. +Hot weinerwurst and sauerkraut were being served to purchasers of +beer. Curly shuffled to the end of the bar, coughed hollowly, and told +Schwegel that he was a Detroit cabinet-maker out of a job. + +It followed as the night the day that he got his schooner and lunch. + +"Was you acquainted maybe with Heinrich Strauss in Detroit?" asked +Schwegel. + +"Did I know Heinrich Strauss?" repeated Curly, affectionately. "Why, +say, 'Bo, I wish I had a dollar for every game of pinochle me and +Heine has played on Sunday afternoons." + +More beer and a second plate of steaming food was set before the +diplomat. And then Curly, knowing to a fluid-drachm how far a "con" +game would go, shuffled out into the unpromising street. + +And now he began to perceive the inconveniences of this stony Southern +town. There was none of the outdoor gaiety and brilliancy and music +that provided distraction even to the poorest in the cities of the +North. Here, even so early, the gloomy, rock-walled houses were closed +and barred against the murky dampness of the night. The streets were +mere fissures through which flowed grey wreaths of river mist. As he +walked he heard laughter and the chink of coin and chips behind +darkened windows, and music coming from every chink of wood and stone. +But the diversions were selfish; the day of popular pastimes had not +yet come to San Antonio. + +But at length Curly, as he strayed, turned the sharp angle of another +lost street and came upon a rollicking band of stockmen from the +outlying ranches celebrating in the open in front of an ancient wooden +hotel. One great roisterer from the sheep country who had just +instigated a movement toward the bar, swept Curly in like a stray goat +with the rest of his flock. The princes of kine and wool hailed him as +a new zoological discovery, and uproariously strove to preserve him in +the diluted alcohol of their compliments and regards. + +An hour afterward Curly staggered from the hotel barroom dismissed by +his fickle friends, whose interest in him had subsided as quickly as +it had risen. Full--stoked with alcoholic fuel and cargoed with food, +the only question remaining to disturb him was that of shelter and +bed. + +A drizzling, cold Texas rain had begun to fall--an endless, lazy, +unintermittent downfall that lowered the spirits of men and raised a +reluctant steam from the warm stones of the streets and houses. Thus +comes the "norther" dousing gentle spring and amiable autumn with the +chilling salutes and adieux of coming and departing winter. + +Curly followed his nose down the first tortuous street into which his +irresponsible feet conducted him. At the lower end of it, on the bank +of the serpentine stream, he perceived an open gate in a cemented rock +wall. Inside he saw camp fires and a row of low wooden sheds built +against three sides of the enclosing wall. He entered the enclosure. +Under the sheds many horses were champing at their oats and corn. Many +wagons and buckboards stood about with their teams' harness thrown +carelessly upon the shafts and doubletrees. Curly recognised the place +as a wagon-yard, such as is provided by merchants for their out-of- +town friends and customers. No one was in sight. No doubt the drivers +of those wagons were scattered about the town "seeing the elephant and +hearing the owl." In their haste to become patrons of the town's +dispensaries of mirth and good cheer the last ones to depart must have +left the great wooden gate swinging open. + +Curly had satisfied the hunger of an anaconda and the thirst of a +camel, so he was neither in the mood nor the condition of an explorer. +He zigzagged his way to the first wagon that his eyesight +distinguished in the semi-darkness under the shed. It was a two-horse +wagon with a top of white canvas. The wagon was half filled with loose +piles of wool sacks, two or three great bundles of grey blankets, and +a number of bales, bundles, and boxes. A reasoning eye would have +estimated the load at once as ranch supplies, bound on the morrow for +some outlying hacienda. But to the drowsy intelligence of Curly they +represented only warmth and softness and protection against the cold +humidity of the night. After several unlucky efforts, at last he +conquered gravity so far as to climb over a wheel and pitch forward +upon the best and warmest bed he had fallen upon in many a day. Then +he became instinctively a burrowing animal, and dug his way like a +prairie-dog down among the sacks and blankets, hiding himself from the +cold air as snug and safe as a bear in his den. For three nights sleep +had visited Curly only in broken and shivering doses. So now, when +Morpheus condescended to pay him a call, Curly got such a strangle +hold on the mythological old gentleman that it was a wonder that +anyone else in the whole world got a wink of sleep that night. + +***** + +Six cowpunchers of the Cibolo Ranch were waiting around the door of +the ranch store. Their ponies cropped grass near by, tied in the Texas +fashion--which is not tied at all. Their bridle reins had been dropped +to the earth, which is a more effectual way of securing them (such is +the power of habit and imagination) than you could devise out of a +half-inch rope and a live-oak tree. + +These guardians of the cow lounged about, each with a brown cigarette +paper in his hand, and gently but unceasingly cursed Sam Revell, the +storekeeper. Sam stood in the door, snapping the red elastic bands on +his pink madras shirtsleeves and looking down affectionately at the +only pair of tan shoes within a forty-mile radius. His offence had +been serious, and he was divided between humble apology and admiration +for the beauty of his raiment. He had allowed the ranch stock of +"smoking" to become exhausted. + +"I thought sure there was another case of it under the counter, boys," +he explained. "But it happened to be catterdges." + +"You've sure got a case of happenedicitis," said Poky Rodgers, fency +rider of the Largo Verde /potrero/. "Somebody ought to happen to give +you a knock on the head with the butt end of a quirt. I've rode in +nine miles for some tobacco; and it don't appear natural and seemly +that you ought to be allowed to live." + +"The boys was smokin' cut plug and dried mesquite leaves mixed when I +left," sighed Mustang Taylor, horse wrangler of the Three Elm camp. +"They'll be lookin' for me back by nine. They'll be settin' up, with +their papers ready to roll a whiff of the real thing before bedtime. +And I've got to tell 'em that this pink-eyed, sheep-headed, sulphur- +footed, shirt-waisted son of a calico broncho, Sam Revell, hasn't got +no tobacco on hand." + +Gregorio Falcon, Mexican vaquero and best thrower of the rope on the +Cibolo, pushed his heavy, silver-embroidered straw sombrero back upon +his thicket of jet black curls, and scraped the bottoms of his pockets +for a few crumbs of the precious weed. + +"Ah, Don Samuel," he said, reproachfully, but with his touch of +Castilian manners, "escuse me. Dthey say dthe jackrabbeet and dthe +sheep have dthe most leetle /sesos/--how you call dthem--brain-es? Ah +don't believe dthat, Don Samuel--escuse me. Ah dthink people w'at +don't keep esmokin' tobacco, dthey--bot you weel escuse me, Don +Samuel." + +"Now, what's the use of chewin' the rag, boys," said the untroubled +Sam, stooping over to rub the toes of his shoes with a red-and-yellow +handkerchief. "Ranse took the order for some more smokin' to San +Antone with him Tuesday. Pancho rode Ranse's hoss back yesterday; and +Ranse is goin' to drive the wagon back himself. There wa'n't much of a +load--just some woolsacks and blankets and nails and canned peaches +and a few things we was out of. I look for Ranse to roll in to-day +sure. He's an early starter and a hell-to-split driver, and he ought +to be here not far from sundown." + +"What plugs is he drivin'?" asked Mustang Taylor, with a smack of hope +in his tones. + +"The buckboard greys," said Sam. + +"I'll wait a spell, then," said the wrangler. "Them plugs eat up a +trail like a road-runner swallowin' a whip snake. And you may bust me +open a can of greengage plums, Sam, while I'm waitin' for somethin' +better." + +"Open me some yellow clings," ordered Poky Rodgers. "I'll wait, too." + +The tobaccoless punchers arranged themselves comfortably on the steps +of the store. Inside Sam chopped open with a hatchet the tops of the +cans of fruit. + +The store, a big, white wooden building like a barn, stood fifty yards +from the ranch-house. Beyond it were the horse corrals; and still +farther the wool sheds and the brush-topped shearing pens--for the +Rancho Cibolo raised both cattle and sheep. Behind the store, at a +little distance, were the grass-thatched /jacals/ of the Mexicans who +bestowed their allegiance upon the Cibolo. + +The ranch-house was composed of four large rooms, with plastered adobe +walls, and a two-room wooden ell. A twenty-feet-wide "gallery" +circumvented the structure. It was set in a grove of immense live-oaks +and water-elms near a lake--a long, not very wide, and tremendously +deep lake in which at nightfall, great gars leaped to the surface and +plunged with the noise of hippopotamuses frolicking at their bath. +From the trees hung garlands and massive pendants of the melancholy +grey moss of the South. Indeed, the Cibolo ranch-house seemed more of +the South than of the West. It looked as if old "Kiowa" Truesdell +might have brought it with him from the lowlands of Mississippi when +he came to Texas with his rifle in the hollow of his arm in '55. + +But, though he did not bring the family mansion, Truesdell did bring +something in the way of a family inheritance that was more lasting +than brick or stone. He brought one end of the Truesdell-Curtis family +feud. And when a Curtis bought the Rancho de los Olmos, sixteen miles +from the Cibolo, there were lively times on the pear flats and in the +chaparral thickets off the Southwest. In those days Truesdell cleaned +the brush of many a wolf and tiger cat and Mexican lion; and one or +two Curtises fell heirs to notches on his rifle stock. Also he buried +a brother with a Curtis bullet in him on the bank of the lake at +Cibolo. And then the Kiowa Indians made their last raid upon the +ranches between the Frio and the Rio Grande, and Truesdell at the head +of his rangers rid the earth of them to the last brave, earning his +sobriquet. Then came prosperity in the form of waxing herds and +broadening lands. And then old age and bitterness, when he sat, with +his great mane of hair as white as the Spanish-dagger blossoms and his +fierce, pale-blue eyes, on the shaded gallery at Cibolo, growling like +the pumas that he had slain. He snapped his fingers at old age; the +bitter taste to life did not come from that. The cup that stuck at his +lips was that his only son Ransom wanted to marry a Curtis, the last +youthful survivor of the other end of the feud. + +***** + +For a while the only sounds to be heard at the store were the rattling +of the tin spoons and the gurgling intake of the juicy fruits by the +cowpunchers, the stamping of the grazing ponies, and the singing of a +doleful song by Sam as he contentedly brushed his stiff auburn hair +for the twentieth time that day before a crinkly mirror. + +From the door of the store could be seen the irregular, sloping +stretch of prairie to the south, with its reaches of light-green, +billowy mesquite flats in the lower places, and its rises crowned with +nearly black masses of short chaparral. Through the mesquite flat +wound the ranch road that, five miles away, flowed into the old +government trail to San Antonio. The sun was so low that the gentlest +elevation cast its grey shadow miles into the green-gold sea of +sunshine. + +That evening ears were quicker than eyes. + +The Mexican held up a tawny finger to still the scraping of tin +against tin. + +"One waggeen," said he, "cross dthe Arroyo Hondo. Ah hear dthe wheel. +Verree rockee place, dthe Hondo." + +"You've got good ears, Gregorio," said Mustang Taylor. "I never heard +nothin' but the song-bird in the bush and the zephyr skallyhootin' +across the peaceful dell." + +In ten minutes Taylor remarked: "I see the dust of a wagon risin' +right above the fur end of the flat." + +"You have verree good eyes, senor," said Gregorio, smiling. + +Two miles away they saw a faint cloud dimming the green ripples of the +mesquites. In twenty minutes they heard the clatter of the horses' +hoofs: in five minutes more the grey plugs dashed out of the thicket, +whickering for oats and drawing the light wagon behind them like a +toy. + +From the /jacals/ came a cry of: "El Amo! El Amo!" Four Mexican youths +raced to unharness the greys. The cowpunchers gave a yell of greeting +and delight. + +Ranse Truesdell, driving, threw the reins to the ground and laughed. + +"It's under the wagon sheet, boys," he said. "I know what you're +waiting for. If Sam lets it run out again we'll use those yellow shoes +of his for a target. There's two cases. Pull 'em out and light up. I +know you all want a smoke." + +After striking dry country Ranse had removed the wagon sheet from the +bows and thrown it over the goods in the wagon. Six pair of hasty +hands dragged it off and grabbled beneath the sacks and blankets for +the cases of tobacco. + +Long Collins, tobacco messenger from the San Gabriel outfit, who rode +with the longest stirrups west of the Mississippi, delved with an arm +like the tongue of a wagon. He caught something harder than a blanket +and pulled out a fearful thing--a shapeless, muddy bunch of leather +tied together with wire and twine. From its ragged end, like the head +and claws of a disturbed turtle, protruded human toes. + +"Who-ee!" yelled Long Collins. "Ranse, are you a-packin' around of +corpuses? Here's a--howlin' grasshoppers!" + +Up from his long slumber popped Curly, like some vile worm from its +burrow. He clawed his way out and sat blinking like a disreputable, +drunken owl. His face was as bluish-red and puffed and seamed and +cross-lined as the cheapest round steak of the butcher. His eyes were +swollen slits; his nose a pickled beet; his hair would have made the +wildest thatch of a Jack-in-the-box look like the satin poll of a Cleo +de Merode. The rest of him was scarecrow done to the life. + +Ranse jumped down from his seat and looked at his strange cargo with +wide-open eyes. + +"Here, you maverick, what are you doing in my wagon? How did you get +in there?" + +The punchers gathered around in delight. For the time they had +forgotten tobacco. + +Curly looked around him slowly in every direction. He snarled like a +Scotch terrier through his ragged beard. + +"Where is this?" he rasped through his parched throat. "It's a damn +farm in an old field. What'd you bring me here for--say? Did I say I +wanted to come here? What are you Reubs rubberin' at--hey? G'wan or +I'll punch some of yer faces." + +"Drag him out, Collins," said Ranse. + +Curly took a slide and felt the ground rise up and collide with his +shoulder blades. He got up and sat on the steps of the store shivering +from outraged nerves, hugging his knees and sneering. Taylor lifted +out a case of tobacco and wrenched off its top. Six cigarettes began +to glow, bringing peace and forgiveness to Sam. + +"How'd you come in my wagon?" repeated Ranse, this time in a voice +that drew a reply. + +Curly recognised the tone. He had heard it used by freight brakemen +and large persons in blue carrying clubs. + +"Me?" he growled. "Oh, was you talkin' to me? Why, I was on my way to +the Menger, but my valet had forgot to pack my pyjamas. So I crawled +into that wagon in the wagon-yard--see? I never told you to bring me +out to this bloomin' farm--see?" + +"What is it, Mustang?" asked Poky Rodgers, almost forgetting to smoke +in his ecstasy. "What do it live on?" + +"It's a galliwampus, Poky," said Mustang. "It's the thing that hollers +'willi-walloo' up in ellum trees in the low grounds of nights. I don't +know if it bites." + +"No, it ain't, Mustang," volunteered Long Collins. "Them galliwampuses +has fins on their backs, and eighteen toes. This here is a +hicklesnifter. It lives under the ground and eats cherries. Don't +stand so close to it. It wipes out villages with one stroke of its +prehensile tail." + +Sam, the cosmopolite, who called bartenders in San Antone by their +first name, stood in the door. He was a better zoologist. + +"Well, ain't that a Willie for your whiskers?" he commented. "Where'd +you dig up the hobo, Ranse? Goin' to make an auditorium for +inbreviates out of the ranch?" + +"Say," said Curly, from whose panoplied breast all shafts of wit fell +blunted. "Any of you kiddin' guys got a drink on you? Have your fun. +Say, I've been hittin' the stuff till I don't know straight up." + +He turned to Ranse. "Say, you shanghaied me on your d--d old prairie +schooner--did I tell you to drive me to a farm? I want a drink. I'm +goin' all to little pieces. What's doin'?" + +Ranse saw that the tramp's nerves were racking him. He despatched one +of the Mexican boys to the ranch-house for a glass of whisky. Curly +gulped it down; and into his eyes came a brief, grateful glow--as +human as the expression in the eye of a faithful setter dog. + +"Thanky, boss," he said, quietly. + +"You're thirty miles from a railroad, and forty miles from a saloon," +said Ranse. + +Curly fell back weakly against the steps. + +"Since you are here," continued the ranchman, "come along with me. We +can't turn you out on the prairie. A rabbit might tear you to pieces." + +He conducted Curly to a large shed where the ranch vehicles were kept. +There he spread out a canvas cot and brought blankets. + +"I don't suppose you can sleep," said Ranse, "since you've been +pounding your ear for twenty-four hours. But you can camp here till +morning. I'll have Pedro fetch you up some grub." + +"Sleep!" said Curly. "I can sleep a week. Say, sport, have you got a +coffin nail on you?" + +***** + +Fifty miles had Ransom Truesdell driven that day. And yet this is what +he did. + +Old "Kiowa" Truesdell sat in his great wicker chair reading by the +light of an immense oil lamp. Ranse laid a bundle of newspapers fresh +from town at his elbow. + +"Back, Ranse?" said the old man, looking up. + +"Son," old "Kiowa" continued, "I've been thinking all day about a +certain matter that we have talked about. I want you to tell me again. +I've lived for you. I've fought wolves and Indians and worse white men +to protect you. You never had any mother that you can remember. I've +taught you to shoot straight, ride hard, and live clean. Later on I've +worked to pile up dollars that'll be yours. You'll be a rich man, +Ranse, when my chunk goes out. I've made you. I've licked you into +shape like a leopard cat licks its cubs. You don't belong to yourself +--you've got to be a Truesdell first. Now, is there to be any more +nonsense about this Curtis girl?" + +"I'll tell you once more," said Ranse, slowly. "As I am a Truesdell +and as you are my father, I'll never marry a Curtis." + +"Good boy," said old "Kiowa." "You'd better go get some supper." + +Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Pedro, the Mexican +cook, sprang up to bring the food he was keeping warm in the stove. + +"Just a cup of coffee, Pedro," he said, and drank it standing. And +then: + +"There's a tramp on a cot in the wagon-shed. Take him something to +eat. Better make it enough for two." + +Ranse walked out toward the /jacals/. A boy came running. + +"Manuel, can you catch Vaminos, in the little pasture, for me?" + +"Why not, senor? I saw him near the /puerta/ but two hours past. He +bears a drag-rope." + +"Get him and saddle him as quick as you can." + +"/Prontito, senor/." + +Soon, mounted on Vaminos, Ranse leaned in the saddle, pressed with his +knees, and galloped eastward past the store, where sat Sam trying his +guitar in the moonlight. + +Vaminos shall have a word--Vaminos the good dun horse. The Mexicans, +who have a hundred names for the colours of a horse, called him +/gruyo/. He was a mouse-coloured, slate-coloured, flea-bitten roan- +dun, if you can conceive it. Down his back from his mane to his tail +went a line of black. He would live forever; and surveyors have not +laid off as many miles in the world as he could travel in a day. + +Eight miles east of the Cibolo ranch-house Ranse loosened the pressure +of his knees, and Vaminos stopped under a big ratama tree. The yellow +ratama blossoms showered fragrance that would have undone the roses of +France. The moon made the earth a great concave bowl with a crystal +sky for a lid. In a glade five jack-rabbits leaped and played together +like kittens. Eight miles farther east shone a faint star that +appeared to have dropped below the horizon. Night riders, who often +steered their course by it, knew it to be the light in the Rancho de +los Olmos. + +In ten minutes Yenna Curtis galloped to the tree on her sorrel pony +Dancer. The two leaned and clasped hands heartily. + +"I ought to have ridden nearer your home," said Ranse. "But you never +will let me." + +Yenna laughed. And in the soft light you could see her strong white +teeth and fearless eyes. No sentimentality there, in spite of the +moonlight, the odour of the ratamas, and the admirable figure of Ranse +Truesdell, the lover. But she was there, eight miles from her home, to +meet him. + +"How often have I told you, Ranse," she said, "that I am your half-way +girl? Always half-way." + +"Well?" said Ranse, with a question in his tones. + +"I did," said Yenna, with almost a sigh. "I told him after dinner when +I thought he would be in a good humour. Did you ever wake up a lion, +Ranse, with the mistaken idea that he would be a kitten? He almost +tore the ranch to pieces. It's all up. I love my daddy, Ranse, and I'm +afraid--I'm afraid of him too. He ordered me to promise that I'd never +marry a Truesdell. I promised. That's all. What luck did you have?" + +"The same," said Ranse, slowly. "I promised him that his son would +never marry a Curtis. Somehow I couldn't go against him. He's mighty +old. I'm sorry, Yenna." + +The girl leaned in her saddle and laid one hand on Ranse's, on the +horn of his saddle. + +"I never thought I'd like you better for giving me up," she said +ardently, "but I do. I must ride back now, Ranse. I slipped out of the +house and saddled Dancer myself. Good-night, neighbour." + +"Good-night," said Ranse. "Ride carefully over them badger holes." + +They wheeled and rode away in opposite directions. Yenna turned in her +saddle and called clearly: + +"Don't forget I'm your half-way girl, Ranse." + +"Damn all family feuds and inherited scraps," muttered Ranse +vindictively to the breeze as he rode back to the Cibolo. + +Ranse turned his horse into the small pasture and went to his own +room. He opened the lowest drawer of an old bureau to get out the +packet of letters that Yenna had written him one summer when she had +gone to Mississippi for a visit. The drawer stuck, and he yanked at it +savagely--as a man will. It came out of the bureau, and bruised both +his shins--as a drawer will. An old, folded yellow letter without an +envelope fell from somewhere--probably from where it had lodged in one +of the upper drawers. Ranse took it to the lamp and read it curiously. + +Then he took his hat and walked to one of the Mexican /jacals/. + +"Tia Juana," he said, "I would like to talk with you a while." + +An old, old Mexican woman, white-haired and wonderfully wrinkled, rose +from a stool. + +"Sit down," said Ranse, removing his hat and taking the one chair in +the /jacal/. "Who am I, Tia Juana?" he asked, speaking Spanish. + +"Don Ransom, our good friend and employer. Why do you ask?" answered +the old woman wonderingly. + +"Tia Juana, who am I?" he repeated, with his stern eyes looking into +hers. + +A frightened look came in the old woman's face. She fumbled with her +black shawl. + +"Who am I, Tia Juana?" said Ranse once more. + +"Thirty-two years I have lived on the Rancho Cibolo," said Tia Juana. +"I thought to be buried under the coma mott beyond the garden before +these things should be known. Close the door, Don Ransom, and I will +speak. I see in your face that you know." + +An hour Ranse spent behind Tia Juana's closed door. As he was on his +way back to the house Curly called to him from the wagon-shed. + +The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his feet and smoking. + +"Say, sport," he grumbled. "This is no way to treat a man after +kidnappin' him. I went up to the store and borrowed a razor from that +fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain't all a man needs. Say--can't +you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze? I never +asked you to bring me to your d--d farm." + +"Stand up out here in the light," said Ranse, looking at him closely. + +Curly got up sullenly and took a step or two. + +His face, now shaven smooth, seemed transformed. His hair had been +combed, and it fell back from the right side of his forehead with a +peculiar wave. The moonlight charitably softened the ravages of drink; +and his aquiline, well-shaped nose and small, square cleft chin almost +gave distinction to his looks. + +Ranse sat on the foot of the cot and looked at him curiously. + +"Where did you come from--have you got any home or folks anywhere?" + +"Me? Why, I'm a dook," said Curly. "I'm Sir Reginald--oh, cheese it. +No; I don't know anything about my ancestors. I've been a tramp ever +since I can remember. Say, old pal, are you going to set 'em up again +to-night or not?" + +"You answer my questions and maybe I will. How did you come to be a +tramp?" + +"Me?" answered Curly. "Why, I adopted that profession when I was an +infant. Case of had to. First thing I can remember, I belonged to a +big, lazy hobo called Beefsteak Charley. He sent me around to houses +to beg. I wasn't hardly big enough to reach the latch of a gate." + +"Did he ever tell you how he got you?" asked Ranse. + +"Once when he was sober he said he bought me for an old six-shooter +and six bits from a band of drunken Mexican sheep-shearers. But what's +the diff? That's all I know." + +"All right," said Ranse. "I reckon you're a maverick for certain. I'm +going to put the Rancho Cibolo brand on you. I'll start you to work in +one of the camps to-morrow." + +"Work!" sniffed Curly, disdainfully. "What do you take me for? Do you +think I'd chase cows, and hop-skip-and-jump around after crazy sheep +like that pink and yellow guy at the store says these Reubs do? Forget +it." + +"Oh, you'll like it when you get used to it," said Ranse. "Yes, I'll +send you up one more drink by Pedro. I think you'll make a first-class +cowpuncher before I get through with you." + +"Me?" said Curly. "I pity the cows you set me to chaperon. They can go +chase themselves. Don't forget my nightcap, please, boss." + +Ranse paid a visit to the store before going to the house. Sam Rivell +was taking off his tan shoes regretting and preparing for bed. + +"Any of the boys from the San Gabriel camp riding in early in the +morning?" asked Ranse. + +"Long Collins," said Sam briefly. "For the mail." + +"Tell him," said Ranse, "to take that tramp out to camp with him and +keep him till I get there." + +Curly was sitting on his blankets in the San Gabriel camp cursing +talentedly when Ranse Truesdell rode up and dismounted on the next +afternoon. The cowpunchers were ignoring the stray. He was grimy with +dust and black dirt. His clothes were making their last stand in +favour of the conventions. + +Ranse went up to Buck Rabb, the camp boss, and spoke briefly. + +"He's a plumb buzzard," said Buck. "He won't work, and he's the low- +downest passel of inhumanity I ever see. I didn't know what you wanted +done with him, Ranse, so I just let him set. That seems to suit him. +He's been condemned to death by the boys a dozen times, but I told 'em +maybe you was savin' him for the torture." + +Ranse took off his coat. + +"I've got a hard job before me, Buck, I reckon, but it has to be done. +I've got to make a man out of that thing. That's what I've come to +camp for." + +He went up to Curly. + +"Brother," he said, "don't you think if you had a bath it would allow +you to take a seat in the company of your fellow-man with less +injustice to the atmosphere." + +"Run away, farmer," said Curly, sardonically. "Willie will send for +nursey when he feels like having his tub." + +The /charco/, or water hole, was twelve yards away. Ranse took one of +Curly's ankles and dragged him like a sack of potatoes to the brink. +Then with the strength and sleight of a hammer-throw he hurled the +offending member of society far into the lake. + +Curly crawled out and up the bank spluttering like a porpoise. + +Ranse met him with a piece of soap and a coarse towel in his hands. + +"Go to the other end of the lake and use this," he said. "Buck will +give you some dry clothes at the wagon." + +The tramp obeyed without protest. By the time supper was ready he had +returned to camp. He was hardly to be recognised in his new shirt and +brown duck clothes. Ranse observed him out of the corner of his eye. + +"Lordy, I hope he ain't a coward," he was saying to himself. "I hope +he won't turn out to be a coward." + +His doubts were soon allayed. Curly walked straight to where he stood. +His light-blue eyes were blazing. + +"Now I'm clean," he said meaningly, "maybe you'll talk to me. Think +you've got a picnic here, do you? You clodhoppers think you can run +over a man because you know he can't get away. All right. Now, what do +you think of that?" + +Curly planted a stinging slap against Ranse's left cheek. The print of +his hand stood out a dull red against the tan. + +Ranse smiled happily. + +The cowpunchers talk to this day of the battle that followed. + +Somewhere in his restless tour of the cities Curly had acquired the +art of self-defence. The ranchman was equipped only with the splendid +strength and equilibrium of perfect health and the endurance conferred +by decent living. The two attributes nearly matched. There were no +formal rounds. At last the fibre of the clean liver prevailed. The +last time Curly went down from one of the ranchman's awkward but +powerful blows he remained on the grass, but looking up with an +unquenched eye. + +Ranse went to the water barrel and washed the red from a cut on his +chin in the stream from the faucet. + +On his face was a grin of satisfaction. + +Much benefit might accrue to educators and moralists if they could +know the details of the curriculum of reclamation through which Ranse +put his waif during the month that he spent in the San Gabriel camp. +The ranchman had no fine theories to work out--perhaps his whole stock +of pedagogy embraced only a knowledge of horse-breaking and a belief +in heredity. + +The cowpunchers saw that their boss was trying to make a man out of +the strange animal that he had sent among them; and they tacitly +organised themselves into a faculty of assistants. But their system +was their own. + +Curly's first lesson stuck. He became on friendly and then on intimate +terms with soap and water. And the thing that pleased Ranse most was +that his "subject" held his ground at each successive higher step. But +the steps were sometimes far apart. + +Once he got at the quart bottle of whisky kept sacredly in the grub +tent for rattlesnake bites, and spent sixteen hours on the grass, +magnificently drunk. But when he staggered to his feet his first move +was to find his soap and towel and start for the /charco/. And once, +when a treat came from the ranch in the form of a basket of fresh +tomatoes and young onions, Curly devoured the entire consignment +before the punchers reached the camp at supper time. + +And then the punchers punished him in their own way. For three days +they did not speak to him, except to reply to his own questions or +remarks. And they spoke with absolute and unfailing politeness. They +played tricks on one another; they pounded one another hurtfully and +affectionately; they heaped upon one another's heads friendly curses +and obloquy; but they were polite to Curly. He saw it, and it stung +him as much as Ranse hoped it would. + +Then came a night that brought a cold, wet norther. Wilson, the +youngest of the outfit, had lain in camp two days, ill with fever. +When Joe got up at daylight to begin breakfast he found Curly sitting +asleep against a wheel of the grub wagon with only a saddle blanket +around him, while Curly's blankets were stretched over Wilson to +protect him from the rain and wind. + +Three nights after that Curly rolled himself in his blanket and went +to sleep. Then the other punchers rose up softly and began to make +preparations. Ranse saw Long Collins tie a rope to the horn of a +saddle. Others were getting out their six-shooters. + +"Boys," said Ranse, "I'm much obliged. I was hoping you would. But I +didn't like to ask." + +Half a dozen six-shooters began to pop--awful yells rent the air--Long +Collins galloped wildly across Curly's bed, dragging the saddle after +him. That was merely their way of gently awaking their victim. Then +they hazed him for an hour, carefully and ridiculously, after the code +of cow camps. Whenever he uttered protest they held him stretched over +a roll of blankets and thrashed him woefully with a pair of leather +leggings. + +And all this meant that Curly had won his spurs, that he was receiving +the puncher's accolade. Nevermore would they be polite to him. But he +would be their "pardner" and stirrup-brother, foot to foot. + +When the fooling was ended all hands made a raid on Joe's big coffee- +pot by the fire for a Java nightcap. Ranse watched the new knight +carefully to see if he understood and was worthy. Curly limped with +his cup of coffee to a log and sat upon it. Long Collins followed and +sat by his side. Buck Rabb went and sat at the other. Curly--grinned. + +And then Ranse furnished Curly with mounts and saddle and equipment, +and turned him over to Buck Rabb, instructing him to finish the job. + +Three weeks later Ranse rode from the ranch into Rabb's camp, which +was then in Snake Valley. The boys were saddling for the day's ride. +He sought out Long Collins among them. + +"How about that bronco?" he asked. + +Long Collins grinned. + +"Reach out your hand, Ranse Truesdell," he said, "and you'll touch +him. And you can shake his'n, too, if you like, for he's plumb white +and there's none better in no camp." + +Ranse looked again at the clear-faced, bronzed, smiling cowpuncher who +stood at Collins's side. Could that be Curly? He held out his hand, +and Curly grasped it with the muscles of a bronco-buster. + +"I want you at the ranch," said Ranse. + +"All right, sport," said Curly, heartily. "But I want to come back +again. Say, pal, this is a dandy farm. And I don't want any better fun +than hustlin' cows with this bunch of guys. They're all to the merry- +merry." + +At the Cibolo ranch-house they dismounted. Ranse bade Curly wait at +the door of the living room. He walked inside. Old "Kiowa" Truesdell +was reading at a table. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Truesdell," said Ranse. + +The old man turned his white head quickly. + +"How is this?" he began. "Why do you call me 'Mr.--'?" + +When he looked at Ranse's face he stopped, and the hand that held his +newspaper shook slightly. + +"Boy," he said slowly, "how did you find it out?" + +"It's all right," said Ranse, with a smile. "I made Tia Juana tell me. +It was kind of by accident, but it's all right." + +"You've been like a son to me," said old "Kiowa," trembling. + +"Tia Juana told me all about it," said Ranse. "She told me how you +adopted me when I was knee-high to a puddle duck out of a wagon train +of prospectors that was bound West. And she told me how the kid--your +own kid, you know--got lost or was run away with. And she said it was +the same day that the sheep-shearers got on a bender and left the +ranch." + +"Our boy strayed from the house when he was two years old," said the +old man. "And then along came those emigrant wagons with a youngster +they didn't want; and we took you. I never intended you to know, +Ranse. We never heard of our boy again." + +"He's right outside, unless I'm mighty mistaken," said Ranse, opening +the door and beckoning. + +Curly walked in. + +No one could have doubted. The old man and the young had the same +sweep of hair, the same nose, chin, line of face, and prominent light- +blue eyes. + +Old "Kiowa" rose eagerly. + +Curly looked about the room curiously. A puzzled expression came over +his face. He pointed to the wall opposite. + +"Where's the tick-tock?" he asked, absent-mindedly. + +"The clock," cried old "Kiowa" loudly. "The eight-day clock used to +stand there. Why--" + +He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there. + +Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was +bearing him eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards +the Rancho de los Olmos. + + + +X + +CUPID A LA CARTE + +"The dispositions of woman," said Jeff Peters, after various opinions +on the subject had been advanced, "run, regular, to diversions. What a +woman wants is what you're out of. She wants more of a thing when it's +scarce. She likes to have souvenirs of things that never happened. She +likes to be reminded of things she never heard of. A one-sided view of +objects is disjointing to the female composition. + +"'Tis a misfortune of mine, begotten by nature and travel," continued +Jeff, looking thoughtfully between his elevated feet at the grocery +stove, "to look deeper into some subjects than most people do. I've +breathed gasoline smoke talking to street crowds in nearly every town +in the United States. I've held 'em spellbound with music, oratory, +sleight of hand, and prevarications, while I've sold 'em jewelry, +medicine, soap, hair tonic, and junk of other nominations. And during +my travels, as a matter of recreation and expiation, I've taken +cognisance some of women. It takes a man a lifetime to find out about +one particular woman; but if he puts in, say, ten years, industrious +and curious, he can acquire the general rudiments of the sex. One +lesson I picked up was when I was working the West with a line of +Brazilian diamonds and a patent fire kindler just after my trip from +Savannah down through the cotton belt with Dalby's Anti-explosive Lamp +Oil Powder. 'Twas when the Oklahoma country was in first bloom. +Guthrie was rising in the middle of it like a lump of self-raising +dough. It was a boom town of the regular kind--you stood in line to +get a chance to wash your face; if you ate over ten minutes you had a +lodging bill added on; if you slept on a plank at night they charged +it to you as board the next morning. + +"By nature and doctrines I am addicted to the habit of discovering +choice places wherein to feed. So I looked around and found a +proposition that exactly cut the mustard. I found a restaurant tent +just opened up by an outfit that had drifted in on the tail of the +boom. They had knocked together a box house, where they lived and did +the cooking, and served the meals in a tent pitched against the side. +That tent was joyful with placards on it calculated to redeem the +world-worn pilgrim from the sinfulness of boarding houses and pick-me- +up hotels. 'Try Mother's Home-Made Biscuits,' 'What's the Matter with +Our Apple Dumplings and Hard Sauce?' 'Hot Cakes and Maple Syrup Like +You Ate When a Boy,' 'Our Fried Chicken Never Was Heard to Crow'-- +there was literature doomed to please the digestions of man! I said to +myself that mother's wandering boy should munch there that night. And +so it came to pass. And there is where I contracted my case of Mame +Dugan. + +"Old Man Dugan was six feet by one of Indiana loafer, and he spent his +time sitting on his shoulder blades in a rocking-chair in the shanty +memorialising the great corn-crop failure of '96. Ma Dugan did the +cooking, and Mame waited on the table. + +"As soon as I saw Mame I knew there was a mistake in the census +reports. There wasn't but one girl in the United States. When you come +to specifications it isn't easy. She was about the size of an angel, +and she had eyes, and ways about her. When you come to the kind of a +girl she was, you'll find a belt of 'em reaching from the Brooklyn +Bridge west as far as the courthouse in Council Bluffs, Ia. They earn +their own living in stores, restaurants, factories, and offices. +They're chummy and honest and free and tender and sassy, and they look +life straight in the eye. They've met man face to face, and discovered +that he's a poor creature. They've dropped to it that the reports in +the Seaside Library about his being a fairy prince lack confirmation. + +"Mame was that sort. She was full of life and fun, and breezy; she +passed the repartee with the boarders quick as a wink; you'd have +smothered laughing. I am disinclined to make excavations into the +insides of a personal affection. I am glued to the theory that the +diversions and discrepancies of the indisposition known as love should +be as private a sentiment as a toothbrush. 'Tis my opinion that the +biographies of the heart should be confined with the historical +romances of the liver to the advertising pages of the magazines. So, +you'll excuse the lack of an itemised bill of my feelings toward Mame. + +"Pretty soon I got a regular habit of dropping into the tent to eat at +irregular times when there wasn't so many around. Mame would sail in +with a smile, in a black dress and white apron, and say: 'Hello, Jeff +--why don't you come at mealtime? Want to see how much trouble you can +be, of course. Friedchickenbeefsteakporkchopshamandeggspotpie'--and so +on. She called me Jeff, but there was no significations attached. +Designations was all she meant. The front names of any of us she used +as they came to hand. I'd eat about two meals before I left, and +string 'em out like a society spread where they changed plates and +wives, and josh one another festively between bites. Mame stood for +it, pleasant, for it wasn't up to her to take any canvas off the tent +by declining dollars just because they were whipped in after meal +times. + +"It wasn't long until there was another fellow named Ed Collier got +the between-meals affliction, and him and me put in bridges between +breakfast and dinner, and dinner and supper, that made a three-ringed +circus of that tent, and Mame's turn as waiter a continuous +performance. That Collier man was saturated with designs and +contrivings. He was in well-boring or insurance or claim-jumping, or +something--I've forgotten which. He was a man well lubricated with +gentility, and his words were such as recommended you to his point of +view. So, Collier and me infested the grub tent with care and +activity. Mame was level full of impartiality. 'Twas like a casino +hand the way she dealt out her favours--one to Collier and one to me +and one to the board, and not a card up her sleeve. + +"Me and Collier naturally got acquainted, and gravitated together some +on the outside. Divested of his stratagems, he seemed to be a pleasant +chap, full of an amiable sort of hostility. + +"'I notice you have an affinity for grubbing in the banquet hall after +the guests have fled,' says I to him one day, to draw his conclusions. + +"'Well, yes,' says Collier, reflecting; 'the tumult of a crowded board +seems to harass my sensitive nerves.' + +"'It exasperates mine some, too,' says I. 'Nice little girl, don't you +think?' + +"'I see,' says Collier, laughing. 'Well, now that you mention it, I +have noticed that she doesn't seem to displease the optic nerve.' + +"'She's a joy to mine,' says I, 'and I'm going after her. Notice is +hereby served.' + +"'I'll be as candid as you,' admits Collier, 'and if the drug stores +don't run out of pepsin I'll give you a run for your money that'll +leave you a dyspeptic at the wind-up.' + +"So Collier and me begins the race; the grub department lays in new +supplies; Mame waits on us, jolly and kind and agreeable, and it looks +like an even break, with Cupid and the cook working overtime in +Dugan's restaurant. + +"'Twas one night in September when I got Mame to take a walk after +supper when the things were all cleared away. We strolled out a +distance and sat on a pile of lumber at the edge of town. Such +opportunities was seldom, so I spoke my piece, explaining how the +Brazilian diamonds and the fire kindler were laying up sufficient +treasure to guarantee the happiness of two, and that both of 'em +together couldn't equal the light from somebody's eyes, and that the +name of Dugan should be changed to Peters, or reasons why not would be +in order. + +"Mame didn't say anything right away. Directly she gave a kind of +shudder, and I began to learn something. + +"'Jeff,' she says, 'I'm sorry you spoke. I like you as well as any of +them, but there isn't a man in the world I'd ever marry, and there +never will be. Do you know what a man is in my eye? He's a tomb. He's +a sarcophagus for the interment of Beafsteakporkchopsliver'nbaconham- +andeggs. He's that and nothing more. For two years I've watched men +eat, eat, eat, until they represent nothing on earth to me but +ruminant bipeds. They're absolutely nothing but something that goes in +front of a knife and fork and plate at the table. They're fixed that +way in my mind and memory. I've tried to overcome it, but I can't. +I've heard girls rave about their sweethearts, but I never could +understand it. A man and a sausage grinder and a pantry awake in me +exactly the same sentiments. I went to a matinee once to see an actor +the girls were crazy about. I got interested enough to wonder whether +he liked his steak rare, medium, or well done, and his eggs over or +straight up. That was all. No, Jeff; I'll marry no man and see him sit +at the breakfast table and eat, and come back to dinner and eat, and +happen in again at supper to eat, eat, eat.' + +"'But, Mame,' says I, 'it'll wear off. You've had too much of it. +You'll marry some time, of course. Men don't eat always.' + +"'As far as my observation goes, they do. No, I'll tell you what I'm +going to do.' Mame turns, sudden, to animation and bright eyes. +'There's a girl named Susie Foster in Terre Haute, a chum of mine. She +waits in the railroad eating house there. I worked two years in a +restaurant in that town. Susie has it worse than I do, because the men +who eat at railroad stations gobble. They try to flirt and gobble at +the same time. Whew! Susie and I have it all planned out. We're saving +our money, and when we get enough we're going to buy a little cottage +and five acres we know of, and live together, and grow violets for the +Eastern market. A man better not bring his appetite within a mile of +that ranch.' + +"'Don't girls ever--' I commenced, but Mame heads me off, sharp. + +"'No, they don't. They nibble a little bit sometimes; that's all.' + +"'I thought the confect--' + +"'For goodness' sake, change the subject,' says Mame. + +"As I said before, that experience puts me wise that the feminine +arrangement ever struggles after deceptions and illusions. Take +England--beef made her; wieners elevated Germany; Uncle Sam owes his +greatness to fried chicken and pie, but the young ladies of the +Shetalkyou schools, they'll never believe it. Shakespeare, they allow, +and Rubinstein, and the Rough Riders is what did the trick. + +"'Twas a situation calculated to disturb. I couldn't bear to give up +Mame; and yet it pained me to think of abandoning the practice of +eating. I had acquired the habit too early. For twenty-seven years I +had been blindly rushing upon my fate, yielding to the insidious lures +of that deadly monster, food. It was too late. I was a ruminant biped +for keeps. It was lobster salad to a doughnut that my life was going +to be blighted by it. + +"I continued to board at the Dugan tent, hoping that Mame would +relent. I had sufficient faith in true love to believe that since it +has often outlived the absence of a square meal it might, in time, +overcome the presence of one. I went on ministering to my fatal vice, +although I felt that each time I shoved a potato into my mouth in +Mame's presence I might be burying my fondest hopes. + +"I think Collier must have spoken to Mame and got the same answer, for +one day he orders a cup of coffee and a cracker, and sits nibbling the +corner of it like a girl in the parlour, that's filled up in the +kitchen, previous, on cold roast and fried cabbage. I caught on and +did the same, and maybe we thought we'd made a hit! The next day we +tried it again, and out comes old man Dugan fetching in his hands the +fairy viands. + +"'Kinder off yer feed, ain't ye, gents?' he asks, fatherly and some +sardonic. 'Thought I'd spell Mame a bit, seein' the work was light, +and my rheumatiz can stand the strain.' + +"So back me and Collier had to drop to the heavy grub again. I noticed +about that time that I was seized by a most uncommon and devastating +appetite. I ate until Mame must have hated to see me darken the door. +Afterward I found out that I had been made the victim of the first +dark and irreligious trick played on me by Ed Collier. Him and me had +been taking drinks together uptown regular, trying to drown our thirst +for food. That man had bribed about ten bartenders to always put a big +slug of Appletree's Anaconda Appetite Bitters in every one of my +drinks. But the last trick he played me was hardest to forget. + +"One day Collier failed to show up at the tent. A man told me he left +town that morning. My only rival now was the bill of fare. A few days +before he left Collier had presented me with a two-gallon jug of fine +whisky which he said a cousin had sent him from Kentucky. I now have +reason to believe that it contained Appletree's Anaconda Appetite +Bitters almost exclusively. I continued to devour tons of provisions. +In Mame's eyes I remained a mere biped, more ruminant than ever. + +"About a week after Collier pulled his freight there came a kind of +side-show to town, and hoisted a tent near the railroad. I judged it +was a sort of fake museum and curiosity business. I called to see Mame +one night, and Ma Dugan said that she and Thomas, her younger brother, +had gone to the show. That same thing happened for three nights that +week. Saturday night I caught her on the way coming back, and got to +sit on the steps a while and talk to her. I noticed she looked +different. Her eyes were softer, and shiny like. Instead of a Mame +Dugan to fly from the voracity of man and raise violets, she seemed to +be a Mame more in line as God intended her, approachable, and suited +to bask in the light of the Brazilians and the Kindler. + +"'You seem to be right smart inveigled,' says I, 'with the +Unparalleled Exhibition of the World's Living Curiosities and +Wonders.' + +"'It's a change,' says Mame. + +"'You'll need another,' says I, 'if you keep on going every night.' + +"'Don't be cross, Jeff,' says she; 'it takes my mind off business.' + +"'Don't the curiosities eat?' I ask. + +"'Not all of them. Some of them are wax.' + +"'Look out, then, that you don't get stuck,' says I, kind of flip and +foolish. + +"Mame blushed. I didn't know what to think about her. My hopes raised +some that perhaps my attentions had palliated man's awful crime of +visibly introducing nourishment into his system. She talked some about +the stars, referring to them with respect and politeness, and I +drivelled a quantity about united hearts, homes made bright by true +affection, and the Kindler. Mame listened without scorn, and I says to +myself, 'Jeff, old man, you're removing the hoodoo that has clung to +the consumer of victuals; you're setting your heel upon the serpent +that lurks in the gravy bowl.' + +"Monday night I drop around. Mame is at the Unparalleled Exhibition +with Thomas. + +"'Now, may the curse of the forty-one seven-sided sea cooks,' says I, +'and the bad luck of the nine impenitent grasshoppers rest upon this +self-same sideshow at once and forever more. Amen. I'll go to see it +myself to-morrow night and investigate its baleful charm. Shall man +that was made to inherit the earth be bereft of his sweetheart first +by a knife and fork and then by a ten-cent circus?' + +"The next night before starting out for the exhibition tent I inquire +and find out that Mame is not at home. She is not at the circus with +Thomas this time, for Thomas waylays me in the grass outside of the +grub tent with a scheme of his own before I had time to eat supper. + +"'What'll you give me, Jeff,' says he, 'if I tell you something?' + +"'The value of it, son,' I says. + +"'Sis is stuck on a freak,' says Thomas, 'one of the side-show freaks. +I don't like him. She does. I overheard 'em talking. Thought maybe +you'd like to know. Say, Jeff, does it put you wise two dollars' +worth? There's a target rifle up town that--' + +"I frisked my pockets and commenced to dribble a stream of halves and +quarters into Thomas's hat. The information was of the pile-driver +system of news, and it telescoped my intellects for a while. While I +was leaking small change and smiling foolish on the outside, and +suffering disturbances internally, I was saying, idiotically and +pleasantly: + +"'Thank you, Thomas--thank you--er--a freak, you said, Thomas. Now, +could you make out the monstrosity's entitlements a little clearer, if +you please, Thomas?' + +"'This is the fellow,' says Thomas, pulling out a yellow handbill from +his pocket and shoving it under my nose. 'He's the Champion Faster of +the Universe. I guess that's why Sis got soft on him. He don't eat +nothing. He's going to fast forty-nine days. This is the sixth. That's +him.' + +"I looked at the name Thomas pointed out--'Professor Eduardo +Collieri.' 'Ah!' says I, in admiration, 'that's not so bad, Ed +Collier. I give you credit for the trick. But I don't give you the +girl until she's Mrs. Freak.' + +"I hit the sod in the direction of the show. I came up to the rear of +the tent, and, as I did so, a man wiggled out like a snake from under +the bottom of the canvas, scrambled to his feet, and ran into me like +a locoed bronco. I gathered him by the neck and investigated him by +the light of the stars. It is Professor Eduardo Collieri, in human +habiliments, with a desperate look in one eye and impatience in the +other. + +"'Hello, Curiosity,' says I. 'Get still a minute and let's have a look +at your freakship. How do you like being the willopus-wallopus or the +bim-bam from Borneo, or whatever name you are denounced by in the +side-show business?' + +"'Jeff Peters,' says Collier, in a weak voice. 'Turn me loose, or I'll +slug you one. I'm in the extremest kind of a large hurry. Hands off!' + +"'Tut, tut, Eddie,' I answers, holding him hard; 'let an old friend +gaze on the exhibition of your curiousness. It's an eminent graft you +fell onto, my son. But don't speak of assaults and battery, because +you're not fit. The best you've got is a lot of nerve and a mighty +empty stomach.' And so it was. The man was as weak as a vegetarian +cat. + +"'I'd argue this case with you, Jeff,' says he, regretful in his +style, 'for an unlimited number of rounds if I had half an hour to +train in and a slab of beefsteak two feet square to train with. Curse +the man, I say, that invented the art of going foodless. May his soul +in eternity be chained up within two feet of a bottomless pit of red- +hot hash. I'm abandoning the conflict, Jeff; I'm deserting to the +enemy. You'll find Miss Dugan inside contemplating the only living +mummy and the informed hog. She's a fine girl, Jeff. I'd have beat you +out if I could have kept up the grubless habit a little while longer. +You'll have to admit that the fasting dodge was aces-up for a while. I +figured it out that way. But say, Jeff, it's said that love makes the +world go around. Let me tell you, the announcement lacks verification. +It's the wind from the dinner horn that does it. I love that Mame +Dugan. I've gone six days without food in order to coincide with her +sentiments. Only one bite did I have. That was when I knocked the +tattooed man down with a war club and got a sandwich he was gobbling. +The manager fined me all my salary; but salary wasn't what I was +after. 'Twas that girl. I'd give my life for her, but I'd endanger my +immortal soul for a beef stew. Hunger is a horrible thing, Jeff. Love +and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are +nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!' + +"In such language Ed Collier discoursed to me, pathetic. I gathered +the diagnosis that his affections and his digestions had been +implicated in a scramble and the commissary had won out. I never +disliked Ed Collier. I searched my internal admonitions of suitable +etiquette to see if I could find a remark of a consoling nature, but +there was none convenient. + +"'I'd be glad, now,' says Ed, 'if you'll let me go. I've been hard +hit, but I'll hit the ration supply harder. I'm going to clean out +every restaurant in town. I'm going to wade waist deep in sirloins and +swim in ham and eggs. It's an awful thing, Jeff Peters, for a man to +come to this pass--to give up his girl for something to eat--it's +worse than that man Esau, that swapped his copyright for a partridge-- +but then, hunger's a fierce thing. You'll excuse me, now, Jeff, for I +smell a pervasion of ham frying in the distance, and my legs are +crying out to stampede in that direction.' + +"'A hearty meal to you, Ed Collier,' I says to him, 'and no hard +feelings. For myself, I am projected to be an unseldom eater, and I +have condolence for your predicaments.' + +"There was a sudden big whiff of frying ham smell on the breeze; and +the Champion Faster gives a snort and gallops off in the dark toward +fodder. + +"I wish some of the cultured outfit that are always advertising the +extenuating circumstances of love and romance had been there to see. +There was Ed Collier, a fine man full of contrivances and flirtations, +abandoning the girl of his heart and ripping out into the contiguous +territory in the pursuit of sordid grub. 'Twas a rebuke to the poets +and a slap at the best-paying element of fiction. An empty stomach is +a sure antidote to an overfull heart. + +"I was naturally anxious to know how far Mame was infatuated with +Collier and his stratagems. I went inside the Unparalleled Exhibition, +and there she was. She looked surprised to see me, but unguilty. + +"'It's an elegant evening outside,' says I. 'The coolness is quite +nice and gratifying, and the stars are lined out, first class, up +where they belong. Wouldn't you shake these by-products of the animal +kingdom long enough to take a walk with a common human who never was +on a programme in his life?' + +"Mame gave a sort of sly glance around, and I knew what that meant. + +"'Oh,' says I, 'I hate to tell you; but the curiosity that lives on +wind has flew the coop. He just crawled out under the tent. By this +time he has amalgamated himself with half the delicatessen truck in +town.' + +"'You mean Ed Collier?' says Mame. + +"'I do,' I answers; 'and a pity it is that he has gone back to crime +again. I met him outside the tent, and he exposed his intentions of +devastating the food crop of the world. 'Tis enormously sad when one's +ideal descends from his pedestal to make a seventeen-year locust of +himself.' + +"Mame looked me straight in the eye until she had corkscrewed my +reflections. + +"'Jeff,' says she, 'it isn't quite like you to talk that way. I don't +care to hear Ed Collier ridiculed. A man may do ridiculous things, but +they don't look ridiculous to the girl he does 'em for. That was one +man in a hundred. He stopped eating just to please me. I'd be hard- +hearted and ungrateful if I didn't feel kindly toward him. Could you +do what he did?' + +"'I know,' says I, seeing the point, 'I'm condemned. I can't help it. +The brand of the consumer is upon my brow. Mrs. Eve settled that +business for me when she made the dicker with the snake. I fell from +the fire into the frying-pan. I guess I'm the Champion Feaster of the +Universe.' I spoke humble, and Mame mollified herself a little. + +"'Ed Collier and I are good friends,' she said, 'the same as me and +you. I gave him the same answer I did you--no marrying for me. I liked +to be with Ed and talk with him. There was something mighty pleasant +to me in the thought that here was a man who never used a knife and +fork, and all for my sake.' + +"'Wasn't you in love with him?' I asks, all injudicious. 'Wasn't there +a deal on for you to become Mrs. Curiosity?' + +"All of us do it sometimes. All of us get jostled out of the line of +profitable talk now and then. Mame put on that little lemon /glace/ +smile that runs between ice and sugar, and says, much too pleasant: +'You're short on credentials for asking that question, Mr. Peters. +Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand +on, and then maybe I'll answer it.' + +"So, even after Collier was kidnapped out of the way by the revolt of +his appetite, my own prospects with Mame didn't seem to be improved. +And then business played out in Guthrie. + +"I had stayed too long there. The Brazilians I had sold commenced to +show signs of wear, and the Kindler refused to light up right frequent +on wet mornings. There is always a time, in my business, when the star +of success says, 'Move on to the next town.' I was travelling by wagon +at that time so as not to miss any of the small towns; so I hitched up +a few days later and went down to tell Mame good-bye. I wasn't +abandoning the game; I intended running over to Oklahoma City and work +it for a week or two. Then I was coming back to institute fresh +proceedings against Mame. + +"What do I find at the Dugans' but Mame all conspicuous in a blue +travelling dress, with her little trunk at the door. It seems that +sister Lottie Bell, who is a typewriter in Terre Haute, is going to be +married next Thursday, and Mame is off for a week's visit to be an +accomplice at the ceremony. Mame is waiting for a freight wagon that +is going to take her to Oklahoma, but I condemns the freight wagon +with promptness and scorn, and offers to deliver the goods myself. Ma +Dugan sees no reason why not, as Mr. Freighter wants pay for the job; +so, thirty minutes later Mame and I pull out in my light spring wagon +with white canvas cover, and head due south. + +"That morning was of a praiseworthy sort. The breeze was lively, and +smelled excellent of flowers and grass, and the little cottontail +rabbits entertained themselves with skylarking across the road. My two +Kentucky bays went for the horizon until it come sailing in so fast +you wanted to dodge it like a clothesline. Mame was full of talk and +rattled on like a kid about her old home and her school pranks and the +things she liked and the hateful ways of those Johnson girls just +across the street, 'way up in Indiana. Not a word was said about Ed +Collier or victuals or such solemn subjects. About noon Mame looks and +finds that the lunch she had put up in a basket had been left behind. +I could have managed quite a collation, but Mame didn't seem to be +grieving over nothing to eat, so I made no lamentations. It was a sore +subject with me, and I ruled provender in all its branches out of my +conversation. + +"I am minded to touch light on explanations how I came to lose the +way. The road was dim and well grown with grass; and there was Mame by +my side confiscating my intellects and attention. The excuses are good +or they are not, as they may appear to you. But I lost it, and at dusk +that afternoon, when we should have been in Oklahoma City, we were +seesawing along the edge of nowhere in some undiscovered river bottom, +and the rain was falling in large, wet bunches. Down there in the +swamps we saw a little log house on a small knoll of high ground. The +bottom grass and the chaparral and the lonesome timber crowded all +around it. It seemed to be a melancholy little house, and you felt +sorry for it. 'Twas that house for the night, the way I reasoned it. I +explained to Mame, and she leaves it to me to decide. She doesn't +become galvanic and prosecuting, as most women would, but she says +it's all right; she knows I didn't mean to do it. + +"We found the house was deserted. It had two empty rooms. There was a +little shed in the yard where beasts had once been kept. In a loft of +it was a lot of old hay. I put my horses in there and gave them some +of it, for which they looked at me sorrowful, expecting apologies. The +rest of the hay I carried into the house by armfuls, with a view to +accommodations. I also brought in the patent kindler and the +Brazilians, neither of which are guaranteed against the action of +water. + +"Mame and I sat on the wagon seats on the floor, and I lit a lot of +the kindler on the hearth, for the night was chilly. If I was any +judge, that girl enjoyed it. It was a change for her. It gave her a +different point of view. She laughed and talked, and the kindler made +a dim light compared to her eyes. I had a pocketful of cigars, and as +far as I was concerned there had never been any fall of man. We were +at the same old stand in the Garden of Eden. Out there somewhere in +the rain and the dark was the river of Zion, and the angel with the +flaming sword had not yet put up the keep-off-the-grass sign. I opened +up a gross or two of the Brazilians and made Mame put them on--rings, +brooches, necklaces, eardrops, bracelets, girdles, and lockets. She +flashed and sparkled like a million-dollar princess until she had pink +spots in her cheeks and almost cried for a looking-glass. + +"When it got late I made a fine bunk on the floor for Mame with the +hay and my lap robes and blankets out of the wagon, and persuaded her +to lie down. I sat in the other room burning tobacco and listening to +the pouring rain and meditating on the many vicissitudes that came to +a man during the seventy years or so immediately preceding his +funeral. + +"I must have dozed a little while before morning, for my eyes were +shut, and when I opened them it was daylight, and there stood Mame +with her hair all done up neat and correct, and her eyes bright with +admiration of existence. + +"'Gee whiz, Jeff!' she exclaims, 'but I'm hungry. I could eat a--' + +"I looked up and caught her eye. Her smile went back in and she gave +me a cold look of suspicion. Then I laughed, and laid down on the +floor to laugh easier. It seemed funny to me. By nature and geniality +I am a hearty laugher, and I went the limit. When I came to, Mame was +sitting with her back to me, all contaminated with dignity. + +"'Don't be angry, Mame,' I says, 'for I couldn't help it. It's the +funny way you've done up your hair. If you could only see it!' + +"'You needn't tell stories, sir,' said Mame, cool and advised. 'My +hair is all right. I know what you were laughing about. Why, Jeff, +look outside,' she winds up, peeping through a chink between the logs. +I opened the little wooden window and looked out. The entire river +bottom was flooded, and the knob of land on which the house stood was +an island in the middle of a rushing stream of yellow water a hundred +yards wide. And it was still raining hard. All we could do was to stay +there till the doves brought in the olive branch. + +"I am bound to admit that conversations and amusements languished +during that day. I was aware that Mame was getting a too prolonged +one-sided view of things again, but I had no way to change it. +Personally, I was wrapped up in the desire to eat. I had +hallucinations of hash and visions of ham, and I kept saying to myself +all the time, 'What'll you have to eat, Jeff?--what'll you order now, +old man, when the waiter comes?' I picks out to myself all sorts of +favourites from the bill of fare, and imagines them coming. I guess +it's that way with all hungry men. They can't get their cogitations +trained on anything but something to eat. It shows that the little +table with the broken-legged caster and the imitation Worcester sauce +and the napkin covering up the coffee stains is the paramount issue, +after all, instead of the question of immortality or peace between +nations. + +"I sat there, musing along, arguing with myself quite heated as to how +I'd have my steak--with mushrooms, or /a la creole/. Mame was on the +other seat, pensive, her head leaning on her hand. 'Let the potatoes +come home-fried,' I states in my mind, 'and brown the hash in the pan, +with nine poached eggs on the side.' I felt, careful, in my own +pockets to see if I could find a peanut or a grain or two of popcorn. + +"Night came on again with the river still rising and the rain still +falling. I looked at Mame and I noticed that desperate look on her +face that a girl always wears when she passes an ice-cream lair. I +knew that poor girl was hungry--maybe for the first time in her life. +There was that anxious look in her eye that a woman has only when she +has missed a meal or feels her skirt coming unfastened in the back. + +"It was about eleven o'clock or so on the second night when we sat, +gloomy, in our shipwrecked cabin. I kept jerking my mind away from the +subject of food, but it kept flopping back again before I could fasten +it. I thought of everything good to eat I had ever heard of. I went +away back to my kidhood and remembered the hot biscuit sopped in +sorghum and bacon gravy with partiality and respect. Then I trailed +along up the years, pausing at green apples and salt, flapjacks and +maple, lye hominy, fried chicken Old Virginia style, corn on the cob, +spareribs and sweet potato pie, and wound up with Georgia Brunswick +stew, which is the top notch of good things to eat, because it +comprises 'em all. + +"They say a drowning man sees a panorama of his whole life pass before +him. Well, when a man's starving he sees the ghost of every meal he +ever ate set out before him, and he invents new dishes that would make +the fortune of a chef. If somebody would collect the last words of men +who starved to death, they'd have to sift 'em mighty fine to discover +the sentiment, but they'd compile into a cook book that would sell +into the millions. + +"I guess I must have had my conscience pretty well inflicted with +culinary meditations, for, without intending to do so, I says, out +loud, to the imaginary waiter, 'Cut it thick and have it rare, with +the French fried, and six, soft-scrambled, on toast.' + +"Mame turned her head quick as a wing. Her eyes were sparkling and she +smiled sudden. + +"'Medium for me,' she rattles out, 'with the Juliennes, and three, +straight up. Draw one, and brown the wheats, double order to come. Oh, +Jeff, wouldn't it be glorious! And then I'd like to have a half fry, +and a little chicken curried with rice, and a cup custard with ice +cream, and--' + +"'Go easy,' I interrupts; 'where's the chicken liver pie, and the +kidney /saute/ on toast, and the roast lamb, and--' + +"'Oh,' cuts in Mame, all excited, 'with mint sauce, and the turkey +salad, and stuffed olives, and raspberry tarts, and--' + +"'Keep it going,' says I. 'Hurry up with the fried squash, and the hot +corn pone with sweet milk, and don't forget the apple dumpling with +hard sauce, and the cross-barred dew-berry pie--' + +"Yes, for ten minutes we kept up that kind of restaurant repartee. We +ranges up and down and backward and forward over the main trunk lines +and the branches of the victual subject, and Mame leads the game, for +she is apprised in the ramifications of grub, and the dishes she +nominates aggravates my yearnings. It seems that there is a feeling +that Mame will line up friendly again with food. It seems that she +looks upon the obnoxious science of eating with less contempt than +before. + +"The next morning we find that the flood has subsided. I geared up the +bays, and we splashed out through the mud, some precarious, until we +found the road again. We were only a few miles wrong, and in two hours +we were in Oklahoma City. The first thing we saw was a big restaurant +sign, and we piled into there in a hurry. Here I finds myself sitting +with Mame at table, with knives and forks and plates between us, and +she not scornful, but smiling with starvation and sweetness. + +"'Twas a new restaurant and well stocked. I designated a list of +quotations from the bill of fare that made the waiter look out toward +the wagon to see how many more might be coming. + +"There we were, and there was the order being served. 'Twas a banquet +for a dozen, but we felt like a dozen. I looked across the table at +Mame and smiled, for I had recollections. Mame was looking at the +table like a boy looks at his first stem-winder. Then she looked at +me, straight in the face, and two big tears came in her eyes. The +waiter was gone after more grub. + +"'Jeff,' she says, soft like, 'I've been a foolish girl. I've looked +at things from the wrong side. I never felt this way before. Men get +hungry every day like this, don't they? They're big and strong, and +they do the hard work of the world, and they don't eat just to spite +silly waiter girls in restaurants, do they, Jeff? You said once--that +is, you asked me--you wanted me to--well, Jeff, if you still care--I'd +be glad and willing to have you always sitting across the table from +me. Now give me something to eat, quick, please.' + +"So, as I've said, a woman needs to change her point of view now and +then. They get tired of the same old sights--the same old dinner +table, washtub, and sewing machine. Give 'em a touch of the various--a +little travel and a little rest, a little tomfoolery along with the +tragedies of keeping house, a little petting after the blowing-up, a +little upsetting and a little jostling around--and everybody in the +game will have chips added to their stack by the play." + + + +XI + +THE CABALLERO'S WAY + +The Cisco Kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages, had +murdered twice as many (mostly Mexicans), and had winged a larger +number whom he modestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him. + +The Kid was twenty-five, looked twenty; and a careful insurance +company would have estimated the probable time of his demise at, say, +twenty-six. His habitat was anywhere between the Frio and the Rio +Grande. He killed for the love of it--because he was quick-tempered-- +to avoid arrest--for his own amusement--any reason that came to his +mind would suffice. He had escaped capture because he could shoot +five-sixths of a second sooner than any sheriff or ranger in the +service, and because he rode a speckled roan horse that knew every +cow-path in the mesquite and pear thickets from San Antonio to +Matamoras. + +Tonia Perez, the girl who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half +Madonna, and the rest--oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half +Madonna can always be something more--the rest, let us say, was +humming-bird. She lived in a grass-roofed /jacal/ near a little +Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her +lived a father or grandfather, a lineal Aztec, somewhat less than a +thousand years old, who herded a hundred goats and lived in a +continuous drunken dream from drinking /mescal/. Back of the /jacal/ a +tremendous forest of bristling pear, twenty feet high at its worst, +crowded almost to its door. It was along the bewildering maze of this +spinous thicket that the speckled roan would bring the Kid to see his +girl. And once, clinging like a lizard to the ridge-pole, high up +under the peaked grass roof, he had heard Tonia, with her Madonna face +and Carmen beauty and humming-bird soul, parley with the sheriff's +posse, denying knowledge of her man in her soft /melange/ of Spanish +and English. + +One day the adjutant-general of the State, who is, /ex offico/, +commander of the ranger forces, wrote some sarcastic lines to Captain +Duval of Company X, stationed at Laredo, relative to the serene and +undisturbed existence led by murderers and desperadoes in the said +captain's territory. + +The captain turned the colour of brick dust under his tan, and +forwarded the letter, after adding a few comments, per ranger Private +Bill Adamson, to ranger Lieutenant Sandridge, camped at a water hole +on the Nueces with a squad of five men in preservation of law and +order. + +Lieutenant Sandridge turned a beautiful /couleur de rose/ through his +ordinary strawberry complexion, tucked the letter in his hip pocket, +and chewed off the ends of his gamboge moustache. + +The next morning he saddled his horse and rode alone to the Mexican +settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, twenty miles away. + +Six feet two, blond as a Viking, quiet as a deacon, dangerous as a +machine gun, Sandridge moved among the /Jacales/, patiently seeking +news of the Cisco Kid. + +Far more than the law, the Mexicans dreaded the cold and certain +vengeance of the lone rider that the ranger sought. It had been one of +the Kid's pastimes to shoot Mexicans "to see them kick": if he +demanded from them moribund Terpsichorean feats, simply that he might +be entertained, what terrible and extreme penalties would be certain +to follow should they anger him! One and all they lounged with +upturned palms and shrugging shoulders, filling the air with "/quien +sabes/" and denials of the Kid's acquaintance. + +But there was a man named Fink who kept a store at the Crossing--a man +of many nationalities, tongues, interests, and ways of thinking. + +"No use to ask them Mexicans," he said to Sandridge. "They're afraid +to tell. This /hombre/ they call the Kid--Goodall is his name, ain't +it?--he's been in my store once or twice. I have an idea you might run +across him at--but I guess I don't keer to say, myself. I'm two +seconds later in pulling a gun than I used to be, and the difference +is worth thinking about. But this Kid's got a half-Mexican girl at the +Crossing that he comes to see. She lives in that /jacal/ a hundred +yards down the arroyo at the edge of the pear. Maybe she--no, I don't +suppose she would, but that /jacal/ would be a good place to watch, +anyway." + +Sandridge rode down to the /jacal/ of Perez. The sun was low, and the +broad shade of the great pear thicket already covered the grass- +thatched hut. The goats were enclosed for the night in a brush corral +near by. A few kids walked the top of it, nibbling the chaparral +leaves. The old Mexican lay upon a blanket on the grass, already in a +stupor from his mescal, and dreaming, perhaps, of the nights when he +and Pizarro touched glasses to their New World fortunes--so old his +wrinkled face seemed to proclaim him to be. And in the door of the +/jacal/ stood Tonia. And Lieutenant Sandridge sat in his saddle +staring at her like a gannet agape at a sailorman. + +The Cisco Kid was a vain person, as all eminent and successful +assassins are, and his bosom would have been ruffled had he known that +at a simple exchange of glances two persons, in whose minds he had +been looming large, suddenly abandoned (at least for the time) all +thought of him. + +Never before had Tonia seen such a man as this. He seemed to be made +of sunshine and blood-red tissue and clear weather. He seemed to +illuminate the shadow of the pear when he smiled, as though the sun +were rising again. The men she had known had been small and dark. Even +the Kid, in spite of his achievements, was a stripling no larger than +herself, with black, straight hair and a cold, marble face that +chilled the noonday. + +As for Tonia, though she sends description to the poorhouse, let her +make a millionaire of your fancy. Her blue-black hair, smoothly +divided in the middle and bound close to her head, and her large eyes +full of the Latin melancholy, gave her the Madonna touch. Her motions +and air spoke of the concealed fire and the desire to charm that she +had inherited from the /gitanas/ of the Basque province. As for the +humming-bird part of her, that dwelt in her heart; you could not +perceive it unless her bright red skirt and dark blue blouse gave you +a symbolic hint of the vagarious bird. + +The newly lighted sun-god asked for a drink of water. Tonia brought it +from the red jar hanging under the brush shelter. Sandridge considered +it necessary to dismount so as to lessen the trouble of her +ministrations. + +I play no spy; nor do I assume to master the thoughts of any human +heart; but I assert, by the chronicler's right, that before a quarter +of an hour had sped, Sandridge was teaching her how to plaint a +six-strand rawhide stake-rope, and Tonia had explained to him that +were it not for her little English book that the peripatetic /padre/ +had given her and the little crippled /chivo/, that she fed from a +bottle, she would be very, very lonely indeed. + +Which leads to a suspicion that the Kid's fences needed repairing, and +that the adjutant-general's sarcasm had fallen upon unproductive soil. + +In his camp by the water hole Lieutenant Sandridge announced and +reiterated his intention of either causing the Cisco Kid to nibble the +black loam of the Frio country prairies or of haling him before a +judge and jury. That sounded business-like. Twice a week he rode over +to the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio, and directed Tonia's slim, +slightly lemon-tinted fingers among the intricacies of the slowly +growing lariata. A six-strand plait is hard to learn and easy to +teach. + +The ranger knew that he might find the Kid there at any visit. He kept +his armament ready, and had a frequent eye for the pear thicket at the +rear of the /jacal/. Thus he might bring down the kite and the +humming-bird with one stone. + +While the sunny-haired ornithologist was pursuing his studies the +Cisco Kid was also attending to his professional duties. He moodily +shot up a saloon in a small cow village on Quintana Creek, killed the +town marshal (plugging him neatly in the centre of his tin badge), and +then rode away, morose and unsatisfied. No true artist is uplifted by +shooting an aged man carrying an old-style .38 bulldog. + +On his way the Kid suddenly experienced the yearning that all men feel +when wrong-doing loses its keen edge of delight. He yearned for the +woman he loved to reassure him that she was his in spite of it. He +wanted her to call his bloodthirstiness bravery and his cruelty +devotion. He wanted Tonia to bring him water from the red jar under +the brush shelter, and tell him how the /chivo/ was thriving on the +bottle. + +The Kid turned the speckled roan's head up the ten-mile pear flat that +stretches along the Arroyo Hondo until it ends at the Lone Wolf +Crossing of the Frio. The roan whickered; for he had a sense of +locality and direction equal to that of a belt-line street-car horse; +and he knew he would soon be nibbling the rich mesquite grass at the +end of a forty-foot stake-rope while Ulysses rested his head in +Circe's straw-roofed hut. + +More weird and lonesome than the journey of an Amazonian explorer is +the ride of one through a Texas pear flat. With dismal monotony and +startling variety the uncanny and multiform shapes of the cacti lift +their twisted trunks, and fat, bristly hands to encumber the way. The +demon plant, appearing to live without soil or rain, seems to taunt +the parched traveller with its lush grey greenness. It warps itself a +thousand times about what look to be open and inviting paths, only to +lure the rider into blind and impassable spine-defended "bottoms of +the bag," leaving him to retreat, if he can, with the points of the +compass whirling in his head. + +To be lost in the pear is to die almost the death of the thief on the +cross, pierced by nails and with grotesque shapes of all the fiends +hovering about. + +But it was not so with the Kid and his mount. Winding, twisting, +circling, tracing the most fantastic and bewildering trail ever picked +out, the good roan lessened the distance to the Lone Wolf Crossing +with every coil and turn that he made. + +While they fared the Kid sang. He knew but one tune and sang it, as he +knew but one code and lived it, and but one girl and loved her. He was +a single-minded man of conventional ideas. He had a voice like a +coyote with bronchitis, but whenever he chose to sing his song he sang +it. It was a conventional song of the camps and trail, running at its +beginning as near as may be to these words: + + Don't you monkey with my Lulu girl + Or I'll tell you what I'll do-- + +and so on. The roan was inured to it, and did not mind. + +But even the poorest singer will, after a certain time, gain his own +consent to refrain from contributing to the world's noises. So the +Kid, by the time he was within a mile or two of Tonia's /jacal/, had +reluctantly allowed his song to die away--not because his vocal +performance had become less charming to his own ears, but because his +laryngeal muscles were aweary. + +As though he were in a circus ring the speckled roan wheeled and +danced through the labyrinth of pear until at length his rider knew by +certain landmarks that the Lone Wolf Crossing was close at hand. Then, +where the pear was thinner, he caught sight of the grass roof of the +/jacal/ and the hackberry tree on the edge of the arroyo. A few yards +farther the Kid stopped the roan and gazed intently through the +prickly openings. Then he dismounted, dropped the roan's reins, and +proceeded on foot, stooping and silent, like an Indian. The roan, +knowing his part, stood still, making no sound. + +The Kid crept noiselessly to the very edge of the pear thicket and +reconnoitred between the leaves of a clump of cactus. + +Ten yards from his hiding-place, in the shade of the /jacal/, sat his +Tonia calmly plaiting a rawhide lariat. So far she might surely escape +condemnation; women have been known, from time to time, to engage in +more mischievous occupations. But if all must be told, there is to be +added that her head reposed against the broad and comfortable chest of +a tall red-and-yellow man, and that his arm was about her, guiding her +nimble fingers that required so many lessons at the intricate six- +strand plait. + +Sandridge glanced quickly at the dark mass of pear when he heard a +slight squeaking sound that was not altogether unfamiliar. A gun- +scabbard will make that sound when one grasps the handle of a six- +shooter suddenly. But the sound was not repeated; and Tonia's fingers +needed close attention. + +And then, in the shadow of death, they began to talk of their love; +and in the still July afternoon every word they uttered reached the +ears of the Kid. + +"Remember, then," said Tonia, "you must not come again until I send +for you. Soon he will be here. A /vaquero/ at the /tienda/ said to-day +he saw him on the Guadalupe three days ago. When he is that near he +always comes. If he comes and finds you here he will kill you. So, for +my sake, you must come no more until I send you the word." + +"All right," said the stranger. "And then what?" + +"And then," said the girl, "you must bring your men here and kill him. +If not, he will kill you." + +"He ain't a man to surrender, that's sure," said Sandridge. "It's kill +or be killed for the officer that goes up against Mr. Cisco Kid." + +"He must die," said the girl. "Otherwise there will not be any peace +in the world for thee and me. He has killed many. Let him so die. +Bring your men, and give him no chance to escape." + +"You used to think right much of him," said Sandridge. + +Tonia dropped the lariat, twisted herself around, and curved a lemon- +tinted arm over the ranger's shoulder. + +"But then," she murmured in liquid Spanish, "I had not beheld thee, +thou great, red mountain of a man! And thou art kind and good, as well +as strong. Could one choose him, knowing thee? Let him die; for then I +will not be filled with fear by day and night lest he hurt thee or +me." + +"How can I know when he comes?" asked Sandridge. + +"When he comes," said Tonia, "he remains two days, sometimes three. +Gregorio, the small son of old Luisa, the /lavendera/, has a swift +pony. I will write a letter to thee and send it by him, saying how it +will be best to come upon him. By Gregorio will the letter come. And +bring many men with thee, and have much care, oh, dear red one, for +the rattlesnake is not quicker to strike than is '/El Chivato/,' as +they call him, to send a ball from his /pistola/." + +"The Kid's handy with his gun, sure enough," admitted Sandridge, "but +when I come for him I shall come alone. I'll get him by myself or not +at all. The Cap wrote one or two things to me that make me want to do +the trick without any help. You let me know when Mr. Kid arrives, and +I'll do the rest." + +"I will send you the message by the boy Gregorio," said the girl. "I +knew you were braver than that small slayer of men who never smiles. +How could I ever have thought I cared for him?" + +It was time for the ranger to ride back to his camp on the water hole. +Before he mounted his horse he raised the slight form of Tonia with +one arm high from the earth for a parting salute. The drowsy stillness +of the torpid summer air still lay thick upon the dreaming afternoon. +The smoke from the fire in the /jacal/, where the /frijoles/ blubbered +in the iron pot, rose straight as a plumb-line above the clay-daubed +chimney. No sound or movement disturbed the serenity of the dense pear +thicket ten yards away. + +When the form of Sandridge had disappeared, loping his big dun down +the steep banks of the Frio crossing, the Kid crept back to his own +horse, mounted him, and rode back along the tortuous trail he had +come. + +But not far. He stopped and waited in the silent depths of the pear +until half an hour had passed. And then Tonia heard the high, untrue +notes of his unmusical singing coming nearer and nearer; and she ran +to the edge of the pear to meet him. + +The Kid seldom smiled; but he smiled and waved his hat when he saw +her. He dismounted, and his girl sprang into his arms. The Kid looked +at her fondly. His thick, black hair clung to his head like a wrinkled +mat. The meeting brought a slight ripple of some undercurrent of +feeling to his smooth, dark face that was usually as motionless as a +clay mask. + +"How's my girl?" he asked, holding her close. + +"Sick of waiting so long for you, dear one," she answered. "My eyes +are dim with always gazing into that devil's pincushion through which +you come. And I can see into it such a little way, too. But you are +here, beloved one, and I will not scold. /Que mal muchacho/! not to +come to see your /alma/ more often. Go in and rest, and let me water +your horse and stake him with the long rope. There is cool water in +the jar for you." + +The Kid kissed her affectionately. + +"Not if the court knows itself do I let a lady stake my horse for me," +said he. "But if you'll run in, /chica/, and throw a pot of coffee +together while I attend to the /caballo/, I'll be a good deal +obliged." + +Besides his marksmanship the Kid had another attribute for which he +admired himself greatly. He was /muy caballero/, as the Mexicans +express it, where the ladies were concerned. For them he had always +gentle words and consideration. He could not have spoken a harsh word +to a woman. He might ruthlessly slay their husbands and brothers, but +he could not have laid the weight of a finger in anger upon a woman. +Wherefore many of that interesting division of humanity who had come +under the spell of his politeness declared their disbelief in the +stories circulated about Mr. Kid. One shouldn't believe everything one +heard, they said. When confronted by their indignant men folk with +proof of the /caballero's/ deeds of infamy, they said maybe he had +been driven to it, and that he knew how to treat a lady, anyhow. + +Considering this extremely courteous idiosyncrasy of the Kid and the +pride he took in it, one can perceive that the solution of the problem +that was presented to him by what he saw and heard from his hiding- +place in the pear that afternoon (at least as to one of the actors) +must have been obscured by difficulties. And yet one could not think +of the Kid overlooking little matters of that kind. + +At the end of the short twilight they gathered around a supper of +/frijoles/, goat steaks, canned peaches, and coffee, by the light of a +lantern in the /jacal/. Afterward, the ancestor, his flock corralled, +smoked a cigarette and became a mummy in a grey blanket. Tonia washed +the few dishes while the Kid dried them with the flour-sacking towel. +Her eyes shone; she chatted volubly of the inconsequent happenings of +her small world since the Kid's last visit; it was as all his other +home-comings had been. + +Then outside Tonia swung in a grass hammock with her guitar and sang +sad /canciones de amor/. + +"Do you love me just the same, old girl?" asked the Kid, hunting for +his cigarette papers. + +"Always the same, little one," said Tonia, her dark eyes lingering +upon him. + +"I must go over to Fink's," said the Kid, rising, "for some tobacco. I +thought I had another sack in my coat. I'll be back in a quarter of an +hour." + +"Hasten," said Tonia, "and tell me--how long shall I call you my own +this time? Will you be gone again to-morrow, leaving me to grieve, or +will you be longer with your Tonia?" + +"Oh, I might stay two or three days this trip," said the Kid, yawning. +"I've been on the dodge for a month, and I'd like to rest up." + +He was gone half an hour for his tobacco. When he returned Tonia was +still lying in the hammock. + +"It's funny," said the Kid, "how I feel. I feel like there was +somebody lying behind every bush and tree waiting to shoot me. I never +had mullygrubs like them before. Maybe it's one of them presumptions. +I've got half a notion to light out in the morning before day. The +Guadalupe country is burning up about that old Dutchman I plugged down +there." + +"You are not afraid--no one could make my brave little one fear." + +"Well, I haven't been usually regarded as a jack-rabbit when it comes +to scrapping; but I don't want a posse smoking me out when I'm in your +/jacal/. Somebody might get hurt that oughtn't to." + +"Remain with your Tonia; no one will find you here." + +The Kid looked keenly into the shadows up and down the arroyo and +toward the dim lights of the Mexican village. + +"I'll see how it looks later on," was his decision. + +***** + +At midnight a horseman rode into the rangers' camp, blazing his way by +noisy "halloes" to indicate a pacific mission. Sandridge and one or +two others turned out to investigate the row. The rider announced +himself to be Domingo Sales, from the Lone Wolf Crossing. he bore a +letter for Senor Sandridge. Old Luisa, the /lavendera/, had persuaded +him to bring it, he said, her son Gregorio being too ill of a fever to +ride. + +Sandridge lighted the camp lantern and read the letter. These were its +words: + + /Dear One/: He has come. Hardly had you ridden away when he came + out of the pear. When he first talked he said he would stay three + days or more. Then as it grew later he was like a wolf or a fox, + and walked about without rest, looking and listening. Soon he said + he must leave before daylight when it is dark and stillest. And + then he seemed to suspect that I be not true to him. He looked at + me so strange that I am frightened. I swear to him that I love + him, his own Tonia. Last of all he said I must prove to him I am + true. He thinks that even now men are waiting to kill him as he + rides from my house. To escape he says he will dress in my + clothes, my red skirt and the blue waist I wear and the brown + mantilla over the head, and thus ride away. But before that he + says that I must put on his clothes, his /pantalones/ and /camisa/ + and hat, and ride away on his horse from the /jacal/ as far as the + big road beyond the crossing and back again. This before he goes, + so he can tell if I am true and if men are hidden to shoot him. It + is a terrible thing. An hour before daybreak this is to be. Come, + my dear one, and kill this man and take me for your Tonia. Do not + try to take hold of him alive, but kill him quickly. Knowing all, + you should do that. You must come long before the time and hide + yourself in the little shed near the /jacal/ where the wagon and + saddles are kept. It is dark in there. He will wear my red skirt + and blue waist and brown mantilla. I send you a hundred kisses. + Come surely and shoot quickly and straight. + +Thine Own Tonia. + + +Sandridge quickly explained to his men the official part of the +missive. The rangers protested against his going alone. + +"I'll get him easy enough," said the lieutenant. "The girl's got him +trapped. And don't even think he'll get the drop on me." + +Sandridge saddled his horse and rode to the Lone Wolf Crossing. He +tied his big dun in a clump of brush on the arroyo, took his +Winchester from its scabbard, and carefully approached the Perez +/jacal/. There was only the half of a high moon drifted over by +ragged, milk-white gulf clouds. + +The wagon-shed was an excellent place for ambush; and the ranger got +inside it safely. In the black shadow of the brush shelter in front of +the /jacal/ he could see a horse tied and hear him impatiently pawing +the hard-trodden earth. + +He waited almost an hour before two figures came out of the /jacal/. +One, in man's clothes, quickly mounted the horse and galloped past the +wagon-shed toward the crossing and village. And then the other figure, +in skirt, waist, and mantilla over its head, stepped out into the +faint moonlight, gazing after the rider. Sandridge thought he would +take his chance then before Tonia rode back. He fancied she might not +care to see it. + +"Throw up your hands," he ordered loudly, stepping out of the wagon- +shed with his Winchester at his shoulder. + +There was a quick turn of the figure, but no movement to obey, so the +ranger pumped in the bullets--one--two--three--and then twice more; +for you never could be too sure of bringing down the Cisco Kid. There +was no danger of missing at ten paces, even in that half moonlight. + +The old ancestor, asleep on his blanket, was awakened by the shots. +Listening further, he heard a great cry from some man in mortal +distress or anguish, and rose up grumbling at the disturbing ways of +moderns. + +The tall, red ghost of a man burst into the /jacal/, reaching one +hand, shaking like a /tule/ reed, for the lantern hanging on its nail. +The other spread a letter on the table. + +"Look at this letter, Perez," cried the man. "Who wrote it?" + +"/Ah, Dios/! it is Senor Sandridge," mumbled the old man, approaching. +"/Pues, senor/, that letter was written by '/El Chivato/,' as he is +called--by the man of Tonia. They say he is a bad man; I do not know. +While Tonia slept he wrote the letter and sent it by this old hand of +mine to Domingo Sales to be brought to you. Is there anything wrong in +the letter? I am very old; and I did not know. /Valgame Dios/! it is a +very foolish world; and there is nothing in the house to drink-- +nothing to drink." + +Just then all that Sandridge could think of to do was to go outside +and throw himself face downward in the dust by the side of his +humming-bird, of whom not a feather fluttered. He was not a +/caballero/ by instinct, and he could not understand the niceties of +revenge. + +A mile away the rider who had ridden past the wagon-shed struck up a +harsh, untuneful song, the words of which began: + + Don't you monkey with my Lulu girl + Or I'll tell you what I'll do-- + + + +XII + +THE SPHINX APPLE + +Twenty miles out from Paradise, and fifteen miles short of Sunrise +City, Bildad Rose, the stage-driver, stopped his team. A furious snow +had been falling all day. Eight inches it measured now, on a level. +The remainder of the road was not without peril in daylight, creeping +along the ribs of a bijou range of ragged mountains. Now, when both +snow and night masked its dangers, further travel was not to be +thought of, said Bildad Rose. So he pulled up his four stout horses, +and delivered to his five passengers oral deductions of his wisdom. + +Judge Menefee, to whom men granted leadership and the initiatory as +upon a silver salver, sprang from the coach at once. Four of his +fellow-passengers followed, inspired by his example, ready to explore, +to objurgate, to resist, to submit, to proceed, according as their +prime factor might be inclined to sway them. The fifth passenger, a +young woman, remained in the coach. + +Bildad had halted upon the shoulder of the first mountain spur. Two +rail-fences, ragged-black, hemmed the road. Fifty yards above the +upper fence, showing a dark blot in the white drifts, stood a small +house. Upon this house descended--or rather ascended--Judge Menefee +and his cohorts with boyish whoops born of the snow and stress. They +called; they pounded at window and door. At the inhospitable silence +they waxed restive; they assaulted and forced the pregnable barriers, +and invaded the premises. + +The watchers from the coach heard stumblings and shoutings from the +interior of the ravaged house. Before long a light within flickered, +glowed, flamed high and bright and cheerful. Then came running back +through the driving flakes the exuberant explorers. More deeply +pitched than the clarion--even orchestral in volume--the voice of +Judge Menefee proclaimed the succour that lay in apposition with their +state of travail. The one room of the house was uninhabited, he said, +and bare of furniture; but it contained a great fireplace, and they +had discovered an ample store of chopped wood in a lean-to at the +rear. Housing and warmth against the shivering night were thus +assured. For the placation of Bildad Rose there was news of a stable, +not ruined beyond service, with hay in a loft, near the house. + +"Gentlemen," cried Bildad Rose from his seat, swathed in coats and +robes, "tear me down two panels of that fence, so I can drive in. That +is old man Redruth's shanty. I thought we must be nigh it. They took +him to the foolish house in August." + +Cheerfully the four passengers sprang at the snow-capped rails. The +exhorted team tugged the coach up the slant to the door of the edifice +from which a mid-summer madness had ravished its proprietor. The +driver and two of the passengers began to unhitch. Judge Menefee +opened the door of the coach, and removed his hat. + +"I have to announce, Miss Garland," said he, "the enforced suspension +of our journey. The driver asserts that the risk in travelling the +mountain road by night is too great even to consider. It will be +necessary to remain in the shelter of this house until morning. I beg +that you will feel that there is nothing to fear beyond a temporary +inconvenience. I have personally inspected the house, and find that +there are means to provide against the rigour of the weather, at +least. You shall be made as comfortable as possible. Permit me to +assist you to alight." + +To the Judge's side came the passenger whose pursuit in life was the +placing of the Little Goliath windmill. His name was Dunwoody; but +that matters not much. In travelling merely from Paradise to Sunrise +City one needs little or no name. Still, one who would seek to divide +honours with Judge Madison L. Menefee deserves a cognomenal peg upon +which Fame may hang a wreath. Thus spake, loudly and buoyantly, the +aerial miller: + +"Guess you'll have to climb out of the ark, Mrs. McFarland. This +wigwam isn't exactly the Palmer House, but it turns snow, and they +won't search your grip for souvenir spoons when you leave. /We've/ got +a fire going; and /we'll/ fix you up with dry Tilbys and keep the mice +away, anyhow, all right, all right." + +One of the two passengers who were struggling in a melee of horses, +harness, snow, and the sarcastic injunctions of Bildad Rose, called +loudly from the whirl of his volunteer duties: "Say! some of you +fellows get Miss Solomon into the house, will you? Whoa, there! you +confounded brute!" + +Again must it be gently urged that in travelling from Paradise to +Sunrise City an accurate name is prodigality. When Judge Menefee-- +sanctioned to the act by his grey hair and widespread repute--had +introduced himself to the lady passenger, she had, herself, sweetly +breathed a name, in response, that the hearing of the male passengers +had variously interpreted. In the not unjealous spirit of rivalry that +eventuated, each clung stubbornly to his own theory. For the lady +passenger to have reasseverated or corrected would have seemed +didactic if not unduly solicitous of a specific acquaintance. +Therefore the lady passenger permitted herself to be Garlanded and +McFarlanded and Solomoned with equal and discreet complacency. It is +thirty-five miles from Paradise to Sunrise City. /Compagnon de voyage/ +is name enough, by the gripsack of the Wandering Jew! for so brief a +journey. + +Soon the little party of wayfarers were happily seated in a cheerful +arc before the roaring fire. The robes, cushions, and removable +portions of the coach had been brought in and put to service. The lady +passenger chose a place near the hearth at one end of the arc. There +she graced almost a throne that her subjects had prepared. She sat +upon cushions and leaned against an empty box and barrel, robe +bespread, which formed a defence from the invading draughts. She +extended her feet, delectably shod, to the cordial heat. She ungloved +her hands, but retained about her neck her long fur boa. The unstable +flames half revealed, while the warding boa half submerged, her face-- +a youthful face, altogether feminine, clearly moulded and calm with +beauty's unchallenged confidence. Chivalry and manhood were here vying +to please and comfort her. She seemed to accept their devoirs--not +piquantly, as one courted and attended; nor preeningly, as many of her +sex unworthily reap their honours; not yet stolidly, as the ox +receives his hay; but concordantly with nature's own plan--as the lily +ingests the drop of dew foreordained to its refreshment. + +Outside the wind roared mightily, the fine snow whizzed through the +cracks, the cold besieged the backs of the immolated six; but the +elements did not lack a champion that night. Judge Menefee was +attorney for the storm. The weather was his client, and he strove by +special pleading to convince his companions in that frigid jury-box +that they sojourned in a bower of roses, beset only by benignant +zephyrs. He drew upon a fund of gaiety, wit, and anecdote, +sophistical, but crowned with success. His cheerfulness communicated +itself irresistibly. Each one hastened to contribute his own quota +toward the general optimism. Even the lady passenger was moved to +expression. + +"I think it is quite charming," she said, in her slow, crystal tones. + +At intervals some one of the passengers would rise and humorously +explore the room. There was little evidence to be collected of its +habitation by old man Redruth. + +Bildad Rose was called upon vivaciously for the ex-hermit's history. +Now, since the stage-driver's horses were fairly comfortable and his +passengers appeared to be so, peace and comity returned to him. + +"The old didapper," began Bildad, somewhat irreverently, "infested +this here house about twenty year. He never allowed nobody to come +nigh him. He'd duck his head inside and slam the door whenever a team +drove along. There was spinning-wheels up in his loft, all right. He +used to buy his groceries and tobacco at Sam Tilly's store, on the +Little Muddy. Last August he went up there dressed in a red bedquilt, +and told Sam he was King Solomon, and that the Queen of Sheba was +coming to visit him. He fetched along all the money he had--a little +bag full of silver--and dropped it in Sam's well. 'She won't come,' +says old man Redruth to Sam, 'if she knows I've got any money.' + +"As soon as folks heard he had that sort of a theory about women and +money they knowed he was crazy; so they sent down and packed him to +the foolish asylum." + +"Was there a romance in his life that drove him to a solitary +existence?" asked one of the passengers, a young man who had an +Agency. + +"No," said Bildad, "not that I ever heard spoke of. Just ordinary +trouble. They say he had had unfortunateness in the way of love +derangements with a young lady when he was young; before he contracted +red bed-quilts and had his financial conclusions disqualified. I never +heard of no romance." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Judge Menefee, impressively; "a case of unrequited +affection, no doubt." + +"No, sir," returned Bildad, "not at all. She never married him. +Marmaduke Mulligan, down at Paradise, seen a man once that come from +old Redruth's town. He said Redruth was a fine young man, but when you +kicked him on the pocket all you could hear jingle was a cuff-fastener +and a bunch of keys. He was engaged to this young lady--Miss Alice-- +something was her name; I've forgot. This man said she was the kind of +girl you like to have reach across you in a car to pay the fare. Well, +there come to the town a young chap all affluent and easy, and fixed +up with buggies and mining stock and leisure time. Although she was a +staked claim, Miss Alice and the new entry seemed to strike a mutual +kind of a clip. They had calls and coincidences of going to the post +office and such things as sometimes make a girl send back the +engagement ring and other presents--'a rift within the loot,' the +poetry man calls it. + +"One day folks seen Redruth and Miss Alice standing talking at the +gate. Then he lifts his hat and walks away, and that was the last +anybody in that town seen of him, as far as this man knew." + +"What about the young lady?" asked the young man who had an Agency. + +"Never heard," answered Bildad. "Right there is where my lode of +information turns to an old spavined crowbait, and folds its wings, +for I've pumped it dry." + +"A very sad--" began Judge Menefee, but his remark was curtailed by a +higher authority. + +"What a charming story!" said the lady passenger, in flute-like tones. + +A little silence followed, except for the wind and the crackling of +the fire. + +The men were seated upon the floor, having slightly mitigated its +inhospitable surface with wraps and stray pieces of boards. The man +who was placing Little Goliath windmills arose and walked about to +ease his cramped muscles. + +Suddenly a triumphant shout came from him. He hurried back from a +dusky corner of the room, bearing aloft something in his hand. It was +an apple--a large, red-mottled, firm pippin, pleasing to behold. In a +paper bag on a high shelf in that corner he had found it. It could +have been no relic of the lovewrecked Redruth, for its glorious +soundness repudiated the theory that it had lain on that musty shelf +since August. No doubt some recent bivouackers, lunching in the +deserted house, had left it there. + +Dunwoody--again his exploits demand for him the honours of +nomenclature--flaunted his apple in the faces of his fellow-marooners. +"See what I found, Mrs. McFarland!" he cried, vaingloriously. He held +the apple high up in the light of the fire, where it glowed a still +richer red. The lady passenger smiled calmly--always calmly. + +"What a charming apple!" she murmured, clearly. + +For a brief space Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated. +Second place galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished +man of windmills been selected by Fate instead of himself to discover +the sensational apple? He could have made of the act a scene, a +function, a setting for some impromptu, fanciful discourse or piece of +comedy--and have retained the role of cynosure. Actually, the lady +passenger was regarding this ridiculous Dunboddy or Woodbundy with an +admiring smile, as if the fellow had performed a feat! And the +windmill man swelled and gyrated like a sample of his own goods, +puffed up with the wind that ever blows from the chorus land toward +the domain of the star. + +While the transported Dunwoody, with his Aladdin's apple, was +receiving the fickle attentions of all, the resourceful jurist formed +a plan to recover his own laurels. + +With his courtliest smile upon his heavy but classic features, Judge +Menefee advanced, and took the apple, as if to examine it, from the +hand of Dunwoody. In his hand it became Exhibit A. + +"A fine apple," he said, approvingly. "Really, my dear Mr. Dudwindy, +you have eclipsed all of us as a forager. But I have an idea. This +apple shall become an emblem, a token, a symbol, a prize bestowed by +the mind and heart of beauty upon the most deserving." + +The audience, except one, applauded. "Good on the stump, ain't he?" +commented the passenger who was nobody in particular to the young man +who had an Agency. + +The unresponsive one was the windmill man. He saw himself reduced to +the ranks. Never would the thought have occurred to him to declare his +apple an emblem. He had intended, after it had been divided and eaten, +to create diversion by sticking the seeds against his forehead and +naming them for young ladies of his acquaintance. One he was going to +name Mrs. McFarland. The seed that fell off first would be--but 'twas +too late now. + +"The apple," continued Judge Menefee, charging his jury, "in modern +days occupies, though undeservedly, a lowly place in our esteem. +Indeed, it is so constantly associated with the culinary and the +commercial that it is hardly to be classed among the polite fruits. +But in ancient times this was not so. Biblical, historical, and +mythological lore abounds with evidences that the apple was the +aristocrat of fruits. We still say 'the apple of the eye' when we wish +to describe something superlatively precious. We find in Proverbs the +comparison to 'apples of silver.' No other product of tree or vine has +been so utilised in figurative speech. Who has not heard of and longed +for the 'apples of the Hesperides'? I need not call your attention to +the most tremendous and significant instance of the apple's ancient +prestige when its consumption by our first parents occasioned the fall +of man from his state of goodness and perfection." + +"Apples like them," said the windmill man, lingering with the +objective article, "are worth $3.50 a barrel in the Chicago market." + +"Now, what I have to propose," said Judge Menefee, conceding an +indulgent smile to his interrupter, "is this: We must remain here, +perforce, until morning. We have wood in plenty to keep us warm. Our +next need is to entertain ourselves as best we can, in order that the +time shall not pass too slowly. I propose that we place this apple in +the hands of Miss Garland. It is no longer a fruit, but, as I said, a +prize, in award, representing a great human idea. Miss Garland, +herself, shall cease to be an individual--but only temporarily, I am +happy to add"--(a low bow, full of the old-time grace). "She shall +represent her sex; she shall be the embodiment, the epitome of +womankind--the heart and brain, I may say, of God's masterpiece of +creation. In this guise she shall judge and decide the question which +follows: + +"But a few minutes ago our friend, Mr. Rose, favoured us with an +entertaining but fragmentary sketch of the romance in the life of the +former professor of this habitation. The few facts that we have +learned seem to me to open up a fascinating field for conjecture, for +the study of human hearts, for the exercise of the imagination--in +short, for story-telling. Let us make use of the opportunity. Let each +one of us relate his own version of the story of Redruth, the hermit, +and his lady-love, beginning where Mr. Rose's narrative ends--at the +parting of the lovers at the gate. This much should be assumed and +conceded--that the young lady was not necessarily to blame for +Redruth's becoming a crazed and world-hating hermit. When we have +done, Miss Garland shall render the JUDGEMENT OF WOMAN. As the Spirit +of her Sex she shall decide which version of the story best and most +truly depicts human and love interest, and most faithfully estimates +the character and acts of Redruth's betrothed according to the +feminine view. The apple shall be bestowed upon him who is awarded the +decision. If you are all agreed, we shall be pleased to hear the first +story from Mr. Dinwiddie." + +The last sentence captured the windmill man. He was not one to linger +in the dumps. + +"That's a first-rate scheme, Judge," he said, heartily. "Be a regular +short-story vaudeville, won't it? I used to be correspondent for a +paper in Springfield, and when there wasn't any news I faked it. Guess +I can do my turn all right." + +"I think the idea is charming," said the lady passenger, brightly. "It +will be almost like a game." + +Judge Menefee stepped forward and placed the apple in her hand +impressively. + +"In olden days," he said, orotundly, "Paris awarded the golden apple +to the most beautiful." + +"I was at the Exposition," remarked the windmill man, now cheerful +again, "but I never heard of it. And I was on the Midway, too, all the +time I wasn't at the machinery exhibit." + +"But now," continued the Judge, "the fruit shall translate to us the +mystery and wisdom of the feminine heart. Take the apple, Miss +Garland. Hear our modest tales of romance, and then award the prize as +you may deem it just." + +The lady passenger smiled sweetly. The apple lay in her lap beneath +her robes and wraps. She reclined against her protecting bulwark, +brightly and cosily at ease. But for the voices and the wind one might +have listened hopefully to hear her purr. Someone cast fresh logs upon +the fire. Judge Menefee nodded suavely. "Will you oblige us with the +initial story?" he asked. + +The windmill man sat as sits a Turk, with his hat well back on his +head on account of the draughts. + +"Well," he began, without any embarrassment, "this is about the way I +size up the difficulty: Of course Redruth was jostled a good deal by +this duck who had money to play ball with who tried to cut him out of +his girl. So he goes around, naturally, and asks her if the game is +still square. Well, nobody wants a guy cutting in with buggies and +gold bonds when he's got an option on a girl. Well, he goes around to +see her. Well, maybe he's hot, and talks like the proprietor, and +forgets that an engagement ain't always a lead-pipe cinch. Well, I +guess that makes Alice warm under the lacy yoke. Well, she answers +back sharp. Well, he--" + +"Say!" interrupted the passenger who was nobody in particular, "if you +could put up a windmill on every one of them 'wells' you're using, +you'd be able to retire from business, wouldn't you?" + +The windmill man grinned good-naturedly. + +"Oh, I ain't no /Guy de Mopassong/," he said, cheerfully. "I'm giving +it to you in straight American. Well, she says something like this: +'Mr. Gold Bonds is only a friend,' says she; 'but he takes me riding +and buys me theatre tickets, and that's what you never do. Ain't I to +never have any pleasure in life while I can?' 'Pass this chatfield- +chatfield thing along,' says Redruth;--'hand out the mitt to the +Willie with creases in it or you don't put your slippers under my +wardrobe.' + +"Now that kind of train orders don't go with a girl that's got any +spirit. I bet that girl loved her honey all the time. Maybe she only +wanted, as girls do, to work the good thing for a little fun and +caramels before she settled down to patch George's other pair, and be +a good wife. But he is glued to the high horse, and won't come down. +Well, she hands him back the ring, proper enough; and George goes away +and hits the booze. Yep. That's what done it. I bet that girl fired +the cornucopia with the fancy vest two days after her steady left. +George boards a freight and checks his bag of crackers for parts +unknown. He sticks to Old Booze for a number of years; and then the +aniline and aquafortis gets the decision. 'Me for the hermit's hut,' +says George, 'and the long whiskers, and the buried can of money that +isn't there.' + +"But that Alice, in my mind, was on the level. She never married, but +took up typewriting as soon as the wrinkles began to show, and kept a +cat that came when you said 'weeny--weeny--weeny!' I got too much +faith in good women to believe they throw down the fellow they're +stuck on every time for the dough." The windmill man ceased. + +"I think," said the lady passenger, slightly moving upon her lowly +throne, "that that is a char--" + +"Oh, Miss Garland!" interposed Judge Menefee, with uplifted hand, "I +beg of you, no comments! It would not be fair to the other +contestants. Mr.--er--will you take the next turn?" The Judge +addressed the young man who had the Agency. + +"My version of the romance," began the young man, diffidently clasping +his hands, "would be this: They did not quarrel when they parted. Mr. +Redruth bade her good-by and went out into the world to seek his +fortune. He knew his love would remain true to him. He scorned the +thought that his rival could make an impression upon a heart so fond +and faithful. I would say that Mr. Redruth went out to the Rocky +Mountains in Wyoming to seek for gold. One day a crew of pirates +landed and captured him while at work, and--" + +"Hey! what's that?" sharply called the passenger who was nobody in +particular--"a crew of pirates landed in the Rocky Mountains! Will you +tell us how they sailed--" + +"Landed from a train," said the narrator, quietly and not without some +readiness. "They kept him prisoner in a cave for months, and then they +took him hundreds of miles away to the forests of Alaska. There a +beautiful Indian girl fell in love with him, but he remained true to +Alice. After another year of wandering in the woods, he set out with +the diamonds--" + +"What diamonds?" asked the unimportant passenger, almost with +acerbity. + +"The ones the saddlemaker showed him in the Peruvian temple," said the +other, somewhat obscurely. "When he reached home, Alice's mother led +him, weeping, to a green mound under a willow tree. 'Her heart was +broken when you left,' said her mother. 'And what of my rival--of +Chester McIntosh?' asked Mr. Redruth, as he knelt sadly by Alice's +grave. 'When he found out,' she answered, 'that her heart was yours, +he pined away day by day until, at length, he started a furniture +store in Grand Rapids. We heard lately that he was bitten to death by +an infuriated moose near South Bend, Ind., where he had gone to try to +forget scenes of civilisation.' With which, Mr. Redruth forsook the +face of mankind and became a hermit, as we have seen. + +"My story," concluded the young man with an Agency, "may lack the +literary quality; but what I wanted it to show is that the young lady +remained true. She cared nothing for wealth in comparison with true +affection. I admire and believe in the fair sex too much to think +otherwise." + +The narrator ceased, with a sidelong glance at the corner where +reclined the lady passenger. + +Bildad Rose was next invited by Judge Menefee to contribute his story +in the contest for the apple of judgment. The stage-driver's essay was +brief. + +"I'm not one of them lobo wolves," he said, "who are always blaming on +women the calamities of life. My testimony in regards to the fiction +story you ask for, Judge, will be about as follows: What ailed Redruth +was pure laziness. If he had up and slugged this Percival De Lacey +that tried to give him the outside of the road, and had kept Alice in +the grape-vine swing with the blind-bridle on, all would have been +well. The woman you want is sure worth taking pains for. + +"'Send for me if you want me again,' says Redruth, and hoists his +Stetson, and walks off. He'd have called it pride, but the +nixycomlogical name for it is laziness. No woman don't like to run +after a man. 'Let him come back, hisself,' says the girl; and I'll be +bound she tells the boy with the pay ore to trot; and then spends her +time watching out the window for the man with the empty pocket-book +and the tickly moustache. + +"I reckon Redruth waits about nine year expecting her to send him a +note by a nigger asking him to forgive her. But she don't. 'This game +won't work,' says Redruth; 'then so won't I.' And he goes in the +hermit business and raises whiskers. Yes; laziness and whiskers was +what done the trick. They travel together. You ever hear of a man with +long whiskers and hair striking a bonanza? No. Look at the Duke of +Marlborough and this Standard Oil snoozer. Have they got 'em? + +"Now, this Alice didn't never marry, I'll bet a hoss. If Redruth had +married somebody else she might have done so, too. But he never turns +up. She has these here things they call fond memories, and maybe a +lock of hair and a corset steel that he broke, treasured up. Them sort +of articles is as good as a husband to some women. I'd say she played +out a lone hand. I don't blame no woman for old man Redruth's +abandonment of barber shops and clean shirts." + +Next in order came the passenger who was nobody in particular. +Nameless to us, he travels the road from Paradise to Sunrise City. + +But him you shall see, if the firelight be not too dim, as he responds +to the Judge's call. + +A lean form, in rusty-brown clothing, sitting like a frog, his arms +wrapped about his legs, his chin resting upon his knees. Smooth, +oakum-coloured hair; long nose; mouth like a satyr's, with upturned, +tobacco-stained corners. An eye like a fish's; a red necktie with a +horseshoe pin. He began with a rasping chuckle that gradually formed +itself into words. + +"Everybody wrong so far. What! a romance without any orange blossoms! +Ho, ho! My money on the lad with the butterfly tie and the certified +checks in his trouserings. + +"Take 'em as they parted at the gate? All right. 'You never loved me,' +says Redruth, wildly, 'or you wouldn't speak to a man who can buy you +the ice-cream.' 'I hate him,' says she. 'I loathe his side-bar buggy; +I despise the elegant cream bonbons he sends me in gilt boxes covered +with real lace; I feel that I could stab him to the heart when he +presents me with a solid medallion locket with turquoises and pearls +running in a vine around the border. Away with him! 'Tis only you I +love.' 'Back to the cosey corner!' says Redruth. 'Was I bound and +lettered in East Aurora? Get platonic, if you please. No jack-pots for +mine. Go and hate your friend some more. For me the Nickerson girl on +Avenue B, and gum, and a trolley ride.' + +"Around that night comes John W. Croesus. 'What! tears?' says he, +arranging his pearl pin. 'You have driven my lover away,' says little +Alice, sobbing: 'I hate the sight of you.' 'Marry me, then,' says John +W., lighting a Henry Clay. 'What!' she cries indignantly, 'marry you! +Never,' she says, 'until this blows over, and I can do some shopping, +and you see about the licence. There's a telephone next door if you +want to call up the county clerk.'" + +The narrator paused to give vent to his cynical chuckle. + +"Did they marry?" he continued. "Did the duck swallow the June-bug? +And then I take up the case of Old Boy Redruth. There's where you are +all wrong again, according to my theory. What turned him into a +hermit? One says laziness; one says remorse; one says booze. I say +women did it. How old is the old man now?" asked the speaker, turning +to Bildad Rose. + +"I should say about sixty-five." + +"All right. He conducted his hermit shop here for twenty years. Say he +was twenty-five when he took off his hat at the gate. That leaves +twenty years for him to account for, or else be docked. Where did he +spend that ten and two fives? I'll give you my idea. Up for bigamy. +Say there was the fat blonde in Saint Jo, and the panatela brunette at +Skillet Ridge, and the gold tooth down in the Kaw valley. Redruth gets +his cases mixed, and they send him up the road. He gets out after they +are through with him, and says: 'Any line for me except the crinoline. +The hermit trade is not overdone, and the stenographers never apply to +'em for work. The jolly hermit's life for me. No more long hairs in +the comb or dill pickles lying around in the cigar tray.' You tell me +they pinched old Redruth for the noodle villa just because he said he +was King Solomon? Figs! He /was/ Solomon. That's all of mine. I guess +it don't call for any apples. Enclosed find stamps. It don't sound +much like a prize winner." + +Respecting the stricture laid by Judge Menefee against comments upon +the stories, all were silent when the passenger who was nobody in +particular had concluded. And then the ingenious originator of the +contest cleared his throat to begin the ultimate entry for the prize. +Though seated with small comfort upon the floor, you might search in +vain for any abatement of dignity in Judge Menefee. The now +diminishing firelight played softly upon his face, as clearly +chiselled as a Roman emperor's on some old coin, and upon the thick +waves of his honourable grey hair. + +"A woman's heart!" he began, in even but thrilling tones--"who can +hope to fathom it? The ways and desires of men are various. I think +that the hearts of all women beat with the same rhythm, and to the +same old tune of love. Love, to a woman, means sacrifice. If she be +worthy of the name, no gold or rank will outweigh with her a genuine +devotion. + +"Gentlemen of the--er--I should say, my friends, the case of Redruth +/versus/ love and affection has been called. Yet, who is on trial? Not +Redruth, for he has been punished. Not those immortal passions that +clothe our lives with the joy of the angels. Then who? Each man of us +here to-night stands at the bar to answer if chivalry or darkness +inhabits his bosom. To judge us sits womankind in the form of one of +its fairest flowers. In her hand she holds the prize, intrinsically +insignificant, but worthy of our noblest efforts to win as a guerdon +of approval from so worthy a representative of feminine judgment and +taste. + +"In taking up the imaginary history of Redruth and the fair being to +whom he gave his heart, I must, in the beginning, raise my voice +against the unworthy insinuation that the selfishness or perfidy or +love of luxury of any woman drove him to renounce the world. I have +not found woman to be so unspiritual or venal. We must seek elsewhere, +among man's baser nature and lower motives for the cause. + +"There was, in all probability, a lover's quarrel as they stood at the +gate on that memorable day. Tormented by jealousy, young Redruth +vanished from his native haunts. But had he just cause to do so? There +is no evidence for or against. But there is something higher than +evidence; there is the grand, eternal belief in woman's goodness, in +her steadfastness against temptation, in her loyalty even in the face +of proffered riches. + +"I picture to myself the rash lover, wandering, self-tortured, about +the world. I picture his gradual descent, and, finally, his complete +despair when he realises that he has lost the most precious gift life +had to offer him. Then his withdrawal from the world of sorrow and the +subsequent derangement of his faculties becomes intelligible. + +"But what do I see on the other hand? A lonely woman fading away as +the years roll by; still faithful, still waiting, still watching for a +form and listening for a step that will come no more. She is old now. +Her hair is white and smoothly banded. Each day she sits at the door +and gazes longingly down the dusty road. In spirit she is waiting +there at the gate, just as he left her--his forever, but not here +below. Yes; my belief in woman paints that picture in my mind. Parted +forever on earth, but waiting! She in anticipation of a meeting in +Elysium; he in the Slough of Despond." + +"I thought he was in the bughouse," said the passenger who was nobody +in particular. + +Judge Menefee stirred, a little impatiently. The men sat, drooping, in +grotesque attitudes. The wind had abated its violence; coming now in +fitful, virulent puffs. The fire had burned to a mass of red coals +which shed but a dim light within the room. The lady passenger in her +cosey nook looked to be but a formless dark bulk, crowned by a mass of +coiled, sleek hair and showing but a small space of snowy forehead +above her clinging boa. + +Judge Menefee got stiffly to his feet. + +"And now, Miss Garland," he announced, "we have concluded. It is for +you to award the prize to the one of us whose argument--especially, I +may say, in regard to his estimate of true womanhood--approaches +nearest to your own conception." + +No answer came from the lady passenger. Judge Menefee bent over +solicitously. The passenger who was nobody in particular laughed low +and harshly. The lady was sleeping sweetly. The Judge essayed to take +her hand to awaken her. In doing so he touched a small, cold, round, +irregular something in her lap. + +"She has eaten the apple," announced Judge Menefee, in awed tones, as +he held up the core for them to see. + + + +XIII + +THE MISSING CHORD + +I stopped overnight at the sheep-ranch of Rush Kinney, on the Sandy +Fork of the Nueces. Mr. Kinney and I had been strangers up to the time +when I called "Hallo!" at his hitching-rack; but from that moment +until my departure on the next morning we were, according to the Texas +code, undeniable friends. + +After supper the ranchman and I lugged our chairs outside the two-room +house, to its floorless gallery roofed with chaparral and sacuista +grass. With the rear legs of our chairs sinking deep into the +hardpacked loam, each of us reposed against an elm pillar of the +structure and smoked El Toro tobacco, while we wrangled amicably +concerning the affairs of the rest of the world. + +As for conveying adequate conception of the engaging charm of that +prairie evening, despair waits upon it. It is a bold chronicler who +will undertake the description of a Texas night in the early spring. +An inventory must suffice. + +The ranch rested upon the summit of a lenient slope. The ambient +prairie, diversified by arroyos and murky patches of brush and pear, +lay around us like a darkened bowl at the bottom of which we reposed +as dregs. Like a turquoise cover the sky pinned us there. The +miraculous air, heady with ozone and made memorably sweet by leagues +of wild flowerets, gave tang and savour to the breath. In the sky was +a great, round, mellow searchlight which we knew to be no moon, but +the dark lantern of summer, who came to hunt northward the cowering +spring. In the nearest corral a flock of sheep lay silent until a +groundless panic would send a squad of them huddling together with a +drumming rush. For other sounds a shrill family of coyotes yapped +beyond the shearing-pen, and whippoorwills twittered in the long +grass. But even these dissonances hardly rippled the clear torrent of +the mocking-birds' notes that fell from a dozen neighbouring shrubs +and trees. It would not have been preposterous for one to tiptoe and +essay to touch the stars, they hung so bright and imminent. + +Mr. Kinney's wife, a young and capable woman, we had left in the +house. She remained to busy herself with the domestic round of duties, +in which I had observed that she seemed to take a buoyant and +contented pride. In one room we had supped. Presently, from the other, +as Kinney and I sat without, there burst a volume of sudden and +brilliant music. If I could justly estimate the art of piano-playing, +the construer of that rollicking fantasia had creditably mastered the +secrets of the keyboard. A piano, and one so well played, seemed to me +to be an unusual thing to find in that small and unpromising ranch- +house. I must have looked my surprise at Rush Kinney, for he laughed +in his soft, Southern way, and nodded at me through the moonlit haze +of our cigarettes. + +"You don't often hear as agreeable a noise as that on a sheep-ranch," +he remarked; "but I never see any reason for not playing up to the +arts and graces just because we happen to live out in the brush. It's +a lonesome life for a woman; and if a little music can make it any +better, why not have it? That's the way I look at it." + +"A wise and generous theory," I assented. "And Mrs. Kinney plays well. +I am not learned in the science of music, but I should call her an +uncommonly good performer. She has technic and more than ordinary +power." + +The moon was very bright, you will understand, and I saw upon Kinney's +face a sort of amused and pregnant expression, as though there were +things behind it that might be expounded. + +"You came up the trail from the Double-Elm Fork," he said promisingly. +"As you crossed it you must have seen an old deserted /jacal/ to your +left under a comma mott." + +"I did," said I. "There was a drove of /javalis/ rooting around it. I +could see by the broken corrals that no one lived there." + +"That's where this music proposition started," said Kinney. "I don't +mind telling you about it while we smoke. That's where old Cal Adams +lived. He had about eight hundred graded merinos and a daughter that +was solid silk and as handsome as a new stake-rope on a thirty-dollar +pony. And I don't mind telling you that I was guilty in the second +degree of hanging around old Cal's ranch all the time I could spare +away from lambing and shearing. Miss Marilla was her name; and I had +figured it out by the rule of two that she was destined to become the +chatelaine and lady superior of Rancho Lomito, belonging to R. Kinney, +Esq., where you are now a welcome and honoured guest. + +"I will say that old Cal wasn't distinguished as a sheepman. He was a +little, old stoop-shouldered /hombre/ about as big as a gun scabbard, +with scraggy white whiskers, and condemned to the continuous use of +language. Old Cal was so obscure in his chosen profession that he +wasn't even hated by the cowmen. And when a sheepman don't get eminent +enough to acquire the hostility of the cattlemen, he is mighty apt to +die unwept and considerably unsung. + +"But that Marilla girl was a benefit to the eye. And she was the most +elegant kind of a housekeeper. I was the nearest neighbour, and I used +to ride over to the Double-Elm anywhere from nine to sixteen times a +week with fresh butter or a quarter of venison or a sample of new +sheep-dip just as a frivolous excuse to see Marilla. Marilla and me +got to be extensively inveigled with each other, and I was pretty sure +I was going to get my rope around her neck and lead her over to the +Lomito. Only she was so everlastingly permeated with filial sentiments +toward old Cal that I never could get her to talk about serious +matters. + +"You never saw anybody in your life that was as full of knowledge and +had less sense than old Cal. He was advised about all the branches of +information contained in learning, and he was up to all the rudiments +of doctrines and enlightenment. You couldn't advance him any ideas on +any of the parts of speech or lines of thought. You would have thought +he was a professor of the weather and politics and chemistry and +natural history and the origin of derivations. Any subject you brought +up old Cal could give you an abundant synopsis of it from the Greek +root up to the time it was sacked and on the market. + +"One day just after the fall shearing I rides over to the Double-Elm +with a lady's magazine about fashions for Marilla and a scientific +paper for old Cal. + +"While I was tying my pony to a mesquite, out runs Marilla, 'tickled +to death' with some news that couldn't wait. + +"'Oh, Rush,' she says, all flushed up with esteem and gratification, +'what do you think! Dad's going to buy me a piano. Ain't it grand? I +never dreamed I'd ever have one." + +"'It's sure joyful,' says I. 'I always admired the agreeable uproar of +a piano. It'll be lots of company for you. That's mighty good of Uncle +Cal to do that.' + +"'I'm all undecided,' says Marilla, 'between a piano and an organ. A +parlour organ is nice.' + +"'Either of 'em,' says I, 'is first-class for mitigating the lack of +noise around a sheep-ranch. For my part,' I says, 'I shouldn't like +anything better than to ride home of an evening and listen to a few +waltzes and jigs, with somebody about your size sitting on the piano- +stool and rounding up the notes.' + +"'Oh, hush about that,' says Marilla, 'and go on in the house. Dad +hasn't rode out to-day. He's not feeling well.' + +"Old Cal was inside, lying on a cot. He had a pretty bad cold and +cough. I stayed to supper. + +"'Going to get Marilla a piano, I hear,' says I to him. + +"'Why, yes, something of the kind, Rush,' says he. 'She's been +hankering for music for a long spell; and I allow to fix her up with +something in that line right away. The sheep sheared six pounds all +round this fall; and I'm going to get Marilla an instrument if it +takes the price of the whole clip to do it.' + +"'/Star wayno/,' says I. 'The little girl deserves it.' + +"'I'm going to San Antone on the last load of wool,' says Uncle Cal, +'and select an instrument for her myself.' + +"'Wouldn't it be better,' I suggests, 'to take Marilla along and let +her pick out one that she likes?' + +"I might have known that would set Uncle Cal going. Of course, a man +like him, that knew everything about everything, would look at that as +a reflection on his attainments. + +"'No, sir, it wouldn't,' says he, pulling at his white whiskers. +'There ain't a better judge of musical instruments in the whole world +than what I am. I had an uncle,' says he, 'that was a partner in a +piano-factory, and I've seen thousands of 'em put together. I know all +about musical instruments from a pipe-organ to a corn-stalk fiddle. +There ain't a man lives, sir, that can tell me any news about any +instrument that has to be pounded, blowed, scraped, grinded, picked, +or wound with a key.' + +"'You get me what you like, dad,' says Marilla, who couldn't keep her +feet on the floor from joy. 'Of course you know what to select. I'd +just as lief it was a piano or a organ or what.' + +"'I see in St. Louis once what they call a orchestrion,' says Uncle +Cal, 'that I judged was about the finest thing in the way of music +ever invented. But there ain't room in this house for one. Anyway, I +imagine they'd cost a thousand dollars. I reckon something in the +piano line would suit Marilla the best. She took lessons in that +respect for two years over at Birdstail. I wouldn't trust the buying +of an instrument to anybody else but myself. I reckon if I hadn't took +up sheep-raising I'd have been one of the finest composers or piano- +and-organ manufacturers in the world.' + +"That was Uncle Cal's style. But I never lost any patience with him, +on account of his thinking so much of Marilla. And she thought just as +much of him. He sent her to the academy over at Birdstail for two +years when it took nearly every pound of wool to pay the expenses. + +"Along about Tuesday Uncle Cal put out for San Antone on the last +wagonload of wool. Marilla's uncle Ben, who lived in Birdstail, come +over and stayed at the ranch while Uncle Cal was gone. + +"It was ninety miles to San Antone, and forty to the nearest railroad- +station, so Uncle Cal was gone about four days. I was over at the +Double-Elm when he came rolling back one evening about sundown. And up +there in the wagon, sure enough, was a piano or a organ--we couldn't +tell which--all wrapped up in woolsacks, with a wagon-sheet tied over +it in case of rain. And out skips Marilla, hollering, 'Oh, oh!' with +her eyes shining and her hair a-flying. 'Dad--dad,' she sings out, +'have you brought it--have you brought it?'--and it right there before +her eyes, as women will do. + +"'Finest piano in San Antone,' says Uncle Cal, waving his hand, proud. +'Genuine rosewood, and the finest, loudest tone you ever listened to. +I heard the storekeeper play it, and I took it on the spot and paid +cash down.' + +"Me and Ben and Uncle Cal and a Mexican lifted it out of the wagon and +carried it in the house and set it in a corner. It was one of them +upright instruments, and not very heavy or very big. + +"And then all of a sudden Uncle Cal flops over and says he's mighty +sick. He's got a high fever, and he complains of his lungs. He gets +into bed, while me and Ben goes out to unhitch and put the horses in +the pasture, and Marilla flies around to get Uncle Cal something hot +to drink. But first she puts both arms on that piano and hugs it with +a soft kind of a smile, like you see kids doing with their Christmas +toys. + +"When I came in from the pasture, Marilla was in the room where the +piano was. I could see by the strings and woolsacks on the floor that +she had had it unwrapped. But now she was tying the wagon-sheet over +it again, and there was a kind of solemn, whitish look on her face. + +"'Ain't wrapping up the music again, are you, Marilla?' I asks. +'What's the matter with just a couple of tunes for to see how she goes +under the saddle?' + +"'Not to-night, Rush,' says she. 'I don't want to play any to-night. +Dad's too sick. Just think, Rush, he paid three hundred dollars for it +--nearly a third of what the wool-clip brought!' + +"'Well, it ain't anyways in the neighbourhood of a third of what you +are worth,' I told her. 'And I don't think Uncle Cal is too sick to +hear a little agitation of the piano-keys just to christen the +machine. + +"'Not to-night, Rush,' says Marilla, in a way that she had when she +wanted to settle things. + +"But it seems that Uncle Cal was plenty sick, after all. He got so bad +that Ben saddled up and rode over to Birdstail for Doc Simpson. I +stayed around to see if I'd be needed for anything. + +"When Uncle Cal's pain let up on him a little he called Marilla and +says to her: 'Did you look at your instrument, honey? And do you like +it?' + +"'It's lovely, dad,' says she, leaning down by his pillow; 'I never +saw one so pretty. How dear and good it was of you to buy it for me!' + +"'I haven't heard you play on it any yet,' says Uncle Cal; 'and I've +been listening. My side don't hurt quite so bad now--won't you play a +piece, Marilla?' + +"But no; she puts Uncle Cal off and soothes him down like you've seen +women do with a kid. It seems she's made up her mind not to touch that +piano at present. + +"When Doc Simpson comes over he tells us that Uncle Cal has pneumonia +the worst kind; and as the old man was past sixty and nearly on the +lift anyhow, the odds was against his walking on grass any more. + +"On the fourth day of his sickness he calls for Marilla again and +wants to talk piano. Doc Simpson was there, and so was Ben and Mrs. +Ben, trying to do all they could. + +"'I'd have made a wonderful success in anything connected with music,' +says Uncle Cal. 'I got the finest instrument for the money in San +Antone. Ain't that piano all right in every respect, Marilla?' + +"'It's just perfect, dad,' says she. 'It's got the finest tone I ever +heard. But don't you think you could sleep a little while now, dad?' + +"'No, I don't,' says Uncle Cal. 'I want to hear that piano. I don't +believe you've even tried it yet. I went all the way to San Antone and +picked it out for you myself. It took a third of the fall clip to buy +it; but I don't mind that if it makes my good girl happier. Won't you +play a little bit for dad, Marilla?' + +"Doc Simpson beckoned Marilla to one side and recommended her to do +what Uncle Cal wanted, so it would get him quieted. And her uncle Ben +and his wife asked her, too. + +"'Why not hit out a tune or two with the soft pedal on?' I asks +Marilla. 'Uncle Cal has begged you so often. It would please him a +good deal to hear you touch up the piano he's bought for you. Don't +you think you might?' + +"But Marilla stands there with big tears rolling down from her eyes +and says nothing. And then she runs over and slips her arm under Uncle +Cal's neck and hugs him tight. + +"'Why, last night, dad,' we heard her say, 'I played it ever so much. +Honest--I have been playing it. And it's such a splendid instrument, +you don't know how I love it. Last night I played "Bonnie Dundee" and +the "Anvil Polka" and the "Blue Danube"--and lots of pieces. You must +surely have heard me playing a little, didn't you, dad? I didn't like +to play loud when you was so sick.' + +"'Well, well,' says Uncle Cal, 'maybe I did. Maybe I did and forgot +about it. My head is a little cranky at times. I heard the man in the +store play it fine. I'm mighty glad you like it, Marilla. Yes, I +believe I could go to sleep a while if you'll stay right beside me +till I do.' + +"There was where Marilla had me guessing. Much as she thought of that +old man, she wouldn't strike a note on that piano that he'd bought +her. I couldn't imagine why she told him she'd been playing it, for +the wagon-sheet hadn't ever been off of it since she put it back on +the same day it come. I knew she could play a little anyhow, for I'd +once heard her snatch some pretty fair dance-music out of an old piano +at the Charco Largo Ranch. + +"Well, in about a week the pneumonia got the best of Uncle Cal. They +had the funeral over at Birdstail, and all of us went over. I brought +Marilla back home in my buckboard. Her uncle Ben and his wife were +going to stay there a few days with her. + +"That night Marilla takes me in the room where the piano was, while +the others were out on the gallery. + +"'Come here, Rush,' says she; 'I want you to see this now.' + +"She unties the rope, and drags off the wagon-sheet. + +"If you ever rode a saddle without a horse, or fired off a gun that +wasn't loaded, or took a drink out of an empty bottle, why, then you +might have been able to scare an opera or two out of the instrument +Uncle Cal had bought. + +"Instead of a piano, it was one of the machines they've invented to +play the piano with. By itself it was about as musical as the holes of +a flute without the flute. + +"And that was the piano that Uncle Cal had selected; and standing by +it was the good, fine, all-wool girl that never let him know it. + +"And what you heard playing a while ago," concluded Mr. Kinney, "was +that same deputy-piano machine; only just at present it's shoved up +against a six-hundred-dollar piano that I bought for Marilla as soon +as we was married." + + + +XIV + +A CALL LOAN + +In those days the cattlemen were the anointed. They were the grandees +of the grass, kings of the kine, lords of the lea, barons of beef and +bone. They might have ridden in golden chariots had their tastes so +inclined. The cattleman was caught in a stampede of dollars. It seemed +to him that he had more money than was decent. But when he had bought +a watch with precious stones set in the case so large that they hurt +his ribs, and a California saddle with silver nails and Angora skin +/suaderos/, and ordered everybody up to the bar for whisky--what else +was there for him to spend money for? + +Not so circumscribed in expedient for the reduction of surplus wealth +were those lairds of the lariat who had womenfolk to their name. In +the breast of the rib-sprung sex the genius of purse lightening may +slumber through years of inopportunity, but never, my brothers, does +it become extinct. + +So, out of the chaparral came Long Bill Longley from the Bar Circle +Branch on the Frio--a wife-driven man--to taste the urban joys of +success. Something like half a million dollars he had, with an income +steadily increasing. + +Long Bill was a graduate of the camp and trail. Luck and thrift, a +cool head, and a telescopic eye for mavericks had raised him from +cowboy to be a cowman. Then came the boom in cattle, and Fortune, +stepping gingerly among the cactus thorns, came and emptied her +cornucopia at the doorstep of the ranch. + +In the little frontier city of Chaparosa, Longley built a costly +residence. Here he became a captive, bound to the chariot of social +existence. He was doomed to become a leading citizen. He struggled for +a time like a mustang in his first corral, and then he hung up his +quirt and spurs. Time hung heavily on his hands. He organised the +First National Bank of Chaparosa, and was elected its president. + +One day a dyspeptic man, wearing double-magnifying glasses, inserted +an official-looking card between the bars of the cashier's window of +the First National Bank. Five minutes later the bank force was dancing +at the beck and call of a national bank examiner. + +This examiner, Mr. J. Edgar Todd, proved to be a thorough one. + +At the end of it all the examiner put on his hat, and called the +president, Mr. William R. Longley, into the private office. + +"Well, how do you find things?" asked Longley, in his slow, deep +tones. "Any brands in the round-up you didn't like the looks of?" + +"The bank checks up all right, Mr. Longley," said Todd; "and I find +your loans in very good shape--with one exception. You are carrying +one very bad bit of paper--one that is so bad that I have been +thinking that you surely do not realise the serious position it places +you in. I refer to a call loan of $10,000 made to Thomas Merwin. Not +only is the amount in excess of the maximum sum the bank can loan any +individual legally, but it is absolutely without endorsement or +security. Thus you have doubly violated the national banking laws, and +have laid yourself open to criminal prosecution by the Government. A +report of the matter to the Comptroller of the Currency--which I am +bound to make--would, I am sure, result in the matter being turned +over to the Department of Justice for action. You see what a serious +thing it is." + +Bill Longley was leaning his lengthy, slowly moving frame back in his +swivel chair. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he turned a +little to look the examiner in the face. The examiner was surprised to +see a smile creep about the rugged mouth of the banker, and a kindly +twinkle in his light-blue eyes. If he saw the seriousness of the +affair, it did not show in his countenance. + +"Of course, you don't know Tom Merwin," said Longley, almost genially. +"Yes, I know about that loan. It hasn't any security except Tom +Merwin's word. Somehow, I've always found that when a man's word is +good it's the best security there is. Oh, yes, I know the Government +doesn't think so. I guess I'll see Tom about that note." + +Mr. Todd's dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the +chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement. + +"You see," said Longley, easily explaining the thing away, "Tom heard +of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the Rio Grande +that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon 'twas one of old Leandro +Garcia's outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a +quick turn on 'em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas +City. Tom knew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have +the $10,000 to make the deal with. His brother Ed took 'em on to +market three weeks ago. He ought to be back 'most any day now with the +money. When he comes Tom'll pay that note." + +The bank examiner was shocked. It was, perhaps, his duty to step out +to the telegraph office and wire the situation to the Comptroller. But +he did not. He talked pointedly and effectively to Longley for three +minutes. He succeeded in making the banker understand that he stood +upon the border of a catastrophe. And then he offered a tiny loophole +of escape. + +"I am going to Hilldale's to-night," he told Longley, "to examine a +bank there. I will pass through Chaparosa on my way back. At twelve +o'clock to-morrow I shall call at this bank. If this loan has been +cleared out of the way by that time it will not be mentioned in my +report. If not--I will have to do my duty." + +With that the examiner bowed and departed. + +The President of the First National lounged in his chair half an hour +longer, and then he lit a mild cigar, and went over to Tom Merwin's +house. Merwin, a ranchman in brown duck, with a contemplative eye, sat +with his feet upon a table, plaiting a rawhide quirt. + +"Tom," said Longley, leaning against the table, "you heard anything +from Ed yet?" + +"Not yet," said Merwin, continuing his plaiting. "I guess Ed'll be +along back now in a few days." + +"There was a bank examiner," said Longley, "nosing around our place +to-day, and he bucked a sight about that note of yours. You know I +know it's all right, but the thing /is/ against the banking laws. I +was pretty sure you'd have paid it off before the bank was examined +again, but the son-of-a-gun slipped in on us, Tom. Now, I'm short of +cash myself just now, or I'd let you have the money to take it up +with. I've got till twelve o'clock to-morrow, and then I've got to +show the cash in place of that note or--" + +"Or what, Bill?" asked Merwin, as Longley hesitated. + +"Well, I suppose it means be jumped on with both of Uncle Sam's feet." + +"I'll try to raise the money for you on time," said Merwin, interested +in his plaiting. + +"All right, Tom," concluded Longley, as he turned toward the door; "I +knew you would if you could." + +Merwin threw down his whip and went to the only other bank in town, a +private one, run by Cooper & Craig. + +"Cooper," he said, to the partner by that name, "I've got to have +$10,000 to-day or to-morrow. I've got a house and lot there that's +worth about $6,000 and that's all the actual collateral. But I've got +a cattle deal on that's sure to bring me in more than that much profit +within a few days." + +Cooper began to cough. + +"Now, for God's sake don't say no," said Merwin. "I owe that much +money on a call loan. It's been called, and the man that called it is +a man I've laid on the same blanket with in cow-camps and ranger-camps +for ten years. He can call anything I've got. He can call the blood +out of my veins and it'll come. He's got to have the money. He's in a +devil of a--Well, he needs the money, and I've got to get it for him. +You know my word's good, Cooper." + +"No doubt of it," assented Cooper, urbanely, "but I've a partner, you +know. I'm not free in making loans. And even if you had the best +security in your hands, Merwin, we couldn't accommodate you in less +than a week. We're just making a shipment of $15,000 to Myer Brothers +in Rockdell, to buy cotton with. It goes down on the narrow-gauge +to-night. That leaves our cash quite short at present. Sorry we can't +arrange it for you." + +Merwin went back to his little bare office and plaited at his quirt +again. About four o'clock in the afternoon he went to the First +National Bank and leaned over the railing of Longley's desk. + +"I'll try to get that money for you to-night--I mean to-morrow, Bill." + +"All right, Tom," said Longley quietly. + +At nine o'clock that night Tom Merwin stepped cautiously out of the +small frame house in which he lived. It was near the edge of the +little town, and few citizens were in the neighbourhood at that hour. +Merwin wore two six-shooters in a belt, and a slouch hat. He moved +swiftly down a lonely street, and then followed the sandy road that +ran parallel to the narrow-gauge track until he reached the water- +tank, two miles below the town. There Tom Merwin stopped, tied a black +silk handkerchief about the lower part of his face, and pulled his hat +down low. + +In ten minutes the night train for Rockdell pulled up at the tank, +having come from Chaparosa. + +With a gun in each hand Merwin raised himself from behind a clump of +chaparral and started for the engine. But before he had taken three +steps, two long, strong arms clasped him from behind, and he was +lifted from his feet and thrown, face downward upon the grass. There +was a heavy knee pressing against his back, and an iron hand grasping +each of his wrists. He was held thus, like a child, until the engine +had taken water, and until the train had moved, with accelerating +speed, out of sight. Then he was released, and rose to his feet to +face Bill Longley. + +"The case never needed to be fixed up this way, Tom," said Longley. "I +saw Cooper this evening, and he told me what you and him talked about. +Then I went down to your house to-night and saw you come out with your +guns on, and I followed you. Let's go back, Tom." + +They walked away together, side by side. + +"'Twas the only chance I saw," said Merwin presently. "You called your +loan, and I tried to answer you. Now, what'll you do, Bill, if they +sock it to you?" + +"What would you have done if they'd socked it to you?" was the answer +Longley made. + +"I never thought I'd lay in a bush to stick up a train," remarked +Merwin; "but a call loan's different. A call's a call with me. We've +got twelve hours yet, Bill, before this spy jumps onto you. We've got +to raise them spondulicks somehow. Maybe we can--Great Sam Houston! do +you hear that?" + +Merwin broke into a run, and Longley kept with him, hearing only a +rather pleasing whistle somewhere in the night rendering the +lugubrious air of "The Cowboy's Lament." + +"It's the only tune he knows," shouted Merwin, as he ran. "I'll bet--" + +They were at the door of Merwin's house. He kicked it open and fell +over an old valise lying in the middle of the floor. A sunburned, +firm-jawed youth, stained by travel, lay upon the bed puffing at a +brown cigarette. + +"What's the word, Ed?" gasped Merwin. + +"So, so," drawled that capable youngster. "Just got in on the 9:30. +Sold the bunch for fifteen, straight. Now, buddy, you want to quit +kickin' a valise around that's got $29,000 in greenbacks in its +in'ards." + + + +XV + +THE PRINCESS AND THE PUMA + +There had to be a king and queen, of course. The king was a terrible +old man who wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a +tremendous voice that the rattlers on the prairie would run into their +holes under the prickly pear. Before there was a royal family they +called the man "Whispering Ben." When he came to own 50,000 acres of +land and more cattle than he could count, they called him O'Donnell +"the Cattle King." + +The queen had been a Mexican girl from Laredo. She made a good, mild, +Colorado-claro wife, and even succeeded in teaching Ben to modify his +voice sufficiently while in the house to keep the dishes from being +broken. When Ben got to be king she would sit on the gallery of +Espinosa Ranch and weave rush mats. When wealth became so irresistible +and oppressive that upholstered chairs and a centre table were brought +down from San Antone in the wagons, she bowed her smooth, dark head, +and shared the fate of the Danae. + +To avoid /lese-majeste/ you have been presented first to the king and +queen. They do not enter the story, which might be called "The +Chronicle of the Princess, the Happy Thought, and the Lion that +Bungled his Job." + +Josefa O'Donnell was the surviving daughter, the princess. From her +mother she inherited warmth of nature and a dusky, semi-tropic beauty. +From Ben O'Donnell the royal she acquired a store of intrepidity, +common sense, and the faculty of ruling. The combination was one worth +going miles to see. Josefa while riding her pony at a gallop could put +five out of six bullets through a tomato-can swinging at the end of a +string. She could play for hours with a white kitten she owned, +dressing it in all manner of absurd clothes. Scorning a pencil, she +could tell you out of her head what 1545 two-year-olds would bring on +the hoof, at $8.50 per head. Roughly speaking, the Espinosa Ranch is +forty miles long and thirty broad--but mostly leased land. Josefa, on +her pony, had prospected over every mile of it. Every cow-puncher on +the range knew her by sight and was a loyal vassal. Ripley Givens, +foreman of one of the Espinosa outfits, saw her one day, and made up +his mind to form a royal matrimonial alliance. Presumptuous? No. In +those days in the Nueces country a man was a man. And, after all, the +title of cattle king does not presuppose blood royalty. Often it only +signifies that its owner wears the crown in token of his magnificent +qualities in the art of cattle stealing. + +One day Ripley Givens rode over to the Double Elm Ranch to inquire +about a bunch of strayed yearlings. He was late in setting out on his +return trip, and it was sundown when he struck the White Horse +Crossing of the Nueces. From there to his own camp it was sixteen +miles. To the Espinosa ranch it was twelve. Givens was tired. He +decided to pass the night at the Crossing. + +There was a fine water hole in the river-bed. The banks were thickly +covered with great trees, undergrown with brush. Back from the water +hole fifty yards was a stretch of curly mesquite grass--supper for his +horse and bed for himself. Givens staked his horse, and spread out his +saddle blankets to dry. He sat down with his back against a tree and +rolled a cigarette. From somewhere in the dense timber along the river +came a sudden, rageful, shivering wail. The pony danced at the end of +his rope and blew a whistling snort of comprehending fear. Givens +puffed at his cigarette, but he reached leisurely for his pistol-belt, +which lay on the grass, and twirled the cylinder of his weapon +tentatively. A great gar plunged with a loud splash into the water +hole. A little brown rabbit skipped around a bunch of catclaw and sat +twitching his whiskers and looking humorously at Givens. The pony went +on eating grass. + +It is well to be reasonably watchful when a Mexican lion sings soprano +along the arroyos at sundown. The burden of his song may be that young +calves and fat lambs are scarce, and that he has a carnivorous desire +for your acquaintance. + +In the grass lay an empty fruit can, cast there by some former +sojourner. Givens caught sight of it with a grunt of satisfaction. In +his coat pocket tied behind his saddle was a handful or two of ground +coffee. Black coffee and cigarettes! What ranchero could desire more? + +In two minutes he had a little fire going clearly. He started, with +his can, for the water hole. When within fifteen yards of its edge he +saw, between the bushes, a side-saddled pony with down-dropped reins +cropping grass a little distance to his left. Just rising from her +hands and knees on the brink of the water hole was Josefa O'Donnell. +She had been drinking water, and she brushed the sand from the palms +of her hands. Ten yards away, to her right, half concealed by a clump +of sacuista, Givens saw the crouching form of the Mexican lion. His +amber eyeballs glared hungrily; six feet from them was the tip of the +tail stretched straight, like a pointer's. His hind-quarters rocked +with the motion of the cat tribe preliminary to leaping. + +Givens did what he could. His six-shooter was thirty-five yards away +lying on the grass. He gave a loud yell, and dashed between the lion +and the princess. + +The "rucus," as Givens called it afterward, was brief and somewhat +confused. When he arrived on the line of attack he saw a dim streak in +the air, and heard a couple of faint cracks. Then a hundred pounds of +Mexican lion plumped down upon his head and flattened him, with a +heavy jar, to the ground. He remembered calling out: "Let up, now--no +fair gouging!" and then he crawled from under the lion like a worm, +with his mouth full of grass and dirt, and a big lump on the back of +his head where it had struck the root of a water-elm. The lion lay +motionless. Givens, feeling aggrieved, and suspicious of fouls, shook +his fist at the lion, and shouted: "I'll rastle you again for +twenty--" and then he got back to himself. + +Josefa was standing in her tracks, quietly reloading her silver- +mounted .38. It had not been a difficult shot. The lion's head made an +easier mark than a tomato-can swinging at the end of a string. There +was a provoking, teasing, maddening smile upon her mouth and in her +dark eyes. The would-be-rescuing knight felt the fire of his fiasco +burn down to his soul. Here had been his chance, the chance that he +had dreamed of; and Momus, and not Cupid, had presided over it. The +satyrs in the wood were, no doubt, holding their sides in hilarious, +silent laughter. There had been something like vaudeville--say Signor +Givens and his funny knockabout act with the stuffed lion. + +"Is that you, Mr. Givens?" said Josefa, in her deliberate, saccharine +contralto. "You nearly spoilt my shot when you yelled. Did you hurt +your head when you fell?" + +"Oh, no," said Givens, quietly; "that didn't hurt." He stooped +ignominiously and dragged his best Stetson hat from under the beast. +It was crushed and wrinkled to a fine comedy effect. Then he knelt +down and softly stroked the fierce, open-jawed head of the dead lion. + +"Poor old Bill!" he exclaimed mournfully. + +"What's that?" asked Josefa, sharply. + +"Of course you didn't know, Miss Josefa," said Givens, with an air of +one allowing magnanimity to triumph over grief. "Nobody can blame you. +I tried to save him, but I couldn't let you know in time." + +"Save who?" + +"Why, Bill. I've been looking for him all day. You see, he's been our +camp pet for two years. Poor old fellow, he wouldn't have hurt a +cottontail rabbit. It'll break the boys all up when they hear about +it. But you couldn't tell, of course, that Bill was just trying to +play with you." + +Josefa's black eyes burned steadily upon him. Ripley Givens met the +test successfully. He stood rumpling the yellow-brown curls on his +head pensively. In his eye was regret, not unmingled with a gentle +reproach. His smooth features were set to a pattern of indisputable +sorrow. Josefa wavered. + +"What was your pet doing here?" she asked, making a last stand. +"There's no camp near the White Horse Crossing." + +"The old rascal ran away from camp yesterday," answered Givens +readily. "It's a wonder the coyotes didn't scare him to death. You +see, Jim Webster, our horse wrangler, brought a little terrier pup +into camp last week. The pup made life miserable for Bill--he used to +chase him around and chew his hind legs for hours at a time. Every +night when bedtime came Bill would sneak under one of the boy's +blankets and sleep to keep the pup from finding him. I reckon he must +have been worried pretty desperate or he wouldn't have run away. He +was always afraid to get out of sight of camp." + +Josefa looked at the body of the fierce animal. Givens gently patted +one of the formidable paws that could have killed a yearling calf with +one blow. Slowly a red flush widened upon the dark olive face of the +girl. Was it the signal of shame of the true sportsman who has brought +down ignoble quarry? Her eyes grew softer, and the lowered lids drove +away all their bright mockery. + +"I'm very sorry," she said humbly; "but he looked so big, and jumped +so high that--" + +"Poor old Bill was hungry," interrupted Givens, in quick defence of +the deceased. "We always made him jump for his supper in camp. He +would lie down and roll over for a piece of meat. When he saw you he +thought he was going to get something to eat from you." + +Suddenly Josefa's eyes opened wide. + +"I might have shot you!" she exclaimed. "You ran right in between. You +risked your life to save your pet! That was fine, Mr. Givens. I like a +man who is kind to animals." + +Yes; there was even admiration in her gaze now. After all, there was a +hero rising out of the ruins of the anti-climax. The look on Givens's +face would have secured him a high position in the S.P.C.A. + +"I always loved 'em," said he; "horses, dogs, Mexican lions, cows, +alligators--" + +"I hate alligators," instantly demurred Josefa; "crawly, muddy +things!" + +"Did I say alligators?" said Givens. "I meant antelopes, of course." + +Josefa's conscience drove her to make further amends. She held out her +hand penitently. There was a bright, unshed drop in each of her eyes. + +"Please forgive me, Mr. Givens, won't you? I'm only a girl, you know, +and I was frightened at first. I'm very, very sorry I shot Bill. You +don't know how ashamed I feel. I wouldn't have done it for anything." + +Givens took the proffered hand. He held it for a time while he allowed +the generosity of his nature to overcome his grief at the loss of +Bill. At last it was clear that he had forgiven her. + +"Please don't speak of it any more, Miss Josefa. 'Twas enough to +frighten any young lady the way Bill looked. I'll explain it all right +to the boys." + +"Are you really sure you don't hate me?" Josefa came closer to him +impulsively. Her eyes were sweet--oh, sweet and pleading with gracious +penitence. "I would hate anyone who would kill my kitten. And how +daring and kind of you to risk being shot when you tried to save him! +How very few men would have done that!" Victory wrested from defeat! +Vaudeville turned into drama! Bravo, Ripley Givens! + +It was now twilight. Of course Miss Josefa could not be allowed to +ride on to the ranch-house alone. Givens resaddled his pony in spite +of that animal's reproachful glances, and rode with her. Side by side +they galloped across the smooth grass, the princess and the man who +was kind to animals. The prairie odours of fruitful earth and delicate +bloom were thick and sweet around them. Coyotes yelping over there on +the hill! No fear. And yet-- + +Josefa rode closer. A little hand seemed to grope. Givens found it +with his own. The ponies kept an even gait. The hands lingered +together, and the owner of one explained: + +"I never was frightened before, but just think! How terrible it would +be to meet a really wild lion! Poor Bill! I'm so glad you came with +me!" + +O'Donnell was sitting on the ranch gallery. + +"Hello, Rip!" he shouted--"that you?" + +"He rode in with me," said Josefa. "I lost my way and was late." + +"Much obliged," called the cattle king. "Stop over, Rip, and ride to +camp in the morning." + +But Givens would not. He would push on to camp. There was a bunch of +steers to start off on the trail at daybreak. He said good-night, and +trotted away. + +An hour later, when the lights were out, Josefa, in her night-robe, +came to her door and called to the king in his own room across the +brick-paved hallway: + +"Say, pop, you know that old Mexican lion they call the 'Gotch-eared +Devil'--the one that killed Gonzales, Mr. Martin's sheep herder, and +about fifty calves on the Salado range? Well, I settled his hash this +afternoon over at the White Horse Crossing. Put two balls in his head +with my .38 while he was on the jump. I knew him by the slice gone +from his left ear that old Gonzales cut off with his machete. You +couldn't have made a better shot yourself, daddy." + +"Bully for you!" thundered Whispering Ben from the darkness of the +royal chamber. + + + +XVI + +THE INDIAN SUMMER OF DRY VALLEY JOHNSON + +Dry Valley Johnson shook the bottle. You have to shake the bottle +before using; for sulphur will not dissolve. Then Dry Valley saturated +a small sponge with the liquid and rubbed it carefully into the roots +of his hair. Besides sulphur there was sugar of lead in it and +tincture of nux vomica and bay rum. Dry Valley found the recipe in a +Sunday newspaper. You must next be told why a strong man came to fall +a victim to a Beauty Hint. + +Dry Valley had been a sheepman. His real name was Hector, but he had +been rechristened after his range to distinguish him from "Elm Creek" +Johnson, who ran sheep further down the Frio. + +Many years of living face to face with sheep on their own terms +wearied Dry Valley Johnson. So, he sold his ranch for eighteen +thousand dollars and moved to Santa Rosa to live a life of gentlemanly +ease. Being a silent and melancholy person of thirty-five--or perhaps +thirty-eight--he soon became that cursed and earth-cumbering thing--an +elderlyish bachelor with a hobby. Some one gave him his first +strawberry to eat, and he was done for. + +Dry Valley bought a four-room cottage in the village, and a library on +strawberry culture. Behind the cottage was a garden of which he made a +strawberry patch. In his old grey woolen shirt, his brown duck +trousers, and high-heeled boots he sprawled all day on a canvas cot +under a live-oak tree at his back door studying the history of the +seductive, scarlet berry. + +The school teacher, Miss De Witt, spoke of him as "a fine, presentable +man, for all his middle age." But, the focus of Dry Valley's eyes +embraced no women. They were merely beings who flew skirts as a signal +for him to lift awkwardly his heavy, round-crowned, broad-brimmed felt +Stetson whenever he met them, and then hurry past to get back to his +beloved berries. + +And all this recitative by the chorus is only to bring us to the point +where you may be told why Dry Valley shook up the insoluble sulphur in +the bottle. So long-drawn and inconsequential a thing is history--the +anamorphous shadow of a milestone reaching down the road between us +and the setting sun. + +When his strawberries were beginning to ripen Dry Valley bought the +heaviest buggy whip in the Santa Rosa store. He sat for many hours +under the live oak tree plaiting and weaving in an extension to its +lash. When it was done he could snip a leaf from a bush twenty feet +away with the cracker. For the bright, predatory eyes of Santa Rosa +youth were watching the ripening berries, and Dry Valley was arming +himself against their expected raids. No greater care had he taken of +his tender lambs during his ranching days than he did of his cherished +fruit, warding it from the hungry wolves that whistled and howled and +shot their marbles and peered through the fence that surrounded his +property. + +In the house next to Dry Valley's lived a widow with a pack of +children that gave the husbandman frequent anxious misgivings. In the +woman there was a strain of the Spanish. She had wedded one of the +name of O'Brien. Dry Valley was a connoisseur in cross strains; and he +foresaw trouble in the offspring of this union. + +Between the two homesteads ran a crazy picket fence overgrown with +morning glory and wild gourd vines. Often he could see little heads +with mops of black hair and flashing dark eyes dodging in and out +between the pickets, keeping tabs on the reddening berries. + +Late one afternoon Dry Valley went to the post office. When he came +back, like Mother Hubbard he found the deuce to pay. The descendants +of Iberian bandits and Hibernian cattle raiders had swooped down upon +his strawberry patch. To the outraged vision of Dry Valley there +seemed to be a sheep corral full of them; perhaps they numbered five +or six. Between the rows of green plants they were stooped, hopping +about like toads, gobbling silently and voraciously his finest fruit. + +Dry Valley slipped into the house, got his whip, and charged the +marauders. The lash curled about the legs of the nearest--a greedy +ten-year-old--before they knew they were discovered. His screech gave +warning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of +/javelis/ flushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley's whip drew a toll of +two more elfin shrieks before they dived through the vine-clad fence +and disappeared. + +Dry Valley, less fleet, followed them nearly to the pickets. Checking +his useless pursuit, he rounded a bush, dropped his whip and stood, +voiceless, motionless, the capacity of his powers consumed by the act +of breathing and preserving the perpendicular. + +Behind the bush stood Panchita O'Brien, scorning to fly. She was +nineteen, the oldest of the raiders. Her night-black hair was gathered +back in a wild mass and tied with a scarlet ribbon. She stood, with +reluctant feet, yet nearer the brook than to the river; for childhood +had environed and detained her. + +She looked at Dry Valley Johnson for a moment with magnificent +insolence, and before his eyes slowly crunched a luscious berry +between her white teeth. Then she turned and walked slowly to the +fence with a swaying, conscious motion, such as a duchess might make +use of in leading a promenade. There she turned again and grilled Dry +Valley Johnson once more in the dark flame of her audacious eyes, +laughed a trifle school-girlishly, and twisted herself with pantherish +quickness between the pickets to the O'Brien side of the wild gourd +vine. + +Dry Valley picked up his whip and went into his house. He stumbled as +he went up the two wooden steps. The old Mexican woman who cooked his +meals and swept his house called him to supper as he went through the +rooms. Dry Valley went on, stumbled down the front steps, out the gate +and down the road into a mesquite thicket at the edge of town. He sat +down in the grass and laboriously plucked the spines from a prickly +pear, one by one. This was his attitude of thought, acquired in the +days when his problems were only those of wind and wool and water. + +A thing had happened to the man--a thing that, if you are eligible, +you must pray may pass you by. He had become enveloped in the Indian +Summer of the Soul. + +Dry Valley had had no youth. Even his childhood had been one of +dignity and seriousness. At six he had viewed the frivolous gambols of +the lambs on his father's ranch with silent disapproval. His life as a +young man had been wasted. The divine fires and impulses, the glorious +exaltations and despairs, the glow and enchantment of youth had passed +above his head. Never a thrill of Romeo had he known; he was but a +melancholy Jaques of the forest with a ruder philosophy, lacking the +bitter-sweet flavour of experience that tempered the veteran years of +the rugged ranger of Arden. And now in his sere and yellow leaf one +scornful look from the eyes of Panchita O'Brien had flooded the +autumnal landscape with a tardy and delusive summer heat. + +But a sheepman is a hardy animal. Dry Valley Johnson had weathered too +many northers to turn his back on a late summer, spiritual or real. +Old? He would show them. + +By the next mail went an order to San Antonio for an outfit of the +latest clothes, colours and styles and prices no object. The next day +went the recipe for the hair restorer clipped from a newspaper; for +Dry Valley's sunburned auburn hair was beginning to turn silvery above +his ears. + +Dry Valley kept indoors closely for a week except for frequent sallies +after youthful strawberry snatchers. Then, a few days later, he +suddenly emerged brilliantly radiant in the hectic glow of his belated +midsummer madness. + +A jay-bird-blue tennis suit covered him outwardly, almost as far as +his wrists and ankles. His shirt was ox-blood; his collar winged and +tall; his necktie a floating oriflamme; his shoes a venomous bright +tan, pointed and shaped on penitential lasts. A little flat straw hat +with a striped band desecrated his weather-beaten head. Lemon-coloured +kid gloves protected his oak-tough hands from the benignant May +sunshine. This sad and optic-smiting creature teetered out of its den, +smiling foolishly and smoothing its gloves for men and angels to see. +To such a pass had Dry Valley Johnson been brought by Cupid, who +always shoots game that is out of season with an arrow from the quiver +of Momus. Reconstructing mythology, he had risen, a prismatic macaw, +from the ashes of the grey-brown phoenix that had folded its tired +wings to roost under the trees of Santa Rosa. + +Dry Valley paused in the street to allow Santa Rosans within sight of +him to be stunned; and then deliberately and slowly, as his shoes +required, entered Mrs. O'Brien's gate. + +Not until the eleven months' drought did Santa Rosa cease talking +about Dry Valley Johnson's courtship of Panchita O'Brien. It was an +unclassifiable procedure; something like a combination of cake- +walking, deaf-and-dumb oratory, postage stamp flirtation and parlour +charades. It lasted two weeks and then came to a sudden end. + +Of course Mrs. O'Brien favoured the match as soon as Dry Valley's +intentions were disclosed. Being the mother of a woman child, and +therefore a charter member of the Ancient Order of the Rat-trap, she +joyfully decked out Panchita for the sacrifice. The girl was +temporarily dazzled by having her dresses lengthened and her hair +piled up on her head, and came near forgetting that she was only a +slice of cheese. It was nice, too, to have as good a match as Mr. +Johnson paying you attentions and to see the other girls fluttering +the curtains at their windows to see you go by with him. + +Dry Valley bought a buggy with yellow wheels and a fine trotter in San +Antonio. Every day he drove out with Panchita. He was never seen to +speak to her when they were walking or driving. The consciousness of +his clothes kept his mind busy; the knowledge that he could say +nothing of interest kept him dumb; the feeling that Panchita was there +kept him happy. + +He took her to parties and dances, and to church. He tried--oh, no man +ever tried so hard to be young as Dry Valley did. He could not dance; +but he invented a smile which he wore on these joyous occasions, a +smile that, in him, was as great a concession to mirth and gaiety as +turning hand-springs would be in another. He began to seek the company +of the young men in the town--even of the boys. They accepted him as a +decided damper, for his attempts at sportiveness were so forced that +they might as well have essayed their games in a cathedral. Neither he +nor any other could estimate what progress he had made with Panchita. + +The end came suddenly in one day, as often disappears the false +afterglow before a November sky and wind. + +Dry Valley was to call for the girl one afternoon at six for a walk. +An afternoon walk in Santa Rosa was a feature of social life that +called for the pink of one's wardrobe. So Dry Valley began gorgeously +to array himself; and so early that he finished early, and went over +to the O'Brien cottage. As he neared the porch on the crooked walk +from the gate he heard sounds of revelry within. He stopped and looked +through the honeysuckle vines in the open door. + +Panchita was amusing her younger brothers and sisters. She wore a +man's clothes--no doubt those of the late Mr. O'Brien. On her head was +the smallest brother's straw hat decorated with an ink-striped paper +band. On her hands were flapping yellow cloth gloves, roughly cut out +and sewn for the masquerade. The same material covered her shoes, +giving them the semblance of tan leather. High collar and flowing +necktie were not omitted. + +Panchita was an actress. Dry Valley saw his affectedly youthful gait, +his limp where the right shoe hurt him, his forced smile, his awkward +simulation of a gallant air, all reproduced with startling fidelity. +For the first time a mirror had been held up to him. The corroboration +of one of the youngsters calling, "Mamma, come and see Pancha do like +Mr. Johnson," was not needed. + +As softly as the caricatured tans would permit, Dry Valley tiptoed +back to the gate and home again. + +Twenty minutes after the time appointed for the walk Panchita tripped +demurely out of her gate in a thin, trim white lawn and sailor hat. +She strolled up the sidewalk and slowed her steps at Dry Valley's +gate, her manner expressing wonder at his unusual delinquency. + +Then out of his door and down the walk strode--not the polychromatic +victim of a lost summertime, but the sheepman, rehabilitated. He wore +his old grey woolen shirt, open at the throat, his brown duck trousers +stuffed into his run-over boots, and his white felt sombrero on the +back of his head. Twenty years or fifty he might look; Dry Valley +cared not. His light blue eyes met Panchita's dark ones with a cold +flash in them. He came as far as the gate. He pointed with his long +arm to her house. + +"Go home," said Dry Valley. "Go home to your mother. I wonder +lightnin' don't strike a fool like me. Go home and play in the sand. +What business have you got cavortin' around with grown men? I reckon I +was locoed to be makin' a he poll-parrot out of myself for a kid like +you. Go home and don't let me see you no more. Why I done it, will +somebody tell me? Go home, and let me try and forget it." + +Panchita obeyed and walked slowly toward her home, saying nothing. For +some distance she kept her head turned and her large eyes fixed +intrepidly upon Dry Valley's. At her gate she stood for a moment +looking back at him, then ran suddenly and swiftly into the house. + +Old Antonia was building a fire in the kitchen stove. Dry Valley +stopped at the door and laughed harshly. + +"I'm a pretty looking old rhinoceros to be gettin' stuck on a kid, +ain't I, 'Tonia?" said he. + +"Not verree good thing," agreed Antonia, sagely, "for too much old man +to likee /muchacha/." + +"You bet it ain't," said Dry Valley, grimly. "It's dum foolishness; +and, besides, it hurts." + +He brought at one armful the regalia of his aberration--the blue +tennis suit, shoes, hat, gloves and all, and threw them in a pile at +Antonia's feet. + +"Give them to your old man," said he, "to hunt antelope in." + +Just as the first star presided palely over the twilight Dry Valley +got his biggest strawberry book and sat on the back steps to catch the +last of the reading light. He thought he saw the figure of someone in +his strawberry patch. He laid aside the book, got his whip and hurried +forth to see. + +It was Panchita. She had slipped through the picket fence and was +half-way across the patch. She stopped when she saw him and looked at +him without wavering. + +A sudden rage--a humiliating flush of unreasoning wrath--came over Dry +Valley. For this child he had made himself a motley to the view. He +had tried to bribe Time to turn backward for himself; he had--been +made a fool of. At last he had seen his folly. There was a gulf +between him and youth over which he could not build a bridge even with +yellow gloves to protect his hands. And the sight of his torment +coming to pester him with her elfin pranks--coming to plunder his +strawberry vines like a mischievous schoolboy--roused all his anger. + +"I told you to keep away from here," said Dry Valley. "Go back to your +home." + +Panchita moved slowly toward him. + +Dry Valley cracked his whip. + +"Go back home," said Dry Valley, savagely, "and play theatricals some +more. You'd make a fine man. You've made a fine one of me." + +She came a step nearer, silent, and with that strange, defiant, steady +shine in her eyes that had always puzzled him. Now it stirred his +wrath. + +His whiplash whistled through the air. He saw a red streak suddenly +come out through her white dress above her knee where it had struck. + +Without flinching and with the same unchanging dark glow in her eyes, +Panchita came steadily toward him through the strawberry vines. Dry +Valley's trembling hand released his whip handle. When within a yard +of him Panchita stretched out her arms. + +"God, kid!" stammered Dry Valley, "do you mean--?" + +But the seasons are versatile; and it may have been Springtime, after +all, instead of Indian Summer, that struck Dry Valley Johnson. + + + +XVII + +CHRISTMAS BY INJUNCTION + +Cherokee was the civic father of Yellowhammer. Yellowhammer was a new +mining town constructed mainly of canvas and undressed pine. Cherokee +was a prospector. One day while his burro was eating quartz and pine +burrs Cherokee turned up with his pick a nugget, weighing thirty +ounces. He staked his claim and then, being a man of breadth and +hospitality, sent out invitations to his friends in three States to +drop in and share his luck. + +Not one of the invited guests sent regrets. They rolled in from the +Gila country, from Salt River, from the Pecos, from Albuquerque and +Phoenix and Santa Fe, and from the camps intervening. + +When a thousand citizens had arrived and taken up claims they named +the town Yellowhammer, appointed a vigilance committee, and presented +Cherokee with a watch-chain made of nuggets. + +Three hours after the presentation ceremonies Cherokee's claim played +out. He had located a pocket instead of a vein. He abandoned it and +staked others one by one. Luck had kissed her hand to him. Never +afterward did he turn up enough dust in Yellowhammer to pay his bar +bill. But his thousand invited guests were mostly prospering, and +Cherokee smiled and congratulated them. + +Yellowhammer was made up of men who took off their hats to a smiling +loser; so they invited Cherokee to say what he wanted. + +"Me?" said Cherokee, "oh, grubstakes will be about the thing. I reckon +I'll prospect along up in the Mariposas. If I strike it up there I +will most certainly let you all know about the facts. I never was any +hand to hold out cards on my friends." + +In May Cherokee packed his burro and turned its thoughtful, mouse- +coloured forehead to the north. Many citizens escorted him to the +undefined limits of Yellowhammer and bestowed upon him shouts of +commendation and farewells. Five pocket flasks without an air bubble +between contents and cork were forced upon him; and he was bidden to +consider Yellowhammer in perpetual commission for his bed, bacon and +eggs, and hot water for shaving in the event that luck did not see fit +to warm her hands by his campfire in the Mariposas. + +The name of the father of Yellowhammer was given him by the gold +hunters in accordance with their popular system of nomenclature. It +was not necessary for a citizen to exhibit his baptismal certificate +in order to acquire a cognomen. A man's name was his personal +property. For convenience in calling him up to the bar and in +designating him among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporary +appellation, title, or epithet was conferred upon him by the public. +Personal peculiarities formed the source of the majority of such +informal baptisms. Many were easily dubbed geographically from the +regions from which they confessed to have hailed. Some announced +themselves to be "Thompsons," and "Adamses," and the like, with a +brazenness and loudness that cast a cloud upon their titles. A few +vaingloriously and shamelessly uncovered their proper and indisputable +names. This was held to be unduly arrogant, and did not win +popularity. One man who said he was Chesterton L. C. Belmont, and +proved it by letters, was given till sundown to leave the town. Such +names as "Shorty," "Bow-legs," "Texas," "Lazy Bill," "Thirsty Rogers," +"Limping Riley," "The Judge," and "California Ed" were in favour. +Cherokee derived his title from the fact that he claimed to have lived +for a time with that tribe in the Indian Nation. + +On the twentieth day of December Baldy, the mail rider, brought +Yellowhammer a piece of news. + +"What do I see in Albuquerque," said Baldy, to the patrons of the bar, +"but Cherokee all embellished and festooned up like the Czar of +Turkey, and lavishin' money in bulk. Him and me seen the elephant and +the owl, and we had specimens of this seidlitz powder wine; and +Cherokee he audits all the bills, C.O.D. His pockets looked like a +pool table's after a fifteen-ball run. + +"Cherokee must have struck pay ore," remarked California Ed. "Well, +he's white. I'm much obliged to him for his success." + +"Seems like Cherokee would ramble down to Yellowhammer and see his +friends," said another, slightly aggrieved. "But that's the way. +Prosperity is the finest cure there is for lost forgetfulness." + +"You wait," said Baldy; "I'm comin' to that. Cherokee strikes a three- +foot vein up in the Mariposas that assays a trip to Europe to the ton, +and he closes it out to a syndicate outfit for a hundred thousand +hasty dollars in cash. Then he buys himself a baby sealskin overcoat +and a red sleigh, and what do you think he takes it in his head to do +next?" + +"Chuck-a-luck," said Texas, whose ideas of recreation were the +gamester's. + +"Come and Kiss Me, Ma Honey," sang Shorty, who carried tintypes in his +pocket and wore a red necktie while working on his claim. + +"Bought a saloon?" suggested Thirsty Rogers. + +"Cherokee took me to a room," continued Baldy, "and showed me. He's +got that room full of drums and dolls and skates and bags of candy and +jumping-jacks and toy lambs and whistles and such infantile truck. And +what do you think he's goin' to do with them inefficacious knick- +knacks? Don't surmise none--Cherokee told me. He's goin' to lead 'em +up in his red sleigh and--wait a minute, don't order no drinks yet-- +he's goin' to drive down here to Yellowhammer and give the kids--the +kids of this here town--the biggest Christmas tree and the biggest +cryin' doll and Little Giant Boys' Tool Chest blowout that was ever +seen west of the Cape Hatteras." + +Two minutes of absolute silence ticked away in the wake of Baldy's +words. It was broken by the House, who, happily conceiving the moment +to be ripe for extending hospitality, sent a dozen whisky glasses +spinning down the bar, with the slower travelling bottle bringing up +the rear. + +"Didn't you tell him?" asked the miner called Trinidad. + +"Well, no," answered Baldy, pensively; "I never exactly seen my way +to. + +"You see, Cherokee had this Christmas mess already bought and paid +for; and he was all flattered up with self-esteem over his idea; and +we had in a way flew the flume with that fizzy wine I speak of; so I +never let on." + +"I cannot refrain from a certain amount of surprise," said the Judge, +as he hung his ivory-handled cane on the bar, "that our friend +Cherokee should possess such an erroneous conception of--ah--his, as +it were, own town." + +"Oh, it ain't the eighth wonder of the terrestrial world," said Baldy. +"Cherokee's been gone from Yellowhammer over seven months. Lots of +things could happen in that time. How's he to know that there ain't a +single kid in this town, and so far as emigration is concerned, none +expected?" + +"Come to think of it," remarked California Ed, "it's funny some ain't +drifted in. Town ain't settled enough yet for to bring in the rubber- +ring brigade, I reckon." + +"To top off this Christmas-tree splurge of Cherokee's," went on Baldy, +"he's goin' to give an imitation of Santa Claus. He's got a white wig +and whiskers that disfigure him up exactly like the pictures of this +William Cullen Longfellow in the books, and a red suit of fur-trimmed +outside underwear, and eight-ounce gloves, and a stand-up, lay-down +croshayed red cap. Ain't it a shame that a outfit like that can't get +a chance to connect with a Annie and Willie's prayer layout?" + +"When does Cherokee allow to come over with his truck?" inquired +Trinidad. + +"Mornin' before Christmas," said Baldy. "And he wants you folks to +have a room fixed up and a tree hauled and ready. And such ladies to +assist as can stop breathin' long enough to let it be a surprise for +the kids." + +The unblessed condition of Yellowhammer had been truly described. The +voice of childhood had never gladdened its flimsy structures; the +patter of restless little feet had never consecrated the one rugged +highway between the two rows of tents and rough buildings. Later they +would come. But now Yellowhammer was but a mountain camp, and nowhere +in it were the roguish, expectant eyes, opening wide at dawn of the +enchanting day; the eager, small hands to reach for Santa's +bewildering hoard; the elated, childish voicings of the season's joy, +such as the coming good things of the warm-hearted Cherokee deserved. + +Of women there were five in Yellowhammer. The assayer's wife, the +proprietress of the Lucky Strike Hotel, and a laundress whose washtub +panned out an ounce of dust a day. These were the permanent feminines; +the remaining two were the Spangler Sisters, Misses Fanchon and Erma, +of the Transcontinental Comedy Company, then playing in repertoire at +the (improvised) Empire Theatre. But of children there were none. +Sometimes Miss Fanchon enacted with spirit and address the part of +robustious childhood; but between her delineation and the visions of +adolescence that the fancy offered as eligible recipients of +Cherokee's holiday stores there seemed to be fixed a gulf. + +Christmas would come on Thursday. On Tuesday morning Trinidad, instead +of going to work, sought the Judge at the Lucky Strike Hotel. + +"It'll be a disgrace to Yellowhammer," said Trinidad, "if it throws +Cherokee down on his Christmas tree blowout. You might say that that +man made this town. For one, I'm goin' to see what can be done to give +Santa Claus a square deal." + +"My co-operation," said the Judge, "would be gladly forthcoming. I am +indebted to Cherokee for past favours. But, I do not see--I have +heretofore regarded the absence of children rather as a luxury--but in +this instance--still, I do not see--" + +"Look at me," said Trinidad, "and you'll see old Ways and Means with +the fur on. I'm goin' to hitch up a team and rustle a load of kids for +Cherokee's Santa Claus act, if I have to rob an orphan asylum." + +"Eureka!" cried the Judge, enthusiastically. + +"No, you didn't," said Trinidad, decidedly. "I found it myself. I +learned about that Latin word at school." + +"I will accompany you," declared the Judge, waving his cane. "Perhaps +such eloquence and gift of language as I possess will be of benefit in +persuading our young friends to lend themselves to our project." + +Within an hour Yellowhammer was acquainted with the scheme of Trinidad +and the Judge, and approved it. Citizens who knew of families with +offspring within a forty-mile radius of Yellowhammer came forward and +contributed their information. Trinidad made careful notes of all +such, and then hastened to secure a vehicle and team. + +The first stop scheduled was at a double log-house fifteen miles out +from Yellowhammer. A man opened the door at Trinidad's hail, and then +came down and leaned upon the rickety gate. The doorway was filled +with a close mass of youngsters, some ragged, all full of curiosity +and health. + +"It's this way," explained Trinidad. "We're from Yellowhammer, and we +come kidnappin' in a gentle kind of a way. One of our leading citizens +is stung with the Santa Claus affliction, and he's due in town +to-morrow with half the folderols that's painted red and made in +Germany. The youngest kid we got in Yellowhammer packs a forty-five +and a safety razor. Consequently we're mighty shy on anybody to say +'Oh' and 'Ah' when we light the candles on the Christmas tree. Now, +partner, if you'll loan us a few kids we guarantee to return 'em safe +and sound on Christmas Day. And they'll come back loaded down with a +good time and Swiss Family Robinsons and cornucopias and red drums and +similar testimonials. What do you say?" + +"In other words," said the Judge, "we have discovered for the first +time in our embryonic but progressive little city the inconveniences +of the absence of adolescence. The season of the year having +approximately arrived during which it is a custom to bestow frivolous +but often appreciated gifts upon the young and tender--" + +"I understand," said the parent, packing his pipe with a forefinger. +"I guess I needn't detain you gentlemen. Me and the old woman have got +seven kids, so to speak; and, runnin' my mind over the bunch, I don't +appear to hit upon none that we could spare for you to take over to +your doin's. The old woman has got some popcorn candy and rag dolls +hid in the clothes chest, and we allow to give Christmas a little +whirl of our own in a insignificant sort of style. No, I couldn't, +with any degree of avidity, seem to fall in with the idea of lettin' +none of 'em go. Thank you kindly, gentlemen." + +Down the slope they drove and up another foothill to the ranch-house +of Wiley Wilson. Trinidad recited his appeal and the Judge boomed out +his ponderous antiphony. Mrs. Wiley gathered her two rosy-cheeked +youngsters close to her skirts and did not smile until she had seen +Wiley laugh and shake his head. Again a refusal. + +Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list +before twilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a +stage road hostelry, and set out again early the next morning. The +wagon had not acquired a single passenger. + +"It's creepin' upon my faculties," remarked Trinidad, "that borrowin' +kids at Christmas is somethin' like tryin' to steal butter from a man +that's got hot pancakes a-comin'." + +"It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact," said the Judge, "that the-- +ah--family ties seem to be more coherent and assertive at that period +of the year." + +On the day before Christmas they drove thirty miles, making four +fruitless halts and appeals. Everywhere they found "kids" at a +premium. + +The sun was low when the wife of a section boss on a lonely railroad +huddled her unavailable progeny behind her and said: + +"There's a woman that's just took charge of the railroad eatin' house +down at Granite Junction. I hear she's got a little boy. Maybe she +might let him go." + +Trinidad pulled up his mules at Granite Junction at five o'clock in +the afternoon. The train had just departed with its load of fed and +appeased passengers. + +On the steps of the eating house they found a thin and glowering boy +of ten smoking a cigarette. The dining-room had been left in chaos by +the peripatetic appetites. A youngish woman reclined, exhausted, in a +chair. Her face wore sharp lines of worry. She had once possessed a +certain style of beauty that would never wholly leave her and would +never wholly return. Trinidad set forth his mission. + +"I'd count it a mercy if you'd take Bobby for a while," she said, +wearily. "I'm on the go from morning till night, and I don't have time +to 'tend to him. He's learning bad habits from the men. It'll be the +only chance he'll have to get any Christmas." + +The men went outside and conferred with Bobby. Trinidad pictured the +glories of the Christmas tree and presents in lively colours. + +"And, moreover, my young friend," added the Judge, "Santa Claus +himself will personally distribute the offerings that will typify the +gifts conveyed by the shepherds of Bethlehem to--" + +"Aw, come off," said the boy, squinting his small eyes. "I ain't no +kid. There ain't any Santa Claus. It's your folks that buys toys and +sneaks 'em in when you're asleep. And they make marks in the soot in +the chimney with the tongs to look like Santa's sleigh tracks." + +"That might be so," argued Trinidad, "but Christmas trees ain't no +fairy tale. This one's goin' to look like the ten-cent store in +Albuquerque, all strung up in a redwood. There's tops and drums and +Noah's arks and--" + +"Oh, rats!" said Bobby, wearily. "I cut them out long ago. I'd like to +have a rifle--not a target one--a real one, to shoot wildcats with; +but I guess you won't have any of them on your old tree." + +"Well, I can't say for sure," said Trinidad diplomatically; "it might +be. You go along with us and see." + +The hope thus held out, though faint, won the boy's hesitating consent +to go. With this solitary beneficiary for Cherokee's holiday bounty, +the canvassers spun along the homeward road. + +In Yellowhammer the empty storeroom had been transformed into what +might have passed as the bower of an Arizona fairy. The ladies had +done their work well. A tall Christmas tree, covered to the topmost +branch with candles, spangles, and toys sufficient for more than a +score of children, stood in the centre of the floor. Near sunset +anxious eyes had begun to scan the street for the returning team of +the child-providers. At noon that day Cherokee had dashed into town +with his new sleigh piled high with bundles and boxes and bales of all +sizes and shapes. So intent was he upon the arrangements for his +altruistic plans that the dearth of children did not receive his +notice. No one gave away the humiliating state of Yellowhammer, for +the efforts of Trinidad and the Judge were expected to supply the +deficiency. + +When the sun went down Cherokee, with many wings and arch grins on his +seasoned face, went into retirement with the bundle containing the +Santa Claus raiment and a pack containing special and undisclosed +gifts. + +"When the kids are rounded up," he instructed the volunteer +arrangement committee, "light up the candles on the tree and set 'em +to playin' 'Pussy Wants a Corner' and 'King William.' When they get +good and at it, why--old Santa'll slide in the door. I reckon there'll +be plenty of gifts to go 'round." + +The ladies were flitting about the tree, giving it final touches that +were never final. The Spangled Sisters were there in costume as Lady +Violet de Vere and Marie, the maid, in their new drama, "The Miner's +Bride." The theatre did not open until nine, and they were welcome +assistants of the Christmas tree committee. Every minute heads would +pop out the door to look and listen for the approach of Trinidad's +team. And now this became an anxious function, for night had fallen +and it would soon be necessary to light the candles on the tree, and +Cherokee was apt to make an irruption at any time in his Kriss Kringle +garb. + +At length the wagon of the child "rustlers" rattled down the street to +the door. The ladies, with little screams of excitement, flew to the +lighting of the candles. The men of Yellowhammer passed in and out +restlessly or stood about the room in embarrassed groups. + +Trinidad and the Judge, bearing the marks of protracted travel, +entered, conducting between them a single impish boy, who stared with +sullen, pessimistic eyes at the gaudy tree. + +"Where are the other children?" asked the assayer's wife, the +acknowledged leader of all social functions. + +"Ma'am," said Trinidad with a sigh, "prospectin' for kids at Christmas +time is like huntin' in a limestone for silver. This parental business +is one that I haven't no chance to comprehend. It seems that fathers +and mothers are willin' for their offsprings to be drownded, stole, +fed on poison oak, and et by catamounts 364 days in the year; but on +Christmas Day they insists on enjoyin' the exclusive mortification of +their company. This here young biped, ma'am, is all that washes out of +our two days' manoeuvres." + +"Oh, the sweet little boy!" cooed Miss Erma, trailing her De Vere +robes to centre of stage. + +"Aw, shut up," said Bobby, with a scowl. "Who's a kid? You ain't, you +bet." + +"Fresh brat!" breathed Miss Erma, beneath her enamelled smile. + +"We done the best we could," said Trinidad. "It's tough on Cherokee, +but it can't be helped." + +Then the door opened and Cherokee entered in the conventional dress of +Saint Nick. A white rippling beard and flowing hair covered his face +almost to his dark and shining eyes. Over his shoulder he carried a +pack. + +No one stirred as he came in. Even the Spangler Sisters ceased their +coquettish poses and stared curiously at the tall figure. Bobby stood +with his hands in his pockets gazing gloomily at the effeminate and +childish tree. Cherokee put down his pack and looked wonderingly about +the room. Perhaps he fancied that a bevy of eager children were being +herded somewhere, to be loosed upon his entrance. He went up to Bobby +and extended his red-mittened hand. + +"Merry Christmas, little boy," said Cherokee. "Anything on the tree +you want they'll get it down for you. Won't you shake hands with Santa +Claus?" + +"There ain't any Santa Claus," whined the boy. "You've got old false +billy goat's whiskers on your face. I ain't no kid. What do I want +with dolls and tin horses? The driver said you'd have a rifle, and you +haven't. I want to go home." + +Trinidad stepped into the breach. He shook Cherokee's hand in warm +greeting. + +"I'm sorry, Cherokee," he explained. "There never was a kid in +Yellowhammer. We tried to rustle a bunch of 'em for your swaree, but +this sardine was all we could catch. He's a atheist, and he don't +believe in Santa Claus. It's a shame for you to be out all this truck. +But me and the Judge was sure we could round up a wagonful of +candidates for your gimcracks." + +"That's all right," said Cherokee gravely. "The expense don't amount +to nothin' worth mentionin'. We can dump the stuff down a shaft or +throw it away. I don't know what I was thinkin' about; but it never +occurred to my cogitations that there wasn't any kids in +Yellowhammer." + +Meanwhile the company had relaxed into a hollow but praiseworthy +imitation of a pleasure gathering. + +Bobby had retreated to a distant chair, and was coldly regarding the +scene with ennui plastered thick upon him. Cherokee, lingering with +his original idea, went over and sat beside him. + +"Where do you live, little boy?" he asked respectfully. + +"Granite Junction," said Bobby without emphasis. + +The room was warm. Cherokee took off his cap, and then removed his +beard and wig. + +"Say!" exclaimed Bobby, with a show of interest, "I know your mug, all +right." + +"Did you ever see me before?" asked Cherokee. + +"I don't know; but I've seen your picture lots of times." + +"Where?" + +The boy hesitated. "On the bureau at home," he answered. + +"Let's have your name, if you please, buddy." + +"Robert Lumsden. The picture belongs to my mother. She puts it under +her pillow of nights. And once I saw her kiss it. I wouldn't. But +women are that way." + +Cherokee rose and beckoned to Trinidad. + +"Keep this boy by you till I come back," he said. "I'm goin' to shed +these Christmas duds, and hitch up my sleigh. I'm goin' to take this +kid home." + +"Well, infidel," said Trinidad, taking Cherokee's vacant chair, "and +so you are too superannuated and effete to yearn for such mockeries as +candy and toys, it seems." + +"I don't like you," said Bobby, with acrimony. "You said there would +be a rifle. A fellow can't even smoke. I wish I was at home." + +Cherokee drove his sleigh to the door, and they lifted Bobby in beside +him. The team of fine horses sprang away prancingly over the hard +snow. Cherokee had on his $500 overcoat of baby sealskin. The laprobe +that he drew about them was as warm as velvet. + +Bobby slipped a cigarette from his pocket and was trying to snap a +match. + +"Throw that cigarette away," said Cherokee, in a quiet but new voice. + +Bobby hesitated, and then dropped the cylinder overboard. + +"Throw the box, too," commanded the new voice. + +More reluctantly the boy obeyed. + +"Say," said Bobby, presently, "I like you. I don't know why. Nobody +never made me do anything I didn't want to do before." + +"Tell me, kid," said Cherokee, not using his new voice, "are you sure +your mother kissed that picture that looks like me?" + +"Dead sure. I seen her do it." + +"Didn't you remark somethin' a while ago about wanting a rifle?" + +"You bet I did. Will you get me one?" + +"To-morrow--silver-mounted." + +Cherokee took out his watch. + +"Half-past nine. We'll hit the Junction plumb on time with Christmas +Day. Are you cold? Sit closer, son." + + + +XVIII + +A CHAPARRAL PRINCE + +Nine o'clock at last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena +climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen's Hotel. +Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman, +scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups, +making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood and +water in that turbulent and depressing hostelry. + +The din of the day's quarrying was over--the blasting and drilling, +the creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the +backing and shifting of the flat-cars hauling the heavy blocks of +limestone. Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers +were growling and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy +odours of stewed meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a +depressing fog about the house. + +Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair. +She was eleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs +were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest +trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small +shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired +she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time +had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and +deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken +fresh courage and strength from Grimm. + +To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. +The woodcutter's lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted +stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch's hut--all +these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked +kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen's Hotel. And always when the extremity +was direst came the good fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue. + +So, here in the ogre's castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had +leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to +prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her +room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do +for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work +briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from +one's mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived +of Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it +is. + +Lena's home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the +Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all +German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at +little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and +scat. They are very thrifty people. + +Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena's father. And that +is why Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty +miles away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added +her wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become +as rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum +pipe three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for +dinner every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to +work and assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you +can, what it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from a home +in the pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre's +castle, where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour +cattle and sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust +from their great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, +aching fingers. And then--to have Grimm taken away from you! + +Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained +canned corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She +was going to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post +it for her at Ballinger's. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the +quarries, went home to Ballinger's every night, and was now waiting in +the shadows under Lena's window for her to throw the letter out to +him. That was the only way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. +Mrs. Maloney did not like for her to write letters. + +The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood +from around the lead of her pencil and began. This is the letter she +wrote: + + Dearest Mamma:--I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus + and Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. + To-day I was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could + not bring in enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book + yesterday. I mean "Grimm's Fairy Tales," which Uncle Leo gave me. + It did not hurt any one for me to read the book. I try to work as + well as I can, but there is so much to do. I read only a little + bit every night. Dear mamma, I shall tell you what I am going to + do. Unless you send for me to-morrow to bring me home I shall go + to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to + drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one + else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You + will excuse me, mamma, if I do it. + +Your respectful and loving daughter, +Lena. + + +Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and +when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep +hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled +herself upon the mattress on the floor. + +At 10:30 o'clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his +stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked +down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with +the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to +come pattering up the road. + +Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the +lively hoofbeats of Fritz's team of little black mules, and very soon +afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz's +big spectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice +shouted a greeting to the postmaster of Ballinger's. The mail-carrier +jumped out and took the bridles from the mules, for he always fed them +oats at Ballinger's. + +While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger +brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon. + +Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments--or to be more accurate-- +four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those +mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the +Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller. + +"Tell me," said Fritz, when he was ready to start, "contains the sack +a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? +One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. +Her mamma is very anxious to hear again." + +"Yes," said old man Ballinger, "thar's a letter for Mrs. +Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he +come. Her little gal workin' over thar, you say?" + +"In the hotel," shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; "eleven +years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter +Hildesmuller!--some day I shall with a big club pound that man's +dummkopf--all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will +say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. /Auf +wiedersehen/, Herr Ballinger--your feets will take cold out in the +night air." + +"So long, Fritzy," said old man Ballinger. "You got a nice cool night +for your drive." + +Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while +Fritz thundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer. + +These fancies occupied the mind of the mail-carrier until he reached +the big post oak forest, eight miles from Ballinger's. Here his +ruminations were scattered by the sudden flash and report of pistols +and a whooping as if from a whole tribe of Indians. A band of +galloping centaurs closed in around the mail wagon. One of them leaned +over the front wheel, covered the driver with his revolver, and +ordered him to stop. Others caught at the bridles of Donder and +Blitzen. + +"Donnerwetter!" shouted Fritz, with all his tremendous voice--"wass +ist? Release your hands from dose mules. Ve vas der United States +mail!" + +"Hurry up, Dutch!" drawled a melancholy voice. "Don't you know when +you're in a stick-up? Reverse your mules and climb out of the cart." + +It is due to the breadth of Hondo Bill's demerit and the largeness of +his achievements to state that the holding up of the Fredericksburg +mail was not perpetrated by way of an exploit. As the lion while in +the pursuit of prey commensurate to his prowess might set a frivolous +foot upon a casual rabbit in his path, so Hondo Bill and his gang had +swooped sportively upon the pacific transport of Meinherr Fritz. + +The real work of their sinister night ride was over. Fritz and his +mail bag and his mules came as gentle relaxation, grateful after the +arduous duties of their profession. Twenty miles to the southeast +stood a train with a killed engine, hysterical passengers and a looted +express and mail car. That represented the serious occupation of Hondo +Bill and his gang. With a fairly rich prize of currency and silver the +robbers were making a wide detour to the west through the less +populous country, intending to seek safety in Mexico by means of some +fordable spot on the Rio Grande. The booty from the train had melted +the desperate bushrangers to jovial and happy skylarkers. + +Trembling with outraged dignity and no little personal apprehension, +Fritz climbed out to the road after replacing his suddenly removed +spectacles. The band had dismounted and were singing, capering, and +whooping, thus expressing their satisfied delight in the life of a +jolly outlaw. Rattlesnake Rogers, who stood at the heads of the mules, +jerked a little too vigorously at the rein of the tender-mouthed +Donder, who reared and emitted a loud, protesting snort of pain. +Instantly Fritz, with a scream of anger, flew at the bulky Rogers and +began to assiduously pummel that surprised freebooter with his fists. + +"Villain!" shouted Fritz, "dog, bigstiff! Dot mule he has a soreness +by his mouth. I vill knock off your shoulders mit your head-- +robbermans!" + +"Yi-yi!" howled Rattlesnake, roaring with laughter and ducking his +head, "somebody git this here sour-krout off'n me!" + +One of the band yanked Fritz back by the coat-tail, and the woods rang +with Rattlesnake's vociferous comments. + +"The dog-goned little wienerwurst," he yelled, amiably. "He's not so +much of a skunk, for a Dutchman. Took up for his animile plum quick, +didn't he? I like to see a man like his hoss, even if it is a mule. +The dad-blamed little Limburger he went for me, didn't he! Whoa, now, +muley--I ain't a-goin' to hurt your mouth agin any more." + +Perhaps the mail would not have been tampered with had not Ben Moody, +the lieutenant, possessed certain wisdom that seemed to promise more +spoils. + +"Say, Cap," he said, addressing Hondo Bill, "there's likely to be good +pickings in these mail sacks. I've done some hoss tradin' with these +Dutchmen around Fredericksburg, and I know the style of the varmints. +There's big money goes through the mails to that town. Them Dutch risk +a thousand dollars sent wrapped in a piece of paper before they'd pay +the banks to handle the money." + +Hondo Bill, six feet two, gentle of voice and impulsive in action, was +dragging the sacks from the rear of the wagon before Moody had +finished his speech. A knife shone in his hand, and they heard the +ripping sound as it bit through the tough canvas. The outlaws crowded +around and began tearing open letters and packages, enlivening their +labours by swearing affably at the writers, who seemed to have +conspired to confute the prediction of Ben Moody. Not a dollar was +found in the Fredericksburg mail. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Hondo Bill to the mail- +carrier in solemn tones, "to be packing around such a lot of old, +trashy paper as this. What d'you mean by it, anyhow? Where do you +Dutchers keep your money at?" + +The Ballinger mail sack opened like a cocoon under Hondo's knife. It +contained but a handful of mail. Fritz had been fuming with terror and +excitement until this sack was reached. He now remembered Lena's +letter. He addressed the leader of the band, asking that that +particular missive be spared. + +"Much obliged, Dutch," he said to the disturbed carrier. "I guess +that's the letter we want. Got spondulicks in it, ain't it? Here she +is. Make a light, boys." + +Hondo found and tore open the letter to Mrs. Hildesmuller. The others +stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed +with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the +angular German script. + +"Whatever is this you've humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call this here +a valuable letter? That's a mighty low-down trick to play on your +friends what come along to help you distribute your mail." + +"That's Chiny writin'," said Sandy Grundy, peering over Hondo's +shoulder. + +"You're off your kazip," declared another of the gang, an effective +youth, covered with silk handkerchiefs and nickel plating. "That's +shorthand. I see 'em do it once in court." + +"Ach, no, no, no--dot is German," said Fritz. "It is no more as a +little girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick +and vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good Mr. +Robberman, you vill please let me have dot letter?" + +"What the devil do you take us for, old Pretzels?" said Hondo with +sudden and surprising severity. "You ain't presumin' to insinuate that +we gents ain't possessed of sufficient politeness for to take an +interest in the miss's health, are you? Now, you go on, and you read +that scratchin' out loud and in plain United States language to this +here company of educated society." + +Hondo twirled his six-shooter by its trigger guard and stood towering +above the little German, who at once began to read the letter, +translating the simple words into English. The gang of rovers stood in +absolute silence, listening intently. + +"How old is that kid?" asked Hondo when the letter was done. + +"Eleven," said Fritz. + +"And where is she at?" + +"At dose rock quarries--working. Ach, mein Gott--little Lena, she +speak of drowning. I do not know if she vill do it, but if she shall I +schwear I vill dot Peter Hildesmuller shoot mit a gun." + +"You Dutchers," said Hondo Bill, his voice swelling with fine +contempt, "make me plenty tired. Hirin' out your kids to work when +they ought to be playin' dolls in the sand. You're a hell of a sect of +people. I reckon we'll fix your clock for a while just to show what we +think of your old cheesy nation. Here, boys!" + +Hondo Bill parleyed aside briefly with his band, and then they seized +Fritz and conveyed him off the road to one side. Here they bound him +fast to a tree with a couple of lariats. His team they tied to another +tree near by. + +"We ain't going to hurt you bad," said Hondo reassuringly. "'Twon't +hurt you to be tied up for a while. We will now pass you the time of +day, as it is up to us to depart. Ausgespielt--nixcumrous, Dutchy. +Don't get any more impatience." + +Fritz heard a great squeaking of saddles as the men mounted their +horses. Then a loud yell and a great clatter of hoofs as they galloped +pell-mell back along the Fredericksburg road. + +For more than two hours Fritz sat against his tree, tightly but not +painfully bound. Then from the reaction after his exciting adventure +he sank into slumber. How long he slept he knew not, but he was at +last awakened by a rough shake. Hands were untying his ropes. He was +lifted to his feet, dazed, confused in mind, and weary of body. +Rubbing his eyes, he looked and saw that he was again in the midst of +the same band of terrible bandits. They shoved him up to the seat of +his wagon and placed the lines in his hands. + +"Hit it out for home, Dutch," said Hondo Bill's voice commandingly. +"You've given us lots of trouble and we're pleased to see the back of +your neck. Spiel! Zwei bier! Vamoose!" + +Hondo reached out and gave Blitzen a smart cut with his quirt. + +The little mules sprang ahead, glad to be moving again. Fritz urged +them along, himself dizzy and muddled over his fearful adventure. + +According to schedule time, he should have reached Fredericksburg at +daylight. As it was, he drove down the long street of the town at +eleven o'clock A.M. He had to pass Peter Hildesmuller's house on his +way to the post-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called. +But Frau Hildesmuller was watching for him. Out rushed the whole +family of Hildesmullers. + +Frau Hildesmuller, fat and flushed, inquired if he had a letter from +Lena, and then Fritz raised his voice and told the tale of his +adventure. He told the contents of that letter that the robber had +made him read, and then Frau Hildesmuller broke into wild weeping. Her +little Lena drown herself! Why had they sent her from home? What could +be done? Perhaps it would be too late by the time they could send for +her now. Peter Hildesmuller dropped his meerschaum on the walk and it +shivered into pieces. + +"Woman!" he roared at his wife, "why did you let that child go away? +It is your fault if she comes home to us no more." + +Every one knew that it was Peter Hildesmuller's fault, so they paid no +attention to his words. + +A moment afterward a strange, faint voice was heard to call: "Mamma!" +Frau Hildesmuller at first thought it was Lena's spirit calling, and +then she rushed to the rear of Fritz's covered wagon, and, with a loud +shriek of joy, caught up Lena herself, covering her pale little face +with kisses and smothering her with hugs. Lena's eyes were heavy with +the deep slumber of exhaustion, but she smiled and lay close to the +one she had longed to see. There among the mail sacks, covered in a +nest of strange blankets and comforters, she had lain asleep until +wakened by the voices around her. + +Fritz stared at her with eyes that bulged behind his spectacles. + +"Gott in Himmel!" he shouted. "How did you get in that wagon? Am I +going crazy as well as to be murdered and hanged by robbers this day?" + +"You brought her to us, Fritz," cried Frau Hildesmuller. "How can we +ever thank you enough?" + +"Tell mamma how you came in Fritz's wagon," said Frau Hildesmuller. + +"I don't know," said Lena. "But I know how I got away from the hotel. +The Prince brought me." + +"By the Emperor's crown!" shouted Fritz, "we are all going crazy." + +"I always knew he would come," said Lena, sitting down on her bundle +of bedclothes on the sidewalk. "Last night he came with his armed +knights and captured the ogre's castle. They broke the dishes and +kicked down the doors. They pitched Mr. Maloney into a barrel of rain +water and threw flour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel +jumped out of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights +began firing their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the +stair. And then the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes +and carried me out. He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was +as rough as a scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled +of schnapps. He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among +the knights. He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn't +wake up till I got home." + +"Rubbish!" cried Fritz Bergmann. "Fairy tales! How did you come from +the quarries to my wagon?" + +"The Prince brought me," said Lena, confidently. + +And to this day the good people of Fredericksburg haven't been able to +make her give any other explanation. + + + +XIX + +THE REFORMATION OF CALLIOPE + +Calliope Catesby was in his humours again. Ennui was upon him. This +goodly promontory, the earth--particularly that portion of it known as +Quicksand--was to him no more than a pestilent congregation of +vapours. Overtaken by the megrims, the philosopher may seek relief in +soliloquy; my lady find solace in tears; the flaccid Easterner scold +at the millinery bills of his women folk. Such recourse was +insufficient to the denizens of Quicksand. Calliope, especially, was +wont to express his ennui according to his lights. + +Over night Calliope had hung out signals of approaching low spirits. +He had kicked his own dog on the porch of the Occidental Hotel, and +refused to apologise. He had become capricious and fault-finding in +conversation. While strolling about he reached often for twigs of +mesquite and chewed the leaves fiercely. That was always an ominous +act. Another symptom alarming to those who were familiar with the +different stages of his doldrums was his increasing politeness and a +tendency to use formal phrases. A husky softness succeeded the usual +penetrating drawl in his tones. A dangerous courtesy marked his +manners. Later, his smile became crooked, the left side of his mouth +slanting upward, and Quicksand got ready to stand from under. + +At this stage Calliope generally began to drink. Finally, about +midnight, he was seen going homeward, saluting those whom he met with +exaggerated but inoffensive courtesy. Not yet was Calliope's +melancholy at the danger point. He would seat himself at the window of +the room he occupied over Silvester's tonsorial parlours and there +chant lugubrious and tuneless ballads until morning, accompanying the +noises by appropriate maltreatment of a jangling guitar. More +magnanimous than Nero, he would thus give musical warning of the +forthcoming municipal upheaval that Quicksand was scheduled to endure. + +A quiet, amiable man was Calliope Catesby at other times--quiet to +indolence, and amiable to worthlessness. At best he was a loafer and a +nuisance; at worst he was the Terror of Quicksand. His ostensible +occupation was something subordinate in the real estate line; he drove +the beguiled Easterner in buckboards out to look over lots and ranch +property. Originally he came from one of the Gulf States, his lank six +feet, slurring rhythm of speech, and sectional idioms giving evidence +of his birthplace. + +And yet, after taking on Western adjustments, this languid pine-box +whittler, cracker barrel hugger, shady corner lounger of the cotton +fields and sumac hills of the South became famed as a bad man among +men who had made a life-long study of the art of truculence. + +At nine the next morning Calliope was fit. Inspired by his own +barbarous melodies and the contents of his jug, he was ready primed to +gather fresh laurels from the diffident brow of Quicksand. Encircled +and criss-crossed with cartridge belts, abundantly garnished with +revolvers, and copiously drunk, he poured forth into Quicksand's main +street. Too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent +sortie, he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan--that +fearful, brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano, that had +gained for him the classic appellation that had superseded his own +baptismal name. Following close upon his vociferation came three shots +from his forty-five by way of limbering up the guns and testing his +aim. A yellow dog, the personal property of Colonel Swazey, the +proprietor of the Occidental, fell feet upward in the dust with one +farewell yelp. A Mexican who was crossing the street from the Blue +Front grocery carrying in his hand a bottle of kerosene, was +stimulated to a sudden and admirable burst of speed, still grasping +the neck of the shattered bottle. The new gilt weather-cock on Judge +Riley's lemon and ultramarine two-story residence shivered, flapped, +and hung by a splinter, the sport of the wanton breezes. + +The artillery was in trim. Calliope's hand was steady. The high, calm +ecstasy of habitual battle was upon him, though slightly embittered by +the sadness of Alexander in that his conquests were limited to the +small world of Quicksand. + +Down the street went Calliope, shooting right and left. Glass fell +like hail; dogs vamosed; chickens flew, squawking; feminine voices +shrieked concernedly to youngsters at large. The din was perforated at +intervals by the /staccato/ of the Terror's guns, and was drowned +periodically by the brazen screech that Quicksand knew so well. The +occasions of Calliope's low spirits were legal holidays in Quicksand. +All along the main street in advance of his coming clerks were putting +up shutters and closing doors. Business would languish for a space. +The right of way was Calliope's, and as he advanced, observing the +dearth of opposition and the few opportunities for distraction, his +ennui perceptibly increased. + +But some four squares farther down lively preparations were being made +to minister to Mr. Catesby's love for interchange of compliments and +repartee. On the previous night numerous messengers had hastened to +advise Buck Patterson, the city marshal, of Calliope's impending +eruption. The patience of that official, often strained in extending +leniency toward the disturber's misdeeds, had been overtaxed. In +Quicksand some indulgence was accorded the natural ebullition of human +nature. Providing that the lives of the more useful citizens were not +recklessly squandered, or too much property needlessly laid waste, the +community sentiment was against a too strict enforcement of the law. +But Calliope had raised the limit. His outbursts had been too frequent +and too violent to come within the classification of a normal and +sanitary relaxation of spirit. + +Buck Patterson had been expecting and awaiting in his little ten-by- +twelve frame office that preliminary yell announcing that Calliope was +feeling blue. When the signal came the city marshal rose to his feet +and buckled on his guns. Two deputy sheriffs and three citizens who +had proven the edible qualities of fire also stood up, ready to bandy +with Calliope's leaden jocularities. + +"Gather that fellow in," said Buck Patterson, setting forth the lines +of the campaign. "Don't have no talk, but shoot as soon as you can get +a show. Keep behind cover and bring him down. He's a nogood 'un. It's +up to Calliope to turn up his toes this time, I reckon. Go to him all +spraddled out, boys. And don't git too reckless, for what Calliope +shoots at he hits." + +Buck Patterson, tall, muscular, and solemn-faced, with his bright +"City Marshal" badge shining on the breast of his blue flannel shirt, +gave his posse directions for the onslaught upon Calliope. The plan +was to accomplish the downfall of the Quicksand Terror without loss to +the attacking party, if possible. + +The splenetic Calliope, unconscious of retributive plots, was steaming +down the channel, cannonading on either side, when he suddenly became +aware of breakers ahead. The city marshal and one of the deputies rose +up behind some dry-goods boxes half a square to the front and opened +fire. At the same time the rest of the posse, divided, shelled him +from two side streets up which they were cautiously manoeuvring from a +well-executed detour. + +The first volley broke the lock of one of Calliope's guns, cut a neat +underbit in his right ear, and exploded a cartridge in his crossbelt, +scorching his ribs as it burst. Feeling braced up by this unexpected +tonic to his spiritual depression, Calliope executed a fortissimo note +from his upper register, and returned the fire like an echo. The +upholders of the law dodged at his flash, but a trifle too late to +save one of the deputies a bullet just above the elbow, and the +marshal a bleeding cheek from a splinter that a ball tore from the box +he had ducked behind. + +And now Calliope met the enemy's tactics in kind. Choosing with a +rapid eye the street from which the weakest and least accurate fire +had come, he invaded it at a double-quick, abandoning the unprotected +middle of the street. With rare cunning the opposing force in that +direction--one of the deputies and two of the valorous volunteers-- +waited, concealed by beer barrels, until Calliope had passed their +retreat, and then peppered him from the rear. In another moment they +were reinforced by the marshal and his other men, and then Calliope +felt that in order to successfully prolong the delights of the +controversy he must find some means of reducing the great odds against +him. His eye fell upon a structure that seemed to hold out this +promise, providing he could reach it. + +Not far away was the little railroad station, its building a strong +box house, ten by twenty feet, resting upon a platform four feet above +ground. Windows were in each of its walls. Something like a fort it +might become to a man thus sorely pressed by superior numbers. + +Calliope made a bold and rapid spurt for it, the marshal's crowd +"smoking" him as he ran. He reached the haven in safety, the station +agent leaving the building by a window, like a flying squirrel, as the +garrison entered the door. + +Patterson and his supporters halted under protection of a pile of +lumber and held consultations. In the station was an unterrified +desperado who was an excellent shot and carried an abundance of +ammunition. For thirty yards on either side of the besieged was a +stretch of bare, open ground. It was a sure thing that the man who +attempted to enter that unprotected area would be stopped by one of +Calliope's bullets. + +The city marshal was resolved. He had decided that Calliope Catesby +should no more wake the echoes of Quicksand with his strident whoop. +He had so announced. Officially and personally he felt imperatively +bound to put the soft pedal on that instrument of discord. It played +bad tunes. + +Standing near was a hand truck used in the manipulation of small +freight. It stood by a shed full of sacked wool, a consignment from +one of the sheep ranches. On this truck the marshal and his men piled +three heavy sacks of wool. Stooping low, Buck Patterson started for +Calliope's fort, slowly pushing this loaded truck before him for +protection. The posse, scattering broadly, stood ready to nip the +besieged in case he should show himself in an effort to repel the +juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him. Only once did +Calliope make demonstration. He fired from a window, and some tufts of +wool spurted from the marshal's trustworthy bulwark. The return shots +from the posse pattered against the window frame of the fort. No loss +resulted on either side. + +The marshal was too deeply engrossed in steering his protected +battleship to be aware of the approach of the morning train until he +was within a few feet of the platform. The train was coming up on the +other side of it. It stopped only one minute at Quicksand. What an +opportunity it would offer to Calliope! He had only to step out the +other door, mount the train, and away. + +Abandoning his breastwork, Buck, with his gun ready, dashed up the +steps and into the room, driving upon the closed door with one heave +of his weighty shoulder. The members of the posse heard one shot fired +inside, and then there was silence. + +***** + +At length the wounded man opened his eyes. After a blank space he +again could see and hear and feel and think. Turning his eyes about, +he found himself lying on a wooden bench. A tall man with a perplexed +countenance, wearing a big badge with "City Marshal" engraved upon it, +stood over him. A little old woman in black, with a wrinkled face and +sparkling black eyes, was holding a wet handkerchief against one of +his temples. He was trying to get these facts fixed in his mind and +connected with past events, when the old woman began to talk. + +"There now, great, big, strong man! That bullet never tetched ye! Jest +skeeted along the side of your head and sort of paralysed ye for a +spell. I've heerd of sech things afore; cun-cussion is what they names +it. Abel Wadkins used to kill squirrels that way--barkin' 'em, Abe +called it. You jest been barked, sir, and you'll be all right in a +little bit. Feel lots better already, don't ye! You just lay still a +while longer and let me bathe your head. You don't know me, I reckon, +and 'tain't surprisin' that you shouldn't. I come in on that train +from Alabama to see my son. Big son, ain't he? Lands! you wouldn't +hardly think he'd ever been a baby, would ye? This is my son, sir." + +Half turning, the old woman looked up at the standing man, her worn +face lighting with a proud and wonderful smile. She reached out one +veined and calloused hand and took one of her son's. Then smiling +cheerily down at the prostrate man, she continued to dip the +handkerchief, in the waiting-room tin washbasin and gently apply it to +his temple. She had the benevolent garrulity of old age. + +"I ain't seen my son before," she continued, "in eight years. One of +my nephews, Elkanah Price, he's a conductor on one of them railroads +and he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it, +and then it'll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy of +mine has got to be a officer--a city marshal of a whole town! That's +somethin' like a constable, ain't it? I never knowed he was a officer; +he didn't say nothin' about it in his letters. I reckon he thought his +old mother'd be skeered about the danger he was in. But, laws! I never +was much of a hand to git skeered. 'Tain't no use. I heard them guns +a-shootin' while I was gettin' off them cars, and I see smoke a-comin' +out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. Then I see son's face +lookin' out through the window. I knowed him at oncet. He met me at +the door, and squeezes me 'most to death. And there you was, sir, +a-lyin' there jest like you was dead, and I 'lowed we'd see what might +be done to help sot you up." + +"I think I'll sit up now," said the concussion patient. "I'm feeling +pretty fair by this time." + +He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged +man, big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to +linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him. His look +wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal's badge upon +the other's breast. + +"Yes, yes, you'll be all right," said the old woman, patting his arm, +"if you don't get to cuttin' up agin, and havin' folks shooting at +you. Son told me about you, sir, while you was layin' senseless on the +floor. Don't you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as +big as you to talk about it. And you mustn't hold no grudge ag'in' my +son for havin' to shoot at ye. A officer has got to take up for the +law--it's his duty--and them that acts bad and lives wrong has to +suffer. Don't blame my son any, sir--'tain't his fault. He's always +been a good boy--good when he was growin' up, and kind and 'bedient +and well-behaved. Won't you let me advise you, sir, not to do so no +more? Be a good man, and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and +goodly. Keep away from bad company and work honest and sleep sweet." + +The black-mitted hand of the old pleader gently touched the breast of +the man she addressed. Very earnest and candid her old, worn face +looked. In her rusty black dress and antique bonnet she sat, near the +close of a long life, and epitomised the experience of the world. +Still the man to whom she spoke gazed above her head, contemplating +the silent son of the old mother. + +"What does the marshal say?" he asked. "Does he believe the advice is +good? Suppose the marshal speaks up and says if the talk's all right?" + +The tall man moved uneasily. He fingered the badge on his breast for a +moment, and then he put an arm around the old woman and drew her close +to him. She smiled the unchanging mother smile of three-score years, +and patted his big brown hand with her crooked, mittened fingers while +her son spake. + +"I says this," he said, looking squarely into the eyes of the other +man, "that if I was in your place I'd follow it. If I was a drunken, +desp'rate character, without shame or hope, I'd follow it. If I was in +your place and you was in mine I'd say: 'Marshal, I'm willin' to swear +if you'll give me the chance I'll quit the racket. I'll drop the +tanglefoot and the gun play, and won't play hoss no more. I'll be a +good citizen and go to work and quit my foolishness. So help me God!' +That's what I'd say to you if you was marshal and I was in your +place." + +"Hear my son talkin'," said the old woman softly. "Hear him, sir. You +promise to be good and he won't do you no harm. Forty-one year ago his +heart first beat ag'in' mine, and it's beat true ever since." + +The other man rose to his feet, trying his limbs and stretching his +muscles. + +"Then," said he, "if you was in my place and said that, and I was +marshal, I'd say: 'Go free, and do your best to keep your promise.'" + +"Lawsy!" exclaimed the old woman, in a sudden flutter, "ef I didn't +clear forget that trunk of mine! I see a man settin' it on the +platform jest as I seen son's face in the window, and it went plum out +of my head. There's eight jars of home-made quince jam in that trunk +that I made myself. I wouldn't have nothin' happen to them jars for a +red apple." + +Away to the door she trotted, spry and anxious, and then Calliope +Catesby spoke out to Buck Patterson: + +"I just couldn't help it, Buck. I seen her through the window a-comin' +in. She never had heard a word 'bout my tough ways. I didn't have the +nerve to let her know I was a worthless cuss bein' hunted down by the +community. There you was lyin' where my shot laid you, like you was +dead. The idea struck me sudden, and I just took your badge off and +fastened it onto myself, and I fastened my reputation onto you. I told +her I was the marshal and you was a holy terror. You can take your +badge back now, Buck." + +With shaking fingers Calliope began to unfasten the disc of metal from +his shirt. + +"Easy there!" said Buck Patterson. "You keep that badge right where it +is, Calliope Catesby. Don't you dare to take it off till the day your +mother leaves this town. You'll be city marshal of Quicksand as long +as she's here to know it. After I stir around town a bit and put 'em +on I'll guarantee that nobody won't give the thing away to her. And +say, you leather-headed, rip-roarin', low-down son of a locoed +cyclone, you follow that advice she give me! I'm goin' to take some of +it myself, too." + +"Buck," said Calliope feelingly, "ef I don't I hope I may--" + +"Shut up," said Buck. "She's a-comin' back." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Heart of the West + |