**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Roads of Destiny, by O. Henry**
#4 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.
Roads of Destiny
by O. Henry
February, 1997 [Etext #1646]
**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Roads of Destiny, by O. Henry**
******This file should be named rdstn10.txt or rdstn10.zip******
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, rdstn11.txt.
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rdstn10a.txt.
Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
and Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1997 for a total of 1000+
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach over 100 billion Etexts given away.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001
should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
We need your donations more than ever!
All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie-
Mellon University).
For these and other matters, please mail to:
Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box 2782
Champaign, IL 61825
When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
We would prefer to send you this information by email
(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
******
If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET INDEX?00.GUT
for a list of books
and
GET NEW GUT for general information
and
MGET GUT* for newsletters.
**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the etext (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
net profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. 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
ROADS OF DESTINY
by O. Henry
CONTENTS
I. Roads of Destiny
II. The Guardian of the Accolade
III. The Discounters of Money
IV. The Enchanted Profile
V. "Next to Reading Matter"
VI. Art and the Bronco
VII. Phoebe
VIII. A Double-dyed Deceiver
IX. The Passing of Black Eagle
X. A Retrieved Reformation
XI. Cherchez la Femme
XII. Friends in San Rosario
XIII. The Fourth in Salvador
XIV. The Emancipation of Billy
XV. The Enchanted Kiss
XVI. A Departmental Case
XVII. The Renaissance at Charleroi
XVIII. On Behalf of the Management
XIX. Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking
XX. The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss
XXI. Two Renegades
XXII. The Lonesome Road
ROADS OF DESTINY
I
ROADS OF DESTINY
I go to seek on many roads
What is to be.
True heart and strong, with love to light--
Will they not bear me in the fight
To order, shun or wield or mould
My Destiny?
/Unpublished Poems of David Mignot/.
The song was over. The words were David's; the air, one of the
countryside. The company about the inn table applauded heartily, for
the young poet paid for the wine. Only the notary, M. Papineau, shook
his head a little at the lines, for he was a man of books, and he had
not drunk with the rest.
David went out into the village street, where the night air drove the
wine vapour from his head. And then he remembered that he and Yvonne
had quarrelled that day, and that he had resolved to leave his home
that night to seek fame and honour in the great world outside.
"When my poems are on every man's tongue," he told himself, in a fine
exhilaration, "she will, perhaps, think of the hard words she spoke
this day."
Except the roisterers in the tavern, the village folk were abed. David
crept softly into his room in the shed of his father's cottage and
made a bundle of his small store of clothing. With this upon a staff,
he set his face outward upon the road that ran from Vernoy.
He passed his father's herd of sheep, huddled in their nightly pen--
the sheep he herded daily, leaving them to scatter while he wrote
verses on scraps of paper. He saw a light yet shining in Yvonne's
window, and a weakness shook his purpose of a sudden. Perhaps that
light meant that she rued, sleepless, her anger, and that morning
might--But, no! His decision was made. Vernoy was no place for him.
Not one soul there could share his thoughts. Out along that road lay
his fate and his future.
Three leagues across the dim, moonlit champaign ran the road, straight
as a ploughman's furrow. It was believed in the village that the road
ran to Paris, at least; and this name the poet whispered often to
himself as he walked. Never so far from Vernoy had David travelled
before.
THE LEFT BRANCH
/Three leagues, then, the road ran, and turned into a puzzle. It
joined with another and a larger road at right angles. David
stood, uncertain, for a while, and then took the road to the
left./
Upon this more important highway were, imprinted in the dust, wheel
tracks left by the recent passage of some vehicle. Some half an hour
later these traces were verified by the sight of a ponderous carriage
mired in a little brook at the bottom of a steep hill. The driver and
postilions were shouting and tugging at the horses' bridles. On the
road at one side stood a huge, black-clothed man and a slender lady
wrapped in a long, light cloak.
David saw the lack of skill in the efforts of the servants. He quietly
assumed control of the work. He directed the outriders to cease their
clamour at the horses and to exercise their strength upon the wheels.
The driver alone urged the animals with his familiar voice; David
himself heaved a powerful shoulder at the rear of the carriage, and
with one harmonious tug the great vehicle rolled up on solid ground.
The outriders climbed to their places.
David stood for a moment upon one foot. The huge gentleman waved a
hand. "You will enter the carriage," he said, in a voice large, like
himself, but smoothed by art and habit. Obedience belonged in the path
of such a voice. Brief as was the young poet's hesitation, it was cut
shorter still by a renewal of the command. David's foot went to the
step. In the darkness he perceived dimly the form of the lady upon the
rear seat. He was about to seat himself opposite, when the voice again
swayed him to its will. "You will sit at the lady's side."
The gentleman swung his great weight to the forward seat. The carriage
proceeded up the hill. The lady was shrunk, silent, into her corner.
David could not estimate whether she was old or young, but a delicate,
mild perfume from her clothes stirred his poet's fancy to the belief
that there was loveliness beneath the mystery. Here was an adventure
such as he had often imagined. But as yet he held no key to it, for no
word was spoken while he sat with his impenetrable companions.
In an hour's time David perceived through the window that the vehicle
traversed the street of some town. Then it stopped in front of a
closed and darkened house, and a postilion alighted to hammer
impatiently upon the door. A latticed window above flew wide and a
nightcapped head popped out.
"Who are ye that disturb honest folk at this time of night? My house
is closed. 'Tis too late for profitable travellers to be abroad. Cease
knocking at my door, and be off."
"Open!" spluttered the postilion, loudly; "open for Monsiegneur the
Marquis de Beaupertuys."
"Ah!" cried the voice above. "Ten thousand pardons, my lord. I did not
know--the hour is so late--at once shall the door be opened, and the
house placed at my lord's disposal."
Inside was heard the clink of chain and bar, and the door was flung
open. Shivering with chill and apprehension, the landlord of the
Silver Flagon stood, half clad, candle in hand, upon the threshold.
David followed the Marquis out of the carriage. "Assist the lady," he
was ordered. The poet obeyed. He felt her small hand tremble as he
guided her descent. "Into the house," was the next command.
The room was the long dining-hall of the tavern. A great oak table ran
down its length. The huge gentleman seated himself in a chair at the
nearer end. The lady sank into another against the wall, with an air
of great weariness. David stood, considering how best he might now
take his leave and continue upon his way.
"My lord," said the landlord, bowing to the floor, "h-had I ex-
expected this honour, entertainment would have been ready. T-t-there
is wine and cold fowl and m-m-maybe--"
"Candles," said the marquis, spreading the fingers of one plump white
hand in a gesture he had.
"Y-yes, my lord." He fetched half a dozen candles, lighted them, and
set them upon the table.
"If monsieur would, perhaps, deign to taste a certain Burgundy--there
is a cask--"
"Candles," said monsieur, spreading his fingers.
"Assuredly--quickly--I fly, my lord."
A dozen more lighted candles shone in the hall. The great bulk of the
marquis overflowed his chair. He was dressed in fine black from head
to foot save for the snowy ruffles at his wrist and throat. Even the
hilt and scabbard of his sword were black. His expression was one of
sneering pride. The ends of an upturned moustache reached nearly to
his mocking eyes.
The lady sat motionless, and now David perceived that she was young,
and possessed of pathetic and appealing beauty. He was startled from
the contemplation of her forlorn loveliness by the booming voice of
the marquis.
"What is your name and pursuit?"
"David Mignot. I am a poet."
The moustache of the marquis curled nearer to his eyes.
"How do you live?"
"I am also a shepherd; I guarded my father's flock," David answered,
with his head high, but a flush upon his cheek.
"Then listen, master shepherd and poet, to the fortune you have
blundered upon to-night. This lady is my niece, Mademoiselle Lucie de
Varennes. She is of noble descent and is possessed of ten thousand
francs a year in her own right. As to her charms, you have but to
observe for yourself. If the inventory pleases your shepherd's heart,
she becomes your wife at a word. Do not interrupt me. To-night I
conveyed her to the /chateau/ of the Comte de Villemaur, to whom her
hand had been promised. Guests were present; the priest was waiting;
her marriage to one eligible in rank and fortune was ready to be
accomplished. At the alter this demoiselle, so meek and dutiful,
turned upon me like a leopardess, charged me with cruelty and crimes,
and broke, before the gaping priest, the troth I had plighted for her.
I swore there and then, by ten thousand devils, that she should marry
the first man we met after leaving the /chateau/, be he prince,
charcoal-burner, or thief. You, shepherd, are the first. Mademoiselle
must be wed this night. If not you, then another. You have ten minutes
in which to make your decision. Do not vex me with words or questions.
Ten minutes, shepherd; and they are speeding."
The marquis drummed loudly with his white fingers upon the table. He
sank into a veiled attitude of waiting. It was as if some great house
had shut its doors and windows against approach. David would have
spoken, but the huge man's bearing stopped his tongue. Instead, he
stood by the lady's chair and bowed.
"Mademoiselle," he said, and he marvelled to find his words flowing
easily before so much elegance and beauty. "You have heard me say I
was a shepherd. I have also had the fancy, at times, that I am a poet.
If it be the test of a poet to adore and cherish the beautiful, that
fancy is now strengthened. Can I serve you in any way, mademoiselle?"
The young woman looked up at him with eyes dry and mournful. His
frank, glowing face, made serious by the gravity of the adventure, his
strong, straight figure and the liquid sympathy in his blue eyes,
perhaps, also, her imminent need of long-denied help and kindness,
thawed her to sudden tears.
"Monsieur," she said, in low tones, "you look to be true and kind. He
is my uncle, the brother of my father, and my only relative. He loved
my mother, and he hates me because I am like her. He has made my life
one long terror. I am afraid of his very looks, and never before dared
to disobey him. But to-night he would have married me to a man three
times my age. You will forgive me for bringing this vexation upon you,
monsieur. You will, of course, decline this mad act he tries to force
upon you. But let me thank you for your generous words, at least. I
have had none spoken to me in so long."
There was now something more than generosity in the poet's eyes. Poet
he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new loveliness
held him with its freshness and grace. The subtle perfume from her
filled him with strange emotions. His tender look fell warmly upon
her. She leaned to it, thirstily.
"Ten minutes," said David, "is given me in which to do what I would
devote years to achieve. I will not say I pity you, mademoiselle; it
would not be true--I love you. I cannot ask love from you yet, but let
me rescue you from this cruel man, and, in time, love may come. I
think I have a future; I will not always be a shepherd. For the
present I will cherish you with all my heart and make your life less
sad. Will you trust your fate to me, mademoiselle?"
"Ah, you would sacrifice yourself from pity!"
"From love. The time is almost up, mademoiselle."
"You will regret it, and despise me."
"I will live only to make you happy, and myself worthy of you."
Her fine small hand crept into his from beneath her cloak.
"I will trust you," she breathed, "with my life. And--and love--may
not be so far off as you think. Tell him. Once away from the power of
his eyes I may forget."
David went and stood before the marquis. The black figure stirred, and
the mocking eyes glanced at the great hall clock.
"Two minutes to spare. A shepherd requires eight minutes to decide
whether he will accept a bride of beauty and income! Speak up,
shepherd, do you consent to become mademoiselle's husband?"
"Mademoiselle," said David, standing proudly, "has done me the honour
to yield to my request that she become my wife."
"Well said!" said the marquis. "You have yet the making of a courtier
in you, master shepherd. Mademoiselle could have drawn a worse prize,
after all. And now to be done with the affair as quick as the Church
and the devil will allow!"
He struck the table soundly with his sword hilt. The landlord came,
knee-shaking, bringing more candles in the hope of anticipating the
great lord's whims. "Fetch a priest," said the marquis, "a priest; do
you understand? In ten minutes have a priest here, or--"
The landlord dropped his candles and flew.
The priest came, heavy-eyed and ruffled. He made David Mignot and
Lucie de Verennes man and wife, pocketed a gold piece that the marquis
tossed him, and shuffled out again into the night.
"Wine," ordered the marquis, spreading his ominous fingers at the
host.
"Fill glasses," he said, when it was brought. He stood up at the head
of the table in the candlelight, a black mountain of venom and
conceit, with something like the memory of an old love turned to
poison in his eyes, as it fell upon his niece.
"Monsieur Mignot," he said, raising his wineglass, "drink after I say
this to you: You have taken to be your wife one who will make your
life a foul and wretched thing. The blood in her is an inheritance
running black lies and red ruin. She will bring you shame and anxiety.
The devil that descended to her is there in her eyes and skin and
mouth that stoop even to beguile a peasant. There is your promise,
monsieur poet, for a happy life. Drink your wine. At last,
mademoiselle, I am rid of you."
The marquis drank. A little grievous cry, as if from a sudden wound,
came from the girl's lips. David, with his glass in his hand, stepped
forward three paces and faced the marquis. There was little of a
shepherd in his bearing.
"Just now," he said, calmly, "you did me the honor to call me
'monsieur.' May I hope, therefore that my marriage to mademoiselle has
placed me somewhat nearer to you in--let us say, reflected rank--has
given me the right to stand more as an equal to monseigneur in a
certain little piece of business I have in my mind?"
"You may hope, shepherd," sneered the marquis.
"Then," said David, dashing his glass of wine into the contemptuous
eyes that mocked him, "perhaps you will condescend to fight me."
The fury of the great lord outbroke in one sudden curse like a blast
from a horn. He tore his sword from its black sheath; he called to the
hovering landlord: "A sword there, for this lout!" He turned to the
lady, with a laugh that chilled her heart, and said: "You put much
labour upon me, madame. It seems I must find you a husband and make
you a widow in the same night."
"I know not sword-play," said David. He flushed to make the confession
before his lady.
"'I know not sword-play,'" mimicked the marquis. "Shall we fight like
peasants with oaken cudgels? /Hola/! Francois, my pistols!"
A postilion brought two shining great pistols ornamented with carven
silver, from the carriage holsters. The marquis tossed one upon the
table near David's hand. "To the other end of the table," he cried;
"even a shepherd may pull a trigger. Few of them attain the honour to
die by the weapon of a De Beaupertuys."
The shepherd and the marquis faced each other from the ends of the
long table. The landlord, in an ague of terror, clutched the air and
stammered: "M-M-Monseigneur, for the love of Christ! not in my house!
--do not spill blood--it will ruin my custom--" The look of the
marquis, threatening him, paralyzed his tongue.
"Coward," cried the lord of Beaupertuys, "cease chattering your teeth
long enough to give the word for us, if you can."
Mine host's knees smote the floor. He was without a vocabulary. Even
sounds were beyond him. Still, by gestures he seemed to beseech peace
in the name of his house and custom.
"I will give the word," said the lady, in a clear voice. She went up
to David and kissed him sweetly. Her eyes were sparkling bright, and
colour had come to her cheek. She stood against the wall, and the two
men levelled their pistols for her count.
"/Un/--/deux/--/trois/!"
The two reports came so nearly together that the candles flickered but
once. The marquis stood, smiling, the fingers of his left hand
resting, outspread, upon the end of the table. David remained erect,
and turned his head very slowly, searching for his wife with his eyes.
Then, as a garment falls from where it is hung, he sank, crumpled,
upon the floor.
With a little cry of terror and despair, the widowed maid ran and
stooped above him. She found his wound, and then looked up with her
old look of pale melancholy. "Through his heart," she whispered. "Oh,
his heart!"
"Come," boomed the great voice of the marquis, "out with you to the
carriage! Daybreak shall not find you on my hands. Wed you shall be
again, and to a living husband, this night. The next we come upon, my
lady, highwayman or peasant. If the road yields no other, then the
churl that opens my gates. Out with you into the carriage!"
The marquis, implacable and huge, the lady wrapped again in the
mystery of her cloak, the postilion bearing the weapons--all moved out
to the waiting carriage. The sound of its ponderous wheels rolling
away echoed through the slumbering village. In the hall of the Silver
Flagon the distracted landlord wrung his hands above the slain poet's
body, while the flames of the four and twenty candles danced and
flickered on the table.
THE RIGHT BRANCH
/Three leagues, then, the road ran, and turned into a puzzle. It
joined with another and a larger road at right angles. David
stood, uncertain, for a while, and then took the road to the
right./
Whither it led he knew not, but he was resolved to leave Vernoy far
behind that night. He travelled a league and then passed a large
/chateau/ which showed testimony of recent entertainment. Lights shone
from every window; from the great stone gateway ran a tracery of wheel
tracks drawn in the dust by the vehicles of the guests.
Three leagues farther and David was weary. He rested and slept for a
while on a bed of pine boughs at the roadside. Then up and on again
along the unknown way.
Thus for five days he travelled the great road, sleeping upon Nature's
balsamic beds or in peasants' ricks, eating of their black, hospitable
bread, drinking from streams or the willing cup of the goatherd.
At length he crossed a great bridge and set his foot within the
smiling city that has crushed or crowned more poets than all the rest
of the world. His breath came quickly as Paris sang to him in a little
undertone her vital chant of greeting--the hum of voice and foot and
wheel.
High up under the eaves of an old house in the Rue Conti, David paid
for lodging, and set himself, in a wooden chair, to his poems. The
street, once sheltering citizens of import and consequence, was now
given over to those who ever follow in the wake of decline.
The houses were tall and still possessed of a ruined dignity, but many
of them were empty save for dust and the spider. By night there was
the clash of steel and the cries of brawlers straying restlessly from
inn to inn. Where once gentility abode was now but a rancid and rude
incontinence. But here David found housing commensurate to his scant
purse. Daylight and candlelight found him at pen and paper.
One afternoon he was returning from a foraging trip to the lower
world, with bread and curds and a bottle of thin wine. Halfway up his
dark stairway he met--or rather came upon, for she rested on the stair
--a young woman of a beauty that should balk even the justice of a
poet's imagination. A loose, dark cloak, flung open, showed a rich
gown beneath. Her eyes changed swiftly with every little shade of
thought. Within one moment they would be round and artless like a
child's, and long and cozening like a gypsy's. One hand raised her
gown, undraping a little shoe, high-heeled, with its ribbons dangling,
untied. So heavenly she was, so unfitted to stoop, so qualified to
charm and command! Perhaps she had seen David coming, and had waited
for his help there.
Ah, would monsieur pardon that she occupied the stairway, but the
shoe!--the naughty shoe! Alas! it would not remain tied. Ah! if
monsieur /would/ be so gracious!
The poet's fingers trembled as he tied the contrary ribbons. Then he
would have fled from the danger of her presence, but the eyes grew
long and cozening, like a gypsy's, and held him. He leaned against the
balustrade, clutching his bottle of sour wine.
"You have been so good," she said, smiling. "Does monsieur, perhaps,
live in the house?"
"Yes, madame. I--I think so, madame."
"Perhaps in the third story, then?"
"No, madame; higher up."
The lady fluttered her fingers with the least possible gesture of
impatience.
"Pardon. Certainly I am not discreet in asking. Monsieur will forgive
me? It is surely not becoming that I should inquire where he lodges."
"Madame, do not say so. I live in the--"
"No, no, no; do not tell me. Now I see that I erred. But I cannot lose
the interest I feel in this house and all that is in it. Once it was
my home. Often I come here but to dream of those happy days again.
Will you let that be my excuse?"
"Let me tell you, then, for you need no excuse," stammered the poet.
"I live in the top floor--the small room where the stairs turn."
"In the front room?" asked the lady, turning her head sidewise.
"The rear, madame."
The lady sighed, as if with relief.
"I will detain you no longer then, monsieur," she said, employing the
round and artless eye. "Take good care of my house. Alas! only the
memories of it are mine now. Adieu, and accept my thanks for your
courtesy."
She was gone, leaving but a smile and a trace of sweet perfume. David
climbed the stairs as one in slumber. But he awoke from it, and the
smile and the perfume lingered with him and never afterward did either
seem quite to leave him. This lady of whom he knew nothing drove him
to lyrics of eyes, chansons of swiftly conceived love, odes to curling
hair, and sonnets to slippers on slender feet.
Poet he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new
loveliness held him with its freshness and grace. The subtle perfume
about her filled him with strange emotions.
* * * * *
On a certain night three persons were gathered about a table in a room
on the third floor of the same house. Three chairs and the table and a
lighted candle upon it was all the furniture. One of the persons was a
huge man, dressed in black. His expression was one of sneering pride.
The ends of his upturned moustache reached nearly to his mocking eyes.
Another was a lady, young and beautiful, with eyes that could be round
and artless, as a child's, or long and cozening, like a gypsy's, but
were now keen and ambitious, like any other conspirator's. The third
was a man of action, a combatant, a bold and impatient executive,
breathing fire and steel. he was addressed by the others as Captain
Desrolles.
This man struck the table with his fist, and said, with controlled
violence:
"To-night. To-night as he goes to midnight mass. I am tired of the
plotting that gets nowhere. I am sick of signals and ciphers and
secret meetings and such /baragouin/. Let us be honest traitors. If
France is to be rid of him, let us kill in the open, and not hunt with
snares and traps. To-night, I say. I back my words. My hand will do
the deed. To-night, as he goes to mass."
The lady turned upon him a cordial look. Woman, however wedded to
plots, must ever thus bow to rash courage. The big man stroked his
upturned moustache.
"Dear captain," he said, in a great voice, softened by habit, "this
time I agree with you. Nothing is to be gained by waiting. Enough of
the palace guards belong to us to make the endeavour a safe one."
"To-night," repeated Captain Desrolles, again striking the table. "You
have heard me, marquis; my hand will do the deed."
"But now," said the huge man, softly, "comes a question. Word must be
sent to our partisans in the palace, and a signal agreed upon. Our
stanchest men must accompany the royal carriage. At this hour what
messenger can penetrate so far as the south doorway? Ribouet is
stationed there; once a message is placed in his hands, all will go
well."
"I will send the message," said the lady.
"You, countess?" said the marquis, raising his eyebrows. "Your
devotion is great, we know, but--"
"Listen!" exclaimed the lady, rising and resting her hands upon the
table; "in a garret of this house lives a youth from the provinces as
guileless and tender as the lambs he tended there. I have met him
twice or thrice upon the stairs. I questioned him, fearing that he
might dwell too near the room in which we are accustomed to meet. He
is mine, if I will. He writes poems in his garret, and I think he
dreams of me. He will do what I say. He shall take the message to the
palace."
The marquis rose from his chair and bowed. "You did not permit me to
finish my sentence, countess," he said. "I would have said: 'Your
devotion is great, but your wit and charm are infinitely greater.'"
While the conspirators were thus engaged, David was polishing some
lines addressed to his /amorette d'escalier/. He heard a timorous
knock at his door, and opened it, with a great throb, to behold her
there, panting as one in straits, with eyes wide open and artless,
like a child's.
"Monsieur," she breathed, "I come to you in distress. I believe you to
be good and true, and I know of no other help. How I flew through the
streets among the swaggering men! Monsieur, my mother is dying. My
uncle is a captain of guards in the palace of the king. Some one must
fly to bring him. May I hope--"
"Mademoiselle," interrupted Davis, his eyes shining with the desire to
do her service, "your hopes shall be my wings. Tell me how I may reach
him."
The lady thrust a sealed paper into his hand.
"Go to the south gate--the south gate, mind--and say to the guards
there, 'The falcon has left his nest.' They will pass you, and you
will go to the south entrance to the palace. Repeat the words, and
give this letter to the man who will reply 'Let him strike when he
will.' This is the password, monsieur, entrusted to me by my uncle,
for now when the country is disturbed and men plot against the king's
life, no one without it can gain entrance to the palace grounds after
nightfall. If you will, monsieur, take him this letter so that my
mother may see him before she closes her eyes."
"Give it me," said David, eagerly. "But shall I let you return home
through the streets alone so late? I--"
"No, no--fly. Each moment is like a precious jewel. Some time," said
the lady, with eyes long and cozening, like a gypsy's, "I will try to
thank you for your goodness."
The poet thrust the letter into his breast, and bounded down the
stairway. The lady, when he was gone, returned to the room below.
The eloquent eyebrows of the marquis interrogated her.
"He is gone," she said, "as fleet and stupid as one of his own sheep,
to deliver it."
The table shook again from the batter of Captain Desrolles's fist.
"Sacred name!" he cried; "I have left my pistols behind! I can trust
no others."
"Take this," said the marquis, drawing from beneath his cloak a
shining, great weapon, ornamented with carven silver. "There are none
truer. But guard it closely, for it bears my arms and crest, and
already I am suspected. Me, I must put many leagues between myself and
Paris this night. To-morrow must find me in my /chateau/. After you,
dear countess."
The marquis puffed out the candle. The lady, well cloaked, and the two
gentlemen softly descended the stairway and flowed into the crowd that
roamed along the narrow pavements of the Rue Conti.
David sped. At the south gate of the king's residence a halberd was
laid to his breast, but he turned its point with the words; "The
falcon has left his nest."
"Pass, brother," said the guard, "and go quickly."
On the south steps of the palace they moved to seize him, but again
the /mot de passe/ charmed the watchers. One among them stepped
forward and began: "Let him strike--" but a flurry among the guards
told of a surprise. A man of keen look and soldierly stride suddenly
pressed through them and seized the letter which David held in his
hand. "Come with me," he said, and led him inside the great hall. Then
he tore open the letter and read it. He beckoned to a man uniformed as
an officer of musketeers, who was passing. "Captain Tetreau, you will
have the guards at the south entrance and the south gate arrested and
confined. Place men known to be loyal in their places." To David he
said: "Come with me."
He conducted him through a corridor and an anteroom into a spacious
chamber, where a melancholy man, sombrely dressed, sat brooding in a
great, leather-covered chair. To that man he said:
"Sire, I have told you that the palace is as full of traitors and
spies as a sewer is of rats. You have thought, sire, that it was my
fancy. This man penetrated to your very door by their connivance. He
bore a letter which I have intercepted. I have brought him here that
your majesty may no longer think my zeal excessive."
"I will question him," said the king, stirring in his chair. He looked
at David with heavy eyes dulled by an opaque film. The poet bent his
knee.
"From where do you come?" asked the king.
"From the village of Vernoy, in the province of Eure-et-Loir, sire."
"What do you follow in Paris?"
"I--I would be a poet, sire."
"What did you in Vernoy?"
"I minded my father's flock of sheep."
The king stirred again, and the film lifted from his eyes.
"Ah! in the fields!"
"Yes, sire."
"You lived in the fields; you went out in the cool of the morning and
lay among the hedges in the grass. The flock distributed itself upon
the hillside; you drank of the living stream; you ate your sweet,
brown bread in the shade, and you listened, doubtless, to blackbirds
piping in the grove. Is not that so, shepherd?"
"It is, sire," answered David, with a sigh; "and to the bees at the
flowers, and, maybe, to the grape gatherers singing on the hill."
"Yes, yes," said the king, impatiently; "maybe to them; but surely to
the blackbirds. They whistled often, in the grove, did they not?"
"Nowhere, sire, so sweetly as in Eure-et-Loir. I have endeavored to
express their song in some verses that I have written."
"Can you repeat those verses?" asked the king, eagerly. "A long time
ago I listened to the blackbirds. It would be something better than a
kingdom if one could rightly construe their song. And at night you
drove the sheep to the fold and then sat, in peace and tranquillity,
to your pleasant bread. Can you repeat those verses, shepherd?"
"They run this way, sire," said David, with respectful ardour:
"'Lazy shepherd, see your lambkins
Skip, ecstatic, on the mead;
See the firs dance in the breezes,
Hear Pan blowing at his reed.
"Hear us calling from the tree-tops,
See us swoop upon your flock;
Yield us wool to make our nests warm
In the branches of the--'"
"If it please your majesty," interrupted a harsh voice, "I will ask a
question or two of this rhymester. There is little time to spare. I
crave pardon, sire, if my anxiety for your safety offends."
"The loyalty," said the king, "of the Duke d'Aumale is too well proven
to give offence." He sank into his chair, and the film came again over
his eyes.
"First," said the duke, "I will read you the letter he brought:
"'To-night is the anniversary of the dauphin's death. If he goes,
as is his custom, to midnight mass to pray for the soul of his
son, the falcon will strike, at the corner of the Rue Esplanade.
If this be his intention, set a red light in the upper room at the
southwest corner of the palace, that the falcon may take heed.'
"Peasant," said the duke, sternly, "you have heard these words. Who
gave you this message to bring?"
"My lord duke," said David, sincerely, "I will tell you. A lady gave
it me. She said her mother was ill, and that this writing would fetch
her uncle to her bedside. I do not know the meaning of the letter, but
I will swear that she is beautiful and good."
"Describe the woman," commanded the duke, "and how you came to be her
dupe."
"Describe her!" said David with a tender smile. "You would command
words to perform miracles. Well, she is made of sunshine and deep
shade. She is slender, like the alders, and moves with their grace.
Her eyes change while you gaze into them; now round, and then half
shut as the sun peeps between two clouds. When she comes, heaven is
all about her; when she leaves, there is chaos and a scent of hawthorn
blossoms. She came to see me in the Rue Conti, number twenty-nine."
"It is the house," said the duke, turning to the king, "that we have
been watching. Thanks to the poet's tongue, we have a picture of the
infamous Countess Quebedaux."
"Sire and my lord duke," said David, earnestly, "I hope my poor words
have done no injustice. I have looked into that lady's eyes. I will
stake my life that she is an angel, letter or no letter."
The duke looked at him steadily. "I will put you to the proof," he
said, slowly. "Dressed as the king, you shall, yourself, attend mass
in his carriage at midnight. Do you accept the test?"
David smiled. "I have looked into her eyes," he said. "I had my proof
there. Take yours how you will."
Half an hour before twelve the Duke d'Aumale, with his own hands, set
a red lamp in a southwest window of the palace. At ten minutes to the
hour, David, leaning on his arm, dressed as the king, from top to toe,
with his head bowed in his cloak, walked slowly from the royal
apartments to the waiting carriage. The duke assisted him inside and
closed the door. The carriage whirled away along its route to the
cathedral.
On the /qui vive/ in a house at the corner of the Rue Esplanade was
Captain Tetreau with twenty men, ready to pounce upon the conspirators
when they should appear.
But it seemed that, for some reason, the plotters had slightly altered
their plans. When the royal carriage had reached the Rue Christopher,
one square nearer than the Rue Esplanade, forth from it burst Captain
Desrolles, with his band of would-be regicides, and assailed the
equipage. The guards upon the carriage, though surprised at the
premature attack, descended and fought valiantly. The noise of
conflict attracted the force of Captain Tetreau, and they came pelting
down the street to the rescue. But, in the meantime, the desperate
Desrolles had torn open the door of the king's carriage, thrust his
weapon against the body of the dark figure inside, and fired.
Now, with loyal reinforcements at hand, the street rang with cries and
the rasp of steel, but the frightened horses had dashed away. Upon the
cushions lay the dead body of the poor mock king and poet, slain by a
ball from the pistol of Monseigneur, the Marquis de Beaupertuys.
THE MAIN ROAD
/Three leagues, then, the road ran, and turned into a puzzle. It
joined with another and a larger road at right angles. David
stood, uncertain, for a while, and then sat himself to rest upon
its side./
Whither these roads led he knew not. Either way there seemed to lie a
great world full of chance and peril. And then, sitting there, his eye
fell upon a bright star, one that he and Yvonne had named for theirs.
That set him thinking of Yvonne, and he wondered if he had not been
too hasty. Why should he leave her and his home because a few hot
words had come between them? Was love so brittle a thing that
jealousy, the very proof of it, could break it? Mornings always
brought a cure for the little heartaches of evening. There was yet
time for him to return home without any one in the sweetly sleeping
village of Vernoy being the wiser. His heart was Yvonne's; there where
he had lived always he could write his poems and find his happiness.
David rose, and shook off his unrest and the wild mood that had
tempted him. He set his face steadfastly back along the road he had
come. By the time he had retravelled the road to Vernoy, his desire to
rove was gone. He passed the sheepfold, and the sheep scurried, with a
drumming flutter, at his late footsteps, warming his heart by the
homely sound. He crept without noise into his little room and lay
there, thankful that his feet had escaped the distress of new roads
that night.
How well he knew woman's heart! The next evening Yvonne was at the
well in the road where the young congregated in order that the /cure/
might have business. The corner of her eye was engaged in a search for
David, albeit her set mouth seemed unrelenting. He saw the look;
braved the mouth, drew from it a recantation and, later, a kiss as
they walked homeward together.
Three months afterwards they were married. David's father was shrewd
and prosperous. He gave them a wedding that was heard of three leagues
away. Both the young people were favourites in the village. There was
a procession in the streets, a dance on the green; they had the
marionettes and a tumbler out from Dreux to delight the guests.
Then a year, and David's father died. The sheep and the cottage
descended to him. He already had the seemliest wife in the village.
Yvonne's milk pails and her brass kettles were bright--/ouf/! they
blinded you in the sun when you passed that way. But you must keep
your eyes upon her yard, for her flower beds were so neat and gay they
restored to you your sight. And you might hear her sing, aye, as far
as the double chestnut tree above Pere Gruneau's blacksmith forge.
But a day came when David drew out paper from a long-shut drawer, and
began to bite the end of a pencil. Spring had come again and touched
his heart. Poet he must have been, for now Yvonne was well-nigh
forgotten. This fine new loveliness of earth held him with its
witchery and grace. The perfume from her woods and meadows stirred him
strangely. Daily had he gone forth with his flock, and brought it safe
at night. But now he stretched himself under the hedge and pieced
words together on his bits of paper. The sheep strayed, and the
wolves, perceiving that difficult poems make easy mutton, ventured
from the woods and stole his lambs.
David's stock of poems grew longer and his flock smaller. Yvonne's
nose and temper waxed sharp and her talk blunt. Her pans and kettles
grew dull, but her eyes had caught their flash. She pointed out to the
poet that his neglect was reducing the flock and bringing woe upon the
household. David hired a boy to guard the sheep, locked himself in the
little room at the top of the cottage, and wrote more poems. The boy,
being a poet by nature, but not furnished with an outlet in the way of
writing, spent his time in slumber. The wolves lost no time in
discovering that poetry and sleep are practically the same; so the
flock steadily grew smaller. Yvonne's ill temper increased at an equal
rate. Sometimes she would stand in the yard and rail at David through
his high window. Then you could hear her as far as the double chestnut
tree above Pere Gruneau's blacksmith forge.
M. Papineau, the kind, wise, meddling old notary, saw this, as he saw
everything at which his nose pointed. He went to David, fortified
himself with a great pinch of snuff, and said:
"Friend Mignot, I affixed the seal upon the marriage certificate of
your father. It would distress me to be obliged to attest a paper
signifying the bankruptcy of his son. But that is what you are coming
to. I speak as an old friend. Now, listen to what I have to say. You
have your heart set, I perceive, upon poetry. At Dreux, I have a
friend, one Monsieur Bril--Georges Bril. He lives in a little cleared
space in a houseful of books. He is a learned man; he visits Paris
each year; he himself has written books. He will tell you when the
catacombs were made, how they found out the names of the stars, and
why the plover has a long bill. The meaning and the form of poetry is
to him as intelligent as the baa of a sheep is to you. I will give you
a letter to him, and you shall take him your poems and let him read
them. Then you will know if you shall write more, or give your
attention to your wife and business."
"Write the letter," said David, "I am sorry you did not speak of this
sooner."
At sunrise the next morning he was on the road to Dreux with the
precious roll of poems under his arm. At noon he wiped the dust from
his feet at the door of Monsieur Bril. That learned man broke the seal
of M. Papineau's letter, and sucked up its contents through his
gleaming spectacles as the sun draws water. He took David inside to
his study and sat him down upon a little island beat upon by a sea of
books.
Monsieur Bril had a conscience. He flinched not even at a mass of
manuscript the thickness of a finger-length and rolled to an
incorrigible curve. He broke the back of the roll against his knee and
began to read. He slighted nothing; he bored into the lump as a worm
into a nut, seeking for a kernel.
Meanwhile, David sat, marooned, trembling in the spray of so much
literature. It roared in his ears. He held no chart or compass for
voyaging in that sea. Half the world, he thought, must be writing
books.
Monsieur Bril bored to the last page of the poems. Then he took off
his spectacles, and wiped them with his handkerchief.
"My old friend, Papineau, is well?" he asked.
"In the best of health," said David.
"How many sheep have you, Monsieur Mignot?"
"Three hundred and nine, when I counted them yesterday. The flock has
had ill fortune. To that number it has decreased from eight hundred
and fifty."
"You have a wife and home, and lived in comfort. The sheep brought you
plenty. You went into the fields with them and lived in the keen air
and ate the sweet bread of contentment. You had but to be vigilant and
recline there upon nature's breast, listening to the whistle of the
blackbirds in the grove. Am I right thus far?"
"It was so," said David.
"I have read all your verses," continued Monsieur Bril, his eyes
wandering about his sea of books as if he conned the horizon for a
sail. "Look yonder, through that window, Monsieur Mignot; tell me what
you see in that tree."
"I see a crow," said David, looking.
"There is a bird," said Monsieur Bril, "that shall assist me where I
am disposed to shirk a duty. You know that bird, Monsieur Mignot; he
is the philosopher of the air. He is happy through submission to his
lot. None so merry or full-crawed as he with his whimsical eye and
rollicking step. The fields yield him what he desires. He never
grieves that his plumage is not gay, like the oriole's. And you have
heard, Monsieur Mignot, the notes that nature has given him? Is the
nightingale any happier, do you think?"
David rose to his feet. The crow cawed harshly from his tree.
"I thank you, Monsieur Bril," he said, slowly. "There was not, then,
one nightingale among all those croaks?"
"I could not have missed it," said Monsieur Bril, with a sigh. "I read
every word. Live your poetry, man; do not try to write it any more."
"I thank you," said David, again. "And now I will be going back to my
sheep."
"If you would dine with me," said the man of books, "and overlook the
smart of it, I will give you reasons at length."
"No," said the poet, "I must be back in the fields cawing at my
sheep."
Back along the road to Vernoy he trudged with his poems under his arm.
When he reached his village he turned into the shop of one Zeigler, a
Jew out of Armenia, who sold anything that came to his hand.
"Friend," said David, "wolves from the forest harass my sheep on the
hills. I must purchase firearms to protect them. What have you?"
"A bad day, this, for me, friend Mignot," said Zeigler, spreading his
hands, "for I perceive that I must sell you a weapon that will not
fetch a tenth of its value. Only last I week I bought from a peddlar a
wagon full of goods that he procured at a sale by a /commissionaire/
of the crown. The sale was of the /chateau/ and belongings of a great
lord--I know not his title--who has been banished for conspiracy
against the king. There are some choice firearms in the lot. This
pistol--oh, a weapon fit for a prince!--it shall be only forty francs
to you, friend Mignot--if I lose ten by the sale. But perhaps an
arquebuse--"
"This will do," said David, throwing the money on the counter. "Is it
charged?"
"I will charge it," said Zeigler. "And, for ten francs more, add a
store of powder and ball."
David laid his pistol under his coat and walked to his cottage. Yvonne
was not there. Of late she had taken to gadding much among the
neighbours. But a fire was glowing in the kitchen stove. David opened
the door of it and thrust his poems in upon the coals. As they blazed
up they made a singing, harsh sound in the flue.
"The song of the crow!" said the poet.
He went up to his attic room and closed the door. So quiet was the
village that a score of people heard the roar of the great pistol.
They flocked thither, and up the stairs where the smoke, issuing, drew
their notice.
The men laid the body of the poet upon his bed, awkwardly arranging it
to conceal the torn plumage of the poor black crow. The women
chattered in a luxury of zealous pity. Some of them ran to tell
Yvonne.
M. Papineau, whose nose had brought him there among the first, picked
up the weapon and ran his eye over its silver mountings with a mingled
air of connoisseurship and grief.
"The arms," he explained, aside, to the /cure/, "and crest of
Monseigneur, the Marquis de Beaupertuys."
II
THE GUARDIAN OF THE ACCOLADE
Not the least important of the force of the Weymouth Bank was Uncle
Bushrod. Sixty years had Uncle Bushrod given of faithful service to
the house of Weymouth as chattel, servitor, and friend. Of the colour
of the mahogany bank furniture was Uncle Bushrod--thus dark was he
externally; white as the uninked pages of the bank ledgers was his
soul. Eminently pleasing to Uncle Bushrod would the comparison have
been; for to him the only institution in existence worth considering
was the Weymouth Bank, of which he was something between porter and
generalissimo-in-charge.
Weymouth lay, dreamy and umbrageous, among the low foothills along the
brow of a Southern valley. Three banks there were in Weymouthville.
Two were hopeless, misguided enterprises, lacking the presence and
prestige of a Weymouth to give them glory. The third was The Bank,
managed by the Weymouths--and Uncle Bushrod. In the old Weymouth
homestead--the red brick, white porticoed mansion, the first to your
right as you crossed Elder Creek, coming into town--lived Mr. Robert
Weymouth (the president of the bank), his widowed daughter, Mrs. Vesey
--called "Miss Letty" by every one--and her two children, Nan and Guy.
There, also in a cottage on the grounds, resided Uncle Bushrod and
Aunt Malindy, his wife. Mr. William Weymouth (the cashier of the bank)
lived in a modern, fine house on the principal avenue.
Mr. Robert was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a
smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes. He was
high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a
formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like.
Mr. William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in
business. The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were
looked up to, as was their right of heritage.
Uncle Bushrod was the bank's trusted porter, messenger, vassal, and
guardian. He carried a key to the vault, just as Mr. Robert and Mr.
Williams did. Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand
dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor. It was safe with
Uncle Bushrod. He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.
Of late Uncle Bushrod had not been without worry. It was on account of
Marse Robert. For nearly a year Mr. Robert had been known to indulge
in too much drink. Not enough, understand, to become tipsy, but the
habit was getting a hold upon him, and every one was beginning to
notice it. Half a dozen times a day he would leave the bank and step
around to the Merchants and Planters' Hotel to take a drink. Mr.
Roberts' usual keen judgment and business capacity became a little
impaired. Mr. William, a Weymouth, but not so rich in experience,
tried to dam the inevitable backflow of the tide, but with incomplete
success. The deposits in the Weymouth Bank dropped from six figures to
five. Past-due paper began to accumulate, owing to injudicious loans.
No one cared to address Mr. Robert on the subject of temperance. Many
of his friends said that the cause of it had been the death of his
wife some two years before. Others hesitated on account of Mr.
Robert's quick temper, which was extremely apt to resent personal
interference of such a nature. Miss Letty and the children noticed the
change and grieved about it. Uncle Bushrod also worried, but he was
one of those who would not have dared to remonstrate, although he and
Marse Robert had been raised almost as companions. But there was a
heavier shock coming to Uncle Bushrod than that caused by the bank
president's toddies and juleps.
Mr. Robert had a passion for fishing, which he usually indulged
whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had
been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his
intention of making a two or three days' visit to the lakes. He was
going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an old
friend.
Now, Uncle Bushrod was treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of the
Burning Bush. Every association he belonged to made him treasurer
without hesitation. He stood AA1 in coloured circles. He was
understood among them to be Mr. Bushrod Weymouth, of the Weymouth
Bank.
The night following the day on which Mr. Robert mentioned his intended
fishing-trip the old man woke up and rose from his bed at twelve
o'clock, declaring he must go down to the bank and fetch the pass-book
of the Sons and Daughters, which he had forgotten to bring home. The
bookkeeper had balanced it for him that day, put the cancelled checks
in it, and snapped two elastic bands around it. He put but one band
around other pass-books.
Aunt Malindy objected to the mission at so late an hour, denouncing it
as foolish and unnecessary, but Uncle Bushrod was not to be deflected
from duty.
"I done told Sister Adaline Hoskins," he said, "to come by here for
dat book to-morrer mawnin' at sebin o'clock, for to kyar' it to de
meetin' of de bo'd of 'rangements, and dat book gwine to be here when
she come."
So, Uncle Bushrod put on his old brown suit, got his thick hickory
stick, and meandered through the almost deserted streets of
Weymouthville. He entered the bank, unlocking the side door, and found
the pass-book where he had left it, in the little back room used for
consultations, where he always hung his coat. Looking about casually,
he saw that everything was as he had left it, and was about to start
for home when he was brought to a standstill by the sudden rattle of a
key in the front door. Some one came quickly in, closed the door
softly, and entered the counting-room through the door in the iron
railing.
That division of the bank's space was connected with the back room by
a narrow passageway, now in deep darkness.
Uncle Bushrod, firmly gripping his hickory stick, tiptoed gently up
this passage until he could see the midnight intruder into the sacred
precincts of the Weymouth Bank. One dim gas-jet burned there, but even
in its nebulous light he perceived at once that the prowler was the
bank's president.
Wondering, fearful, undecided what to do, the old coloured man stood
motionless in the gloomy strip of hallway, and waited developments.
The vault, with its big iron door, was opposite him. Inside that was
the safe, holding the papers of value, the gold and currency of the
bank. On the floor of the vault was, perhaps, eighteen thousand
dollars in silver.
The president took his key from his pocket, opened the vault and went
inside, nearly closing the door behind him. Uncle Bushrod saw, through
the narrow aperture, the flicker of a candle. In a minute or two--it
seemed an hour to the watcher--Mr. Robert came out, bringing with him
a large hand-satchel, handling it in a careful but hurried manner, as
if fearful that he might be observed. With one hand he closed and
locked the vault door.
With a reluctant theory forming itself beneath his wool, Uncle Bushrod
waited and watched, shaking in his concealing shadow.
Mr. Robert set the satchel softly upon a desk, and turned his coat
collar up about his neck and ears. He was dressed in a rough suit of
gray, as if for travelling. He glanced with frowning intentness at the
big office clock above the burning gas-jet, and then looked
lingeringly about the bank--lingeringly and fondly, Uncle Bushrod
thought, as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes.
Now he caught up his burden again and moved promptly and softly out of
the bank by the way he had come locking the front door behind him.
For a minute or longer Uncle Bushrod was as stone in his tracks. Had
that midnight rifler of safes and vaults been any other on earth than
the man he was, the old retainer would have rushed upon him and struck
to save the Weymouth property. But now the watcher's soul was tortured
by the poignant dread of something worse than mere robbery. He was
seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the
Weymouth honour were about to be lost. Marse Robert robbing the bank!
What else could it mean? The hour of the night, the stealthy visit to
the vault, the satchel brought forth and with expedition and silence,
the prowler's rough dress, his solicitous reading of the clock, and
noiseless departure--what else could it mean?
And then to the turmoil of Uncle Bushrod's thoughts came the
corroborating recollection of preceding events--Mr. Robert's
increasing intemperance and consequent many moods of royal high
spirits and stern tempers; the casual talk he had heard in the bank of
the decrease in business and difficulty in collecting loans. What else
could it all mean but that Mr. Robert Weymouth was an absconder--was
about to fly with the bank's remaining funds, leaving Mr. William,
Miss Letty, little Nab, Guy, and Uncle Bushrod to bear the disgrace?
During one minute Uncle Bushrod considered these things, and then he
awoke to sudden determination and action.
"Lawd! Lawd!" he moaned aloud, as he hobbled hastily toward the side
door. "Sech a come-off after all dese here years of big doin's and
fine doin's. Scan'lous sights upon de yearth when de Weymouth fambly
done turn out robbers and 'bezzlers! Time for Uncle Bushrod to clean
out somebody's chicken-coop and eben matters up. Oh, Lawd! Marse
Robert, you ain't gwine do dat. 'N Miss Letty an' dem chillun so proud
and talkin' 'Weymouth, Weymouth,' all de time! I'm gwine to stop you
ef I can. 'Spec you shoot Mr. Nigger's head off ef he fool wid you,
but I'm gwine stop you ef I can."
Uncle Bushrod, aided by his hickory stick, impeded by his rheumatism,
hurried down the street toward the railroad station, where the two
lines touching Weymouthville met. As he had expected and feared, he
saw there Mr. Robert, standing in the shadow of the building, waiting
for the train. He held the satchel in his hand.
When Uncle Bushrod came within twenty yards of the bank president,
standing like a huge, gray ghost by the station wall, sudden
perturbation seized him. The rashness and audacity of the thing he had
come to do struck him fully. He would have been happy could he have
turned and fled from the possibilities of the famous Weymouth wrath.
But again he saw, in his fancy, the white reproachful face of Miss
Letty, and the distressed looks of Nan and Guy, should he fail in his
duty and they question him as to his stewardship.
Braced by the thought, he approached in a straight line, clearing his
throat and pounding with his stick so that he might be early
recognized. Thus he might avoid the likely danger of too suddenly
surprising the sometimes hasty Mr. Robert.
"Is that you, Bushrod?" called the clamant, clear voice of the gray
ghost.
"Yes, suh, Marse Robert."
"What the devil are you doing out at this time of night?"
For the first time in his life, Uncle Bushrod told Marse Robert a
falsehood. He could not repress it. He would have to circumlocute a
little. His nerve was not equal to a direct attack.
"I done been down, suh, to see ol' Aunt M'ria Patterson. She taken
sick in de night, and I kyar'ed her a bottle of M'lindy's medercine.
Yes, suh."
"Humph!" said Robert. "You better get home out of the night air. It's
damp. You'll hardly be worth killing to-morrow on account of your
rheumatism. Think it'll be a clear day, Bushrod?"
"I 'low it will, suh. De sun sot red las' night."
Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his
gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle
Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful
subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel
and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off--three miles away, at
the Jimtown switch--he heard the faint whistle of the coming train,
the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of
dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced
the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty,
terrible Weymouth--he bearded him there at the brink of the awful
thing that was about to happen.
"Marse Robert," he began, his voice quivering a little with the stress
of his feelings, "you 'member de day dey-all rode de tunnament at Oak
Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin', and you crown Miss Lucy
de queen?"
"Tournament?" said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth. "Yes,
I remember very well the--but what the deuce are you talking about
tournaments here at midnight for? Go 'long home, Bushrod. I believe
you're sleep-walking."
"Miss Lucy tetch you on de shoulder," continued the old man, never
heeding, "wid a s'ord, and say: 'I mek you a knight, Suh Robert--rise
up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.' Dat what Miss Lucy say.
Dat's been a long time ago, but me nor you ain't forgot it. And den
dar's another time we ain't forgot--de time when Miss Lucy lay on her
las' bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she say: 'Uncle Bushrod,
when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like'--so
Miss Lucy say--'he listen to you mo' dan to anybody else. He apt to be
mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you when you try to
'suade him but he need somebody what understand him to be 'round wid
him. He am like a little child sometimes'--so Miss Lucy say, wid her
eyes shinin' in her po', thin face--'but he always been'--dem was her
words--'my knight, pure and fearless and widout reproach.'"
Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to soft-
heartedness with a spurious anger.
"You--you old windbag!" he growled through a cloud of swirling cigar
smoke. "I believe you are crazy. I told you to go home, Bushrod. Miss
Lucy said that, did she? Well, we haven't kept the scutcheon very
clear. Two years ago last week, wasn't it, Bushrod, when she died?
Confound it! Are you going to stand there all night gabbing like a
coffee-coloured gander?"
The train whistled again. Now it was at the water tank, a mile away.
"Marse Robert," said Uncle Bushrod, laying his hand on the satchel
that the banker held. "For Gawd's sake, don' take dis wid you. I knows
what's in it. I knows where you got it in de bank. Don' kyar' it wid
you. Dey's big trouble in dat valise for Miss Lucy and Miss Lucy's
child's chillun. Hit's bound to destroy de name of Weymouth and bow
down dem dat own it wid shame and triberlation. Marse Robert, you can
kill dis ole nigger ef you will, but don't take away dis 'er' valise.
If I ever crosses over de Jordan, what I gwine to say to Miss Lucy
when she ax me: 'Uncle Bushrod, wharfo' didn' you take good care of
Mr. Robert?'"
Mr. Robert Weymouth threw away his cigar and shook free one arm with
that peculiar gesture that always preceded his outbursts of
irascibility. Uncle Bushrod bowed his head to the expected storm, but
he did not flinch. If the house of Weymouth was to fall, he would fall
with it. The banker spoke, and Uncle Bushrod blinked with surprise.
The storm was there, but it was suppressed to the quietness of a
summer breeze.
"Bushrod," said Mr. Robert, in a lower voice than he usually employed,
"you have overstepped all bounds. You have presumed upon the leniency
with which you have been treated to meddle unpardonably. So you know
what is in this satchel! Your long and faithful service is some
excuse, but--go home, Bushrod--not another word!"
But Bushrod grasped the satchel with a firmer hand. The headlight of
the train was now lightening the shadows about the station. The roar
was increasing, and folks were stirring about at the track side.
"Marse Robert, gimme dis 'er' valise. I got a right, suh, to talk to
you dis 'er' way. I slaved for you and 'tended to you from a child up.
I went th'ough de war as yo' body-servant tell we whipped de Yankees
and sent 'em back to de No'th. I was at yo' weddin', and I was n' fur
away when yo' Miss Letty was bawn. And Miss Letty's chillun, dey
watches to-day for Uncle Bushrod when he come home ever' evenin'. I
been a Weymouth, all 'cept in colour and entitlements. Both of us is
old, Marse Robert. 'Tain't goin' to be long till we gwine to see Miss
Lucy and has to give an account of our doin's. De ole nigger man won't
be 'spected to say much mo' dan he done all he could by de fambly dat
owned him. But de Weymouths, dey must say day been livin' pure and
fearless and widout reproach. Gimme dis valise, Marse Robert--I'm
gwine to hab it. I'm gwine to take it back to the bank and lock it up
in de vault. I'm gwine to do Miss Lucy's biddin'. Turn 'er loose,
Marse Robert."
The train was standing at the station. Some men were pushing trucks
along the side. Two or three sleepy passengers got off and wandered
away into the night. The conductor stepped to the gravel, swung his
lantern and called: "Hello, Frank!" at some one invisible. The bell
clanged, the brakes hissed, the conductor drawled: "All aboard!"
Mr. Robert released his hold on the satchel. Uncle Bushrod hugged it
to his breast with both arms, as a lover clasps his first beloved.
"Take it back with you, Bushrod," said Mr. Robert, thrusting his hands
into his pockets. "And let the subject drop--now mind! You've said
quite enough. I'm going to take the train. Tell Mr. William I will be
back on Saturday. Good night."
The banker climbed the steps of the moving train and disappeared in a
coach. Uncle Bushrod stood motionless, still embracing the precious
satchel. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving in thanks to
the Master above for the salvation of the Weymouth honour. He knew Mr.
Robert would return when he said he would. The Weymouths never lied.
Nor now, thank the Lord! could it be said that they embezzled the
money in banks.
Then awake to the necessity for further guardianship of Weymouth trust
funds, the old man started for the bank with the redeemed satchel.
* * * * *
Three hours from Weymouthville, in the gray dawn, Mr. Robert alighted
from the train at a lonely flag-station. Dimly he could see the figure
of a man waiting on the platform, and the shape of a spring-waggon,
team and driver. Half a dozen lengthy bamboo fishing-poles projected
from the waggon's rear.
"You're here, Bob," said Judge Archinard, Mr. Robert's old friend and
schoolmate. "It's going to be a royal day for fishing. I thought you
said--why, didn't you bring along the stuff?"
The president of the Weymouth Bank took off his hat and rumpled his
gray locks.
"Well, Ben, to tell you the truth, there's an infernally presumptuous
old nigger belonging in my family that broke up the arrangement. He
came down to the depot and vetoed the whole proceeding. He means all
right, and--well, I reckon he /is/ right. Somehow, he had found out
what I had along--though I hid it in the bank vault and sneaked it out
at midnight. I reckon he has noticed that I've been indulging a little
more than a gentleman should, and he laid for me with some reaching
arguments.
"I'm going to quit drinking," Mr. Robert concluded. "I've come to the
conclusion that a man can't keep it up and be quite what he'd like to
be--'pure and fearless and without reproach'--that's the way old
Bushrod quoted it."
"Well, I'll have to admit," said the judge, thoughtfully, as they
climbed into the waggon, "that the old darkey's argument can't
conscientiously be overruled."
"Still," said Mr. Robert, with a ghost of a sigh, "there was two
quarts of the finest old silk-velvet Bourbon in that satchel you ever
wet your lips with."
III
THE DISCOUNTERS OF MONEY
The spectacle of the money-caliphs of the present day going about
Bagdad-on-the-Subway trying to relieve the wants of the people is
enough to make the great Al Raschid turn Haroun in his grave. If not
so, then the assertion should do so, the real caliph having been a wit
and a scholar and therefore a hater of puns.
How properly to alleviate the troubles of the poor is one of the
greatest troubles of the rich. But one thing agreed upon by all
professional philanthropists is that you must never hand over any cash
to your subject. The poor are notoriously temperamental; and when they
get money they exhibit a strong tendency to spend it for stuffed
olives and enlarged crayon portraits instead of giving it to the
instalment man.
And still, old Haroun had some advantages as an eleemosynarian. He
took around with him on his rambles his vizier, Giafar (a vizier is a
composite of a chauffeur, a secretary of state, and a night-and-day
bank), and old Uncle Mesrour, his executioner, who toted a
snickersnee. With this entourage a caliphing tour could hardly fail to
be successful. Have you noticed lately any newspaper articles headed,
"What Shall We Do With Our Ex-Presidents?" Well, now, suppose that Mr.
Carnegie could engage /him/ and Joe Gans to go about assisting in the
distribution of free libraries? Do you suppose any town would have had
the hardihood to refuse one? That caliphalous combination would cause
two libraries to grow where there had been only one set of E. P. Roe's
works before.
But, as I said, the money-caliphs are handicapped. They have the idea
that earth has no sorrow that dough cannot heal; and they rely upon it
solely. Al Raschid administered justice, rewarding the deserving, and
punished whomsoever he disliked on the spot. He was the originator of
the short-story contest. Whenever he succoured any chance pick-up in
the bazaars he always made the succouree tell the sad story of his
life. If the narrative lacked construction, style, and /esprit/ he
commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple of thousand ten-dollar
notes of the First National Bank of the Bosphorus, or else gave him a
soft job as Keeper of the Bird Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial
Gardens. If the story was a cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the
executioner, whack of his head. The report that Haroun Al Raschid is
yet alive and is editing the magazine that your grandmother used to
subscribe for lacks confirmation.
And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious
Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.
Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money ornithologically.
He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on the ground floor at the
residence of his immediate ancestors, the Pilkins Brewing Company. For
his mother was a partner in the business. Finally old man Pilkins died
from a torpid liver, and then Mrs. Pilkins died from worry on account
of torpid delivery-waggons--and there you have young Howard Pilkins
with 4,000,000; and a good fellow at that. He was an agreeable,
modestly arrogant young man, who implicitly believed that money could
buy anything that the world had to offer. And Bagdad-on-the-Subway for
a long time did everything possible to encourage his belief.
But the Rat-trap caught him at last; he heard the spring snap, and
found his heart in a wire cage regarding a piece of cheese whose other
name was Alice von der Ruysling.
The Von der Ruyslings still live in that little square about which so
much has been said, and in which so little has been done. To-day you
hear of Mr. Tilden's underground passage, and you hear Mr. Gould's
elevated passage, and that about ends the noise in the world made by
Gramercy Square. But once it was different. The Von der Ruyslings live
there yet, and they received /the first key ever made to Gramercy
Park/.
You shall have no description of Alice v. d. R. Just call up in your
mind the picture of your own Maggie or Vera or Beatrice, straighten
her nose, soften her voice, tone her down and then tone her up, make
her beautiful and unattainable--and you have a faint dry-point etching
of Alice. The family owned a crumbly brick house and a coachman named
Joseph in a coat of many colours, and a horse so old that he claimed
to belong to the order of the perissodactyla, and had toes instead of
hoofs. In the year 1898 the family had to buy a new set of harness for
their Perissodactyl. Before using it they made Joseph smear it over
with a mixture of ashes and soot. It was the Von der Ruysling family
that bought the territory between the Bowery and East River and
Rivington Street and the Statue of Liberty, in the year 1649, from an
Indian chief for a quart of passementerie and a pair of Turkey-red
portieres designed for a Harlem flat. I have always admired that
Indian's perspicacity and good taste. All this is merely to convince
you that the Von der Ruyslings were exactly the kind of poor
aristocrats that turn down their noses at people who have money. Oh,
well, I don't mean that; I mean people who have /just/ money.
One evening Pilkins went down to the red brick house in Gramercy
Square, and made what he thought was a proposal to Alice v. d. R.
Alice, with her nose turned down, and thinking of his money,
considered it a proposition, and refused it and him. Pilkins,
summoning all his resources as any good general would have done, made
an indiscreet references to the advantages that his money would
provide. That settled it. The lady turned so cold that Walter Wellman
himself would have waited until spring to make a dash for her in a
dog-sled.
But Pilkins was something of a sport himself. You can't fool all the
millionaires every time the ball drops on the Western Union Building.
"If, at any time," he said to A. v. d. R., "you feel that you would
like to reconsider your answer, send me a rose like that."
Pilkins audaciously touched a Jacque rose that she wore loosely in her
hair.
"Very well," said she. "And when I do, you will understand by it that
either you or I have learned something new about the purchasing power
of money. You've been spoiled, my friend. No, I don't think I could
marry you. To-morrow I will send you back the presents you have given
me."
"Presents!" said Pilkins in surprise. "I never gave you a present in
my life. I would like to see a full-length portrait of the man that
you would take a present from. Why, you never would let me send you
flowers or candy or even art calendars."
"You've forgotten," said Alice v. d. R., with a little smile. "It was
a long time ago when our families were neighbours. You were seven, and
I was trundling my doll on the sidewalk. You have me a little gray,
hairy kitten, with shoe-buttony eyes. Its head came off and it was
full of candy. You paid five cents for it--you told me so. I haven't
the candy to return to you--I hadn't developed a conscience at three,
so I ate it. But I have the kitten yet, and I will wrap it up neatly
to-night and send it to you to-morrow."
Beneath the lightness of Alice v. d. R.'s talk the steadfastness of
her rejection showed firm and plain. So there was nothing left for him
but to leave the crumbly red brick house, and be off with his abhorred
millions.
On his way back, Pilkins walked through Madison Square. The hour hand
of the clock hung about eight; the air was stingingly cool, but not at
the freezing point. The dim little square seemed like a great, cold,
unroofed room, with its four walls of houses, spangled with thousands
of insufficient lights. Only a few loiterers were huddled here and
there on the benches.
But suddenly Pilkins came upon a youth sitting brave and, as if
conflicting with summer sultriness, coatless, his white shirt-sleeves
conspicuous in the light from the globe of an electric. Close to his
side was a girl, smiling, dreamy, happy. Around her shoulders was,
palpably, the missing coat of the cold-defying youth. It appeared to
be a modern panorama of the Babes in the Wood, revised and brought up
to date, with the exception that the robins hadn't turned up yet with
the protecting leaves.
With delight the money-caliphs view a situation that they think is
relievable while you wait.
Pilkins sat on the bench, one seat removed from the youth. He glanced
cautiously and saw (as men do see; and women--oh! never can) that they
were of the same order.
Pilkins leaned over after a short time and spoke to the youth, who
answered smilingly, and courteously. From general topics the
conversation concentrated to the bed-rock of grim personalities. But
Pilkins did it as delicately and heartily as any caliph could have
done. And when it came to the point, the youth turned to him, soft-
voiced and with his undiminished smile.
"I don't want to seem unappreciative, old man," he said, with a
youth's somewhat too-early spontaneity of address, "but, you see, I
can't accept anything from a stranger. I know you're all right, and
I'm tremendously obliged, but I couldn't think of borrowing from
anybody. You see, I'm Marcus Clayton--the Claytons of Roanoke County,
Virginia, you know. The young lady is Miss Eva Bedford--I reckon
you've heard of the Bedfords. She's seventeen and one of the Bedfords
of Bedford County. We've eloped from home to get married, and we
wanted to see New York. We got in this afternoon. Somebody got my
pocketbook on the ferry-boat, and I had only three cents in change
outside of it. I'll get some work somewhere to-morrow, and we'll get
married."
"But, I say, old man," said Pilkins, in confidential low tones, "you
can't keep the lady out here in the cold all night. Now, as for
hotels--"
"I told you," said the youth, with a broader smile, "that I didn't
have but three cents. Besides, if I had a thousand, we'd have to wait
here until morning. You can understand that, of course. I'm much
obliged, but I can't take any of your money. Miss Bedford and I have
lived an outdoor life, and we don't mind a little cold. I'll get work
of some kind to-morrow. We've got a paper bag of cakes and chocolates,
and we'll get along all right."
"Listen," said the millionaire, impressively. "My name is Pilkins, and
I'm worth several million dollars. I happen to have in my pockets
about $800 or $900 in cash. Don't you think you are drawing it rather
fine when you decline to accept as much of it as will make you and the
young lady comfortable at least for the night?"
"I can't say, sir, that I do think so," said Clayton of Roanoke
County. "I've been raised to look at such things differently. But I'm
mightily obliged to you, just the same."
"Then you force me to say good night," said the millionaire.
Twice that day had his money been scorned by simple ones to whom his
dollars had appeared as but tin tobacco-tags. He was no worshipper of
the actual minted coin or stamped paper, but he had always believed in
its almost unlimited power to purchase.
Pilkins walked away rapidly, and then turned abruptly and returned to
the bench where the young couple sat. He took off his hat and began to
speak. The girl looked at him with the same sprightly, glowing
interest that she had been giving to the lights and statuary and sky-
reaching buildings that made the old square seem so far away from
Bedford County.
"Mr.--er--Roanoke," said Pilkins, "I admire your--your indepen--your
idiocy so much that I'm going to appeal to your chivalry. I believe
that's what you Southerners call it when you keep a lady sitting
outdoors on a bench on a cold night just to keep your old, out-of-date
pride going. Now, I've a friend--a lady--whom I have known all my life
--who lives a few blocks from here--with her parents and sisters and
aunts, and all that kind of endorsement, of course. I am sure this
lady would be happy and pleased to put up--that is, to have Miss--er--
Bedford give her the pleasure of having her as a guest for the night.
Don't you think, Mr. Roanoke, of--er--Virginie, that you could unbend
your prejudices that far?"
Clayton of Roanoke rose and held out his hand.
"Old man," he said, "Miss Bedford will be much pleased to accept the
hospitality of the lady you refer to."
He formally introduced Mr. Pilkins to Miss Bedford. The girl looked at
him sweetly and comfortably. "It's a lovely evening, Mr. Pilkins--
don't you think so?" she said slowly.
Pilkins conducted them to the crumbly red brick house of the Von der
Ruyslings. His card brought Alice downstairs wondering. The runaways
were sent into the drawing-room, while Pilkins told Alice all about it
in the hall.
"Of course, I will take her in," said Alice. "Haven't those Southern
girls a thoroughbred air? Of course, she will stay here. You will look
after Mr. Clayton, of course."
"Will I?" said Pilkins, delightedly. "Oh yes, I'll look after him! As
a citizen of New York, and therefore a part-owner of its public parks,
I'm going to extend to him the hospitality of Madison Square to-night.
He's going to sit there on a bench till morning. There's no use
arguing with him. Isn't he wonderful? I'm glad you'll look after the
little lady, Alice. I tell you those Babes in the Wood made my--that
is, er--made Wall Street and the Bank of England look like penny
arcades."
Miss Von der Ruysling whisked Miss Bedford of Bedford County up to
restful regions upstairs. When she came down, she put an oblong small
pasteboard box into Pilkins' hands.
"Your present," she said, "that I am returning to you."
"Oh, yes, I remember," said Pilkins, with a sigh, "the woolly kitten."
He left Clayton on a park bench, and shook hands with him heartily.
"After I get work," said the youth, "I'll look you up. Your address is
on your card, isn't it? Thanks. Well, good night. I'm awfully obliged
to you for your kindness. No, thanks, I don't smoke. Good night."
In his room, Pilkins opened the box and took out the staring, funny
kitten, long ago ravaged of his candy and minus one shoe-button eye.
Pilkins looked at it sorrowfully.
"After all," he said, "I don't believe that just money alone will--"
And then he gave a shout and dug into the bottom of the box for
something else that had been the kitten's resting-place--a crushed but
red, red, fragrant, glorious, promising Jacqueminot rose.
IV
THE ENCHANTED PROFILE
There are few Caliphesses. Women are Scheherazades by birth,
predilection, instinct, and arrangement of the vocal cords. The
thousand and one stories are being told every day by hundreds of
thousands of viziers' daughters to their respective sultans. But the
bowstring will get some of 'em yet if they don't watch out.
I heard a story, though, of one lady Caliph. It isn't precisely an
Arabian Nights story, because it brings in Cinderella, who flourished
her dishrag in another epoch and country. So, if you don't mind the
mixed dates (which seem to give it an Eastern flavour, after all),
we'll get along.
In New York there is an old, old hotel. You have seen woodcuts of it
in the magazines. It was built--let's see--at a time when there was
nothing above Fourteenth Street except the old Indian trail to Boston
and Hammerstein's office. Soon the old hostelry will be torn down.
And, as the stout walls are riven apart and the bricks go roaring down
the chutes, crowds of citizens will gather at the nearest corners and
weep over the destruction of a dear old landmark. Civic pride is
strongest in New Bagdad; and the wettest weeper and the loudest howler
against the iconoclasts will be the man (originally from Terre Haute)
whose fond memories of the old hotel are limited to his having been
kicked out from its free-lunch counter in 1873.
At this hotel always stopped Mrs. Maggie Brown. Mrs. Brown was a bony
woman of sixty, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a handbag
made, apparently, from the hide of the original animal that Adam
decided to call an alligator. She always occupied a small parlour and
bedroom at the top of the hotel at a rental of two dollars per day.
And always, while she was there, each day came hurrying to see her
many men, sharp-faced, anxious-looking, with only seconds to spare.
For Maggie Brown was said to be the third richest woman in the world;
and these solicitous gentlemen were only the city's wealthiest brokers
and business men seeking trifling loans of half a dozen millions or so
from the dingy old lady with the prehistoric handbag.
The stenographer and typewriter of the Acropolis Hotel (there! I've
let the name of it out!) was Miss Ida Bates. She was a hold-over from
the Greek classics. There wasn't a flaw in her looks. Some old-timer
paying his regards to a lady said: "To have loved her was a liberal
education." Well, even to have looked over the black hair and neat
white shirtwaist of Miss Bates was equal to a full course in any
correspondence school in the country. She sometimes did a little
typewriting for me, and, as she refused to take the money in advance,
she came to look upon me as something of a friend and protege. She had
unfailing kindliness and a good nature; and not even a white-lead
drummer or a fur importer had ever dared to cross the dead line of
good behaviour in her presence. The entire force of the Acropolis,
from the owner, who lived in Vienna, down to the head porter, who had
been bedridden for sixteen years, would have sprung to her defence in
a moment.
One day I walked past Miss Bates's little sanctum Remingtorium, and
saw in her place a black-haired unit--unmistakably a person--pounding
with each of her forefingers upon the keys. Musing on the mutability
of temporal affairs, I passed on. The next day I went on a two weeks'
vacation. Returning, I strolled through the lobby of the Acropolis,
and saw, with a little warm glow of auld lang syne, Miss Bates, as
Grecian and kind and flawless as ever, just putting the cover on her
machine. The hour for closing had come; but she asked me in to sit for
a few minutes on the dictation chair. Miss Bates explained her absence
from and return to the Acropolis Hotel in words identical with or
similar to these following:
"Well, Man, how are the stories coming?"
"Pretty regularly," said I. "About equal to their going."
"I'm sorry," said she. "Good typewriting is the main thing in a story.
You've missed me, haven't you?"
"No one," said I, "whom I have ever known knows as well as you do how
to space properly belt buckles, semi-colons, hotel guests, and
hairpins. But you've been away, too. I saw a package of peppermint-
pepsin in your place the other day."
"I was going to tell you all about it," said Miss Bates, "if you
hadn't interrupted me.
"Of course, you know about Maggie Brown, who stops here. Well, she's
worth $40,000,000. She lives in Jersey in a ten-dollar flat. She's
always got more cash on hand than half a dozen business candidates for
vice-president. I don't know whether she carries it in her stocking or
not, but I know she's mighty popular down in the part of town where
they worship the golden calf.
"Well, about two weeks ago, Mrs. Brown stops at the door and rubbers
at me for ten minutes. I'm sitting with my side to her, striking off
some manifold copies of a copper-mine proposition for a nice old man
from Tonopah. But I always see everything all around me. When I'm hard
at work I can see things through my side-combs; and I can leave one
button unbuttoned in the back of my shirtwaist and see who's behind
me. I didn't look around, because I make from eighteen to twenty
dollars a week, and I didn't have to.
"That evening at knocking-off time she sends for me to come up to her
apartment. I expected to have to typewrite about two thousand words of
notes-of-hand, liens, and contracts, with a ten-cent tip in sight; but
I went. Well, Man, I was certainly surprised. Old Maggie Brown had
turned human.
"'Child,' says she, 'you're the most beautiful creature I ever saw in
my life. I want you to quit your work and come and live with me. I've
no kith or kin,' says she, 'except a husband and a son or two, and I
hold no communication with any of 'em. They're extravagant burdens on
a hard-working woman. I want you to be a daughter to me. They say I'm
stingy and mean, and the papers print lies about my doing my own
cooking and washing. It's a lie,' she goes on. 'I put my washing out,
except the handkerchiefs and stockings and petticoats and collars, and
light stuff like that. I've got forty million dollars in cash and
stocks and bonds that are as negotiable as Standard Oil, preferred, at
a church fair. I'm a lonely old woman and I need companionship. You're
the most beautiful human being I ever saw,' says she. 'Will you come
and live with me? I'll show 'em whether I can spend money or not,' she
says.
"Well, Man, what would you have done? Of course, I fell to it. And, to
tell you the truth, I began to like old Maggie. It wasn't all on
account of the forty millions and what she could do for me. I was kind
of lonesome in the world too. Everybody's got to have somebody they
can explain to about the pain in their left shoulder and how fast
patent-leather shoes wear out when they begin to crack. And you can't
talk about such things to men you meet in hotels--they're looking for
just such openings.
"So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with Mrs. Brown. I
certainly seemed to have a mash on her. She'd look at me for half an
hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the
magazines.
"One time I says to her: 'Do I remind you of some deceased relative or
friend of your childhood, Mrs. Brown? I've noticed you give me a
pretty good optical inspection from time to time.'
"'You have a face,' she says, 'exactly like a dear friend of mine--the
best friend I ever had. But I like you for yourself, child, too,' she
says.
"And say, Man, what do you suppose she did? Loosened up like a Marcel
wave in the surf at Coney. She took me to a swell dressmaker and gave
her /a la carte/ to fit me out--money no object. They were rush
orders, and madame locked the front door and put the whole force to
work.
"Then we moved to--where do you think?--no; guess again--that's right
--the Hotel Bonton. We had a six-room apartment; and it cost $100 a
day. I saw the bill. I began to love that old lady.
"And then, Man, when my dresses began to come in--oh, I won't tell you
about 'em! you couldn't understand. And I began to call her Aunt
Maggie. You've read about Cinderella, of course. Well, what Cinderella
said when the prince fitted that 3 1/2 A on her foot was a hard-luck
story compared to the things I told myself.
"Then Aunt Maggie says she is going to give me a coming-out banquet in
the Bonton that'll make moving Vans of all the old Dutch families on
Fifth Avenue.
"'I've been out before, Aunt Maggie,' says I. 'But I'll come out
again. But you know,' says I, 'that this is one of the swellest hotels
in the city. And you know--pardon me--that it's hard to get a bunch of
notables together unless you've trained for it.'
"'Don't fret about that, child,' says Aunt Maggie. 'I don't send out
invitations--I issue orders. I'll have fifty guests here that couldn't
be brought together again at any reception unless it were given by
King Edward or William Travers Jerome. They are men, of course, and
all of 'em either owe me money or intend to. Some of their wives won't
come, but a good many will.'
"Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner service
was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and eight
ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. You'd never have known the
third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black silk dress
with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a
hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that
lived in a top-floor studio.
"And my dress!--say, Man, I can't waste the words on you. It was all
hand-made lace--where there was any of it at all--and it cost $300. I
saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and
they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents. and
Bryan and the cotton crop.
"On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my
right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He was
the only--well, I was going to tell you.
"After the dinner was over Mrs. Brown and I went up to the apartment.
We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all the way
through the halls. That's one of the things money does for you. Say,
do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop--a tall man
with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I don't remember what
paper he works on. Well, all right.
"When we got upstairs Mrs. Brown telephones for the bill right away.
It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got
her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.
"'Child,' says she, when she got back to the world, 'what was it? A
raise of rent or an income-tax?'
"'Just a little dinner,' says I. 'Nothing to worry about--hardly a
drop in the bucket-shop. Sit up and take notice--a dispossess notice,
if there's no other kind.'
"But say, Man, do you know what Aunt Maggie did? She got cold feet!
She hustled me out of that Hotel Bonton at nine the next morning. We
went to a rooming-house on the lower West Side. She rented one room
that had water on the floor below and light on the floor above. After
we got moved all you could see in the room was about $1,500 worth of
new swell dresses and a one-burner gas-stove.
"Aunt Maggie had had a sudden attack of the hedges. I guess everybody
has got to go on a spree once in their life. A man spends his on
highballs, and a woman gets woozy on clothes. But with forty million
dollars--say, I'd like to have a picture of--but, speaking of
pictures, did you ever run across a newspaper artist named Lathrop--a
tall--oh, I asked you that before, didn't I? He was mighty nice to me
at the dinner. His voice just suited me. I guess he must have thought
I was to inherit some of Aunt Maggie's money.
"Well, Mr. Man, three days of that light-housekeeping was plenty for
me. Aunt Maggie was affectionate as ever. She'd hardly let me get out
of her sight. But let me tell you. She was a hedger from Hedgersville,
Hedger County. Seventy-five cents a day was the limit she set. We
cooked our own meals in the room. There I was, with a thousand
dollars' worth of the latest things in clothes, doing stunts over a
one-burner gas-stove.
"As I say, on the third day I flew the coop. I couldn't stand for
throwing together a fifteen-cent kidney stew while wearing at the same
time, a $150 house-dress, with Valenciennes lace insertion. So I goes
into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown had bought
for me--it's the one I've got on now--not so bad for $75, is it? I'd
left all my own clothes in my sister's flat in Brooklyn.
"'Mrs. Brown, formerly "Aunt Maggie,"' says I to her, 'I'm going to
extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner and
direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest
possible time. I am no worshipper of money,' says I, 'but there are
some things I can't stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that I've
read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same breath.
But I can't stand a quitter,' says I. 'They say you've got forty
million dollars--well, you'll never have any less. And I was beginning
to like you, too,' says I.
"Well, the late Aunt Maggie kicks till the tears flow. She offers to
move into a swell room with a two-burner stove and running water.
"'I've spent an awful lot of money, child,' says she. 'We'll have to
economize for a while. You're the most beautiful creature I ever laid
eyes on,' she says, 'and I don't want you to leave me.'
"Well, you see me, don't you? I walked straight to the Acropolis and
asked for my job back, and I got it. How did you say your writings
were getting along? I know you've lost out some by not having me to
type 'em. Do you ever have 'em illustrated? And, by the way, did you
ever happen to know a newspaper artist--oh, shut up! I know I asked
you before. I wonder what paper he works on? It's funny, but I
couldn't help thinking that he wasn't thinking about the money he
might have been thinking I was thinking I'd get from old Maggie Brown.
If I only knew some of the newspaper editors I'd--"
The sound of an easy footstep came from the doorway. Ida Bates saw who
it was with her back-hair comb. I saw her turn pink, perfect statue
that she was--a miracle that I share with Pygmalion only.
"Am I excusable?" she said to me--adorable petitioner that she became.
"It's--it's Mr. Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn't the money--I
wonder, if after all, he--"
Of course, I was invited to the wedding. After the ceremony I dragged
Lathrop aside.
"You are an artist," said I, "and haven't figured out why Maggie Brown
conceived such a strong liking for Miss Bates--that was? Let me show
you."
The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the
costumes of the ancient Greeks. I took some leaves from one of the
decorative wreaths in the little parlour, and made a chaplet of them,
and placed them on nee Bates shining chestnut hair, and made her turn
her profile to her husband.
"By jingo!" said he. "Isn't Ida a dead ringer for the lady's head on
the silver dollar?"
V
"NEXT TO READING MATTER"
He compelled my interest as he stepped from the ferry at Desbrosses
Street. He had the air of being familiar with hemispheres and worlds,
and of entering New York as the lord of a demesne who revisited it in
after years of absence. But I thought that, with all his air, he had
never before set foot on the slippery cobblestones of the City of Too
Many Caliphs.
He wore loose clothes of a strange bluish drab colour, and a
conservative, round Panama hat without the cock-a-loop indentations
and cants with which Northern fanciers disfigure the tropic head-gear.
Moreover, he was the homeliest man I have ever seen. His ugliness was
less repellent than startling--arising from a sort of Lincolnian
ruggedness and irregularity of feature that spellbound you with wonder
and dismay. So may have looked afrites or the shapes metamorphosed
from the vapour of the fisherman's vase. As he afterward told me, his
name was Judson Tate; and he may as well be called so at once. He wore
his green silk tie through a topaz ring; and he carried a cane made of
the vertebrae of a shark.
Judson Tate accosted me with some large and casual inquiries about the
city's streets and hotels, in the manner of one who had but for the
moment forgotten the trifling details. I could think of no reason for
disparaging my own quiet hotel in the downtown district; so the mid-
morning of the night found us already victualed and drinked (at my
expense), and ready to be chaired and tobaccoed in a quiet corner of
the lobby.
There was something on Judson Tate's mind, and, such as it was, he
tried to convey it to me. Already he had accepted me as his friend;
and when I looked at his great, snuff-brown first-mate's hand, with
which he brought emphasis to his periods, within six inches of my
nose, I wondered if, by any chance, he was as sudden in conceiving
enmity against strangers.
When this man began to talk I perceived in him a certain power. His
voice was a persuasive instrument, upon which he played with a
somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you forget
his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of the
charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed after
this rat-catcher's pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin. Beyond that
you would have had to be more childish to follow. But let him play his
own tune to the words set down, so that if all is too dull, the art of
music may bear the blame.
"Women," said Judson Tate, "are mysterious creatures."
My spirits sank. I was not there to listen to such a world-old
hypothesis--to such a time-worn, long-ago-refuted, bald, feeble,
illogical, vicious, patent sophistry--to an ancient, baseless,
wearisome, ragged, unfounded, insidious, falsehood originated by women
themselves, and by them insinuated, foisted, thrust, spread, and
ingeniously promulgated into the ears of mankind by underhanded,
secret and deceptive methods, for the purpose of augmenting,
furthering, and reinforcing their own charms and designs.
"Oh, I don't know!" said I, vernacularly.
"Have you ever heard of Oratama?" he asked.
"Possibly," I answered. "I seem to recall a toe dancer--or a suburban
addition--or was it a perfume?--of some such name."
"It is a town," said Judson Tate, "on the coast of a foreign country
of which you know nothing and could understand less. It is a country
governed by a dictator and controlled by revolutions and
insubordination. It was there that a great life-drama was played, with
Judson Tate, the homeliest man in America, and Fergus McMahan, the
handsomest adventurer in history or fiction, and Senorita Anabela
Zamora, the beautiful daughter of the alcalde of Oratama, as chief
actors. And, another thing--nowhere else on the globe except in the
department of Trienta y tres in Uruguay does the /chuchula/ plant
grow. The products of the country I speak of are valuable woods,
dyestuffs, gold, rubber, ivory, and cocoa."
"I was not aware," said I, "that South America produced any ivory."
"There you are twice mistaken," said Judson Tate, distributing the
words over at least an octave of his wonderful voice. "I did not say
that the country I spoke of was in South America--I must be careful,
my dear man; I have been in politics there, you know. But, even so--I
have played chess against its president with a set carved from the
nasal bones of the tapir--one of our native specimens of the order of
/perissodactyle ungulates/ inhabiting the Cordilleras--which was as
pretty ivory as you would care to see.
"But is was of romance and adventure and the ways of women that was I
going to tell you, and not of zoological animals.
"For fifteen years I was the ruling power behind old Sancho Benavides,
the Royal High Thumbscrew of the republic. You've seen his picture in
the papers--a mushy black man with whiskers like the notes on a Swiss
music-box cylinder, and a scroll in his right hand like the ones they
write births on in the family Bible. Well, that chocolate potentate
used to be the biggest item of interest anywhere between the colour
line and the parallels of latitude. It was three throws, horses,
whether he was to wind up in the Hall of Fame or the Bureau of
Combustibles. He'd have been sure called the Roosevelt of the Southern
Continent if it hadn't been that Grover Cleveland was President at the
time. He'd hold office a couple of terms, then he'd sit out for a hand
--always after appointing his own successor for the interims.
"But it was not Benavides, the Liberator, who was making all this fame
for himself. Not him. It was Judson Tate. Benavides was only the chip
over the bug. I gave him the tip when to declare war and increase
import duties and wear his state trousers. But that wasn't what I
wanted to tell you. How did I get to be It? I'll tell you. Because I'm
the most gifted talker that ever made vocal sounds since Adam first
opened his eyes, pushed aside the smelling-salts, and asked: 'Where am
I?'
"As you observe, I am about the ugliest man you ever saw outside the
gallery of photographs of the New England early Christian Scientists.
So, at an early age, I perceived that what I lacked in looks I must
make up in eloquence. That I've done. I get what I go after. As the
back-stop and still small voice of old Benavides I made all the great
historical powers-behind-the-throne, such as Talleyrand, Mrs. de
Pompadour, and Loeb, look as small as the minority report of a Duma. I
could talk nations into or out of debt, harangue armies to sleep on
the battlefield, reduce insurrections, inflammations, taxes,
appropriations or surpluses with a few words, and call up the dogs of
war or the dove of peace with the same bird-like whistle. Beauty and
epaulettes and curly moustaches and Grecian profiles in other men were
never in my way. When people first look at me they shudder. Unless
they are in the last stages of /angina pectoris/ they are mine in ten
minutes after I begin to talk. Women and men--I win 'em as they come.
Now, you wouldn't think women would fancy a man with a face like mine,
would you?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Tate," said I. "History is bright and fiction dull with
homely men who have charmed women. There seems--"
"Pardon me," interrupted Judson Tate, "but you don't quite understand.
You have yet to hear my story.
"Fergus McMahan was a friend of mine in the capital. For a handsome
man I'll admit he was the duty-free merchandise. He had blond curls
and laughing blue eyes and was featured regular. They said he was a
ringer for the statue they call Herr Mees, the god of speech and
eloquence resting in some museum at Rome. Some German anarchist, I
suppose. They are always resting and talking.
"But Fergus was no talker. He was brought up with the idea that to be
beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as edifying as
listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed
when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got to be friends--maybe
because we was so opposite, don't you think? Looking at the Hallowe'en
mask that I call my face when I'm shaving seemed to give Fergus
pleasure; and I'm sure that whenever I heard the feeble output of
throat noises that he called conversation I felt contented to be a
gargoyle with a silver tongue.
"One time I found it necessary to go down to this coast town of
Oratama to straighten out a lot of political unrest and chop off a few
heads in the customs and military departments. Fergus, who owned the
ice and sulphur-match concessions of the republic, says he'll keep me
company.
"So, in a jangle of mule-train bells, we gallops into Oratama, and the
town belonged to us as much as Long Island Sound doesn't belong to
Japan when T. R. is at Oyster Bay. I say us; but I mean me. Everybody
for four nations, two oceans, one bay and isthmus, and five
archipelagoes around had heard of Judson Tate. Gentleman adventurer,
they called me. I had been written up in five columns of the yellow
journals, 40,000 words (with marginal decorations) in a monthly
magazine, and a stickful on the twelfth page of the New York /Times/.
If the beauty of Fergus McMahan gained any part of our reception in
Oratama, I'll eat the price-tag in my Panama. It was me that they hung
out paper flowers and palm branches for. I am not a jealous man; I am
stating facts. The people were Nebuchadnezzars; they bit the grass
before me; there was no dust in the town for them to bite. They bowed
down to Judson Tate. They knew that I was the power behind Sancho
Benavides. A word from me was more to them than a whole deckle-edged
library from East Aurora in sectional bookcases was from anybody else.
And yet there are people who spend hours fixing their faces--rubbing
in cold cream and massaging the muscles (always toward the eyes) and
taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles--
to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It's the larynx
that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It's words more than warts,
talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than
bloom that counts--the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was
going to tell you.
"The local Astors put me and Fergus up at the Centipede Club, a frame
building built on posts sunk in the surf. The tide's only nine inches.
The Little Big High Low Jack-in-the-game of the town came around and
kowtowed. Oh, it wasn't to Herr Mees. They had heard about Judson
Tate.
"One afternoon me and Fergus McMahan was sitting on the seaward
gallery of the Centipede, drinking iced rum and talking.
"'Judson,' says Fergus, 'there's an angel in Oratama.'
"'So long,' says I, 'as it ain't Gabriel, why talk as if you had heard
a trump blow?'
"'It's the Senorita Anabela Zamora,' says Fergus. 'She's--she's--she's
as lovely as--as hell!'
"'Bravo!' says I, laughing heartily. 'You have a true lover's
eloquence to paint the beauties of your inamorata. You remind me,'
says I, 'of Faust's wooing of Marguerite--that is, if he wooed her
after he went down the trap-door of the stage.'
"'Judson,' says Fergus, 'you know you are as beautiless as a
rhinoceros. You can't have any interest in women. I'm awfully gone in
Miss Anabela. And that's why I'm telling you.'
"'Oh, /seguramente/,' says I. 'I know I have a front elevation like an
Aztec god that guards a buried treasure that never did exist in
Jefferson County, Yucatan. But there are compensations. For instance,
I am It in this country as far as the eye can reach, and then a few
perches and poles. And again,' says I, 'when I engage people in a set-
to of oral, vocal, and laryngeal utterances, I do not usually confine
my side of the argument to what may be likened to a cheap phonographic
reproduction of the ravings of a jellyfish.'
"'Oh, I know,' says Fergus, amiable, 'that I'm not handy at small
talk. Or large, either. That's why I'm telling you. I want you to help
me.'
"'How can I do it?' I asked.
"'I have subsidized,' says Fergus, 'the services of Senorita Anabela's
duenna, whose name is Francesca. You have a reputation in this
country, Judson,' says Fergus, 'of being a great man and a hero.'
"'I have,' says I. 'And I deserve it.'
"'And I,' says Fergus, 'am the best-looking man between the arctic
circle and antarctic ice pack.'
"'With limitations,' says I, 'as to physiognomy and geography, I
freely concede you to be.'
"'Between the two of us,' says Fergus, 'we ought to land the Senorita
Anabela Zamora. The lady, as you know, is of an old Spanish family,
and further than looking at her driving in the family /carruaje/ of
afternoons around the plaza, or catching a glimpse of her through a
barred window of evenings, she is as unapproachable as a star.'
"'Land her for which one of us?' says I.
"'For me of course,' says Fergus. 'You've never seen her. Now, I've
had Francesca point me out to her as being you on several occasions.
When she sees me on the plaza, she thinks she's looking at Don Judson
Tate, the greatest hero, statesman, and romantic figure in the
country. With your reputation and my looks combined in one man, how
can she resist him? She's heard all about your thrilling history, of
course. And she's seen me. Can any woman want more?' asks Fergus
McMahan.
"'Can she do with less?' I ask. 'How can we separate our mutual
attractions, and how shall we apportion the proceeds?'
"Then Fergus tells me his scheme.
"The house of the alcalde, Don Luis Zamora, he says, has a /patio/, of
course--a kind of inner courtyard opening from the street. In an angle
of it is his daughter's window--as dark a place as you could find. And
what do you think he wants me to do? Why, knowing my freedom, charm,
and skilfulness of tongue, he proposes that I go into the /patio/ at
midnight, when the hobgoblin face of me cannot be seen, and make love
to her for him--for the pretty man that she has seen on the plaza,
thinking him to be Don Judson Tate.
"Why shouldn't I do it for him--for my friend, Fergus McMahan? For him
to ask me was a compliment--an acknowledgment of his own shortcomings.
"'You little, lily white, fine-haired, highly polished piece of dumb
sculpture,' says I, 'I'll help you. Make your arrangements and get me
in the dark outside her window and my stream of conversation opened up
with the moonlight tremolo stop turned on, and she's yours.'
"'Keep your face hid, Jud,' says Fergus. 'For heaven's sake, keep your
face hid. I'm a friend of yours in all kinds of sentiment, but this is
a business deal. If I could talk I wouldn't ask you. But seeing me and
listening to you I don't see why she can't be landed.'
"'By you?' says I.
"'By me,' says Fergus.
Well, Fergus and the duenna, Francesca, attended to the details. And
one night they fetched me a long black cloak with a high collar, and
led me to the house at midnight. I stood by the window in the /patio/
until I heard a voice as soft and sweet as an angel's whisper on the
other side of the bars. I could see only a faint, white clad shape
inside; and, true to Fergus, I pulled the collar of my cloak high up,
for it was July in the wet seasons, and the nights were chilly. And,
smothering a laugh as I thought of the tongue-tied Fergus, I began to
talk.
"Well, sir, I talked an hour at the Senorita Anabela. I say 'at'
because it was not 'with.' Now and then she would say: 'Oh, Senor,' or
'Now, ain't you foolin'?' or 'I know you don't mean that,' and such
things as women will when they are being rightly courted. Both of us
knew English and Spanish; so in two languages I tried to win the heart
of the lady for my friend Fergus. But for the bars to the window I
could have done it in one. At the end of the hour she dismissed me and
gave me a big, red rose. I handed it over to Fergus when I got home.
"For three weeks every third or fourth night I impersonated my friend
in the /patio/ at the window of Senorita Anabela. At last she admitted
that her heart was mine, and spoke of having seen me every afternoon
when she drove in the plaza. It was Fergus she had seen, of course.
But it was my talk that won her. Suppose Fergus had gone there, and
tried to make a hit in the dark with his beauty all invisible, and not
a word to say for himself!
"On the last night she promised to be mine--that is, Fergus's. And she
put her hand between the bars for me to kiss. I bestowed the kiss and
took the news to Fergus.
"'You might have left that for me to do,' says he.
"'That'll be your job hereafter,' says I. 'Keep on doing that and
don't try to talk. Maybe after she thinks she's in love she won't
notice the difference between real conversation and the inarticulate
sort of droning that you give forth.'
"Now, I had never seen Senorita Anabela. So, the next day Fergus asks
me to walk with him through the plaza and view the daily promenade and
exhibition of Oratama society, a sight that had no interest for me.
But I went; and children and dogs took to the banana groves and
mangrove swamps as soon as they had a look at my face.
"'Here she comes,' said Fergus, twirling his moustache--'the one in
white, in the open carriage with the black horse.'
"I looked and felt the ground rock under my feet. For Senorita Anabela
Zamora was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the only one
from that moment on, so far as Judson Tate was concerned. I saw at a
glance that I must be hers and she mine forever. I thought of my face
and nearly fainted; and then I thought of my other talents and stood
upright again. And I had been wooing her for three weeks for another
man!
"As Senorita Anabela's carriage rolled slowly past, she gave Fergus a
long, soft glance from the corners of her night-black eyes, a glance
that would have sent Judson Tate up into heaven in a rubber-tired
chariot. But she never looked at me. And that handsome man only
ruffles his curls and smirks and prances like a lady-killer at my
side.
"'What do you think of her, Judson?' asks Fergus, with an air.
"'This much,' says I. 'She is to me Mrs. Judson Tate. I am no man to
play tricks on a friend. So take your warning.'
"I thought Fergus would die laughing.
"'Well, well, well,' said he, 'you old doughface! Struck too, are you?
That's great! But you're too late. Francesca tells me that Anabela
talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, I'm awfully obliged
to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings. But, do you
know, I've an idea that I could have done it as well myself.'
"'Mrs. Judson Tate,' says I. 'Don't forget the name. You've had the
use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can't lend me
your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the
name that's to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half
--"Mrs. Judson Tate." That's all.'
"'All right,' says Fergus, laughing again. 'I've talked with her
father, the alcalde, and he's willing. He's to give a /baile/
to-morrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man,
Jud, I'd expect you around to meet the future Mrs. McMahan.'
"But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the
Alcade Zamora's /baile/, into the room steps Judson Tate in a new
white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation,
which he was.
"Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and
one or two of the timidest senoritas let out a screech or two. But up
prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with his
forehead. No mere good looks could have won me that sensational
entrance.
"'I hear much, Senor Zamora,' says I, 'of the charm of your daughter.
It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.'
"There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies
tied on to them, arranged against the walls. In one of them sat
Senorita Anabela in white Swiss and red slippers, with pearls and
fireflies in her hair. Fergus was at the other end of the room trying
to break away from two maroons and a claybank girl.
"The alcalde leads me up to Anabela and presents me. When she took the
first look at my face she dropped her fan and nearly turned her chair
over from the shock. But I'm used to that.
"I sat down by her, and began to talk. When she heard me speak she
jumped, and her eyes got as big as alligator pears. She couldn't
strike a balance between the tones of my voice and face I carried. But
I kept on talking in the key of C, which is the ladies' key; and
presently she sat still in her chair and a dreamy look came into her
eyes. She was coming my way. She knew of Judson Tate, and what a big
man he was, and the big things he had done; and that was in my favour.
But, of course, it was some shock to her to find out that I was not
the pretty man that had been pointed out to her as the great Judson.
And then I took the Spanish language, which is better than English for
certain purposes, and played on it like a harp of a thousand strings.
I ranged from the second G below the staff up to F-sharp above it. I
set my voice to poetry, art, romance, flowers, and moonlight. I
repeated some of the verses that I had murmured to her in the dark at
her window; and I knew from a sudden soft sparkle in her eye that she
recognized in my voice the tones of her midnight mysterious wooer.
"Anyhow, I had Fergus McMahan going. Oh, the vocal is the true art--no
doubt about that. Handsome is as handsome palavers. That's the
renovated proverb.
"I took Senorita Anabela for a walk in the lemon grove while Fergus,
disfiguring himself with an ugly frown, was waltzing with the claybank
girl. Before we returned I had permission to come to her window in the
/patio/ the next evening at midnight and talk some more.
"Oh, it was easy enough. In two weeks Anabela was engaged to me, and
Fergus was out. He took it calm, for a handsome man, and told me he
wasn't going to give in.
"'Talk may be all right in its place, Judson,' he says to me,
'although I've never thought it worth cultivating. But,' says he, 'to
expect mere words to back up successfully a face like yours in a
lady's good graces is like expecting a man to make a square meal on
the ringing of a dinner-bell.'
"But I haven't begun on the story I was going to tell you yet.
"One day I took a long ride in the hot sunshine, and then took a bath
in the cold waters of a lagoon on the edge of the town before I'd
cooled off.
"That evening after dark I called at the alcalde's to see Anabela. I
was calling regular every evening then, and we were to be married in a
month. She was looking like a bulbul, a gazelle, and a tea-rose, and
her eyes were as soft and bright as two quarts of cream skimmed off
from the Milky Way. She looked at my rugged features without any
expression of fear or repugnance. Indeed, I fancied that I saw a look
of deep admiration and affection, such as she had cast at Fergus on
the plaza.
"I sat down, and opened my mouth to tell Anabela what she loved to
hear--that she was a trust, monopolizing all the loveliness of earth.
I opened my mouth, and instead of the usual vibrating words of love
and compliment, there came forth a faint wheeze such as a baby with
croup might emit. Not a word--not a syllable--not an intelligible
sound. I had caught cold in my laryngeal regions when I took my
injudicious bath.
"For two hours I sat trying to entertain Anabela. She talked a certain
amount, but it was perfunctory and diluted. The nearest approach I
made to speech was to formulate a sound like a clam trying to sing 'A
Life on the Ocean Wave' at low tide. It seemed that Anabela's eyes did
not rest upon me as often as usual. I had nothing with which to charm
her ears. We looked at pictures and she played the guitar
occasionally, very badly. When I left, her parting manner seemed cool
--or at least thoughtful.
"This happened for five evenings consecutively.
"On the sixth day she ran away with Fergus McMahan.
"It was known that they fled in a sailing yacht bound for Belize. I
was only eight hours behind them in a small steam launch belonging to
the Revenue Department.
"Before I sailed, I rushed into the /botica/ of old Manuel Iquito, a
half-breed Indian druggist. I could not speak, but I pointed to my
throat and made a sound like escaping steam. He began to yawn. In an
hour, according to the customs of the country, I would have been
waited on. I reached across the counter, seized him by the throat, and
pointed again to my own. He yawned once more, and thrust into my hand
a small bottle containing a black liquid.
"'Take one small spoonful every two hours,' says he.
"I threw him a dollar and skinned for the steamer.
"I steamed into the harbour at Belize thirteen seconds behind the
yacht that Anabela and Fergus were on. They started for the shore in a
dory just as my skiff was lowered over the side. I tried to order my
sailormen to row faster, but the sounds died in my larynx before they
came to the light. Then I thought of old Iquito's medicine, and I got
out his bottle and took a swallow of it.
"The two boats landed at the same moment. I walked straight up to
Anabela and Fergus. Her eyes rested upon me for an instant; then she
turned them, full of feeling and confidence, upon Fergus. I knew I
could not speak, but I was desperate. In speech lay my only hope. I
could not stand beside Fergus and challenge comparison in the way of
beauty. Purely involuntarily, my larynx and epiglottis attempted to
reproduce the sounds that my mind was calling upon my vocal organs to
send forth.
"To my intense surprise and delight the words rolled forth beautifully
clear, resonant, exquisitely modulated, full of power, expression, and
long-repressed emotion.
"'Senorita Anabela,' says I, 'may I speak with you aside for a
moment?'
"You don't want details about that, do you? Thanks. The old eloquence
had come back all right. I led her under a cocoanut palm and put my
old verbal spell on her again.
"'Judson,' says she, 'when you are talking to me I can hear nothing
else--I can see nothing else--there is nothing and nobody else in the
world for me.'
"Well, that's about all of the story. Anabela went back to Oratama in
the steamer with me. I never heard what became of Fergus. I never saw
him any more. Anabela is now Mrs. Judson Tate. Has my story bored you
much?"
"No," said I. "I am always interested in psychological studies. A
human heart--and especially a woman's--is a wonderful thing to
contemplate."
"It is," said Judson Tate. "And so are the trachea and bronchial tubes
of man. And the larynx too. Did you ever make a study of the
windpipe?"
"Never," said I. "But I have taken much pleasure in your story. May I
ask after Mrs. Tate, and inquire of her present health and
whereabouts?"
"Oh, sure," said Judson Tate. "We are living in Bergen Avenue, Jersey
City. The climate down in Oratama didn't suit Mrs. T. I don't suppose
you ever dissected the arytenoid cartilages of the epiglottis, did
you?"
"Why, no," said I, "I am no surgeon."
"Pardon me," said Judson Tate, "but every man should know enough of
anatomy and therapeutics to safeguard his own health. A sudden cold
may set up capillary bronchitis or inflammation of the pulmonary
vesicles, which may result in a serious affection of the vocal
organs."
"Perhaps so," said I, with some impatience; "but that is neither here
nor there. Speaking of the strange manifestations of the affection of
women, I--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Judson Tate; "they have peculiar ways. But, as
I was going to tell you: when I went back to Oratama I found out from
Manuel Iquito what was in that mixture he gave me for my lost voice. I
told you how quick it cured me. He made that stuff from the /chuchula/
plant. Now, look here."
Judson Tate drew an oblong, white pasteboard box from his pocket.
"For any cough," he said, "or cold, or hoarseness, or bronchial
affection whatsoever, I have here the greatest remedy in the world.
You see the formula, printed on the box. Each tablet contains
licorice, 2 grains; balsam tolu, 1/10 grain; oil of anise, 1/20 minim;
oil of tar, 1/60 minim; oleo-resin of cubebs, 1/100 minim; fluid
extract of /chuchula/, 1/10 minim.
"I am in New York," went on Judson Tate, "for the purpose of
organizing a company to market the greatest remedy for throat
affections ever discovered. At present I am introducing the lozenges
in a small way. I have here a box containing four dozen, which I am
selling for the small sum of fifty cents. If you are suffering--"
* * * * *
I got up and went away without a word. I walked slowly up to the
little park near my hotel, leaving Judson Tate alone with his
conscience. My feelings were lacerated. He had poured gently upon me a
story that I might have used. There was a little of the breath of life
in it, and some of the synthetic atmosphere that passes, when
cunningly tinkered, in the marts. And, at the last it had proven to be
a commercial pill, deftly coated with the sugar of fiction. The worst
of it was that I could not offer it for sale. Advertising departments
and counting-rooms look down upon me. And it would never do for the
literary. Therefore I sat upon a bench with other disappointed ones
until my eyelids drooped.
I went to my room, and, as my custom is, read for an hour stories in
my favourite magazines. This was to get my mind back to art again.
And as I read each story, I threw the magazines sadly and hopelessly,
one by one, upon the floor. Each author, without one exception to
bring balm to my heart, wrote liltingly and sprightly a story of some
particular make of motor-car that seemed to control the sparking plug
of his genius.
And when the last one was hurled from me I took heart.
"If readers can swallow so many proprietary automobiles," I said to
myself, "they ought not to strain at one of Tate's Compound Magic
Chuchula Bronchial Lozenges."
And so if you see this story in print you will understand that
business is business, and that if Art gets very far ahead of Commerce,
she will have to get up and hustle.
I may as well add, to make a clean job of it, that you can't buy the
/chuchula/ plant in the drug stores.
VI
ART AND THE BRONCO
Out of the wilderness had come a painter. Genius, whose coronations
alone are democratic, had woven a chaplet of chaparral for the brow of
Lonny Briscoe. Art, whose divine expression flows impartially from the
fingertips of a cowboy or a dilettante emperor, had chosen for a
medium the Boy Artist of the San Saba. The outcome, seven feet by
twelve of besmeared canvas, stood, gilt-framed, in the lobby of the
Capitol.
The legislature was in session; the capital city of that great Western
state was enjoying the season of activity and profit that the
congregation of the solons bestowed. The boarding-houses were
corralling the easy dollars of the gamesome law-makers. The greatest
state in the West, an empire in area and resources, had arisen and
repudiated the old libel or barbarism, lawbreaking, and bloodshed.
Order reigned within her borders. Life and property were as safe
there, sir, as anywhere among the corrupt cities of the effete East.
Pillow-shams, churches, strawberry feasts and /habeas corpus/
flourished. With impunity might the tenderfoot ventilate his
"stovepipe" or his theories of culture. The arts and sciences received
nurture and subsidy. And, therefore, it behooved the legislature of
this great state to make appropriation for the purchase of Lonny
Briscoe's immortal painting.
Rarely has the San Saba country contributed to the spread of the fine
arts. Its sons have excelled in the solider graces, in the throw of
the lariat, the manipulation of the esteemed .45, the intrepidity of
the one-card draw, and the nocturnal stimulation of towns from undue
lethargy; but, hitherto, it had not been famed as a stronghold of
aesthetics. Lonny Briscoe's brush had removed that disability. Here,
among the limestone rocks, the succulent cactus, and the drought-
parched grass of that arid valley, had been born the Boy Artist. Why
he came to woo art is beyond postulation. Beyond doubt, some spore of
the afflatus must have sprung up within him in spite of the desert
soil of San Saba. The tricksy spirit of creation must have incited him
to attempted expression and then have sat hilarious among the white-
hot sands of the valley, watching its mischievous work. For Lonny's
picture, viewed as a thing of art, was something to have driven away
dull care from the bosoms of the critics.
The painting--one might almost say panorama--was designed to portray a
typical Western scene, interest culminating in a central animal
figure, that of a stampeding steer, life-size, wild-eyed, fiery,
breaking away in a mad rush from the herd that, close-ridden by a
typical cowpuncher, occupied a position somewhat in the right
background of the picture. The landscape presented fitting and
faithful accessories. Chaparral, mesquit, and pear were distributed in
just proportions. A Spanish dagger-plant, with its waxen blossoms in a
creamy aggregation as large as a water-bucket, contributed floral
beauty and variety. The distance was undulating prairie, bisected by
stretches of the intermittent streams peculiar to the region lined
with the rich green of live-oak and water-elm. A richly mottled
rattlesnake lay coiled beneath a pale green clump of prickly pear in
the foreground. A third of the canvas was ultramarine and lake white--
the typical Western sky and the flying clouds, rainless and feathery.
Between two plastered pillars in the commodious hallway near the door
of the chamber of representatives stood the painting. Citizens and
lawmakers passed there by twos and groups and sometimes crowds to gaze
upon it. Many--perhaps a majority of them--had lived the prairie life
and recalled easily the familiar scene. Old cattlemen stood,
reminiscent and candidly pleased, chatting with brothers of former
camps and trails of the days it brought back to mind. Art critics were
few in the town, and there was heard none of that jargon of colour,
perspective, and feeling such as the East loves to use as a curb and a
rod to the pretensions of the artist. 'Twas a great picture, most of
them agreed, admiring the gilt frame--larger than any they had ever
seen.
Senator Kinney was the picture's champion and sponsor. It was he who
so often stepped forward and asserted, with the voice of a bronco-
buster, that it would be a lasting blot, sir, upon the name of this
great state if it should decline to recognize in a proper manner the
genius that had so brilliantly transferred to imperishable canvas a
scene so typical of the great sources of our state's wealth and
prosperity, land--and--er--live-stock.
Senator Kinney represented a section of the state in the extreme West
--400 miles from the San Saba country--but the true lover of art is
not limited by metes and bounds. Nor was Senator Mullens, representing
the San Saba country, lukewarm in his belief that the state should
purchase the painting of his constituent. He was advised that the San
Saba country was unanimous in its admiration of the great painting by
one of its own denizens. Hundreds of connoisseurs had straddled their
broncos and ridden miles to view it before its removal to the capital.
Senator Mullens desired reelection, and he knew the importance of the
San Saba vote. He also knew that with the help of Senator Kinney--who
was a power in the legislature--the thing could be put through. Now,
Senator Kinney had an irrigation bill that he wanted passed for the
benefit of his own section, and he knew Senator Mullens could render
him valuable aid and information, the San Saba country already
enjoying the benefits of similar legislation. With these interests
happily dovetailed, wonder at the sudden interest in art at the state
capital must, necessarily, be small. Few artists have uncovered their
first picture to the world under happier auspices than did Lonny
Briscoe.
Senators Kinney and Mullens came to an understanding in the matter of
irrigation and art while partaking of long drinks in the cafe of the
Empire Hotel.
"H'm!" said Senator Kinney, "I don't know. I'm no art critic, but it
seems to me the thing won't work. It looks like the worst kind of a
chromo to me. I don't want to cast any reflections upon the artistic
talent of your constituent, Senator, but I, myself, wouldn't give six
bits for the picture--without the frame. How are you going to cram a
thing like that down the throat of a legislature that kicks about a
little item in the expense bill of six hundred and eighty-one dollars
for rubber erasers for only one term? It's wasting time. I'd like to
help you, Mullens, but they'd laugh us out of the Senate chamber if we
were to try it."
"But you don't get the point," said Senator Mullens, in his deliberate
tones, tapping Kinney's glass with his long forefinger. "I have my own
doubts as to what the picture is intended to represent, a bullfight or
a Japanese allegory, but I want this legislature to make an
appropriation to purchase. Of course, the subject of the picture
should have been in the state historical line, but it's too late to
have the paint scraped off and changed. The state won't miss the money
and the picture can be stowed away in a lumber-room where it won't
annoy any one. Now, here's the point to work on, leaving art to look
after itself--the chap that painted the picture is the grandson of
Lucien Briscoe."
"Say it again," said Kinney, leaning his head thoughtfully. "Of the
old, original Lucien Briscoe?"
"Of him. 'The man who,' you know. The man who carved the state out of
the wilderness. The man who settled the Indians. The man who cleaned
out the horse thieves. The man who refused the crown. The state's
favourite son. Do you see the point now?"
"Wrap up the picture," said Kinney. "It's as good as sold. Why didn't
you say that at first, instead of philandering along about art. I'll
resign my seat in the Senate and go back to chain-carrying for the
county surveyor the day I can't make this state buy a picture
calcimined by a grandson of Lucien Briscoe. Did you ever hear of a
special appropriation for the purchase of a home for the daughter of
One-Eyed Smothers? Well, that went through like a motion to adjourn,
and old One-Eyed never killed half as many Indians as Briscoe did.
About what figure had you and the calciminer agreed upon to sandbag
the treasury for?"
"I thought," said Mullens, "that maybe five hundred--"
"Five hundred!" interrupted Kinney, as he hammered on his glass for a
lead pencil and looked around for a waiter. "Only five hundred for a
red steer on the hoof delivered by a grandson of Lucien Briscoe!
Where's your state pride, man? Two thousand is what it'll be. You'll
introduce the bill and I'll get up on the floor of the Senate and wave
the scalp of every Indian old Lucien ever murdered. Let's see, there
was something else proud and foolish he did, wasn't there? Oh, yes; he
declined all emoluments and benefits he was entitled to. Refused his
head-right and veteran donation certificates. Could have been
governor, but wouldn't. Declined a pension. Now's the state's chance
to pay up. It'll have to take the picture, but then it deserves some
punishment for keeping the Briscoe family waiting so long. We'll bring
this thing up about the middle of the month, after the tax bill is
settled. Now, Mullens, you send over, as soon as you can, and get me
the figures on the cost of those irrigation ditches and the statistics
about the increased production per acre. I'm going to need you when
that bill of mine comes up. I reckon we'll be able to pull along
pretty well together this session and maybe others to come, eh,
Senator?"
Thus did fortune elect to smile upon the Boy Artist of the San Saba.
Fate had already done her share when she arranged his atoms in the
cosmogony of creation as the grandson of Lucien Briscoe.
The original Briscoe had been a pioneer both as to territorial
occupation and in certain acts prompted by a great and simple heart.
He had been one of the first settlers and crusaders against the wild
forces of nature, the savage and the shallow politician. His name and
memory were revered, equally with any upon the list comprising
Houston, Boone, Crockett, Clark, and Green. He had lived simply,
independently, and unvexed by ambition. Even a less shrewd man than
Senator Kinney could have prophesied that his state would hasten to
honour and reward his grandson, come out of the chaparral at even so
late a day.
And so, before the great picture by the door of the chamber of
representatives at frequent times for many days could be found the
breezy, robust form of Senator Kinney and be heard his clarion voice
reciting the past deeds of Lucien Briscoe in connection with the
handiwork of his grandson. Senator Mullens's work was more subdued in
sight and sound, but directed along identical lines.
Then, as the day for the introduction of the bill for appropriation
draws nigh, up from the San Saba country rides Lonny Briscoe and a
loyal lobby of cowpunchers, bronco-back, to boost the cause of art and
glorify the name of friendship, for Lonny is one of them, a knight of
stirrup and chaparreras, as handy with the lariat and .45 as he is
with brush and palette.
On a March afternoon the lobby dashed, with a whoop, into town. The
cowpunchers had adjusted their garb suitably from that prescribed for
the range to the more conventional requirements of town. They had
conceded their leather chaparreras and transferred their six-shooters
and belts from their persons to the horns of their saddles. Among them
rode Lonny, a youth of twenty-three, brown, solemn-faced, ingenuous,
bowlegged, reticent, bestriding Hot Tamales, the most sagacious cow
pony west of the Mississippi. Senator Mullens had informed him of the
bright prospects of the situation; had even mentioned--so great was
his confidence in the capable Kinney--the price that the state would,
in all likelihood, pay. It seemed to Lonny that fame and fortune were
in his hands. Certainly, a spark of the divine fire was in the little
brown centaur's breast, for he was counting the two thousand dollars
as but a means to future development of his talent. Some day he would
paint a picture even greater than this--one, say, twelve feet by
twenty, full of scope and atmosphere and action.
During the three days that yet intervened before the coming of the
date fixed for the introduction of the bill, the centaur lobby did
valiant service. Coatless, spurred, weather-tanned, full of enthusiasm
expressed in bizarre terms, they loafed in front of the painting with
tireless zeal. Reasoning not unshrewdly, they estimated that their
comments upon its fidelity to nature would be received as expert
evidence. Loudly they praised the skill of the painter whenever there
were ears near to which such evidence might be profitably addressed.
Lem Perry, the leader of the claque, had a somewhat set speech, being
uninventive in the construction of new phrases.
"Look at that two-year-old, now," he would say, waving a cinnamon-
brown hand toward the salient point of the picture. "Why, dang my
hide, the critter's alive. I can jest hear him, 'lumpety-lump,'
a-cuttin' away from the herd, pretendin' he's skeered. He's a mean
scamp, that there steer. Look at his eyes a-wailin' and his tail
a-wavin'. He's true and nat'ral to life. He's jest hankerin' fur a cow
pony to round him up and send him scootin' back to the bunch. Dang my
hide! jest look at that tail of his'n a-wavin'. Never knowed a steer
to wave his tail any other way, dang my hide ef I did."
Jud Shelby, while admitting the excellence of the steer, resolutely
confined himself to open admiration of the landscape, to the end that
the entire picture receive its meed of praise.
"That piece of range," he declared, "is a dead ringer for Dead Hoss
Valley. Same grass, same lay of land, same old Whipperwill Creek
skallyhootin' in and out of them motts of timber. Them buzzards on the
left is circlin' 'round over Sam Kildrake's old paint hoss that killed
hisself over-drinkin' on a hot day. You can't see the hoss for that
mott of ellums on the creek, but he's thar. Anybody that was goin' to
look for Dead Hoss Valley and come across this picture, why, he'd just
light off'n his bronco and hunt a place to camp."
Skinny Rogers, wedded to comedy, conceived a complimentary little
piece of acting that never failed to make an impression. Edging quite
near to the picture, he would suddenly, at favourable moments emit a
piercing and awful "Yi-yi!" leap high and away, coming down with a
great stamp of heels and whirring of rowels upon the stone-flagged
floor.
"Jeeming Cristopher!"--so ran his lines--"thought that rattler was a
gin-u-ine one. Ding baste my skin if I didn't. Seemed to me I heard
him rattle. Look at the blamed, unconverted insect a-layin' under that
pear. Little more, and somebody would a-been snake-bit."
With these artful dodges, contributed by Lonney's faithful coterie,
with the sonorous Kinney perpetually sounding the picture's merits,
and with the solvent prestige of the pioneer Briscoe covering it like
a precious varnish, it seemed that the San Saba country could not fail
to add a reputation as an art centre to its well-known superiority in
steer-roping contests and achievements with the precarious busted
flush. Thus was created for the picture an atmosphere, due rather to
externals than to the artist's brush, but through it the people seemed
to gaze with more of admiration. There was a magic in the name of
Briscoe that counted high against faulty technique and crude
colouring. The old Indian fighter and wolf slayer would have smiled
grimly in his happy hunting grounds had he known that his dilettante
ghost was thus figuring as an art patron two generations after his
uninspired existence.
Came the day when the Senate was expected to pass the bill of Senator
Mullens appropriating two thousand dollars for the purchase of the
picture. The gallery of the Senate chamber was early preempted by
Lonny and the San Saba lobby. In the front row of chairs they sat,
wild-haired, self-conscious, jingling, creaking, and rattling, subdued
by the majesty of the council hall.
The bill was introduced, went to the second reading, and then Senator
Mullens spoke for it dryly, tediously, and at length. Senator Kinney
then arose, and the welkin seized the bellrope preparatory to ringing.
Oratory was at that time a living thing; the world had not quite time
to measure its questions by geometry and the multiplication table. It
was the day of the silver tongue, the sweeping gesture, the decorative
apostrophe, the moving peroration.
The Senator spoke. The San Saba contingent sat, breathing hard, in the
gallery, its disordered hair hanging down to its eyes, its sixteen-
ounce hats shifted restlessly from knee to knee. Below, the
distinguished Senators either lounged at their desks with the abandon
of proven statesmanship or maintained correct attitudes indicative of
a first term.
Senator Kinney spoke for an hour. History was his theme--history
mitigated by patriotism and sentiment. He referred casually to the
picture in the outer hall--it was unnecessary, he said, to dilate upon
its merits--the Senators had seen for themselves. The painter of the
picture was the grandson of Lucien Briscoe. Then came the word-
pictures of Briscoe's life set forth in thrilling colours. His rude
and venturesome life, his simple-minded love for the commonwealth he
helped to upbuild, his contempt for rewards and praise, his extreme
and sturdy independence, and the great services he had rendered the
state. The subject of the oration was Lucien Briscoe; the painting
stood in the background serving simply as a means, now happily brought
forward, through which the state might bestow a tardy recompense upon
the descendent of its favourite son. Frequent enthusiastic applause
from the Senators testified to the well reception of the sentiment.
The bill passed without an opening vote. To-morrow it would be taken
up by the House. Already was it fixed to glide through that body on
rubber tires. Blandford, Grayson, and Plummer, all wheel-horses and
orators, and provided with plentiful memoranda concerning the deeds of
pioneer Briscoe, had agreed to furnish the motive power.
The San Saba lobby and its /protege/ stumbled awkwardly down the
stairs and out into the Capitol yard. Then they herded closely and
gave one yell of triumph. But one of them--Buck-Kneed Simmers it was--
hit the key with the thoughtful remark:
"She cut the mustard," he said, "all right. I reckon they're goin' to
buy Lon's steer. I ain't right much on the parlyment'ry, but I gather
that's what the signs added up. But she seems to me, Lonny, the
argyment ran principal to grandfather, instead of paint. It's
reasonable calculatin' that you want to be glad you got the Briscoe
brand on you, my son."
That remarked clinched in Lonny's mind an unpleasant, vague suspicion
to the same effect. His reticence increased, and he gathered grass
from the ground, chewing it pensively. The picture as a picture had
been humiliatingly absent from the Senator's arguments. The painter
had been held up as a grandson, pure and simple. While this was
gratifying on certain lines, it made art look little and slab-sided.
The Boy Artist was thinking.
The hotel Lonny stopped at was near the Capitol. It was near to the
one o'clock dinner hour when the appropriation had been passed by the
Senate. The hotel clerk told Lonny that a famous artist from New York
had arrived in town that day and was in the hotel. He was on his way
westward to New Mexico to study the effect of sunlight upon the
ancient walls of the Zunis. Modern stones reflect light. Those ancient
building materials absorb it. The artist wanted this effect in a
picture he was painting, and was traveling two thousand miles to get
it.
Lonny sought this man out after dinner and told his story. The artist
was an unhealthy man, kept alive by genius and indifference to life.
He went with Lonny to the Capitol and stood there before the picture.
The artist pulled his beard and looked unhappy.
"Should like to have your sentiments," said Lonny, "just as they run
out of the pen."
"It's the way they'll come," said the painter man. "I took three
different kinds of medicine before dinner--by the tablespoonful. The
taste still lingers. I am primed for telling the truth. You want to
know if the picture is, or if it isn't?"
"Right," said Lonny. "Is it wool or cotton? Should I paint some more
or cut it out and ride herd a-plenty?"
"I heard a rumour during pie," said the artist, "that the state is
about to pay you two thousand dollars for this picture."
"It's passed the Senate," said Lonny, "and the House rounds it up
to-morrow."
"That's lucky," said the pale man. "Do you carry a rabbit's foot?"
"No," said Lonny, "but it seems I had a grandfather. He's considerable
mixed up in the colour scheme. It took me a year to paint that
picture. Is she entirely awful or not? Some says, now, that the
steer's tail ain't badly drawed. They think it's proportioned nice.
Tell me."
The artist glanced at Lonny's wiry figure and nut-brown skin.
Something stirred him to a passing irritation.
"For Art's sake, son," he said, fractiously, "don't spend any more
money for paint. It isn't a picture at all. It's a gun. You hold up
the state with it, if you like, and get your two thousand, but don't
get in front of any more canvas. Live under it. Buy a couple of
hundred ponies with the money--I'm told they're that cheap--and ride,
ride, ride. Fill your lungs and eat and sleep and be happy. No more
pictures. You look healthy. That's genius. Cultivate it." He looked at
his watch. "Twenty minutes to three. Four capsules and one tablet at
three. That's all you wanted to know, isn't it?"
At three o'clock the cowpunchers rode up for Lonny, bringing Hot
Tamales, saddled. Traditions must be observed. To celebrate the
passage of the bill by the Senate the gang must ride wildly through
the town, creating uproar and excitement. Liquor must be partaken of,
the suburbs shot up, and the glory of the San Saba country
vociferously proclaimed. A part of the programme had been carried out
in the saloons on the way up.
Lonny mounted Hot Tamales, the accomplished little beast prancing with
fire and intelligence. He was glad to feel Lonny's bowlegged grip
against his ribs again. Lonny was his friend, and he was willing to do
things for him.
"Come on, boys," said Lonny, urging Hot Tomales into a gallop with his
knees. With a whoop, the inspired lobby tore after him through the
dust. Lonny led his cohorts straight for the Capitol. With a wild
yell, the gang endorsed his now evident intention of riding into it.
Hooray for San Saba!
Up the six broad, limestone steps clattered the broncos of the
cowpunchers. Into the resounding hallway they pattered, scattering in
dismay those passing on foot. Lonny, in the lead, shoved Hot Tamales
direct for the great picture. At that hour a downpouring, soft light
from the second-story windows bathed the big canvas. Against the
darker background of the hall the painting stood out with valuable
effect. In spite of the defects of the art you could almost fancy that
you gazed out upon a landscape. You might well flinch a step from the
convincing figure of the life-size steer stampeding across the grass.
Perhaps it seemed thus to Hot Tamales. The scene was in his line.
Perhaps he only obeyed the will of his rider. His ears pricked up; he
snorted. Lonny leaned forward in the saddle and elevated his elbows,
wing-like. Thus signals the cowpuncher to his steed to launch himself
full speed ahead. Did Hot Tamales fancy he saw a steer, red and
cavorting, that should be headed off and driven back to the herd?
There was a fierce clatter of hoofs, a rush, a gathering of steely
flank muscles, a leap to the jerk of the bridle rein, and Hot Tamales,
with Lonny bending low in the saddle to dodge the top of the frame,
ripped through the great canvas like a shell from a mortar, leaving
the cloth hanging in ragged sheds about a monstrous hole.
Quickly Lonny pulled up his pony, and rounded the pillars. Spectators
came running, too astounded to add speech to the commotion. The
sergeant-at-arms of the House came forth, frowned, looked ominous, and
then grinned. Many of the legislators crowded out to observe the
tumult. Lonny's cowpunchers were stricken to silent horror by his mad
deed.
Senator Kinney happened to be among the earliest to emerge. Before he
could speak Lonny leaned in his saddle as Hot Tamales pranced, pointed
his quirt at the Senator, and said, calmly:
"That was a fine speech you made to-day, mister, but you might as well
let up on that 'propriation business. I ain't askin' the state to give
me nothin'. I thought I had a picture to sell to it, but it wasn't
one. You said a heap of things about Grandfather Briscoe that makes me
kind of proud I'm his grandson. Well, the Briscoes ain't takin'
presents from the state yet. Anybody can have the frame that wants it.
Hit her up, boys."
Away scuttled the San Saba delegation out of the hall, down the steps,
along the dusty street.
Halfway to the San Saba country they camped that night. At bedtime
Lonny stole away from the campfire and sought Hot Tamales, placidly
eating grass at the end of his stake rope. Lonny hung upon his neck,
and his art aspirations went forth forever in one long, regretful
sigh. But as he thus made renunciation his breath formed a word or
two.
"You was the only one, Tamales, what seen anything in it. It /did/
look like a steer, didn't it, old hoss?"
VII
PHOEBE
"You are a man of many novel adventures and varied enterprises," I
said to Captain Patricio Malone. "Do you believe that the possible
element of good luck or bad luck--if there is such a thing as luck--
has influenced your career or persisted for or against you to such an
extent that you were forced to attribute results to the operation of
the aforesaid good luck or bad luck?"
This question (of almost the dull insolence of legal phraseology) was
put while we sat in Rousselin's little red-tiled cafe near Congo
Square in New Orleans.
Brown-faced, white-hatted, finger-ringed captains of adventure came
often to Rousselin's for the cognac. They came from sea and land, and
were chary of relating the things they had seen--not because they were
more wonderful than the fantasies of the Ananiases of print, but
because they were so different. And I was a perpetual wedding-guest,
always striving to cast my buttonhole over the finger of one of these
mariners of fortune. This Captain Malone was a Hiberno-Iberian creole
who had gone to and fro in the earth and walked up and down in it. He
looked like any other well-dressed man of thirty-five whom you might
meet, except that he was hopelessly weather-tanned, and wore on his
chain an ancient ivory-and-gold Peruvian charm against evil, which has
nothing at all to do with this story.
"My answer to your question," said the captain, smiling, "will be to
tell you the story of Bad-Luck Kearny. That is, if you don't mind
hearing it."
My reply was to pound on the table for Rousselin.
* * * * *
"Strolling along Tchoupitoulas Street one night," began Captain
Malone, "I noticed, without especially taxing my interest, a small man
walking rapidly toward me. He stepped upon a wooden cellar door,
crashed through it, and disappeared. I rescued him from a heap of soft
coal below. He dusted himself briskly, swearing fluently in a
mechanical tone, as an underpaid actor recites the gypsy's curse.
Gratitude and the dust in his throat seemed to call for fluids to
clear them away. His desire for liquidation was expressed so heartily
that I went with him to a cafe down the street where we had some vile
vermouth and bitters.
"Looking across that little table I had my first clear sight of
Francis Kearny. He was about five feet seven, but as tough as a
cypress knee. His hair was darkest red, his mouth such a mere slit
that you wondered how the flood of his words came rushing from it. His
eyes were the brightest and lightest blue and the hopefulest that I
ever saw. He gave the double impression that he was at bay and that
you had better not crowd him further.
"'Just in from a gold-hunting expedition on the coast of Costa Rica,'
he explained. 'Second mate of a banana steamer told me the natives
were panning out enough from the beach sands to buy all the rum, red
calico, and parlour melodeons in the world. The day I got there a
syndicate named Incorporated Jones gets a government concession to all
minerals from a given point. For a next choice I take coast fever and
count green and blue lizards for six weeks in a grass hut. I had to be
notified when I was well, for the reptiles were actually there. Then I
shipped back as third cook on a Norwegian tramp that blew up her
boiler two miles below Quarantine. I was due to bust through that
cellar door here to-night, so I hurried the rest of the way up the
river, roustabouting on a lower coast packet that made up a landing
for every fisherman that wanted a plug of tobacco. And now I'm here
for what comes next. And it'll be along, it'll be along,' said this
queer Mr. Kearny; 'it'll be along on the beams of my bright but not
very particular star.'
"From the first the personality of Kearny charmed me. I saw in him the
bold heart, the restless nature, and the valiant front against the
buffets of fate that make his countrymen such valuable comrades in
risk and adventure. And just then I was wanting such men. Moored at a
fruit company's pier I had a 500-ton steamer ready to sail the next
day with a cargo of sugar, lumber, and corrugated iron for a port
in--well, let us call the country Esperando--it has not been long ago,
and the name of Patricio Malone is still spoken there when its
unsettled politics are discussed. Beneath the sugar and iron were
packed a thousand Winchester rifles. In Aguas Frias, the capital, Don
Rafael Valdevia, Minister of War, Esperando's greatest-hearted and
most able patriot, awaited my coming. No doubt you have heard, with a
smile, of the insignificant wars and uprisings in those little tropic
republics. They make but a faint clamour against the din of great
nations' battles; but down there, under all the ridiculous uniforms
and petty diplomacy and senseless countermarching and intrigue, are to
be found statesmen and patriots. Don Rafael Valdevia was one. His
great ambition was to raise Esperando into peace and honest prosperity
and the respect of the serious nations. So he waited for my rifles in
Aguas Frias. But one would think I am trying to win a recruit in you!
No; it was Francis Kearny I wanted. And so I told him, speaking long
over our execrable vermouth, breathing the stifling odour from garlic
and tarpaulins, which, as you know, is the distinctive flavour of
cafes in the lower slant of our city. I spoke of the tyrant President
Cruz and the burdens that his green and insolent cruelty laid upon the
people. And at that Kearny's tears flowed. And then I dried them with
a picture of the fat rewards that would be ours when the oppressor
should be overthrown and the wise and generous Valdevia in his seat.
Then Kearny leaped to his feet and wrung my hand with the strength of
a roustabout. He was mine, he said, till the last minion of the hated
despot was hurled from the highest peaks of the Cordilleras into the
sea.
"I paid the score, and we went out. Near the door Kearny's elbow
overturned an upright glass showcase, smashing it into little bits. I
paid the storekeeper the price he asked.
"'Come to my hotel for the night,' I said to Kearny. 'We sail
to-morrow at noon.'
"He agreed; but on the sidewalk he fell to cursing again in the dull
monotonous way that he had done when I pulled him out of the coal
cellar.
"'Captain,' said he, 'before we go any further, it's no more than fair
to tell you that I'm known from Baffin's Bay to Terra del Fuego as
"Bad-Luck" Kearny. And I'm It. Everything I get into goes up in the
air except a balloon. Every bet I ever made I lost except when I
coppered it. Every boat I ever sailed on sank except the submarines.
Everything I was ever interested in went to pieces except a patent
bombshell that I invented. Everything I ever took hold of and tried to
run I ran into the ground except when I tried to plough. And that's
why they call me Bad-Luck Kearny. I thought I'd tell you.'
"'Bad luck,' said I, 'or what goes by that name, may now and then
tangle the affairs of any man. But if it persists beyond the estimate
of what we may call the "averages" there must be a cause for it.'
"'There is,' said Kearny emphatically, 'and when we walk another
square I will show it to you.'
"Surprised, I kept by his side until we came to Canal Street and out
into the middle of its great width.
"Kearny seized me by an arm and pointed a tragic forefinger at a
rather brilliant star that shone steadily about thirty degrees above
the horizon.
"'That's Saturn,' said he, 'the star that presides over bad luck and
evil and disappointment and nothing doing and trouble. I was born
under that star. Every move I make, up bobs Saturn and blocks it. He's
the hoodoo planet of the heavens. They say he's 73,000 miles in
diameter and no solider of body than split-pea soup, and he's got as
many disreputable and malignant rings as Chicago. Now, what kind of a
star is that to be born under?'
"I asked Kearny where he had obtained all this astonishing knowledge.
"'From Azrath, the great astrologer of Cleveland, Ohio,' said he.
'That man looked at a glass ball and told me my name before I'd taken
a chair. He prophesied the date of my birth and death before I'd said
a word. And then he cast my horoscope, and the sidereal system socked
me in the solar plexus. It was bad luck for Francis Kearny from A to
Izard and for his friends that were implicated with him. For that I
gave up ten dollars. This Azrath was sorry, but he respected his
profession too much to read the heavens wrong for any man. It was
night time, and he took me out on a balcony and gave me a free view of
the sky. And he showed me which Saturn was, and how to find it in
different balconies and longitudes.
"'But Saturn wasn't all. He was only the man higher up. He furnishes
so much bad luck that they allow him a gang of deputy sparklers to
help hand it out. They're circulating and revolving and hanging around
the main supply all the time, each one throwing the hoodoo on his own
particular district.
"'You see that ugly little red star about eight inches above and to
the right of Saturn?' Kearny asked me. 'Well, that's her. That's
Phoebe. She's got me in charge. "By the day of your birth," says
Azrath to me, "your life is subjected to the influence of Saturn. By
the hour and minute of it you must dwell under the sway and direct
authority of Phoebe, the ninth satellite." So said this Azrath.'
Kearny shook his fist violently skyward. 'Curse her, she's done her
work well,' said he. 'Ever since I was astrologized, bad luck has
followed me like my shadow, as I told you. And for many years before.
Now, Captain, I've told you my handicap as a man should. If you're
afraid this evil star of mine might cripple your scheme, leave me out
of it.'
"I reassured Kearny as well as I could. I told him that for the time
we would banish both astrology and astronomy from our heads. The
manifest valour and enthusiasm of the man drew me. 'Let us see what a
little courage and diligence will do against bad luck,' I said. 'We
will sail to-morrow for Esperando.'
"Fifty miles down the Mississippi our steamer broke her rudder. We
sent for a tug to tow us back and lost three days. When we struck the
blue waters of the Gulf, all the storm clouds of the Atlantic seemed
to have concentrated above us. We thought surely to sweeten those
leaping waves with our sugar, and to stack our arms and lumber on the
floor of the Mexican Gulf.
"Kearny did not seek to cast off one iota of the burden of our danger
from the shoulders of his fatal horoscope. He weathered every storm on
deck, smoking a black pipe, to keep which alight rain and sea-water
seemed but as oil. And he shook his fist at the black clouds behind
which his baleful star winked its unseen eye. When the skies cleared
one evening, he reviled his malignant guardian with grim humour.
"'On watch, aren't you, you red-headed vixen? Out making it hot for
little Francis Kearny and his friends, according to Hoyle. Twinkle,
twinkle, little devil! You're a lady, aren't you?--dogging a man with
your bad luck just because he happened to be born while your boss was
floorwalker. Get busy and sink the ship, you one-eyed banshee. Phoebe!
H'm! Sounds as mild as a milkmaid. You can't judge a woman by her
name. Why couldn't I have had a man star? I can't make the remarks to
Phoebe that I could to a man. Oh, Phoebe, you be--blasted!'
"For eight days gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our
course. Five days only should have landed us in Esperando. Our Jonah
swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that
scarcely lessened the hardships our cause was made to suffer.
"At last one afternoon we steamed into the calm estuary of the little
Rio Escondido. Three miles up this we crept, feeling for the shallow
channel between the low banks that were crowded to the edge with
gigantic trees and riotous vegetation. Then our whistle gave a little
toot, and in five minutes we heard a shout, and Carlos--my brave
Carlos Quintana--crashed through the tangled vines waving his cap
madly for joy.
"A hundred yards away was his camp, where three hundred chosen
patriots of Esperando were awaiting our coming. For a month Carlos had
been drilling them there in the tactics of war, and filling them with
the spirit of revolution and liberty.
"'My Captain--/compadre mio/!' shouted Carlos, while yet my boat was
being lowered. 'You should see them in the drill by /companies/--in
the column wheel--in the march by fours--they are superb! Also in the
manual of arms--but, alas! performed only with sticks of bamboo. The
guns, /capitan/--say that you have brought the guns!'
"'A thousand Winchesters, Carlos,' I called to him. 'And two
Gatlings.'
"'/Valgame Dios/!' he cried, throwing his cap in the air. 'We shall
sweep the world!'
"At that moment Kearny tumbled from the steamer's side into the river.
He could not swim, so the crew threw him a rope and drew him back
aboard. I caught his eye and his look of pathetic but still bright and
undaunted consciousness of his guilty luck. I told myself that
although he might be a man to shun, he was also one to be admired.
"I gave orders to the sailing-master that the arms, ammunition, and
provisions were to be landed at once. That was easy in the steamer's
boats, except for the two Gatling guns. For their transportation
ashore we carried a stout flatboat, brought for the purpose in the
steamer's hold.
"In the meantime I walked with Carlos to the camp and made the
soldiers a little speech in Spanish, which they received with
enthusiasm; and then I had some wine and a cigarette in Carlos's tent.
Later we walked back to the river to see how the unloading was being
conducted.
"The small arms and provisions were already ashore, and the petty
officers and squads of men conveying them to camp. One Gatling had
been safely landed; the other was just being hoisted over the side of
the vessel as we arrived. I noticed Kearny darting about on board,
seeming to have the ambition of ten men, and doing the work of five. I
think his zeal bubbled over when he saw Carlos and me. A rope's end
was swinging loose from some part of the tackle. Kearny leaped
impetuously and caught it. There was a crackle and a hiss and a smoke
of scorching hemp, and the Gatling dropped straight as a plummet
through the bottom of the flatboat and buried itself in twenty feet of
water and five feet of river mud.
"I turned my back on the scene. I heard Carlos's loud cries as if from
some extreme grief too poignant for words. I heard the complaining
murmur of the crew and the maledictions of Torres, the sailing master
--I could not bear to look.
"By night some degree of order had been restored in camp. Military
rules were not drawn strictly, and the men were grouped about the
fires of their several messes, playing games of chance, singing their
native songs, or discussing with voluble animation the contingencies
of our march upon the capital.
"To my tent, which had been pitched for me close to that of my chief
lieutenant, came Kearny, indomitable, smiling, bright-eyed, bearing no
traces of the buffets of his evil star. Rather was his aspect that of
a heroic martyr whose tribulations were so high-sourced and glorious
that he even took a splendour and a prestige from them.
"'Well, Captain,' said he, 'I guess you realize that Bad-Luck Kearny
is still on deck. It was a shame, now, about that gun. She only needed
to be slewed two inches to clear the rail; and that's why I grabbed
that rope's end. Who'd have thought that a sailor--even a Sicilian
lubber on a banana coaster--would have fastened a line in a bow-knot?
Don't think I'm trying to dodge the responsibility, Captain. It's my
luck.'
"'There are men, Kearny,' said I gravely, 'who pass through life
blaming upon luck and chance the mistakes that result from their own
faults and incompetency. I do not say that you are such a man. But if
all your mishaps are traceable to that tiny star, the sooner we endow
our colleges with chairs of moral astronomy, the better.'
"'It isn't the size of the star that counts,' said Kearny; 'it's the
quality. Just the way it is with women. That's why they give the
biggest planets masculine names, and the little stars feminine ones--
to even things up when it comes to getting their work in. Suppose they
had called my star Agamemnon or Bill McCarty or something like that
instead of Phoebe. Every time one of those old boys touched their
calamity button and sent me down one of their wireless pieces of bad
luck, I could talk back and tell 'em what I thought of 'em in suitable
terms. But you can't address such remarks to a Phoebe.'
"'It pleases you to make a joke of it, Kearny,' said I, without
smiling. 'But it is no joke to me to think of my Gatling mired in the
river ooze.'
"'As to that,' said Kearny, abandoning his light mood at once, 'I have
already done what I could. I have had some experience in hoisting
stone in quarries. Torres and I have already spliced three hawsers and
stretched them from the steamer's stern to a tree on shore. We will
rig a tackle and have the gun on terra firma before noon to-morrow.'
"One could not remain long at outs with Bad-Luck Kearny.
"'Once more,' said I to him, 'we will waive this question of luck.
Have you ever had experience in drilling raw troops?'
"'I was first sergeant and drill-master,' said Kearny, 'in the Chilean
army for one year. And captain of artillery for another.'
"'What became of your command?' I asked.
"'Shot down to a man,' said Kearny, 'during the revolutions against
Balmaceda.'
"Somehow the misfortunes of the evil-starred one seemed to turn to me
their comedy side. I lay back upon my goat's-hide cot and laughed
until the woods echoed. Kearny grinned. 'I told you how it was,' he
said.
"'To-morrow,' I said, 'I shall detail one hundred men under your
command for manual-of-arms drill and company evolutions. You rank as
lieutenant. Now, for God's sake, Kearny,' I urged him, 'try to combat
this superstition if it is one. Bad luck may be like any other visitor
--preferring to stop where it is expected. Get your mind off stars.
Look upon Esperando as your planet of good fortune.'
"'I thank you, Captain,' said Kearny quietly. 'I will try to make it
the best handicap I ever ran.'
"By noon the next day the submerged Gatling was rescued, as Kearny had
promised. Then Carlos and Manuel Ortiz and Kearny (my lieutenants)
distributed Winchesters among the troops and put them through an
incessant rifle drill. We fired no shots, blank or solid, for of all
coasts Esperando is the stillest; and we had no desire to sound any
warnings in the ear of that corrupt government until they should carry
with them the message of Liberty and the downfall of Oppression.
"In the afternoon came a mule-rider bearing a written message to me
from Don Rafael Valdevia in the capital, Aguas Frias.
"Whenever that man's name comes to my lips, words of tribute to his
greatness, his noble simplicity, and his conspicuous genius follow
irrepressibly. He was a traveller, a student of peoples and
governments, a master of sciences, a poet, an orator, a leader, a
soldier, a critic of the world's campaigns and the idol of the people
in Esperando. I had been honoured by his friendship for years. It was
I who first turned his mind to the thought that he should leave for
his monument a new Esperando--a country freed from the rule of
unscrupulous tyrants, and a people made happy and prosperous by wise
and impartial legislation. When he had consented he threw himself into
the cause with the undivided zeal with which he endowed all of his
acts. The coffers of his great fortune were opened to those of us to
whom were entrusted the secret moves of the game. His popularity was
already so great that he had practically forced President Cruz to
offer him the portfolio of Minister of War.
"The time, Don Rafael said in his letter, was ripe. Success, he
prophesied, was certain. The people were beginning to clamour publicly
against Cruz's misrule. Bands of citizens in the capital were even
going about of nights hurling stones at public buildings and
expressing their dissatisfaction. A bronze statue of President Cruz in
the Botanical Gardens had been lassoed about the neck and overthrown.
It only remained for me to arrive with my force and my thousand
rifles, and for himself to come forward and proclaim himself the
people's saviour, to overthrow Cruz in a single day. There would be
but a half-hearted resistance from the six hundred government troops
stationed in the capital. Th country was ours. He presumed that by
this time my steamer had arrived at Quintana's camp. He proposed the
eighteenth of July for the attack. That would give us six days in
which to strike camp and march to Aguas Frias. In the meantime Don
Rafael remained my good friend and /compadre en la cause de la
libertad/.
"On the morning of the 14th we began our march toward the sea-
following range of mountains, over the sixty-mile trail to the
capital. Our small arms and provisions were laden on pack mules.
Twenty men harnessed to each Gatling gun rolled them smoothly along
the flat, alluvial lowlands. Our troops, well-shod and well-fed, moved
with alacrity and heartiness. I and my three lieutenants were mounted
on the tough mountain ponies of the country.
"A mile out of camp one of the pack mules, becoming stubborn, broke
away from the train and plunged from the path into the thicket. The
alert Kearny spurred quickly after it and intercepted its flight.
Rising in his stirrups, he released one foot and bestowed upon the
mutinous animal a hearty kick. The mule tottered and fell with a crash
broadside upon the ground. As we gathered around it, it walled its
great eyes almost humanly towards Kearny and expired. That was bad;
but worse, to our minds, was the concomitant disaster. Part of the
mule's burden had been one hundred pounds of the finest coffee to be
had in the tropics. The bag burst and spilled the priceless brown mass
of the ground berries among the dense vines and weeds of the swampy
land. /Mala suerte/! When you take away from an Esperandan his coffee,
you abstract his patriotism and 50 per cent. of his value as a
soldier. The men began to rake up the precious stuff; but I beckoned
Kearny back along the trail where they would not hear. The limit had
been reached.
"I took from my pocket a wallet of money and drew out some bills.
"'Mr. Kearny,' said I, 'here are some funds belonging to Don Rafael
Valdevia, which I am expending in his cause. I know of no better
service it can buy for him that this. Here is one hundred dollars.
Luck or no luck, we part company here. Star or no star, calamity seems
to travel by your side. You will return to the steamer. She touches at
Amotapa to discharge her lumber and iron, and then puts back to New
Orleans. Hand this note to the sailing-master, who will give you
passage.' I wrote on a leaf torn from my book, and placed it and the
money in Kearny's hand.
"'Good-bye,' I said, extending my own. 'It is not that I am displeased
with you; but there is no place in this expedition for--let us say,
the Senorita Phoebe.' I said this with a smile, trying to smooth the
thing for him. 'May you have better luck, /companero/.'
"Kearny took the money and the paper.
"'It was just a little touch,' said he, 'just a little lift with the
toe of my boot--but what's the odds?--that blamed mule would have died
if I had only dusted his ribs with a powder puff. It was my luck.
Well, Captain, I would have liked to be in that little fight with you
over in Aguas Frias. Success to the cause. /Adios/!'
"He turned around and set off down the trail without looking back. The
unfortunate mule's pack-saddle was transferred to Kearny's pony, and
we again took up the march.
"Four days we journeyed over the foot-hills and mountains, fording icy
torrents, winding around the crumbling brows of ragged peaks, creeping
along rocky flanges that overlooked awful precipices, crawling
breathlessly over tottering bridges that crossed bottomless chasms.
"On the evening of the seventeenth we camped by a little stream on the
bare hills five miles from Aguas Frias. At daybreak we were to take up
the march again.
"At midnight I was standing outside my tent inhaling the fresh cold
air. The stars were shining bright in the cloudless sky, giving the
heavens their proper aspect of illimitable depth and distance when
viewed from the vague darkness of the blotted earth. Almost at its
zenith was the planet Saturn; and with a half-smile I observed the
sinister red sparkle of his malignant attendant--the demon star of
Kearny's ill luck. And then my thoughts strayed across the hills to
the scene of our coming triumph where the heroic and noble Don Rafael
awaited our coming to set a new and shining star in the firmament of
nations.
"I heard a slight rustling in the deep grass to my right. I turned and
saw Kearny coming toward me. He was ragged and dew-drenched and
limping. His hat and one boot were gone. About one foot he had tied
some makeshift of cloth and grass. But his manner as he approached was
that of a man who knows his own virtues well enough to be superior to
rebuffs.
"'Well, sir,' I said, staring at him coldly, 'if there is anything in
persistence, I see no reason why you should not succeed in wrecking
and ruining us yet.'
"'I kept half a day's journey behind,' said Kearny, fishing out a
stone from the covering of his lame foot, 'so the bad luck wouldn't
touch you. I couldn't help it, Captain; I wanted to be in on this
game. It was a pretty tough trip, especially in the department of the
commissary. In the low grounds there were always bananas and oranges.
Higher up it was worse; but your men left a good deal of goat meat
hanging on the bushes in the camps. Here's your hundred dollars.
You're nearly there now, captain. Let me in on the scrapping
to-morrow.'
"'Not for a hundred times a hundred would I have the tiniest thing go
wrong with my plans now,' I said, "whether caused by evil planets or
the blunders of mere man. But yonder is Aguas Frias, five miles away,
and a clear road. I am of the mind to defy Saturn and all his
satellites to spoil our success now. At any rate, I will not turn away
to-night as weary a traveller and as good a soldier as you are,
Lieutenant Kearny. Manuel Ortiz's tent is there by the brightest fire.
Rout him out and tell him to supply you with food and blankets and
clothes. We march again at daybreak.'
"Kearny thanked me briefly but feelingly and moved away.
"He had gone scarcely a dozen steps when a sudden flash of bright
light illumined the surrounding hills; a sinister, growing, hissing
sound like escaping steam filled my ears. Then followed a roar as of
distant thunder, which grew louder every instant. This terrifying
noise culminated in a tremendous explosion, which seemed to rock the
hills as an earthquake would; the illumination waxed to a glare so
fierce that I clapped my hands over my eyes to save them. I thought
the end of the world had come. I could think of no natural phenomenon
that would explain it. My wits were staggering. The deafening
explosion trailed off into the rumbling roar that had preceded it; and
through this I heard the frightened shouts of my troops as they
stumbled from their resting-places and rushed wildly about. Also I
heard the harsh tones of Kearny's voice crying: 'They'll blame it on
me, of course, and what the devil it is, it's not Francis Kearny that
can give you an answer.'
"'I opened my eyes. The hills were still there, dark and solid. It had
not been, then, a volcano or an earthquake. I looked up at the sky and
saw a comet-like trail crossing the zenith and extending westward--a
fiery trail waning fainter and narrower each moment.
"'A meteor!' I called aloud. 'A meteor has fallen. There is no
danger.'
"And then all other sounds were drowned by a great shout from Kearny's
throat. He had raised both hands above his head and was standing
tiptoe.
"'PHOEBE'S GONE!' he cried, with all his lungs. 'She's busted and gone
to hell. Look, Captain, the little red-headed hoodoo has blown herself
to smithereens. She found Kearny too tough to handle, and she puffed
up with spite and meanness till her boiler blew up. It's be Bad-Luck
Kearny no more. Oh, let us be joyful!
"'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty busted, and that'll be all!'
"I looked up, wondering, and picked out Saturn in his place. But the
small red twinkling luminary in his vicinity, which Kearny had pointed
out to me as his evil star, had vanished. I had seen it there but half
an hour before; there was no doubt that one of those awful and
mysterious spasms of nature had hurled it from the heavens.
"I clapped Kearny on the shoulder.
"'Little man,' said I, 'let this clear the way for you. It appears
that astrology has failed to subdue you. Your horoscope must be cast
anew with pluck and loyalty for controlling stars. I play you to win.
Now, get to your tent, and sleep. Daybreak is the word.'
"At nine o'clock on the morning of the eighteenth of July I rode into
Aguas Frias with Kearny at my side. In his clean linen suit and with
his military poise and keen eye he was a model of a fighting
adventurer. I had visions of him riding as commander of President
Valdevia's body-guard when the plums of the new republic should begin
to fall.
"Carlos followed with the troops and supplies. He was to halt in a
wood outside the town and remain concealed there until he received the
word to advance.
"Kearny and I rode down the Calle Ancha toward the /residencia/ of Don
Rafael at the other side of the town. As we passed the superb white
buildings of the University of Esperando, I saw at an open window the
gleaming spectacles and bald head of Herr Bergowitz, professor of the
natural sciences and friend of Don Rafael and of me and of the cause.
He waved his hand to me, with his broad, bland smile.
"There was no excitement apparent in Aguas Frias. The people went
about leisurely as at all times; the market was thronged with bare-
headed women buying fruit and /carne/; we heard the twang and tinkle
of string bands in the patios of the /cantinas/. We could see that it
was a waiting game that Don Rafael was playing.
"His /residencia/ as a large but low building around a great courtyard
in grounds crowed with ornamental trees and tropic shrubs. At his door
an old woman who came informed us that Don Rafael had not yet arisen.
"'Tell him,' said I, 'that Captain Malone and a friend wish to see him
at once. Perhaps he has overslept.'
"She came back looking frightened.
"'I have called,' she said, 'and rung his bell many times, but he does
not answer.'
"I knew where his sleeping-room was. Kearny and I pushed by her and
went to it. I put my shoulder against the thin door and forced it
open.
"In an armchair by a great table covered with maps and books sat Don
Rafael with his eyes closed. I touched his hand. He had been dead many
hours. On his head above one ear was a wound caused by a heavy blow.
It had ceased to bleed long before.
"I made the old woman call a /mozo/, and dispatched him in haste to
fetch Herr Bergowitz.
"He came, and we stood about as if we were half stunned by the awful
shock. Thus can the letting of a few drops of blood from one man's
veins drain the life of a nation.
"Presently Herr Bergowitz stooped and picked up a darkish stone the
size of an orange which he saw under the table. He examined it closely
through his great glasses with the eye of science.
"'A fragment,' said he, 'of a detonating meteor. The most remarkable
one in twenty years exploded above this city a little after midnight
this morning.'
"The professor looked quickly up at the ceiling. We saw the blue sky
through a hole the size of an orange nearly above Don Rafael's chair.
"I heard a familiar sound, and turned. Kearny had thrown himself on
the floor and was babbling his compendium of bitter, blood-freezing
curses against the star of his evil luck.
"Undoubtedly Phoebe had been feminine. Even when hurtling on her way
to fiery dissolution and everlasting doom, the last word had been
hers."
* * * * *
Captain Malone was not unskilled in narrative. He knew the point where
a story should end. I sat reveling in his effective conclusion when he
aroused me by continuing:
"Of course," said he, "our schemes were at an end. There was no one to
take Don Rafael's place. Our little army melted away like dew before
the sun.
"One day after I had returned to New Orleans I related this story to a
friend who holds a professorship in Tulane University.
"When I had finished he laughed and asked whether I had any knowledge
of Kearny's luck afterward. I told him no, that I had seen him no
more; but that when he left me, he had expressed confidence that his
future would be successful now that his unlucky star had been
overthrown.
"'No doubt,' said the professor, 'he is happier not to know one fact.
If he derives his bad luck from Phoebe, the ninth satellite of Saturn,
that malicious lady is still engaged in overlooking his career. The
star close to Saturn that he imagined to be her was near that planet
simply by the chance of its orbit--probably at different times he has
regarded many other stars that happened to be in Saturn's
neighbourhood as his evil one. The real Phoebe is visible only through
a very good telescope.'
"About a year afterward," continued Captain Malone, "I was walking
down a street that crossed the Poydras Market. An immensely stout,
pink-faced lacy in black satin crowded me from the narrow sidewalk
with a frown. Behind her trailed a little man laden to the gunwales
with bundles and bags of goods and vegetables.
"It was Kearny--but changed. I stopped and shook one of his hands,
which still clung to a bag of garlic and red peppers.
"'How is the luck, old /companero/?' I asked him. I had not the heart
to tell him the truth about his star.
"'Well,' said he, 'I am married, as you may guess.'
"'Francis!' called the big lady, in deep tones, 'are you going to stop
in the street talking all day?'
"'I am coming, Phoebe dear,' said Kearny, hastening after her."
Captain Malone ceased again.
"After all, do you believe in luck?" I asked.
"Do you?" answered the captain, with his ambiguous smile shaded by the
brim of his soft straw hat.
VIII
A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
The trouble began in Laredo. It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he
should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans. But the
Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at
twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.
It happened in old Justo Valdos's gambling house. There was a poker
game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often
where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops. There was a
row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the smoke had
cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed an indiscretion,
and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder. For, the unfortunate
combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a high-blooded youth from
the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age and possessed of friends
and champions. His blunder in missing the Kid's right ear only a
sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun did not lessen the
indiscretion of the better marksman.
The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied
with personal admirers and supporters--on account of a rather
umbrageous reputation, even for the border--considered it not
incompatible with his indispensable gameness to perform that judicious
tractional act known as "pulling his freight."
Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him. Three of them overtook
him within a rod of the station. The Kid turned and showed his teeth
in that brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his deeds
of insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without making
it necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.
But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter
that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely chance row,
born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a gentleman to
brook that had passed between the two. The Kid had rather liked the
slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his bullet had cut off in
the first pride of manhood. And now he wanted no more blood. He wanted
to get away and have a good long sleep somewhere in the sun on the
mesquit grass with his handkerchief over his face. Even a Mexican
might have crossed his path in safety while he was in this mood.
The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed
five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was flagged
to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape. There were
telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at electricity
and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.
The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him. But the Kid knew that
he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the punchers
from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than Kentucky
feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them. So, with the
wisdom that has characterized many great farmers, the Kid decided to
pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear between
himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.
Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among the
mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers. Most of
them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads. But
one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the
turf. Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped gently
with the owner's own quirt.
If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over
the Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his
veiled his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute. On the Rio
Grande border if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but
if you take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders him
poor, indeed, and which enriches you not--if you are caught. For the
Kid there was no turning back now.
With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness.
After a five-mile gallop he drew it in to the plainsman's jogging
trot, and rode northeastward toward the Nueces River bottoms. He knew
the country well--its most tortuous and obscure trails through the
great wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches
where one might find safe entertainment. Always he bore to the east;
for the Kid had never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay his
hand upon the mane of the great Gulf, the gamesome colt of the greater
waters.
So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and
looked out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.
Captain Boone, of the schooner /Flyaway/, stood near his skiff, which
one of his crew was guarding in the surf. When ready to sail he had
discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the
parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten. A sailor
had been dispatched for the missing cargo. Meanwhile the captain paced
the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.
A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's edge.
His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted at a
man's experience. His complexion was naturally dark; and the sun and
wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown. His hair was
as black and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet upturned to
the humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and steady blue. He
carried his left arm somewhat away from his body, for pearl-handled
.45s are frowned upon by town marshals, and are a little bulky when
placed in the left armhole of one's vest. He looked beyond Captain
Boone at the gulf with the impersonal and expressionless dignity of a
Chinese emperor.
"Thinkin' of buyin' that'ar gulf, buddy?" asked the captain, made
sarcastic by his narrow escape from a tobaccoless voyage.
"Why, no," said the Kid gently, "I reckon not. I never saw it before.
I was just looking at it. Not thinking of selling it, are you?"
"Not this trip," said the captain. "I'll send it to you C.O.D. when I
get back to Buenas Tierras. Here comes that capstanfooted lubber with
the chewin'. I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."
"Is that your ship out there?" asked the Kid.
"Why, yes," answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner a
ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and Gonzales,
owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone,
skipper."
"Where are you going to?" asked the refugee.
"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America--I forgot what they called the
country the last time I was there. Cargo--lumber, corrugated iron, and
machetes."
"What kind of a country is it?" asked the Kid--"hot or cold?"
"Warmish, buddy," said the captain. "But a regular Paradise Lost for
elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography. Ye're wakened every
morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple tails, and
the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses. And the inhabitants
never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer baskets of the
choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed. And there's no
Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use and no
nothin'. It's a great country for a man to go to sleep with, and wait
for somethin' to turn up. The bananys and oranges and hurricanes and
pineapples that ye eat comes from there."
"That sounds to me!" said the Kid, at last betraying interest.
"What'll the expressage be to take me out there with you?"
"Twenty-four dollars," said Captain Boone; "grub and transportation.
Second cabin. I haven't got a first cabin."
"You've got my company," said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.
With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular
"blowout." The duel in Valdos's had cut short his season of hilarity,
but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight that it had
made necessary.
"All right, buddy," said the captain. "I hope your ma won't blame me
for this little childish escapade of yours." He beckoned to one of the
boat's crew. "Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won't get
your feet wet."
* * * * *
Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet
drunk. It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his desired
state of beatitude--a state wherein he sang ancient maudlin vaudeville
songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana peels--until the
middle of the afternoon. So, when he looked up from his hammock at the
sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing in the door of the
consulate, he was still in a condition to extend the hospitality and
courtesy due from the representative of a great nation. "Don't disturb
yourself," said the Kid, easily. "I just dropped in. They told me it
was customary to light at your camp before starting in to round up the
town. I just came in on a ship from Texas."
"Glad to see you, Mr.--" said the consul.
The Kid laughed.
"Sprague Dalton," he said. "It sounds funny to me to hear it. I'm
called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country."
"I'm Thacker," said the consul. "Take that cane-bottom chair. Now if
you've come to invest, you want somebody to advise you. These dingies
will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don't understand
their ways. Try a cigar?"
"Much obliged," said the Kid, "but if it wasn't for my corn shucks and
the little bag in my back pocket I couldn't live a minute." He took
out his "makings," and rolled a cigarette.
"They speak Spanish here," said the consul. "You'll need an
interpreter. If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted. If
you're buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort,
you'll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you."
"I speak Spanish," said the Kid, "about nine times better than I do
English. Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from. And I'm
not in the market for anything."
"You speak Spanish?" said Thacker thoughtfully. He regarded the kid
absorbedly.
"You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued. "And you're from Texas.
And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one. I wonder if you've
got any nerve."
"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with
unexpected shrewdness.
"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.
"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid. "I got into a little gun
frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man. There wasn't any
Mexican handy. And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just
for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds. Now, do you /sabe/?"
Thacker got up and closed the door.
"Let me see your hand," he said.
He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.
"I can do it," he said excitedly. "Your flesh is as hard as wood and
as healthy as a baby's. It will heal in a week."
"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't
put your money up yet. Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company.
But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."
"It's easier than that," said Thacker. "Just step here, will you?"
Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house with
wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a wooded
hill that sloped gently from the sea.
"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and his
wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your pockets
with money. Old Santos Urique lives there. He owns half the gold-mines
in the country."
"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.
"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you. Twelve years ago
they lost a kid. No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do from
drinking the surface water. He was a wild little devil, even if he
wasn't but eight years old. Everybody knows about it. Some Americans
who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to Senor
Urique, and the boy was a favorite with them. They filled his head
with big stories about the States; and about a month after they left,
the kid disappeared, too. He was supposed to have stowed himself away
among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to New Orleans.
He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought, but they never
heard anything more of him. Old Urique has spent thousands of dollars
having him looked for. The madam was broken up worst of all. The kid
was her life. She wears mourning yet. But they say she believes he'll
come back to her some day, and never gives up hope. On the back of the
boy's left hand was tattooed a flying eagle carrying a spear in his
claws. That's old Urique's coat of arms or something that he inherited
in Spain."
The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.
"That's it," said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his
bottle of smuggled brandy. "You're not so slow. I can do it. What was
I consul at Sandakan for? I never knew till now. In a week I'll have
the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you'd think you
were born with it. I brought a set of the needles and ink just because
I was sure you'd drop in some day, Mr. Dalton."
"Oh, hell," said the Kid. "I thought I told you my name!"
"All right, 'Kid,' then. It won't be that long. How does Senorito
Urique sound, for a change?"
"I never played son any that I remember of," said the Kid. "If I had
any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I gave
my first bleat. What is the plan of your round-up?"
Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the
light.
"We've come now," said he, "to the question of how far you're willing
to go in a little matter of the sort."
"I told you why I came down here," said the Kid simply.
"A good answer," said the consul. "But you won't have to go that far.
Here's the scheme. After I get the trademark tattooed on your hand
I'll notify old Urique. In the meantime I'll furnish you with all of
the family history I can find out, so you can be studying up points to
talk about. You've got the looks, you speak the Spanish, you know the
facts, you can tell about Texas, you've got the tattoo mark. When I
notify them that the rightful heir has returned and is waiting to know
whether he will be received and pardoned, what will happen? They'll
simply rush down here and fall on your neck, and the curtain goes down
for refreshments and a stroll in the lobby."
"I'm waiting," said the Kid. "I haven't had my saddle off in your camp
long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to let it
go at a parental blessing, why, I'm mistaken in my man, that's all."
"Thanks," said the consul. "I haven't met anybody in a long time that
keeps up with an argument as well as you do. The rest of it is simple.
If they take you in only for a while it's long enough. Don't give 'em
time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left shoulder. Old Urique
keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his house all the time in a
little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill
as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go halves and catch a tramp
steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it
can't get along without my services. /Que dice, senor/?"
"It sounds to me!" said the Kid, nodding his head. "I'm out for the
dust."
"All right, then," said Thacker. "You'll have to keep close until we
get the bird on you. You can live in the back room here. I do my own
cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious Government
will allow me."
Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the
design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his
notion. And then Thacker called a /muchacho/, and dispatched this note
to the intended victim:
El Senor Don Santos Urique,
La Casa Blanca,
My Dear Sir:
I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as a
temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras from the
United States some days ago. Without wishing to excite any hopes
that may not be realized, I think there is a possibility of his
being your long-absent son. It might be well for you to call and
see him. If he is, it is my opinion that his intention was to
return to his home, but upon arriving here, his courage failed him
from doubts as to how he would be received. Your true servant,
Thompson Thacker.
Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Senor Urique's
ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the barefooted
coachman beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward horses.
A tall man with a white moustache alighted, and assisted to the ground
a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.
The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best
diplomatic bow. By his desk stood a slender young man with clear-cut,
sun-browned features and smoothly brushed black hair.
Senora Urique threw back her black veil with a quick gesture. She was
past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full,
proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty
peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and
comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep shadows
and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only in some
memory.
She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized
questioning. Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested
upon his left hand. And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to
shake the room, she cried "/Hijo mio/!" and caught the Llano Kid to
her heart.
A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a
message sent by Thacker.
He looked the young Spanish /caballero/. His clothes were imported,
and the wiles of the jewellers had not been spent upon him in vain. A
more than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a shuck
cigarette.
"What's doing?" asked Thacker.
"Nothing much," said the Kid calmly. "I eat my first iguana steak
to-day. They're them big lizards, you /sabe/? I reckon, though, that
frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well. Do you care for
iguanas, Thacker?"
"No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles," said Thacker.
It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his
state of beatitude.
"It's time you were making good, sonny," he went on, with an ugly look
on his reddened face. "You're not playing up to me square. You've been
the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for
every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you
think it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What's the
trouble? Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like
cash in the Casa Blanca? Don't tell me you don't. Everybody knows
where old Urique keeps his stuff. It's U.S. currency, too; he don't
accept anything else. What's doing? Don't say 'nothing' this time."
"Why, sure," said the Kid, admiring his diamond, "there's plenty of
money up there. I'm no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will
undertake for to say that I've seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in
that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe. And he lets
me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I'm the real
Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Thacker, angrily. "Don't you
forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to. If old
Urique knew you were an imposter, what sort of things would happen to
you? Oh, you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid. The laws here
have got mustard spread between 'em. These people here'd stretch you
out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty
sticks at every corner of the plaza. And they'd wear every stick out,
too. What was left of you they'd feed to alligators."
"I might just as well tell you now, pardner," said the Kid, sliding
down low on his steamer chair, "that things are going to stay just as
they are. They're about right now."
"What do you mean?" asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass on
his desk.
"The scheme's off," said the Kid. "And whenever you have the pleasure
of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique. I'll guarantee
I'll answer to it. We'll let Colonel Urique keep his money. His little
tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the First National Bank of
Laredo as far as you and me are concerned."
"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?" said the consul.
"Sure," said the Kid cheerfully. "Throw you down. That's it. And now
I'll tell you why. The first night I was up at the colonel's house
they introduced me to a bedroom. No blankets on the floor--a real
room, with a bed and things in it. And before I was asleep, in comes
this artificial mother and tucks in the covers. 'Panchito,' she says,
'my little lost one, God has brought you back to me. I bless His name
forever.' It was that, or some truck like that, she said. And down
comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on the nose. And all that
stuck by me, Mr. Thacker. And it's been that way ever since. And it's
got to stay that way. Don't you think that it's for what's in it for
me, either, that I say so. If you have any such ideas, keep 'em to
yourself. I haven't had much truck with women in my life, and no
mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that we've got to keep fooled.
Once she stood it; twice she won't. I'm a low-down wolf, and the devil
may have sent me on this trail instead of God, but I'll travel it to
the end. And now, don't forget that I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever
you happen to mention my name."
"I'll expose you to-day, you--you double-dyed traitor," stammered
Thacker.
The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with a
hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner. Then he drew from
under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold muzzle of
it against the consul's mouth.
"I told you why I come here," he said, with his old freezing smile.
"If I leave here, you'll be the reason. Never forget it, pardner. Now,
what is my name?"
"Er--Don Francisco Urique," gasped Thacker.
From outside came a sound of wheels, and the shouting of some one, and
the sharp thwacks of a wooden whipstock upon the backs of fat horses.
The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door. But he turned
again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left
hand with its back toward the consul.
"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to
stand as they are. The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them same
pictures on his left hand."
Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the door.
The coachman ceased his bellowing. Senora Urique, in a voluminous gay
gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward with a happy
look in her great soft eyes.
"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.
"/Madre mia, yo vengo/ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don
Francisco Urique.
IX
THE PASSING OF BLACK EAGLE
For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas
border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve
was this notorious marauder. His personality secured him the title of
"Black Eagle, the Terror of the Border." Many fearsome tales are on
record concerning the doings of him and his followers. Suddenly, in
the space of a single minute, Black Eagle vanished from earth. He was
never heard of again. His own band never even guessed the mystery of
his disappearance. The border ranches and settlements feared he would
come again to ride and ravage the mesquite flats. He never will. It is
to disclose the fate of Black Eagle that this narrative is written.
The initial movement of the story is furnished by the foot of a
bartender in St. Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form of
Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch. Chicken
was a "hobo." He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl, an
inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it without
expense, which accounts for the name given him by his fellow vagrants.
Physicians agree that the partaking of liquids at meal times is not a
healthy practice. The hygiene of the saloon promulgates the opposite.
Chicken had neglected to purchase a drink to accompany his meal. The
bartender rounded the counter, caught the injudicious diner by the ear
with a lemon squeezer, led him to the door and kicked him into the
street.
Thus the mind of Chicken was brought to realize the signs of coming
winter. The night was cold; the stars shone with unkindly brilliancy;
people were hurrying along the streets in two egotistic, jostling
streams. Men had donned their overcoats, and Chicken knew to an exact
percentage the increased difficulty of coaxing dimes from those
buttoned-in vest pockets. The time had come for his annual exodus to
the south.
A little boy, five or six years old, stood looking with covetous eyes
in a confectioner's window. In one small hand he held an empty two-
ounce vial; in the other he grasped tightly something flat and round,
with a shining milled edge. The scene presented a field of operations
commensurate to Chicken's talents and daring. After sweeping the
horizon to make sure that no official tug was cruising near, he
insidiously accosted his prey. The boy, having been early taught by
his household to regard altruistic advances with extreme suspicion,
received the overtures coldly.
Then Chicken knew that he must make one of those desperate, nerve-
shattering plunges into speculation that fortune sometimes requires of
those who would win her favour. Five cents was his capital, and this
he must risk against the chance of winning what lay within the close
grasp of the youngster's chubby hand. It was a fearful lottery,
Chicken knew. But he must accomplish his end by strategy, since he had
a wholesome terror of plundering infants by force. Once, in a park,
driven by hunger, he had committed an onslaught upon a bottle of
peptonized infant's food in the possession of an occupant of a baby
carriage. The outraged infant had so promptly opened its mouth and
pressed the button that communicated with the welkin that help
arrived, and Chicken did his thirty days in a snug coop. Wherefore he
was, as he said, "leary of kids."
Beginning artfully to question the boy concerning his choice of
sweets, he gradually drew out the information he wanted. Mamma said he
was to ask the drug store man for ten cents' worth of paregoric in the
bottle; he was to keep his hand shut tight over the dollar; he must
not stop to talk to anyone in the street; he must ask the drug-store
man to wrap up the change and put it in the pocket of his trousers.
Indeed, they had pockets--two of them! And he liked chocolate creams
best.
Chicken went into the store and turned plunger. He invested his entire
capital in C.A.N.D.Y. stocks, simply to pave the way to the greater
risk following.
He gave the sweets to the youngster, and had the satisfaction of
perceiving that confidence was established. After that it was easy to
obtain leadership of the expedition; to take the investment by the
hand and lead it to a nice drug store he knew of in the same block.
There Chicken, with a parental air, passed over the dollar and called
for the medicine, while the boy crunched his candy, glad to be
relieved of the responsibility of the purchase. And then the
successful investor, searching his pockets, found an overcoat button--
the extent of his winter trousseau--and, wrapping it carefully, placed
the ostensible change in the pocket of confiding juvenility. Setting
the youngster's face homeward, and patting him benevolently on the
back--for Chicken's heart was as soft as those of his feathered
namesakes--the speculator quit the market with a profit of 1,700 per
cent. on his invested capital.
Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the
railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the
cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside him
in his nest was a quart bottle of very poor whisky and a paper bag of
bread and cheese. Mr. Ruggles, in his private car, was on his trip
south for the winter season.
For a week that car was trundled southward, shifted, laid over, and
manipulated after the manner of rolling stock, but Chicken stuck to
it, leaving it only at necessary times to satisfy his hunger and
thirst. He knew it must go down to the cattle country, and San
Antonio, in the heart of it, was his goal. There the air was
salubrious and mild; the people indulgent and long-suffering. The
bartenders there would not kick him. If he should eat too long or too
often at one place they would swear at him as if by rote and without
heat. They swore so drawlingly, and they rarely paused short of their
full vocabulary, which was copious, so that Chicken had often gulped a
good meal during the process of the vituperative prohibition. The
season there was always spring-like; the plazas were pleasant at
night, with music and gaiety; except during the slight and infrequent
cold snaps one could sleep comfortably out of doors in case the
interiors should develop inhospitability.
At Texarkana his car was switched to the I. and G.N. Then still
southward it trailed until, at length, it crawled across the Colorado
bridge at Austin, and lined out, straight as an arrow, for the run to
San Antonio.
When the freight halted at that town Chicken was fast asleep. In ten
minutes the train was off again for Laredo, the end of the road. Those
empty cattle cars were for distribution along the line at points from
which the ranches shipped their stock.
When Chicken awoke his car was stationary. Looking out between the
slats he saw it was a bright, moonlit night. Scrambling out, he saw
his car with three others abandoned on a little siding in a wild and
lonesome country. A cattle pen and chute stood on one side of the
track. The railroad bisected a vast, dim ocean of prairie, in the
midst of which Chicken, with his futile rolling stock, was as
completely stranded as was Robinson with his land-locked boat.
A white post stood near the rails. Going up to it, Chicken read the
letters at the top, S. A. 90. Laredo was nearly as far to the south.
He was almost a hundred miles from any town. Coyotes began to yelp in
the mysterious sea around him. Chicken felt lonesome. He had lived in
Boston without an education, in Chicago without nerve, in Philadelphia
without a sleeping place, in New York without a pull, and in Pittsburg
sober, and yet he had never felt so lonely as now.
Suddenly through the intense silence, he heard the whicker of a horse.
The sound came from the side of the track toward the east, and Chicken
began to explore timorously in that direction. He stepped high along
the mat of curly mesquit grass, for he was afraid of everything there
might be in this wilderness--snakes, rats, brigands, centipedes,
mirages, cowboys, fandangoes, tarantulas, tamales--he had read of them
in the story papers. Rounding a clump of prickly pear that reared high
its fantastic and menacing array of rounded heads, he was struck to
shivering terror by a snort and a thunderous plunge, as the horse,
himself startled, bounded away some fifty yards, and then resumed his
grazing. But here was the one thing in the desert that Chicken did not
fear. He had been reared on a farm; he had handled horses, understood
them, and could ride.
Approaching slowly and speaking soothingly, he followed the animal,
which, after its first flight, seemed gentle enough, and secured the
end of the twenty-foot lariat that dragged after him in the grass. It
required him but a few moments to contrive the rope into an ingenious
nose-bridle, after the style of the Mexican /borsal/. In another he
was upon the horse's back and off at a splendid lope, giving the
animal free choice of direction. "He will take me somewhere," said
Chicken to himself.
It would have been a thing of joy, that untrammelled gallop over the
moonlit prairie, even to Chicken, who loathed exertion, but that his
mood was not for it. His head ached; a growing thirst was upon him;
the "somewhere" whither his lucky mount might convey him was full of
dismal peradventure.
And now he noted that the horse moved to a definite goal. Where the
prairie lay smooth he kept his course straight as an arrow's toward
the east. Deflected by hill or arroyo or impractical spinous brakes,
he quickly flowed again into the current, charted by his unerring
instinct. At last, upon the side of a gentle rise, he suddenly
subsided to a complacent walk. A stone's cast away stood a little mott
of coma trees; beneath it a /jacal/ such as the Mexicans erect--a one-
room house of upright poles daubed with clay and roofed with grass or
tule reeds. An experienced eye would have estimated the spot as the
headquarters of a small sheep ranch. In the moonlight the ground in
the nearby corral showed pulverized to a level smoothness by the hoofs
of the sheep. Everywhere was carelessly distributed the paraphernalia
of the place--ropes, bridles, saddles, sheep pelts, wool sacks, feed
troughs, and camp litter. The barrel of drinking water stood in the
end of the two-horse wagon near the door. The harness was piled,
promiscuous, upon the wagon tongue, soaking up the dew.
Chicken slipped to earth, and tied the horse to a tree. He halloed
again and again, but the house remained quiet. The door stood open,
and he entered cautiously. The light was sufficient for him to see
that no one was at home. The room was that of a bachelor ranchman who
was content with the necessaries of life. Chicken rummaged
intelligently until he found what he had hardly dared hope for--a
small, brown jug that still contained something near a quart of his
desire.
Half an hour later, Chicken--now a gamecock of hostile aspect--emerged
from the house with unsteady steps. He had drawn upon the absent
ranchman's equipment to replace his own ragged attire. He wore a suit
of coarse brown ducking, the coat being a sort of rakish bolero,
jaunty to a degree. Boots he had donned, and spurs that whirred with
every lurching step. Buckled around him was a belt full of cartridges
with a big six-shooter in each of its two holsters.
Prowling about, he found blankets, a saddle and bridle with which he
caparisoned his steed. Again mounting, he rode swiftly away, singing a
loud and tuneless song.
* * * * *
Bud King's band of desperadoes, outlaws and horse and cattle thieves
were in camp at a secluded spot on the bank of the Frio. Their
depredations in the Rio Grande country, while no bolder than usual,
had been advertised more extensively, and Captain Kinney's company of
rangers had been ordered down to look after them. Consequently, Bud
King, who was a wise general, instead of cutting out a hot trail for
the upholders of the law, as his men wished to do, retired for the
time to the prickly fastnesses of the Frio valley.
Though the move was a prudent one, and not incompatible with Bud's
well-known courage, it raised dissension among the members of the
band. In fact, while they thus lay ingloriously /perdu/ in the brush,
the question of Bud King's fitness for the leadership was argued, with
closed doors, as it were, by his followers. Never before had Bud's
skill or efficiency been brought to criticism; but his glory was
wandering (and such is glory's fate) in the light of a newer star. The
sentiment of the band was crystallizing into the opinion that Black
Eagle could lead them with more lustre, profit, and distinction.
This Black Eagle--sub-titled the "Terror of the Border"--had been a
member of the gang about three months.
One night while they were in camp on the San Miguel water-hole a
solitary horseman on the regulation fiery steed dashed in among them.
The newcomer was of a portentous and devastating aspect. A beak-like
nose with a predatory curve projected above a mass of bristling, blue-
black whiskers. His eye was cavernous and fierce. He was spurred,
sombreroed, booted, garnished with revolvers, abundantly drunk, and
very much unafraid. Few people in the country drained by the Rio Bravo
would have cared thus to invade alone the camp of Bud King. But this
fell bird swooped fearlessly upon them and demanded to be fed.
Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy
pass your way you must feed him before you shoot him. You must empty
your larder into him before you empty your lead. So the stranger of
undeclared intentions was set down to a mighty feast.
A talkative bird he was, full of most marvellous loud tales and
exploits, and speaking a language at times obscure but never
colourless. He was a new sensation to Bud King's men, who rarely
encountered new types. They hung, delighted, upon his vainglorious
boasting, the spicy strangeness of his lingo, his contemptuous
familiarity with life, the world, and remote places, and the
extravagant frankness with which he conveyed his sentiments.
To their guest the band of outlaws seemed to be nothing more than a
congregation of country bumpkins whom he was "stringing for grub" just
as he would have told his stories at the back door of a farmhouse to
wheedle a meal. And, indeed, his ignorance was not without excuse, for
the "bad man" of the Southwest does not run to extremes. Those
brigands might justly have been taken for a little party of peaceable
rustics assembled for a fish-fry or pecan gathering. Gentle of manner,
slouching of gait, soft-voiced, unpicturesquely clothed; not one of
them presented to the eye any witness of the desperate records they
had earned.
For two days the glittering stranger within the camp was feasted.
Then, by common consent, he was invited to become a member of the
band. He consented, presenting for enrollment the prodigious name of
"Captain Montressor." This name was immediately overruled by the band,
and "Piggy" substituted as a compliment to the awful and insatiate
appetite of its owner.
Thus did the Texas border receive the most spectacular brigand that
ever rode its chaparral.
For the next three months Bud King conducted business as usual,
escaping encounters with law officers and being content with
reasonable profits. The band ran off some very good companies of
horses from the ranges, and a few bunches of fine cattle which they
got safely across the Rio Grande and disposed of to fair advantage.
Often the band would ride into the little villages and Mexican
settlements, terrorizing the inhabitants and plundering for the
provisions and ammunition they needed. It was during these bloodless
raids that Piggy's ferocious aspect and frightful voice gained him a
renown more widespread and glorious than those other gentle-voiced and
sad-faced desperadoes could have acquired in a lifetime.
The Mexicans, most apt in nomenclature, first called him The Black
Eagle, and used to frighten the babes by threatening them with tales
of the dreadful robber who carried off little children in his great
beak. Soon the name extended, and Black Eagle, the Terror of the
Border, became a recognized factor in exaggerated newspaper reports
and ranch gossip.
The country from the Nueces to the Rio Grande was a wild but fertile
stretch, given over to the sheep and cattle ranches. Range was free;
the inhabitants were few; the law was mainly a letter, and the pirates
met with little opposition until the flaunting and garish Piggy gave
the band undue advertisement. Then McKinney's ranger company headed
for those precincts, and Bud King knew that it meant grim and sudden
war or else temporary retirement. Regarding the risk to be
unnecessary, he drew off his band to an almost inaccessible spot on
the bank of the Frio. Wherefore, as has been said, dissatisfaction
arose among the members, and impeachment proceedings against Bud were
premeditated, with Black Eagle in high favour for the succession. Bud
King was not unaware of the sentiment, and he called aside Cactus
Taylor, his trusted lieutenant, to discuss it.
"If the boys," said Bud, "ain't satisfied with me, I'm willing to step
out. They're buckin' against my way of handlin' 'em. And 'specially
because I concludes to hit the brush while Sam Kinney is ridin' the
line. I saves 'em from bein' shot or sent up on a state contract, and
they up and says I'm no good."
"It ain't so much that," explained Cactus, "as it is they're plum
locoed about Piggy. They want them whiskers and that nose of his to
split the wind at the head of the column."
"There's somethin' mighty seldom about Piggy," declared Bud, musingly.
"I never yet see anything on the hoof that he exactly grades up with.
He can shore holler a plenty and he straddles a hoss from where you
laid the chunk. But he ain't never been smoked yet. You know, Cactus,
we ain't had a row since he's been with us. Piggy's all right for
skearin' the greaser kids and layin' waste a cross-roads store. I
reckon he's the finest canned oyster buccaneer and cheese pirate that
ever was, but how's his appetite for fightin'? I've knowed some
citizens you'd think was starvin' for trouble get a bad case of
dyspepsy the first dose of lead they had to take."
"He talks all spraddled out," said Cactus, "'bout the rookuses he's
been in. He claims to have saw the elephant and hearn the owl."
"I know," replied Bud, using the cowpuncher's expressive phrase of
skepticism, "but it sounds to me!"
This conversation was held one night in camp while the other members
of the band--eight in number--were sprawling around the fire,
lingering over their supper. When Bud and Cactus ceased talking they
heard Piggy's formidable voice holding forth to the others as usual
while he was engaged in checking, though never satisfying, his
ravening appetite.
"Wat's de use," he was saying, "of chasin' little red cowses and
hosses 'round for t'ousands of miles? Dere ain't nuttin' in it.
Gallopin' t'rough dese bushes and briers, and gettin' a t'irst dat a
brewery couldn't put out, and missin' meals! Say! You know what I'd do
if I was main finger of dis bunch? I'd stick up a train. I'd blow de
express car and make hard dollars where you guys get wind. Youse makes
me tired. Dis sook-cow kind of cheap sport gives me a pain."
Later on, a deputation waited on Bud. They stood on one leg, chewed
mesquit twigs and circumlocuted, for they hated to hurt his feelings.
Bud foresaw their business, and made it easy for them. Bigger risks
and larger profits was what they wanted.
The suggestion of Piggy's about holding up a train had fired their
imagination and increased their admiration for the dash and boldness
of the instigator. They were such simple, artless, and custom-bound
bush-rangers that they had never before thought of extending their
habits beyond the running off of live-stock and the shooting of such
of their acquaintances as ventured to interfere.
Bud acted "on the level," agreeing to take a subordinate place in the
gang until Black Eagle should have been given a trial as leader.
After a great deal of consultation, studying of time-tables, and
discussion of the country's topography, the time and place for
carrying out their new enterprise was decided upon. At that time there
was a feedstuff famine in Mexico and a cattle famine in certain parts
of the United States, and there was a brisk international trade. Much
money was being shipped along the railroads that connected the two
republics. It was agreed that the most promising place for the
contemplated robbery was at Espina, a little station on the I. and
G.N., about forty miles north of Laredo. The train stopped there one
minute; the country around was wild and unsettled; the station
consisted of but one house in which the agent lived.
Black Eagle's band set out, riding by night. Arriving in the vicinity
of Espina they rested their horses all day in a thicket a few miles
distant.
The train was due at Espina at 10.30 P.M. They could rob the train and
be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next
morning.
To do Black Eagle justice, he exhibited no signs of flinching from the
responsible honours that had been conferred upon him.
He assigned his men to their respective posts with discretion, and
coached them carefully as to their duties. On each side of the track
four of the band were to lie concealed in the chaparral. Gotch-Ear
Rodgers was to stick up the station agent. Bronco Charlie was to
remain with the horses, holding them in readiness. At a spot where it
was calculated the engine would be when the train stopped, Bud King
was to lie hidden on one side, and Black Eagle himself on the other.
The two would get the drop on the engineer and fireman, force them to
descend and proceed to the rear. Then the express car would be looted,
and the escape made. No one was to move until Black Eagle gave the
signal by firing his revolver. The plan was perfect.
At ten minutes to train time every man was at his post, effectually
concealed by the thick chaparral that grew almost to the rails. The
night was dark and lowering, with a fine drizzle falling from the
flying gulf clouds. Black Eagle crouched behind a bush within five
yards of the track. Two six-shooters were belted around him.
Occasionally he drew a large black bottle from his pocket and raised
it to his mouth.
A star appeared far down the track which soon waxed into the headlight
of the approaching train. It came on with an increasing roar; the
engine bore down upon the ambushing desperadoes with a glare and a
shriek like some avenging monster come to deliver them to justice.
Black Eagle flattened himself upon the ground. The engine, contrary to
their calculations, instead of stopping between him and Bud King's
place of concealment, passed fully forty years farther before it came
to a stand.
The bandit leader rose to his feet and peered through the bush. His
men all lay quiet, awaiting the signal. Immediately opposite Black
Eagle was a thing that drew his attention. Instead of being a regular
passenger train it was a mixed one. Before him stood a box car, the
door of which, by some means, had been left slightly open. Black Eagle
went up to it and pushed the door farther open. An odour came forth--a
damp, rancid, familiar, musty, intoxicating, beloved odour stirring
strongly at old memories of happy days and travels. Black Eagle
sniffed at the witching smell as the returned wanderer smells of the
rose that twines his boyhood's cottage home. Nostalgia seized him. He
put his hand inside. Excelsior--dry, springy, curly, soft, enticing,
covered the floor. Outside the drizzle had turned to a chilling rain.
The train bell clanged. The bandit chief unbuckled his belt and cast
it, with its revolvers, upon the ground. His spurs followed quickly,
and his broad sombrero. Black Eagle was moulting. The train started
with a rattling jerk. The ex-Terror of the Border scrambled into the
box car and closed the door. Stretched luxuriously upon the excelsior,
with the black bottle clasped closely to his breast, his eyes closed,
and a foolish, happy smile upon his terrible features Chicken Ruggles
started upon his return trip.
Undisturbed, with the band of desperate bandits lying motionless,
awaiting the signal to attack, the train pulled out from Espina. As
its speed increased, and the black masses of chaparral went whizzing
past on either side, the express messenger, lighting his pipe, looked
through his window and remarked, feelingly:
"What a jim-dandy place for a hold-up!"
X
A RETRIEVED REFORMATION
A guard came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was
assiduously stitching uppers, and escorted him to the front office.
There the warden handed Jimmy his pardon, which had been signed that
morning by the governor. Jimmy took it in a tired kind of way. He had
served nearly ten months of a four year sentence. He had expected to
stay only about three months, at the longest. When a man with as many
friends on the outside as Jimmy Valentine had is received in the
"stir" it is hardly worth while to cut his hair.
"Now, Valentine," said the warden, "you'll go out in the morning.
Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You're not a bad fellow at
heart. Stop cracking safes, and live straight."
"Me?" said Jimmy, in surprise. "Why, I never cracked a safe in my
life."
"Oh, no," laughed the warden. "Of course not. Let's see, now. How was
it you happened to get sent up on that Springfield job? Was it because
you wouldn't prove an alibi for fear of compromising somebody in
extremely high-toned society? Or was it simply a case of a mean old
jury that had it in for you? It's always one or the other with you
innocent victims."
"Me?" said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. "Why, warden, I never was in
Springfield in my life!"
"Take him back, Cronin!" said the warden, "and fix him up with
outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him come
to the bull-pen. Better think over my advice, Valentine."
At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the
warden's outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting,
ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the
state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.
The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with
which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good
citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook
hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, "Pardoned by
Governor," and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.
Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the
smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There he
tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled
chicken and a bottle of white wine--followed by a cigar a grade better
than the one the warden had given him. From there he proceeded
leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat of a blind
man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three hours set him
down in a little town near the state line. He went to the cafe of one
Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone behind the bar.
"Sorry we couldn't make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy," said Mike. "But we
had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the governor
nearly balked. Feeling all right?"
"Fine," said Jimmy. "Got my key?"
He got his key and went upstairs, unlocking the door of a room at the
rear. Everything was just as he had left it. There on the floor was
still Ben Price's collar-button that had been torn from that eminent
detective's shirt-band when they had overpowered Jimmy to arrest him.
Pulling out from the wall a folding-bed, Jimmy slid back a panel in
the wall and dragged out a dust-covered suit-case. He opened this and
gazed fondly at the finest set of burglar's tools in the East. It was
a complete set, made of specially tempered steel, the latest designs
in drills, punches, braces and bits, jimmies, clamps, and augers, with
two or three novelties, invented by Jimmy himself, in which he took
pride. Over nine hundred dollars they had cost him to have made at
----, a place where they make such things for the profession.
In half an hour Jimmy went down stairs and through the cafe. He was
now dressed in tasteful and well-fitting clothes, and carried his
dusted and cleaned suit-case in his hand.
"Got anything on?" asked Mike Dolan, genially.
"Me?" said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. "I don't understand. I'm
representing the New York Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and
Frazzled Wheat Company."
This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to take
a seltzer-and-milk on the spot. He never touched "hard" drinks.
A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of
safe-burglary done in Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author. A
scant eight hundred dollars was all that was secured. Two weeks after
that a patented, improved, burglar-proof safe in Logansport was opened
like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars, currency;
securities and silver untouched. That began to interest the rogue-
catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in Jefferson City became
active and threw out of its crater an eruption of bank-notes amounting
to five thousand dollars. The losses were now high enough to bring the
matter up into Ben Price's class of work. By comparing notes, a
remarkable similarity in the methods of the burglaries was noticed.
Ben Price investigated the scenes of the robberies, and was heard to
remark:
"That's Dandy Jim Valentine's autograph. He's resumed business. Look
at that combination knob--jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in
wet weather. He's got the only clamps that can do it. And look how
clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill but
one hole. Yes, I guess I want Mr. Valentine. He'll do his bit next
time without any short-time or clemency foolishness."
Ben Price knew Jimmy's habits. He had learned them while working on
the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates,
and a taste for good society--these ways had helped Mr. Valentine to
become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out
that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and
other people with burglar-proof safes felt more at ease.
One afternoon Jimmy Valentine and his suit-case climbed out of the
mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down in
the black-jack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an athletic
young senior just home from college, went down the board side-walk
toward the hotel.
A young lady crossed the street, passed him at the corner and entered
a door over which was the sign, "The Elmore Bank." Jimmy Valentine
looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man. She
lowered her eyes and coloured slightly. Young men of Jimmy's style and
looks were scarce in Elmore.
Jimmy collared a boy that was loafing on the steps of the bank as if
he were one of the stockholders, and began to ask him questions about
the town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady
came out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with the suit-
case, and went her way.
"Isn' that young lady Polly Simpson?" asked Jimmy, with specious
guile.
"Naw," said the boy. "She's Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank.
Why'd you come to Elmore for? Is that a gold watch-chain? I'm going to
get a bulldog. Got any more dimes?"
Jimmy went to the Planters' Hotel, registered as Ralph D. Spencer, and
engaged a room. He leaned on the desk and declared his platform to the
clerk. He said he had come to Elmore to look for a location to go into
business. How was the shoe business, now, in the town? He had thought
of the shoe business. Was there an opening?
The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He,
himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded
youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying
to figure out Jimmy's manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially
gave information.
Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn't
an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general stores
handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped Mr. Spencer
would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a pleasant town to
live in, and the people very sociable.
Mr. Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and look
over the situation. No, the clerk needn't call the boy. He would carry
up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.
Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phoenix that arose from Jimmy Valentine's ashes
--ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of love--
remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and secured
a good run of trade.
Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he
accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and
became more and more captivated by her charms.
At the end of a year the situation of Mr. Ralph Spencer was this: he
had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was flourishing,
and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two weeks. Mr. Adams,
the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of Spencer. Annabel's
pride in him almost equalled her affection. He was as much at home in
the family of Mr. Adams and that of Annabel's married sister as if he
were already a member.
One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he
mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in St. Louis:
Dear Old Pal:
I want you to be at Sullivan's place, in Little Rock, next
Wednesday night, at nine o'clock. I want you to wind up some
little matters for me. And, also, I want to make you a present of
my kit of tools. I know you'll be glad to get them--you couldn't
duplicate the lot for a thousand dollars. Say, Billy, I've quit
the old business--a year ago. I've got a nice store. I'm making an
honest living, and I'm going to marry the finest girl on earth two
weeks from now. It's the only life, Billy--the straight one. I
wouldn't touch a dollar of another man's money now for a million.
After I get married I'm going to sell out and go West, where there
won't be so much danger of having old scores brought up against
me. I tell you, Billy, she's an angel. She believes in me; and I
wouldn't do another crooked thing for the whole world. Be sure to be
at Sully's, for I must see you. I'll bring along the tools with me.
Your old friend,
Jimmy.
On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged
unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town in
his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the
drug-store across the street from Spencer's shoe-store he got a good
look at Ralph D. Spencer.
"Going to marry the banker's daughter are you, Jimmy?" said Ben to
himself, softly. "Well, I don't know!"
The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going to
Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something nice
for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town since he
came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since those last
professional "jobs," and he thought he could safely venture out.
After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together--Mr.
Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel's married sister with her two
little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy
still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his suit-
case. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy's horse and
buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the
railroad station.
All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the banking-room--
Jimmy included, for Mr. Adams's future son-in-law was welcome
anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the good-looking,
agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss Annabel. Jimmy set his
suit-case down. Annabel, whose heart was bubbling with happiness and
lively youth, put on Jimmy's hat, and picked up the suit-case.
"Wouldn't I make a nice drummer?" said Annabel. "My! Ralph, how heavy
it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks."
"Lot of nickel-plated shoe-horns in there," said Jimmy, coolly, "that
I'm going to return. Thought I'd save express charges by taking them
up. I'm getting awfully economical."
The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. Mr. Adams was
very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The
vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened
with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single
handle, and had a time-lock. Mr. Adams beamingly explained its
workings to Mr. Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too
intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were delighted
by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.
While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on his
elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the
teller that he didn't want anything; he was just waiting for a man he
knew.
Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion.
Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit of
play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts and
turned the knob of the combination as she had seen Mr. Adams do.
The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment.
"The door can't be opened," he groaned. "The clock hasn't been wound
nor the combination set."
Agatha's mother screamed again, hysterically.
"Hush!" said Mr. Adams, raising his trembling hand. "All be quite for
a moment. Agatha!" he called as loudly as he could. "Listen to me."
During the following silence they could just hear the faint sound of
the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of terror.
"My precious darling!" wailed the mother. "She will die of fright!
Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can't you men do something?"
"There isn't a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,"
said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. "My God! Spencer, what shall we do?
That child--she can't stand it long in there. There isn't enough air,
and, besides, she'll go into convulsions from fright."
Agatha's mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her
hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy,
her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman
nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.
"Can't you do something, Ralph--/try/, won't you?"
He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his keen
eyes.
"Annabel," he said, "give me that rose you are wearing, will you?"
Hardly believing that she heard him aright, she unpinned the bud from
the bosom of her dress, and placed it in his hand. Jimmy stuffed it
into his vest-pocket, threw off his coat and pulled up his shirt-
sleeves. With that act Ralph D. Spencer passed away and Jimmy
Valentine took his place.
"Get away from the door, all of you," he commanded, shortly.
He set his suit-case on the table, and opened it out flat. From that
time on he seemed to be unconscious of the presence of any one else.
He laid out the shining, queer implements swiftly and orderly,
whistling softly to himself as he always did when at work. In a deep
silence and immovable, the others watched him as if under a spell.
In a minute Jimmy's pet drill was biting smoothly into the steel door.
In ten minutes--breaking his own burglarious record--he threw back the
bolts and opened the door.
Agatha, almost collapsed, but safe, was gathered into her mother's
arms.
Jimmy Valentine put on his coat, and walked outside the railings
towards the front door. As he went he thought he heard a far-away
voice that he once knew call "Ralph!" But he never hesitated.
At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.
"Hello, Ben!" said Jimmy, still with his strange smile. "Got around at
last, have you? Well, let's go. I don't know that it makes much
difference, now."
And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.
"Guess you're mistaken, Mr. Spencer," he said. "Don't believe I
recognize you. Your buggy's waiting for you, ain't it?"
And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.
XI
CHERCHEZ LA FEMME
Robbins, reporter for the /Picayune/, and Dumars, of /L'Abeille/--the
old French newspaper that has buzzed for nearly a century--were good
friends, well proven by years of ups and downs together. They were
seated where they had a habit of meeting--in the little, Creole-
haunted cafe of Madame Tibault, in Dumaine Street. If you know the
place, you will experience a thrill of pleasure in recalling it to
mind. It is small and dark, with six little polished tables, at which
you may sit and drink the best coffee in New Orleans, and concoctions
of absinthe equal to Sazerac's best. Madame Tibault, fat and
indulgent, presides at the desk, and takes your money. Nicolette and
Meme, madame's nieces, in charming bib aprons, bring the desirable
beverages.
Dumars, with true Creole luxury, was sipping his absinthe, with half-
closed eyes, in a whirl of cigarette smoke. Robbins was looking over
the morning /Pic./, detecting, as young reporters will, the gross
blunders in the make-up, and the envious blue-pencilling his own stuff
had received. This item, in the advertising columns, caught his eye,
and with an exclamation of sudden interest he read it aloud to his
friend.
Public Auction.--At three o'clock this afternoon there will be
sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the Little
Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood, in Bonhomme
Street. The sale will dispose of the building, ground, and the
complete furnishings of the house and chapel, without reserve.
This notice stirred the two friends to a reminiscent talk concerning
an episode in their journalistic career that had occurred about two
years before. They recalled the incidents, went over the old theories,
and discussed it anew from the different perspective time had brought.
There were no other customers in the cafe. Madame's fine ear had
caught the line of their talk, and she came over to their table--for
had it not been her lost money--her vanished twenty thousand dollars--
that had set the whole matter going?
The three took up the long-abandoned mystery, threshing over the old,
dry chaff of it. It was in the chapel of this house of the Little
Sisters of Samaria that Robbins and Dumars had stood during that
eager, fruitless news search of theirs, and looked upon the gilded
statue of the Virgin.
"Thass so, boys," said madame, summing up. "Thass ver' wicked man,
M'sieur Morin. Everybody shall be cert' he steal those money I plaze in
his hand for keep safe. Yes. He's boun' spend that money, somehow."
Madame turned a broad and contemplative smile upon Dumars. "I
ond'stand you, M'sieur Dumars, those day you come ask fo' tell
ev'ything I know 'bout M'sieur Morin. Ah! yes, I know most time when
those men lose money you say '/Cherchez la femme/'--there is somewhere
the woman. But not for M'sieur Morin. No, boys. Before he shall die,
he is like one saint. You might's well, M'sieur Dumars, go try find
those money in the statue of Virgin Mary that M'sieur Morin present at
those /p'tite soeurs/, as try find one /femme/."
At Madame Tibault's last words, Robbins started slightly and cast a
keen, sidelong glance at Dumars. The Creole sat, unmoved, dreamily
watching the spirals of his cigarette smoke.
It was then nine o'clock in the morning and, a few minutes later, the
two friends separated, going different ways to their day's duties. And
now follows the brief story of Madame Tibault's vanished thousands:
* * * * *
New Orleans will readily recall to mind the circumstances attendant
upon the death of Mr. Gaspard Morin, in that city. Mr. Morin was an
artistic goldsmith and jeweller in the old French Quarter, and a man
held in the highest esteem. He belonged to one of the oldest French
families, and was of some distinction as an antiquary and historian.
He was a bachelor, about fifty years of age. He lived in quiet
comfort, at one of those rare old hostelries in Royal Street. He was
found in his rooms, one morning, dead from unknown causes.
When his affairs came to be looked into, it was found that he was
practically insolvent, his stock of goods and personal property barely
--but nearly enough to free him from censure--covering his
liabilities. Following came the disclosure that he had been entrusted
with the sum of twenty thousand dollars by a former upper servant in
the Morin family, one Madame Tibault, which she had received as a
legacy from relatives in France.
The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities
failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and
left no trace. Some weeks before his death, Mr. Morin had drawn the
entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed
while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment.
Therefore, Mr. Morin's memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of
dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.
Then it was that Robbins and Dumars, representing their respective
journals, began one of those pertinacious private investigations
which, of late years, the press has adopted as a means to glory and
the satisfaction of public curiosity.
"/Cherchez la femme/," said Dumars.
"That's the ticket!" agreed Robbins. "All roads lead to the eternal
feminine. We will find the woman."
They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of Mr. Morin's hotel, from
the bell-boy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly,
pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed.
They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged
his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds
they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might
be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.
At the end of their labours, Mr. Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not
one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one
deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a
predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his
debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk's; his
habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in
propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.
"What, now?" asked Robbins, fingering his empty notebook.
"/Cherchez la femme/," said Dumars, lighting a cigarette. "Try Lady
Bellairs."
This piece of femininity was the race-track favourite of the season.
Being feminine, she was erratic in her gaits, and there were a few
heavy losers about town who had believed she could be true. The
reporters applied for information.
Mr. Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races.
Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.
"Shall we throw it up?" suggested Robbins, "and let the puzzle
department have a try?"
"/Cherchez la femme/," hummed Dumars, reaching for a match. "Try the
Little Sisters of What-d'-you-call-'em."
It had developed, during the investigation, that Mr. Morin had held
this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed
liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his
favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there
daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of
his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious
matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.
Thither went Robbins and Dumars, and were admitted through the narrow
doorway in the blank stone wall that frowned upon Bonhomme Street. An
old woman was sweeping the chapel. She told them that Sister Felicite,
the head of the order, was then at prayer at the altar in the alcove.
In a few moments she would emerge. Heavy, black curtains screened the
alcove. They waited.
Soon the curtains were disturbed, and Sister Felicite came forth. She
was tall, tragic, bony, and plain-featured, dressed in the black gown
and severe bonnet of the sisterhood.
Robbins, a good rough-and-tumble reporter, but lacking the delicate
touch, began to speak.
They represented the press. The lady had, no doubt, heard of the Morin
affair. It was necessary, in justice to that gentleman's memory, to
probe the mystery of the lost money. It was known that he had come
often to this chapel. Any information, now, concerning Mr. Morin's
habits, tastes, the friends he had, and so on, would be of value in
doing him posthumous justice.
Sister Felicite had heard. Whatever she knew would be willingly told,
but it was very little. Monsieur Morin had been a good friend to the
order, sometimes contributing as much as a hundred dollars. The
sisterhood was an independent one, depending entirely upon private
contributions for the means to carry on its charitable work. Mr. Morin
had presented the chapel with silver candlesticks and an altar cloth.
He came every day to worship in the chapel, sometimes remaining for an
hour. He was a devout Catholic, consecrated to holiness. Yes, and also
in the alcove was a statue of the Virgin that he had himself modeled,
cast, and presented to the order. Oh, it was cruel to cast a doubt
upon so good a man!
Robbins was also profoundly grieved at the imputation. But, until it
was found what Mr. Morin had done with Madame Tibault's money, he
feared the tongue of slander would not be stilled. Sometimes--in fact,
very often--in affairs of the kind there was--er--as the saying goes--
er--a lady in the case. In absolute confidence, now--if--perhaps--
Sister Felicite's large eyes regarded him solemnly.
"There was one woman," she said, slowly, "to whom he bowed--to whom he
gave his heart."
Robbins fumbled rapturously for his pencil.
"Behold the woman!" said Sister Felicite, suddenly, in deep tones.
She reached a long arm and swept aside the curtain of the alcove. In
there was a shrine, lit to a glow of soft colour by the light pouring
through a stained-glass window. Within a deep niche in the bare stone
wall stood an image of the Virgin Mary, the colour of pure gold.
Dumars, a conventional Catholic, succumbed to the dramatic in the act.
He bowed his head for an instant and made the sign of the cross. The
somewhat abashed Robbins, murmuring an indistinct apology, backed
awkwardly away. Sister Felicite drew back the curtain, and the
reporters departed.
On the narrow sidewalk of Bonhomme Street, Robbins turned to Dumars,
with unworthy sarcasm.
"Well, what next? Churchy law fem?"
"Absinthe," said Dumars.
With the history of the missing money thus partially related, some
conjecture may be formed of the sudden idea that Madame Tibault's
words seemed to have suggested to Robbins's brain.
Was it so wild a surmise--that the religious fanatic had offered up
his wealth--or, rather, Madame Tibault's--in the shape of a material
symbol of his consuming devotion? Stranger things have been done in
the name of worship. Was it not possible that the lost thousands were
molded into that lustrous image? That the goldsmith had formed it of
the pure and precious metal, and set it there, through some hope of a
perhaps disordered brain to propitiate the saints and pave the way to
his own selfish glory?
That afternoon, at five minutes to three, Robbins entered the chapel
door of the Little Sisters of Samaria. He saw, in the dim light, a
crowd of perhaps a hundred people gathered to attend the sale. Most of
them were members of various religious orders, priests and churchmen,
come to purchase the paraphernalia of the chapel, lest they fall into
desecrating hands. Others were business men and agents come to bid
upon the realty. A clerical-looking brother had volunteered to wield
the hammer, bringing to the office of auctioneer the anomaly of choice
diction and dignity of manner.
A few of the minor articles were sold, and then two assistants brought
forward the image of the Virgin.
Robbins started the bidding at ten dollars. A stout man, in an
ecclesiastical garb, went to fifteen. A voice from another part of the
crowd raised to twenty. The three bid alternately, raising by bids of
five, until the offer was fifty dollars. Then the stout man dropped
out, and Robbins, as a sort of /coup de main/, went to a hundred.
"One hundred and fifty," said the other voice.
"Two hundred," bid Robbins, boldly.
"Two-fifty," called his competitor, promptly.
The reporter hesitated for the space of a lightning flash, estimating
how much he could borrow from the boys in the office, and screw from
the business manager from his next month's salary.
"Three hundred," he offered.
"Three-fifty," spoke up the other, in a louder voice--a voice that
sent Robbins diving suddenly through the crowd in its direction, to
catch Dumars, its owner, ferociously by the collar.
"You unconverted idiot!" hissed Robbins, close to his ear--"pool!"
"Agreed!" said Dumars, coolly. "I couldn't raise three hundred and
fifty dollars with a search-warrant, but I can stand half. What you
come bidding against me for?"
"I thought I was the only fool in the crowd," explained Robbins.
No one else bidding, the statue was knocked down to the syndicate at
their last offer. Dumars remained with the prize, while Robbins
hurried forth to wring from the resources and credit of both the
price. He soon returned with the money, and the two musketeers loaded
their precious package into a carriage and drove with it to Dumars's
room, in old Chartres Street, nearby. They lugged it, covered with a
cloth, up the stairs, and deposited it on a table. A hundred pounds it
weighed, if an ounce, and at that estimate, according to their
calculation, if their daring theory were correct, it stood there,
worth twenty thousand golden dollars.
Robbins removed the covering, and opened his pocket-knife.
"/Sacre/!" muttered Dumars, shuddering. "It is the Mother of Christ.
What would you do?"
"Shut up, Judas!" said Robbins, coldly. "It's too late for you to be
saved now."
With a firm hand, he chipped a slice from the shoulder of the image.
The cut showed a dull, grayish metal, with a thin coating of gold
leaf.
"Lead!" announced Robbins, hurling his knife to the floor--"gilded!"
"To the devil with it!" said Dumars, forgetting his scruples. "I must
have a drink."
Together they walked moodily to the cafe of Madame Tribault, two
squares away.
It seemed that madame's mind had been stirred that day to fresh
recollections of the past services of the two young men in her behalf.
"You mustn't sit by those table," she interposed, as they were about
to drop into their accustomed seats. "Thass so, boys. But no. I mek
you come at this room, like my /tres bon amis/. Yes. I goin' mek for
you myself one /anisette/ and one /cafe royale/ ver' fine. Ah! I lak
treat my fren' nize. Yes. Plis come in this way."
Madame led them into the little back room, into which she sometimes
invited the especially favoured of her customers. In two comfortable
armchairs, by a big window that opened upon the courtyard, she placed
them, with a low table between. Bustling hospitably about, she began
to prepare the promised refreshments.
It was the first time the reporters had been honoured with admission
to the sacred precincts. The room was in dusky twilight, flecked with
gleams of the polished, fine woods and burnished glass and metal that
the Creoles love. From the little courtyard a tiny fountain sent in an
insinuating sound of trickling waters, to which a banana plant by the
window kept time with its tremulous leaves.
Robbins, an investigator by nature, sent a curious glance roving about
the room. From some barbaric ancestor, madame had inherited a
/penchant/ for the crude in decoration.
The walls were adorned with cheap lithographs--florid libels upon
nature, addressed to the taste of the /bourgeoisie/--birthday cards,
garish newspaper supplements, and specimens of art-advertising
calculated to reduce the optic nerve to stunned submission. A patch of
something unintelligible in the midst of the more candid display
puzzled Robbins, and he rose and took a step nearer, to interrogate it
at closer range. Then he leaned weakly against the wall, and called
out:
"Madame Tibault! Oh, madame! Since when--oh! since when have you been
in the habit of papering your walls with five thousand dollar United
States four per cent. gold bonds? Tell me--is this a Grimm's fairy
tale, or should I consult an oculist?"
At his words, Madame Tibault and Dumars approached.
"H'what you say?" said madame, cheerily. "H'what you say, M'sieur
Robbin? /Bon/! Ah! those nize li'l peezes papier! One tam I think
those w'at you call calendair, wiz ze li'l day of mont' below. But,
no. Those wall is broke in those plaze, M'sieur Robbin', and I plaze
those li'l peezes papier to conceal ze crack. I did think the couleur
harm'nize so well with the wall papier. Where I get them from? Ah,
yes, I remem' ver' well. One day M'sieur Morin, he come at my houze--
thass 'bout one mont' before he shall die--thass 'long 'bout tam he
promise fo' inves' those money fo' me. M'sieur Morin, he leave thoze
li'l peezes papier in those table, and say ver' much 'bout money thass
hard for me to ond'stan. /Mais/ I never see those money again. Thass
ver' wicked man, M'sieur Morin. H'what you call those peezes papier,
M'sieur Robbi'--/bon/!"
Robbins explained.
"There's your twenty thousand dollars, with coupons attached," he
said, running his thumb around the edge of the four bonds. "Better get
an expert to peel them off for you. Mister Morin was right. I'm going
out to get my ears trimmed."
He dragged Dumars by the arm into the outer room. Madame was screaming
for Nicolette and Meme to come and observe the fortune returned to her
by M'sieur Morin, that best of men, that saint in glory.
"Marsy," said Robbins, "I'm going on a jamboree. For three days the
esteemed /Pic./ will have to get along without my valuable services. I
advise you to join me. Now, that green stuff you drink is no good. It
stimulates thought. What we want to do is to forget to remember. I'll
introduce you to the only lady in this case that is guaranteed to
produce the desired results. Her name is Belle of Kentucky, twelve-
year-old Bourbon. In quarts. How does the idea strike you?"
"/Allons/!" said Dumars. "/Cherchez la femme/."
XII
FRIENDS IN SAN ROSARIO
The west-bound train stopped at San Rosario on time at 8.20 A.M. A man
with a thick black-leather wallet under his arm left the train and
walked rapidly up the main street of the town. There were other
passengers who also got off at San Rosario, but they either slouched
limberly over to the railroad eating-house or the Silver Dollar
saloon, or joined the groups of idlers about the station.
Indecision had no part in the movements of the man with the wallet. He
was short in stature, but strongly built, with very light, closely-
trimmed hair, smooth, determined face, and aggressive, gold-rimmed
nose glasses. He was well dressed in the prevailing Eastern style. His
air denoted a quiet but conscious reserve force, if not actual
authority.
After walking a distance of three squares he came to the centre of the
town's business area. Here another street of importance crossed the
main one, forming the hub of San Rosario's life and commerce. Upon one
corner stood the post-office. Upon another Rubensky's Clothing
Emporium. The other two diagonally opposing corners were occupied by
the town's two banks, the First National and the Stockmen's National.
Into the First National Bank of San Rosario the newcomer walked, never
slowing his brisk step until he stood at the cashier's window. The
bank opened for business at nine, and the working force was already
assembled, each member preparing his department for the day's
business. The cashier was examining the mail when he noticed the
stranger standing at his window.
"Bank doesn't open 'til nine," he remarked curtly, but without
feeling. He had had to make that statement so often to early birds
since San Rosario adopted city banking hours.
"I am well aware of that," said the other man, in cool, brittle tones.
"Will you kindly receive my card?"
The cashier drew the small, spotless parallelogram inside the bars of
his wicket, and read:
J.F.C Nettlewick
National Bank Examiner
"Oh--er--will you walk around inside, Mr.--er--Nettlewick. Your first
visit--didn't know your business, of course. Walk right around,
please."
The examiner was quickly inside the sacred precincts of the bank,
where he was ponderously introduced to each employee in turn by Mr.
Edlinger, the cashier--a middle-aged gentleman of deliberation,
discretion, and method.
"I was kind of expecting Sam Turner round again, pretty soon," said
Mr. Edlinger. "Sam's been examining us now, for about four years. I
guess you'll find us all right, though, considering the tightness in
business. Not overly much money on hand, but able to stand the storms,
sir, stand the storms."
"Mr. Turner and I have been ordered by the Comptroller to exchange
districts," said the examiner, in his decisive, formal tones. "He is
covering my old territory in Southern Illinois and Indiana. I will
take the cash first, please."
Perry Dorsey, the teller, was already arranging his cash on the
counter for the examiner's inspection. He knew it was right to a cent,
and he had nothing to fear, but he was nervous and flustered. So was
every man in the bank. There was something so icy and swift, so
impersonal and uncompromising about this man that his very presence
seemed an accusation. He looked to be a man who would never make nor
overlook an error.
Mr. Nettlewick first seized the currency, and with a rapid, almost
juggling motion, counted it by packages. Then he spun the sponge cup
toward him and verified the count by bills. His thin, white fingers
flew like some expert musician's upon the keys of a piano. He dumped
the gold upon the counter with a crash, and the coins whined and sang
as they skimmed across the marble slab from the tips of his nimble
digits. The air was full of fractional currency when he came to the
halves and quarters. He counted the last nickle and dime. He had the
scales brought, and he weighed every sack of silver in the vault. He
questioned Dorsey concerning each of the cash memoranda--certain
checks, charge slips, etc., carried over from the previous day's work
--with unimpeachable courtesy, yet with something so mysteriously
momentous in his frigid manner, that the teller was reduced to pink
cheeks and a stammering tongue.
This newly-imported examiner was so different from Sam Turner. It had
been Sam's way to enter the bank with a shout, pass the cigars, and
tell the latest stories he had picked up on his rounds. His customary
greeting to Dorsey had been, "Hello, Perry! Haven't skipped out with
the boodle yet, I see." Turner's way of counting the cash had been
different, too. He would finger the packages of bills in a tired kind
of way, and then go into the vault and kick over a few sacks of
silver, and the thing was done. Halves and quarters and dimes? Not for
Sam Turner. "No chicken feed for me," he would say when they were set
before him. "I'm not in the agricultural department." But, then,
Turner was a Texan, an old friend of the bank's president, and had
known Dorsey since he was a baby.
While the examiner was counting the cash, Major Thomas B. Kingman--
known to every one as "Major Tom"--the president of the First
National, drove up to the side door with his old dun horse and buggy,
and came inside. He saw the examiner busy with the money, and, going
into the little "pony corral," as he called it, in which his desk was
railed off, he began to look over his letters.
Earlier, a little incident had occurred that even the sharp eyes of
the examiner had failed to notice. When he had begun his work at the
cash counter, Mr. Edlinger had winked significantly at Roy Wilson, the
youthful bank messenger, and nodded his head slightly toward the front
door. Roy understood, got his hat, and walked leisurely out, with his
collector's book under his arm. Once outside, he made a bee-line for
the Stockmen's National. That bank was also getting ready to open. No
customers had, as yet, presented themselves.
"Say, you people!" cried Roy, with the familiarity of youth and long
acquaintance, "you want to get a move on you. There's a new bank
examiner over at the First, and he's a stem-winder. He's counting
nickles on Perry, and he's got the whole outfit bluffed. Mr. Edlinger
gave me the tip to let you know."
Mr. Buckley, president of the Stockmen's National--a stout, elderly
man, looking like a farmer dressed for Sunday--heard Roy from his
private office at the rear and called him.
"Has Major Kingman come down to the bank yet?" he asked of the boy.
"Yes, sir, he was just driving up as I left," said Roy.
"I want you to take him a note. Put it into his own hands as soon as
you get back."
Mr. Buckley sat down and began to write.
Roy returned and handed to Major Kingman the envelope containing the
note. The major read it, folded it, and slipped it into his vest
pocket. He leaned back in his chair for a few moments as if he were
meditating deeply, and then rose and went into the vault. He came out
with the bulky, old-fashioned leather note case stamped on the back in
gilt letters, "Bills Discounted." In this were the notes due the bank
with their attached securities, and the major, in his rough way,
dumped the lot upon his desk and began to sort them over.
By this time Nettlewick had finished his count of the cash. His pencil
fluttered like a swallow over the sheet of paper on which he had set
his figures. He opened his black wallet, which seemed to be also a
kind of secret memorandum book, made a few rapid figures in it,
wheeled and transfixed Dorsey with the glare of his spectacles. That
look seemed to say: "You're safe this time, but--"
"Cash all correct," snapped the examiner. He made a dash for the
individual bookkeeper, and, for a few minutes there was a fluttering
of ledger leaves and a sailing of balance sheets through the air.
"How often do you balance your pass-books?" he demanded, suddenly.
"Er--once a month," faltered the individual bookkeeper, wondering how
many years they would give him.
"All right," said the examiner, turning and charging upon the general
bookkeeper, who had the statements of his foreign banks and their
reconcilement memoranda ready. Everything there was found to be all
right. Then the stub book of the certificates of deposit. Flutter--
flutter--zip--zip--check! All right. List of over-drafts, please.
Thanks. H'm-m. Unsigned bills of the bank, next. All right.
Then came the cashier's turn, and easy-going Mr. Edlinger rubbed his
nose and polished his glasses nervously under the quick fire of
questions concerning the circulation, undivided profits, bank real
estate, and stock ownership.
Presently Nettlewick was aware of a big man towering above him at his
elbow--a man sixty years of age, rugged and hale, with a rough,
grizzled beard, a mass of gray hair, and a pair of penetrating blue
eyes that confronted the formidable glasses of the examiner without a
flicker.
"Er--Major Kingman, our president--er--Mr. Nettlewick," said the
cashier.
Two men of very different types shook hands. One was a finished
product of the world of straight lines, conventional methods, and
formal affairs. The other was something freer, wider, and nearer to
nature. Tom Kingman had not been cut to any pattern. He had been
mule-driver, cowboy, ranger, soldier, sheriff, prospector, and
cattleman. Now, when he was bank president, his old comrades from the
prairies, of the saddle, tent, and trail found no change in him. He
had made his fortune when Texas cattle were at the high tide of value,
and had organized the First National Bank of San Rosario. In spite of
his largeness of heart and sometimes unwise generosity toward his old
friends, the bank had prospered, for Major Tom Kingman knew men as
well as he knew cattle. Of late years the cattle business had known a
depression, and the major's bank was one of the few whose losses had
not been great.
"And now," said the examiner, briskly, pulling out his watch, "the
last thing is the loans. We will take them up now, if you please."
He had gone through the First National at almost record-breaking speed
--but thoroughly, as he did everything. The running order of the bank
was smooth and clean, and that had facilitated his work. There was but
one other bank in the town. He received from the Government a fee of
twenty-five dollars for each bank that he examined. He should be able
to go over those loans and discounts in half an hour. If so, he could
examine the other bank immediately afterward, and catch the 11.45, the
only other train that day in the direction he was working. Otherwise,
he would have to spend the night and Sunday in this uninteresting
Western town. That was why Mr. Nettlewick was rushing matters.
"Come with me, sir," said Major Kingman, in his deep voice, that
united the Southern drawl with the rhythmic twang of the West; "We
will go over them together. Nobody in the bank knows those notes as I
do. Some of 'em are a little wobbly on their legs, and some are
mavericks without extra many brands on their backs, but they'll most
all pay out at the round-up."
The two sat down at the president's desk. First, the examiner went
through the notes at lightning speed, and added up their total,
finding it to agree with the amount of loans carried on the book of
daily balances. Next, he took up the larger loans, inquiring
scrupulously into the condition of their endorsers or securities. The
new examiner's mind seemed to course and turn and make unexpected
dashes hither and thither like a bloodhound seeking a trail. Finally
he pushed aside all the notes except a few, which he arranged in a
neat pile before him, and began a dry, formal little speech.
"I find, sir, the condition of your bank to be very good, considering
the poor crops and the depression in the cattle interests of your
state. The clerical work seems to be done accurately and punctually.
Your past-due paper is moderate in amount, and promises only a small
loss. I would recommend the calling in of your large loans, and the
making of only sixty and ninety day or call loans until general
business revives. And now, there is one thing more, and I will have
finished with the bank. Here are six notes aggregating something like
$40,000. They are secured, according to their faces, by various
stocks, bonds, shares, etc. to the value of $70,000. Those securities
are missing from the notes to which they should be attached. I suppose
you have them in the safe or vault. You will permit me to examine
them."
Major Tom's light-blue eyes turned unflinchingly toward the examiner.
"No, sir," he said, in a low but steady tone; "those securities are
neither in the safe nor in the vault. I have taken them. You may hold
me personally responsible for their absence."
Nettlewick felt a slight thrill. He had not expected this. He had
struck a momentous trail when the hunt was drawing to a close.
"Ah!" said the examiner. He waited a moment, and then continued: "May
I ask you to explain more definitely?"
"The securities were taken by me," repeated the major. "It was not for
my own use, but to save an old friend in trouble. Come in here, sir,
and we'll talk it over."
He led the examiner into the bank's private office at the rear, and
closed the door. There was a desk, and a table, and half-a-dozen
leather-covered chairs. On the wall was the mounted head of a Texas
steer with horns five feet from tip to tip. Opposite hung the major's
old cavalry saber that he had carried at Shiloh and Fort Pillow.
Placing a chair for Nettlewick, the major seated himself by the
window, from which he could see the post-office and the carved
limestone front of the Stockmen's National. He did not speak at once,
and Nettlewick felt, perhaps, that the ice could be broken by
something so near its own temperature as the voice of official
warning.
"Your statement," he began, "since you have failed to modify it,
amounts, as you must know, to a very serious thing. You are aware,
also, of what my duty must compel me to do. I shall have to go before
the United States Commissioner and make--"
"I know, I know," said Major Tom, with a wave of his hand. "You don't
suppose I'd run a bank without being posted on national banking laws
and the revised statutes! Do your duty. I'm not asking any favours.
But, I spoke of my friend. I did want you to hear me tell you about
Bob."
Nettlewick settled himself in his chair. There would be no leaving San
Rosario for him that day. He would have to telegraph to the
Comptroller of the Currency; he would have to swear out a warrant
before the United States Commissioner for the arrest of Major Kingman;
perhaps he would be ordered to close the bank on account of the loss
of the securities. It was not the first crime the examiner had
unearthed. Once or twice the terrible upheaval of human emotions that
his investigations had loosed had almost caused a ripple in his
official calm. He had seen bank men kneel and plead and cry like women
for a chance--an hour's time--the overlooking of a single error. One
cashier had shot himself at his desk before him. None of them had
taken it with the dignity and coolness of this stern old Westerner.
Nettlewick felt that he owed it to him at least to listen if he wished
to talk. With his elbow on the arm of his chair, and his square chin
resting upon the fingers of his right hand, the bank examiner waited
to hear the confession of the president of the First National Bank of
San Rosario.
"When a man's your friend," began Major Tom, somewhat didactically,
"for forty years, and tried by water, fire, earth, and cyclones, when
you can do him a little favour you feel like doing it."
("Embezzle for him $70,000 worth of securities," thought the
examiner.)
"We were cowboys together, Bob and I," continued the major, speaking
slowly, and deliberately, and musingly, as if his thoughts were rather
with the past than the critical present, "and we prospected together
for gold and silver over Arizona, New Mexico, and a good part of
California. We were both in the war of 'sixty-one, but in different
commands. We've fought Indians and horse-thieves side by side; we've
starved for weeks in a cabin in the Arizona mountains, buried twenty
feet deep in snow; we've ridden herd together when the wind blew so
hard the lightning couldn't strike--well, Bob and I have been through
some rough spells since the first time we met in the branding camp of
the old Anchor-Bar ranch. And during that time we've found it
necessary more than once to help each other out of tight places. In
those days it was expected of a man to stick to his friend, and he
didn't ask any credit for it. Probably next day you'd need him to get
at your back and help stand off a band of Apaches, or put a tourniquet
on your leg above a rattlesnake bite and ride for whisky. So, after
all, it was give and take, and if you didn't stand square with your
pardner, why, you might be shy one when you needed him. But Bob was a
man who was willing to go further than that. He never played a limit.
"Twenty years ago I was sheriff of this country, and I made Bob my
chief deputy. That was before the boom in cattle when we both made our
stake. I was sheriff and collector, and it was a big thing for me
then. I was married, and we had a boy and a girl--a four and a six
year old. There was a comfortable house next to the courthouse,
furnished by the county, rent free, and I was saving some money. Bob
did most of the office work. Both of us had seen rough times and
plenty of rustling and danger, and I tell you it was great to hear the
rain and the sleet dashing against the windows of nights, and be warm
and safe and comfortable, and know you could get up in the morning and
be shaved and have folks call you 'mister.' And then, I had the finest
wife and kids that ever struck the range, and my old friend with me
enjoying the first fruits of prosperity and white shirts, and I guess
I was happy. Yes, I was happy about that time."
The major sighed and glanced casually out of the window. The bank
examiner changed his position, and leaned his chin upon his other
hand.
"One winter," continued the major, "the money for the county taxes
came pouring in so fast that I didn't have time to take the stuff to
the bank for a week. I just shoved the checks into a cigar box and the
money into a sack, and locked them in the big safe that belonged to
the sheriff's office.
"I had been overworked that week, and was about sick, anyway. My
nerves were out of order, and my sleep at night didn't seem to rest
me. The doctor had some scientific name for it, and I was taking
medicine. And so, added to the rest, I went to bed at night with that
money on my mind. Not that there was much need of being worried, for
the safe was a good one, and nobody but Bob and I knew the
combination. On Friday night there was about $6,500 in cash in the
bag. On Saturday morning I went to the office as usual. The safe was
locked, and Bob was writing at his desk. I opened the safe, and the
money was gone. I called Bob, and roused everybody in the court-house
to announce the robbery. It struck me that Bob took it pretty quiet,
considering how much it reflected upon both him and me.
"Two days went by and we never got a clew. It couldn't have been
burglars, for the safe had been opened by the combination in the
proper way. People must have begun to talk, for one afternoon in comes
Alice--that's my wife--and the boy and girl, and Alice stamps her
foot, and her eyes flash, and she cries out, 'The lying wretches--Tom,
Tom!' and I catch her in a faint, and bring her 'round little by
little, and she lays her head down and cries and cries for the first
time since she took Tom Kingman's name and fortunes. And Jack and
Zilla--the youngsters--they were always wild as tiger cubs to rush
over Bob and climb all over him whenever they were allowed to come to
the court-house--they stood and kicked their little shoes, and herded
together like scared partridges. They were having their first trip
down into the shadows of life. Bob was working at his desk, and he got
up and went out without a word. The grand jury was in session then,
and the next morning Bob went before them and confessed that he stole
the money. He said he lost it in a poker game. In fifteen minutes they
had found a true bill and sent me the warrant to arrest the man with
whom I'd been closer than a thousand brothers for many a year.
"I did it, and then I said to Bob, pointing: 'There's my house, and
here's my office, and up there's Maine, and out that way is
California, and over there is Florida--and that's your range 'til
court meets. You're in my charge, and I take the responsibility. You
be here when you're wanted.'
"'Thanks, Tom,' he said, kind of carelessly; 'I was sort of hoping you
wouldn't lock me up. Court meets next Monday, so, if you don't object,
I'll just loaf around the office until then. I've got one favour to
ask, if it isn't too much. If you'd let the kids come out in the yard
once in a while and have a romp I'd like it.'
"'Why not?' I answered him. 'They're welcome, and so are you. And come
to my house, the same as ever.' You see, Mr. Nettlewick, you can't
make a friend of a thief, but neither can you make a thief of a
friend, all at once."
The examiner made no answer. At that moment was heard the shrill
whistle of a locomotive pulling into the depot. That was the train on
the little, narrow-gauge road that struck into San Rosario from the
south. The major cocked his ear and listened for a moment, and looked
at his watch. The narrow-gauge was in on time--10.35. The major
continued:
"So Bob hung around the office, reading the papers and smoking. I put
another deputy to work in his place, and after a while, the first
excitement of the case wore off.
"One day when we were alone in the office Bob came over to where I was
sitting. He looked sort of grim and blue--the same look he used to get
when he'd been up watching for Indians all night or herd-riding.
"'Tom,' says he, 'it's harder than standing off redskins; it's harder
than lying in the lava desert forty miles from water; but I'm going to
stick it out to the end. You know that's been my style. But if you'd
tip me the smallest kind of a sign--if you'd just say, "Bob I
understand," why, it would make it lots easier.'
"I was surprised. 'I don't know what you mean, Bob,' I said. 'Of
course, you know that I'd do anything under the sun to help you that I
could. But you've got me guessing.'
"'All right, Tom,' was all he said, and he went back to his newspaper
and lit another cigar.
"It was the night before court met when I found out what he meant. I
went to bed that night with that same old, light-headed, nervous
feeling come back upon me. I dropped off to sleep about midnight. When
I awoke I was standing half dressed in one of the court-house
corridors. Bob was holding one of my arms, our family doctor the
other, and Alice was shaking me and half crying. She had sent for the
doctor without my knowing it, and when he came they had found me out
of bed and missing, and had begun a search.
"'Sleep-walking,' said the doctor.
"All of us went back to the house, and the doctor told us some
remarkable stories about the strange things people had done while in
that condition. I was feeling rather chilly after my trip out, and, as
my wife was out of the room at the time, I pulled open the door of an
old wardrobe that stood in the room and dragged out a big quilt I had
seen in there. With it tumbled out the bag of money for stealing which
Bob was to be tried--and convicted--in the morning.
"'How the jumping rattlesnakes did that get there?' I yelled, and all
hands must have seen how surprised I was. Bob knew in a flash.
"'You darned old snoozer,' he said, with the old-time look on his
face, 'I saw you put it there. I watched you open the safe and take it
out, and I followed you. I looked through the window and saw you hide
it in that wardrobe.'
"'Then, you blankety-blank, flop-eared, sheep-headed coyote, what did
you say you took it, for?'
"'Because,' said Bob, simply, 'I didn't know you were asleep.'
"I saw him glance toward the door of the room where Jack and Zilla
were, and I knew then what it meant to be a man's friend from Bob's
point of view."
Major Tom paused, and again directed his glance out of the window. He
saw some one in the Stockmen's National Bank reach and draw a yellow
shade down the whole length of its plate-glass, big front window,
although the position of the sun did not seem to warrant such a
defensive movement against its rays.
Nettlewick sat up straight in his chair. He had listened patiently,
but without consuming interest, to the major's story. It had impressed
him as irrelevant to the situation, and it could certainly have no
effect upon the consequences. Those Western people, he thought, had an
exaggerated sentimentality. They were not business-like. They needed
to be protected from their friends. Evidently the major had concluded.
And what he had said amounted to nothing.
"May I ask," said the examiner, "if you have anything further to say
that bears directly upon the question of those abstracted securities?"
"Abstracted securities, sir!" Major Tom turned suddenly in his chair,
his blue eyes flashing upon the examiner. "What do you mean, sir?"
He drew from his coat pocket a batch of folded papers held together by
a rubber band, tossed them into Nettlewick's hands, and rose to his
feet.
"You'll find those securities there, sir, every stock, bond, and share
of 'em. I took them from the notes while you were counting the cash.
Examine and compare them for yourself."
The major led the way back into the banking room. The examiner,
astounded, perplexed, nettled, at sea, followed. He felt that he had
been made the victim of something that was not exactly a hoax, but
that left him in the shoes of one who had been played upon, used, and
then discarded, without even an inkling of the game. Perhaps, also,
his official position had been irreverently juggled with. But there
was nothing he could take hold of. An official report of the matter
would be an absurdity. And, somehow, he felt that he would never know
anything more about the matter than he did then.
Frigidly, mechanically, Nettlewick examined the securities, found them
to tally with the notes, gathered his black wallet, and rose to
depart.
"I will say," he protested, turning the indignant glare of his glasses
upon Major Kingman, "that your statements--your misleading statements,
which you have not condescended to explain--do not appear to be quite
the thing, regarded either as business or humour. I do not understand
such motives or actions."
Major Tom looked down at him serenely and not unkindly.
"Son," he said, "there are plenty of things in the chaparral, and on
the prairies, and up the canyons that you don't understand. But I want
to thank you for listening to a garrulous old man's prosy story. We
old Texans love to talk about our adventures and our old comrades, and
the home folks have long ago learned to run when we begin with 'Once
upon a time,' so we have to spin our yarns to the stranger within our
gates."
The major smiled, but the examiner only bowed coldly, and abruptly
quitted the bank. They saw him travel diagonally across the street in
a straight line and enter the Stockmen's National Bank.
Major Tom sat down at his desk, and drew from his vest pocket the note
Roy had given him. He had read it once, but hurriedly, and now, with
something like a twinkle in his eyes, he read it again. These were the
words he read:
Dear Tom:
I hear there's one of Uncle Sam's grayhounds going through you,
and that means that we'll catch him inside of a couple of hours,
maybe. Now, I want you to do something for me. We've got just
$2,200 in the bank, and the law requires that we have $20,000. I
let Ross and Fisher have $18,000 late yesterday afternoon to buy
up that Gibson bunch of cattle. They'll realise $40,000 in less
than thirty days on the transaction, but that won't make my cash
on hand look any prettier to that bank examiner. Now, I can't show
him those notes, for they're just plain notes of hand without any
security in sight, but you know very well that Pink Ross and Jim
Fisher are two of the finest white men God ever made, and they'll
do the square thing. You remember Jim Fisher--he was the one who
shot that faro dealer in El Paso. I wired Sam Bradshaw's bank to
send me $20,000, and it will get in on the narrow-gauge at 10.35.
You can't let a bank examiner in to count $2,200 and close your
doors. Tom, you hold that examiner. Hold him. Hold him if you have
to rope him and sit on his head. Watch our front window after the
narrow-gauge gets in, and when we've got the cash inside we'll
pull down the shade for a signal. Don't turn him loose till then.
I'm counting on you, Tom.
Your Old Pard,
Bob Buckly,
/Prest. Stockmen's National/.
The major began to tear the note into small pieces and throw them into
his waste basket. He gave a satisfied chuckle as he did so.
"Confounded old reckless cowpuncher!" he growled, contentedly, "that
pays him some on account for what he tried to do for me in the
sheriff's office twenty years ago."
XIII
THE FOURTH IN SALVADOR
On a summer's day, while the city was rocking with the din and red
uproar of patriotism, Billy Casparis told me this story.
In his way, Billy is Ulysses, Jr. Like Satan, he comes from going to
and fro upon the earth and walking up and down in it. To-morrow
morning while you are cracking your breakfast egg he may be off with
his little alligator grip to boom a town site in the middle of Lake
Okeechobee or to trade horses with the Patagonians.
We sat at a little, round table, and between us were glasses holding
big lumps of ice, and above us leaned an artificial palm. And because
our scene was set with the properties of the one they recalled to his
mind, Billy was stirred to narrative.
"It reminds me," said he, "of a Fourth I helped to celebrate down in
Salvador. 'Twas while I was running an ice factory down there, after I
unloaded that silver mine I had in Colorado. I had what they called a
'conditional concession.' They made me put up a thousand dollars cash
forfeit that I would make ice continuously for six months. If I did
that I could draw down my ante. If I failed to do so the government
took the pot. So the inspectors kept dropping in, trying to catch me
without the goods.
"One day when the thermometer was at 110, the clock at half-past one,
and the calendar at July third, two of the little, brown, oily nosers
in red trousers slid in to make an inspection. Now, the factory hadn't
turned out a pound of ice in three weeks, for a couple of reasons. The
Salvador heathen wouldn't buy it; they said it make things cold they
put it in. And I couldn't make any more, because I was broke. All I
was holding on for was to get down my thousand so I could leave the
country. The six months would be up on the sixth of July.
"Well, I showed 'em all the ice I had. I raised the lid of a darkish
vat, and there was an elegant 100-pound block of ice, beautiful and
convincing to the eye. I was about to close down the lid again when
one of those brunette sleuths flops down on his red knees and lays a
slanderous and violent hand on my guarantee of good faith. And in two
minutes more they had dragged out on the floor that fine chunk of
molded glass that had cost me fifty dollars to have shipped down from
Frisco.
"'Ice-y?' says the fellow that played me the dishonourable trick;
'verree warm ice-y. Yes. The day is that hot, senor. Yes. Maybeso it
is of desirableness to leave him out to get the cool. Yes.'
"'Yes,' says I, 'yes,' for I knew they had me. 'Touching's believing,
ain't it, boys? Yes. Now there's some might say the seats of your
trousers are sky blue, but 'tis my opinion they are red. Let's apply
the tests of the laying on of hands and feet.' And so I hoisted both
those inspectors out the door on the toe of my shoe, and sat down to
cool off on my block of disreputable glass.
"And, as I live without oats, while I sat there, homesick for money
and without a cent to my ambition, there came on the breeze the most
beautiful smell my nose had entered for a year. God knows where it
came from in that backyard of a country--it was a bouquet of soaked
lemon peel, cigar stumps, and stale beer--exactly the smell of
Goldbrick Charley's place on Fourteenth Street where I used to play
pinochle of afternoons with the third-rate actors. And that smell
drove my troubles through me and clinched 'em at the back. I began to
long for my country and feel sentiments about it; and I said words
about Salvador that you wouldn't think could come legitimate out of an
ice factory.
"And while I was sitting there, down through the blazing sunshine in
his clean, white clothes comes Maximilian Jones, an American
interested in rubber and rosewood.
"'Great carrambos!' says I, when he stepped in, for I was in a bad
temper, 'didn't I have catastrophes enough? I know what you want. You
want to tell me that story again about Johnny Ammiger and the widow on
the train. You've told it nine times already this month.'
"'It must be the heat,' says Jones, stopping in at the door, amazed.
'Poor Billy. He's got bugs. Sitting on ice, and calling his best
friends pseudonyms. Hi!--/muchacho/!' Jones called my force of
employees, who was sitting in the sun, playing with his toes, and told
him to put on his trousers and run for the doctor.
"'Come back,' says I. 'Sit down, Maxy, and forget it. 'Tis not ice you
see, nor a lunatic upon it. 'Tis only an exile full of homesickness
sitting on a lump of glass that's just cost him a thousand dollars.
Now, what was it Johnny said to the widow first? I'd like to hear it
again, Maxy--honest. Don't mind what I said.'
"Maximilian Jones and I sat down and talked. He was about as sick of
the country as I was, for the grafters were squeezing him for half the
profits of his rosewood and rubber. Down in the bottom of a tank of
water I had a dozen bottles of sticky Frisco beer; and I fished these
up, and we fell to talking about home and the flag and Hail Columbia
and home-fried potatoes; and the drivel we contributed would have
sickened any man enjoying those blessings. But at that time we were
out of 'em. You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till
it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory
till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a
foreign town.
"And sitting there me and Maximilian Jones, scratching at our prickly
heat and kicking at the lizards on the floor, became afflicted with a
dose of patriotism and affection for our country. There was me, Billy
Casparis, reduced from a capitalist to a pauper by over-addiction to
my glass (in the lump), declares my troubles off for the present and
myself to be an uncrowned sovereign of the greatest country on earth.
And Maximilian Jones pours out whole drug stores of his wrath on
oligarchies and potentates in red trousers and calico shoes. And we
issues a declaration of interference in which we guarantee that the
fourth day of July shall be celebrated in Salvador with all the kinds
of salutes, explosions, honours of war, oratory, and liquids known to
tradition. Yes, neither me nor Jones breathed with soul so dead. There
shall be rucuses in Salvador, we say, and the monkeys had better climb
the tallest cocoanut trees and the fire department get out its red
sashes and two tin buckets.
"About this time into the factory steps a native man incriminated by
the name of General Mary Esperanza Dingo. He was some pumpkin both in
politics and colour, and the friend of me and Jones. He was full of
politeness and a kind of intelligence, having picked up the latter and
managed to preserve the former during a two years' residence in
Philadelphia studying medicine. For a Salvadorian he was not such a
calamitous little man, though he always would play jack, queen, king,
ace, deuce for a straight.
"General Mary sits with us and has a bottle. While he was in the
States he had acquired a synopsis of the English language and the art
of admiring our institutions. By and by the General gets up and
tiptoes to the doors and windows and other stage entrances, remarking
'Hist!' at each one. They all do that in Salvador before they ask for
a drink of water or the time of day, being conspirators from the
cradle and matinee idols by proclamation.
"'Hist!' says General Dingo again, and then he lays his chest on the
table quite like Gaspard the Miser. 'Good friends, senores, to-morrow
will be the great day of Liberty and Independence. The hearts of
Americans and Salvadorians should beat together. Of your history and
your great Washington I know. Is it not so?'
"Now, me and Jones thought that nice of the General to remember when
the Fourth came. It made us feel good. He must have heard the news
going round in Philadelphia about that disturbance we had with
England.
"'Yes,' says me and Maxy together, 'we knew it. We were talking about
it when you came in. And you can bet your bottom concession that
there'll be fuss and feathers in the air to-morrow. We are few in
numbers, but the welkin may as well reach out to push the button, for
it's got to ring.'
"'I, too, shall assist,' says the General, thumping his collar-bone.
'I, too, am on the side of Liberty. Noble Americans, we will make the
day one to be never forgotten.'
"'For us American whisky,' says Jones--'none of your Scotch smoke or
anisada or Three Star Hennessey to-morrow. We'll borrow the consul's
flag; old man Billfinger shall make orations, and we'll have a
barbecue on the plaza.'
"'Fireworks,' says I, 'will be scarce; but we'll have all the
cartridges in the shops for our guns. I've got two navy sixes I
brought from Denver.'
"'There is one cannon,' said the General; 'one big cannon that will go
"BOOM!" And three hundred men with rifles to shoot.'
"'Oh, say!' says Jones, 'Generalissimo, you're the real silk elastic.
We'll make it a joint international celebration. Please, General, get
a white horse and a blue sash and be grand marshal.'
"'With my sword,' says the General, rolling his eyes. 'I shall ride at
the head of the brave men who gather in the name of Liberty.'
"'And you might,' we suggest 'see the commandante and advise him that
we are going to prize things up a bit. We Americans, you know, are
accustomed to using municipal regulations for gun wadding when we line
up to help the eagle scream. He might suspend the rules for one day.
We don't want to get in the calaboose for spanking his soldiers if
they get in our way, do you see?'
"'Hist!' says General Mary. 'The commandant is with us, heart and
soul. He will aid us. He is one of us.'
"We made all the arrangements that afternoon. There was a buck coon
from Georgia in Salvador who had drifted down there from a busted-up
coloured colony that had been started on some possumless land in
Mexico. As soon as he heard us say 'barbecue' he wept for joy and
groveled on the ground. He dug his trench on the plaza, and got half a
beef on the coals for an all-night roast. Me and Maxy went to see the
rest of the Americans in the town and they all sizzled like a seidlitz
with joy at the idea of solemnizing an old-time Fourth.
"There were six of us all together--Martin Dillard, a coffee planter;
Henry Barnes, a railroad man; old man Billfinger, an educated tintype
taker; me and Jonesy, and Jerry, the boss of the barbecue. There was
also an Englishman in town named Sterrett, who was there to write a
book on Domestic Architecture of the Insect World. We felt some
bashfulness about inviting a Britisher to help crow over his own
country, but we decided to risk it, out of our personal regard for
him.
"We found Sterrett in pajamas working at his manuscript with a bottle
of brandy for a paper weight.
"'Englishman,' says Jones, 'let us interrupt your disquisition on bug
houses for a moment. To-morrow is the Fourth of July. We don't want to
hurt your feelings, but we're going to commemorate the day when we
licked you by a little refined debauchery and nonsense--something that
can be heard above five miles off. If you are broad-gauged enough to
taste whisky at your own wake, we'd be pleased to have you join us.'
"'Do you know,' says Sterrett, setting his glasses on his nose, 'I
like your cheek in asking me if I'll join you; blast me if I don't.
You might have known I would, without asking. Not as a traitor to my
own country, but for the intrinsic joy of a blooming row.'
"On the morning of the Fourth I woke up in that old shanty of an ice
factory feeling sore. I looked around at the wreck of all I possessed,
and my heart was full of bile. From where I lay on my cot I could look
through the window and see the consul's old ragged Stars and Stripes
hanging over his shack. 'You're all kinds of a fool, Billy Casparis,'
I said to myself; 'and of all your crimes against sense it does look
like this idea of celebrating the Fourth should receive the award of
demerit. Your business is busted up, your thousand dollars is gone
into the kitty of this corrupt country on that last bluff you made,
you've got just fifteen Chili dollars left, worth forty-six cents each
at bedtime last night and steadily going down. To-day you'll blow in
your last cent hurrahing for that flag, and to-morrow you'll be living
on bananas from the stalk and screwing your drinks out of your
friends. What's the flag done for you? While you were under it you
worked for what you got. You wore your finger nails down skinning
suckers, and salting mines, and driving bears and alligators off your
town lot additions. How much does patriotism count for on deposit with
the little man with the green eye-shade in the savings-bank adds up
your book? Suppose you were to get pinched over here in this
irreligious country for some little crime or other, and appealed to
your country for protection--what would it do for you? Turn your
appeal over to a committee of one railroad man, an army officer, a
member of each labour union, and a coloured man to investigate whether
any of your ancestors were ever related to a cousin of Mark Hanna, and
then file the papers in the Smithsonian Institution until after the
next election. That's the kind of a sidetrack the Stars and Stripes
would switch you onto.'
"You can see that I was feeling like an indigo plant; but after I
washed my face in some cool water, and got out my navys and
ammunition, and started up to the Saloon of the Immaculate Saints
where we were to meet, I felt better. And when I saw those other
American boys come swaggering into the trysting place--cool, easy,
conspicuous fellows, ready to risk any kind of a one-card draw, or to
fight grizzlies, fire, or extradition, I began to feel glad I was one
of 'em. So, I says to myself again: 'Billy, you've got fifteen dollars
and a country left this morning--blow in the dollars and blow up the
town as an American gentleman should on Independence Day.'
"It is my recollection that we began the day along conventional lines.
The six of us--for Sterrett was along--made progress among the
cantinas, divesting the bars as we went of all strong drink bearing
American labels. We kept informing the atmosphere as to the glory and
preeminence of the United States and its ability to subdue, outjump,
and eradicate the other nations of the earth. And, as the findings of
American labels grew more plentiful, we became more contaminated with
patriotism. Maximilian Jones hopes that our late foe, Mr. Sterrett,
will not take offense at our enthusiasm. He sets down his bottle and
shakes Sterrett's hand. 'As white man to white man,' says he, 'denude
our uproar of the slightest taint of personality. Excuse us for Bunker
Hill, Patrick Henry, and Waldorf Astor, and such grievances as might
lie between us as nations.'
"'Fellow hoodlums,' says Sterrett, 'on behalf of the Queen I ask you
to cheese it. It is an honour to be a guest at disturbing the peace
under the American flag. Let us chant the passionate strains of
"Yankee Doodle" while the senor behind the bar mitigates the occasion
with another round of cochineal and aqua fortis.'
"Old Man Billfinger, being charged with a kind of rhetoric, makes
speeches every time we stop. We explained to such citizens as we
happened to step on that we were celebrating the dawn of our own
private brand of liberty, and to please enter such inhumanities as we
might commit on the list of unavoidable casualties.
"About eleven o'clock our bulletins read: 'A considerable rise in
temperature, accompanied by thirst and other alarming symptoms.' We
hooked arms and stretched our line across the narrow streets, all of
us armed with Winchesters and navys for purposes of noise and without
malice. We stopped on a street corner and fired a dozen or so rounds,
and began a serial assortment of United States whoops and yells,
probably the first ever heard in that town.
"When we made that noise things began to liven up. We heard a
pattering up a side street, and here came General Mary Esperanza Dingo
on a white horse with a couple of hundred brown boys following him in
red undershirts and bare feet, dragging guns ten feet long. Jones and
me had forgot all about General Mary and his promise to help us
celebrate. We fired another salute and gave another yell, while the
General shook hands with us and waved his sword.
"'Oh, General,' shouts Jones, 'this is great. This will be a real
pleasure to the eagle. Get down and have a drink.'
"'Drink?' says the general. 'No. There is no time to drink. /Vive la
Libertad/!'
"'Don't forget /E Pluribus Unum/!' says Henry Barnes.
"'/Viva/ it good and strong,' says I. 'Likewise, /viva/ George
Washington. God save the Union, and,' I says, bowing to Sterrett,
'don't discard the Queen.'
"'Thanks,' says Sterrett. 'The next round's mine. All in to the bar.
Army, too.'
"But we were deprived of Sterrett's treat by a lot of gunshots several
square sway, which General Dingo seemed to think he ought to look
after. He spurred his old white plug up that way, and the soldiers
scuttled along after him.
"'Mary is a real tropical bird,' says Jones. 'He's turned out the
infantry to help us to honour to the Fourth. We'll get that cannon he
spoke of after a while and fire some window-breakers with it. But just
now I want some of that barbecued beef. Let us on to the plaza.'
"There we found the meat gloriously done, and Jerry waiting, anxious.
We sat around on the grass, and got hunks of it on our tin plates.
Maximilian Jones, always made tender-hearted by drink, cried some
because George Washington couldn't be there to enjoy the day. 'There
was a man I love, Billy,' he says, weeping on my shoulder. 'Poor
George! To think he's gone, and missed the fireworks. A little more
salt, please, Jerry.'
"From what we could hear, General Dingo seemed to be kindly
contributing some noise while we feasted. There were guns going off
around town, and pretty soon we heard that cannon go 'BOOM!' just as
he said it would. And then men began to skin along the edge of the
plaza, dodging in among the orange trees and houses. We certainly had
things stirred up in Salvador. We felt proud of the occasion and
grateful to General Dingo. Sterrett was about to take a bite off a
juicy piece of rib when a bullet took it away from his mouth.
"'Somebody's celebrating with ball cartridges,' says he, reaching for
another piece. 'Little over-zealous for a non-resident patriot, isn't
it?'
"'Don't mind it,' I says to him. ''Twas an accident. They happen, you
know, on the Fourth. After one reading of the Declaration of
Independence in New York I've known the S.R.O. sign to be hung out at
all the hospitals and police stations.'
"But then Jerry gives a howl and jumps up with one hand clapped to the
back of his leg where another bullet has acted over-zealous. And then
comes a quantity of yells, and round a corner and across the plaza
gallops General Mary Esperanza Dingo embracing the neck of his horse,
with his men running behind him, mostly dropping their guns by way of
discharging ballast. And chasing 'em all is a company of feverish
little warriors wearing blue trousers and caps.
"'Assistance, amigos,' the General shouts, trying to stop his horse.
'Assistance, in the name of Liberty!'
"'That's the Campania Azul, the President's bodyguard,' says Jones.
'What a shame! They've jumped on poor old Mary just because he was
helping us to celebrate. Come on, boys, it's our Fourth;--do we let
that little squad of A.D.T's break it up?'
"'I vote No,' says Martin Dillard, gathering his Winchester. 'It's the
privilege of an American citizen to drink, drill, dress up, and be
dreadful on the Fourth of July, no matter whose country he's in.'
"'Fellow citizens!' says old man Billfinger, 'In the darkest hour of
Freedom's birth, when our brave forefathers promulgated the principles
of undying liberty, they never expected that a bunch of blue jays like
that should be allowed to bust up an anniversary. Let us preserve and
protect the Constitution.'
"We made it unanimous, and then we gathered our guns and assaulted the
blue troops in force. We fired over their heads, and then charged 'em
with a yell, and they broke and ran. We were irritated at having our
barbecue disturbed, and we chased 'em a quarter of a mile. Some of 'em
we caught and kicked hard. The General rallied his troops and joined
in the chase. Finally they scattered in a thick banana grove, and we
couldn't flush a single one. So we sat down and rested.
"If I were to be put, severe, through the third degree, I wouldn't be
able to tell much about the rest of the day. I mind that we pervaded
the town considerable, calling upon the people to bring out more
armies for us to destroy. I remember seeing a crowd somewhere, and a
tall man that wasn't Billfinger making a Fourth of July speech from a
balcony. And that was about all.
"Somebody must have hauled the old ice factory up to where I was, and
put it around me, for there's where I was when I woke up the next
morning. As soon as I could recollect by name and address I got up and
held an inquest. My last cent was gone. I was all in.
"And then a neat black carriage drives to the door, and out steps
General Dingo and a bay man in a silk hat and tan shoes.
"'Yes,' says I to myself, 'I see it now. You're the Chief de Policeos
and High Lord Chamberlain of the Calaboosum; and you want Billy
Casparis for excess of patriotism and assault with intent. All right.
Might as well be in jail, anyhow.'
"But it seems that General Mary is smiling, and the bay man shakes my
hand, and speaks in the American dialect.
"'General Dingo has informed me, Senor Casparis, of your gallant
service in our cause. I desire to thank you with my person. The
bravery of you and the other senores Americanos turned the struggle
for liberty in our favour. Our party triumphed. The terrible battle
will live forever in history.
"'Battle?' says I; 'what battle?' and I ran my mind back along
history, trying to think.
"'Senor Casparis is modest,' says General Dingo. 'He led his brave
compadres into the thickest of the fearful conflict. Yes. Without
their aid the revolution would have failed.'
"'Why, now,' says I, 'don't tell me there was a revolution yesterday.
That was only a Fourth of--'
"But right there I abbreviated. It seemed to me it might be best.
"'After the terrible struggle,' says the bay man, 'President Bolano
was forced to fly. To-day Caballo is President by proclamation. Ah,
yes. Beneath the new administration I am the head of the Department of
Mercantile Concessions. On my file I find one report, Senor Casparis,
that you have not made ice in accord with your contract.' And here the
bay man smiles at me, 'cute.
"'Oh, well,' says I, 'I guess the report's straight. I know they
caught me. That's all there is to it.'
"'Do not say so,' says the bay man. He pulls off a glove and goes over
and lays his hand on that chunk of glass.
"'Ice,' says he, nodding his head, solemn.
"General Dingo also steps over and feels of it.
"'Ice,' says the General; 'I'll swear to it.'
"'If Senor Casparis,' says the bay man, 'will present himself to the
treasury on the sixth day of this month he will receive back the
thousand dollars he did deposit as a forfeit. Adios, senor.'
"The General and the bay man bowed themselves out, and I bowed as
often as they did.
"And when the carriage rolls away through the sand I bows once more,
deeper than ever, till my hat touches the ground. But this time 'twas
not intended for them. For, over their heads, I saw the old flag
fluttering in the breeze above the consul's roof; and 'twas to it I
made my profoundest salute."
XIV
THE EMANCIPATION OF BILLY
In the old, old, square-porticoed mansion, with the wry window-
shutters and the paint peeling off in discoloured flakes, lived one of
the last war governors.
The South has forgotten the enmity of the great conflict, but it
refuses to abandon its old traditions and idols. In "Governor"
Pemberton, as he was still fondly called, the inhabitants of Elmville
saw the relic of their state's ancient greatness and glory. In his day
he had been a man large in the eye of his country. His state had
pressed upon him every honour within its gift. And now when he was
old, and enjoying a richly merited repose outside the swift current of
public affairs, his townsmen loved to do him reverence for the sake of
the past.
The Governor's decaying "mansion" stood upon the main street of
Elmville within a few feet of its rickety paling-fence. Every morning
the Governor would descend the steps with extreme care and
deliberation--on account of his rheumatism--and then the click of his
gold-headed cane would be heard as he slowly proceeded up the rugged
brick sidewalk. He was now nearly seventy-eight, but he had grown old
gracefully and beautifully. His rather long, smooth hair and flowing,
parted whiskers were snow-white. His full-skirted frock-croak was
always buttoned snugly about his tall, spare figure. He wore a high,
well-kept silk hat--known as a "plug" in Elmville--and nearly always
gloves. His manners were punctilious, and somewhat overcharged with
courtesy.
The Governor's walks up Lee Avenue, the principal street, developed in
their course into a sort of memorial, triumphant procession. Everyone
he met saluted him with profound respect. Many would remove their
hats. Those who were honoured with his personal friendship would pause
to shake hands, and then you would see exemplified the genuine /beau
ideal/ Southern courtesy.
Upon reaching the corner of the second square from the mansion, the
Governor would pause. Another street crossed the venue there, and
traffic, to the extent of several farmers' wagons and a peddler's cart
or two, would rage about the junction. Then the falcon eye of General
Deffenbaugh would perceive the situation, and the General would
hasten, with ponderous solicitude, from his office in the First
National Bank building to the assistance of his old friend.
When the two exchanged greetings the decay of modern manners would
become accusingly apparent. The General's bulky and commanding figure
would bend lissomely at a point where you would have regarded its
ability to do so with incredulity. The Governor would take the
General's arm and be piloted safely between the hay-wagons and the
sprinkling-cart to the other side of the street. Proceeding to the
post-office in the care of his friend, the esteemed statesmen would
there hold an informal levee among the citizens who were come for
their morning mail. Here, gathering two or three prominent in law,
politics, or family, the pageant would make a stately progress along
the Avenue, stopping at the Palace Hotel, where, perhaps, would be
found upon the register the name of some guest deemed worthy of an
introduction to the state's venerable and illustrious son. If any such
were found, an hour or two would be spent in recalling the faded
glories of the Governor's long-vanished administration.
On the return march the General would invariably suggest that, His
Excellency being no doubt fatigued, it would be wise to recuperate for
a few minutes at the Drug Emporium of Mr. Appleby R. Fentress (an
elegant gentleman, sir--one of the Chatham County Fentresses--so many
of our best-blooded families have had to go into trade, sir, since the
war).
Mr. Appleby R. Fentress was a /connoisseur/ in fatigue. Indeed, if he
had not been, his memory alone should have enabled him to prescribe,
for the majestic invasion of his pharmacy was a casual happening that
had surprised him almost daily for years. Mr. Fentress knew the
formula of, and possessed the skill to compound, a certain potion
antagonistic to fatigue, the salient ingredient of which he described
(no doubt in pharmaceutical terms) as "genuine old hand-made Clover
Leaf '59, Private Stock."
Nor did the ceremony of administering the potion ever vary. Mr.
Fentress would first compound two of the celebrated mixtures--one for
the Governor, and the other for the General to "sample." Then the
Governor would make this little speech in his high, piping, quavering
voice:
"No, sir--not one drop until you have prepared one for yourself and
join us, Mr. Fentress. Your father, sir, was one of my most valued
supporters and friends during My Administration, and any mark of
esteem I can confer upon his son is not only a pleasure but a duty,
sir."
Blushing with delight at the royal condescension, the druggist would
obey, and all would drink to the General's toast: "The prosperity of
our grand old state, gentlemen--the memory of her glorious past--the
health of her Favourite Son."
Some one of the Old Guard was always at hand to escort the Governor
home. Sometimes the General's business duties denied him the
privilege, and then Judge Broomfield or Colonel Titus, or one of the
Ashford County Slaughters would be on hand to perform the rite.
Such were the observances attendant upon the Governor's morning stroll
to the post-office. How much more magnificent, impressive, and
spectacular, then, was the scene at public functions when the General
would lead forth the silver-haired relic of former greatness, like
some rare and fragile waxwork figure, and trumpet his pristine
eminence to his fellow citizens!
General Deffenbaugh was the Voice of Elmville. Some said he was
Elmville. At any rate, he had no competitor as the Mouthpiece. He
owned enough stock in the /Daily Banner/ to dictate its utterance,
enough shares in the First National Bank to be the referee of its
loans, and a war record that left him without a rival for first place
at barbecues, school commencements, and Decoration Days. Besides these
acquirements he was possessed with endowments. His personality was
inspiring and triumphant. Undisputed sway had moulded him to the
likeness of a fatted Roman emperor. The tones of his voice were not
otherwise than clarion. To say that the General was public-spirited
would fall short of doing him justice. He had spirit enough for a
dozen publics. And as a sure foundation for it all, he had a heart
that was big and stanch. Yes; General Deffenbaugh was Elmville.
One little incident that usually occurred during the Governor's
morning walk has had its chronicling delayed by more important
matters. The procession was accustomed to halt before a small brick
office on the Avenue, fronted by a short flight of steep wooden steps.
A modest tin sign over the door bore the words: "Wm. B. Pemberton:
Attorney-at-Law."
Looking inside, the General would roar: "Hello, Billy, my boy." The
less distinguished members of the escort would call: "Morning, Billy."
The Governor would pipe: "Good morning, William."
Then a patient-looking little man with hair turning gray along the
temples would come down the steps and shake hands with each one of the
party. All Elmville shook hands when it met.
The formalities concluded, the little man would go back to his table,
heaped with law books and papers, while the procession would proceed.
Billy Pemberton was, as his sign declared, a lawyer by profession. By
occupation and common consent he was the Son of his Father. This was
the shadow in which Billy lived, the pit out of which he had
unsuccessfully striven for years to climb and, he had come to believe,
the grave in which his ambitions were destined to be buried. Filial
respect and duty he paid beyond the habit of most sons, but he aspired
to be known and appraised by his own deeds and worth.
After many years of tireless labour he had become known in certain
quarters far from Elmville as a master of the principles of the law.
Twice he had gone to Washington and argued cases before the highest
tribunal with such acute logic and learning that the silken gowns on
the bench had rustled from the force of it. His income from his
practice had grown until he was able to support his father, in the old
family mansion (which neither of them would have thought of
abandoning, rickety as it was) in the comfort and almost the luxury of
the old extravagant days. Yet, he remained to Elmville as only "Billy"
Pemberton, the son of our distinguished and honoured fellow-townsman,
"ex-Governor Pemberton." Thus was he introduced at public gatherings
where he sometimes spoke, haltingly and prosily, for his talents were
too serious and deep for extempore brilliancy; thus was he presented
to strangers and to the lawyers who made the circuit of the courts;
and so the /Daily Banner/ referred to him in print. To be "the son of"
was his doom. What ever he should accomplish would have to be
sacrificed upon the altar of this magnificent but fatal parental
precedence.
The peculiarity and the saddest thing about Billy's ambition was that
the only world he thirsted to conquer was Elmville. His nature was
diffident and unassuming. National or State honours might have
oppressed him. But, above all things, he hungered for the appreciation
of the friends among whom he had been born and raised. He would not
have plucked one leaf from the garlands that were so lavishly bestowed
upon his father, he merely rebelled against having his own wreathes
woven from those dried and self-same branches. But Elmville "Billied"
and "sonned" him to his concealed but lasting chagrin, until at length
he grew more reserved and formal and studious than ever.
There came a morning when Billy found among his mail a letter from a
very high source, tendering him the appointment to an important
judicial position in the new island possessions of our country. The
honour was a distinguished one, for the entire nation had discussed
the probable recipients of these positions, and had agreed that the
situation demanded only men of the highest character, ripe learning,
and evenly balanced mind.
Billy could not subdue a certain exultation at this token of the
success of his long and arduous labours, but, at the same time, a
whimsical smile lingered around his mouth, for he foresaw in which
column Elmville would place the credit. "We congratulate Governor
Pemberton upon the mark of appreciation conferred upon his son"--
"Elmville rejoices with our honoured citizen, Governor Pemberton, at
his son's success"--"Put her there, Billy!"--"Judge Billy Pemberton,
sir; son of our State's war hero and the people's pride!"--these were
the phrases, printed and oral, conjured up by Billy's prophetic fancy.
Grandson of his State, and stepchild to Elmville--thus had fate fixed
his kinship to the body politic.
Billy lived with his father in the old mansion. The two and an elderly
lady--a distant relative--comprised the family. Perhaps, though, old
Jeff, the Governor's ancient coloured body-servant, should be
included. Without doubt, he could have claimed the honour. There were
other servants, but Thomas Jefferson Pemberton, sah, was a member of
"de fambly."
Jeff was the one Elmvillian who gave to Billy the gold of approval
unmixed with the alloy of paternalism. To him "Mars William" was the
greatest man in Talbot County. Beaten upon though he was by the
shining light that emanates from an ex-war governor, and loyal as he
remained to the old /regime/, his faith and admiration were Billy's.
As valet to a hero, and a member of the family, he may have had
superior opportunities for judging.
Jeff was the first one to whom Bill revealed the news. When he reached
home for supper Jeff took his "plug" hat and smoothed it before
hanging it upon the hall-rack.
"Dar now!" said the old man: "I knowed it was er comin'. I knowed it
was gwine ter happen. Er Judge, you says, Mars William? Dem Yankees
done made you er judge? It's high time, sah, dey was doin' somep'n to
make up for dey rascality endurin' de war. I boun' dey holds a confab
and says: 'Le's make Mars William Pemberton er judge, and dat'll
settle it.' Does you have to go way down to dem Fillypines, Mars
William, or kin you judge 'em from here?"
"I'd have to live there most of the time, of course," said Billy.
"I wonder what de Gubnor gwine say 'bout dat," speculated Jeff.
Billy wondered too.
After supper, when the two sat in the library, according to their
habit, the Governor smoking his clay pipe and Billy his cigar, the son
dutifully confessed to having been tendered the appointment.
For a long time the Governor sat, smoking, without making any comment.
Billy reclined in his favourite rocker, waiting, perhaps still flushed
with satisfaction over the tender that had come to him, unsolicited,
in his dingy little office, above the heads of the intriguing, time-
serving, clamorous multitude.
At last the Governor spoke; and, though his words were seemingly
irrelevant, they were to the point. His voice had a note of martyrdom
running through its senile quaver.
"My rheumatism has been growing steadily worse these past months,
William."
"I am sorry, father," said Billy, gently.
"And I am nearly seventy-eight. I am getting to be an old man. I can
recall the names of but two or three who were in public life during My
Administration. What did you say is the nature of this position that
is offered you, William?"
"A Federal Judgeship, father. I believe it is considered to be a
somewhat flattering tender. It is outside of politics and wire-
pulling, you know."
"No doubt, no doubt. Few of the Pembertons have engaged in
professional life for nearly a century. None of them have ever held
Federal positions. They have been land-holders, slave-owners, and
planters on a large scale. One of two of the Derwents--your mother's
family--were in the law. Have you decided to accept this appointment,
William?"
"I am thinking it over," said Billy, slowly, regarding the ash of his
cigar.
"You have been a good son to me," continued the Governor, stirring his
pipe with the handle of a penholder.
"I've been your son all my life," said Billy, darkly.
"I am often gratified," piped the Governor, betraying a touch of
complacency, "by being congratulated upon having a son with such sound
and sterling qualities. Especially in this, our native town, is your
name linked with mine in the talk of our citizens."
"I never knew anyone to forget the vindculum," murmured Billy,
unintelligibly.
"Whatever prestige," pursued the parent, "I may be possessed of, by
virtue of my name and services to the state, has been yours to draw
upon freely. I have not hesitated to exert it in your behalf whenever
opportunity offered. And you have deserved it, William. You've been
the best of sons. And now this appointment comes to take you away from
me. I have but a few years left to live. I am almost dependent upon
others now, even in walking and dressing. What would I do without you,
my son?"
The Governor's pipe dropped to the floor. A tear trickled from his
eye. His voice had risen, and crumbled to a weakling falsetto, and
ceased. He was an old, old man about to be bereft of a son that
cherished him.
Billy rose, and laid his hand upon the Governor's shoulder.
"Don't worry, father," he said, cheerfully. "I'm not going to accept.
Elmville is good enough for me. I'll write to-night and decline it."
At the next interchange of devoirs between the Governor and General
Deffenbaugh on Lee Avenue, His Excellency, with a comfortable air of
self-satisfaction, spoke of the appointment that had been tendered to
Billy.
The General whistled.
"That's a plum for Billy," he shouted. "Who'd have thought that Billy
--but, confound it, it's been in him all the time. It's a boost for
Elmville. It'll send real estate up. It's an honour to our state. It's
a compliment to the South. We've all been blind about Billy. When does
he leave? We must have a reception. Great Gatlings! that job's eight
thousand a year! There's been a car-load of lead-pencils worn to stubs
figuring on those appointments. Think of it! Our little, wood-sawing,
mealy-mouthed Billy! Angel unawares doesn't begin to express it.
Elmville is disgraced forever until she lines up in a hurry for
ratification and apology."
The venerable Moloch smiled fatuously. He carried the fire with which
to consume all these tributes to Billy, the smoke of which would
ascend as an incense to himself.
"William," said the Governor, with modest pride, "has declined the
appointment. He refuses to leave me in my old age. He is a good son."
The General swung round, and laid a large forefinger upon the bosom of
his friend. Much of the General's success had been due to his
dexterity in establishing swift lines of communication between cause
and effect.
"Governor," he said, with a keen look in his big, ox-like eyes,
"you've been complaining to Billy about your rheumatism."
"My dear General," replied the Governor, stiffly, "my son is forty-
two. He is quite capable of deciding such questions for himself. And
I, as his parent, feel it my duty to state that your remark about--er
--rheumatism is a mighty poor shot from a very small bore, sir, aimed
at a purely personal and private affliction."
"If you will allow me," retorted the General, "you've afflicted the
public with it for some time; and 'twas no small bore, at that."
This first tiff between the two old comrades might have grown into
something more serious, but for the fortunate interruption caused by
the ostentatious approach of Colonel Titus and another one of the
court retinue from the right county, to whom the General confided the
coddled statesman and went his way.
After Billy had so effectually entombed his ambitions, and taken the
veil, so to speak, in a sonnery, he was surprised to discover how much
lighter of heart and happier he felt. He realized what a long,
restless struggle he had maintained, and how much he had lost by
failing to cull the simple but wholesome pleasures by the way. His
heart warmed now to Elmville and the friends who had refused to set
him upon a pedestal. It was better, he began to think, to be "Billy"
and his father's son, and to be hailed familiarly by cheery neighbours
and grown-up playmates, than to be "Your Honour," and sit among
strangers, hearing, maybe, through the arguments of learned counsel,
that old man's feeble voice crying: "What would I do without you, my
son?"
Billy began to surprise his acquaintances by whistling as he walked up
the street; others he astounded by slapping them disrespectfully upon
their backs and raking up old anecdotes he had not had the time to
recollect for years. Though he hammered away at his law cases as
thoroughly as ever, he found more time for relaxation and the company
of his friends. Some of the younger set were actually after him to
join the golf club. A striking proof of his abandonment to obscurity
was his adoption of a most undignified, rakish, little soft hat,
reserving the "plug" for Sundays and state occasions. Billy was
beginning to enjoy Elmville, though that irreverent burgh had
neglected to crown him with bay and myrtle.
All the while uneventful peace pervaded Elmville. The Governor
continued to make his triumphal parades to the post-office with the
General as chief marshal, for the slight squall that had rippled their
friendship had, to all indications, been forgotten by both.
But one day Elmville woke to sudden excitement. The news had come that
a touring presidential party would honour Elmville by a twenty-minute
stop. The Executive had promised a five-minute address from the
balcony of the Palace Hotel.
Elmville rose as one man--that man being, of course, General
Deffenbaugh--to receive becomingly the chieftain of all the clans. The
train with the tiny Stars and Stripes fluttering from the engine pilot
arrived. Elmville had done her best. There were bands, flowers,
carriages, uniforms, banners, and committees without end. High-school
girls in white frocks impeded the steps of the party with roses strewn
nervously in bunches. The chieftain had seen it all before--scores of
times. He could have pictured it exactly in advance, from the Blue-
and-Gray speech down to the smallest rosebud. Yet his kindly smile of
interest greeted Elmville's display as if it had been the only and
original.
In the upper rotunda of the Palace Hotel the town's most illustrious
were assembled for the honour of being presented to the distinguished
guests previous to the expected address. Outside, Elmville's
inglorious but patriotic masses filled the streets.
Here, in the hotel General Deffenbaugh was holding in reserve
Elmville's trump card. Elmville knew; for the trump was a fixed one,
and its lead consecrated by archaic custom.
At the proper moment Governor Pemberton, beautifully venerable,
magnificently antique, tall, paramount, stepped forward upon the arm
of the General.
Elmville watched and harked with bated breath. Never until now--when a
Northern President of the United States should clasp hands with ex-
war-Governor Pemberton would the breach be entirely closed--would the
country be made one and indivisible--no North, not much South, very
little East, and no West to speak of. So Elmville excitedly scraped
kalsomine from the walls of the Palace Hotel with its Sunday best, and
waited for the Voice to speak.
And Billy! We had nearly forgotten Billy. He was cast for Son, and he
waited patiently for his cue. He carried his "plug" in his hand, and
felt serene. He admired his father's striking air and pose. After all,
it was a great deal to be a son of a man who could so gallantly hold
the position of a cynosure for three generations.
General Deffenbaugh cleared his throat. Elmville opened its mouth, and
squirmed. The chieftain with the kindly, fateful face was holding out
his hand, smiling. Ex-war-Governor Pemberton extended his own across
the chasm. But what was this the General was saying?
"Mr. President, allow me to present to you one who has the honour to
be the father of our foremost, distinguished citizen, learned and
honoured jurist, beloved townsman, and model Southern gentleman--the
Honourable William B. Pemberton."
XV
THE ENCHANTED KISS
But a clerk in the Cut-rate Drug Store was Samuel Tansey, yet his
slender frame was a pad that enfolded the passion of Romeo, the gloom
of Laura, the romance of D'Artagnan, and the desperate inspiration of
Melnotte. Pity, then, that he had been denied expression, that he was
doomed to the burden of utter timidity and diffidence, that Fate had
set him tongue-tied and scarlet before the muslin-clad angels whom he
adored and vainly longed to rescue, clasp, comfort, and subdue.
The clock's hands were pointing close upon the hour of ten while
Tansey was playing billiards with a number of his friends. On
alternate evenings he was released from duty at the store after seven
o'clock. Even among his fellow-men Tansey was timorous and
constrained. In his imagination he had done valiant deeds and
performed acts of distinguished gallantry; but in fact he was a sallow
youth of twenty-three, with an over-modest demeanour and scant
vocabulary.
When the clock struck ten, Tansey hastily laid down his cue and struck
sharply upon the show-case with a coin for the attendant to come and
receive the pay for his score.
"What's your hurry, Tansey?" called one. "Got another engagement?"
"Tansey got an engagement!" echoed another. "Not on your life.
Tansey's got to get home at Motten by her Peek's orders."
"It's no such thing," chimed in a pale youth, taking a large cigar
from his mouth; "Tansey's afraid to be late because Miss Katie might
come down stairs to unlock the door, and kiss him in the hall."
This last delicate piece of raillery sent a fiery tingle into Tansey's
blood, for the indictment was true--barring the kiss. That was a thing
to dream of; to wildly hope for; but too remote and sacred a thing to
think of lightly.
Casting a cold and contemptuous look at the speaker--a punishment
commensurate with his own diffident spirit--Tansey left the room,
descending the stairs into the street.
For two years he had silently adored Miss Peek, worshipping her from a
spiritual distance through which her attractions took on stellar
brightness and mystery. Mrs. Peek kept a few choice boarders, among
whom was Tansey. The other young men romped with Katie, chased her
with crickets in their fingers, and "jollied" her with an irreverent
freedom that turned Tansey's heart into cold lead in his bosom. The
signs of his adoration were few--a tremulous "Good morning," stealthy
glances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) a
blushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on some
rare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home.
Kiss him in the hall! Aye, he feared it, but it was an ecstatic fear
such as Elijah must have felt when the chariot lifted him into the
unknown.
But to-night the gibes of his associates had stung him to a feeling of
forward, lawless mutiny; a defiant, challenging, atavistic
recklessness. Spirit of corsair, adventurer, lover, poet, bohemian,
possessed him. The stars he saw above him seemed no more unattainable,
no less high, than the favour of Miss Peek or the fearsome sweetness
of her delectable lips. His fate seemed to him strangely dramatic and
pathetic, and to call for a solace consonant with its extremity. A
saloon was near by, and to this he flitted, calling for absinthe--
beyond doubt the drink most adequate to his mood--the tipple of the
roue, the abandoned, the vainly sighing lover.
Once he drank of it, and again, and then again until he felt a
strange, exalted sense of non-participation in worldly affairs pervade
him. Tansey was no drinker; his consumption of three absinthe
anisettes within almost as few minutes proclaimed his unproficiency in
the art; Tansey was merely flooding with unproven liquor his sorrows;
which record and tradition alleged to be drownable.
Coming out upon the sidewalk, he snapped his fingers defiantly in the
direction of the Peek homestead, turned the other way, and voyaged,
Columbus-like into the wilds of an enchanted street. Nor is the figure
exorbitant, for, beyond his store the foot of Tansey had scarcely been
set for years--store and boarding-house; between these ports he was
charted to run, and contrary currents had rarely deflected his prow.
Tansey aimlessly protracted his walk, and, whether it was his
unfamiliarity with the district, his recent accession of audacious
errantry, or the sophistical whisper of a certain green-eyed fairy, he
came at last to tread a shuttered, blank, and echoing thoroughfare,
dark and unpeopled. And, suddenly, this way came to an end (as many
streets do in the Spanish-built, archaic town of San Antone), butting
its head against an imminent, high, brick wall. No--the street still
lived! To the right and to the left it breathed through slender tubes
of exit--narrow, somnolent ravines, cobble paved and unlighted.
Accommodating a rise in the street to the right was reared a phantom
flight of five luminous steps of limestone, flanked by a wall of the
same height and of the same material.
Upon one of these steps Tansey seated himself and bethought him of his
love, and how she might never know she was his love. And of Mother
Peek, fat, vigilant and kind; not unpleased, Tansey thought, that he
and Katie should play cribbage in the parlour together. For the Cut-
rate had not cut his salary, which, sordidly speaking, ranked him star
boarder at the Peek's. And he thought of Captain Peek, Katie's father,
a man he dreaded and abhorred; a genteel loafer and spendthrift,
battening upon the labour of his women-folk; a very queer fish, and,
according to repute, not of the freshest.
The night had turned chill and foggy. The heart of the town, with its
noises, was left behind. Reflected from the high vapours, its distant
lights were manifest in quivering, cone-shaped streamers, in
questionable blushes of unnamed colours, in unstable, ghostly waves of
far, electric flashes. Now that the darkness was become more friendly,
the wall against which the street splintered developed a stone coping
topped with an armature of spikes. Beyond it loomed what appeared to
be the acute angles of mountain peaks, pierced here and there by
little lambent parallelograms. Considering this vista, Tansey at
length persuaded himself that the seeming mountains were, in fact, the
convent of Santa Mercedes, with which ancient and bulky pile he was
better familiar from different coigns of view. A pleasant note of
singing in his ears reinforced his opinion. High, sweet, holy
carolling, far and harmonious and uprising, as of sanctified nuns at
their responses. At what hour did the Sisters sing? He tried to think
--was it six, eight, twelve? Tansey leaned his back against the
limestone wall and wondered. Strange things followed. The air was full
of white, fluttering pigeons that circled about, and settled upon the
convent wall. The wall blossomed with a quantity of shining green eyes
that blinked and peered at him from the solid masonry. A pink, classic
nymph came from an excavation in the cavernous road and danced,
barefoot and airy, upon the ragged flints. The sky was traversed by a
company of beribboned cats, marching in stupendous, aerial procession.
The noise of singing grew louder; an illumination of unseasonable
fireflies danced past, and strange whispers came out of the dark
without meaning or excuse.
Without amazement Tansey took note of these phenomena. He was on some
new plane of understanding, though his mind seemed to him clear and,
indeed, happily tranquil.
A desire for movement and exploration seized him: he rose and turned
into the black gash of street to his right. For a time the high wall
formed one of its boundaries; but further on, two rows of black-
windowed houses closed it in.
Here was the city's quarter once given over to the Spaniard. Here were
still his forbidding abodes of concrete and adobe, standing cold and
indomitable against the century. From the murky fissure, the eye saw,
flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of his Moorish balconies.
Through stone archways breaths of dead, vault-chilled air coughed upon
him; his feet struck jingling iron rings in staples stone-buried for
half a cycle. Along these paltry avenues had swaggered the arrogant
Don, had caracoled and serenaded and blustered while the tomahawk and
the pioneer's rifle were already uplifted to expel him from a
continent. And Tansey, stumbling through this old-world dust, looked
up, dark as it was, and saw Andalusian beauties glimmering on the
balconies. Some of them were laughing and listening to the goblin
music that still followed; others harked fearfully through the night,
trying to catch the hoof beats of caballeros whose last echoes from
those stones had died away a century ago. Those women were silent, but
Tansey heard the jangle of horseless bridle-bits, the whirr of
riderless rowels, and, now and then, a muttered malediction in a
foreign tongue. But he was not frightened. Shadows, nor shadows of
sounds could daunt him. Afraid? No. Afraid of Mother Peek? Afraid to
face the girl of his heart? Afraid of tipsy Captain Peek? Nay! nor of
these apparitions, nor of that spectral singing that always pursued
him. Singing! He would show them! He lifted up a strong and untuneful
voice:
"When you hear them bells go tingalingling,"
serving notice upon those mysterious agencies that if it should come
to a face-to-face encounter
"There'll be a hot time
In the old town
To-night!"
How long Tansey consumed in treading this haunted byway was not clear
to him, but in time he emerged into a more commodious avenue. When
within a few yards of the corner he perceived, through a window, that
a small confectionary of mean appearance was set in the angle. His
same glance that estimated its meagre equipment, its cheap soda-water
fountain and stock of tobacco and sweets, took cognizance of Captain
Peek within lighting a cigar at a swinging gaslight.
As Tansey rounded the corner Captain Peek came out, and they met /vis-
a-vis/. An exultant joy filled Tansey when he found himself sustaining
the encounter with implicit courage. Peek, indeed! He raised his hand,
and snapped his fingers loudly.
It was Peek himself who quailed guiltily before the valiant mien of
the drug clerk. Sharp surprise and a palpable fear bourgeoned upon the
Captain's face. And, verily, that face was one to rather call up such
expressions on the faces of others. The face of a libidinous heathen
idol, small eyed, with carven folds in the heavy jowls, and a
consuming, pagan license in its expression. In the gutter just beyond
the store Tansey saw a closed carriage standing with its back toward
him and a motionless driver perched in his place.
"Why, it's Tansey!" exclaimed Captain Peek. "How are you, Tansey? H-
have a cigar, Tansey?"
"Why, it's Peek!" cried Tansey, jubilant at his own temerity. "What
deviltry are you up to now, Peek? Back streets and a closed carriage!
Fie! Peek!"
"There's no one in the carriage," said the Captain, smoothly.
"Everybody out of it is in luck," continued Tansey, aggressively. "I'd
love for you to know, Peek, that I'm not stuck on you. You're a
bottle-nosed scoundrel."
"Why, the little rat's drunk!" cried the Captain, joyfully; "only
drunk, and I thought he was on! Go home, Tansey, and quit bothering
grown persons on the street."
But just then a white-clad figure sprang out of the carriage, and a
shrill voice--Katie's voice--sliced the air: "Sam! Sam!--help me,
Sam!"
Tansey sprung toward her, but Captain Peek interposed his bulky form.
Wonder of wonders! the whilom spiritless youth struck out with his
right, and the hulking Captain went over in a swearing heap. Tansey
flew to Katie, and took her in his arms like a conquering knight. She
raised her face, and he kissed her--violets! electricity! caramels!
champagne! Here was the attainment of a dream that brought no
disenchantment.
"Oh, Sam," cried Katie, when she could, "I knew you would come to
rescue me. What do you suppose the mean things were going to do with
me?"
"Have your picture taken," said Tansey, wondering at the foolishness
of his remark.
"No, they were going to eat me. I heard them talking about it."
"Eat you!" said Tansey, after pondering a moment. "That can't be;
there's no plates."
But a sudden noise warned him to turn. Down upon him were bearing the
Captain and a monstrous long-bearded dwarf in a spangled cloak and red
trunk-hose. The dwarf leaped twenty feet and clutched them. The
Captain seized Katie and hurled her, shrieking, back into the
carriage, himself followed, and the vehicle dashed away. The dwarf
lifted Tansey high above his head and ran with him into the store.
Holding him with one hand, he raised the lid of an enormous chest half
filled with cakes of ice, flung Tansey inside, and closed down the
cover.
The force of the fall must have been great, for Tansey lost
consciousness. When his faculties revived his first sensation was one
of severe cold along his back and limbs. Opening his eyes, he found
himself to be seated upon the limestone steps still facing the wall
and convent of Santa Mercedes. His first thought was of the ecstatic
kiss from Katie. The outrageous villainy of Captain Peek, the
unnatural mystery of the situation, his preposterous conflict with the
improbable dwarf--these things roused and angered him, but left no
impression of the unreal.
"I'll go back there to-morrow," he grumbled aloud, "and knock the head
off that comic-opera squab. Running out and picking up perfect
strangers, and shoving them into cold storage!"
But the kiss remained uppermost in his mind. "I might have done that
long ago," he mused. "She liked it, too. She called me 'Sam' four
times. I'll not go up that street again. Too much scrapping. Guess
I'll move down the other way. Wonder what she meant by saying they
were going to eat her!"
Tansey began to feel sleepy, but after a while he decided to move
along again. This time he ventured into the street to his left. It ran
level for a distance, and then dipped gently downward, opening into a
vast, dim, barren space--the old Military Plaza. To his left, some
hundred yards distant, he saw a cluster of flickering lights along the
Plaza's border. He knew the locality at once.
Huddled within narrow confines were the remnants of the once-famous
purveyors of the celebrated Mexican national cookery. A few years
before, their nightly encampments upon the historic Alamo Plaza, in
the heart of the city, had been a carnival, a saturnalia that was
renowned throughout the land. Then the caterers numbered hundreds; the
patrons thousands. Drawn by the coquettish /senoritas/, the music of
the weird Spanish minstrels, and the strange piquant Mexican dishes
served at a hundred competing tables, crowds thronged the Alamo Plaza
all night. Travellers, rancheros, family parties, gay gasconading
rounders, sightseers and prowlers of polyglot, owlish San Antone
mingled there at the centre of the city's fun and frolic. The popping
of corks, pistols, and questions; the glitter of eyes, jewels and
daggers; the ring of laughter and coin--these were the order of the
night.
But now no longer. To some half-dozen tents, fires, and tables had
dwindled the picturesque festival, and these had been relegated to an
ancient disused plaza.
Often had Tansey strolled down to these stands at night to partake of
the delectable /chili-con-carne/, a dish evolved by the genius of
Mexico, composed of delicate meats minced with aromatic herbs and the
poignant /chili colorado/--a compound full of singular flavour and a
fiery zest delightful to the Southron's palate.
The titillating odour of this concoction came now, on the breeze, to
the nostrils of Tansey, awakening in him hunger for it. As he turned
in that direction he saw a carriage dash up to the Mexicans' tents out
of the gloom of the Plaza. Some figures moved back and forward in the
uncertain light of the lanterns, and then the carriage was driven
swiftly away.
Tansey approached, and sat at one of the tables covered with gaudy
oil-cloth. Traffic was dull at the moment. A few half-grown boys
noisily fared at another table; the Mexicans hung listless and
phlegmatic about their wares. And it was still. The night hum of the
city crowded to the wall of dark buildings surrounding the Plaza, and
subsided to an indefinite buzz through which sharply perforated the
crackle of the languid fires and the rattle of fork and spoon. A
sedative wind blew from the southeast. The starless firmament pressed
down upon the earth like a leaden cover.
In all that quiet Tansey turned his head suddenly, and saw, without
disquietude, a troop of spectral horsemen deploy into the Plaza and
charge a luminous line of infantry that advanced to sustain the shock.
He saw the fierce flame of cannon and small arms, but heard no sound.
The careless victuallers lounged vacantly, not deigning to view the
conflict. Tansey mildly wondered to what nations these mute combatants
might belong; turned his back to them and ordered his chili and coffee
from the Mexican woman who advanced to serve him. This woman was old
and careworn; her face was lined like the rind of a cantaloupe. She
fetched the viands from a vessel set by the smouldering fire, and then
retired to a tent, dark within, that stood near by.
Presently Tansey heard a turmoil in the tent; a wailing, broken-
hearted pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then two
figures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the old
woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing
splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something
against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally back
into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. Observing
Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognized
him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor of the stand he was
patronizing.
Torres was a handsome, nearly full-blooded descendant of the Spanish,
seemingly about thirty years of age, and of a haughty, but extremely
courteous demeanour. To-night he was dressed with signal magnificence.
His costume was that of a triumphant /matador/, made of purple velvet
almost hidden by jeweled embroidery. Diamonds of enormous size flashed
upon his garb and his hands. He reached for a chair, and, seating
himself at the opposite side of the table, began to roll a finical
cigarette.
"Ah, Meester Tanse," he said, with a sultry fire in his silky, black
eyes, "I give myself pleasure to see you this evening. Meester Tansee,
you have many times come to eat at my table. I theenk you a safe man--
a verree good friend. How much would it please you to leeve forever?"
"Not come back any more?" inquired Tansey.
"No; not leave--/leeve/; the not-to-die."
"I would call that," said Tansey, "a snap."
Torres leaned his elbows upon the table, swallowed a mouthful of
smoke, and spake--each word being projected in a little puff of gray.
"How old do you theenk I am, Meester Tansee?"
"Oh, twenty-eight or thirty."
"Thees day," said the Mexican, "ees my birthday. I am four hundred and
three years of old to-day."
"Another proof," said Tansey, airily, "of the healthfulness of our
climate."
"Eet is not the air. I am to relate to you a secret of verree fine
value. Listen me, Meester Tansee. At the age of twenty-three I arrive
in Mexico from Spain. When? In the year fifteen hundred nineteen, with
the /soldados/ of Hernando Cortez. I come to thees country seventeen
fifteen. I saw your Alamo reduced. It was like yesterday to me. Three
hundred ninety-six year ago I learn the secret always to leeve. Look
at these clothes I war--at these /diamantes/. Do you theenk I buy them
with the money I make with selling the /chili-con-carne/, Meester
Tansee?"
"I should think not," said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly.
"/Valgame Dios/! but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I make
a deeferent kind, the eating of which makes men to always leeve. What
do you think! One thousand people I supply--/diez pesos/ each one pays
me the month. You see! ten thousand /pesos/ everee month! /Que
diable/! how not I wear the fine /ropa/! You see that old woman try to
hold me back a little while ago? That ees my wife. When I marry her
she is young--seventeen year--/bonita/. Like the rest she ees become
old and--what you say!--tough? I am the same--young all the time.
To-night I resolve to dress myself and find another wife befitting my
age. This old woman try to scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee
--same way they do /entre los Americanos/."
"And this health-food you spoke of?" said Tansey.
"Hear me," said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat upon
it; "eet is the /chili-con-carne/ made not from the beef or the
chicken, but from the flesh of the /senorita/--young and tender. That
ees the secret. Everee month you must eat of it, having care to do so
before the moon is full, and you will not die any times. See how I
trust you, friend Tansee! To-night I have bought one young ladee--
verree pretty--so /fina, gorda, blandita/! To-morrow the /chili/ will
be ready. /Ahora si/! One thousand dollars I pay for thees young
ladee. From an /Americano/ I have bought--a verree tip-top man--/el
Capitan Peek/--/que es, Senor/?"
For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words of
Katie reverberated in his ears: "They're going to eat me, Sam." This,
then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered by her
unnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the Plaza was
Captain Peek's. Where was Katie? Perhaps already--
Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent.
The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. "I have
released her," she cried. "You shall kill no more. They will hang you
--/ingrato/--/encatador/!"
Torres, with a hissing exclamation, sprang at her.
"Ramoncito!" she shrieked; "once you loved me."
The Mexican's arm raised and descended. "You are old," he cried; and
she fell and lay motionless.
Another scream; the flaps of the tent were flung aside, and there
stood Katie, white with fear, her wrists still bound with a cruel
cord.
"Sam!" she cried, "save me again!"
Tansey rounded the table, and flung himself, with superb nerve, upon
the Mexican. Just then a clangour began; the clocks of the city were
tolling the midnight hour. Tansey clutched at Torres, and, for a
moment, felt in his grasp the crunch of velvet and the cold facets of
the glittering gems. The next instant, the bedecked caballero turned
in his hands to a shrunken, leather-visaged, white-bearded, old, old,
screaming mummy, sandalled, ragged, and four hundred and three. The
Mexican woman was crawling to her feet, and laughing. She shook her
brown hand in the face of the whining /viejo/.
"Go, now," she cried, "and seek your senorita. It was I, Ramoncito,
who brought you to this. Within each moon you eat of the life-giving
/chili/. It was I that kept the wrong time for you. You should have
eaten /yesterday/ instead of /to-morrow/. It is too late. Off with
you, /hombre/! You are too old for me!"
"This," decided Tansey, releasing his hold of the gray-beard, "is a
private family matter concerning age, and no business of mine."
With one of the table knives he hastened to saw asunder the fetters of
the fair captive; and then, for the second time that night he kissed
Katie Peek--tasted again the sweetness, the wonder, the thrill of it,
attained once more the maximum of his incessant dreams.
The next instant an icy blade was driven deep between his shoulders;
he felt his blood slowly congeal; heard the senile cackle of the
perennial Spaniard; saw the Plaza rise and reel till the zenith
crashed into the horizon--and knew no more.
When Tansey opened his eyes again he was sitting upon those self-same
steps gazing upon the dark bulk of the sleeping convent. In the middle
of his back was still the acute, chilling pain. How had he been
conveyed back there again? He got stiffly to his feet and stretched
his cramped limbs. Supporting himself against the stonework he
revolved in his mind the extravagant adventures that had befallen him
each time he had strayed from the steps that night. In reviewing them
certain features strained his credulity. Had he really met Captain
Peek or Katie or the unparalleled Mexican in his wanders--had he
really encountered them under commonplace conditions and his over-
stimulated brain had supplied the incongruities? However that might
be, a sudden, elating thought caused him an intense joy. Nearly all of
us have, at some point in our lives--either to excuse our own
stupidity or to placate our consciences--promulgated some theory of
fatalism. We have set up an intelligent Fate that works by codes and
signals. Tansey had done likewise; and now he read, through the
night's incidents, the finger-prints of destiny. Each excursion that
he had made had led to the one paramount finale--to Katie and that
kiss, which survived and grew strong and intoxicating in his memory.
Clearly, Fate was holding up to him the mirror that night, calling him
to observe what awaited him at the end of whichever road he might
take. He immediately turned, and hurried homeward.
* * * * *
Clothed in an elaborate, pale blue wrapper, cut to fit, Miss Katie
Peek reclined in an armchair before a waning fire in her room. Her
little, bare feet were thrust into house-shoes rimmed with swan's
down. By the light of a small lamp she was attacking the society news
of the latest Sunday paper. Some happy substance, seemingly
indestructible, was being rhythmically crushed between her small white
teeth. Miss Katie read of functions and furbelows, but she kept a
vigilant ear for outside sounds and a frequent eye upon the clock over
the mantel. At every footstep upon the asphalt sidewalk her smooth,
round chin would cease for a moment its regular rise and fall, and a
frown of listening would pucker her pretty brows.
At last she heard the latch of the iron gate click. She sprang up,
tripped softly to the mirror, where she made a few of those feminine,
flickering passes at her front hair and throat which are warranted to
hypnotize the approaching guest.
The door-bell rang. Miss Katie, in her haste, turned the blaze of the
lamp lower instead of higher, and hastened noiselessly down stairs
into the hall. She turned the key, the door opened, and Mr. Tansey
side-stepped in.
"Why, the i-de-a!" exclaimed Miss Katie, "is this you, Mr. Tansey?
It's after midnight. Aren't you ashamed to wake me up at such an hour
to let you in? You're just /awful/!"
"I was late," said Tansey, brilliantly.
"I should think you were! Ma was awfully worried about you. When you
weren't in by ten, that hateful Tom McGill said you were out calling
on another--said you were out calling on some young lady. I just
despise Mr. McGill. Well, I'm not going to scold you any more, Mr.
Tansey, if it /is/ a little late--Oh! I turned it the wrong way!"
Miss Katie gave a little scream. Absent-mindedly she had turned the
blaze of the lamp entirely out instead of higher. It was very dark.
Tansey heard a musical, soft giggle, and breathed an entrancing odour
of heliotrope. A groping light hand touched his arm."
"How awkward I was! Can you find your way--Sam?"
"I--I think I have a match, Miss K-Katie."
A scratching sound; a flame; a glow of light held at arm's length by
the recreant follower of Destiny illuminating a tableau which shall
end the ignominious chronicle--a maid with unkissed, curling,
contemptuous lips slowly lifting the lamp chimney and allowing the
wick to ignite; then waving a scornful and abjuring hand toward the
staircase--the unhappy Tansey, erstwhile champion in the prophetic
lists of fortune, ingloriously ascending to his just and certain doom,
while (let us imagine) half within the wings stands the imminent
figure of Fate jerking wildly at the wrong strings, and mixing things
up in her usual able manner.
XVI
A DEPARTMENTAL CASE
In Texas you may travel a thousand miles in a straight line. If your
course is a crooked one, it is likely that both the distance and your
rate of speed may be vastly increased. Clouds there sail serenely
against the wind. The whip-poor-will delivers its disconsolate cry
with the notes exactly reversed from those of his Northern brother.
Given a drought and a subsequently lively rain, and lo! from a glazed
and stony soil will spring in a single night blossomed lilies,
miraculously fair. Tom Green County was once the standard of
measurement. I have forgotten how many New Jerseys and Rhode Islands
it was that could have been stowed away and lost in its chaparral. But
the legislative axe has slashed Tom Green into a handful of counties
hardly larger than European kingdoms. The legislature convenes at
Austin, near the centre of the state; and, while the representative
from the Rio Grande country is gathering his palm-leaf fan and his
linen duster to set out for the capital, the Pan-handle solon winds
his muffler above his well-buttoned overcoat and kicks the snow from
his well-greased boots ready for the same journey. All this merely to
hint that the big ex-republic of the Southwest forms a sizable star on
the flag, and to prepare for the corollary that things sometimes
happen there uncut to pattern and unfettered by metes and bounds.
The Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History of the State of
Texas was an official of no very great or very small importance. The
past tense is used, for now he is Commissioner of Insurance alone.
Statistic and history are no longer proper nouns in the government
records.
In the year 188-, the governor appointed Luke Coonrod Standifer to be
the head of this department. Standifer was then fifty-five years of
age, and a Texan to the core. His father had been one of the state's
earliest settlers and pioneers. Standifer himself had served the
commonwealth as Indian fighter, soldier, ranger, and legislator. Much
learning he did not claim, but he had drank pretty deep of the spring
of experience.
If other grounds were less abundant, Texas should be well up in the
lists of glory as the grateful republic. For both as republic and
state, it has busily heaped honours and solid rewards upon its sons
who rescued it from the wilderness.
Wherefore and therefore, Luke Coonrod Standifer, son of Ezra
Standifer, ex-Terry ranger, simon-pure democrat, and lucky dweller in
an unrepresented portion of the politico-geographical map, was
appointed Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History.
Standifer accepted the honour with some doubt as to the nature of the
office he was to fill and his capacity for filling it--but he
accepted, and by wire. He immediately set out from the little country
town where he maintained (and was scarcely maintained by) a somnolent
and unfruitful office of surveying and map-drawing. Before departing,
he had looked up under the I's, S's and H's in the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica" what information and preparation toward his official
duties that those weighty volumes afforded.
A few weeks of incumbency diminished the new commissioner's awe of the
great and important office he had been called upon to conduct. An
increasing familiarity with its workings soon restored him to his
accustomed placid course of life. In his office was an old, spectacled
clerk--a consecrated, informed, able machine, who held his desk
regardless of changes of administrative heads. Old Kauffman instructed
his new chief gradually in the knowledge of the department without
seeming to do so, and kept the wheels revolving without the slip of a
cog.
Indeed, the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History carried
no great heft of the burden of state. Its main work was the regulating
of the business done in the state by foreign insurance companies, and
the letter of the law was its guide. As for statistics--well, you
wrote letters to county officers, and scissored other people's
reports, and each year you got out a report of your own about the corn
crop and the cotton crop and pecans and pigs and black and white
population, and a great many columns of figures headed "bushels" and
"acres" and "square miles," etc.--and there you were. History? The
branch was purely a receptive one. Old ladies interested in the
science bothered you some with long reports of proceedings of their
historical societies. Some twenty or thirty people would write you
each year that they had secured Sam Houston's pocket-knife or Santa
Ana's whisky-flask or Davy Crockett's rifle--all absolutely
authenticated--and demanded legislative appropriation to purchase.
Most of the work in the history branch went into pigeon-holes.
One sizzling August afternoon the commissioner reclined in his office-
chair, with his feet upon the long, official table covered with green
billiard cloth. The commissioner was smoking a cigar, and dreamily
regarding the quivering landscape framed by the window that looked
upon the treeless capitol grounds. Perhaps he was thinking of the
rough and ready life he had led, of the old days of breathless
adventure and movement, of the comrades who now trod other paths or
had ceased to tread any, of the changes civilization and peace had
brought, and, maybe, complacently, of the snug and comfortable camp
pitched for him under the dome of the capitol of the state that had
not forgotten his services.
The business of the department was lax. Insurance was easy. Statistics
were not in demand. History was dead. Old Kauffman, the efficient and
perpetual clerk, had requested an infrequent half-holiday, incited to
the unusual dissipation by the joy of having successfully twisted the
tail of a Connecticut insurance company that was trying to do business
contrary to the edicts of the great Lone Star State.
The office was very still. A few subdued noises trickled in through
the open door from the other departments--a dull tinkling crash from
the treasurer's office adjoining, as a clerk tossed a bag of silver to
the floor of the vault--the vague, intermittent clatter of a dilatory
typewriter--a dull tapping from the state geologist's quarters as if
some woodpecker had flown in to bore for his prey in the cool of the
massive building--and then a faint rustle and the light shuffling of
the well-worn shoes along the hall, the sounds ceasing at the door
toward which the commissioner's lethargic back was presented.
Following this, the sound of a gentle voice speaking words
unintelligible to the commissioner's somewhat dormant comprehension,
but giving evidence of bewilderment and hesitation.
The voice was feminine; the commissioner was of the race of cavaliers
who make salaam before the trail of a skirt without considering the
quality of its cloth.
There stood in the door a faded woman, one of the numerous sisterhood
of the unhappy. She was dressed all in black--poverty's perpetual
mourning for lost joys. Her face had the contours of twenty and the
lines of forty. She may have lived that intervening score of years in
a twelve-month. There was about her yet an aurum of indignant,
unappeased, protesting youth that shone faintly through the premature
veil of unearned decline.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said the commissioner, gaining his feet to
the accompaniment of a great creaking and sliding of his chair.
"Are you the governor, sir?" asked the vision of melancholy.
The commissioner hesitated at the end of his best bow, with his hand
in the bosom of his double-breasted "frock." Truth at last conquered.
"Well, no, ma'am. I am not the governor. I have the honour to be
Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History. Is there anything,
ma'am, I can do for you? Won't you have a chair, ma'am?"
The lady subsided into the chair handed her, probably from purely
physical reasons. She wielded a cheap fan--last token of gentility to
be abandoned. Her clothing seemed to indicate a reduction almost to
extreme poverty. She looked at the man who was not the governor, and
saw kindliness and simplicity and a rugged, unadorned courtliness
emanating from a countenance tanned and toughened by forty years of
outdoor life. Also, she saw that his eyes were clear and strong and
blue. Just so they had been when he used them to skim the horizon for
raiding Kiowas and Sioux. His mouth was as set and firm as it had been
on that day when he bearded the old Lion Sam Houston himself, and
defied him during that season when secession was the theme. Now, in
bearing and dress, Luke Coonrod Sandifer endeavoured to do credit to
the important arts and sciences of Insurance, Statistics, and History.
He had abandoned the careless dress of his country home. Now, his
broad-brimmed black slouch hat, and his long-tailed "frock" made him
not the least imposing of the official family, even if his office was
reckoned to stand at the tail of the list.
"You wanted to see the governor, ma'am?" asked the commissioner, with
a deferential manner he always used toward the fair sex.
"I hardly know," said the lady, hesitatingly. "I suppose so." And
then, suddenly drawn by the sympathetic look of the other, she poured
forth the story of her need.
It was a story so common that the public has come to look at its
monotony instead of its pity. The old tale of an unhappy married life
--made so by a brutal, conscienceless husband, a robber, a
spendthrift, a moral coward and a bully, who failed to provide even
the means of the barest existence. Yes, he had come down in the scale
so low as to strike her. It happened only the day before--there was
the bruise on one temple--she had offended his highness by asking for
a little money to live on. And yet she must needs, woman-like, append
a plea for her tyrant--he was drinking; he had rarely abused her thus
when sober.
"I thought," mourned this pale sister of sorrow, "that maybe the state
might be willing to give me some relief. I've heard of such things
being done for the families of old settlers. I've heard tell that the
state used to give land to the men who fought for it against Mexico,
and settled up the country, and helped drive out the Indians. My
father did all of that, and he never received anything. He never would
take it. I thought the governor would be the one to see, and that's
why I came. If father was entitled to anything, they might let it come
to me."
"It's possible, ma'am," said Standifer, "that such might be the case.
But 'most all the veterans and settlers got their land certificates
issued, and located long ago. Still, we can look that up in the land
office, and be sure. Your father's name, now, was--"
"Amos Colvin, sir."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Standifer, rising and unbuttoning his tight
coat, excitedly. "Are you Amos Colvin's daughter? Why, ma'am, Amos
Colvin and me were thicker than two hoss thieves for more than ten
years! We fought Kiowas, drove cattle, and rangered side by side
nearly all over Texas. I remember seeing you once before, now. You
were a kid, about seven, a-riding a little yellow pony up and down.
Amos and me stopped at your home for a little grub when we were
trailing that band of Mexican cattle thieves down through Karnes and
Bee. Great tarantulas! and you're Amos Colvin's little girl! Did you
ever hear your father mention Luke Standifer--just kind of casually--
as if he'd met me once or twice?"
A little pale smile flitted across the lady's white face.
"It seems to me," she said, "that I don't remember hearing him talk
about much else. Every day there was some story he had to tell about
what he and you had done. Mighty near the last thing I heard him tell
was about the time when the Indians wounded him, and you crawled out
to him through the grass, with a canteen of water, while they--"
"Yes, yes--well--oh, that wasn't anything," said Standifer, "hemming"
loudly and buttoning his coat again, briskly. "And now, ma'am, who was
the infernal skunk--I beg your pardon, ma'am--who was the gentleman
you married?"
"Benton Sharp."
The commissioner plumped down again into his chair, with a groan. This
gentle, sad little woman, in the rusty black gown, the daughter of his
oldest friend, the wife of Benton Sharp! Benton Sharp, one of the most
noted "bad" men in that part of the state--a man who had been a cattle
thief, an outlaw, a desperado, and was now a gambler, a swaggering
bully, who plied his trade in the larger frontier towns, relying upon
his record and the quickness of his gun play to maintain his
supremacy. Seldom did any one take the risk of going "up against"
Benton Sharp. Even the law officers were content to let him make his
own terms of peace. Sharp was a ready and an accurate shot, and as
lucky as a brand-new penny at coming clear from his scrapes. Standifer
wondered how this pillaging eagle ever came to be mated with Amos
Colvin's little dove, and expressed his wonder.
Mrs. Sharp sighed.
"You see, Mr. Standifer, we didn't know anything about him, and he can
be very pleasant and kind when he wants to. We lived down in the
little town of Goliad. Benton came riding down that way, and stopped
there a while. I reckon I was some better looking then than I am now.
He was good to me for a whole year after we were married. He insured
his life for me for five thousand dollars. But for the last six months
he has done everything but kill me. I often wish he had done that,
too. He got out of money for a while, and abused me shamefully for not
having anything he could spend. Then father died, and left me the
little home in Goliad. My husband made me sell that, and turned me out
into the world. I've barely been able to live, for I'm not strong
enough to work. Lately, I heard he was making money in San Antonio, so
I went there, and found him, and asked for a little help. This,"
touching the livid bruise on her temple, "is what he gave me. So I
came on to Austin to see the governor. I once heard father say that
there was some land, or a pension, coming to him from the state that
he never would ask for."
Luke Standifer rose to his feet, and pushed his chair back. He looked
rather perplexedly around the big office, with its handsome furniture.
"It's a long trail to follow," he said, slowly, "trying to get back
dues from the government. There's red tape and lawyers and rulings and
evidence and courts to keep you waiting. I'm not certain," continued
the commissioner, with a profoundly meditative frown, "whether this
department that I'm the boss of has any jurisdiction or not. It's only
Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma'am, and it don't sound as if it
would cover the case. But sometimes a saddle blanket can be made to
stretch. You keep your seat, just for a few minutes, ma'am, till I
step into the next room and see about it."
The state treasurer was seated within his massive, complicated
railings, reading a newspaper. Business for the day was about over.
The clerks lolled at their desks, awaiting the closing hour. The
Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History entered, and leaned
in at the window.
The treasurer, a little, brisk old man, with snow-white moustache and
beard, jumped up youthfully and came forward to greet Standifer. They
were friends of old.
"Uncle Frank," said the commissioner, using the familiar name by which
the historic treasurer was addressed by every Texan, "how much money
have you got on hand?"
The treasurer named the sum of the last balance down to the odd cents
--something more than a million dollars.
The commissioner whistled lowly, and his eyes grew hopefully bright.
"You know, or else you've heard of, Amos Colvin, Uncle Frank?"
"Knew him well," said the treasurer, promptly. "A good man. A valuable
citizen. One of the first settlers in the Southwest."
"His daughter," said Standifer, "is sitting in my office. She's
penniless. She's married to Benton Sharp, a coyote and a murderer.
He's reduced her to want, and broken her heart. Her father helped
build up this state, and it's the state's turn to help his child. A
couple of thousand dollars will buy back her home and let her live in
peace. The State of Texas can't afford to refuse it. Give me the
money, Uncle Frank, and I'll give it to her right away. We'll fix up
the red-tape business afterward."
The treasurer looked a little bewildered.
"Why, Standifer," he said, "you know I can't pay a cent out of the
treasury without a warrant from the comptroller. I can't disburse a
dollar without a voucher to show for it."
The commissioner betrayed a slight impatience.
"I'll give you a voucher," he declared. "What's this job they've given
me for? Am I just a knot on a mesquite stump? Can't my office stand
for it? Charge it up to Insurance and the other two sideshows. Don't
Statistics show that Amos Colvin came to this state when it was in the
hands of Greasers and rattlesnakes and Comanches, and fought day and
night to make a white man's country of it? Don't they show that Amos
Colvin's daughter is brought to ruin by a villain who's trying to pull
down what you and I and old Texans shed our blood to build up? Don't
History show that the Lone Star State never yet failed to grant relief
to the suffering and oppressed children of the men who made her the
grandest commonwealth in the Union? If Statistics and History don't
bear out the claim of Amos Colvin's child I'll ask the next
legislature to abolish my office. Come, now, Uncle Frank, let her have
the money. I'll sign the papers officially, if you say so; and then if
the governor or the comptroller or the janitor or anybody else makes a
kick, by the Lord I'll refer the matter to the people, and see if they
won't endorse the act."
The treasurer looked sympathetic but shocked. The commissioner's voice
had grown louder as he rounded off the sentences that, however
praiseworthy they might be in sentiment, reflected somewhat upon the
capacity of the head of a more or less important department of state.
The clerks were beginning to listen.
"Now, Standifer," said the treasurer, soothingly, "you know I'd like
to help in this matter, but stop and think a moment, please. Every
cent in the treasury is expended only by appropriation made by the
legislature, and drawn out by checks issued by the comptroller. I
can't control the use of a cent of it. Neither can you. Your
department isn't disbursive--it isn't even administrative--it's purely
clerical. The only way for the lady to obtain relief is to petition
the legislature, and--"
"To the devil with the legislature," said Standifer, turning away.
The treasurer called him back.
"I'd be glad, Standifer, to contribute a hundred dollars personally
toward the immediate expenses of Colvin's daughter." He reached for
his pocketbook.
"Never mind, Uncle Frank," said the commissioner, in a softer tone.
"There's no need of that. She hasn't asked for anything of that sort
yet. Besides, her case is in my hands. I see now what a little, rag-
tag, bob-tail, gotch-eared department I've been put in charge of. It
seems to be about as important as an almanac or a hotel register. But
while I'm running it, it won't turn away any daughters of Amos Colvin
without stretching its jurisdiction to cover, if possible. You want to
keep your eye on the Department of Insurance, Statistics, and
History."
The commissioner returned to his office, looking thoughtful. He opened
and closed an inkstand on his desk many times with extreme and undue
attention. "Why don't you get a divorce?" he asked, suddenly.
"I haven't the money to pay for it," answered the lady.
"Just at present," announced the commissioner, in a formal tone, "the
powers of my department appear to be considerably string-halted.
Statistics seem to be overdrawn at the bank, and History isn't good
for a square meal. But you've come to the right place, ma'am. The
department will see you through. Where did you say your husband is,
ma'am?"
"He was in San Antonio yesterday. He is living there now."
Suddenly the commissioner abandoned his official air. He took the
faded little woman's hands in his, and spoke in the old voice he used
on the trail and around campfires.
"Your name's Amanda, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"I thought so. I've heard your dad say it often enough. Well, Amanda,
here's your father's best friend, the head of a big office in the
state government, that's going to help you out of your troubles. And
here's the old bushwhacker and cowpuncher that your father has helped
out of scrapes time and time again wants to ask you a question.
Amanda, have you got money enough to run you for the next two or three
days?"
Mrs. Sharp's white face flushed the least bit.
"Plenty, sir--for a few days."
"All right, then, ma'am. Now you go back where you are stopping here,
and you come to the office again the day after to-morrow at four
o'clock in the afternoon. Very likely by that time there will be
something definite to report to you." The commissioner hesitated, and
looked a trifle embarrassed. "You said your husband had insured his
life for $5,000. Do you know whether the premiums have been kept paid
upon it or not?"
"He paid for a whole year in advance about five months ago," said Mrs.
Sharp. "I have the policy and receipts in my trunk."
"Oh, that's all right, then," said Standifer. "It's best to look after
things of that sort. Some day they may come in handy."
Mrs. Sharp departed, and soon afterward Luke Standifer went down to
the little hotel where he boarded and looked up the railroad time-
table in the daily paper. Half an hour later he removed his coat and
vest, and strapped a peculiarly constructed pistol holster across his
shoulders, leaving the receptacle close under his left armpit. Into
the holster he shoved a short-barrelled .44 calibre revolver. Putting
on his clothes again, he strolled to the station and caught the five-
twenty afternoon train for San Antonio.
The San Antonio /Express/ of the following morning contained this
sensational piece of news:
BENTON SHARP MEETS HIS MATCH
The Most Noted Desperado in Southwest Texas Shot to Death in the
Gold Front Restaurant--Prominent State Official Successfully
Defends Himself Against the Noted Bully--Magnificent Exhibition of
Quick Gun Play.
Last night about eleven o'clock Benton Sharp, with two other men,
entered the Gold Front Restaurant and seated themselves at a
table. Sharp had been drinking, and was loud and boisterous, as he
always was when under the influence of liquor. Five minutes after
the party was seated a tall, well-dressed, elderly gentleman
entered the restaurant. Few present recognized the Honourable Luke
Standifer, the recently appointed Commissioner of Insurance,
Statistics, and History.
Going over to the same side where Sharp was, Mr. Standifer
prepared to take a seat at the next table. In hanging his hat upon
one of the hooks along the wall he let it fall upon Sharp's head.
Sharp turned, being in an especially ugly humour, and cursed the
other roundly. Mr. Standifer apologized calmly for the accident,
but Sharp continued his vituperations. Mr. Standifer was observed
to draw near and speak a few sentences to the desperado in so low
a tone that no one else caught the words. Sharp sprang up, wild
with rage. In the meantime Standifer had stepped some yards away,
and was standing quietly with his arms folded across the breast of
his loosely hanging coat.
With that impetuous and deadly rapidity that made Sharp so
dreaded, he reached for the gun he always carried in his hip
pocket--a movement that has preceded the death of at least a dozen
men at his hands. Quick as the motion was, the bystanders assert
that it was met by the most beautiful exhibition of lightning gun-
pulling ever witnessed in the Southwest. As Sharp's pistol was
being raised--and the act was really quicker than the eye could
follow--a glittering .44 appeared as if by some conjuring trick in
the right hand of Mr. Standifer, who, without a perceptible
movement of his arm, shot Benton Sharp through the heart. It seems
that the new Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History
has been an old-time Indian fighter and ranger for many years,
which accounts for the happy knack he has of handling a .44.
It is not believed that Mr. Standifer will be put to any
inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing to-day, as all the
witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was
done in self-defence.
When Mrs. Sharp appeared at the office of the commissioner, according
to appointment, she found that gentleman calmly eating a golden russet
apple. He greeted her without embarrassment and without hesitation at
approaching the subject that was the topic of the day.
"I had to do it, ma'am," he said, simply, "or get it myself. Mr.
Kauffman," he added, turning to the old clerk, "please look up the
records of the Security Life Insurance Company and see if they are all
right."
"No need to look," grunted Kauffman, who had everything in his head.
"It's all O.K. They pay all losses within ten days."
Mrs. Sharp soon rose to depart. She had arranged to remain in town
until the policy was paid. The commissioner did not detain her. She
was a woman, and he did not know just what to say to her at present.
Rest and time would bring her what she needed.
But, as she was leaving, Luke Standifer indulged himself in an
official remark:
"The Department of Insurance, Statistics, and History, ma'am, has done
the best it could with your case. 'Twas a case hard to cover according
to red tape. Statistics failed, and History missed fire, but, if I may
be permitted to say it, we came out particularly strong on Insurance."
XVII
THE RENAISSANCE AT CHARLEROI
Grandemont Charles was a little Creole gentleman, aged thirty-four,
with a bald spot on the top of his head and the manners of a prince.
By day he was a clerk in a cotton broker's office in one of those
cold, rancid mountains of oozy brick, down near the levee in New
Orleans. By night, in his three-story-high /chambre garnier/ in the
old French Quarter he was again the last male descendant of the
Charles family, that noble house that had lorded it in France, and had
pushed its way smiling, rapiered, and courtly into Louisiana's early
and brilliant days. Of late years the Charleses had subsided into the
more republican but scarcely less royally carried magnificence and
ease of plantation life along the Mississippi. Perhaps Grandemont was
even Marquis de Brasse. There was that title in the family. But a
Marquis on seventy-five dollars per month! /Vraiment/! Still, it has
been done on less.
Grandemont had saved out of his salary the sum of six hundred dollars.
Enough, you would say, for any man to marry on. So, after a silence of
two years on that subject, he reopened that most hazardous question to
Mlle. Adele Fauquier, riding down to Meade d'Or, her father's
plantation. Her answer was the same that it had been any time during
the last ten years: "First find my brother, Monsieur Charles."
This time he had stood before her, perhaps discouraged by a love so
long and hopeless, being dependent upon a contingency so unreasonable,
and demanded to be told in simple words whether she loved him or no.
Adele looked at him steadily out of her gray eyes that betrayed no
secrets and answered, a little more softly:
"Grandemont, you have no right to ask that question unless you can do
what I ask of you. Either bring back brother Victor to us or the proof
that he died."
Somehow, though five times thus rejected, his heart was not so heavy
when he left. She had not denied that she loved. Upon what shallow
waters can the bark of passion remain afloat! Or, shall we play the
doctrinaire, and hint that at thirty-four the tides of life are calmer
and cognizant of many sources instead of but one--as at four-and-
twenty?
Victor Fauquier would never be found. In those early days of his
disappearance there was money to the Charles name, and Grandemont had
spent the dollars as if they were picayunes in trying to find the lost
youth. Even then he had had small hope of success, for the Mississippi
gives up a victim from its oily tangles only at the whim of its malign
will.
A thousand times had Grandemont conned in his mind the scene of
Victor's disappearance. And, at each time that Adele had set her
stubborn but pitiful alternative against his suit, still clearer it
repeated itself in his brain.
The boy had been the family favourite; daring, winning, reckless. His
unwise fancy had been captured by a girl on the plantation--the
daughter of an overseer. Victor's family was in ignorance of the
intrigue, as far as it had gone. To save them the inevitable pain that
his course promised, Grandemont strove to prevent it. Omnipotent money
smoothed the way. The overseer and his daughter left, between a sunset
and dawn, for an undesignated bourne. Grandemont was confident that
this stroke would bring the boy to reason. He rode over to Meade d'Or
to talk with him. The two strolled out of the house and grounds,
crossed the road, and, mounting the levee, walked its broad path while
they conversed. A thunder-cloud was hanging, imminent, above, but, as
yet, no rain fell. At Grandemont's disclosure of his interference in
the clandestine romance, Victor attacked him, in a wild and sudden
fury. Grandemont, though of slight frame, possessed muscles of iron.
He caught the wrists amid a shower of blows descending upon him, bent
the lad backward and stretched him upon the levee path. In a little
while the gust of passion was spent, and he was allowed to rise. Calm
now, but a powder mine where he had been but a whiff of the tantrums,
Victor extended his hand toward the dwelling house of Meade d'Or.
"You and they," he cried, "have conspired to destroy my happiness.
None of you shall ever look upon my face again."
Turning, he ran swiftly down the levee, disappearing in the darkness.
Grandemont followed as well as he could, calling to him, but in vain.
For longer than an hour he pursued the search. Descending the side of
the levee, he penetrated the rank density of weeds and willows that
undergrew the trees until the river's edge, shouting Victor's name.
There was never an answer, though once he thought he heard a bubbling
scream from the dun waters sliding past. Then the storm broke, and he
returned to the house drenched and dejected.
There he explained the boy's absence sufficiently, he thought, not
speaking of the tangle that had led to it, for he hoped that Victor
would return as soon as his anger had cooled. Afterward, when the
threat was made good and they saw his face no more, he found it
difficult to alter his explanations of that night, and there clung a
certain mystery to the boy's reasons for vanishing as well as to the
manner of it.
It was on that night that Grandemont first perceived a new and
singular expression in Adele's eyes whenever she looked at him. And
through the years following that expression was always there. He could
not read it, for it was born of a thought she would never otherwise
reveal.
Perhaps, if he had known that Adele had stood at the gate on that
unlucky night, where she had followed, lingering, to await the return
of her brother and lover, wondering why they had chosen so tempestuous
an hour and so black a spot to hold converse--if he had known that a
sudden flash of lightning had revealed to her sight that short, sharp
struggle as Victor was sinking under his hands, he might have
explained everything, and she--
I know what she would have done. But one thing is clear--there was
something besides her brother's disappearance between Grandemont's
pleadings for her hand and Adele's "yes." Ten years had passed, and
what she had seen during the space of that lightning flash remained an
indelible picture. She had loved her brother, but was she holding out
for the solution of that mystery or for the "Truth"? Women have been
known to reverence it, even as an abstract principle. It is said there
have been a few who, in the matter of their affections, have
considered a life to be a small thing as compared with a lie. That I
do not know. But, I wonder, had Grandemont cast himself at her feet
crying that his hand had sent Victor to the bottom of that inscrutable
river, and that he could no longer sully his love with a lie, I wonder
if--I wonder what she would have done!
But, Grandemont Charles, Arcadian little gentleman, never guessed the
meaning of that look in Adele's eyes; and from this last bootless
payment of his devoirs he rode away as rich as ever in honour and
love, but poor in hope.
That was in September. It was during the first winter month that
Grandemont conceived his idea of the /renaissance/. Since Adele would
never be his, and wealth without her were useless trumpery, why need
he add to that hoard of slowly harvested dollars? Why should he even
retain that hoard?
Hundreds were the cigarettes he consumed over his claret, sitting at
the little polished tables in the Royal street cafes while thinking
over his plan. By and by he had it perfect. It would cost, beyond
doubt, all the money he had, but--/le jeu vaut la chandelle/--for some
hours he would be once more a Charles of Charleroi. Once again should
the nineteenth of January, that most significant day in the fortunes
of the house of Charles, be fittingly observed. On that date the
French king had seated a Charles by his side at table; on that date
Armand Charles, Marquis de Brasse, landed, like a brilliant meteor, in
New Orleans; it was the date of his mother's wedding; of Grandemont's
birth. Since Grandemont could remember until the breaking up of the
family that anniversary had been the synonym for feasting,
hospitality, and proud commemoration.
Charleroi was the old family plantation, lying some twenty miles down
the river. Years ago the estate had been sold to discharge the debts
of its too-bountiful owners. Once again it had changed hands, and now
the must and mildew of litigation had settled upon it. A question of
heirship was in the courts, and the dwelling house of Charleroi,
unless the tales told of ghostly powdered and laced Charleses haunting
its unechoing chambers were true, stood uninhabited.
Grandemont found the solicitor in chancery who held the keys pending
the decision. He proved to be an old friend of the family. Grandemont
explained briefly that he desired to rent the house for two or three
days. He wanted to give a dinner at his old home to a few friends.
That was all.
"Take it for a week--a month, if you will," said the solicitor; "but
do not speak to me of rental." With a sigh he concluded: "The dinners
I have eaten under that roof, /mon fils/!"
There came to many of the old, established dealers in furniture,
china, silverware, decorations and household fittings at their stores
on Canal, Chartres, St. Charles, and Royal Streets, a quiet young man
with a little bald spot on the top of his head, distinguished manners,
and the eye of a /connoisseur/, who explained what he wanted. To hire
the complete and elegant equipment of a dining-room, hall, reception-
room, and cloak-rooms. The goods were to be packed and sent, by boat,
to the Charleroi landing, and would be returned within three or four
days. All damage or loss to be promptly paid for.
Many of those old merchants knew Grandemont by sight, and the
Charleses of old by association. Some of them were of Creole stock and
felt a thrill of responsive sympathy with the magnificently indiscreet
design of this impoverished clerk who would revive but for a moment
the ancient flame of glory with the fuel of his savings.
"Choose what you want," they said to him. "Handle everything
carefully. See that the damage bill is kept low, and the charges for
the loan will not oppress you."
To the wine merchants next; and here a doleful slice was lopped from
the six hundred. It was an exquisite pleasure to Grandemont once more
to pick among the precious vintages. The champagne bins lured him like
the abodes of sirens, but these he was forced to pass. With his six
hundred he stood before them as a child with a penny stands before a
French doll. But he bought with taste and discretion of other wines--
Chablis, Moselle, Chateau d'Or, Hochheimer, and port of right age and
pedigree.
The matter of the cuisine gave him some studious hours until he
suddenly recollected Andre--Andre, their old /chef/--the most sublime
master of French Creole cookery in the Mississippi Valley. Perhaps he
was yet somewhere about the plantation. The solicitor had told him
that the place was still being cultivated, in accordance with a
compromise agreement between the litigants.
On the next Sunday after the thought Grandemont rode, horseback, down
to Charleroi. The big, square house with its two long ells looked
blank and cheerless with its closed shutters and doors.
The shrubbery in the yard was ragged and riotous. Fallen leaves from
the grove littered the walks and porches. Turning down the lane at the
side of the house, Grandemont rode on to the quarters of the
plantation hands. He found the workers just streaming back from
church, careless, happy, and bedecked in gay yellows, reds, and blues.
Yes, Andre was still there; his wool a little grayer; his mouth as
wide; his laughter as ready as ever. Grandemont told him of his plan,
and the old /chef/ swayed with pride and delight. With a sigh of
relief, knowing that he need have no further concern until the serving
of that dinner was announced, he placed in Andre's hands a liberal sum
for the cost of it, giving /carte blanche/ for its creation.
Among the blacks were also a number of the old house servants.
Absalom, the former major domo, and a half-dozen of the younger men,
once waiters and attaches of the kitchen, pantry, and other domestic
departments crowded around to greet "M'shi Grande." Absalom guaranteed
to marshal, of these, a corps of assistants that would perform with
credit the serving of the dinner.
After distributing a liberal largesse among the faithful, Grandemont
rode back to town well pleased. There were many other smaller details
to think of and provide for, but eventually the scheme was complete,
and now there remained only the issuance of the invitations to his
guests.
Along the river within the scope of a score of miles dwelt some half-
dozen families with whose princely hospitality that of the Charleses
had been contemporaneous. They were the proudest and most august of
the old regime. Their small circle had been a brilliant one; their
social relations close and warm; their houses full of rare welcome and
discriminating bounty. Those friends, said Grandemont, should once
more, if never again, sit at Charleroi on a nineteenth of January to
celebrate the festal day of his house.
Grandemont had his cards of invitation engraved. They were expensive,
but beautiful. In one particular their good taste might have been
disputed; but the Creole allowed himself that one feather in the cap
of his fugacious splendour. Might he not be allowed, for the one day
of the /renaissance/, to be "Grandemont du Puy Charles, of Charleroi"?
He sent the invitations out early in January so that the guests might
not fail to receive due notice.
At eight o'clock on the morning of the nineteenth, the lower coast
steamboat /River Belle/ gingerly approached the long unused landing at
Charleroi. The bridge was lowered, and a swarm of the plantation hands
streamed along the rotting pier, bearing ashore a strange assortment
of freight. Great shapeless bundles and bales and packets swathed in
cloth and bound with ropes; tubs and urns of palms, evergreens, and
tropical flowers; tables, mirrors, chairs, couches, carpets, and
pictures--all carefully bound and padded against the dangers of
transit.
Grandemont was among them, the busiest there. To the safe conveyance
of certain large hampers eloquent with printed cautions to delicate
handling he gave his superintendence, for they contained the fragile
china and glassware. The dropping of one of those hampers would have
cost him more than he could have saved in a year.
The last article unloaded, the /River Belle/ backed off and continued
her course down stream. In less than an hour everything had been
conveyed to the house. And came then Absalom's task, directing the
placing of the furniture and wares. There was plenty of help, for that
day was always a holiday at Charleroi, and the Negroes did not suffer
the old traditions to lapse. Almost the entire population of the
quarters volunteered their aid. A score of piccaninnies were sweeping
at the leaves in the yard. In the big kitchen at the rear Andre was
lording it with his old-time magnificence over his numerous sub-cooks
and scullions. Shutters were flung wide; dust spun in clouds; the
house echoed to voices and the tread of busy feet. The prince had come
again, and Charleroi woke from its long sleep.
The full moon, as she rose across the river that night and peeped
above the levee saw a sight that had long been missing from her orbit.
The old plantation house shed a soft and alluring radiance from every
window. Of its two-score rooms only four had been refurnished--the
larger reception chamber, the dining hall, and two smaller rooms for
the convenience of the expected guests. But lighted wax candles were
set in the windows of every room.
The dining-hall was the /chef d'oeuvre/. The long table, set with
twenty-five covers, sparkled like a winter landscape with its snowy
napery and china and the icy gleam of crystal. The chaste beauty of
the room had required small adornment. The polished floor burned to a
glowing ruby with the reflection of candle light. The rich wainscoting
reached half way to the ceiling. Along and above this had been set the
relieving lightness of a few water-colour sketches of fruit and
flower.
The reception chamber was fitted in a simple but elegant style. Its
arrangement suggested nothing of the fact that on the morrow the room
would again be cleared and abandoned to the dust and the spider. The
entrance hall was imposing with palms and ferns and the light of an
immense candelabrum.
At seven o'clock Grandemont, in evening dress, with pearls--a family
passion--in his spotless linen, emerged from somewhere. The
invitations had specified eight as the dining hour. He drew an
armchair upon the porch, and sat there, smoking cigarettes and half
dreaming.
The moon was an hour high. Fifty years back from the gate stood the
house, under its noble grove. The road ran in front, and then came the
grass-grown levee and the insatiate river beyond. Just above the levee
top a tiny red light was creeping down and a tiny green one was
creeping up. Then the passing steamers saluted, and the hoarse din
startled the drowsy silence of the melancholy lowlands. The stillness
returned, save for the little voices of the night--the owl's
recitative, the capriccio of the crickets, the concerto of the frogs
in the grass. The piccaninnies and the dawdlers from the quarters had
been dismissed to their confines, and the melee of the day was reduced
to an orderly and intelligent silence. The six coloured waiters, in
their white jackets, paced, cat-footed, about the table, pretending to
arrange where all was beyond betterment. Absalom, in black and shining
pumps posed, superior, here and there where the lights set off his
grandeur. And Grandemont rested in his chair, waiting for his guests.
He must have drifted into a dream--and an extravagant one--for he was
master of Charleroi and Adele was his wife. She was coming out to him
now; he could hear her steps; he could feel her hand upon his
shoulder--
"/Pardon moi, M'shi Grande/"--it was Absalom's hand touching him, it
was Absalom's voice, speaking the /patois/ of the blacks--"but it is
eight o'clock."
Eight o'clock. Grandemont sprang up. In the moonlight he could see the
row of hitching-posts outside the gate. Long ago the horses of the
guests should have stood there. They were vacant.
A chanted roar of indignation, a just, waxing bellow of affront and
dishonoured genius came from Andre's kitchen, filling the house with
rhythmic protest. The beautiful dinner, the pearl of a dinner, the
little excellent superb jewel of a dinner! But one moment more of
waiting and not even the thousand thunders of black pigs of the
quarter would touch it!
"They are a little late," said Grandemont, calmly. "They will come
soon. Tell Andre to hold back dinner. And ask him if, by some chance,
a bull from the pastures has broken, roaring, into the house."
He seated himself again to his cigarettes. Though he had said it, he
scarcely believed Charleroi would entertain company that night. For
the first time in history the invitation of a Charles had been
ignored. So simple in courtesy and honour was Grandemont, and,
perhaps, so serenely confident in the prestige of his name, that the
most likely reasons for the vacant board did not occur to him.
Charleroi stood by a road travelled daily by people from those
plantations whither his invitations had gone. No doubt even on the day
before the sudden reanimation of the old house they had driven past
and observed the evidences of long desertion and decay. They had
looked at the corpse of Charleroi and then at Grandemont's
invitations, and, though the puzzle or tasteless hoax or whatever the
thing meant left them perplexed, they would not seek its solution by
the folly of a visit to that deserted house.
The moon was now above the grove, and the yard was pied with deep
shadows save where they lightened in the tender glow of outpouring
candle light. A crisp breeze from the river hinted at the possibility
of frost when the night should have become older. The grass at one
side of the steps was specked with the white stubs of Grandemont's
cigarettes. The cotton-broker's clerk sat in his chair with the smoke
spiralling above him. I doubt that he once thought of the little
fortune he had so impotently squandered. Perhaps it was compensation
enough for him to sit thus at Charleroi for a few retrieved hours.
Idly his mind wandered in and out many fanciful paths of memory. He
smiled to himself as a paraphrased line of Scripture strayed into his
mind: "A certain /poor/ man made a feast."
He heard the sound of Absalom coughing a note of summons. Grandemont
stirred. This time he had not been asleep--only drowsing.
"Nine o'clock, /M'shi Grande/," said Absalom in the uninflected voice
of a good servant who states a fact unqualified by personal opinion.
Grandemont rose to his feet. In their time all the Charleses had been
proven, and they were gallant losers.
"Serve dinner," he said calmly. And then he checked Absalom's movement
to obey, for something clicked the gate latch and was coming down the
walk toward the house. Something that shuffled its feet and muttered
to itself as it came. It stopped in the current of light at the foot
of the steps and spake, in the universal whine of the gadding
mendicant.
"Kind sir, could you spare a poor, hungry man, out of luck, a little
to eat? And to sleep in the corner of a shed? For"--the thing
concluded, irrelevantly--"I can sleep now. There are no mountains to
dance reels in the night; and the copper kettles are all scoured
bright. The iron band is still round my ankle, and a link, if it is
your desire I should be chained."
It set a foot upon the step and drew up the rags that hung upon the
limb. Above the distorted shoe, caked with the dust of a hundred
leagues, they saw the link and the iron band. The clothes of the tramp
were wreaked to piebald tatters by sun and rain and wear. A mat of
brown, tangled hair and beard covered his head and face, out of which
his eyes stared distractedly. Grandemont noticed that he carried in
one hand a white, square card.
"What is that?" he asked.
"I picked it up, sir, at the side of the road." The vagabond handed
the card to Grandemont. "Just a little to eat, sir. A little parched
corn, a /tortilla/, or a handful of beans. Goat's meat I cannot eat.
When I cut their throats they cry like children."
Grandemont held up the card. It was one of his own invitations to
dinner. No doubt some one had cast it away from a passing carriage
after comparing it with the tenantless house of Charleroi.
"From the hedges and highways bid them come," he said to himself,
softly smiling. And then to Absalom: "Send Louis to me."
Louis, once his own body-servant, came promptly, in his white jacket.
"This gentleman," said Grandemont, "will dine with me. Furnish him
with bath and clothes. In twenty minutes have him ready and dinner
served."
Louis approached the disreputable guest with the suavity due to a
visitor to Charleroi, and spirited him away to inner regions.
Promptly, in twenty minutes, Absalom announced dinner, and, a moment
later, the guest was ushered into the dining hall where Grandemont
waited, standing, at the head of the table. The attentions of Louis
had transformed the stranger into something resembling the polite
animal. Clean linen and an old evening suit that had been sent down
from town to clothe a waiter had worked a miracle with his exterior.
Brush and comb had partially subdued the wild disorder of his hair.
Now he might have passed for no more extravagant a thing than one of
those /poseurs/ in art and music who affect such oddity of guise. The
man's countenance and demeanour, as he approached the table, exhibited
nothing of the awkwardness or confusion to be expected from his
Arabian Nights change. He allowed Absalom to seat him at Grandemont's
right hand with the manner of one thus accustomed to be waited upon.
"It grieves me," said Grandemont, "to be obliged to exchange names
with a guest. My own name is Charles."
"In the mountains," said the wayfarer, "they call me Gringo. Along the
roads they call me Jack."
"I prefer the latter," said Grandemont. "A glass of wine with you, Mr.
Jack."
Course after course was served by the supernumerous waiters.
Grandemont, inspired by the results of Andre's exquisite skill in
cookery and his own in the selection of wines became the model host,
talkative, witty, and genial. The guest was fitful in conversation.
His mind seemed to be sustaining a seccession of waves of dementia
followed by intervals of comparative lucidity. There was the glassy
brightness of recent fever in his eyes. A long course of it must have
been the cause of his emaciation and weakness, his distracted mind,
and the dull pallor that showed even through the tan of wind and sun.
"Charles," he said to Grandemont--for thus he seemed to interpret his
name--"you never saw the mountains dance, did you?"
"No, Mr. Jack," answered Grandemont, gravely, "the spectacle has been
denied me. But, I assure you, I can understand it must be a diverting
sight. The big ones, you know, white with snow on the tops, waltzing--
/decollete/, we may say."
"You first scour the kettles," said Mr. Jack, leaning toward him
excitedly, "to cook the beans in the morning, and you lie down on a
blanket and keep quite still. Then they come out and dance for you.
You would go out and dance with them but you are chained every night
to the centre pole of the hut. You believe the mountains dance, don't
you, Charlie?"
"I contradict no traveller's tales," said Grandemont, with a smile.
Mr. Jack laughed loudly. He dropped his voice to a confidential
whisper.
"You are a fool to believe it," he went on. "They don't really
advance. It's the fever in your head. It's the hard work and the bad
water that does it. You are sick for weeks, and there is no medicine.
The fever comes on every evening, and then you are as strong as two
men. One night the /compania/ are lying drunk with /mescal/. They have
brought back sacks of silver dollars from a ride, and they drink to
celebrate. In the night you file the chain in two and go down the
mountain. You walk for miles--hundreds of them. By and by the
mountains are all gone, and you come to the prairies. They do not
dance at night; they are merciful, and you sleep. Then you come to the
river, and it says things to you. You follow it down, down, but you
can't find what you are looking for."
Mr. Jack leaned back in his chair, and his eyes slowly closed. The
food and wine had steeped him in a deep calm. The tense strain had
been smoothed from his face. The languor of repletion was claiming
him. Drowsily he spoke again.
"It's bad manners--I know--to go to sleep--at table--but--that was--
such a good dinner--Grande, old fellow."
/Grande/! The owner of the name started and set down his glass. How
should this wretched tatterdemalion whom he had invited, Caliph-like,
to sit at his feet know his name?
Not at first, but soon, little by little, the suspicion, wild and
unreasonable as it was, stole into his brain. He drew out his watch
with hands that almost balked him by their trembling, and opened the
back case. There was a picture there--a photograph fixed to the inner
side.
Rising, Grandemont shook Mr. Jack by the shoulder. The weary guest
opened his eyes. Grandemont held the watch.
"Look at this picture, Mr. Jack. Have you ever--"
"/My sister Adele/!"
The vagrant's voice rang loud and sudden through the room. He started
to his feet, but Grandemont's arms were about him, and Grandemont was
calling him "Victor!--Victor Fauquier! /Merci, merci, mon Dieu/!"
Too far overcome by sleep and fatigue was the lost one to talk that
night. Days afterward, when the tropic /calentura/ had cooled in his
veins, the disordered fragments he had spoken were completed in shape
and sequence. He told the story of his angry flight, of toils and
calamities on sea and shore, of his ebbing and flowing fortune in
southern lands, and of his latest peril when, held a captive, he
served menially in a stronghold of bandits in the Sonora Mountains of
Mexico. And of the fever that seized him there and his escape and
delirium, during which he strayed, perhaps led by some marvellous
instinct, back to the river on whose bank he had been born. And of the
proud and stubborn thing in his blood that had kept him silent through
all those years, clouding the honour of one, though he knew it not,
and keeping apart two loving hearts. "What a thing is love!" you may
say. And if I grant it, you shall say, with me: "What a thing is
pride!"
On a couch in the reception chamber Victor lay, with a dawning
understanding in his heavy eyes and peace in his softened countenance.
Absalom was preparing a lounge for the transient master of Charleroi,
who, to-morrow, would be again the clerk of a cotton-broker, but
also--
"To-morrow," Grandemont was saying, as he stood by the couch of his
guest, speaking the words with his face shining as must have shone the
face of Elijah's charioteer when he announced the glories of that
heavenly journey--"To-morrow I will take you to Her."
XVIII
ON BEHALF OF THE MANAGEMENT
This is the story of the man manager, and how he held his own until
the very last paragraph.
I had it from Sully Magoon, /viva voce/. The words are indeed his; and
if they do not constitute truthful fiction my memory should be taxed
with the blame.
It is not deemed amiss to point out, in the beginning, the stress that
is laid upon the masculinity of the manager. For, according to Sully,
the term when applied to the feminine division of mankind has
precisely an opposite meaning. The woman manager (he says) economizes,
saves, oppresses her household with bargains and contrivances, and
looks sourly upon any pence that are cast to the fiddler for even a
single jig-step on life's arid march. Wherefore her men-folk call her
blessed, and praise her; and then sneak out the backdoor to see the
Gilhooly Sisters to a buck-and-wing dance.
Now, the man manager (I still quote Sully) is a Caesar without a
Brutus. He is an autocrat without responsibility, a player who
imperils no stake of his own. His office is to enact, to reverberate,
to boom, to expand, to out-coruscate--profitably, if he can. Bill-
paying and growing gray hairs over results belong to his principals.
It is his to guide the risk, to be the Apotheosis of Front, the three-
tailed Bashaw of Bluff, the Essential Oil of Razzle-Dazzle.
We sat at luncheon, and Sully Magoon told me. I asked for particulars.
"My old friend Denver Galloway was a born manager," said Sully. He
first saw the light of day in New York at three years of age. He was
born in Pittsburg, but his parents moved East the third summer
afterward.
"When Denver grew up, he went into the managing business. At the age
of eight he managed a news-stand for the Dago that owned it. After
that he was manager at different times of a skating-rink, a livery-
stable, a policy game, a restaurant, a dancing academy, a walking
match, a burlesque company, a dry-goods store, a dozen hotels and
summer resorts, an insurance company, and a district leader's
campaign. That campaign, when Coughlin was elected on the East Side,
gave Denver a boost. It got him a job as manager of a Broadway hotel,
and for a while he managed Senator O'Grady's campaign in the
nineteenth.
"Denver was a New Yorker all over. I think he was out of the city just
twice before the time I'm going to tell you about. Once he went
rabbit-shooting in Yonkers. The other time I met him just landing from
a North River ferry. 'Been out West on a big trip, Sully, old boy,'
says he. 'Gad! Sully, I had no idea we had such a big country. It's
immense. Never conceived of the magnificence of the West before. It's
gorgeous and glorious and infinite. Makes the East seemed cramped and
little. It's a grand thing to travel and get an idea of the extent and
resources of our country.'
"I'd made several little runs out to California and down to Mexico and
up through Alaska, so I sits down with Denver for a chat about the
things he saw.
"'Took in the Yosemite, out there, of course?' I asks.
"'Well--no,' says Denver, 'I don't think so. At least, I don't
recollect it. You see, I only had three days, and I didn't get any
farther west than Youngstown, Ohio.'
"About two years ago I dropped into New York with a little fly-paper
proposition about a Tennessee mica mine that I wanted to spread out in
a nice, sunny window, in the hopes of catching a few. I was coming out
of a printing-shop one afternoon with a batch of fine, sticky
prospectuses when I ran against Denver coming round a corner. I never
saw him looking so much like a tiger-lily. He was as beautiful and new
as a trellis of sweet peas, and as rollicking as a clarinet solo. We
shook hands, and he asked me what I was doing, and I gave him the
outlines of the scandal I was trying to create in mica.
"'Pooh, pooh! for your mica,' says Denver. 'Don't you know better,
Sully, than to bump up against the coffers of little old New York with
anything as transparent as mica? Now, you come with me over to the
Hotel Brunswick. You're just the man I was hoping for. I've got
something there in sepia and curled hair that I want you to look at.'
"'You putting up at the Brunswick?' I asks.
"'Not a cent,' says Denver, cheerful. 'The syndicate that owns the
hotel puts up. I'm manager.'
"The Brunswick wasn't one of them Broadway pot-houses all full of
palms and hyphens and flowers and costumes--kind of a mixture of lawns
and laundries. It was on one of the East Side avenues; but it was a
solid, old-time caravansary such as the Mayor of Skaneatelese or the
Governor of Missouri might stop at. Eight stories high it stalked up,
with new striped awnings, and the electrics had it as light as day.
"'I've been manager here for a year,' says Denver, as we drew nigh.
'When I took charge,' says he, 'nobody nor nothing ever stopped at the
Brunswick. The clock over the clerks' desk used to run for weeks
without winding. A man fell dead with heart-disease on the sidewalk in
front of it one day, and when they went to pick him up he was two
blocks away. I figured out a scheme to catch the West Indies and South
American trade. I persuaded the owners to invest a few more thousands,
and I put every cent of it in electric lights, cayenne papre, gold-
leaf, and garlic. I got a Spanish-speaking force of employees and a
string band; and there was talk going round of a cockfight in the
basement every Sunday. Maybe I didn't catch the nut-brown gang! From
Havana to Patagonia the Don Senors knew about the Brunswick. We get
the highfliers from Cuba and Mexico and the couple of Americas farther
south; and they've simply got the boodle to bombard every bulfinch in
the bush with.'
When we got to the hotel, Denver stops me at the door.
"'There's a little liver-coloured man,' says he, 'sitting in a big
leather chair to your right, inside. You sit down and watch him for a
few minutes, and then tell me what you think.'
"I took a chair, while Denver circulates around in the big rotunda.
The room was about full of curly-headed Cubans and South American
brunettes of different shades; and the atmosphere was international
with cigarette smoke, lit up by diamond rings and edged off with a
whisper of garlic.
"That Denver Galloway was sure a relief to the eye. Six feet two he
was, red-headed and pink-gilled as a sun-perch. And the air he had!
Court of Saint James, Chauncy Olcott, Kentucky colonels, Count of
Monte Cristo, grand opera--all these things he reminded you of when he
was doing the honours. When he raised his finger the hotel porters and
bell-boys skated across the floor like cockroaches, and even the clerk
behind the desk looked as meek and unimportant as Andy Carnegie.
"Denver passed around, shaking hands with his guests, and saying over
the two or three Spanish words he knew until it was like a coronation
rehearsal or a Bryan barbecue in Texas.
"I watched the little man he told me to. 'Twas a little foreign person
in a double-breasted frock-coat, trying to touch the floor with his
toes. He was the colour of vici kid, and his whiskers was like
excelsior made out of mahogany wood. He breathed hard, and he never
once took his eyes off of Denver. There was a look of admiration and
respect on his face like you see on a boy that's following a champion
base-ball team, or the Kaiser William looking at himself in a glass.
"After Denver goes his rounds he takes me into his private office.
"'What's your report on the dingy I told you to watch?' he asks.
"'Well,' says I, 'if you was as big a man as he takes you to be, nine
rooms and bath in the Hall of Fame, rent free till October 1st, would
be about your size.'
"'You've caught the idea,' says Denver. 'I've given him the wizard
grip and the cabalistic eye. The glamour that emanates from yours
truly has enveloped him like a North River fog. He seems to think that
Senor Galloway is the man who. I guess they don't raise 74-inch
sorrel-tops with romping ways down in his precinct. Now, Sully,' goes
on Denver, 'if you was asked, what would you take the little man to
be?'
"'Why,' says I, 'the barber around the corner; or, if he's royal, the
king of the boot-blacks.'
"'Never judge by looks,' says Denver; 'he's the dark-horse candidate
for president of a South American republic.'
"'Well,' says I, 'he didn't look quite that bad to me.'
"Then Denver draws his chair up close and gives out his scheme.
"'Sully,' says he, with seriousness and levity, 'I've been a manager
of one thing and another for over twenty years. That's what I was cut
out for--to have somebody else to put up the money and look after the
repairs and the police and taxes while I run the business. I never had
a dollar of my own invested in my life. I wouldn't know how it felt to
have the dealer rake in a coin of mine. But I can handle other
people's stuff and manage other people's enterprises. I've had an
ambition to get hold of something big--something higher than hotels
and lumber-yards and local politics. I want to be manager of something
way up--like a railroad or a diamond trust or an automobile factory.
Now here comes this little man from the tropics with just what I want,
and he's offered me the job.'
"'What job?' I asks. 'Is he going to revive the Georgia Minstrels or
open a cigar store?'
"'He's no 'coon,' says Denver. 'He's General Rompiro--General Josey
Alfonso Sapolio Jew-Ann Rompiro--he has his cards printed by a news-
ticker. He's the real thing, Sully, and he wants me to manage his
campaign--he wants Denver C. Galloway for a president-maker. Think of
that, Sully! Old Denver romping down to the tropics, plucking lotus-
flowers and pineapples with one hand and making presidents with the
other! Won't it make Uncle Mark Hanna mad? And I want you to go too,
Sully. You can help me more than any man I know. I've been herding
that brown man for a month in the hotel so he wouldn't stray down
Fourteenth Street and get roped in by that crowd of refugee tamale-
eaters down there. And he's landed, and D. C. G. is manager of General
J. A. S. J. Rompiro's presidential campaign in the great republic of--
what's its name?'
"Denver gets down an atlas from a shelf, and we have a look at the
afflicted country. 'Twas a dark blue one, on the west coast, about the
size of a special delivery stamp.
"'From what the General tells me,' says Denver, 'and from what I can
gather from the encyclopaedia and by conversing with the janitor of
the Astor Library, it'll be as easy to handle the vote of that country
as it would be for Tammany to get a man named Geoghan appointed on the
White Wings force.'
"'Why don't General Rumptyro stay at home,' says I, 'and manage his
own canvass?'
"'You don't understand South American politics,' says Denver, getting
out the cigars. 'It's this way. General Rompiro had the misfortune of
becoming a popular idol. He distinguished himself by leading the army
in pursuit of a couple of sailors who had stolen the plaza--or the
carramba, or something belonging to the government. The people called
him a hero and the government got jealous. The president sends for the
chief of the Department of Public Edifices. "Find me a nice, clean
adobe wall," says he, "and send Senor Rompiro up against it. Then call
out a file of soldiers and--then let him be up against it."
Something,' goes on Denver, 'like the way they've treated Hobson and
Carrie Nation in our country. So the General had to flee. But he was
thoughtful enough to bring along his roll. He's got sinews of war
enough to buy a battleship and float her off in the christening
fluid.'
"'What chance has he got to be president?'
"'Wasn't I just giving you his rating?' says Denver. 'His country is
one of the few in South America where the presidents are elected by
popular ballot. The General can't go there just now. It hurts to be
shot against a wall. He needs a campaign manager to go down and whoop
things up for him--to get the boys in line and the new two-dollar
bills afloat and the babies kissed and the machine in running order.
Sully, I don't want to brag, but you remember how I brought Coughlin
under the wire for leader of the nineteenth? Ours was the banner
district. Don't you suppose I know how to manage a little monkey-cage
of a country like that? Why, with the dough the General's willing to
turn loose I could put two more coats of Japan varnish on him and have
him elected Governor of Georgia. New York has got the finest lot of
campaign managers in the world, Sully, and you give me a feeling of
hauteur when you cast doubts on my ability to handle the political
situation in a country so small that they have to print the names of
the towns in the appendix and footnotes.'
"I argued with Denver some. I told him that politics down in that
tropical atmosphere was bound to be different from the nineteenth
district; but I might just as well have been a Congressman from North
Dakota trying to get an appropriation for a lighthouse and a coast
survey. Denver Galloway had ambitions in the manager line, and what I
said didn't amount to as much as a fig-leaf at the National
Dressmakers' Convention. 'I'll give you three days to cogitate about
going,' says Denver; 'and I'll introduce you to General Rompiro
to-morrow, so you can get his ideas drawn right from the rosewood.'
"I put on my best reception-to-Booker-Washington manner, the next day
and tapped the distinguished rubber-plant for what he knew.
"General Rompiro wasn't so gloomy inside as he appeared on the
surface. He was polite enough; and he exuded a number of sounds that
made a fair stagger at arranging themselves into language. It was
English he aimed at, and when his system of syntax reached your mind
it wasn't past you to understand it. If you took a college professor's
magazine essay and a Chinese laundryman's explanation of a lost shirt
and jumbled 'em together, you'd have about what the General handed you
out for conversation. He told me all about his bleeding country, and
what they were trying to do for it before the doctor came. But he
mostly talked of Denver C. Galloway.
"'Ah, senor,' says he, 'that is the most fine of mans. Never I have
seen one man so magnifico, so gr-r-rand, so conformable to make done
things so swiftly by other mans. He shall make other mans do the acts
and himself to order and regulate, until we arrive at seeing
accomplishments of a suddenly. Oh, yes, senor. In my countree there is
not such mans of so beegness, so good talk, so compliments, so
strongness of sense and such. Ah, that Senor Galloway!'
"'Yes,' says I, 'old Denver is the boy you want. He's managed every
kind of business here except filibustering, and he might as well
complete the list.'
"Before the three days was up I decided to join Denver in his
campaign. Denver got three months' vacation from his hotel owners. For
a week we lived in a room with the General, and got all the pointers
about his country that we could interpret from the noises he made.
When we got ready to start, Denver had a pocket full of memorandums,
and letters from the General to his friends, and a list of names and
addresses of loyal politicians who would help along the boom of the
exiled popular idol. Besides these liabilities we carried assets to
the amount of $20,000 in assorted United States currency. General
Rompiro looked like a burnt effigy, but he was Br'er Fox himself when
it came to the real science of politics.
"'Here is moneys,' says the General, 'of a small amount. There is more
with me--moocho more. Plentee moneys shall you be supplied, Senor
Galloway. More I shall send you at all times that you need. I shall
desire to pay feefty--one hundred thousand pesos, if necessario, to be
elect. How no? Sacramento! If that I am president and do not make one
meelion dolla in the one year you shall keek me on that side!--
/valgame Dios/!'
"Denver got a Cuban cigar-maker to fix up a little cipher code with
English and Spanish words, and gave the General a copy, so we could
cable him bulletins about the election, or for more money, and then we
were ready to start. General Rompiro escorted us to the steamer. On
the pier he hugged Denver around the waist and sobbed. 'Noble mans,'
says he, 'General Rompiro propels you into his confidence and trust.
Go, in the hands of the saints to do the work for your friend. /Viva
la libertad/!'
"'Sure,' says Denver. 'And viva la liberality an' la soaperino and
hoch der land of the lotus and the vote us. Don't worry, General.
We'll have you elected as sure as bananas grow upside down.'
"'Make pictures on me,' pleads the General--'make pictures on me for
money as it is needful.'
"'Does he want to be tattooed, would you think?' asks Denver,
wrinkling up his eyes.
"'Stupid!' says I. 'He wants you to draw on him for election expenses.
It'll be worse than tattooing. More like an autopsy.'
"Me and Denver steamed down to Panama, and then hiked across the
Isthmus, and then by steamer again down to the town of Espiritu on the
coast of the General's country.
"That was a town to send J. Howard Payne to the growler. I'll tell you
how you could make one like it. Take a lot of Filipino huts and a
couple of hundred brick-kilns and arrange 'em in squares in a
cemetery. Cart down all the conservatory plants in the Astor and
Vanderbilt greenhouses, and stick 'em about wherever there's room.
Turn all the Bellevue patients and the barbers' convention and the
Tuskegee school loose in the streets, and run the thermometer up to
120 in the shade. Set a fringe of the Rocky Mountains around the rear,
let it rain, and set the whole business on Rockaway Beach in the
middle of January--and you'd have a good imitation of Espiritu.
"It took me and Denver about a week to get acclimated. Denver sent out
the letters the General had given him, and notified the rest of the
gang that there was something doing at the captain's office. We set up
headquarters in an old 'dobe house on a side street where the grass
was waist high. The election was only four weeks off; but there wasn't
any excitement. The home candidate for president was named
Roadrickeys. This town of Esperitu wasn't the capital any more than
Cleveland, Ohio, is the capital of the United States, but it was the
political centre where they cooked up revolutions, and made up the
slates.
"At the end of the week Denver says the machine is started running.
"'Sully,' says he, 'we've got a walkover. Just because General Rompiro
ain't Don Juan-on-the-spot the other crowd ain't at work. They're as
full of apathy as a territorial delegate during the chaplain's prayer.
Now, we want to introduce a little hot stuff in the way of
campaigning, and we'll surprise 'em at the polls.'
"'How are you going to go about it?' I asks.
"'Why, the usual way,' says Denver, surprised. 'We'll get the orators
on our side out every night to make speeches in the native lingo, and
have torch-light parades under the shade of the palms, and free
drinks, and buy up all the brass bands, of course, and--well, I'll
turn the baby-kissing over to you, Sully--I've seen a lot of 'em.'
"'What else?' says I.
"'Why, you know,' says Denver. 'We get the heelers out with the
crackly two-spots, and coal-tickets, and orders for groceries, and
have a couple of picnics out under the banyan-trees, and dances in the
Firemen's Hall--and the usual things. But first of all, Sully, I'm
going to have the biggest clam-bake down on the beach that was ever
seen south of the tropic of Capricorn. I figured that out from the
start. We'll stuff the whole town and the jungle folk for miles around
with clams. That's the first thing on the programme. Suppose you go
out now, and make the arrangements for that. I want to look over the
estimates the General made of the vote in the coast districts.'
"I had learned some Spanish in Mexico, so I goes out, as Denver says,
and in fifteen minutes I come back to headquarters.
"'If there ever was a clam in this country nobody ever saw it,' I
says.
"'Great sky-rockets!' says Denver, with his mouth and eyes open. 'No
clams? How in the--who ever saw a country without clams? What kind of
a--how's an election to be pulled off without a clam-bake, I'd like to
know? Are you sure there's no clams, Sully?'
"'Not even a can,' says I.
"'Then for God's sake go out and try to find what the people here do
eat. We've got to fill 'em up with grub of some kind.'
"I went out again. Denver was manager. In half an hour I gets back.
"'They eat,' says I, 'tortillas, cassava, carne de chivo, arroz con
pollo, aquacates, zapates, yucca, and huevos fritos.'
"'A man that would eat them things,' says Denver, getting a little
mad, 'ought to have his vote challenged.'
"In a few more days the campaign managers from the other towns came
sliding into Esperitu. Our headquarters was a busy place. We had an
interpreter, and ice-water, and drinks, and cigars, and Denver flashed
the General's roll so often that it got so small you couldn't have
bought a Republican vote in Ohio with it.
"And then Denver cabled to General Rompiro for ten thousand dollars
more and got it.
"There were a number of Americans in Esperitu, but they were all in
business or grafts of some kind, and wouldn't take any hand in
politics, which was sensible enough. But they showed me and Denver a
fine time, and fixed us up so we could get decent things to eat and
drink. There was one American, named Hicks, used to come and loaf at
the headquarters. Hicks had had fourteen years of Esperitu. He was six
feet four and weighed in at 135. Cocoa was his line; and coast fever
and the climate had taken all the life out of him. They said he hadn't
smiled in eight years. His face was three feet long, and it never
moved except when he opened it to take quinine. He used to sit in our
headquarters and kill fleas and talk sarcastic.
"'I don't take much interest in politics,' says Hicks, one day, 'but
I'd like you to tell me what you're trying to do down here, Galloway?'
"'We're boosting General Rompiro, of course,' says Denver. 'We're
going to put him in the presidential chair. I'm his manager.'
"'Well,' says Hicks, 'if I was you I'd be a little slower about it.
You've got a long time ahead of you, you know.'
"'Not any longer than I need,' says Denver.
"Denver went ahead and worked things smooth. He dealt out money on the
quiet to his lieutenants, and they were always coming after it. There
was free drinks for everybody in town, and bands playing every night,
and fireworks, and there was a lot of heelers going around buying up
votes day and night for the new style of politics in Espiritu, and
everybody liked it.
"The day set for the election was November 4th. On the night before
Denver and me were smoking our pipes in headquarters, and in comes
Hicks and unjoints himself, and sits in a chair, mournful. Denver is
cheerful and confident. 'Rompiro will win in a romp,' says he. 'We'll
carry the country by 10,000. It's all over but the vivas. To-morrow
will tell the tale.'
"'What's going to happen to-morrow?' asks Hicks.
"'Why, the presidential election, of course,' says Denver.
"'Say,' says Hicks, looking kind of funny, 'didn't anybody tell you
fellows that the election was held a week before you came? Congress
changed the date to July 27th. Roadrickeys was elected by 17,000. I
thought you was booming old Rompiro for next term, two years from now.
Wondered if you was going to keep up such a hot lick that long.'
"I dropped my pipe on the floor. Denver bit the stem off of his.
Neither of us said anything.
"And then I heard a sound like somebody ripping a clap-board off of a
barn-roof. 'Twas Hicks laughing for the first time in eight years."
Sully Magoon paused while the waiter poured us a black coffee.
"Your friend was, indeed, something of a manager," I said.
"Wait a minute," said Sully, "I haven't given you any idea of what he
could do yet. That's all to come."
"When we got back to New York there was General Rompiro waiting for us
on the pier. He was dancing like a cinnamon bear, all impatient for
the news, for Denver had just cabled him when we would arrive and
nothing more.
"'Am I elect?' he shouts. 'Am I elect, friend of mine? Is that mine
country have demanded General Rompiro for the president? The last
dollar of mine have I sent you that last time. It is necessario that I
am elect. I have not more money. Am I elect, Senor Galloway?'
"Denver turns to me.
"'Leave me with old Rompey, Sully,' he says. 'I've got to break it to
him gently. 'Twould be indecent for other eyes to witness the
operation. This is the time, Sully,' says he, 'when old Denver has got
to make good as a jollier and a silver-tongued sorcerer, or else give
up all the medals he's earned.'
"A couple of days later I went around to the hotel. There was Denver
in his old place, looking like the hero of two historical novels, and
telling 'em what a fine time he'd had down on his orange plantation in
Florida.
"'Did you fix things up with the General?' I asks him.
"'Did I?' says Denver. 'Come and see.'
"He takes me by the arm and walks me to the dining-room door. There
was a little chocolate-brown fat man in a dress suit, with his face
shining with joy as he swelled himself and skipped about the floor.
Danged if Denver hadn't made General Rompiro head waiter of the Hotel
Brunswick!"
"Is Mr. Galloway still in the managing business?" I asked, as Mr.
Magoon ceased.
Sully shook his head.
"Denver married an auburn-haired widow that owns a big hotel in
Harlem. He just helps around the place."
XIX
WHISTLING DICK'S CHRISTMAS STOCKING
It was with much caution that Whistling Dick slid back the door of the
box-car, for Article 5716, City Ordinances, authorized (perhaps
unconstitutionally) arrest on suspicion, and he was familiar of old
with this ordinance. So, before climbing out, he surveyed the field
with all the care of a good general.
He saw no change since his last visit to this big, alms-giving, long-
suffering city of the South, the cold weather paradise of the tramps.
The levee where his freight-car stood was pimpled with dark bulks of
merchandise. The breeze reeked with the well-remembered, sickening
smell of the old tarpaulins that covered bales and barrels. The dun
river slipped along among the shipping with an oily gurgle. Far down
toward Chalmette he could see the great bend in the stream outlined by
the row of electric lights. Across the river Algiers lay, a long,
irregular blot, made darker by the dawn which lightened the sky
beyond. An industrious tug or two, coming for some early sailing ship,
gave a few appalling toots, that seemed to be the signal for breaking
day. The Italian luggers were creeping nearer their landing, laden
with early vegetables and shellfish. A vague roar, subterranean in
quality, from dray wheels and street cars, began to make itself heard
and felt; and the ferryboats, the Mary Anns of water craft, stirred
sullenly to their menial morning tasks.
Whistling Dick's red head popped suddenly back into the car. A sight
too imposing and magnificent for his gaze had been added to the scene.
A vast, incomparable policeman rounded a pile of rice sacks and stood
within twenty yards of the car. The daily miracle of the dawn, now
being performed above Algiers, received the flattering attention of
this specimen of municipal official splendour. He gazed with unbiased
dignity at the faintly glowing colours until, at last, he turned to
them his broad back, as if convinced that legal interference was not
needed, and the sunrise might proceed unchecked. So he turned his face
to the rice bags, and, drawing a flat flask from an inside pocket, he
placed it to his lips and regarded the firmament.
Whistling Dick, professional tramp, possessed a half-friendly
acquaintance with this officer. They had met several times before on
the levee at night, for the officer, himself a lover of music, had
been attracted by the exquisite whistling of the shiftless vagabond.
Still, he did not care, under the present circumstances, to renew the
acquaintance. There is a difference between meeting a policeman on a
lonely wharf and whistling a few operatic airs with him, and being
caught by him crawling out of a freight-car. So Dick waited, as even a
New Orleans policeman must move on some time--perhaps it is a
retributive law of nature--and before long "Big Fritz" majestically
disappeared between the trains of cars.
Whistling Dick waited as long as his judgment advised, and then slid
swiftly to the ground. Assuming as far as possible the air of an
honest labourer who seeks his daily toil, he moved across the network
of railway lines, with the intention of making his way by quiet Girod
Street to a certain bench in Lafayette Square, where, according to
appointment, he hoped to rejoin a pal known as "Slick," this
adventurous pilgrim having preceded him by one day in a cattle-car
into which a loose slat had enticed him.
As Whistling Dick picked his way where night still lingered among the
big, reeking, musty warehouses, he gave way to the habit that had won
for him his title. Subdued, yet clear, with each note as true and
liquid as a bobolink's, his whistle tinkled about the dim, cold
mountains of brick like drops of rain falling into a hidden pool. He
followed an air, but it swam mistily into a swirling current of
improvisation. You could cull out the trill of mountain brooks, the
staccato of green rushes shivering above chilly lagoons, the pipe of
sleepy birds.
Rounding a corner, the whistler collided with a mountain of blue and
brass.
"So," observed the mountain calmly, "You are already pack. Und dere
vill not pe frost before two veeks yet! Und you haf forgotten how to
vistle. Dere was a valse note in dot last bar."
"Watcher know about it?" said Whistling Dick, with tentative
familiarity; "you wit yer little Gherman-band nixcumrous chunes.
Watcher know about music? Pick yer ears, and listen agin. Here's de
way I whistled it--see?"
He puckered his lips, but the big policeman held up his hand.
"Shtop," he said, "und learn der right way. Und learn also dot a
rolling shtone can't vistle for a cent."
Big Fritz's heavy moustache rounded into a circle, and from its depths
came a sound deep and mellow as that from a flute. He repeated a few
bars of the air the tramp had been whistling. The rendition was cold,
but correct, and he emphasized the note he had taken exception to.
"Dot p is p natural, und not p vlat. Py der vay, you petter pe glad I
meet you. Von hour later, und I vould half to put you in a gage to
vistle mit der chail pirds. Der orders are to bull all der pums after
sunrise."
"To which?"
"To bull der pums--eferybody mitout fisible means. Dirty days is der
price, or fifteen tollars."
"Is dat straight, or a game you givin' me?"
"It's der pest tip you efer had. I gif it to you pecause I pelief you
are not so bad as der rest. Und pecause you gan visl 'Der Freisechutz'
bezzer dan I myself gan. Don't run against any more bolicemans aroundt
der corners, but go away from town a few tays. Good-pye."
So Madame Orleans had at last grown weary of the strange and ruffled
brood that came yearly to nestle beneath her charitable pinions.
After the big policeman had departed, Whistling Dick stood for an
irresolute minute, feeling all the outraged indignation of a
delinquent tenant who is ordered to vacate his premises. He had
pictured to himself a day of dreamful ease when he should have joined
his pal; a day of lounging on the wharf, munching the bananas and
cocoanuts scattered in unloading the fruit steamers; and then a feast
along the free-lunch counters from which the easy-going owners were
too good-natured or too generous to drive him away, and afterward a
pipe in one of the little flowery parks and a snooze in some shady
corner of the wharf. But here was a stern order to exile, and one that
he knew must be obeyed. So, with a wary eye open from the gleam of
brass buttons, he began his retreat toward a rural refuge. A few days
in the country need not necessarily prove disastrous. Beyond the
possibility of a slight nip of frost, there was no formidable evil to
be looked for.
However, it was with a depressed spirit that Whistling Dick passed the
old French market on his chosen route down the river. For safety's
sake he still presented to the world his portrayal of the part of the
worthy artisan on his way to labour. A stall-keeper in the market,
undeceived, hailed him by the generic name of his ilk, and "Jack"
halted, taken by surprise. The vender, melted by this proof of his own
acuteness, bestowed a foot of Frankfurter and half a loaf, and thus
the problem of breakfast was solved.
When the streets, from topographical reasons, began to shun the river
bank the exile mounted to the top of the levee, and on its well-
trodden path pursued his way. The suburban eye regarded him with cold
suspicion, individuals reflected the stern spirit of the city's
heartless edict. He missed the seclusion of the crowded town and the
safety he could always find in the multitude.
At Chalmette, six miles upon his desultory way, there suddenly menaced
him a vast and bewildering industry. A new port was being established;
the dock was being built, compresses were going up; picks and shovels
and barrows struck at him like serpents from every side. An arrogant
foreman bore down upon him, estimating his muscles with the eye of a
recruiting-sergeant. Brown men and black men all about him were
toiling away. He fled in terror.
By noon he had reached the country of the plantations, the great, sad,
silent levels bordering the mighty river. He overlooked fields of
sugar-cane so vast that their farthest limits melted into the sky. The
sugar-making season was well advanced, and the cutters were at work;
the waggons creaked drearily after them; the Negro teamsters inspired
the mules to greater speed with mellow and sonorous imprecations.
Dark-green groves, blurred by the blue of distance, showed where the
plantation-houses stood. The tall chimneys of the sugar-mills caught
the eye miles distant, like lighthouses at sea.
At a certain point Whistling Dick's unerring nose caught the scent of
frying fish. Like a pointer to a quail, he made his way down the levee
side straight to the camp of a credulous and ancient fisherman, whom
he charmed with song and story, so that he dined like an admiral, and
then like a philosopher annihilated the worst three hours of the day
by a nap under the trees.
When he awoke and again continued his hegira, a frosty sparkle in the
air had succeeded the drowsy warmth of the day, and as this portent of
a chilly night translated itself to the brain of Sir Peregrine, he
lengthened his stride and bethought him of shelter. He travelled a
road that faithfully followed the convolutions of the levee, running
along its base, but whither he knew not. Bushes and rank grass crowded
it to the wheel ruts, and out of this ambuscade the pests of the
lowlands swarmed after him, humming a keen, vicious soprano. And as
the night grew nearer, although colder, the whine of the mosquitoes
became a greedy, petulant snarl that shut out all other sounds. To his
right, against the heavens, he saw a green light moving, and,
accompanying it, the masts and funnels of a big incoming steamer,
moving as upon a screen at a magic-lantern show. And there were
mysterious marshes at his left, out of which came queer gurgling cries
and a choked croaking. The whistling vagrant struck up a merry warble
to offset these melancholy influences, and it is likely that never
before, since Pan himself jigged it on his reeds, had such sounds been
heard in those depressing solitudes.
A distant clatter in the rear quickly developed into the swift beat of
horses' hoofs, and Whistling Dick stepped aside into the dew-wet grass
to clear the track. Turning his head, he saw approaching a fine team
of stylish grays drawing a double surrey. A stout man with a white
moustache occupied the front seat, giving all his attention to the
rigid lines in his hands. Behind him sat a placid, middle-aged lady
and a brilliant-looking girl hardly arrived at young ladyhood. The
lap-robe had slipped partly from the knees of the gentleman driving,
and Whistling Dick saw two stout canvas bags between his feet--bags
such as, while loafing in cities, he had seen warily transferred
between express waggons and bank doors. The remaining space in the
vehicle was filled with parcels of various sizes and shapes.
As the surrey swept even with the sidetracked tramp, the bright-eyed
girl, seized by some merry, madcap impulse, leaned out toward him with
a sweet, dazzling smile, and cried, "Mer-ry Christ-mas!" in a shrill,
plaintive treble.
Such a thing had not often happened to Whistling Dick, and he felt
handicapped in devising the correct response. But lacking time for
reflection, he let his instinct decide, and snatching off his battered
derby, he rapidly extended it at arm's length, and drew it back with a
continuous motion, and shouted a loud, but ceremonious, "Ah, there!"
after the flying surrey.
The sudden movement of the girl had caused one of the parcels to
become unwrapped, and something limp and black fell from it into the
road. The tramp picked it up, and found it to be a new black silk
stocking, long and fine and slender. It crunched crisply, and yet with
a luxurious softness, between his fingers.
"Ther bloomin' little skeezicks!" said Whistling Dick, with a broad
grin bisecting his freckled face. "W't d' yer think of dat, now!
Mer-ry Chris-mus! Sounded like a cuckoo clock, da'ts what she did. Dem
guys is swells, too, bet yer life, an' der old 'un stacks dem sacks of
dough down under his trotters like dey was common as dried apples.
Been shoppin' for Chrismus, and de kid's lost one of her new socks
w'ot she was goin' to hold up Santy wid. De bloomin' little skeezicks!
Wit' her 'Mer-ry Chris-mus!' W'ot d' yer t'ink! Same as to say,
'Hello, Jack, how goes it?' and as swell as Fift' Av'noo, and as easy
as a blowout in Cincinnat."
Whistling Dick folded the stocking carefully, and stuffed it into his
pocket.
It was nearly two hours later when he came upon signs of habitation.
The buildings of an extensive plantation were brought into view by a
turn in the road. He easily selected the planter's residence in a
large square building with two wings, with numerous good-sized, well-
lighted windows, and broad verandas running around its full extent. it
was set upon a smooth lawn, which was faintly lit by the far-reaching
rays of the lamps within. A noble grove surrounded it, and old-
fashioned shrubbery grew thickly about the walks and fences. The
quarters of the hands and the mill buildings were situated at a
distance in the rear.
The road was now enclosed on each side by a fence, and presently, as
Whistling Dick drew nearer the house, he suddenly stopped and sniffed
the air.
"If dere ain't a hobo stew cookin' somewhere in dis immediate
precint," he said to himself, "me nose as quit tellin' de trut'."
Without hesitation he climbed the fence to windward. He found himself
in an apparently disused lot, where piles of old bricks were stacked,
and rejected, decaying lumber. In a corner he saw the faint glow of a
fire that had become little more than a bed of living coals, and he
thought he could see some dim human forms sitting or lying about it.
He drew nearer, and by the light of a little blaze that suddenly
flared up he saw plainly the fat figure of a ragged man in an old
brown sweater and cap.
"Dat man," said Whistling Dick to himself softly, "is a dead ringer
for Boston Harry. I'll try him wit de high sign."
He whistled one or two bars of a rag-time melody, and the air was
immediately taken up, and then quickly ended with a peculiar run. The
first whistler walked confidently up to the fire. The fat man looked
up, and spake in a loud, asthmatic wheeze:
"Gents, the unexpected but welcome addition to our circle is Mr.
Whistling Dick, an old friend of mine for whom I fully vouches. The
waiter will lay another cover at once. Mr. W. D. will join us at
supper, during which function he will enlighten us in regard to the
circumstances that gave us the pleasure of his company."
"Chewin' de stuffin' out 'n de dictionary, as usual, Boston," said
Whistling Dick; "but t'anks all de same for de invitashun. I guess I
finds meself here about de same way as yous guys. A cop gimme de tip
dis mornin'. Yous workin' on dis farm?"
"A guest," said Boston, sternly, "shouldn't never insult his
entertainers until he's filled up wid grub. 'Tain't good business
sense. Workin'!--but I will restrain myself. We five--me, Deaf Pete,
Blinky, Goggles, and Indiana Tom--got put on to this scheme of Noo
Orleans to work visiting gentlemen upon her dirty streets, and we hit
the road last evening just as the tender hues of twilight had flopped
down upon the daisies and things. Blinky, pass the empty oyster-can at
your left to the empty gentleman at your right."
For the next ten minutes the gang of roadsters paid their undivided
attention to the supper. In an old five-gallon kerosene can they had
cooked a stew of potatoes, meat, and onions, which they partook of
from smaller cans they had found scattered about the vacant lot.
Whistling Dick had known Boston Harry of old, and knew him to be one
of the shrewdest and most successful of his brotherhood. He looked
like a prosperous stock-drover or solid merchant from some country
village. He was stout and hale, with a ruddy, always smoothly shaven
face. His clothes were strong and neat, and he gave special attention
to his decent-appearing shoes. During the past ten years he had
acquired a reputation for working a larger number of successfully
managed confidence games than any of his acquaintances, and he had not
a day's work to be counted against him. It was rumoured among his
associates that he had saved a considerable amount of money. The four
other men were fair specimens of the slinking, ill-clad, noisome genus
who carried their labels of "suspicious" in plain view.
After the bottom of the large can had been scraped, and pipes lit at
the coals, two of the men called Boston aside and spake with him lowly
and mysteriously. He nodded decisively, and then said aloud to
Whistling Dick:
"Listen, sonny, to some plain talky-talk. We five are on a lay. I've
guaranteed you to be square, and you're to come in on the profits
equal with the boys, and you've got to help. Two hundred hands on this
plantation are expecting to be paid a week's wages to-morrow morning.
To-morrow's Christmas, and they want to lay off. Says the boss: 'Work
from five to nine in the morning to get a train load of sugar off, and
I'll pay every man cash down for the week and a day extra.' They say:
'Hooray for the boss! It goes.' He drives to Noo Orleans to-day, and
fetches back the cold dollars. Two thousand and seventy-four fifty is
the amount. I got the figures from a man who talks too much, who got
'em from the bookkeeper. The boss of this plantation thinks he's going
to pay this wealth to the hands. He's got it down wrong; he's going to
pay it to us. It's going to stay in the leisure class, where it
belongs. Now, half of this haul goes to me, and the other half the
rest of you may divide. Why the difference? I represent the brains.
It's my scheme. Here's the way we're going to get it. There's some
company at supper in the house, but they'll leave about nine. They've
just happened in for an hour or so. If they don't go pretty soon,
we'll work the scheme anyhow. We want all night to get away good with
the dollars. They're heavy. About nine o'clock Deaf Pete and Blinky'll
go down the road about a quarter beyond the house, and set fire to a
big cane-field there that the cutters haven't touched yet. The wind's
just right to have it roaring in two minutes. The alarm'll be given,
and every man Jack about the place will be down there in ten minutes,
fighting fire. That'll leave the money sacks and the women alone in
the house for us to handle. You've heard cane burn? Well, there's
mighty few women can screech loud enough to be heard above its
crackling. The thing's dead safe. The only danger is in being caught
before we can get far enough away with the money. Now, if you--"
"Boston," interrupted Whistling Dick, rising to his feet, "T'anks for
the grub yous fellers has given me, but I'll be movin' on now."
"What do you mean?" asked Boston, also rising.
"W'y, you can count me outer dis deal. You oughter know that. I'm on
de bum all right enough, but dat other t'ing don't go wit' me.
Burglary is no good. I'll say good night and many t'anks fer--"
Whistling Dick had moved away a few steps as he spoke, but he stopped
very suddenly. Boston had covered him with a short revolver of roomy
calibre.
"Take your seat," said the tramp leader. "I'd feel mighty proud of
myself if I let you go and spoil the game. You'll stick right in this
camp until we finish the job. The end of that brick pile is your
limit. You go two inches beyond that, and I'll have to shoot. Better
take it easy, now."
"It's my way of doin'," said Whistling Dick. "Easy goes. You can
depress de muzzle of dat twelve-incher, and run 'er back on de trucks.
I remains, as de newspapers says, 'in yer midst.'"
"All right," said Boston, lowering his piece, as the other returned
and took his seat again on a projecting plank in a pile of timber.
"Don't try to leave; that's all. I wouldn't miss this chance even if I
had to shoot an old acquaintance to make it go. I don't want to hurt
anybody specially, but this thousand dollars I'm going to get will fix
me for fair. I'm going to drop the road, and start a saloon in a
little town I know about. I'm tired of being kicked around."
Boston Harry took from his pocket a cheap silver watch, and held it
near the fire.
"It's a quarter to nine," he said. "Pete, you and Blinky start. Go
down the road past the house, and fire the cane in a dozen places.
Then strike for the levee, and come back on it, instead of the road,
so you won't meet anybody. By the time you get back the men will all
be striking out for the fire, and we'll break for the house and collar
the dollars. Everybody cough up what matches he's got."
The two surly tramps made a collection of all the matches in the
party, Whistling Dick contributing his quota with propitiatory
alacrity, and then they departed in the dim starlight in the direction
of the road.
Of the three remaining vagrants, two, Goggles and Indiana Tom,
reclined lazily upon convenient lumber and regarded Whistling Dick
with undisguised disfavour. Boston, observing that the dissenting
recruit was disposed to remain peaceably, relaxed a little of his
vigilance. Whistling Dick arose presently and strolled leisurely up
and down keeping carefully within the territory assigned him.
"Dis planter chap," he said, pausing before Boston Harry, "w'ot makes
yer t'ink he's got de tin in de house wit' 'im?"
"I'm advised of the facts in the case," said Boston. "He drove to Noo
Orleans and got it, I say, to-day. Want to change your mind now and
come in?"
"Naw, I was just askin'. Wot kind o' team did de boss drive?"
"Pair of grays."
"Double surrey?"
"Yep."
"Women folks along?"
"Wife and kid. Say, what morning paper are you trying to pump news
for?"
"I was just conversin' to pass de time away. I guess dat team passed
me in de road dis evenin'. Dat's all."
As Whistling Dick put his hands in his pockets and continued his
curtailed beat up and down by the fire, he felt the silk stocking he
had picked up in the road.
"Ther bloomin' little skeezicks," he muttered, with a grin.
As he walked up and down he could see, through a sort of natural
opening or lane among the trees, the planter's residence some seventy-
five yards distant. The side of the house toward him exhibited
spacious, well-lighted windows through which a soft radiance streamed,
illuminating the broad veranda and some extent of the lawn beneath.
"What's that you said?" asked Boston, sharply.
"Oh, nuttin' 't all," said Whistling Dick, lounging carelessly, and
kicking meditatively at a little stone on the ground.
"Just as easy," continued the warbling vagrant softly to himself, "an'
sociable an' swell an' sassy, wit' her 'Mer-ry Chris-mus,' Wot d'yer
t'ink, now!"
* * * * *
Dinner, two hours late, was being served in the Bellemeade plantation
dining-room.
The dining-room and all its appurtenances spoke of an old regime that
was here continued rather than suggested to the memory. The plate was
rich to the extent that its age and quaintness alone saved it from
being showy; there were interesting names signed in the corners of the
pictures on the walls; the viands were of the kind that bring a shine
into the eyes of gourmets. The service was swift, silent, lavish, as
in the days when the waiters were assets like the plate. The names by
which the planter's family and their visitors addressed one another
were historic in the annals of two nations. Their manners and
conversation had that most difficult kind of ease--the kind that still
preserves punctilio. The planter himself seemed to be the dynamo that
generated the larger portion of the gaiety and wit. The younger ones
at the board found it more than difficult to turn back on him his guns
of raillery and banter. It is true, the young men attempted to storm
his works repeatedly, incited by the hope of gaining the approbation
of their fair companions; but even when they sped a well-aimed shaft,
the planter forced them to feel defeat by the tremendous discomfiting
thunder of the laughter with which he accompanied his retorts. At the
head of the table, serene, matronly, benevolent, reigned the mistress
of the house, placing here and there the right smile, the right word,
the encouraging glance.
The talk of the party was too desultory, too evanescent to follow, but
at last they came to the subject of the tramp nuisance, one that had
of late vexed the plantations for many miles around. The planter
seized the occasion to direct his good-natured fire of raillery at the
mistress, accusing her of encouraging the plague. "They swarm up and
down the river every winter," he said. "They overrun New Orleans, and
we catch the surplus, which is generally the worst part. And, a day or
two ago, Madame New Orleans, suddenly discovering that she can't go
shopping without brushing her skirts against great rows of the
vagabonds sunning themselves on the banquettes, says to the police:
'Catch 'em all,' and the police catch a dozen or two, and the
remaining three or four thousand overflow up and down the levee, and
madame there,"--pointing tragically with the carving-knife at her--
"feeds them. They won't work; they defy my overseers, and they make
friends with my dogs; and you, madame, feed them before my eyes, and
intimidate me when I would interfere. Tell us, please, how many to-day
did you thus incite to future laziness and depredation?"
"Six, I think," said madame, with a reflective smile; "but you know
two of them offered to work, for you heard them yourself."
The planter's disconcerting laugh rang out again.
"Yes, at their own trades. And one was an artificial-flower maker, and
the other a glass-blower. Oh, they were looking for work! Not a hand
would they consent to lift to labour of any other kind."
"And another one," continued the soft-hearted mistress, "used quite
good language. It was really extraordinary for one of his class. And
he carried a watch. And had lived in Boston. I don't believe they are
all bad. They have always seemed to me to rather lack development. I
always look upon them as children with whom wisdom has remained at a
standstill while whiskers have continued to grow. We passed one this
evening as we were driving home who had a face as good as it was
incompetent. He was whistling the intermezzo from 'Cavalleria' and
blowing the spirit of Mascagni himself into it."
A bright eyed young girl who sat at the left of the mistress leaned
over, and said in a confidential undertone:
"I wonder, mamma, if that tramp we passed on the road found my
stocking, and do you think he will hang it up to-night? Now I can hang
up but one. Do you know why I wanted a new pair of silk stockings when
I have plenty? Well, old Aunt Judy says, if you hang up two that have
never been worn, Santa Claus will fill one with good things, and
Monsieur Pambe will place in the other payment for all the words you
have spoken--good or bad--on the day before Christmas. That's why I've
been unusually nice and polite to everyone to-day. Monsieur Pambe, you
know, is a witch gentleman; he--"
The words of the young girl were interrupted by a startling thing.
Like the wraith of some burned-out shooting star, a black streak came
crashing through the window-pane and upon the table, where it shivered
into fragments a dozen pieces of crystal and china ware, and then
glanced between the heads of the guests to the wall, imprinting
therein a deep, round indentation, at which, to-day, the visitor to
Bellemeade marvels as he gazes upon it and listens to this tale as it
is told.
The women screamed in many keys, and the men sprang to their feet, and
would have laid their hands upon their swords had not the verities of
chronology forbidden.
The planter was the first to act; he sprang to the intruding missile,
and held it up to view.
"By Jupiter!" he cried. "A meteoric shower of hosiery! Has
communication at last been established with Mars?"
"I should say--ahem--Venus," ventured a young-gentleman visitor,
looking hopefully for approbation toward the unresponsive young-lady
visitors.
The planter held at arm's length the unceremonious visitor--a long
dangling black stocking. "It's loaded," he announced.
As he spoke, he reversed the stocking, holding it by the toe, and down
from it dropped a roundish stone, wrapped about by a piece of
yellowish paper. "Now for the first interstellar message of the
century!" he cried; and nodding to the company, who had crowded about
him, he adjusted his glasses with provoking deliberation, and examined
it closely. When he finished, he had changed from the jolly host to
the practical, decisive man of business. He immediately struck a bell,
and said to the silent-footed mulatto man who responded: "Go and tell
Mr. Wesley to get Reeves and Maurice and about ten stout hands they
can rely upon, and come to the hall door at once. Tell him to have the
men arm themselves, and bring plenty of ropes and plough lines. Tell
him to hurry." And then he read aloud from the paper these words:
To the Gent of de Hous:
Dere is five tuff hoboes xcept meself in the vaken lot near de
road war de old brick piles is. Dey got me stuck up wid a gun see
and I taken dis means of communication. 2 of der lads is gone down
to set fire to de cain field below de hous and when yous fellers
goes to turn de hoes on it de hole gang is goin to rob de hous of
de money yoo gotto pay off wit say git a move on ye say de kid
dropt dis sock on der rode tel her mery crismus de same as she
told me. Ketch de bums down de rode first and den sen a relefe
core to get me out of soke youres truly,
Whistlen Dick.
There was some quiet, but rapid, mavoeuvring at Bellemeade during the
ensuring half hour, which ended in five disgusted and sullen tramps
being captured, and locked securely in an outhouse pending the coming
of the morning and retribution. For another result, the visiting young
gentlemen had secured the unqualified worship of the visiting young
ladies by their distinguished and heroic conduct. For still another,
behold Whistling Dick, the hero, seated at the planter's table,
feasting upon viands his experience had never before included, and
waited upon by admiring femininity in shapes of such beauty and
"swellness" that even his ever-full mouth could scarcely prevent him
from whistling. He was made to disclose in detail his adventure with
the evil gang of Boston Harry, and how he cunningly wrote the note and
wrapped it around the stone and placed it at the toe of the stocking,
and, watching his chance, sent it silently, with a wonderful
centrifugal momentum, like a comet, at one of the big lighted windows
of the dining-room.
The planter vowed that the wanderer should wander no more; that his
was a goodness and an honesty that should be rewarded, and that a debt
of gratitude had been made that must be paid; for had he not saved
them from a doubtless imminent loss, and maybe a greater calamity? He
assured Whistling Dick that he might consider himself a charge upon
the honour of Bellemeade; that a position suited to his powers would
be found for him at once, and hinted that the way would be heartily
smoothed for him to rise to as high places of emolument and trust as
the plantation afforded.
But now, they said, he must be weary, and the immediate thing to
consider was rest and sleep. So the mistress spoke to a servant, and
Whistling Dick was conducted to a room in the wing of the house
occupied by the servants. To this room, in a few minutes, was brought
a portable tin bathtub filled with water, which was placed on a piece
of oiled cloth upon the floor. There the vagrant was left to pass the
night.
By the light of a candle he examined the room. A bed, with the covers
neatly turned back, revealed snowy pillows and sheets. A worn, but
clean, red carpet covered the floor. There was a dresser with a
beveled mirror, a washstand with a flowered bowl and pitcher; the two
or three chairs were softly upholstered. A little table held books,
papers, and a day-old cluster of roses in a jar. There were towels on
a rack and soap in a white dish.
Whistling Dick set his candle on a chair and placed his hat carefully
under the table. After satisfying what we must suppose to have been
his curiosity by a sober scrutiny, he removed his coat, folded it, and
laid it upon the floor, near the wall, as far as possible from the
unused bathtub. Taking his coat for a pillow, he stretched himself
luxuriously upon the carpet.
When, on Christmas morning, the first streaks of dawn broke above the
marshes, Whistling Dick awoke, and reached instinctively for his hat.
Then he remembered that the skirts of Fortune had swept him into their
folds on the night previous, and he went to the window and raised it,
to let the fresh breath of the morning cool his brow and fix the yet
dream-like memory of his good luck within his brain.
As he stood there, certain dread and ominous sounds pierced the
fearful hollow of his ear.
The force of plantation workers, eager to complete the shortened task
allotted to them, were all astir. The mighty din of the ogre Labour
shook the earth, and the poor tattered and forever disguised Prince in
search of his fortune held tight to the window-sill even in the
enchanted castle, and trembled.
Already from the bosom of the mill came the thunder of rolling barrels
of sugar, and (prison-like sounds) there was a great rattling of
chains as the mules were harried with stimulant imprecations to their
places by the waggon-tongues. A little vicious "dummy" engine, with a
train of flat cars in tow, stewed and fumed on the plantation tap of
the narrow-gauge railroad, and a toiling, hurrying, hallooing stream
of workers were dimly seen in the half darkness loading the train with
the weekly output of sugar. Here was a poem; an epic--nay, a tragedy--
with work, the curse of the world, for its theme.
The December air was frosty, but the sweat broke out upon Whistling
Dick's face. He thrust his head out of the window, and looked down.
Fifteen feet below him, against the wall of the house, he could make
out that a border of flowers grew, and by that token he overhung a bed
of soft earth.
Softly as a burglar goes, he clambered out upon the sill, lowered
himself until he hung by his hands alone, and then dropped safely. No
one seemed to be about upon this side of the house. He dodged low, and
skimmed swiftly across the yard to the low fence. It was an easy
matter to vault this, for a terror urged him such as lifts the gazelle
over the thorn bush when the lion pursues. A crash through the dew-
drenched weeds on the roadside, a clutching, slippery rush up the
grassy side of the levee to the footpath at the summit, and--he was
free!
The east was blushing and brightening. The wind, himself a vagrant
rover, saluted his brother upon the cheek. Some wild geese, high
above, gave cry. A rabbit skipped along the path before him, free to
turn to the right or to the left as his mood should send him. The
river slid past, and certainly no one could tell the ultimate abiding
place of its waters.
A small, ruffled, brown-breasted bird, sitting upon a dog-wood
sapling, began a soft, throaty, tender little piping in praise of the
dew which entices foolish worms from their holes; but suddenly he
stopped, and sat with his head turned sidewise, listening.
From the path along the levee there burst forth a jubilant, stirring,
buoyant, thrilling whistle, loud and keen and clear as the cleanest
notes of the piccolo. The soaring sound rippled and trilled and
arpeggioed as the songs of wild birds do not; but it had a wild free
grace that, in a way, reminded the small, brown bird of something
familiar, but exactly what he could not tell. There was in it the bird
call, or reveille, that all birds know; but a great waste of lavish,
unmeaning things that art had added and arranged, besides, and that
were quite puzzling and strange; and the little brown bird sat with
his head on one side until the sound died away in the distance.
The little bird did not know that the part of that strange warbling
that he understood was just what kept the warbler without his
breakfast; but he knew very well that the part he did not understand
did not concern him, so he gave a little flutter of his wings and
swooped down like a brown bullet upon a big fat worm that was
wriggling along the levee path.
XX
THE HALBERDIER OF THE LITTLE RHEINSCHLOSS
I go sometimes into the /Bierhalle/ and restaurant called Old Munich.
Not long ago it was a resort of interesting Bohemians, but now only
artists and musicians and literary folk frequent it. But the Pilsner
is yet good, and I take some diversion from the conversation of Waiter
No. 18.
For many years the customers of Old Munich have accepted the place as
a faithful copy from the ancient German town. The big hall with its
smoky rafters, rows of imported steins, portrait of Goethe, and verses
painted on the walls--translated into German from the original of the
Cincinnati poets--seems atmospherically correct when viewed through
the bottom of a glass.
But not long ago the proprietors added the room above, called it the
Little Rheinschloss, and built in a stairway. Up there was an
imitation stone parapet, ivy-covered, and the walls were painted to
represent depth and distance, with the Rhine winding at the base of
the vineyarded slopes, and the castle of Ehrenbreitstein looming
directly opposite the entrance. Of course there were tables and
chairs; and you could have beer and food brought you, as you naturally
would on the top of a castle on the Rhine.
I went into Old Munich one afternoon when there were few customers,
and sat at my usual table near the stairway. I was shocked and almost
displeased to perceive that the glass cigar-case by the orchestra
stand had been smashed to smithereens. I did not like things to happen
in Old Munich. Nothing had ever happened there before.
Waiter No. 18 came and breathed on my neck. I was his by right of
discovery. Eighteen's brain was built like a corral. It was full of
ideas which, when he opened the gate, came huddling out like a flock
of sheep that might get together afterward or might not. I did not
shine as a shepherd. As a type Eighteen fitted nowhere. I did not find
out if he had a nationality, family, creed, grievance, hobby, soul,
preference, home, or vote. He only came always to my table and, as
long as his leisure would permit, let words flutter from him like
swallows leaving a barn at daylight.
"How did the cigar-case come to be broken, Eighteen?" I asked, with a
certain feeling of personal grievance.
"I can tell you about that, sir," said he, resting his foot on the
chair next to mine. "Did you ever have anybody hand you a double
handful of good luck while both your hands were full of bad luck, and
stop to notice how your fingers behaved?"
"No riddles, Eighteen," said I. "Leave out palmistry and manicuring."
"You remember," said Eighteen, "the guy in the hammered brass Prince
Albert and the oroide gold pants and the amalgamated copper hat, that
carried the combination meat-axe, ice-pick, and liberty-pole, and used
to stand on the first landing as you go up to the Little Rindslosh."
"Why, yes," said I. "The halberdier. I never noticed him particularly.
I remember he thought he was only a suit of armour. He had a perfect
poise."
"He had more than that," said Eighteen. "He was me friend. He was an
advertisement. The boss hired him to stand on the stairs for a kind of
scenery to show there was something doing in the has-been line
upstairs. What did you call him--a what kind of beer?"
"A halberdier," said I. "That was an ancient man-at-arms of many
hundred years ago."
"Some mistake," said Eighteen. "This one wasn't that old. He wasn't
over twenty-three or four.
"It was the boss's idea, rigging a man up in an ante-bellum suit of
tinware and standing him on the landing of the slosh. He bought the
goods at a Fourth Avenue antique store, and hung a sign-out: 'Able-
bodied hal--halberdier wanted. Costume furnished.'
"The same morning a young man with wrecked good clothes and a hungry
look comes in, bringing the sign with him. I was filling the mustard-
pots at my station.
"'I'm it,' says he, 'whatever it is. But I never halberdiered in a
restaurant. Put me on. Is it a masquerade?'
"'I hear talk in the kitchen of a fishball,' says I.
"'Bully for you, Eighteen,' says he. 'You and I'll get on. Show me the
boss's desk.'
"Well, the boss tries the Harveyized pajamas on him, and they fitted
him like the scales on a baked redsnapper, and he gets the job. You've
seen what it is--he stood straight up in the corner of the first
landing with his halberd to his shoulder, looking right ahead and
guarding the Portugals of the castle. The boss is nutty about having
the true Old-World flavour to his joint. 'Halberdiers goes with
Rindsloshes,' says he, 'just as rats goes with rathskellers and white
cotton stockings with Tyrolean villages.' The boss is a kind of a
antiologist, and is all posted up on data and such information.
"From 8 P.M. to two in the morning was the halberdier's hours. He got
two meals with us help and a dollar an night. I eat with him at the
table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling
impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to
him: 'Have some more of the spuds, Mr. Frelinghuysen.' 'Oh, don't be
so formal and offish, Eighteen,' says he. 'Call me Hal--that's short
for halberdier.' 'Oh, don't think I wanted to pry for names,' says I.
'I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We've got
a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender used to
be a Pullman conductor. And they /work/, Sir Percival,' says I,
sarcastic.
"'Eighteen,' says he, 'as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented hell,
would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don't say that
it's got more muscle than I have, but--' And then he shows me the
insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned and
swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks criss-
crossed with a knife--the kind the butchers hide and take home,
knowing what is the best.
"'Shoveling coal,' says he, 'and piling bricks and loading drays. But
they gave out, and I had to resign. I was born for a halberdier, and
I've been educated for twenty-four years to fill the position. Now,
quit knocking my profession, and pass along a lot more of that ham.
I'm holding the closing exercises,' says he, 'of a forty-eight-hour
fast.'
"The second night he was on the job he walks down from his corner to
the cigar-case and calls for cigarettes. The customers at the tables
all snicker out loud to show their acquaintance with history. The boss
is on.
"'An'--let's see--oh, yes--'An anachronism,' says the boss.
'Cigarettes was not made at the time when halberdiers was invented.'
"'The ones you sell was,' says Sir Percival. 'Caporal wins from
chronology by the length of a cork tip.' So he gets 'em and lights
one, and puts the box in his brass helmet, and goes back to patroling
the Rindslosh.
"He made a big hit, 'specially with the ladies. Some of 'em would poke
him with their fingers to see if he was real or only a kind of a
stuffed figure like they burn in elegy. And when he'd move they'd
squeak, and make eyes at him as they went up to the slosh. He looked
fine in his halberdashery. He slept at $2 a week in a hall-room on
Third Avenue. He invited me up there one night. He had a little book
on the washstand that he read instead of shopping in the saloons after
hours. 'I'm on to that,' says I, 'from reading about it in novels. All
the heroes on the bum carry the little book. It's either Tantalus or
Liver or Horace, and its printed in Latin, and you're a college man.
And I wouldn't be surprised,' says I, 'if you wasn't educated, too.'
But it was only the batting averages of the League for the last ten
years.
"One night, about half past eleven, there comes in a party of these
high-rollers that are always hunting up new places to eat in and poke
fun at. There was a swell girl in a 40 H.-P. auto tan coat and veil,
and a fat old man with white side-whiskers, and a young chap that
couldn't keep his feet off the tail of the girl's coat, and an oldish
lady that looked upon life as immoral and unnecessary. 'How perfectly
delightful,' they says, 'to sup in a slosh.' Up the stairs they go;
and in half a minute back down comes the girl, her skirts swishing
like the waves on the beach. She stops on the landing and looks our
halberdier in the eye.
"'You!' she says, with a smile that reminded me of lemon sherbet. I
was waiting up-stairs in the slosh, then, and I was right down here by
the door, putting some vinegar and cayenne into an empty bottle of
tabasco, and I heard all they said.
"'It,' says Sir Percival, without moving. 'I'm only local colour. Are
my hauberk, helmet, and halberd on straight?'
"'Is there an explanation to this?' says she. 'Is it a practical joke
such as men play in those Griddle-cake and Lamb Clubs? I'm afraid I
don't see the point. I heard, vaguely, that you were away. For three
months I--we have not seen you or heard from you.'
"'I'm halberdiering for my living,' says the stature. 'I'm working,'
says he. 'I don't suppose you know what work means.'
"'Have you--have you lost your money?' she asks.
"Sir Percival studies a minute.
"'I am poorer,' says he, 'than the poorest sandwich man on the streets
--if I don't earn my living.'
"'You call this work?' says she. 'I thought a man worked with his
hands or his head instead of becoming a mountebank.'
"'The calling of a halberdier,' says he, 'is an ancient and honourable
one. Sometimes,' says he, 'the man-at-arms at the door has saved the
castle while the plumed knights were cake-walking in the banquet-halls
above.'
"'I see you're not ashamed,' says she, 'of your peculiar tastes. I
wonder, though, that the manhood I used to think I saw in you didn't
prompt you to draw water or hew wood instead of publicly flaunting
your ignominy in this disgraceful masquerade.'
"Sir Percival kind of rattles his armour and says: 'Helen, will you
suspend sentence in this matter for just a little while? You don't
understand,' says he. 'I've got to hold this job down a little
longer.'
"'You like being a harlequin--or halberdier, as you call it?' says
she.
"'I wouldn't get thrown of the job just now,' says he, with a grin,
'to be appointed Minister to the Court of St. James's.'
"And then the 40-H.P. girl's eyes sparked as hard as diamonds.
"'Very well,' says she. 'You shall have full run of your serving-man's
tastes this night.' And she swims over to the boss's desk and gives
him a smile that knocks the specks off his nose.
"'I think your Rindslosh,' says she, 'is as beautiful as a dream. It
is a little slice of the Old World set down in New York. We shall have
a nice supper up there; but if you will grant us one favour the
illusion will be perfect--give us your halberdier to wait on our
table.'
"That hits the boss's antiology hobby just right. 'Sure,' says he,
'dot vill be fine. Und der orchestra shall blay "Die Wacht am Rhein"
all der time.' And he goes over and tells the halberdier to go
upstairs and hustle the grub at the swells' table.
"'I'm on the job,' says Sir Percival, taking off his helmet and
hanging it on his halberd and leaning 'em in the corner. The girl goes
up and takes her seat and I see her jaw squared tight under her smile.
'We're going to be waited on by a real halberdier,' says she, 'one who
is proud of his profession. Isn't it sweet?'
"'Ripping,' says the swell young man. 'Much prefer a waiter,' says the
fat old gent. 'I hope he doesn't come from a cheap museum,' says the
old lady; 'he might have microbes in his costume.'
"Before he goes to the table, Sir Percival takes me by the arm.
'Eighteen,' he says, 'I've got to pull off this job without a blunder.
You coach me straight or I'll take that halberd and make hash out of
you.' And then he goes up to the table with his coat of mail on and a
napkin over his arm and waits for the order.
"'Why, it's Deering!' says the young swell. 'Hello, old man. What
the--'
"'Beg pardon, sir,' interrupts the halberdier, 'I'm waiting on the
table.'
"The old man looks at him grim, like a Boston bull. 'So, Deering,' he
says, 'you're at work yet.'
"'Yes, sir,' says Sir Percival, quiet and gentlemanly as I could have
been myself, 'for almost three months, now.' 'You haven't been
discharged during the time?' asks the old man. 'Not once, sir,' says
he, 'though I've had to change my work several times.'
"'Waiter,' orders the girl, short and sharp, 'another napkin.' He
brings her one, respectful.
"I never saw more devil, if I may say it, stirred up in a lady. There
was two bright red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes looked exactly
like a wildcat's I'd seen in the zoo. Her foot kept slapping the floor
all the time.
"'Waiter,' she orders, 'bring me filtered water without ice. Bring me
a footstool. Take away this empty salt-cellar.' She kept him on the
jump. She was sure giving the halberdier his.
"There wasn't but a few customers up in the slosh at that time, so I
hung out near the door so I could help Sir Percival serve.
"He got along fine with the olives and celery and the bluepoints. They
was easy. And then the consomme came up the dumb-waiter all in one big
silver tureen. Instead of serving it from the side-table he picks it
up between his hands and starts to the dining-table with it. When
nearly there he drops the tureen smash on the floor, and the soup
soaks all the lower part of that girl's swell silk dress.
"'Stupid--incompetent,' says she, giving him a look. 'Standing in a
corner with a halberd seems to be your mission in life.'
"'Pardon me, lady,' says he. 'It was just a little bit hotter than
blazes. I couldn't help it.'
"The old man pulls out a memorandum book and hunts in it. 'The 25th of
April, Deering,' says he. 'I know it,' says Sir Percival. 'And ten
minutes to twelve o'clock,' says the old man. 'By Jupiter! you haven't
won yet.' And he pounds the table with his fist and yells to me:
'Waiter, call the manager at once--tell him to hurry here as fast as
he can.' I go after the boss, and old Brockmann hikes up to the slosh
on the jump.
"'I want this man discharged at once,' roads the old guy. 'Look what
he's done. Ruined my daughter's dress. It cost at least $600.
Discharge this awkward lout at once or I'll sue you for the price of
it.'
"'Dis is bad pizness,' says the boss. 'Six hundred dollars is much. I
reckon I vill haf to--'
"'Wait a minute, Herr Brockmann,' says Sir Percival, easy and smiling.
But he was worked up under his tin suitings; I could see that. And
then he made the finest, neatest little speech I ever listened to. I
can't give you the words, of course. He give the millionaires a lovely
roast in a sarcastic way, describing their automobiles and opera-boxes
and diamonds; and then he got around to the working-classes and the
kind of grub they eat and the long hours they work--and all that sort
of stuff--bunkum, of course. 'The restless rich,' says he, 'never
content with their luxuries, always prowling among the haunts of the
poor and humble, amusing themselves with the imperfections and
misfortunes of their fellow men and women. And even here, Herr
Brockmann,' he says, 'in this beautiful Rindslosh, a grand and
enlightening reproduction of Old World history and architecture, they
come to disturb its symmetry and picturesqueness by demanding in their
arrogance that the halberdier of the castle wait upon their table! I
have faithfuly and conscientiously,' says he, 'performed my duties as
a halberdier. I know nothing of a waiter's duties. It was the insolent
whim of these transient, pampered aristocrats that I should be
detailed to serve them food. Must I be blamed--must I be deprived of
the means of a livelihood,' he goes on, 'on account of an accident
that was the result of their own presumption and haughtiness? But what
hurts me more than all,' says Sir Percival, 'is the desecration that
has been done to this splendid Rindslosh--the confiscation of its
halberdier to serve menially at the banquet board.'
"Even I could see that this stuff was piffle; but it caught the boss.
"'Mein Gott,' says he, 'you vas right. Ein halberdier have not got der
right to dish up soup. Him I vill not discharge. Have anoder waiter if
you like, und let mein halberdier go back und stand mit his halberd.
But, gentlemen,' he says, pointing to the old man, 'you go ahead and
sue mit der dress. Sue me for $600 or $6,000. I stand der suit.' And
the boss puffs off down-stairs. Old Brockmann was an all-right
Dutchman.
"Just then the clock strikes twelve, and the old guy laughs loud. 'You
win, Deering,' says he. 'And let me explain to all,' he goes on. 'Some
time ago Mr. Deering asked me for something that I did not want to
give him.' (I looks at the girl, and she turns as red as a pickled
beet.) 'I told him,' says the old guy, 'if he would earn his own
living for three months without being discharged for incompetence, I
would give him what he wanted. It seems that the time was up at twelve
o'clock to-night. I came near fetching you, though, Deering, on that
soup question,' says the old boy, standing up and grabbing Sir
Percival's hand.
"The halberdier lets out a yell and jumps three feet high.
"'Look out for those hands,' says he, and he holds 'em up. You never
saw such hands except on a labourer in a limestone quarry.
"'Heavens, boy!' says old side-whiskers, 'what have you been doing to
'em?'
"'Oh,' says Sir Percival, 'little chores like hauling coal and
excavating rock till they went back on me. And when I couldn't hold a
pick or a whip I took up halberdiering to give 'em a rest. Tureens
full of hot soup don't seem to be a particularly soothing treatment.'
"I would have bet on that girl. That high-tempered kind always go as
far the other way, according to my experience. She whizzes round the
table like a cyclone and catches both his hands in hers. 'Poor hands--
dear hands,' she sings out, and sheds tears on 'em and holds 'em close
to her bosom. Well, sir, with all that Rindslosh scenery it was just
like a play. And the halberdier sits down at the table at the girl's
side, and I served the rest of the supper. And that was about all,
except that when they left he shed his hardware store and went with
'em."
I dislike to be side-tracked from an original proposition.
"But you haven't told me, Eighteen," said I, "how the cigar-case came
to be broken."
"Oh, that was last night," said Eighteen. "Sir Percival and the girl
drove up in a cream-coloured motor-car, and had dinner in the
Rindslosh. 'The same table, Billy,' I heard her say as they went up. I
waited on 'em. We've got a new halberdier now, a bow-legged guy with a
face like a sheep. As they came down-stairs Sir Percival passes him a
ten-case note. The new halberdier drops his halberd, and it falls on
the cigar-case. That's how that happened."
XXI
TWO RENEGADES
In the Gate City of the South the Confederate Veterans were reuniting;
and I stood to see them march, beneath the tangled flags of the great
conflict, to the hall of their oratory and commemoration.
While the irregular and halting line was passing I made onslaught upon
it and dragged from the ranks my friend Barnard O'Keefe, who had no
right to be there. For he was a Northerner born and bred; and what
should he be doing halloing for the Stars and Bars among those gray
and moribund veterans? And why should he be trudging, with his
shining, martial, humorous, broad face, among those warriors of a
previous and alien generation?
I say I dragged him forth, and held him till the last hickory leg and
waving goatee had stumbled past. And then I hustled him out of the
crowd into a cool interior; for the Gate City was stirred that day,
and the hand-organs wisely eliminated "Marching Through Georgia" from
their repertories.
"Now, what deviltry are you up to?" I asked of O'Keefe when there were
a table and things in glasses between us.
O'Keefe wiped his heated face and instigated a commotion among the
floating ice in his glass before he chose to answer.
"I am assisting at the wake," said he, "of the only nation on earth
that ever did me a good turn. As one gentleman to another, I am
ratifying and celebrating the foreign policy of the late Jefferson
Davis, as fine a statesman as ever settled the financial question of a
country. Equal ratio--that was his platform--a barrel of money for a
barrel of flour--a pair of $20 bills for a pair of boots--a hatful of
currency for a new hat--say, ain't that simple compared with W. J. B's
little old oxidized plank?"
"What talk is this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely a
subterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks of the Confederate
Veterans?"
"Because, my lad," answered O'Keefe, "the Confederate Government in
its might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O'Keefe
against immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a blood-
thirsty foreign country after the Unites States of America had
overruled his appeal for protection, and had instructed Private
Secretary Cortelyou to reduce his estimate of the Republican majority
for 1905 by one vote."
"Come, Barney," said I, "the Confederate States of America has been
out of existence nearly forty years. You do not look older yourself.
When was it that the deceased government exerted its foreign policy in
your behalf?"
"Four months ago," said O'Keefe, promptly. "The infamous foreign power
I alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt it by
Mr. Davis's contraband aggregation of states. That's why you see me
cake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about 'simmon-
seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington, but I am
not going back on Mars' Jeff. You say the Confederacy has been dead
forty years? Well, if it hadn't been for it, I'd have been breathing
to-day with soul so dead I couldn't have whispered a single cuss-word
about my native land. The O'Keefes are not overburdened with
ingratitude."
I must have looked bewildered. "The war was over," I said vacantly,
"in--"
O'Keefe laughed loudly, scattering my thoughts.
"Ask old Doc Millikin if the war is over!" he shouted, hugely
diverted. "Oh, no! Doc hasn't surrendered yet. And the Confederate
States! Well, I just told you they bucked officially and solidly and
nationally against a foreign government four months ago and kept me
from being shot. Old Jeff's country stepped in and brought me off
under its wing while Roosevelt was having a gunboat repainted and
waiting for the National Campaign Committee to look up whether I had
ever scratched the ticket."
"Isn't there a story in this, Barney?" I asked.
"No," said O'Keefe; "but I'll give you the facts. You know I went down
to Panama when this irritation about a canal began. I thought I'd get
in on the ground floor. I did, and had to sleep on it, and drink water
with little zoos in it; so, of course, I got the Chagres fever. That
was in a little town called San Juan on the coast.
"After I got the fever hard enough to kill a Port-au-Prince nigger, I
had a relapse in the shape of Doc Millikin.
"There was a doctor to attend a sick man! If Doc Millikin had your
case, he made the terrors of death seem like an invitation to a
donkey-party. He had the bedside manners of a Piute medicine-man and
the soothing presence of a dray loaded with iron bridge-girders. When
he laid his hand on your fevered brow you felt like Cap John Smith
just before Pocahontas went his bail.
"Well, this old medical outrage floated down to my shack when I sent
for him. He was build like a shad, and his eyebrows was black, and his
white whiskers trickled down from his chin like milk coming out of a
sprinkling-pot. He had a nigger boy along carrying an old tomato-can
full of calomel, and a saw.
"Doc felt my pulse, and then he began to mess up some calomel with an
agricultural implement that belonged to the trowel class.
"'I don't want any death-mask made yet, Doc,' I says, 'nor my liver
put in a plaster-of-Paris cast. I'm sick; and it's medicine I need,
not frescoing.'
"'You're a blame Yankee, ain't you?' asked Doc, going on mixing up his
Portland cement.
"'I'm from the North,' says I, 'but I'm a plain man, and don't care
for mural decorations. When you get the Isthmus all asphalted over
with that boll-weevil prescription, would you mind giving me a dose of
pain-killer, or a little strychnine on toast to ease up this feeling
of unhealthiness that I have got?"
"'They was all sassy, just like you,' says old Doc, 'but we lowered
their temperature considerable. Yes, sir, I reckon we sent a good many
of ye over to old /mortuis nisi bonum/. Look at Antietam and Bull Run
and Seven Pines and around Nashville! There never was a battle where
we didn't lick ye unless you was ten to our one. I knew you were a
blame Yankee the minute I laid eyes on you.'
"'Don't reopen the chasm, Doc,' I begs him. 'Any Yankeeness I may have
is geographical; and, as far as I am concerned, a Southerner is as
good as a Filipino any day. I'm feeling to bad too argue. Let's have
secession without misrepresentation, if you say so; but what I need is
more laudanum and less Lundy's Lane. If you're mixing that compound
gefloxide of gefloxicum for me, please fill my ears with it before you
get around to the battle of Gettysburg, for there is a subject full of
talk.'
"By this time Doc Millikin had thrown up a line of fortifications on
square pieces of paper; and he says to me: 'Yank, take one of these
powders every two hours. They won't kill you. I'll be around again
about sundown to see if you're alive.'
"Old Doc's powders knocked the chagres. I stayed in San Juan, and got
to knowing him better. He was from Mississippi, and the red-hottest
Southerner that ever smelled mint. He made Stonewall Jackson and R. E.
Lee look like Abolitionists. He had a family somewhere down near Yazoo
City; but he stayed away from the States on account of an
uncontrollable liking he had for the absence of a Yankee government.
Him and me got as thick personally as the Emperor of Russia and the
dove of peace, but sectionally we didn't amalgamate.
"'Twas a beautiful system of medical practice introduced by old Doc
into that isthmus of land. He'd take that bracket-saw and the mild
chloride and his hypodermic, and treat anything from yellow fever to a
personal friend.
"Besides his other liabilities Doc could play a flute for a minute or
two. He was guilty of two tunes--'Dixie' and another one that was
mighty close to the 'Suwanee River'--you might say one of its
tributaries. He used to come down and sit with me while I was getting
well, and aggrieve his flute and say unreconstructed things about the
North. You'd have thought that the smoke from the first gun at Fort
Sumter was still floating around in the air.
"You know that was about the time they staged them property
revolutions down there, that wound up in the fifth act with the
thrilling canal scene where Uncle Sam has nine curtain-calls holding
Miss Panama by the hand, while the bloodhounds keep Senator Morgan
treed up in a cocoanut-palm.
"That's the way it wound up; but at first it seemed as if Colombia was
going to make Panama look like one of the $3.98 kind, with dents made
in it in the factory, like they wear at North Beach fish fries. For
mine, I played the straw-hat crowd to win; and they gave me a
colonel's commission over a brigade of twenty-seven men in the left
wing and second joint of the insurgent army.
"The Colombian troops were awfully rude to us. One day when I had my
brigade in a sandy spot, with its shoes off doing a battalion drill by
squads, the Government army rushed from behind a bush at us, acting as
noisy and disagreeable as they could.
"My troops enfiladed, left-faced, and left the spot. After enticing
the enemy for three miles or so we struck a brier-patch and had to sit
down. When we were ordered to throw up our toes and surrender we
obeyed. Five of my best staff-officers fell, suffering extremely with
stone-bruised heels.
"Then and there those Colombians took your friend Barney, sir,
stripped him of the insignia of his rank, consisting of a pair of
brass knuckles and a canteen of rum, and dragged him before a military
court. The presiding general went through the usual legal formalities
that sometimes cause a case to hang on the calendar of a South
American military court as long as ten minutes. He asked me my age,
and then sentenced me to be shot.
"They woke up the court interpreter, an American named Jenks, who was
in the rum business and vice versa, and told him to translate the
verdict.
"Jenks stretched himself and took a morphine tablet.
"'You've got to back up against th' 'dobe, old man,' says he to me.
'Three weeks, I believe, you get. Haven't got a chew of fine-cut on
you, have you?'
"'Translate that again, with foot-notes and a glossary,' says I. 'I
don't know whether I'm discharged, condemned, or handed over to the
Gerry Society.'
"'Oh,' says Jenks, 'don't you understand? You're to be stood up
against a 'dobe wall and shot in two or three weeks--three, I think,
they said.'
"'Would you mind asking 'em which?' says I. 'A week don't amount to
much after you're dead, but it seems a real nice long spell while you
are alive.'
"'It's two weeks,' says the interpreter, after inquiring in Spanish of
the court. 'Shall I ask 'em again?'
"'Let be,' says I. 'Let's have a stationary verdict. If I keep on
appealing this way they'll have me shot about ten days before I was
captured. No, I haven't got any fine-cut.'
"They sends me over to the /calaboza/ with a detachment of coloured
postal-telegraph boys carrying Enfield rifles, and I am locked up in a
kind of brick bakery. The temperature in there was just about the kind
mentioned in the cooking recipes that call for a quick oven.
"Then I gives a silver dollar to one of the guards to send for the
United States consul. He comes around in pajamas, with a pair of
glasses on his nose and a dozen or two inside of him.
"'I'm to be shot in two weeks,' says I. 'And although I've made a
memorandum of it, I don't seem to get it off my mind. You want to call
up Uncle Sam on the cable as quick as you can and get him all worked
up about it. Have 'em send the /Kentucky/ and the /Kearsage/ and the
/Oregon/ down right away. That'll be about enough battleships; but it
wouldn't hurt to have a couple of cruisers and a torpedo-boat
destroyer, too. And--say, if Dewey isn't busy, better have him come
along on the fastest one of the fleet.'
"'Now, see here, O'Keefe,' says the consul, getting the best of a
hiccup, 'what do you want to bother the State Department about this
matter for?'
"'Didn't you hear me?' says I; 'I'm to be shot in two weeks. Did you
think I said I was going to a lawn-party? And it wouldn't hurt of
Roosevelt could get the Japs to send down the /Yellowyamtiskookum/ or
the /Ogotosingsing/ or some other first-class cruisers to help. It
would make me feel safer.'
"'Now, what you want,' says the consul, 'is not to get excited. I'll
send you over some chewing tobacco and some banana fritters when I go
back. The United States can't interfere in this. You know you were
caught insurging against the government, and you're subject to the
laws of this country. To tell the truth, I've had an intimation from
the State Department--unofficially, of course--that whenever a soldier
of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary
/katzenjammer/, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he
wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if they fit me, for part
payment of my salary.'
"'Consul,' says I to him, 'this is a serious question. You are
representing Uncle Sam. This ain't any little international
tomfoolery, like a universal peace congress or the christening of the
/Shamrock IV/. I'm an American citizen and I demand protection. I
demand the Mosquito fleet, and Schley, and the Atlantic squadron, and
Bob Evans, and General E. Byrd Grubb, and two or three protocols. What
are you going to do about it?'
"'Nothing doing,' says the consul.
"'Be off with you, then,' says I, out of patience with him, 'and send
me Doc Millikin. Ask Doc to come and see me.'
"Doc comes and looks through the bars at me, surrounded by dirty
soldiers, with even my shoes and canteen confiscated, and he looks
mightily pleased.
"'Hello, Yank,' says he, 'getting a little taste of Johnson's Island,
now, ain't ye?'
"'Doc,' says I, 'I've just had an interview with the U.S. consul. I
gather from his remarks that I might just as well have been caught
selling suspenders in Kishineff under the name of Rosenstein as to be
in my present condition. It seems that the only maritime aid I am to
receive from the United States is some navy-plug to chew. Doc,' says
I, 'can't you suspend hostility on the slavery question long enough to
do something for me?'
"'It ain't been my habit,' Doc Millikin answers, 'to do any painless
dentistry when I find a Yank cutting an eye-tooth. So the Stars and
Stripes ain't lending any marines to shell the huts of the Colombian
cannibals, hey? Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light the
star-spangled banner has fluked in the fight? What's the matter with
the War Department, hey? It's a great thing to be a citizen of a gold-
standard nation, ain't it?'
"'Rub it in, Doc, all you want,' says I. 'I guess we're weak on
foreign policy.'
"'For a Yank,' says Doc, putting on his specs and talking more mild,
'you ain't so bad. If you had come from below the line I reckon I
would have liked you right smart. Now since your country has gone back
on you, you have to come to the old doctor whose cotton you burned and
whose mules who stole and whose niggers you freed to help you. Ain't
that so, Yank?'
"'It is,' says I heartily, 'and let's have a diagnosis of the case
right away, for in two weeks' time all you can do is to hold an
autopsy and I don't want to be amputated if I can help it.'
"'Now,' says Doc, business-like, 'it's easy enough for you to get out
of this scrape. Money'll do it. You've got to pay a long string of 'em
from General Pomposo down to this anthropoid ape guarding your door.
About $10,000 will do the trick. Have you got the money?'
"'Me?' says I. 'I've got one Chili dollar, two /real/ pieces, and a
/medio/.'
"'Then if you've any last words, utter 'em,' says that old reb. 'The
roster of your financial budget sounds quite much to be like the noise
of a requiem.'
"'Change the treatment,' says I. 'I admit that I'm short. Call a
consultation or use radium or smuggle me in some saws or something.'
"'Yank,' says Doc Millikin, 'I've a good notion to help you. There's
only one government in the world that can get you out of this
difficulty; and that's the Confederate States of America, the grandest
nation that ever existed.'
"Just as you said to me I says to Doc; 'Why, the Confederacy ain't a
nation. It's been absolved forty years ago.'
"'That's a campaign lie,' says Doc. 'She's running along as solid as
the Roman Empire. She's the only hope you've got. Now, you, being a
Yank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies before
you can get official aid. You've got to take the oath of allegiance to
the Confederate Government. Then I'll guarantee she does all she can
for you. What do you say, Yank?--it's your last chance.'
"'If you're fooling with me, Doc,' I answers, 'you're no better than
the United States. But as you say it's the last chance, hurry up and
swear me. I always did like the corn whisky and 'possum anyhow. I
believe I'm half Southerner by nature. I'm willing to try the Klu-klux
in place of the khaki. Get brisk.'
"Doc Millikin thinks awhile, and then he offers me this oath of
allegiance to take without any kind of a chaser:
"'I, Barnard O'Keefe, Yank, being of sound body but a Republican mind,
hereby swear to transfer my fealty, respect, and allegiance to the
Confederate States of America, and the government thereof in
consideration of said government, through its official acts and
powers, obtaining my freedom and release from confinement and sentence
of death brought about by the exuberance of my Irish proclivities and
my general pizenness as a Yank.'
"I repeated these words after Doc, but they seemed to me a kind of
hocus-pocus; and I don't believe any life-insurance company in the
world would have issued me a policy on the strength of 'em.
"Doc went away saying he would communicate with his government
immediately.
"Say--you can imagine how I felt--me to be shot in two weeks and my
only hope for help being in a government that's been dead so long that
it isn't even remembered except on Decoration Day and when Joe Wheeler
signs the voucher for his pay-check. But it was all there was in
sight; and somehow I thought Doc Millikin had something up his old
alpaca sleeve that wasn't all foolishness.
"Around to the jail comes old Doc again in about a week. I was flea-
bitten, a mite sarcastic, and fundamentally hungry.
"'Any Confederate ironclads in the offing?' I asks. 'Do you notice any
sounds resembling the approach of Jeb Stewart's cavalry overland or
Stonewall Jackson sneaking up in the rear? If you do, I wish you'd say
so.'
"'It's too soon yet for help to come,' says Doc.
"'The sooner the better,' says I. 'I don't care if it gets in fully
fifteen minutes before I am shot; and if you happen to lay eyes on
Beauregard or Albert Sidney Johnston or any of the relief corps, wig-
wag 'em to hike along.'
"'There's been no answer received yet,' says Doc.
"'Don't forget,' says I, 'that there's only four days more. I don't
know how you propose to work this thing, Doc,' I says to him; 'but it
seems to me I'd sleep better if you had got a government that was
alive and on the map--like Afghanistan or Great Britain, or old man
Kruger's kingdom, to take this matter up. I don't mean any disrespect
to your Confederate States, but I can't help feeling that my chances
of being pulled out of this scrape was decidedly weakened when General
Lee surrendered.'
"'It's your only chance,' said Doc; 'don't quarrel with it. What did
your own country do for you?'
"It was only two days before the morning I was to be shot, when Doc
Millikin came around again.
"'All right, Yank,' says he. 'Help's come. The Confederate States of
America is going to apply for your release. The representatives of the
government arrived on a fruit-steamer last night.'
"'Bully!' says I--'bully for you, Doc! I suppose it's marines with a
Gatling. I'm going to love your country all I can for this.'
"'Negotiations,' says old Doc, 'will be opened between the two
governments at once. You will know later to-day if they are
successful.'
"About four in the afternoon a soldier in red trousers brings a paper
round to the jail, and they unlocks the door and I walks out. The
guard at the door bows and I bows, and I steps into the grass and
wades around to Doc Millikin's shack.
"Doc was sitting in his hammock playing 'Dixie,' soft and low and out
of tune, on his flute. I interrupted him at 'Look away! look away!'
and shook his hand for five minutes.
"'I never thought,' says Doc, taking a chew fretfully, 'that I'd ever
try to save any blame Yank's life. But, Mr. O'Keefe, I don't see but
what you are entitled to be considered part human, anyhow. I never
thought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudability
about them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in my
tabulation. But it ain't me you want to thank--it's the Confederate
States of America.'
"'And I'm much obliged to 'em,' says I. 'It's a poor man that wouldn't
be patriotic with a country that's saved his life. I'll drink to the
Stars and Bars whenever there's a flagstaff and a glass convenient.
But where,' says I, 'are the rescuing troops? If there was a gun fired
or a shell burst, I didn't hear it.'
"Doc Millikin raises up and points out the window with his flute at
the banana-steamer loading with fruit.
"'Yank,' says he, 'there's a steamer that's going to sail in the
morning. If I was you, I'd sail on it. The Confederate Government's
done all it can for you. There wasn't a gun fired. The negotiations
were carried on secretly between the two nations by the purser of that
steamer. I got him to do it because I didn't want to appear in it.
Twelve thousand dollars was paid to the officials in bribes to let you
go.'
"'Man!' says I, sitting down hard--'twelve thousand--how will I ever--
who could have--where did the money come from?'
"'Yazoo City,' says Doc Millikin: 'I've got a little saved up there.
Two barrels full. It looks good to these Colombians. 'Twas Confederate
money, every dollar of it. Now do you see why you'd better leave
before they try to pass some of it on an expert?'
"'I do,' says I.
"'Now let's hear you give the password,' says Doc Millikin.
"'Hurrah for Jeff Davis!' says I.
"'Correct,' says Doc. 'And let me tell you something: The next tune I
learn on my flute is going to be "Yankee Doodle." I reckon there's
some Yanks that are not so pizen. Or, if you was me, would you try
"The Red, White, and Blue"?'"
XXII
THE LONESOME ROAD
Brown as a coffee-berry, rugged, pistoled, spurred, wary,
indefeasible, I saw my old friend, Deputy-Marshal Buck Caperton,
stumble, with jingling rowels, into a chair in the marshal's outer
office.
And because the court-house was almost deserted at that hour, and
because Buck would sometimes relate to me things that were out of
print, I followed him in and tricked him into talk through knowledge
of a weakness he had. For, cigarettes rolled with sweet corn husk were
as honey to Buck's palate; and though he could finger the trigger of a
forty-five with skill and suddenness, he never could learn to roll a
cigarette.
It was through no fault of mine (for I rolled the cigarettes tight and
smooth), but the upshot of some whim of his own, that instead of to an
Odyssey of the chaparral, I listened to--a dissertation upon
matrimony! This from Buck Caperton! But I maintain that the cigarettes
were impeccable, and crave absolution for myself.
"We just brought in Jim and Bud Granberry," said Buck. "Train robbing,
you know. Held up the Aransas Pass last month. We caught 'em in the
Twenty-Mile pear flat, south of the Nueces."
"Have much trouble corralling them?" I asked, for here was the meat
that my hunger for epics craved.
"Some," said Buck; and then, during a little pause, his thoughts
stampeded off the trail. "It's kind of queer about women," he went on,
"and the place they're supposed to occupy in botany. If I was asked to
classify them I'd say they was a human loco weed. Ever see a bronc
that had been chewing loco? Ride him up to a puddle of water two feet
wide, and he'll give a snort and fall back on you. It looks as big as
the Mississippi River to him. Next trip he'd walk into a canon a
thousand feet deep thinking it was a prairie-dog hole. Same way with a
married man.
"I was thinking of Perry Rountree, that used to be my sidekicker
before he committed matrimony. In them days me and Perry hated
indisturbances of any kind. We roamed around considerable, stirring up
the echoes and making 'em attend to business. Why, when me and Perry
wanted to have some fun in a town it was a picnic for the census
takers. They just counted the marshal's posse that it took to subdue
us, and there was your population. But then there came along this
Mariana Goodnight girl and looked at Perry sideways, and he was all
bridle-wise and saddle-broke before you could skin a yearling.
"I wasn't even asked to the wedding. I reckon the bride had my
pedigree and the front elevation of my habits all mapped out, and she
decided that Perry would trot better in double harness without any
unconverted mustang like Buck Caperton whickering around on the
matrimonial range. So it was six months before I saw Perry again.
"One day I was passing on the edge of town, and I see something like a
man in a little yard by a little house with a sprinkling-pot squirting
water on a rose-bush. Seemed to me, I'd seen something like it before,
and I stopped at the gate, trying to figure out its brands. 'Twas not
Perry Rountree, but 'twas the kind of a curdled jellyfish matrimony
had made out of him.
"Homicide was what that Mariana had perpetrated. He was looking well
enough, but he had on a white collar and shoes, and you could tell in
a minute that he'd speak polite and pay taxes and stick his little
finger out while drinking, just like a sheep man or a citizen. Great
skyrockets! but I hated to see Perry all corrupted and Willie-ized
like that.
"He came out to the gate, and shook hands; and I says, with scorn, and
speaking like a paroquet with the pip: 'Beg pardon--Mr. Rountree, I
believe. Seems to me I sagatiated in your associations once, if I am
not mistaken.'
"'Oh, go to the devil, Buck,' says Perry, polite, as I was afraid he'd
be.
"'Well, then,' says I, 'you poor, contaminated adjunct of a
sprinkling-pot and degraded household pet, what did you go and do it
for? Look at you, all decent and unriotous, and only fit to sit on
juries and mend the wood-house door. You was a man once. I have
hostility for all such acts. Why don't you go in the house and count
the tidies or set the clock, and not stand out here in the atmosphere?
A jack-rabbit might come along and bite you.'
"'Now, Buck,' says Perry, speaking mild, and some sorrowful, 'you
don't understand. A married man has got to be different. He feels
different from a tough old cloudburst like you. It's sinful to waste
time pulling up towns just to look at their roots, and playing faro
and looking upon red liquor, and such restless policies as them.'
"'There was a time,' I says, and I expect I sighed when I mentioned
it, 'when a certain domesticated little Mary's lamb I could name was
some instructed himself in the line of pernicious sprightliness. I
never expected, Perry, to see you reduced down from a full-grown
pestilence to such a frivolous fraction of a man. Why,' says I,
'you've got a necktie on; and you speak a senseless kind of indoor
drivel that reminds me of a storekeeper or a lady. You look to me like
you might tote an umbrella and wear suspenders, and go home of
nights.'
"'The little woman,' says Perry, 'has made some improvements, I
believe. You can't understand, Buck. I haven't been away from the
house at night since we was married.'
"We talked on a while, me and Perry, and, as sure as I live, that man
interrupted me in the middle of my talk to tell me about six tomato
plants he had growing in his garden. Shoved his agricultural
degradation right up under my nose while I was telling him about the
fun we had tarring and feathering that faro dealer at California
Pete's layout! But by and by Perry shows a flicker of sense.
"'Buck,' says he, 'I'll have to admit that it is a little dull at
times. Not that I'm not perfectly happy with the little woman, but a
man seems to require some excitement now and then. Now, I'll tell you:
Mariana's gone visiting this afternoon, and she won't be home till
seven o'clock. Neither of us ever stays out a minute after that time
unless we are together. Now, I'm glad you came along, Buck,' says
Perry, 'for I'm feeling just like having one more rip-roaring razoo
with you for the sake of old times. What you say to us putting in the
afternoon having fun--I'd like it fine,' says Perry.
"I slapped that old captive range-rider half across his little garden.
"'Get your hat, you old dried-up alligator,' I shouts, 'you ain't dead
yet. You're part human, anyhow, if you did get all bogged up in
matrimony. We'll take this town to pieces and see what makes it tick.
We'll make all kinds of profligate demands upon the science of cork
pulling. You'll grow horns yet, old muley cow,' says I, punching Perry
in the ribs, 'if you trot around on the trail of vice with your Uncle
Buck.'
"'I'll have to be home by seven, you know,' says Perry again.
"'Oh, yes,' says I, winking to myself, for I knew the kind of seven
o'clocks Perry Rountree got back by after he once got to passing
repartee with the bartenders.
"We goes down to the Gray Mule saloon--that old 'dobe building by the
depot.
"'Give it a name,' says I, as soon as we got one hoof on the foot-
rest.
"'Sarsaparilla,' says Perry.
"You could have knocked me down with a lemon peeling.
"'Insult me as much as you want to,' I says to Perry, 'but don't
startle the bartender. He may have heart-disease. Come on, now; your
tongue got twisted. The tall glasses,' I orders, 'and the bottle in
the left-hand corner of the ice-chest.'
"'Sarsaparilla,' repeats Perry, and then his eyes get animated, and I
see he's got some great scheme in his mind he wants to emit.
"'Buck,' says he, all interested, 'I'll tell you what! I want to make
this a red-letter day. I've been keeping close at home, and I want to
turn myself a-loose. We'll have the highest old time you ever saw.
We'll go in the back room here and play checkers till half-past six.'
"I leaned against the bar, and I says to Gotch-eared Mike, who was on
watch:
"'For God's sake don't mention this. You know what Perry used to be.
He's had the fever, and the doctor says we must humour him.'
"'Give us the checker-board and the men, Mike,' says Perry. 'Come on,
Buck, I'm just wild to have some excitement.'
"I went in the back room with Perry. Before we closed the door, I says
to Mike:
"'Don't ever let it straggle out from under your hat that you seen
Buck Caperton fraternal with sarsaparilla or /persona grata/ with a
checker-board, or I'll make a swallow-fork in your other ear.'
"I locked the door and me and Perry played checkers. To see that poor
old humiliated piece of household bric-a-brac sitting there and
sniggering out loud whenever he jumped a man, and all obnoxious with
animation when he got into my king row, would have made a sheep-dog
sick with mortification. Him that was once satisfied only when he was
pegging six boards at keno or giving the faro dealers nervous
prostration--to see him pushing them checkers about like Sally Louisa
at a school-children's party--why, I was all smothered up with
mortification.
"And I sits there playing the black men, all sweating for fear
somebody I knew would find it out. And I thinks to myself some about
this marrying business, and how it seems to be the same kind of a game
as that Mrs. Delilah played. She give her old man a hair cut, and
everybody knows what a man's head looks like after a woman cuts his
hair. And then when the Pharisees came around to guy him he was so
'shamed that he went to work and kicked the whole house down on top of
the whole outfit. 'Them married men,' thinks I, 'lose all their spirit
and instinct for riot and foolishness. They won't drink, they won't
buck the tiger, they won't even fight. What do they want to go and
stay married for?' I asks myself.
"But Perry seems to be having hilarity in considerable quantities.
"'Buck old hoss,' says he, 'isn't this just the hell-roaringest time
we ever had in our lives? I don't know when I've been stirred up so.
You see, I've been sticking pretty close to home since I married, and
I haven't been on a spree in a long time.'
"'Spree!' Yes, that's what he called it. Playing checkers in the back
room of the Gray Mule! I suppose it did seem to him a little more
immoral and nearer to a prolonged debauch than standing over six
tomato plants with a sprinkling-pot.
"Every little bit Perry looks at his watch and says:
"'I got to be home, you know, Buck, at seven.'
"'All right,' I'd say. 'Romp along and move. This here excitement's
killing me. If I don't reform some, and loosen up the strain of this
checkered dissipation I won't have a nerve left.'
"It might have been half-past six when commotions began to go on
outside in the street. We heard a yelling and a six-shootering, and a
lot of galloping and manoeuvres.
"'What's that?' I wonders.
"'Oh, some nonsense outside,' says Perry. 'It's your move. We just got
time to play this game.'
"'I'll just take a peep through the window,' says I, 'and see. You
can't expect a mere mortal to stand the excitement of having a king
jumped and listen to an unidentified conflict going on at the same
time.'
"The Gray Mule saloon was one of them old Spanish 'dobe buildings, and
the back room only had two little windows a foot wide, with iron bars
in 'em. I looked out one, and I see the cause of the rucus.
"There was the Trimble gang--ten of 'em--the worst outfit of
desperadoes and horse-thieves in Texas, coming up the street shooting
right and left. They was coming right straight for the Gray Mule. Then
they got past the range of my sight, but we heard 'em ride up to the
front door, and then they socked the place full of lead. We heard the
big looking-glass behind the bar knocked all to pieces and the bottles
crashing. We could see Gotch-eared Mike in his apron running across
the plaza like a coyote, with the bullets puffing up dust all around
him. Then the gang went to work in the saloon, drinking what they
wanted and smashing what they didn't.
"Me and Petty both knew that gang, and they knew us. The year before
Perry married, him and me was in the same ranger company--and we
fought that outfit down on the San Miguel, and brought back Ben
Trimble and two others for murder.
"'We can't get out,' says I. 'We'll have to stay in here till they
leave.'
"Perry looked at his watch.
"'Twenty-five to seven,' says he. 'We can finish that game. I got two
men on you. It's your move, Buck. I got to be home at seven, you
know.'
"We sat down and went on playing. The Trimble gang had a roughhouse
for sure. They were getting good and drunk. They'd drink a while and
holler a while, and then they'd shoot up a few bottles and glasses.
Two or three times they came and tried to open our door. Then there
was some more shooting outside, and I looked out the window again. Ham
Gossett, the town marshal, had a posse in the houses and stores across
the street, and was trying to bag a Trimble or two through the
windows.
"I lost that game of checkers. I'm free in saying that I lost three
kings that I might have saved if I had been corralled in a more
peaceful pasture. But that drivelling married man sat there and
cackled when he won a man like an unintelligent hen picking up a grain
of corn.
"When the game was over Perry gets up and looks at his watch.
"'I've had a glorious time, Buck,' says he, 'but I'll have to be going
now. It's a quarter to seven, and I got to be home by seven, you
know.'
"I thought he was joking.
"'They'll clear out or be dead drunk in half an hour or an hour,' says
I. 'You ain't that tired of being married that you want to commit any
more sudden suicide, are you?' says I, giving him the laugh.
"'One time,' says Perry, 'I was half an hour late getting home. I met
Mariana on the street looking for me. If you could have seen her, Buck
--but you don't understand. She knows what a wild kind of a snoozer
I've been, and she's afraid something will happen. I'll never be late
getting home again. I'll say good-bye to you now, Buck.'
"I got between him and the door.
"'Married man,' says I, 'I know you was christened a fool the minute
the preacher tangled you up, but don't you never sometimes think one
little think on a human basis? There's ten of that gang in there, and
they're pizen with whisky and desire for murder. They'll drink you up
like a bottle of booze before you get half-way to the door. Be
intelligent, now, and use at least wild-hog sense. Sit down and wait
till we have some chance to get out without being carried in baskets.'
"'I got to be home by seven, Buck,' repeats this hen-pecked thing of
little wisdom, like an unthinking poll parrot. 'Mariana,' says he,
'will be out looking for me.' And he reaches down and pulls a leg out
of the checker table. 'I'll go through this Trimble outfit,' says he,
'like a cottontail through a brush corral. I'm not pestered any more
with a desire to engage in rucuses, but I got to be home by seven. You
lock the door after me, Buck. And don't you forget--I won three out of
them five games. I'd play longer, but Mariana--'
"'Hush up, you old locoed road runner,' I interrupts. 'Did you ever
notice your Uncle Buck locking doors against trouble? I'm not
married,' says I, 'but I'm as big a d----n fool as any Mormon. One
from four leaves three,' says I, and I gathers out another leg of the
table. 'We'll get home by seven,' says I, 'whether it's the heavenly
one or the other. May I see you home?' says I, 'you sarsaparilla-
drinking, checker-playing glutton for death and destruction.'
"We opened the door easy, and then stampeded for the front. Part of
the gang was lined up at the bar; part of 'em was passing over the
drinks, and two or three was peeping out the door and window and
taking shots at the marshal's crowd. The room was so full of smoke we
got half-way to the front door before they noticed us. Then I heard
Berry Trimble's voice somewhere yell out:
"'How'd that Buck Caperton get in here?' and he skinned the side of my
neck with a bullet. I reckon he felt bad over that miss, for Berry's
the best shot south of the Southern Pacific Railroad. But the smoke in
the saloon was some too thick for good shooting.
"Me and Perry smashed over two of the gang with our table legs, which
didn't miss like the guns did, and as we run out the door I grabbed a
Winchester from a fellow who was watching the outside, and I turned
and regulated the account of Mr. Berry.
"Me and Perry got out and around the corner all right. I never much
expected to get out, but I wasn't going to be intimidated by that
married man. According to Perry's idea, checkers was the event of the
day, but if I am any judge of gentle recreations that little table-leg
parade through the Gray Mule saloon deserved the head-lines in the
bill of particulars.
"'Walk fast,' says Perry, 'it's two minutes to seven, and I got to be
home by--'
"'Oh, shut up,' says I. 'I had an appointment as chief performer at an
inquest at seven, and I'm not kicking about not keeping it.'
"I had to pass by Perry's little house. His Mariana was standing at
the gate. We got there at five minutes past seven. She had on a blue
wrapper, and her hair was pulled back smooth like little girls do when
they want to look grown-folksy. She didn't see us till we got close,
for she was gazing up the other way. Then she backed around, and saw
Perry, and a kind of a look scooted around over her face--danged if I
can describe it. I heard her breathe long, just like a cow when you
turn her calf in the lot, and she says: 'You're late, Perry.'
"'Five minutes,' says Perry, cheerful. 'Me and old Buck was having a
game of checkers.'
"Perry introduces me to Mariana, and they ask me to come in. No,
sir-ee. I'd had enough truck with married folks for that day. I says
I'll be going along, and that I've spent a very pleasant afternoon
with my old partner--'especially,' says I, just to jostle Perry,
'during that game when the table legs came all loose.' But I'd
promised him not to let her know anything.
"I've been worrying over that business ever since it happened,"
continued Buck. "There's one thing about it that's got me all twisted
up, and I can't figure it out."
"What was that?" I asked, as I rolled and handed Buck the last
cigarette.
"Why, I'll tell you: When I saw the look that little woman gave Perry
when she turned round and saw him coming back to the ranch safe--why
was it I got the idea all in a minute that that look of hers was worth
more than the whole caboodle of us--sarsaparilla, checkers, and all,
and that the d----n fool in the game wasn't named Perry Rountree at
all?"
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Roads of Destiny, by O. Henry