Which this yere tale is mighty devious, not to say disjointed, because, d’you see! from first to last, she’s all the truth. Now, thar is folks sech as Injuns an’ them sagacious sports which we-all terms philosophers, who talks of truth bein’ straight. Injuns will say a liar has a forked tongue, while philosophers will speak of a straight ondeviatin’ narrative, meanin’ tharby to indooce you to regyard said story as the emanation of honesty in its every word. For myse’f I don’t subscribe none to these yere phrases. In my own experience it’s the lies that runs in a straight line like a bullet, whereas the truth goes onder an’ over, an’ up an’ down, doubles an’ jumps sideways a dozen times before ever it finally finds its camp in what book-sharps call the “climax.” Which I says ag’in that this tale, bein’ troo, has nacherally as many kinks in it as a new lariat.
Bein’ thoughtful that a-way, an’ preyed on by a desire to back-track every fact to its fountain-head, meanwhile considerin’ how different the kyards would have fallen final if something prior had been done or left on done, has ever been my weakness. It’s allers so with me. I can recall as a child how back in Tennessee I deevotes hours when fish-in’ or otherwise uselessly engaged, to wonderin’ whoever I’d have been personal if my maw had died in her girlhood an’ pap had wedded someone else. It’s plumb too many for me; an’ now an’ then when in a sperit of onusual cog’tation, I ups an’ wonders where I’d be if both my maw an’ pap had cashed in as colts, I’d jest simply set down he’pless, on-qualified to think at all. It’s plain that in sech on-toward events as my two parents dyin’, say, at the age of three, I sort o’ wouldn’t have happened none. This yere solemn view never fails to give me the horrors.
I fixes the time of this story easy as bein’ that eepock when Jim East an’ Bob Pierce is sheriffs of the Panhandle, with headquarters in Tascosa, an’ Bob Roberson is chief of the LIT ranch. These yere evidences of merit on the parts of them three gents has not, however, anything to do with how Cold-sober Simms gets rich at farobank; how two hold-ups plots to rob him; how he’s saved by the inadvertent capture of a bob-cat who’s strange to him entire; an’ how the two hold-ups in their chagrin over Cold-sober’s escape an’ the mootual doubts it engenders, pulls on each other an’ relieves the Stranglers from the labor of stringin’ ’em to a cottonwood.
These doin’s whereof I gives you a rapid rehearsal, has their start when Old Scotty an’ Locoed Charlie gets drunk in Tascosa prior to startin’ west on their buckboard with the mailbags of the Lee-Scott ranch. Locoed Charlie an’ Old Scotty is drunk when they pulls out; Cold-sober Simms is with ’em as a passenger. At their night camp half way to the Lee-Scott, Locoed Charlie, whose head can’t stand the strain of Jenkins’ nose-paint, makes war-medicine an’ lays for Old Scotty all spraddled out. As the upcome of these yere hostilities, Old Scotty confers a most elab’rate beatin’ on Locoed Charlie; after which they-all cooks their grub, feeds, an’ goes to sleep.
But Locoed Charlie don’t go to sleep; he lays thar drunk an’ disgruntled an’ hungerin’ to play even. As a good revengeful scheme, Locoed Charlie allows he’ll get up an’ secrete the mailbag, thinkin’ tharby to worry Old Scotty till he sweats blood. Locoed Charlie packs the mailbag over among some rocks which is thick grown with cedar bresh. When it comes sun-up an’ Locoed Charlie is sober an’ repents, an’ tells Old Scotty of his little game, neither he nor Scotty can find that mailbag nohow. Locoed Charlie shore hides her good.
Locoed Charlie an’ Scotty don’t dare go on without it, but stays an’ searches; Cold-sober Simms—who is given this yere nom-de-guerre, as Colonel Sterett terms it, because he’s the only sport in the Panhandle who don’t drink—stays with ’em to help on the hunt. At last, failin’ utter to discover the missin’ mail, Locoed Charlie an’ Old Scotty returns to Tascosa in fear an’ tremblin’, not packin’ the nerve to face McAllister, who manages for the Lee-Scott, an’ inform him of the yoonique disposition they makes of his outfit’s letters. This return to Tascosa is, after all, mere proodence, since McAllister is a mighty emotional manager, that a-way, an’ it’s as good as even money he hangs both of them culprits in that first gust of enthoosiasm which would be shore to follow any explanation they can make. So they returns; an’ because he can’t he’p himse’f none, bein’ he’s only a passenger on that buckboard, Cold-sober Simms returns with ’em. No, the mailbag is found a week later by a Lee-Scott rider, an’ for the standin’ of Locoed Charlie an’ Scotty it’s as well he does.
Cold-sober is some sore at bein’ baffled in his trip to the Lee-Scott since he aims to go to work thar as a rider. To console himse’f, he turns in an’ bucks a faro game that a brace of onknown black-laigs who shows in Tascosa from Fort Elliot the day prior, has onfurled in James’ s’loon. As sometimes happens, Cold-sober plays in all brands an’ y’earmarks of luck, an’ in four hours breaks the bank. It ain’t overstrong, no sech institootion of finance in fact as Cherokee Hall’s faro game in Wolfville, an’ when Cold-sober calls the last nine-king turn for one hundred, an’ has besides a hundred on the nine, coppered, an’ another hundred open on the king, tharby reapin’ six hundred dollars as the froots of said feat, the sharp who’s deal-in’ turns up his box an’ tells Cold-sober to set in his chips to be cashed. Cold-sober sets ’em in; nine thousand five hundred dollars bein’ the roundup, an’ the dealer-sharp hands over the dinero. Then in a sperit of resentment the dealer-sharp picks up the faro-box an’ smashes it ag’in the wall.
“Thar bein’ nothin’ left,” he says to his fellow black-laig, who’s settin’ in the look-out’s chair, “for you an’ me but to prance out an’ stand up a stage, we may as well dismiss that deal-box from our affairs. I knowed that box was a hoodoo ever since Black Morgan gets killed over it in Mobeetie; an’ so I tells you, but you-all wouldn’t heed.”
Cold-sober is shore elated about his luck; them nine thousand odd dollars is more wealth than he ever sees; an’ how to dispose of it, now he’s got it, begins to bother Cold-sober a heap. One gent says, “Hive it in Howard’s Store!” another su’gests he leave it with old man Cohn; while still others agrees it’s Cold-sober’s dooty to blow it in.
“Which if I was you-all,” says Johnny Cook of the LIT outfit, “I’d shore sally forth an’ buy nose-paint with that treasure while a peso remained.” But Cold-sober turns down these divers proposals an’ allows he’ll pack said roll in his pocket a whole lot, which he accordin’ does.
Cold-sober hangs ’round Tascosa for mighty near a week, surrenderin’ all thought of gettin’ to the Lee-Scott ranch, feelin’ that he’s now too rich to punch cattle. Doorin’ this season of idleness art’ease, Cold-sober bunks in with a jimcrow English doctor who’s got a ’doby in Tascosa an’ who calls himse’f Chepp. He’s a decent form of maverick, however, this yere Chepp, an’ him an’ Cold-sober becomes as thick as thieves.
Cold-sober’s stay with Chepp is brief as I states; in a week he gets restless ag’in for work; whereupon he hooks up with Roberson, an’ goes p’intin’ south across the Canadian on a L I T hoss to hold down one of that brand’s sign-camps in Mitchell’s canyon. It’s only twenty miles, an’ lie’s thar in half a day—him an’ Wat Peacock who’s to be his mate. An’ Cold-sober packs with him that fortune of ninety-five hundred.
The two black-laigs who’s been depleted that away still hankers about Tascosa; but as mighty likely they don’t own the riches to take ’em out o’ town, not much is thought. Nor does it ruffle the feathers of commoonal suspicion when the two disappears a few days after Cold-sober goes ridin’ away to assoome them LIT reesponsibilities in Mitchell’s canyon. The public is too busy to bother itse’f about ’em. It comes out later, however, that the goin’ of Cold-sober has everything to do with the exodus of them hold-ups, an’ that they’ve been layin’ about since they loses their roll on a chance of get-tin’ it back. When Cold-sober p’ints south for Mitchell’s that time, it’s as good as these outlaws asks. They figgers on trailin’ him to Mitchell’s an’ hidin’ out ontil some hour when Peacock’s off foolin’ about the range; when they argues Cold-sober would be plumb easy, an’ they’ll kill an’ skelp him an’ clean him up for his money, an’ ride away.
“In fact,” explains the one Cold-sober an’ Peacock finds alive, “it’s our idee that the killin’ an’ skelpin’ an’ pillagin’ of Cold-sober would get layed to Peacock, which would mean safety for us an’ at the same time be a jest on Peacock that would be plumb hard to beat.” That was the plan of these outlaws; an’ the cause of its failure is the followin’ episode, to wit:
It looks like this Doc Chepp is locoed to collect wild anamiles that a-way.
“Which I wants,” says this shorthorn Chepp, “a speciment of every sort o’ the fauna of these yere regions, savin’ an’ exceptin’ polecats. I knows enough of the latter pungent beast from an encounter I has with one, to form notions ag’in ’em over which not even the anxious cry of science can preevail. Polecats is barred from my c’llec-tions. But,” an’ said Chepp imparts this last to Cold-sober as the latter starts for Mitchell’s, “if by any sleight or dexterity you-all accomplishes the capture of a bob-cat, bring the interestin’ creature to me at once. An’ bring him alive so I may observe an’ note his pecooliar traits.”
It’s the third mornin’ in Mitchell’s when a bobcat is seen by Cold-sober an’ Peacock to go sa’nter-in’ up the valley. Mebby this yere bob-cat’s homeless; mebby he’s a dissoloote bob-cat an’ has been out all night carousin’ with other bob-cats an’ is simply late gettin’ in; be the reason of his appearance what it may, Cold-sober remembers about Doc Chepp’s wish to own a bob-cat, an’ him an’ Peacock lets go all holds, leaps for their ponies an’ gives chase. Thar’s a scramblin’ run up the canyon; then Peacock gets his rope onto it, an’ next Cold-sober fastens with his rope, an’ you hear me, gents, between ’em they almost rends this yere onhappy bobcat in two. They pauses in time, however, an’ after a fearful struggle they succeeds in stuffin’ the bob-cat into Peacock’s leather laiggin’s, which the latter gent removes for that purpose. Bound hand an’ foot, an’ wropped in the laiggin’s so tight he can hardly squawl, that bob-cat’s put before Cold-sober on his saddle; an’ this bein’ fixed, Cold-sober heads for Tascosa to present him to his naturalist friend, Chepp, Peacock scamperin’ cheerfully along like a drunkard to a barbecue regyardin’ the racket as a ondeniable excuse for gettin’ soaked.
This adventure of the bob-cat is the savin’ clause in the case of Cold-sober Simms. As the bobcat an’ him an’ Peacock rides away, them two malefactors is camped not five miles off, over by the Serrita la Cruz, an’ arrangin’ to go projectin’ ’round for Cold-sober an’ his ninety-five hundred that very evenin’. In truth, they execootes their scheme; but only to find when they jumps his camp in Mitchell’s that Cold-sober’s done vamosed a whole lot.
It’s then trouble begins to gather for the two rustlers. The one who deals the game that time is so overcome by Cold-sober’s absence, he peevishly puts it up that his pard gives Cold-sober warnin’ with the idee of later whackin’ up the roll with him by way of a reward for his virchoo. Nacherally no se’f-respectin’ miscreant will submit to sech impeachments, an’ the accoosed makes a heated retort, punctuatin’ his observations with his gun. Thar-upon the other proceeds to voice his feelin’s with his six-shooter; an’ the mootual remarks of these yere dispootants is so well aimed an’ ackerate that next evenin’ when Cold-sober an’ Peacock returns, they finds one dead an’ t’other dyin’ with even an’ exact jestice broodin’ over all.
As Cold-sober an’ Peacock is settin’ by their fire that night, restin’ from their labors in plantin’ the two hold-ups, Cold-sober starts up sudden an’ says:
“Yereafter I adopts a bob-cat for my coat-o’-arms. Also, I changes my mind about Howard, an’ to-morry I’ll go chargin’ into Tascosa an’ leave said ninety-five hundred in his iron box. Thar’s more ‘bad men’ at Fort Elliot than them two we plants, an’ mebby some more of ’em may come a-weavin’ up the Canadian with me an’ my wealth as their objective p’int.”
Peacock endorses the notion enthoosiastic, an’ declar’s himse’f in on the play as a body-guard; for he sees in this yere second expedition a new o’casion for another drunk, an’ Peacock jest nacherally dotes on a debauch.
“And what did your Cold-sober Simms,” asked the Sour Gentleman, “finally do with his money? Did he go into the cattle business?”
“Never buys a hoof,” returned the Old Cattleman. “No, indeed; he loses it ag’in monte in Kelly’s s’loon in Dodge. Charley Bassett who’s marshal at the time tries to git Cold-sober to pass up that monte game. But thar ain’t no headin’ him; he would buck it, an’ so the sharp who’s deal-in’, Butcher Knife Bill it is—turns in an’ knocks Cold-sober’s horns plumb off.”
The sudden collapse of the volatile Cold-sober’s fortunes was quite a dampener to the Sour Gentleman; he evidently entertained a hope that the lucky cow-boy was fated to a rise in life. The news of his final losses had less effect on the Red Nosed Gentleman who, having witnessed no little gambling in his earlier years, seemed better prepared. In truth, a remark he let fall would show as much.
“I was sure he would lose it,” said the Red Nosed Gentleman. “Men win money only to lose it to the first game they can find. However, to change the subject:” Here the Red Nosed Gentleman beamed upon the Jolly Doctor. “Sir, the hour is young. Can’t you aid us to finish the evening with another story?”
“There is one I might give you,” responded the Jolly Doctor. “It is of a horse-race like that Rescue of Connelly you related and was told me by an old friend and patient who I fear was a trifle wild as a youth. This is the story as set forth by himself, and for want of a more impressive title, we may call it ‘How Prince Rupert Lost.’”
And now I’ll tell you how I once threw stones at Hartford and thereby gained queer money to carry me to the bedside of my mother at her death.
My father, you should know, was a lawyer of eminence and wide practice at the New York bar. His income was magnificent; yet—thriftless and well living—he spent it with both hands. My mother, who took as little concern for the future as himself, aided pleasantly in scattering the dollars as fast as they were earned.
With no original estate on either side, and not a shilling saved, it was to be expected that my father’s death should leave us wanting a penny. I was twenty-two when the blow fell; he died stricken of an apoplexy, his full habit and want of physical exercise marking him to that malady as a certain prey.
I well recall how this death came upon us as a bolt from the blue. And while his partner stood over our affairs like a brother, when the debts were paid there remained no more than would manage an annuity for my mother of some six hundred dollars. With that she retreated to Westchester and lived the little balance of her years with a maiden sister who owned a starved farm, all chequered of stone fences, in that region of breath-taking hills.
It stood my misfortune that I was bred as the son of a wealthy man. Columbia was my school and the generosity of my father gilded those college days with an allowance of five thousand a year. I became proficient—like many another hare-brain—in everything save books, and was a notable guard on the University Eleven and pulled the bow oar in the University Eight. When I came from college the year before my father’s death I could write myself adept of a score of sciences, each physical, not one of which might serve to bring a splinter of return—not one, indeed, that did not demand the possession of largest wealth in its pursuit. I was poor in that I did not have a dollar when brought to face the world; I was doubly poor with a training that had taught me to spend thousands. Therefore, during the eighteen years to succeed my father’s going, was I tossed on the waves of existence like so much wreckage; and that I am not still so thrown about is the offspring of happy exigency rather than a condition due to wisdom of my own.
My ship of money did not come in until after I’d encountered my fortieth year. For those eighteen years next prior, if truth must out, I’d picked up intermittent small money following the races. Turf interest of that day settled about such speedy ones as Goldsmith Maid, Lucy, Judge Fullerton and American Girl, while Budd Doble, Dan Mace and Jack Splan were more often in the papers than was the President. I followed the races, I say; sometimes I was flush of money, more often I was poor; but one way or another I clung to the skirts of the circuits and managed to live.
Now, since age has come to my head and gold to my fingers, and I’ve had time and the cooled blood wherewith to think, I’ve laid my ill courses of those eighteen evil years to the doors of what vile ideals of life are taught in circles of our very rich. What is true now, was true then. Among our “best people”—if “best” be the word where “worst” might better fit the case—who is held up to youthful emulation? Is it the great lawyer, or writer, or preacher, or merchant, or man of medicine? Is it he of any trade or calling who stands usefully and profitably at the head of his fellows? Never; such gentry of decent effort and clean dollars to flow therefrom are not mentioned; or if they be, it is not for compliment and often with disdain.
And who has honor in the social conventions of our American aristocrats? It is young A, who drives an automobile some eighty miles an hour; or young B, who sails a single-sticker until her canvas is blown from the bolt ropes; or young C, who rides like an Arab at polo; or young D, who drives farthest at golf; or young E, who is the headlong first in a paper chase. These be the ideals; these the promontories to steer by. Is it marvel then when a youth raised of those “best circles” falls out of his nest of money that he lies sprawling, unable to honestly aid himself? Is it strange that he afterward lives drunken and precariously and seldom in walks asking industry and hard work? His training has been to spend money, while his contempt was reserved for those who labored its honorable accumulation. Such wrong-taught creatures, bereft of bank accounts, are left to adopt the races, the gambling tables, or the wine trade; and with all my black wealth of experience, I sit unable to determine which is basest and most loathly of the three.
During those eighteen roving, race-course years I saw my mother but seldom; and I never exposed to her my methods of life. I told her that I “traveled;” and she, good, innocent girl! gained from the phrase a cloudy notion that I went the trusted ambassador to various courts of trade of some great manufactory. I protected her from the truth to the end, and she died brightly confident that her son made a brilliant figure in the world.
While on my ignoble wanderings I kept myself in touch with one whom I might trust, and who, dwelling near my mother, saw her day by day. He was ever in possession of my whereabouts. Her health was a bit perilous from heart troubles, and I, as much as I might, maintained arrangements to warn me should she turn seriously ill.
At first I looked hourly for such notice; but as month after month went by and no bad tidings—nothing save word at intervals that she was passing her quiet, uneventful days in comfort, and as each occasional visit made to Westchester confirmed such news, my apprehension became dulled and dormant. It was a surprise then, and pierced me hideously, when I opened the message that told how her days were down to hours and she lay dying.
The telegram reached me in Hartford. When I took it from the messenger’s hand I was so poor I could not give him a dime for finding me; and as he had been to some detective pains in the business, he left with an ugly face as one cheated of appreciation. I could not help it; there dwelt not so much as one cheap copper in my pocket. Also, my clothes were none of the best; for I’d been in ill fortune, and months of bankruptcy had dealt unkindly with my wardrobe. But there should be no such word as fail; I must find the money to go to her—find it even though it arrive on the tides of robbery.
Luck came to me. Within the minute to follow the summons, and while the yellow message still fluttered between my fingers, I was hailed from across the street. The hail came from a certain coarse gentleman who seemed born to horse-races as to an heritage and was, withal, one of the few who reaped a harvest from them. This fortunate one was known to the guild as Sure-thing Pete.
It was fairly early of the morning, eight o’clock, and Surething Pete in the wake of his several morning drinks—he was a celebrated sot—was having his boots cleaned. It is a curious thing that half-drunken folk are prone to this improvement. That is why a boot-black’s chair is found so frequently just outside the portals of a rum shop. The prospect of a seat allures your drunkard fresh from his latest drink; he may sit at secure ease and please his rum-contented fancy with a review of the passing crowds; also, the Italian digging and brushing about his soles gives an impression that he is subject of concern to some one and this nurses a sense of importance and comes as vague tickle to his vanity.
Surething Pete, as related, was under the hands of a boot-black when I approached. He was much older than I and regarded me as a boy.
“Broke, eh?” said Surething Pete. His eye, though bleary, was keen. Then he tendered a quarter. “Take this and go and eat. I’ll wait for you here. Come back in fifteen minutes and I’ll put you in line to make some money. I’d give you more, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t return.”
Make money! I bolted two eggs and a cup of coffee and was back in ten minutes. Surething’s second shoe was receiving its last polish. He paid the artist, and then turning led me to a rear room of the nearby ginmill.
“This is it,” said Surething. His voice was rum-husky but he made himself clear. “There’s the special race between Prince Rupert and Creole Belle. You know about that?”
Of course I knew. These cracks had been especially matched against each other. It would be a great contest; the odds were five to three on Prince Rupert; thousands were being wagered; the fraternity had talked of nothing else for three weeks. Of course I knew!
“Well,” went on Surething, “I’ve been put wrong, understand! I’ve got my bundle on Creole Belle and stand to win a fortune if Prince Rupert is beaten. I supposed that I’d got his driver fixed. I paid this crook a thousand cold and gave him tickets on Creole Belle which stand him to win five thousand more to throw the race. But now, with the race to be called at two o’clock, I get it straight he’s out to double-cross me. He’ll drive Rupert to win; an’ if he does I’m a gone fawnskin. But I’ve thought of another trick.”
Then suddenly: “I’ll tell you what you do; get into this wagon outside and come with me.”
With the last word, Surething again headed for the street. We took a carriage that stood at the door. In thirty minutes we were on the Charter ‘Oak track. At this early hour, we had the course to ourselves. Surething walked up the homestretch until we arrived at a point midway between the half mile post and the entrance to the stretch.
“See that tree?” said Surething, and he pointed to a huge buttonwood—a native—that stood perhaps twenty feet inside the rail. “Come over and take a look at it.”
The great buttonwood was hollow; or rather a half had been torn away by some storm. What remained, however, was growing green and strong and stood in such fashion towards the course that it offered a perfect hiding place. By lying close within the hollow one was screened from any who might drive along.
“This is the proposition,” continued Surething, when I had taken in the convenient buttonwood and its advantages. “This Rupert can beat the Belle if he’s driven. But he’s as nervous as a girl. If a fly should light on him he’d go ten feet in the air—understand? Here now is what I want of you. I’ll tell you what you’re to do; then I’ll tell you what you’re to get. I want you to plant yourself behind this tree—better come here as early as the noon hour. The track ’ll be clear and no one’ll see you go under cover, understand! As I say, I want you to plant yourself in the sheltering hollow of this buttonwood. You ought to have three rocks—say as big as a guinea’s egg—three stones, d’ye see, ’cause the race is heats, best three in five. You must lay dead so no one’ll get on. As Rupert and the Belle sweep ’round the curve for the stretch, you want to let ’em get a trifle past you. Then you’re to step out and nail Rupert—he’ll have the pole without a doubt—and nail Rupert, I say, with a rock. That’ll settle him; he’ll be up in the air like a swallow-bird. It’ll give the Belle the heat.” Having gotten thus far, Surething fell into a mighty fit of coughing; his face congested and his eyes rolled. For a moment I feared that apoplexy—my father’s death—might take him in the midst of his hopeful enterprise and deprive me of this chance of riches. I was not a little relieved therefore when he somewhat recovered and went on: “That trick’s as safe as seven-up,” continued Surething. “You’ll be alone up here, as everybody else will be down about the finish. The drivers, driving like mad, won’t see you—won’t see anything but their horses’ ears. You must get Rupert—get him three times—every time he comes’round—understand?”
I understood.
“Right you are,” concluded Surething. “And to make it worth your while, here are tickets on the Belle that call for five hundred dollars if she wins. And here’s a dollar also for a drink and another feed to steady your wrists for the stonethrowing.”
It will seem strange and may even attract resentment that I, a college graduate and come of good folk, should accept such commission from a felon like Surething Pete. All I say is that I did accept it; was glad to get it; and for two hours before the great contest between Prince Rupert and Creole Belle was called, I lay ensconced in my buttonwood ambush, armed of three stones like David without the sling, ready to play my part towards the acquirement of those promised hundreds. And with that, my thoughts were on my mother. The money would count handsomely to procure me proper clothes and take me home. To me the proposed bombardment of the nervous Rupert appeared an opportunity heaven-sent when my need was most.
For fear of discovery and woe to follow, I put my tickets in the hands of one who, while as poor as I, could yet be trusted. He was, if the Belle won, to cash them; and should I be observed at my sleight of hand work and made to fly, he would meet me in a near-by village with the proceeds.
At prompt two o’clock the race was called. There were bustling crowds of spectators; but none came near my hiding place, as Surething Pete had foreseen. The horses got off with the second trial. They trotted as steadily as clockwork. As the pair rounded the second curve they were coming like the wind; drivers leaning far forward in their sulkies, eagle of glance, steady of rein, soothing with encouraging words, and “sending them,” as the phrase is, for every inch. It was a splendid race and splendidly driven, with Rupert on the pole and a half length to the good. They flashed by my post like twin meteors.
As they passed I stepped free of my buttonwood; and then, as unerringly as one might send a bullet—for I had not been long enough from school to forget how to throw—my first pebble, full two ounces, caught the hurrying Rupert in mid-rib.
Mighty were the results. Prince Rupert leaped into the air—stumbled—came almost to a halt—then into the air a second time—and following that, went galloping and pitching down the course, his driver sawing and whipping in distracted alternation. Meanwhile, Creole Belle slipped away like a spirit in harness and finished a wide winner. I took in results from my buttonwood. There was no untoward excitement about the grandstand or among the judges. Good; I was not suspected!
There ensued a long wait; planted close to my tree I wearied with the aching length of it. Then Rupert and the Belle were on the track again. The gong sounded; I heard the word “Go!” even in my faraway hiding; the second heat was on. It was patterned of the first; the two took the curve and flew for the head of the stretch as they did before; Rupert on the pole and leading with half a length. I repeated the former success. The stone struck poor Rupert squarely. He shot straight toward the skies and all but fell in the sulky when he came down. It was near to ending matters; for Rupert regained his feet in scantiest time to get inside the distance flag before the Belle streamed under the wire.
Creole Belle! two straight heats! What a row and a roar went up about the pools! What hedging was done! From five to three on Rupert the odds shifted to seven to two on Creole Belle. I could hear the riot and interpret it. I clung closely to the protecting buttonwood; there was still a last act before the play was done.
It was the third heat. The pace, comparatively, was neither hot nor hard; the previous exertions of both Rupert and the Belle had worn away the wire edge and abated their appetites for any utmost speed. Relatively, however, conditions were equal and each as tired as the other; and as Rupert was the quicker in the get-away and never failed of the pole in the first quarter, the two as they neared me offered the old picture of Rupert on the rail and leading by half his length.
Had I owned a better chance of observation, I might have noted as Prince Rupert drew near the buttonwood that his mind was not at ease. He remembered those two biting flints; they were lessons not lost on him. As I stepped from concealment to hurl my last stone, it is to be believed that Rupert—his alarmed eyes roving for lions in his path—glimpsed me. Certain it is that as the missile flew from my hand, Rupert swerved across the track, the hub of his sulky narrowly missing the shoulder of the mare.
The sudden shift confused my markmanship, and instead of Rupert, the stone smote the driver on the ear and all but swept him from his seat. It did the work, however; whether from the stone, the whip, or that state of general perturbation wherein his fell experiences had left his nerves, Rupert went fairly to pieces. Before he was on his feet again and squared away, the Belle had won.
Peeping from my hiding place I could tell that my adroit interference in the late contest was becoming the subject of public concern. Rupert’s driver, still sitting in his sulky, was holding high his whip in professional invocation of the judges’ eyes. And that ill-used horseman was talking; at intervals he pointed with the utmost feeling towards my butonwood. Nor was his oratory without power; he had not discoursed long when amid an abundance of shouts and oaths and brandished canes, one thousand gentlemen of the turf were under head in my direction.
It was interesting, but I did not stay in contemplation of the spectacle; I out and bolted. I crossed the track and ran straight for the end fence. This latter barrier looked somewhat high; I made no essay to climb, but, picking a broadest board, launched myself against it, shoulder on. The board fell and I was through the gap and in an open field.
But why waste time with that hustling hue and cry? It was futile for all its indignant energy; I promise you, I made good my distance. Young, strung like a harp, with a third of a mile start and able to speed like a deer, I ran the hunt out of sight in the first ten minutes. It was all earnestness, that flight of mine. I fled through three villages and a puny little river that fell across my path. I welcomed the river, for I knew it would cool the quest.
Of a verity! I got my money, and my stone throwing was not to be in vain. True, the driver and the owner of Rupert both protested, but the track statutes were inexorable. The judges could take no cognizance of that cannonading from the buttonwood and gave the race—three straight heats—to Creole Belle. Surething Pete won his thousands; and as for me, my friend and I encountered according to our tryst and he brought me my money safe. Within fifteen hours from that time when I dealt disaster to Rupert from the sheltering buttonwood, clothed and in respectable tears, I was kneeling by my mother’s side and taking what sorrowful joy I might for having arrived while she was yet equal to the bestowal of her blessing.
It was to be our last evening about the great stone fireplace; the last of our stories would be told. The roads were now broken, and though a now-and-then upset was more than likely to enliven one’s goings about, sleighs and sleds as schemes of conveyance were pronounced to be among things possible. As we drew our chairs about the blaze, the jangle of an occasional leash of bells showed how some brave spirit was even then abroad.
Under these inspiring conditions, the Sour Gentleman and the Red Nosed Gentleman declared their purpose of on the morrow pressing for the railway station eighteen miles away. To this end they had already chartered a sleigh, and the word was out that it be at the Inn door by ten of the morning clock.
For myself, nothing was driving me of business or concern, and I was in no haste to leave; and the Old Cattleman and his ward, Sioux Sam, were also of a mind to abide where they were for a farther day or two at least. But the going of the Sour Gentleman and the Red Nosed Gentleman would destroy our circle, wherefore we were driven to regard this as “our last evening,” and to crown it honorably the Jolly Doctor brewed a giant bowl of what he described as punch. The others, both by voice and the loyalty wherewith they applied themselves to its disappearance, avowed its excellencies, and on that point Sioux Sam and I were content to receive their words.
The Red Nosed Gentleman—who had put aside his burgundy in compliment to the Jolly Doctor and his punch, and seemed sensibly exhilarated by this change of beverage—was the first to give the company a story. It was of his younger, green-cloth days, and the title by which he distinguished it was “When I Ran the Shotgun.”
About this time the city of Providence fell midspasm in a fit of civic morality. Communities, like individuals, are prone to starts of strenuous virtue, and Providence, bewailing her past iniquities, was pushing towards a pure if not a festive life. And because in this new mood to be excellent it was the easiest, nearest thing, Providence smote upon the gambling brotherhood with the heavy hand of the police. The faro games and wheels of roulette were swept away and more than one who had shared their feverish profits were sent into captivity. Yea forsooth! the gay fraternity of fortune whose staff of life was cards found themselves borne upon with the burden of bad days.
For myself I conceived this to be the propitious moment to open a faro room of my own. I had been for long of the guild of gamblers yet had never soared to the brave heights of proprietorship. I had bucked the games, but never dealt them. It came to me as a thought that in the beating midst of this moral tempest dwelt my opportunity. Had I chosen a day of police apathy—an hour of gambling security—for such a move, I would have been set upon by every established proprietor. He would have resented my rivalry as a game warden would the intromissions of a poacher. And I’d have been wiped out—devoured horn and hide and hoof as by a band of wolves.
Under these new conditions of communal virtue, however, and with the clan of former proprietors broken and dispersed, the field was free of menace from within; I would face no risk more grievous than the constabulary. These latter I believed I might for a season avoid; particularly if I unveiled my venture in regions new and not theretofore the home of such lawless speculation.
Filled with these thoughts, I secured apartments sufficiently obscure and smuggled in the paraphernalia under cloud of night. The room was small—twenty feet square; there was space for no more than one faro table, and with such scant furnishing I went to work. For reasons which now escape me I called my place “The Shotgun.”
Heretofore I gave you assurance of the lapse of years since last I gambled at any game save the Wall Street game of stocks. I quit cards for that they were disreputable and the gains but small. Stocks, on the contrary, are endorsed as “respectable;” at stocks one may gamble without forfeiture of position; also, there exist no frontiers to the profits which a cunning stock plan well executed may bring.
In my old simpler days, I well recall those defences of the pure gambler wherein my regard indulged. Elia once separated humanity into two tribes—those who borrow and those who lend. In my younger philosophy I also saw two septs: those who lose and those who win. To me all men were gamblers. Life itself was one continuous game of chance; and the stakes, that shelter and raiment and food and drink to compose the body’s bulwark against an instant conquest by Death. Of the inherent morality of gambling I nurtured no doubts. Or, at the worst, I felt certain of its comparative morality when laid beside such commerces as banks and markets and fields of plain barter and sale. There is no trade (I said) save that of the hands which is held by the tether of any honesty. The carpenter sawing boards, the smith who beats out a horseshoe, the mason busy with trowel and mortar on sun-blistered scaffolds, hoarsely shouting “More bricks!” they in their way of life are honest. They are bound to integrity because they couldn’t cheat if they would. But is the merchant selling the false for the real—the shoddy for the true—is the merchant whose advertisements are as so many false pretences paid for by the line—is he more honest than the one who cheats with cards? Is the lawyer looking looks of wisdom to hide the emptiness of his ignorance? Is the doctor, profound of mien, who shakes portentous head, medicining a victim not because he has a malady but because he has a million dollars?
And if it become a question of fashion, why then, age in and age out, the gambler has been often noble and sometimes royal. In the days of the Stuarts, or later among the dull ones of Hanover, was it the peasant or the prince who wagered his gold at cards? Why man! every royal court was a gambling house; every king, save one—and he disloved and at the last insane—a gambler. Are not two-thirds of the homes of our American nobility—our folk of millions and Fifth Avenue—replete of faro and roulette and the very hotbed of a poisonous bridge whist? Fy, man, fy! you who denounce gambling but preach your own plebeianism—proclaim your own vulgarity! The gambler has been ever the patrician.
With but one table, whereat I would preside as dealer, I required no multitude to man The Shotgun. I called to my aid three gentlemen of fortune—seedy and in want they were and glad to earn a dollar. One was to be sentinel at the door, one would perch Argus-like on the lookout’s stool, while the third,—an old suspicious camp-follower of Chance,—kept the case. This latter, cautious man! declined my service unless I put steel bars on the only door, and as well on the only window. These he conceived to be some safeguard against invasions. They were not; but I spent money to put them in place to the end that his fluttered nerves be stilled and he won to my standard. And at that, he later pursued his business as case-keeper with an ear on the door and an eye on the small barred window, sitting the while half aloof from the table and pushing the case-buttons as the cards fell from the box with a timid forefinger and as though he proposed no further immersion in current crime than was absolutely demanded by the duties of his place. He sat throughout the games a picture of apprehension.
For myself, and to promote my profits, I gave both my people and my customers every verbal bond of safety. The story went abroad that I was “protected;” that no wolf of the police dared so much as glance at flock of mine. The Shotgun was immune of arrest, so ran the common tale, and as much as leer and look and smile and shrug of shoulder might furnish them I gave the story wings.
This public theory of safety was necessary to success. In the then hectic conditions, and briskly in the rear of a stern suppression of resorts that had flourished for decades unshaken of the law, wanting this feeling of security there would have come not one dollar to take its hopeful chances at The Shotgun. As it was, however, the belief that I lived amply “protected” took prompt deep root. And the fact that The Shotgun opened in the face of storms which smote without pity upon others, was itself regarded as proof beyond dispute. No one would court such dangers unless his footing were as unshakable as Gibraltar. Thereupon folk with a heart for faro came blithely and stood four deep about my one table; vast was the business I accomplished and vast were the sums changed in. And behold! I widely prospered.
When I founded The Shotgun, I was richer of hope than of money; but fortune smiled and within a fortnight my treasure was told by thousands. Indeed, my patrons played as play those who are starved to gamble; that recess of faro enforced of the police had made them hawk-hungry. And my gains rolled in.
While I fostered the common thought that no interference of the law would occur and The Shotgun was sacred ground, I felt within my own breast a sense of much unsafety. Damocles with his sword—hung of a hair and shaken of a breeze—could have been no more eaten of unease. I knew that I was wooing disaster, challenging a deepest peril. The moment The Shotgun became a part of police knowledge, I was lost.
Still, I dealt on; the richness of my rewards the inducement and the optimism of the born gambler giving me courage to proceed. It fed my vanity, too, and hugely pleased my pride to be thus looked upon as eminent in my relations with the powers that ruled. They were proud, even though parlous days, those days when I ran The Shotgun.
While I walked the field of my enterprise like a conqueror, I was not without the prudence that taketh account in advance and prepareth for a fall. Aside from the table whereon dwelt the layout, box and check rack, and those half-dozen chairs which encircled it, the one lone piece of furniture which The Shotgun boasted was a rotund lounge. Those who now and then reposed themselves thereon noted and denounced its nard unfitness. There was neither softness nor spring to that lounge; to sit upon it was as though one sat upon a Saratoga trunk. But it was in a farthest corner and distant as much as might be from the game; and therefore there arose but few to try its indurated merits and complain.
That lounge of unsympathetic seat was my secret—my refuge—my last resort. I alone was aware of its construction; and that I might be thus alone, I had been to hidden and especial pains to bring it from New York myself. That lounge was no more, no less than a huge, capacious box. You might lift the seat and it would open like a trunk. Within was ample room for one to lie at length. Once in one could let down the cover and lock it on the inside; that done, there again it stood to the casual eye, a lounge, nothing save a lounge and neither hint nor token of the fugitive within.
My plan to save myself when the crash should come was plain and sure. There were but two lights—gas jets, both—in The Shotgun; these were immediately above the table, low hung and capped with green shades to save the eyes of players. The light was reflected upon the layout; all else was in the shadow. This lack of light was no drawback to my popularity. Your folk who gamble cavil not at shadows for themselves so long as cards and deal-box are kept strongly in the glare. In event of a raid, it was my programme to extinguish the two lights—a feat easily per-formable from the dealer’s chair—and seizing the money in the drawer, grope my way under cover of darkness for that excellent lounge and conceal myself. It would be the work of a moment; the folk would be huddled about the table and not about the lounge; the time lost by the police while breaking through those defences of bars and bolts would be more than enough.
By the time the lights were again turned on and the Goths in possession, I would have disappeared. No one would know how and none know where. When the blue enemy, despairing of my apprehension, had at last withdrawn with what prisoners had been made, I would be left alone. I might then uncover myself and take such subsequent flight as best became my liberty and its continuance.
Often I went over this plan in my thoughts—a fashion of mental rehearsal, as it were—and the more I considered the more certain I became that when the pinch arrived it would not fail. As I’ve stated, none shared with me my secret of that hinged and hollow couch; it was my insurance—my cave of retreat in any tornado of the law; and the knowledge thereof steadied me and aided my courage to compose those airs of cheerful confidence which taught others safety and gave countenance to the story of my unqualified and sure “protection!” Alas! for the hour that unmasked me; from that moment The Shotgun fell away; my stream of golden profits ran dry; from a spectacle of reverence and respect I became the nine-day byword of my tribe!
It was a crowded, thriving midnight at The Shotgun. I had been running an uninterrupted quartette of months; and having had good luck to the point of miracles, my finances were flourishing with five figures in their plethoric count. From a few poor hundreds, my “roll” when I snapped the rubber band about it and planted it deep within the safety of my pocket, held over fifty thousand dollars. Quite a fortune; and so I thought myself.
It was, I repeat, a busy, winning midnight at The Shotgun. There were doubtless full forty visitors in the cramped room. These were crowded about the table, for the most part playing, reaching over each other’s shoulders or under each other’s elbows, any way and every way to get their wagers on the layout. I was dealing, while to right and left sat my henchmen of the lookout and the case.
As on every evening, I lived on the feather-edge of apprehension, fearing a raid. My eye might be on the thirteen cards and the little fortunes they carried, but my ear was ever alert for a first dull footfall that would tell of destruction on its lowering way.
There had been four hours of brisk, remunerative play—for the game began at eight—when, in the middle of a deal, there came the rush of heavy feet and a tumult of stumblings and blunderings on the stair. It was as if folk unaccustomed to the way—it being pitch dark on the stairway for caution’s sake—and in vast eagerness to reach the door, had tripped and fallen. Also, if one might judge from the uproar and smothered, deep profanity of many voices there were a score engaged.
To my quick intelligence, itself for long on the rack of expectancy and therefore doubly keen, there seemed but one answer to the question, of that riot on the stair. It was the police; the Philistines were upon me; my gold mine of The Shotgun had become the target of a raid!
It was the labor of an instant. With both hands I turned out the lights; then stuffing my entire fortune into my pockets I began to push through the ranks of bewildered gentlemen who stood swearing in frightened undertones expecting evil. Silently and with a cat’s stealth, I found my way in the pitch blackness to the lounge. As I had foreseen, no one was about it to discover or to interfere. Softly I raised the cover; in a moment I was within. Lying on my side for comfort’s sake, I again turned ear to passing events. I had locked the lounge and believed myself insured.
Meanwhile, within the room and in the hall beyond my grated door, the tumult gathered and grew. There came various exclamations.
“Who doused those glims?”
“Light up, somebody.”
Also, there befell a volley of blows and kicks and thumps on The Shotgun’s iron portals; and gruff commands:
“Open the door!”
Then some one produced a match and relighted the gas. I might tell that by a ray about the size and color of a wheat-straw which suddenly bored its yellow way through a hole in my shelter. The clamor still proceeded at the door; it seemed to augment.
Since there could be no escape—for every soul saw himself caught like a rat in a trap—the door was at last unbarred and opened, desperately. Of what avail would it be to force the arresting party to break its way? In despair the door was thrown wide and each of those within braced himself to meet his fate. After all, to visit a gambling place was not the great crime; the cornered ones might feel fairly secure. It was the “proprietor” for whom the law kept sharpest tooth!
When the door opened, it opened to the admission of a most delightful disappointment. There appeared no police; no grim array of those sky-hued watch-dogs of the city’s peace and order rushed through in search of quarry. Instead came innocently, deviously, and with uncertain, shuffling steps, five separate drunken gentlemen. There had been a dinner; they had fed deeply, drunk deeply; it was now their pleasure to relax themselves at play. That was all; they had sought The Shotgun with the best of motives; the confusion on the stair was the offspring of darkness and drink when brought to a conjunction. Now they were within, and reading in the faces about them—even through the mists of their condition—the terrors their advent inspired, the visiting sots were much abashed; they stood silent, and like the lamb before the shearer, they were dumb and opened not their mouths.
But discovering a danger past, the general mood soon changed. There was a space of tacit staring; then came a rout of laughter. Every throat, lately so parched, now shouted with derision. The common fear became the common jeer.
Then up started the surprised question:
“Where’s Jack?”
It had origin with one to be repeated by twenty.
“Where’s Jack?”
The barred window was still barred; I had not gone through the door; how had I managed my disappearance? It was witchery!—or like the flitting of a ghost! Even in my refuge I could feel the awe and the chill that began to creep about my visitors as they looked uneasily and repeated, as folk who touch some graveyard mystery:
“Where’s Jack?”
There was no help; fate held me in a corner and never a crack of escape! Shame-faced, dust-sprinkled and perspiring like a harvest hand—for my hiding place was not Nova Zembla—I threw back the top of the lounge and stood there—the image of confusion—the “man with a pull”—the ally of the powers—the “protected” proprietor of The Shotgun! There was a moment of silence; and next fell a whirlwind of mirth.
There is no argument for saying more. I was laughed out of Providence and into New York. The Shotgun was laughed out of existence. And with it all, I too, laughed; for was it not good, even though inadvertent comedy? Also, was it not valuable comedy to leave me better by half a hundred thousand dollars—that comedy of The Shotgun? And thereupon, while I closed my game, I opened my mouth widely and laughed with the others. In green-cloth circles the story is still told; and whenever I encounter a friend of former days, I’m inevitably recalled to my lounge-holdout and that midnight stampede of The Shotgun.
“That’s where the west,” observed the Old Cattleman, who had given delighted ear to the Red Nosed Gentleman’s story, “that’s where the west has the best of the east. In Arizona a passel of folks engaged in testin’ the demerits of farobank ain’t runnin’ no more resks of the constables than they be of chills an’ fever.”
“There are laws against gambling in the west?” This from the Jolly Doctor.
“Shore, thar’s laws.”
“Why, then, aren’t they enforced?”
“This yere’s the reason,” responded the Old Cattleman. “Thar’s so much more law than force, that what force exists is wholly deevoted to a round-up of rustlers an’ stage hold-ups an’ sech. Besides, it’s the western notion to let every gent skin his own eel, an’ the last thing thought of is to protect you from yourse’f. No kyard sharp can put a crimp in you onless you freely offers him a chance, an’ if you-all is willin’, why should the public paint for war? In the east every gent is tryin’ to play some other gent’s hand; not so in that tolerant region styled the west. Which it ain’t too much to say that folks get killed—an’ properly—in the west for possessin’ what the east calls virchoos.” And here the Old Cattleman shook his head sagely over a western superiority. “The east mixes itse’f too much in a gent’s private affairs. Now if Deef Smith an’ Colonel Morton” he concluded, “had ondertook to pull off their dooel in the east that Texas time, the east would have come down on ’em like a failin’ star an’ squelched it.”
“And what was this duel you speak of?” asked the Sour Gentleman. “I, for one, would be most ready to hear the story.1’
“Which it’s the story of ‘When the Capitol Was Moved.’”
When the joobilant Texans set down to kyarve out the destinies of that empire they wrests from the feeble paws of the Mexicans an’ Santa Anna, they decides on Austin for the Capitol an’ Old Houston to be President. An’ I’ll say right yere, Old Houston, by all roomer an’ tradition, is mighty likely the most presidential president that ever keeps a republic guessin’ as to whatever is he goin’ to do next. Which he’s as full of surprises as a night in Red Dog.
About the first dash outen the box, Old Houston gets himse’f into trouble with two Lone Star leadin’ citizens whose names, respective, is Colonel Morton an’ jedge Webb.
Old Houston himse’f on the hocks of them vict’ries he partic’pates in, an’ bein’ selected president like I say, grows as full of vanity as a prairie dog. Shore! he’s a hero; the drawback is that his notion of demeanin’ himse’f as sech is to spread his tail feathers an’ strut. Old Houston gets that puffed up, an’ his dignity is that egreegious, he feels crowded if a gent tries to walk on the same street with him.
Colonel Morton an’ Jedge Webb themse’fs wades through that carnage from soda to hock freein’ Texas, an’ they sort o’ figgers that these yere services entitles them to be heard some. Old Houston, who’s born with a notion that he’s doo’ to make what public uproar every o’casion demands, don’t encourage them two patriots. He only listens now an’ then to Morton; an’ as for Jedge Webb, he jest won’t let that jurist talk at all.
“An’ for these yere followin’ reasons to wit,” explains Old Houston, when some Austin sports puts it to him p’lite, but steadfast, that he’s onjust to Webb. “I permits Morton to talk some, because it don’t make a splinter of difference what Morton says. He can talk on any side of any subject an’ no one’s ediot enough to pay the least attention to them remarks. But this sityooation is changed when you-all gets to Webb. He’s a disaster. Webb never opens his mouth without subtractin’ from the sum total of hooman knowledge.”
369
When Morton hears of them remarks he re-gyards himse’f as wronged.
“An’ if Old Houston,” observes Morton, who’s a knife fighter an’ has sliced offensive gents from time to time; “an’ if Old Houston ain’t more gyarded in his remarks, I’ll take to disapprovin’ of his conduct with a bowie.”
As I intimates, Old Houston is that pride-blown that you-all couldn’t stay on the same range where he is. An’ he’s worried to a standstill for a openin’ to onload on the Texas public a speciment of his dignity. At last, seein’ the chances comin’ some slow, he ups an’ constructs the opportunity himse’f.
Old Houston’s home-camp, that a-way, is at a hamlet named Washin’ton down on the Brazos. It’s thar he squanders the heft of his leesure when not back of the game as President over to Austin. Thar’s a clause in the constitootion which, while pitchin’ onto Austin as the public’s home-ranche or capitol, permits the President in the event of perils onforeseen or invasions or sech, to round up the archives an’ move the capitol camp a whole lot. Old Houston, eager to be great, seizes onto this yere tenet.
“I’ll jest sort o’ order the capitol to come down, yere where I live at,” says Old Houston, “an’ tharby call the waverin’ attention of the Lone Star public to who I be.”
As leadin’ up to this atrocity an’ to come within the constitootion, Old Houston allows that Austin is menaced by Comanches. Shore, it ain’t menaced none; Austin would esteem the cleanin’ out of that entire Comanche tribe as the labors of a holiday. But it fills into Old Houston’s hand to make this bluff as a excuse. An’ with that, he issues the order to bring the whole gov’ment layout down to where he lives.
No, as I tells you-all before, Austin ain’t in no more danger of Comanches than she is of j’inin’ the church. Troo, these yere rannikaboo savages does show up in paint an’ feathers over across the Colorado once or twice; but beyond a whoop or two an’ a little permiscus shootin’ into town which nobody minds, them vis’tations don’t count.
To give you-all gents a idee how little is deemed of Comanches by them Texas forefathers, let me say a word of Bill Spence who keeps a store in Austin. Bill’s addin’ up Virg Horne’s accounts one afternoon in his books.
“One pa’r of yaller-top, copper-toe boots for Virg, joonior, three dollars; one red cal’co dress for Missis Virg, two dollars,” goes on Bill.
At this epock Bill hears a yowl; glancin’ out of the winder, he counts a couple of hundred Injuns who’s proselytin’ about over on t’other side of the river. Bill don’t get up none; he jests looks annoyed on account of that yellin’ puttin’ him out in his book-keepin’.
As a bullet from them savages comes singin’ in the r’ar door an’ buries itse’f in a ham, Bill even gets incensed.
“Hiram,” he calls to his twelve-year old son, who’s down cellar drawin’ red-eye for a customer; “Hiram, you-all take pop’s rifle, raise the hindsight for three hundred yards, an’ reprove them hostiles. Aim low, Hiram, an’ if you fetches one, pop’ll give you a seegyar an’ let you smoke it yourse’f.”
Bill goes back to Virg Horne’s account, an’ Hiram after slammin’ away with Bill’s old Hawkins once or twice comes in an’ gets his seegyar.
No; Old Houston does wrong when he flings forth this yere ukase about movin’ the capitol. Austin, even if a gent does have to dodge a arrer or duck a bullet as he prosecootes his daily tasks, is as safe as a camp-meetin’.
When Old Houston makes the order, one of his Brazos pards reemonstrates with him.
“Which Austin will simply go into the air all spraddled out,” says this pard.
“If Austin sails up in the air an’ stays thar,” says Old Houston, “still you-all can gamble that this yere order goes.”
“You hears,” says another, “Elder Peters when he tells of how a Mexican named Mohammed commands the mountain to come to him? But the mountain calls his bluff; that promontory stands pat, an’ Mohammed has to go to the mountain.”
“My name’s Sam Houston an’ it ain’t Mo-hommed,” retorts Old Houston. “Moreover, Mohammed don’t have no written constitootion.”
Nacherally, when Austin gets notice of Old Houston’s plan, that meetropolis r’ars back an’ screams. The faro-bank folks an’ the tavern folks is speshul malignant, an’ it ain’t no time before they-all convenes a meetin’ to express their views on Old Houston. Morton an’ Jedge Webb does the oratory. An’ you hear me! that assembly is shore sultry. Which the epithets they applies to Old Houston kills the grass for twenty rods about.
Austin won’t move.
Austin resolves to go to war first; a small army is organized with Morton in command to gyard the State House an’ the State books that a-way, an’ keep Old Houston from romancin’ over an’ packin’ ’em off a heap.
Morton is talkin’ an’ Webb is presidin’ over this yere convocation—which the said meetin’ is that large an’ enthoosiastic it plumb chokes up the hall an’ overflows into the street—when all of a sudden a party comes swingin’ through the open winder from the top of a scrub-oak that grows alongside the buildin’, an’ drops light as a cat onto the platform with Morton an’ Webb. At this yere interruption, affairs comes to a halt, an’ the local sports turns in to consider an’ count up the invader.
This gent who swoops through the winder is dark, big, bony an’ tall; his ha’r is lank an’ long as the mane of a hoss; his eyes is deep an’ black; his face, tanned like a Injun’s, seems hard as iron. He’s dressed in leather from foretop to fetlock, is shod with a pa’r of Comanche moccasins, an’ besides a ’leven inch knife in his belt, packs a rifle with a 48-inch bar’l. It will weigh twenty pounds, an’ yet this stranger handles it like it’s a willow switch.
As this darksome gent lands in among Morton an’ Webb, he stands thar without sayin’ a word. Webb, on his part, is amazed, while Morton glowers.
“Whatever do you-all regyard as a market price for your skelp?’” says Morton to the black interloper, at the same time loosenin’ his knife.
The black stranger makes no reply; his hand flashes to his bowie, while his face still wears its iron look.
Webb, some hurried, pushes in between Morton an’ the black stranger. Webb is more for peace an’ don’t believe in beginnin’ negotiations with a knife.
Webb dictates a passel of p’lite queries to this yere black stranger. Tharupon, the black stranger bows p’lite an’ formal, an’ goin’ over to the table writes down in good English, “I’m deef an’ dumb.” Next, he searches outen his war-bags a letter. It’s from Old Houston over on the Brazos. Old Houston allows that onless Austin comes trailin’ in with them records within three days, he’ll ride over a whole lot an’ make the round-up himse’f. Old Houston declar’s that Austin by virchoo of them Comanches is as on-safe as a Christian in Mississippi, an’ he don’t aim to face no sech dangers while performin’ his dooties as President of the Commonwealth.
After the black stranger flings the letter on the table, he’s organizin’ to go out through the winder ag’in. But Morton sort o’ detains him. Morton writes on the paper that now the black stranger is through his dooties as a postman, he will, if he’s a dead game sport, stay over a day, an’ him an’ Morton will entertain themse’fs by pullin’ off a war of their own. The idee strikes the black stranger as plenty good, an’ while his face still wears its ca’m, hard look, he writes onder Morton’s bluff:
“Rifles; no’th bank of the Colorado; sun-down, this evenin’.”
The next moment he leaps from the platform to the winder an’ from thar to the ground, an’ is gone.
“But Colonel Morton,” reemonstrates Webb, who’s some scand’lized at Morton hookin’ up for blood with this yere black stranger; “you-all shorely don’t aim to fight this party? He’s deef an’ dumb, which is next to bein’ locoed outright. Moreover, a gent of your standin’ can’t afford to go ramblin’ about, lockin’ horns with every on-known miscreant who comes buttin’ in with a missif from President Houston, an’ then goes stampedin’ through a winder by way of exit.”
“Onknown!” retorts Morton. “That letterpackin’ person is as well known as the Rio Grande. That’s Deef Smith.”
“Colonel Morton,” observes Webb, some horrified when he learns the name of the black stranger, “this yere Deef Smith is a shore shot. They say he can empty a Comanche saddle four times in five at three hundred yards.”
“That may be as it may,” returns Morton. “If I downs him, so much the more credit; if he gets me, at the worst I dies by a famous hand.”
The sun is restin’ on the sky-line over to the west. Austin has done crossed the Colorado an’ lined up to witness this yere dooel. Deef Smith comes ridin’ in from some’ers to the no’th, slides outen the saddle, pats his hoss on the neck, an’ leaves him organized an’ ready fifty yards to one side. Then Deef Smith steps to the center an’ touches his hat, mil’tary fashion, to Morton an’ Webb.
These yere cavaliers is to shoot it out at one hundred yards. As they takes their places, Morton says:
“Jedge Webb, if this Deef Smith party gets me, as most like he will, send my watch to my mother in Looeyville.”
Then they fronts each other; one in brown leather, the other in cloth as good as gold can buy. No one thinks of any difference between ’em, however, in a day when courage is the test of aristocracy.
Since one gent can’t hear, Webb is to give the word with a handkerchief. At the first flourish the rifles fall to a hor’zontal as still an’ steady as a rock. Thar’s a brief pause; then Webb drops his handkerchief.
Thar is a crack like one gun; Deef Smith’s hat half turns on his head as the bullet cuts it, while Morton stands a moment an’ then, without a sound, falls dead on his face. The lead from Deef Smith’s big rifle drills him through the heart. Also, since it perforates that gold repeater, an’ as the blood sort o’ clogs the works, the Austin folks decides it’s no use to send it on to Looeyville, but retains it that a-way as a keepsake.
With the bark of the guns an’ while the white smoke’s still hangin’ to mark the spot where he stands, Deef Smith’s hoss runs to him like a dog. The next instant Deef Smith is in the saddle an’ away. It’s jest as well. Morton’s plenty pop’lar with the Austin folks an’ mebby some sharp, in the first hysteria of a great loss, overlooks what’s doo to honor an’ ups an’ plugs this yere Deef Smith.
The Old Cattleman made a long halt as indicative that his story was at an end. There was a moment of silence, and then the Jolly Doctor spoke up.
“But how about the books and papers?” asked the Jolly Doctor.
“Oh, nothin’ partic’lar,” said the Old Cattleman. “It turns out like Old Houston prophesies. Three days later, vain an’ soopercilious, he rides in, corrals them archives, an’ totes ’em haughtily off to the Brazos.”
Following the Old Cattleman’s leaf from Lone Star annals, the Sour Gentleman prepared himself to give us his farewell page from the unwritten records of the Customs.
“On this, our last evening,” observed the Sour Gentleman, “it seems the excellent thing to tell you what was practically my final act of service or, if you will, disservice with the Customs. We may call the story ‘How the Filibusterer Sailed.’”
It will come to you as strange, my friends, to hear objection—as though against an ill trait—to that open-handed generosity which is held by many to be among the marks of supreme virtue. Generosity, whether it be evidenced by gifts of money, of sympathy, of effort or of time, is only another word for weakness. If one were to go into careful consideration of the life-failure of any man, it would be found most often that his fortunes were slain by his generosity; and while, without consideration, he gave to others his countenance, his friendship, his money, his toil or whatever he conferred, he in truth but parted with his own future—with those raw materials wherewith he would otherwise have fashioned a victorious career. Generosity, in a commonest expression, is giving more than one receives; it is to give two hundred and get one hundred; he is blind, therefore, who does not see that any ardor of generosity would destroy a Rothschild.
From birth, and as an attribute inborn, I have been ever too quick to give. For a first part of my life at least, and until I shackled my impulse of liberality, I was the constant victim of that natural readiness. And I was cheated and swindled with every rising sun. I gave friendship and took pretense; I parted with money for words; ever I rendered the real and received the false, and sold the substance for the shadow to any and all who came pleasantly to smile across my counter. I was not over-old, however, when these dour truths broke on me, and I began to teach myself the solvent beauty of saying “No.”
During those months of exile—for exile it was—which I spent in Washington Square, I cultivated misanthropy—a hardness of spirit; almost, I might say, I fostered a hatred of my fellow man. And more or less I had success. I became owner of much stiffness of sentiment and a proneness to be practical; and kept ever before me like a star that, no matter how unimportant I might be to others, to myself at least I was most important of mankind. Doubtless, I lost in grace by such studies; but in its stead I succeeded to safety, and when we are at a final word, we live by what we keep and die by what we quit, and of all loyalties there’s no loyalty like loyalty to one’s self.
While I can record a conquest of my generosity and its subjugation to lines of careful tit-for-tat, there were other emotions against which I was unable to toughen my soul. I became never so redoubtable that I could beat off the assaults of shame; never so puissant of sentiment but I was prey to regrets. For which weaknesses, I could not think on the affairs of The Emperor’s Cigars and The German Girl’s Diamonds, nor on the sordid money I pouched as their fruits, without the blush mounting; nor was I strong enough to consider the latter adventure and escape a stab of sore remorse. Later could I have found the girl I would have made her restitution. Even now I hear again that scream which reached me on the forward deck of the “Wolfgang” that September afternoon.
But concerning the Cuban filibusterer, his outsailing against Spain; and the gold I got for his going—for these I say, I never have experienced either confusion or sorrow. My orders were to keep him in; I opened the port’s gate and let him out; I pocketed my yellow profits. And under equal conditions I would do as much again. It was an act of war against Spain; yet why should one shrink from one’s interest for a reason like that? Where was the moral wrong? Nations make war; and what is right for a country, is right for a man. That is rock-embedded verity, if one will but look, and that which is dishonest for an individual cannot be honest for a flag. You may—if you so choose—make war on Spain, and with as much of justice as any proudest people that ever put to sea. The question of difference is but a question of strength; and so you be strong enough you’ll be right enough, I warrant! For what says the poet?
“Right follows might
Like tail follows kite.”
It is a merest truism; we hear it in the storm; the very waves are its witnesses. Everywhere and under each condition, it is true. The proof lies all about. We read it on every page of history; behold it when armies overthrow a throne or the oak falls beneath the axe of the woodman. Do I disfavor war? On the contrary, I approve it as an institution of greatest excellence. War slays; war has its blood. But has peace no victims? Peace kills thousands where war kills tens; and if one is to consider misery, why then there be more starvation, more cold, more pain, and more suffering in one year of New York City peace than pinched and gnawed throughout the whole four years of civil war. And human life is of comparative small moment. We say otherwise; we believe otherwise; but we don’t act otherwise. Action is life’s text. Humanity is itself the preacher; in that silent sermon of existence—an existence of world’s goods and their acquirement—we forever show the thing of least consequence to be the life of man. However, I am not myself to preach, I who pushed forth to tell a story. It is the defect of age to be garrulous, and as one’s power to do departs, its place is ever taken by a weakness to talk.
This filibusterer whom I liberated to sail against Spain, I long ago told you was called Ryan. That, however, is a fictitious name; there was a Ryan, and the Spaniards took his life at Santiago. And because he with whom I dealt was also put up against a wall and riddled with Spanish lead, and further, because it is not well to give his true name, I call him Ryan now. His ship rode on her rope in New York bay; I was given the Harriet Lane to hold him from sailing away; his owners ashore—merchants these and folk on ’change—offered me ten thousand dollars; the gold was in bags, forty pounds of it; I turned my back at evening and in the morning he was gone.
You have been told how I never thought on those adventures of The Emperor’s Cigars, and The German Girl’s Diamonds, without sensations of shame, and pain. Indeed! they were engagements of ignobility! Following the latter affair I felt a strongest impulse to change somewhat my occupation. I longed for an employment a bit safer and less foul. I counted my fortunes; I was rich with over seventy thousand dollars; that might do, even though I gained no more. And so it fell that I was almost ready to leave the Customs, and forswear and, if possible, forget, those sins I had helped commit in its name.
In the former days, my home tribe was not without consequence in Old Dominion politics. And while we could not be said to have strengthened ourselves by that part we took against the union, still, now that peace was come, the family began little by little to regather a former weight. It had enough at this time to interfere for my advantage and rescue me from my present duty. I was detailed from Washington to go secretly to Europe, make the careless tour of her capitols, and keep an eye alive to the interests of both the Treasury and the State Department.
It was a gentleman’s work; this loafing from London to Paris, and from Paris to Berlin, with an occasional glance into Holland and its diamond cutting. And aside from expenses—which were paid by the government—I drew two salaries; one from the Customs and a second from the Secret Service. My business was to detect intended smuggling and cable the story, to the end that Betelnut Jack and Lorns and Quin and the others make intelligent seizures when the smugglers came into New York. The better to gain such news, I put myself on closest terms—and still keep myself a secret—with chief folk among houses of export; I went about with them, drank with them, dined with them; and I wheedled and lay in ambush for information of big sales. I sent in many a good story; and many a rich seizure came off through my interference. Also I lived vastly among legation underlings, and despatched what I found to the Department of State. There was no complaint that I didn’t earn my money from either my customs or my secret service paymaster. In truth! I stood high in their esteem.
At times, too, I was baffled. There was a lady, the handsome wife of a diamond dealer in Maiden Lane. She came twice a year to Europe. Obviously and in plain view—like the vulgarian she was not—this beautiful woman, as she went aboard ship in New York, would wear at throat and ears and on her hands full two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stones—apparently. And there they seemed to be when she returned; and, of course, never a dime of duty. We were morally sure this beautiful woman was a beautiful smuggler; we were morally sure those stones were paste when she sailed from New York; we were morally sure they were genuine, of purest water, when she returned; we were morally sure the shift was made in Paris, and that a harvest of thousands was garnered with every trip. But what might we do? We had no proof; we could get none; we could only guess.
And there were other instances when we slipped. More than once I tracked a would-be smuggler to his ship and saw him out of port. And yet, when acting on my cables, the smuggler coming down the New York gang-plank was snapped up by my old comrades and searched, nothing was found. This mystery, for mystery it was, occurred a score of times. At last we learned the trick. The particular room occupied by the smuggler was taken both ways for a round dozen trips ahead. There were seven members of the smuggling combine. When one left the room, his voyage ended, and came ashore in New York, another went duly aboard and took possession for the return trip. The diamonds had not gone ashore. They were hidden in a sure place somewhere about the room; he who took it to go to Europe knew where. And in those several times to follow when the outgoer was on and off the boat before she cleared, he found no difficulty in carrying the gems ashore. The Customs folk aren’t watching departures; their vigilance is for those who arrive. However, after a full score of defeats, we solved this last riddle, and managed a seizure which lost the rogues what profits they had gathered on all the trips before.
Also, as I pried about the smuggling industry, I came across more than one interesting bit of knowledge. I found a French firm making rubies—actual rubies. It was a great secret in my time, though more is known of it now. The ruby was real; stood every test save the one test—a hard one to enforce—of specific gravity. The made ruby was a shadow lighter, bulk for bulk, than the true ruby of the mines. This made ruby was called the “scientific ruby;” and indeed! it was scientific to such a degree of delusion that the best experts were for long deceived and rubies which cost no more than two hundred dollars to make, were sold for ten thousand dollars.
As a curious discovery of my ramblings, I stumbled on a diamond, the one only of its brood. It was small, no more than three-quarters of a carat. But of a color pure orange and—by day or by night—blazing like a spark of fire. That stone if lost could be found; it is the one lone member of its orange house. What was its fate? Set in the open mouth of a little lion’s head, one may now find it on the finger of a prince of the Bourse.
It was while in Madrid, during my European hunting, that those seeds were sown which a few months later grew into a smart willingness to let down the bars for my filibusterer’s escape. I was by stress of duty held a month in Madrid. And, first to last, I heard nothing from the natives when they spoke of America but malediction and vilest epithet. It kept me something warm, I promise, for all I had once ridden saber in hand to smite that same American government hip and thigh. I left Madrid when my work was done with never a moment’s delay; and I carried away a profound hate for Spain and all things Spanish.
As I was brought home by commands from my superiors at the end of my Madrid work, these anti-Spanish sentiments had by no means cooled when I made the New York wharf. Decidedly if I’d been searched for a sentiment, I would have been discovered hostile to Spanish interest when, within three weeks following my home-coming, I was given the Harriet Lane, shown the suspect and his ship, and told to have a sleepless eye and seize him if he moved.
It’s the Norse instinct to hate Spain; and I was blood and lineage, decisively Norse. That affair of instinct is a mighty matter. It is curious to note how one’s partisanship will back-track one’s racial trail and pick up old race feuds and friendships; hating where one’s forbears hated, loving where they loved. Even as a child, being then a devourer of history, I well recall how—while loathing England as the foe of this country—I still went with her in sympathy was she warring with France or Spain. I remember, too, that, in England’s civil wars, I was ever for the Roundhead and against the King. This, you say, sounds strangely for my theory, coming as I do from Virginia, that state of the Cavalier. One should reflect that Cavalierism—to invent a word—is naught save a Southern boast. Virginia, like most seaboard Southern states, was in its time a sort of Botany Bay whereunto, with other delinquents, political prisoners were condemned; my own ancestors coming, in good truth! by edict of the Bloody Jeffreys for the hand they took in Monmouth’s rebellion. It is true as I state, even as a child, too young for emotions save emotions of instinct, I was ever the friend, as I read history, first of my own country; and next of England, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden-Nor-way—old race-camps of my forefathers, these—and like those same forefathers the uncompromising foe of France, Spain, Italy, and the entire Latin tribe, as soon as ever my reading taught me their existence.
My filibusterer swung on his cable down the bay from Governor’s Island. During daylight I held the Harriet Lane at decent distance; when night came down I lay as closely by him as I might and give the ships room as they swept bow for stern with the tide. Also, we had a small-boat patrol in the water.
It was the fourth day of my watch. I was ashore to stretch my legs, and at that particular moment, grown weary of walking, on a bench in Battery Park, from which coign I had both my filibusterer and the Harriet Lane beneath my eye, and could signal the latter whenever I would.
On the bench with me sat a well-dressed stranger; I had before observed him during my walk. With an ease that bespoke the trained gentleman, and in manner unobtrusive, my fellow bencher stole into talk with me. Sharpened of my trade, he had not discoursed a moment before I felt and knew his purpose; he was friend to my filibusterer whose black freeboard showed broadside on as she tugged and strove with her cable not a mile away.
He carried the talk to her at last.
“I don’t believe she’s a filibusterer,” he said. Her character was common gossip, and he had referred to that. “I don’t believe she’s a filibusterer. I’d be glad to see her get out if I thought she were,” and he turned on me a tentative eye.
Doubtless he observed a smile, and therein read encouragement. I told him my present business; not through vain jauntiness of pride, but I was aware that he well knew my mission before ever he sat down, and I thought I’d fog him up a bit with airs of innocence, and lead him to suppose I suspected him not.
After much tacking and going about, first port and then starboard—to use the nautical phrase—he came straight at me.
“Friend,” he said; “the cause of liberty—Cuban liberty, if you will—is dear to me. If that ship be a filibusterer and meant for Cuba’s aid, speaking as a humanitarian, I could give you ten thousand reasons, the best in the world, why you should let her sail.” This last, wistfully.
Thereupon I lighted a cigar, having trouble by reason of the breeze. Then getting up, I took my handkerchief and wig-wagged the Harriet Lane to send the gig ashore. As I prepared to go down to the water-front, I turned to my humanitarian who so loved liberty.
“Give your reasons to Betelnut Jack,” I said; “he delights in abstract deductions touching the rights of man as against the rights of states as deeply as did that Thetford Corset maker, Thomas Paine.”
“Betelnut Jack!” said my humanitarian. “He shall have every reason within an hour.”
“Should you convince him,” I retorted, “tell him as marking a fact in which I shall take the utmost interest to come to this spot at five o’clock and show me his handkerchief.”
Then I joined the Harriet Lane.
At the hour suggested, Betelnut Jack stood on the water’s edge and flew the signal. I put the captain’s glass on him to make sure. He had been given the reasons, and was convinced. There abode no doubt of it; the humanitarian was right and Cuba should be free. Besides, I remembered Madrid and hated Spain.
“Captain,” I observed, as I handed that dignitary the glasses, “we will, if you please, lie in the Narrows to-night. If this fellow leave—which he won’t—he’ll leave that way. And we’ll pinch him.”
The Captain bowed. We dropped down to the Narrows as the night fell black as pitch. The Captain and I cracked a bottle. As we toasted each other, our suspect crept out through the Sound, and by sunrise had long cleared Montauk and far and away was southward bound and safe on the open ocean.
“I believe,” observed the Jolly Doctor to the Sour Gentleman when the latter paused, “I believe you said that the Filibusterer was in the end taken and shot.”
“Seized when he made his landing,” returned the Sour Gentleman, “and killed against a wall in the morning.”
“It was a cheap finish for a 10,000-dollar start,” remarked the Red Nosed Gentleman, sententiously. “But why should this adventurer, Ryan, as you call him, go into the business of freeing Cuba? Where would lie his profit? I don’t suppose now it was a love of liberty which put him in motion.”
“The Cuban rebellionists,” said the Sour Gentleman, “were from first to last sustained by certain business firms in New York who had arranged to make money by their success. It is a kind of piracy quite common, this setting our Spanish-Americans to cutting throats that a profit may flow in Wall and Broad streets. Every revolution and almost every war in South and Central America have their inspirations in the counting-rooms of some great New York firm. I’ve known rival houses in New York to set a pair of South American republics to battling with each other like a brace of game cocks. Thousands were slain with that war. Sure, it is the merest blackest piracy; the deeds of Kidd or Morgan were milk-white by comparison.”
“It shows also,” observed the Jolly Doctor, “how little the race has changed. In our hearts we are the same vikings of savage blood and pillage, and with no more of ruth, we were in the day of Harold Fairhair.”
Sioux Sam, at the Old Cattleman’s suggestion, came now to relate the story of “How Moh-Kwa Saved the Strike Axe.”
This shall be the story of how Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear, saved Strike Axe from the medicine of Yellow Face, the bad medicine man, who would take his life an’ steal the Feather, his squaw. An’ it is a story good to show that you should never lose a chance to do a kind deed, since kind deeds are the steeps up which the Great Spirit makes you climb to reach the happiness at the top. When you do good, you climb up; when you do bad, you climb down; an’ at the top is happiness which is white, an’ at the bottom is pain which is black, an’ the Great Spirit says every man shall take his choice.
Strike Axe is of the war-clan an’ is young. Also he is a big fighter next to Ugly Elk who is the war chief. An’ Strike Axe for all he is only a young man an’ has been but four times on the war trail, has already taken five skelps—one Crow, one Blackfoot, three Pawnees. This makes big talk among all the Sioux along the Yellowstone, an’ Strike Axe is proud an’ gay, for he is held a great warrior next to Ugly Elk; an’ it is the Pawnees an’ Crows an’ Blackfeet who say this, which makes it better than if it is only the talk of the Sioux.
When Ugly Elk sets up the war-pole, an’ calls to his young men to make ready to go against the Pawnees to take skelps an’ steal ponies, Strike Axe is the first to beat the war-pole with his stone club, an’ his war pony is the first that is saddled for the start.
Strike Axe has a squaw an’ the name of the squaw is the Feather. Of the girls of the Sioux, the Feather is one of the most beautiful. Yet she is restless an’ wicked, an’ thinks plots an’ is hungry
Yellow Face, the bad medicine man, has made a spell over the Feather. Yellow Face hates Strike Axe because of so much big talk about him. Also, he loves the Feather an’ would have her for his squaw. He tells her she is like the sunset, but she will not hear; then he says she is like the sunrise, but still she shakes her head, only she shakes it slow; so at last Yellow Face tells her she is like the Wild Rose, an’ at that she laughs an’ listens.
397
But the Feather will not leave Strike Axe an’ go with Yellow Face, for Strike Axe is a big fighter; an’ moreover, he kills many elk an’ buffalo, an’ his lodge is full of beef an’ robes, an’ the Feather is no fool. Besides, at this time her heart is not bad, but only restless.
Then Yellow Face sees he must give her a bad heart or he will never win the Feather. So Yellow Face kills the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks, who is his brother medicine, an’ cooks an’ feeds his heart to the Feather. Then she loves Yellow Face an’ hates Strike Axe, an’ would help the Yellow Face slay him. For the heart of the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks is evil, an’ evil breeds evil where it touches, an’ so the Feather’s heart turns black like the snake’s heart which she swallowed from the hand of Yellow Face.
Strike Axe does not know what the Feather an’ Yellow Face say an’ do, for he is busy sharpening his lance an’ making arrows to shoot against the Pawnees, an’ his ears an’ eyes have no time to run new trails. But Strike Axe can tell that the Feather’s heart is against him; an’ this makes him to wonder, because he is a big fighter; an’ besides he has more than any Sioux, meat an’ furs an’ beads an’ blankets an’ paint an’ feathers, all of which are good to the eyes of squaws, an’ the Feather is no fool. An’, remembering these things, Strike Axe wonders an’ wonders; but he cannot tell why the heart of the Feather is against him. An’ at last Strike Axe puts away the puzzle of the Feather’s heart.
“It is a trail in running water,” says Strike Axe, “an’ no one may follow it. The heart of a squaw is a bird an’ flies in the air an’ no one may trace it.” With that, Strike Axe washes his memory free of the puzzle of the Feather’s heart an’ goes away to the big trees by the Yellowstone to hunt.
Strike Axe tells the Feather he will be gone one moon; for now while her heart is against him his lodge is cold an’ his blankets hard an’ the fire no longer burns for Strike Axe, an’ his own heart is tired to be alone.
It is among the big trees by the Yellowstone that Strike Axe meets Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear, while Moh-Kwa is hunting for a bee tree. But he can’t find one, an’ he is sad an’ hungry an’ tells Strike Axe he fears the bees have gone far away to live with the Pawnees.
But Strike Axe says “No!” an’ takes Moh-Kwa to a bee-tree he has found; an’ Moh-Kwa sings in his joy, an’ climbs an’ eats until he is in pain; while Strike Axe stands a long way off, for the bees are angry an’ their knives are out.
Moh-Kwa is grateful to Strike Axe when his pain from much honey is gone, an’ says he will come each day, an’ eat an’ fight with the bees while there is honey left. An’ Moh-Kwa asks Strike Axe to remember that he is the Great Wise Bear of the Yellowstone, an’ to tell him what is evil with him so Moh-Kwa can do him good.
Strike Axe thinks very hard; then he tells Moh-Kwa how the Feather’s heart is against him an’ has left him; he would know what the Feather will do an’ where her heart has gone.
Moh-Kwa puts his paw above his eyes to keep out the sun so he can think better; an’ soon Moh-Kwa remembers that the wife of the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks, when he met her hunting rats among the cliffs, told him she was now a widow, for Yellow Face had killed the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks—who was his brother medicine—an’ fed his heart to the Feather.
Moh-Kwa tells Strike Axe how the Feather was bewitched by Yellow Face.
“Come now with me,” said Moh-Kwa to Strike Axe, “an’ I will show you what the Feather an’ Yellow Face do while you are gone. You are a young buck an’ a good buck, an’ because of your youth an’ the kind deed you did when you found for me the bees—to whom I shall go back an’ fight with for more honey to-morrow and every day while it lasts—I will show you a danger like a lance, an’ how to hold your shield so you may come safe from it.”
Moh-Kwa took Strike Axe by the hand an’ led him up a deep canyon an’ into his cavern where a big fire burned in the floor’s middle for light. An’ bats flew about the roof of Moh-Kwa’s cavern an’ owls sat on points of rock high up on the sides an’ made sad talks; but Strike Axe being brave an’ with a good heart, was not afraid an’ went close to the fire in the floor’s middle an’ sat down.
Moh-Kwa got him a fish to eat; an’ when it was baked on the coals an’ eaten, brought him a pipe with kinnikinick to smoke. When that was done, Moh-Kwa said:
“Now that your stomach is full an’ strong to stand grief, I will show you what the Feather an’ Yellow Face do while you are gone; for they make medicine against you an’ reach out to kill you an’ take your life.” Moh-Kwa then turned over a great stone with his black paws an’ took out of a hole which was under the stone, a looking glass. Moh-Kwa gave Strike Axe the looking glass an’ said, “Look; for there you shall see the story of what the Feather an’ the wicked Yellow Face do.”
Strike Axe looked, an’ saw that Yellow Face was wrapping up a log in a blanket. When he had done this, he belted it with the belts of Strike Axe; an’ then he put on its head the war-bonnet of Strike Axe which hung on the lodge pole. An’ now that it was finished, Yellow Face said the log in the blanket an’ wearing the belts an’ war-bonnet was Strike Axe—as Strike Axe saw truly in the looking glass—an’ Yellow Face stood up the log in its blanket an’ belts an’ war-bonnet, an’ made his bow ready to kill it with an arrow. As Yellow Face did these things, the Feather stood watching him with a smile on her face while the blood-hope shone in her eyes; for she had eaten the snake’s heart an’ all her spirit was black.
Strike Axe saw what went on with the Feather an’ Yellow Face, an’ told it as the glass told it, word for word to Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear, who sat by his side to listen.
Then Moh-Kwa, when he knew that now Yellow Face with three arrows in his left hand was stringing a bow to shoot against the log which he had dressed up an’ named “Strike Axe,” said there was little time to be lost; an’ Moh-Kwa hurried Strike Axe to the round deep spring of clear water which was in the cavern, an’ told him to stand on the edge of the spring an’ look hard in the looking glass an’ take sharp notice just as Yellow Face was to shoot the arrow against the log.
“An’ you must dive in the spring when Yellow Face shoots,” said Moh-Kwa to Strike Axe; “you must dive like the loon dives when you shoot at him on the river.”
Strike Axe looked hard in the looking glass like Moh-Kwa said, an’ dived in the spring when the arrow left the bow of Yellow Face.
When he came up, he looked again in the glass an’ saw that Yellow Face had missed the log. Yellow Face had a half-fear because he had missed, an’ Strike Axe looking in Moh-Kwa’s glass could see the half-fear rising up as a mist in his eyes like a morning fog lifts up from the Yellowstone. Also, the Feather stood watching Yellow Face, an’ her eyes, which were grown hard an’ little an’ bright, like a snake’s eyes, showed that she did not care what happened only so that it was evil.
But Moh-Kwa told Strike Axe to still watch closely, an’ would not let his mind pull up its pickets an’ stray; because Yellow Face would shoot twice more with the arrows which were left; an’ he must be quick an’ ready each time to dive like the loon dives, or he would surely die by the log’s wound.
Strike Axe, because he had eaten the fish an’ smoked, an’ had a full stomach an’ was bold an’ steady with a heart made brave with much food, again looked hard in the glass; an’ when the second arrow left the bow of Yellow Face he dived sharply in the spring like a loon; an’ when he came up an’ held the looking glass before his eyes he saw that Yellow Face had missed the log a second time.
An’ now there was a whole-fear in the eyes of Yellow Face—a white fear that comes when a man sees Pau-guk, the Death, walk into the lodge; an’ the hand of Yellow Face trembled as he made ready his last third arrow on the bow. But in the eyes of the Feather shone no fear; only she lapped out her tongue like the snake does, with the black pleasure of new evil at the door.
Moh-Kwa warned Strike Axe to look only at Yellow Face that he might be sure an’ swift as the loon to dive from the last arrow. Strike Axe did as Moh-Kwa counselled; an’ when the last arrow flew from the bow, Strike Axe with a big splash was safe an’ deep beneath the waters of the spring.
“An’ now,” said Moh-Kwa to Strike Axe, “look in the glass an’ laugh, for a blessing of revenge has been bestowed on you through the Great Spirit.”
Strike Axe looked an’ saw that not only did Yellow Face miss the log, but the arrow flew back an’ pierced the throat of Yellow Face, even up to the three eagle feathers on the arrow’s shaft. As Strike Axe looked, he saw Yellow Face die; an’ a feeling like the smell of new grass came about the heart of Strike Axe, for there is nothing so warm an’ sweet an’ quick with peace as revenge when it sees an’ smells the fresh blood of its enemy.
Moh-Kwa told Strike Axe to still look in the glass; for while the danger was gone he would know what the Feather did when now that Yellow Face was killed by the turning of his own medicine.
Strike Axe looked, an’ saw how the Feather dammed up the water in a little brook near the lodge; an’ when the bed of the brook was free of water the Feather dug a hole in the soft ground with her hands like a wolf digs with his paws. An’ the Feather made it deep an’ long an’ wide; an’ then she put the dead Yellow Face in this grave in the brook’s bed. When she had covered him with sand an’ stones, the Feather let the waters free; an’ the brook went back to its old trail which it loved, an’ laughed an’ ran on, never caring about the dead Yellow Face who lay under its wet feet.
Then the Feather went again into the lodge an’ undressed the log of its blankets, belts an’ war-bonnet; an’ the Feather burned the bow an’ the arrows of Yellow Face, an’ made everything as it was before. Only now Yellow Face lay dead under the brook; but no one knew, an’ the brook itself already had forgot—for the brook’s memory is slippery an’ thin an’ not a good memory, holding nothing beyond a moment—an’ the Feather felt safe an’ happy; for her heart fed on evil an’ evil had been done.
Strike Axe came out from the cave with Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear.
“You have given me life,” said Strike Axe.
“You have given me honey,” said Moh-Kwa.
Then Strike Axe was troubled in his mind, an’ he told Moh-Kwa that he knew not what he must do with the Feather when he returned. But Moh-Kwa said that he should make his breast light, an’ free his thought of the Feather as a burden, for one would be in his lodge before him with the answer to his question.
“It is the Widow,” said Moh-Kwa, “who was the wife of the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks; she will go to your tepee to be close to the heart of her husband. In her mouth the Widow will bring a message from Yellow Face to the Feather for whom he died an’ was hid beneath the careless brook.”
Thus said Moh-Kwa. An’ Strike Axe found that Moh-Kwa spoke with but one tongue; for when he stood again in his lodge the Feather lay across the door, dead an’ black with the message of Yellow Face which was sent to her in the mouth of the Widow. An’ as Strike Axe looked on the Feather, the Widow rattled joyfully where she lay coiled on the Feather’s breast; for the Widow was glad because she was near to her husband’s heart.
But Moh-Kwa was not there to look; Moh-Kwa had gone early to the bee-tree, an’ now with his nose in a honey comb was high an’ hearty up among the angry bees.
There arose no little approbative comment on the folk-lore tales of Sioux Sam, and it was common opinion that his were by odds and away the best stories to be told among us. These hearty plaudits were not without pleasant effect on Sioux Sam, and one might see his dark cheek flush to a color darker still with the joy he felt.
And yet someone has said how the American Indian is stolid and cold.
It was the Red Nosed Gentleman, as the clock struck midnight on this our last evening and we threw our last log on the coals, who suggested that the Jolly Doctor, having told the first story, should in all propriety close in the procession by furnishing the last. There was but one voice for it, and the Jolly Doctor, who would have demurred for that it seemed to lack of modesty on his side, in the end conceded the point with grace.
“This,” said the Jolly Doctor, composing himself to a comfortable position in his great chair, “this, then, shall be the story of ‘The Flim Flam Murphy.’”
Chicken Bill was not beautiful with his shock of coarse hair and foul pipe in mouth. Doubtless, Chicken Bill was likewise an uncompromising villain. Indeed, Pike’s Peak Martin, expert both of men and mines, one evening in the Four Flush saloon, casually, but with insulting fullness, set these things forth to Chicken Bill himself; and while Pike’s Peak Martin was always talking, he was not always wrong.
On this occasion of Pike’s Peak Martin’s frankness, Chicken Bill, albeit he carried contradiction at his belt in the shape of a six-shooter, walked away without attempting either denial or reproof. This conduct, painful to the sentiment of Timberline, had the two-fold effect of confirming Pike’s Peak Martin’s utterances in the minds of men, and telling against the repute of Chicken Bill for that personal courage which is the great first virtue the Southwest demands.
Old Man Granger found the earliest gold in Arizona Gulch. And hot on the news of the strike came Chicken Bill. It was the latter’s boast about the bar-rooms of Timberline that he was second to come into the canyon; and as this was the only word of truth of which Chicken Bill was guilty while he honored the camp with his presence, it deserves a record.
Following Old Man Granger’s discovery of his Old Age mine, came not only Chicken Bill, but others; within a week there arose the bubbling camp of Timberline. There were saloons and hurdy-gurdies and stores and restaurants and a bank and a corral and a stage station and an express office and a post-office and an assay office and board sidewalks and red lights and many another plain evidence of civilization. Even a theatre was threatened; and, to add to the gayety as well as the wealth of the baby metropolis, those sundry cattlemen having ranges and habitats within the oak-brushed hills about, began to make Timberline their headquarters and transact their business and their debauches in its throbbing midst.
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Chicken Bill was reasonably perfect in all accomplishments of the Southwest. He could work cattle; he could rope, throw, and hog-tie his steer; he could keep up his end at flanking, branding, and ear-marking in a June corral; he could saddle and ride a wild, unbroken bronco; he could make baking-powder biscuit so well flavored and light as to compel the compliments of those jealous epicures of the cow-camps who devoured them.
Yet Chicken Bill would not work on the ranges. There were no cards permitted in the camps, and whiskey was debarred as if each bottle held a rattlesnake. Altogether a jovial soul, and one given to revelry, would fly from them in disgust.
“It’s too lonesome a play for me, this punchin’ cattle,” observed Chicken Bill, and so eschewed it.
While Pike’s Peak Martin expounded this aversion on the part of Chicken Bill, as well as the latter’s refusal to pick and dig and drill and blast in the Timberline mines, as mere laziness, public feeling, though it despised the culprit, was inclined to tolerate him in his shiftlessness. American independence in the Southwest is held to be inclusive of the personal right to refuse all forms of labor. Wherefore Chicken Bill was safe even from criticism as he hung about the saloons and faro rooms and lived his life of chosen vagabondage.
Our low-flung hero made shift in various ways. Did he find a tenderfoot whom he could cheat at cards, he borrowed a stake—sometimes, when the subject was uncommonly tender, from the victim himself—and therewith took a small sum at poker or seven-up. Another method of trivial fraud, now and then successful with Chicken Bill, was to plant a handful of brass nuggets, each of about an ounce in weight, under a little waterfall that broke into the canyon just below the windmill. There was a deal of mineral in this feeble side-stream, and the brass nuggets became coated and queer of color.
One of these Chicken Bill was able at intervals to impose at a profit upon a stranger, by swearing doughtily that it was virgin gold.
It came to pass, however, that Chicken Bill, despairing of fortune by the cheap processes of penny-ante and spurious nuggets, decided on a coup. He would stake out a claim, drift it and timber it, and then salt it to the limit of all that was possible in the science of claim-salting. Then would he sell it to the first Christian with more money than sagacity who came moved to buy a mine.
Chicken Bill was no amateur of mines. He knew the business as he knew the cow trade, and avoided it for the same reason of indolence. In his time, and after some windfall at faro-bank, Chicken Bill had grub-staked prospectors who were to “give him half” and who never came back. In his turn Chicken Bill was grub-staked by others, in which event he never came back. But it went with other experiences to teach him the trade, and on the morning when with pick and paraphernalia Chicken Bill pitched camp in Arizona Gulch a mile beyond the farthest, and where it was known to all no mineral lurked, he brought with him a knowledge of the miner’s art, and began his digging with intelligent spirit. Moreover, the heart of Chicken Bill was stout for the work; for was he not planning a swindle? and did not that thought of itself swell his bosom with a mighty peace?
Once upon a time Chicken Bill had had a partner.
This partner was frequently on the lips of Chicken Bill, especially when our hero was in his cups. He was always mentioned with a gush of tears, this partner, and his name as furnished by Chicken Bill was Flim Flam Murphy. Flim Flam had met death somewhere in the Gunnison country while making good his name, and passed with the smoke of the Colt’s-44 that dismissed him. But Chicken Bill reverenced the memory of this talented man and was ready to honor him, and, having staked out his claim with the fraudulent purpose aforesaid, filed on it appropriately as “The Flim Flam Murphy.”
It would be unjust to the intelligence of Timberline to permit one for a moment to suppose that the dullest of her male citizenry lived unaware of the ignoble plans of Chicken Bill. That he proposed to salt a claim and therewith ensnare the stranger within the local gates were truths which all men knew. But all men cared not; and mention of the enterprise when the miracle of Chicken Bill at work found occasional comment over the bars, aroused nothing save a sluggish curiosity as to whether Chicken Bill would succeed. No thought of warning the unwary arose in the Timberline heart.
“It’s the proper play,” observed Pike’s Peak Martin, representative of Timberline feeling, “to let every gent seelect his own licker an’ hobble his own hoss. If Chicken Bill can down anybody for his bankroll without making a gun play to land the trick, thar’s no call for the public to interfere.”
It was about this time that Chicken Bill added to his ornate scheme of claim-salting—a plain affair of the heart. The lady to thus cast her spell over Chicken Bill was known as Deadwood Maggie and flourished a popular waitress in the Belle union Hotel. Timberline thought well of Deadwood Maggie, and her place in general favor found suggestion in a remark of Pike’s Peak Martin.
“Deadwood Maggie,” observed that excellent spirit, as he replaced his glass on the Four Flush bar and turned to an individual who had been guilty of words derogatory to the lady in question; “Dead-wood Maggie is a virchoous young female, an’ it shore frets me to hear her lightly allooded to.”
As Pike’s Peak Martin’s disapproval took the violent form of smiting the maligner upon the head with an 8-inch pistol, the social status of the lady was ever after regarded as fixed.
Chicken Bill was not the one to eat his heart in silence, and his passion was but one day old when he laid hand and fortune at Deadwood Maggie’s feet. That maiden for her part displayed a suspicious front, born perhaps of an experience of the perfidy of man. Deadwood Maggie was inclined to a scorn of Chicken Bill and his proffer of instant wedlock.
“Not on your life!” was Deadwood Maggie’s reply.
But Chicken Bill persisted; he longed more ardently because of this rebuff. To soften Deadwood Maggie he threw a gallant arm about her and drew her to his bosom.
“Don’t be in sech a hurry to lose me,” said Chicken Bill on this sentimental occasion.
Deadwood Maggie was arranging tables at the time for those guests who from mine and store and bar-room would come, stamping and famishing, an hour later. Chicken Bill and she for the moment had the apartment to themselves. Goaded by her lover’s sweet persistency, and unable to phrase a retort that should do her feelings justice, Deadwood Maggie fell to the trite expedient of breaking a butter-dish on the head of Chicken Bill.
“Now pull your freight,” said she, “or I’ll chunk you up with all the crockery in the camp.”
Finding Deadwood Maggie obdurate, Chicken Bill for the nonce withdrew to consider the situation. He was in no sort dispirited; he regarded the butter-dish and those threats which came after it as marks of maiden coyness; they were decisive of nothing.
“She wasn’t in the mood,” said Chicken Bill, as he explained his repulse to the bar-keeper of the Four Flush Saloon; “but I’ll get my lariat on her yet. Next time I’ll rope with a larger loop.”
“That’s the racket!” said the bar-keeper.
Chicken Bill in a small way was a gifted rascal. After profound contemplation of Deadwood Maggie in her obstinacy, he determined to win her with the conveyance of a one-quarter interest in The Flim Flam Murphy. Deadwood Maggie knew nothing of the worthlessness of The Flim Flam Murphy. Chicken Bill would represent it to her as a richer strike than Old Man Granger’s Old Age Mine. He would give her one-quarter. There would be no risk; Deadwood Maggie, when once his wife and getting a good figure for the mine, would make no demur to selling to whatever tenderfoot he might dupe. This plan had merit; at least one must suppose so, for the soul of Deadwood Maggie was visibly softened thereby.
“I must have you, Maggie,” wooed Chicken Bill, when he had put forth the sterling character of The Flim Flam Murphy and expressed himself as determined to bestow on her the one-fourth interest, a conveyance whereof in writing he held then in his hand; “I can’t live without you. When you busted me with that yootensil you made me yours forever. I swear by this gun I pack, I’ll not outlive your refusal to wed me longer than to jest get good an’ drunk an’ put a bullet through my head.”
Who could resist such love and such hyperbole? Deadwood Maggie wept; then she took the deed to the one-fourth interest in The Flim Flam Murphy, kissed Chicken Bill, and said she would drift into his arms as his wife at the end of two months. Chicken Bill objected strenuously to such a recess for his affections, but with the last of it was driven to yield.
There came a time when The Flim Flam Murphy salted to the last degree of salt was as perfect a trap for a tenderfoot as any ever set. And as though luck were seeking Chicken Bill, a probable prey stepped from the stage next day.
Chicken Bill and the stranger were seen in prompt and lengthy conference. Timberline, looking on, grinned in a tolerant way. For two days Chicken Bill and the stranger did nothing but explore the drift, inspect the timbering, and consider specimens taken from The Flim Flam Murphy.
At last the stranger filled ten small canvas sacks with specimens of ore and brought them into camp on a buckboard to be assayed. Chicken Bill was with him; and pleading internal pains that made it impossible to ride upright, our wily one lay back with the bags of specimens while the stranger drove. From time to time the astute Chicken Bill, having advantage of rough places in the canyon’s bed which engaged the faculties of the stranger, emptied some two or three quills of powdered gold into each specimen sack by the ingenius process of forcing the sharpened point of the quill through the web of the canvas, and blowing the treasure in among the ore.
“It’s a cinch!” ruminated Chicken Bill, when he had completed these improvements. Then he refreshed himself from a whiskey flask, said that he felt better, and climbed back beside the stranger on the buckboard’s seat.
There came the assay next day. With that ceremony Chicken Bill had nothing to do, and could only wait. But he owned no misgivings; there would come but one result; the ore would show a richness not to be resisted.
Chicken Bill put in his time preparing Deadwood Maggie for the sale. He told her that not a cent less than sixty thousand dollars would be accepted.
“It’s worth more,” declared Chicken Bill, “but me an’ you, Maggie, ain’t got the long green to develop it. Our best play is to cash in if we can get the figure.”
But disaster was striding on the trail of Chicken Bill. That evening, as Deadwood Maggie was returning to the Belle union from the Dutch Woman’s Store, to which mart she had been driven for a tooth-brush, she was blasted with the spectacle of Chicken Bill and a Mexican girl in confidential converse just ahead. Deadwood Maggie, a bit violent of nature, had been in no wise calmed by her several years on the border. While not wildly in love, still her impulse was to dismantle, if not dismember, the senorita thus softly whispering and being whispered to by the recreant Chicken Bill. But on second thought Deadwood Maggie restrained herself. She would observe the full untruth of Chicken Bill.
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The next day, when Chicken Bill called on Dead-wood Maggie, he was met with a smothering flight of table furniture and told never to come back.
It was a crisis with Chicken Bill. The assay had been a victory and the stranger stood ready, cash in hand, to pay the sixty thousand dollars demanded for The Flim Flam Murphy. Chicken Bill felt the necessity of getting the money without delay. Any marplot, whether from drink or that mean officiousness which hypocrites call “conscience,” might say the word that would arm the tenderfoot with a knowledge of his peril. But Chicken Bill could not come to speech with Dead-wood Maggie. In a blaze of jealousy, that wronged woman would begin throwing things the moment he appeared. As a last resort, Chicken Bill dispatched the bar-keeper of the Four Flush to Dead-wood Maggie. This diplomat was told to set forth the crying needs of the hour, Chicken Bill promising friendship for life and five hundred dollars if he made Deadwood Maggie see reason.
Ten minutes later the bar-keeper returned, bleeding from a cut over his eye.
“Did it with a stove-lifter,” he explained, as he laved the wound in a basin at the corner of the bar. “Say! you can’t get near enough to that lady to give her a diamond ring.”
Chicken Bill made a gesture of despair; he saw that Deadwood Maggie was lost to him forever.
But the sale of The Flim Flam Murphy must go on. Chicken Bill sought the tenderfoot. He found him with a smile on his face reading the report of The Flim Flam Murphy assay. Chicken Bill guardedly explained that he had a partner, name not given, who objected to the sale. The partner held a one-quarter share in The Flim Flam Murphy. The stranger, who knew it all along from the records, pondered briefly. Finally he broke the silence:
“Would Chicken Bill sell his three-quarters?”
Chicken Bill composed his face. Chicken Bill would sell.
Nothing is big in the Southwest; transactions of millions are disposed of while one eats a flap-jack. In an hour the stranger had acquired The Flim Flam Murphy interest which was vested in Chicken Bill; in two hours that immoralist was speeding by vague trails to regions new, forty-five thousand dollars in his belt and a soreness in his heart.
Timberline felt a quiet amusement in the situation. It leaned back and waited in a superior way for the stranger to set up the low wail of the robbed. The outcry couldn’t be long deferred; the fraud must be soon unmasked since the development of The Flim Flam Murphy was gone about with diligence and on a dazzling scale.
But the stranger did not complain.
Two weeks were added to that vast eternity which had preceded them and the sobered sentiment of Timberline began to think it might better investigate. Timberline, however, would proceed with caution; missing its laugh, it must now guard itself against being laughed at.
It turned as the wise ones had begun to apprehend. The Flim Flam Murphy was a two-million dollar wonder. The talented Chicken Bill had overreached himself. With no hope beyond a plan to salt a claim, he had not thought to secure an assay for himself. The Flim Flam Murphy loomed upon mankind as Timberline’s richest strike.
Pike’s Peak Martin was the first to collect himself. Crawling from beneath that landslide of amazement which had caught and covered Timberline, he visited the Belle union with a resolved air. Pointedly but fully Pike’s Peak Martin tendered himself in marriage to Dead wood Maggie. That lady did not hurl a butter-dish; such feats would seem too effervescent on the part of a gentlewoman worth five hundred thousand dollars.
Deadwood Maggie blushed with drooping lids as she heard the words of Pike’s Peak Martin.
“Which your offer shore makes a hit with me,” murmured Deadwood Maggie. Then, when a moment later, her head lay on Pike’s Peak Martin’s shoulder like some tired flower at rest, Deadwood Maggie gave a sigh, and lifting her eyes to the deep inquiring gaze of Pike’s Peak Martin, she whispered: “You’re the only gent I ever loved.”
The End