In the estimate of the affable brakeman (a gentleman wearing sky-blue army pantaloons tucked into cowhide boots, half-buttoned vest, flannel shirt open at the throat, and upon his red hair a flaring-brimmed black slouch hat) we were making a fair average of twenty miles an hour across the greatest country on earth. It was a flat country of far horizons, and for vast stretches peopled mainly, as one might judge from the car windows, by antelope and the equally curious rodents styled prairie dogs.
Yet despite the novelty of such a ride into that unknown new West now being spanned at giant’s strides by the miraculous Pacific Railway, behold me, surfeited with already five days’ steady travel, engrossed chiefly in observing a clear, dainty profile and waiting for the glimpses, time to time, of a pair of exquisite blue eyes.
Merely to indulge myself in feminine beauty, however, I need not have undertaken the expense and fatigue of journeying from Albany on the Hudson out to Omaha on the plains side of the Missouri River; thence by the union Pacific Railroad of the new transcontinental line into the Indian country. There were handsome women a-plenty in the East; and of access, also, to a youth of family and parts. I had pictures of the same in my social register. A man does not attain to twenty-five years without having accomplished a few pages of the heart book. Nevertheless all such pages were—or had seemed to be—wholly retrospective now, for here I was, advised by the physicians to “go West,” meaning by this not simply the one-time West of Ohio, or Illinois, or even Iowa, but the remote and genuine West lying beyond the Missouri.
Whereupon, out of desperation that flung the gauntlet down to hope I had taken the bull by the horns in earnest. West should be full dose, at the utmost procurable by modern conveyance.
The union Pacific announcements acclaimed that this summer of 1868 the rails should cross the Black Hills Mountains of Wyoming to another range of the Rocky Mountains, in Utah; and that by the end of the year one might ride comfortably clear to Salt Lake City. Certainly this was “going West” with a vengeance; but as appeared to me—and to my father and mother and the physicians—somewhere in the expanse of brand new Western country, the plains and mountains, I would find at least the breath of life.11
When I arrived in Omaha the ticket agent was enabled to sell me transportation away to the town of Benton, Wyoming Territory itself, six hundred and ninety miles (he said) west of the Missouri.
Of Benton I had never heard. It was upon no public maps, as yet. But in round figures, seven hundred miles! Practically the distance from Albany to Cincinnati, and itself distant from Albany over two thousand miles! All by rail.
Benton was, he explained, the present end of passenger service, this August. In another month—and he laughed.
“Fact is, while you’re standing here,” he alleged, “I may get orders any moment to sell a longer ticket. The Casements are laying two to three miles of track a day, seven days in the week, and stepping right on the heels of the graders. Last April we were selling only to Cheyenne, rising of five hundred miles. Then in May we began to sell to Laramie, five hundred and seventy-six miles. Last of July we began selling to Benton, a hundred and twenty miles farther. Track’s now probably fifty or more miles west of Benton and there’s liable to be another passenger terminus to-morrow. So it might pay you to wait.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, but I’ll try Benton. I can go on from there as I think best. Could you recommend local accommodations?”
He stared, through the bars of the little window behind which lay a six-chambered revolver.
“Could I do what, sir?”
“Recommend a hotel, at Benton where I’m going. There is a hotel, I suppose?”
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed testily. “In a city of three thousand people? A hotel? A dozen of ’em, but I don’t know their names. What do you expect to find in Benton? You’re from the East, I take it. Going out on spec’, or pleasure, or health?”
“I have been advised to try Western air for a change,” I answered. “I am looking for some place that is high, and dry.”
“Consumption, eh?” he shrewdly remarked. “High and dry; that’s it. Oh, yes; you’ll find Benton high enough, and toler’bly dry. You bet! And nobody dies natural, at Benton, they say. Here’s your ticket. Thank you. And the change. Next, please.”
It did not take me long to gather the change remaining from seventy dollars greenbacks swapped for six hundred and ninety miles of travel at ten cents a mile. I hastily stepped aside. A subtle fragrance and a rustle warned me that I was obstructing a representative of the fair sex. So did the smirk and smile of the ticket agent.
“Your pardon, madam,” I proffered, lifting my hat—agreeably dazzled while thus performing.
She acknowledged the tribute with a faint blush. While pocketing my change and stowing away my ticket I had opportunity to survey her further.
“Benton,” she said briefly, to the agent.
We were bound for the same point, then. Ye gods, but she was a little beauty: a perfect blonde, of the petite and fully formed type, with regular features inclined to the clean-cut Grecian, a piquant mouth deliciously bowed, two eyes of the deepest blue veiled by long lashes, and a mass of glinting golden hair upon which perched a ravishing little bonnet. The natural ensemble was enhanced by her costume, all of black, from the closely fitting bodice to the rustling crinoline beneath which there peeped out tiny shoes. I had opportunity also to note the jet pendant in the shelly ear toward me, and the flashing rings upon the fingers of her hands, ungloved in order to sort out the money from her reticule.
Sooth to say, I might not stand there gawking. Once, by a demure sideways glance, she betrayed knowledge of my presence. Her own transaction was all matter-of-fact, as if engaging passage to Benton of Wyoming Territory contained no novelty for her. Could she by any chance live there—a woman dressed like she was, as much à la mode as if she walked Broadway in New York? Omaha itself had astonished me with the display upon its streets; and now if Benton, far out in the wilderness, should prove another surprise——! Indeed, the Western world was not so raw, after all. Strange to say, as soon as one crossed the Missouri River one began to sense romance, and to discover it.
As seemed to me, the ticket agent would have detained her, in defiance of the waiting line; but she finished her business shortly, with shorter replies to his idle remarks; and I turned away under pretense of examining some placards upon the wall advertising “Platte Valley lands” for sale. I had curiosity to see which way she wended. Then as she tripped for the door, casting eyes never right nor left, and still fumbling at her reticule, a coin slipped from her fingers and rolled, by good fortune, across the floor.
I was after it instantly; caught it, and with best bow presented it.
“Permit me, madam.”
She took it.
“Thank you, sir.”
For a moment she paused to restore it to its company; and I grasped the occasion.
“I beg your pardon. You are going to Benton, of Wyoming Territory?”
Her eyes met mine so completely as well-nigh to daze me with their glory. There was a quizzical uplift in her frank, arch smile.
“I am, sir. To Benton City, of Wyoming Territory.”
“You are acquainted there?” I ventured.
“Yes, sir. I am acquainted there. And you are from Benton?”
“Oh, no,” I assured. “I am from New York State.” As if anybody might not have known. 15“But I have just purchased my ticket to Benton, and——” I stammered, “I have made bold to wonder if you would not have the goodness to tell me something of the place—as to accommodations, and all that. You don’t by any chance happen to live there, do you?”
“And why not, sir, may I ask?” she challenged.
I floundered before her query direct, and her bewildering eyes and lips—all tantalizing.
“I didn’t know—I had no idea—Wyoming Territory has been mentioned in the newspapers as largely Indian country——”
“At Benton we are only six days behind New York fashions,” she smiled. “You have not been out over the railroad, then, I suspect. Not to North Platte? Nor to Cheyenne?”
“I have never been west of Cincinnati before.”
“You have surely been reading of the railroad? The Pacific Railway between the East and California?”
“Yes, indeed. In fact, a friend of mine, named Stephen Clark, nephew of the Honorable Thurlow Weed formerly of Albany, was killed a year ago by your Indians while surveying west of the Black Hills. And of course there have been accounts in the New York papers.”
“You are not on survey service? Or possibly, yes?”
“No, madam.”16
“A pleasure trip to end of track?”
She evidently was curious, but I was getting accustomed to questions into private matters. That was the universal license, out here.
“The pleasure of finding health,” I laughed. “I have been advised to seek a location high and dry.”
“Oh!” She dimpled adorably. “I congratulate you on your choice. You will make no mistake, then, in trying Benton. I can promise you that it is high and reasonably dry. And as for accommodations—so far as I have ever heard anybody is accommodated there with whatever he may wish.” She darted a glance at me; stepped aside as if to leave.
“I am to understand that it is a city?” I pleaded.
“Benton? Why, certainly. All the world is flowing to Benton. We gained three thousand people in two weeks—much to the sorrow of poor old Cheyenne and Laramie. No doubt there are five thousand people there now, and all busy. Yes, a young man will find his opportunities in Benton. I think your choice will please you. Money is plentiful, and so are the chances to spend it.” She bestowed upon me another sparkling glance. “And since we are both going to Benton I will say ’Au revoir,’ sir.” She left me quivering.
“You do live there?” I besought, after; and received a nod of the golden head as she entered the sacred Ladies’ Waiting Room.
Until the train should be made up I might only 17stroll, restless and strangely buoyed, with that vision of an entrancing fellow traveler filling my eyes. Summoned in due time by the clamor “Passengers for the Pacific Railway! All aboard, going west on the union Pacific!” here amidst the platform hurly-burly of men, women, children and bundles I had the satisfaction to sight the black-clad figure of My Lady of the Blue Eyes; hastening, like the rest, but not unattended—for a brakeman bore her valise and the conductor her parasol. The scurrying crowd gallantly parted before her. It as promptly closed upon her wake; try as I might I was utterly unable to keep in her course.
Obviously, the train was to be well occupied. Carried on willy-nilly I mounted the first steps at hand; elbowed on down the aisle until I managed to squirm aside into a vacant seat. The remaining half was at once effectually filled by a large, stout, red-faced woman who formed the base of a pyramid of boxes and parcels.
My neighbor, who blocked all egress, was going to North Platte, three hundred miles westward, I speedily found out. And she almost as speedily learned that I was going to Benton.
She stared, round-eyed.
“I reckon you’re a gambler, young man,” she accused.
“No, madam. Do I look like a gambler?”
“You can’t tell by looks, young man,” she asserted, still suspicious, “Maybe you’re on spec’, then, in some other way.”
“I am seeking health in the West, is all, where the climate is high and dry.”
“My Gawd!” she blurted. “High and dry! You’re goin’ to the right place. For all I hear tell, Benton is high enough and dry enough. Are your eye-teeth peeled, young man?”
“My eye-teeth?” I repeated. “I hope so, madam. Are eye-teeth necessary in Benton?”
“Peeled, and with hair on ’em, young man,” she assured. “I guess you’re a pilgrim, ain’t you? I see a leetle green in your eye. No, you ain’t a tin-horn. You’re some mother’s boy, jest gettin’ away from the trough. My sakes! Sick, too, eh? Weak lungs, ain’t it? Now you tell me: Why you goin’ to Benton?”
There was an inviting kindness in her query. Plainly she had a good heart, large in proportion with her other bulk.
“It’s the farthest point west that I can reach by railroad, and everybody I have talked with has recommended it as high and dry.”
“So it is,” she nodded; and chuckled fatly. “But laws sakes, you don’t need to go that fur. You can as well stop off at North Platte, or Sidney or Cheyenne. They’ll sculp you sure at Benton, unless you watch out mighty sharp.”
“How so, may I ask?”
“You’re certainly green,” she apprised. “Benton’s roarin’—and I know what that means. Didn’t North Platte roar? I seen it at its beginnin’s. My old man and me, we were there from the fust, when it started in as the railroad terminal. My sakes, but them were times! What with the gamblin’ and the shootin’ and the drinkin’ and the high-cockalorums night and day, ’twasn’t no place for innocence. Easy come, easy go, that was the word. I don’t say but what times were good, though. My old man contracted government freight, and I run an eatin’ house for the railroaders, so we made money. Then when the railroad moved terminus, the wust of the crowd moved, too, and us others who stayed turned North Platte into a strictly moral town. But land sakes! North Platte in its roarin’ days wasn’t no place for a young man like you. Neither was Julesburg, or Sidney, or Cheyenne, when they was terminuses. And I hear tell Benton is wuss’n all rolled into one. Young man, now listen: You stop off at North Platte, Nebrasky. It’s healthy and it’s moral, and it’s goin’ to make Omyha look like a shinplaster. I’ll watch after you. Maybe I can get you a job in my man’s store. You’ve j’ined some church, I reckon? Now if you’re a Baptist——?”
But since I had crossed the Missouri something had entered into my blood which rendered me obstinate against such allurements. For her North Platte, “strictly moral,” and the guardianship of her broad 20motherly wing I had no ardent feeling. I was set upon Benton; foolishly, fatuously set. And in after days—soon to arrive—I bitterly regretted that I had not yielded to her wholesome, honest counsel.
Nevertheless this was true, at present:
“But I have already purchased my ticket to Benton,” I objected. “I understand that I shall find the proper climate there, and suitable accommodations. And if I don’t like it I can move elsewhere. Possibly to Salt Lake City, or Denver.”
She snorted.
“In among them Mormons? My Gawd, young man! Where they live in conkibinage—several women to one man, like a buffler herd or other beasts of the field? I guess your mother never heard you talk like that. Denver—well, Denver mightn’t be bad, though I do hear tell that folks nigh starve to death there, what with the Injuns and the snow. Denver ain’t on no railroad, either. If you want health, and to grow up with a strictly moral community, you throw in with North Platte of Nebrasky, the great and growin’ city of the Plains. I reckon you’ve heard of North Platte, even where you come from. You take my word for it, and exchange your ticket.”
It struck me here that the good woman might not be unbiased in her fondness for North Platte. To extol the present and future of these Western towns seemed a fixed habit. During my brief stay in Omaha—yes, on the way across Illinois and Iowa 21from Chicago, I had encountered this peculiar trait. Iowa was rife with aspiring if embryonic metropolises. Now in Nebraska, Columbus was destined to be the new national capital and the center of population for the United States; Fremont was lauded as one of the great railroad junctions of the world; and North Platte, three hundred miles out into the plains, was proclaimed as the rival of Omaha, and “strictly moral.”
“I thank you,” I replied. “But since I’ve started for Benton I think I’ll go on. And if I don’t like it or it doesn’t agree with me you may see me in North Platte after all.”
She grunted.
“You can find me at the Bon Ton restaurant. If you get in broke, I’ll take care of you.”
With that she settled herself comfortably. In remarkably short order she was asleep and snoring.
The train had started amidst clangor of bell and the shouts of good-bye and good-luck from the crowd upon the station platform. We had rolled out through train yards occupied to the fullest by car shops, round house, piled-up freight depot, stacks of ties and iron, and tracks covered with freight cars loaded high to rails, ties, baled hay, all manner and means of supplies designed, I imagined, for the building operations far in the West.
Soon we had left this busy Train Town behind, and were entering the open country. The landscape was pleasing, but the real sights probably lay ahead; so I turned from my window to examine my traveling quarters.
The coach—a new one, built in the company’s shops and decidedly upon a par with the very best coaches of the Eastern roads—was jammed; every seat taken. I did not see My Lady of the Blue Eyes, nor her equal, but almost the whole gamut of society was represented: Farmers, merchants, a few soldiers, plainsmen in boots and flannel shirt-sleeves and long hair and large hats, with revolvers hanging from the racks above them or from the seat ends; one or two white-faced gentry in broadcloth and patent-leather shoes—who I fancied might be gamblers such as now and then plied their trade upon the Hudson River boats; two Indians in blankets; Eastern tourists, akin to myself; women and children of country type; and so forth. What chiefly caught my eye were the carbines racked against the ends of the coach, for protection in case of Indians or highwaymen, no doubt. I observed bottles being passed from hand to hand, and tilted en route. The amount and frequency of the whiskey for consumption in this country were astonishing.
My friend snored peacefully. Near noon we halted for dinner at the town of Fremont, some fifty miles out. She awakened at the general stir, and when I squeezed by her she immediately fished for a packet of lunch. We had thirty minutes at Fremont—ample time in which to discuss a very excellent meal of antelope steaks, prairie fowl, fried potatoes and hot biscuits. There was promise of buffalo meat farther on, possibly at the next meal station, Grand Island.
The time was sufficient, also, to give me another glimpse of My Lady of the Blue Eyes, who appeared to have been awarded the place of honor between the conductor and the brakeman, at table. She bestowed upon me a subtle glance of recognition—with a smile and a slight bow in one; but I failed to find her upon the station platform after the meal. That I should obtain other opportunities I did not doubt. Benton was yet thirty hours’ travel.
All that afternoon we rocked along up the Platte Valley, with the Platte River—a broad but shallow stream—constantly upon our left. My seat companion evidently had exhausted her repertoire, for she slumbered at ease, gradually sinking into a shapeless mass, her flowered bonnet askew. Several other passengers also were sleeping; due, in part, to the whiskey bottles. The car was thinning out, I noted, and I might bid in advance for the chance of obtaining a new location in a certain car ahead.
The scenery through the car window had merged into a monotony accentuated by great spaces. As far as Fremont the country along the railroad had been well settled with farms and unfenced cultivated fields. Now we had issued into the untrammeled prairies, here and there humanized by an isolated shack or a lonely traveler by horse or wagon, but in the main a vast sun-baked dead sea of gentle, silent undulations extending, brownish, clear to the horizons. The only refreshing sights were the Platte River, flowing blue and yellow among sand-bars and islands, and the side streams that we passed. Close at hand the principal tokens of life were the little flag stations, and the tremendous freight trains side-tracked to give us the right of way. The widely separated hamlets where we impatiently stopped were the oases in the desert.
In the sunset we halted at the supper station, named 25Grand Island. My seat neighbor finished her lunch box, and I returned well fortified by another excellent meal at the not exorbitant price, one dollar and a quarter. There had been buffalo meat—a poor apology, to my notion, for good beef. Antelope steak, on the contrary, was of far finer flavor than the best mutton.
At Grand Island a number of wretched native Indians drew my attention, for the time being, from quest of My Lady of the Blue Eyes. However, she was still escorted by the conductor, who in his brass buttons and officious air began to irritate me. Such a persistent squire of dames rather overstepped the duties of his position. Confound the fellow! He surely would come to the end of his run and his rope before we went much farther.
“Now, young man, if you get shet of your foolishness and decide to try North Platte instead of some fly-by-night town on west,” my seat companion addressed, “you jest follow me when I leave. We get to North Platte after plumb dark, and you hang onto my skirts right up town, till I land you in a good place. For if you don’t, you’re liable to be skinned alive.”
“If I decide upon North Platte I certainly will take advantage of your kindness,” I evaded. Forsooth, she had a mind to kidnap me!
“Now you’re talkin’ sensible,” she approved. “My sakes alive! Benton!” And she sniffed. 26“Why, in Benton they’ll snatch you bald-headed ’fore you’ve been there an hour.”
She composed herself for another nap.
“If that pesky brakeman don’t remember to wake me, you give me a poke with your elbow. I wouldn’t be carried beyond North Platte for love or money.”
She gurgled, she snored. The sunset was fading from pink to gold—a gold like somebody’s hair; and from gold to lemon which tinted all the prairie and made it beautiful. Pursuing the sunset we steadily rumbled westward through the immensity of unbroken space.
The brakeman came in, lighting the coal-oil lamps. Outside, the twilight had deepened into dusk. Numerous passengers were making ready for bed: the men by removing their boots and shoes and coats and galluses and stretching out; the women by loosening their stays, with significant clicks and sighs, and laying their heads upon adjacent shoulders or drooping against seat ends. Babies cried, and were hushed. Final night-caps were taken, from the prevalent bottles.
The brakeman, returning, paused and inquired right and left on his way through. He leaned to me.
“You for North Platte?”
“No, sir. Benton, Wyoming Territory.”
“Then you’d better move up to the car ahead. This car stops at North Platte.”
“What time do we reach North Platte?”
“Two-thirty in the morning. If you don’t want to be waked up, you’d better change now. You’ll find a seat.”
At that I gladly followed him out. He indicated a half-empty seat.
“This gentleman gets off a bit farther on; then you’ll have the seat to yourself.”
The arrangement was satisfactory, albeit the “gentleman” with whom I shared appeared, to nose and eyes, rather well soused, as they say; but fortune had favored me—across the aisle, only a couple of seats beyond, I glimpsed the top of a golden head, securely low and barricaded in by luggage.
Without regrets I abandoned my former seat-mate to her disappointment when she waked at North Platte. This car was the place for me, set apart by the salient presence of one person among all the others. That, however, is apt to differentiate city from city, and even land from land.
Eventually I, also, slept—at first by fits and starts concomitant with railway travel by night, then more soundly when the “gentleman,” my comrade in adventure, had been hauled out and deposited elsewhere. I fully awakened only at daylight.
The train was rumbling as before. The lamps had been extinguished—the coach atmosphere was heavy with oil smell and the exhalations of human beings in all stages of deshabille. But the golden head was there, about as when last sighted.
Now it stirred, and erected a little. I felt the unseemliness of sitting and waiting for her to make her toilet, so I hastily staggered to achieve my own by aid of the water tank, tin basin, roller towel and small looking-glass at the rear—substituting my personal comb and brush for the pair hanging there by cords.
The coach was the last in the train. I stepped out upon the platform, for fresh air.
We were traversing the real plains of the Great American Desert, I judged. The prairie grasses had shortened to brown stubble interspersed with bare sandy soil rising here and there into low hills. It was a country without north, south, east, west, save as denoted by the sun, broadly launching his first beams of the day. Behind us the single track of double rails stretched straight away as if clear to the Missouri. The dull blare of the car wheels was the only token of life, excepting the long-eared rabbits scampering with erratic high jumps, and the prairie dogs sitting bolt upright in the sunshine among their hillocked burrows. Of any town there was no sign. We had cut loose from company.
Then we thundered by a freight train, loaded with still more ties and iron, standing upon a siding guarded by the idling trainmen and by an operator’s shack. Smoke was welling from the chimney of the shack—and that domestic touch gave me a sense of homesickness. Yet I would not have been home, even 29for breakfast. This wide realm of nowhere fascinated with the unknown.
The train and shack flattened into the landscape. A bevy of antelope flashed white tails at us as they scudded away. Two motionless figures, horseback, whom I took to be wild Indians, surveyed us from a distant sand-hill. Across the river there appeared a fungus of low buildings, almost indistinguishable, with a glimmer of canvas-topped wagons fringing it. That was the old emigrant road.
While I was thus orienting myself in lonesome but not entirely hopeless fashion the car door opened and closed. I turned my head. The Lady of the Blue Eyes had joined me. As fresh as the morning she was.
“Oh! You? I beg your pardon, sir.” She apologized, but I felt that the diffidence was more politic than sincere.
“You are heartily welcome, madam,” I assured. “There is air enough for us both.”
“The car is suffocating,” she said. “However, the worst is over. We shall not have to spend another such a night. You are still for Benton?”
“By all means.” And I bowed to her. “We are fellow-travelers to the end, I believe.”
“Yes?” She scanned me. “But I do not like that word: the end. It is not a popular word, in the West. Certainly not at Benton. For instance——”
We tore by another freight waiting upon a siding located amidst a wide débris of tin cans, scattered sheet-iron, stark mud-and-stone chimneys, and barren spots, resembling the ruins from fire and quake.
“There is Julesburg.”
“A town?” I gasped.
“The end.” She smiled. “The only inhabitants now are in the station-house and the graveyard.”
“And the others? Where are they?”
“Farther west. Many of them in Benton.”
“Indeed? Or in North Platte!” I bantered.
“North Platte!” She laughed merrily. “Dear me, don’t mention North Platte—not in the same breath with Benton, or even Cheyenne. A town of hayseeds and dollar-a-day clerks whose height of sport is to go fishing in the Platte! A young man like you would die of ennui in North Platte. Julesburg was a good town while it lasted. People lived, there; and moved on because they wished to keep alive. What is life, anyway, but a constant shuffle of the cards? Oh, I should have laughed to see you in North Platte.” And laugh she did. “You might as well be dead underground as buried in one of those smug seven-Sabbaths-a-week places.”
Her free speech accorded ill with what I had been accustomed to in womankind; and yet became her sparkling eyes and general dash.
“To be dead is past the joking, madam,” I reminded.
“Certainly. To be dead is the end. In Benton we live while we live, and don’t mention the end. So I took exception to your gallantry.” She glanced behind her, through the door window into the car. “Will you,” she asked hastily, “join me in a little appetizer, as they say? You will find it a superior cognac—and we breakfast shortly, at Sidney.”
From a pocket of her skirt she had extracted a small silver flask, stoppered with a tiny screw cup. Her face swam before me, in my astonishment.
“I rarely drink liquor, madam,” I stammered.
“Nor I. But when traveling—you know. And in high and—dry Benton liquor is quite a necessity. You will discover that, I am sure. You will not decline to taste with a lady? Let us drink to better acquaintance, in Benton.”
“With all my heart, madam,” I blurted.
She poured, while swaying to the motion of the train; passed the cup to me with a brightly challenging smile.
“Ladies first. That is the custom, is it not?” I queried.
“But I am hostess, sir. I do the honors. Pray do you your duty.”
“To our better acquaintance, then, madam,” I accepted. “In Benton.”
The cognac swept down my throat like a stab of hot oil. She poured for herself.
“A vôtre santé, monsieur—and continued beginnings, no ends.” She daintily tossed it off.
We had consummated our pledges just in time. The brakeman issued, stumping noisily and bringing discord into my heaven of blue and gold and comfortable warmth.
“Howdy, lady and gent? Breakfast in twenty minutes.” He grinned affably at her; yes, with a trace of familiarity. “Sleep well, madam?”
“Passably, thank you.” Her voice held a certain element of calm interrogation as if to ask how far he intended to push acquaintance. “We’re nearing Sidney, you say? Then I bid you gentlemen good-morning.”
With a darting glance at him and a parting smile for me she passed inside. The brakeman leaned for an instant’s look ahead, up the track, and lingered.
“Friend of yours, is she?”
“I met her at Omaha, is all,” I stiffly informed.
“Considerable of a dame, eh?” He eyed me. “You’re booked for Benton, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never been there, myself. She’s another hell-roarer, they say.”
“Sir!” I remonstrated.
“Oh, the town, the town,” he enlightened. “I’m saying nothing against it, for that matter—nor against her, either. They’re both O. K.”
“You are acquainted with the lady, yourself?”
“Her? Sure. I know about everybody along the 33line between Platte and Cheyenne. Been running on this division ever since it opened.”
“She lives in Benton, though, I understand,” I proffered.
“Why, yes; sure she does. Moved there from Cheyenne.” He looked at me queerly. “Naturally. Ain’t that so?”
“Probably it is,” I admitted. “I see no reason to doubt your word.”
“Yep. Followed her man. A heap of people moved from Cheyenne to Benton, by way of Laramie.”
“She is married, then?”
“Far as I know. Anyway, she’s not single, by a long shot.” And he laughed. “But, Lord, that cuts no great figger. People here don’t stand on ceremony in those matters. Everything’s aboveboard. Hands on the table until time to draw—then draw quick.”
His language was a little too bluff for me.
“Her husband is in business, no doubt?”
“Business?” He stared unblinking. “I see.” He laid a finger alongside his nose, and winked wisely. “You bet yuh! And good business. Yes, siree. Are you on?”
“Am I on?” I repeated. “On what? The train?”
“Oh, on your way.”
“To Benton; certainly.”
“Do you see any green in my eye, friend?” he demanded.
“I do not.”
“Or in the moon, maybe?”
“No, nor in the moon,” I retorted. “But what is all this about?”
“I’ll be damned!” he roundly vouchsafed. And—“You’ve been having a quiet little smile with her, eh?” He sniffed suspiciously. “A few swigs of that’ll make a pioneer of you quicker’n alkali. She’s favoring you—eh? Now if she tells you of a system, take my advice and quit while your hair’s long.”
“My hair is my own fashion, sir,” I rebuked. “And the lady is not for discussion between gentlemen, particularly as my acquaintance with her is only casual. I don’t understand your remarks, but if they are insinuations I shall have to ask you to drop the subject.”
“Tut, tut!” he grinned. “No offense intended, Mister Pilgrim. Well, you’re all right. We can’t be young more than once, and if the lady takes you in tow in Benton you’ll have the world by the tail as long as it holds. She moves with the top-notchers; she’s a knowing little piece—no offense. Her and me are good enough friends. There’s no brace game in that deal. I only aim to give you a steer. Savvy?” And he winked. “You’re out to see the elephant, yourself.”
“I am seeking health, is all,” I explained. “My 35physician had advised a place in the Far West, high and dry; and Benton is recommended.”
His response was identical with others preceding.
“High and dry? By golly, then Benton’s the ticket. It’s sure high, and sure dry. You bet yuh! High and dry and roaring.”
“Why ’roaring’?” I demanded at last. The word had been puzzling me.
“Up and coming. Pop goes the weasel, at Benton. Benton? Lord love you! They say it’s got Cheyenne and Laramie backed up a tree, the best days they ever seen. When you step off at Benton step lively and keep an eye in the back of your head. There’s money to be made at Benton, by the wise ones. Watch out for ropers and if you get onto a system, play it. There ain’t any limit to money or suckers.”
“I may not qualify as to money,” I informed. “But I trust that I am no sucker.”
“No green in the eye, eh?” he approved. “Anyhow, you have a good lead if your friend in black cottons to you.” Again he winked. “You’re not a bad-looking young feller.” He leaned over the side steps, and gazed ahead. “Sidney in sight. Be there directly. We’re hitting twenty miles and better through the greatest country on earth. The engineer smells breakfast.”
With that he went forward. So did I; but the barricade at the end of My Lady’s seat was intact, and I sat down in my own seat, to keep expectant eye upon her profile—a decided relief amidst that crude mélange of people in various stages of hasty dressing after a night of cramped postures.
The brakeman’s words, although mysterious in part, had concluded reassuringly. My Lady, he said, would prove a valuable friend in Benton. A friend at hand means a great deal to any young man, stranger in a strange land.
The conductor came back—a new conductor; stooped familiarly over the barricade and evidently exchanged pleasantries with her.
“Sidney! Sidney! Twenty minutes for breakfast!” the brakeman bawled, from the door.
There was the general stir. My Lady shot a glance at me, with inviting eyes, but arose in response to the proffered arm of the conductor, and I was late. The aisle filled between us as he ushered her on and the train slowed to grinding of brakes and the tremendous clanging of a gong.
Of Sidney there was little to see: merely a station-house and the small Railroad Hotel, with a handful of other buildings forming a single street—all squatting here near a rock quarry that broke the expanse of uninhabited brown plains. The air, however, was wonderfully invigorating; the meal excellent, as usual; and when I emerged from the dining-room, following closely a black figure crowned with gold, I found her strolling alone upon the platform.
Therefore I caught up with her. She faced me with ready smile.
“You are rather slow in action, sir,” she lightly accused. “We might have breakfasted together; but it was the conductor again, after all.”
“I plead guilty, madam,” I admitted. “The trainmen have an advantage over me, in anticipating events. But the next meal shall be my privilege. We stop again before reaching Benton?”
“For dinner, yes; at Cheyenne.”
“And after that you will be home.”
“Home?” she queried, with a little pucker between her brows.
“Yes. At Benton.”
“Of course.” She laughed shortly. “Benton is now home. We have moved so frequently that I have grown to call almost no place home.”
“I judge then that you are connected, as may happen, with a flexible business,” I hazarded. “If you are in the army I can understand.”38
“No, I’m not an army woman; but there is money in following the railroad, and that is our present life,” she said frankly. “A town springs up, you know, at each terminus, booms as long as the freight and passengers pile up—and all of a sudden the go-ahead business and professional men pull stakes for the next terminus as soon as located. That has been the custom, all the way from North Platte to Benton.”
“Which accounts for your acquaintance along the line. The trainmen seem to know you.”
“Trainmen and others; oh, yes. It is to be expected. I have no objections to that. I am quite able to take care of myself, sir.”
We were interrupted. A near-drunken rowdy (upon whom I had kept an uneasy corner of an eye) had been careening over the platform, a whiskey bottle protruding from the hip pocket of his sagging jeans, a large revolver dangling at his thigh, his slouch hat cocked rakishly upon his tousled head. His language was extremely offensive—he had an ugly mood on, but nobody interfered. The crowd stood aside—the natives laughing, the tourists like myself viewing him askance, and several Indians watching only gravely.
He sighted us, and staggered in.
“Howdy?” he uttered, with an oath. “Shay—hello, stranger. Have a smile. Take two, one for lady. Hic!” And he thrust his bottle at me.39
My Lady drew back. I civilly declined the “smile.”
“Thank you. I do not drink.”
“What?” He stared blearily. His tone stiffened. “The hell you say. Too tony, eh? Too—’ic! Have a smile, I ask you, one gent to ’nother. Have a smile, you (unmentionable) pilgrim; fer if you don’t——”
“Train’s starting, Jim,” she interposed sharply. “If you want to get aboard you’d better hurry.”
The engine tooted, the bell was ringing, the passengers were hurrying, incited by the conductor’s shout: “All ’board!”
Without another word she tripped for the car steps. I gave the fellow one firm look as he stood stupidly scratching his thatch as if to harrow his ideas; and perforce left him. By the cheers he undoubtedly made in the same direction. I was barely in time myself. The train moved as I planted foot upon the steps of the nearest car—the foremost of the two. The train continued; halted again abruptly, while cheers rang riotous; and when I crossed the passageway between this car and ours the conductor and brakeman were hauling the tipsy Jim into safety.
My Lady was ensconced.
“Did they get him?” she inquired, when I paused.
“By the scruff of the neck. The drunken fellow, you mean.”
“Yes; Jim.”
“You know him?”
“He’s from Benton. I suppose he’s been down here on a little pasear, as they say.”
“If you think he’ll annoy you——?” I made bold to suggest, for I greatly coveted the half of her seat.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of Jim. But yes, do sit down. You can put these things back in your seat. Then we can talk.”
I had no more than settled triumphantly, when the brakeman ambled through, his face in a broad grin. He also paused, to perch upon the seat end, his arm extended friendlily along the back.
“Well, we got him corralled,” he proclaimed needlessly. “That t’rantular juice nigh broke his neck for him.”
“Did you take his bottle away, Jerry?” she asked.
“Sure thing. He’ll be peaceable directly. Soused to the guards. Reckon he’s inclined to be a trifle ugly when he’s on a tear, ain’t he? They’d shipped him out of Benton on a down train. Now he’s going back up.”
“He’s safe, you think?”
“Sewed tight. He’ll sleep it off and be ready for night.” The brakeman winked at her. “You needn’t fear. He’ll be on deck, right side up with care.”
“I’ve told this gentleman that I’m not afraid,” she answered quickly.
“Of course. And he knows what’s best for him, himself.” The brakeman slapped me on the shoulder and good-naturedly straightened. “So does this young gentleman, I rather suspicion. I can see his fortune’s made. You bet, if he works it right. I told him if you cottoned to him——”
“Now you’re talking too much, Jerry,” she reproved. “The gentleman and I are only traveling acquaintances.”
“Yes, ma’am. To Benton. Let ’er roar. Cheyenne’s the closest I can get, myself, and Cheyenne’s a dead one—blowed up, busted worse’n a galvanized Yank with a pocket full o’ Confed wall-paper.” He yawned. “Guess I’ll take forty winks. Was up all night, and a man can stand jest so much, Injuns or no Injuns.”
“Did you expect to meet with Indians, sir, along the route?” I asked.
“Hell, yes. Always expect to meet ’em between Kearney and Julesburg. It’s about time they were wrecking another train. Well, so long. Be good to each other.” With this parting piece of impertinence he stumped out.
“A friendly individual, evidently,” I hazarded, to tide her over her possible embarrassment.
Her laugh assured me that she was not embarrassed at all, which proved her good sense and elevated her even farther in my esteem.
“Oh, Jerry’s all right. I don’t mind Jerry, except 42that his tongue is hung in the middle. He probably has been telling you some tall yarns?”
“He? No, I don’t think so. He may have tried it, but his Western expressions are beyond me as yet. In fact, what he was driving at on the rear platform I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Driving at? In what way, sir?”
“He referred to the green in his eye and in the moon, as I recall; and to a mysterious ‘system’; and gratuitously offered me a ‘steer.’”
Her face hardened remarkably, so that her chin set as if tautened by iron bands. Those eyes glinted with real menace.
“He did, did he? Along that line of talk! The clapper-jaw! He’s altogether too free.” She surveyed me keenly. “And naturally you couldn’t understand such lingo.”
“I was not curious enough to try, my dear madam. He talked rather at random; likely enjoyed bantering me. But,” I hastily placated in his behalf, “he recommended Benton as a lively place, and you as a friend of value in case that you honored me with your patronage.”
“My patronage, for you?” she exclaimed. “Indeed? To what extent? Are you going into business, too? As one of—us?”
“If I should become a Bentonite, as I hope,” I gallantly replied, “then of course I should look to permanent investment of some nature. And before my traveling funds run out I shall be glad of light employment. The brakeman gave me to understand merely that by your kindly interest you might be disposed to assist me.”
“Oh!” Her face lightened. “I dare say Jerry means well. But when you spoke of ‘patronage’—— That is a current term of certain import along the railroad.” She leaned to me; a glow emanated from her. “Tell me of yourself. You have red blood? Do you ever game? For if you are not afraid to test your luck and back it, there is money to be made very easily at Benton, and in a genteel way.” She smiled bewitchingly. “Or are you a Quaker, to whom life is deadly serious?”
“No Quaker, madam.” How could I respond otherwise to that pair of dancing blue eyes, to that pair of derisive lips? “As for gaming—if you mean cards, why, I have played at piquet and romp, in a social way, for small stakes; and my father brought Old Sledge back from the army, to the family table.”
“You are lucky. I can see it,” she alleged.
“I am, on this journey,” I asserted.
She blushed.
“Well said, sir. And if you choose to make use of your luck, in Benton, by all means——”
Whether she would have shaped her import clearly I did not know. There was a commotion in the forward part of the car. That same drunken wretch Jim had appeared; his bottle (somehow restored to him) in hand, his hat pushed back from his flushed greasy forehead.
“Have a smile, ladies an’ gents,” he was bellowing thickly. “Hooray! Have a smile on me. Great an’ gloryus ’casion—’ic! Ever’body smile. Drink to op’nin’ gloryus Pac’fic—’ic—Railway. Thash it. Hooray!” Thus he came reeling down the aisle, thrusting his bottle right and left, to be denied with shrinkings or with bluff excuses.
It seemed inevitable that he should reach us. I heard My Lady utter a little gasp, as she sat more erect; and here he was, espying us readily enough with that uncanny precision of a drunken man, his bottle to the fore.
“Have a smile, you two. Wouldn’t smile at station; gotto smile now. Yep. ’Ic! ’Ray for Benton! All goin’ to Benton. Lesh be good fellers.”
“You go back to your seat, Jim,” she ordered tensely. “Go back, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Whash that? Who your dog last year? Shay! You can’t come no highty-tighty over me. Who your new friend? Shay!” He reeled and gripped the seat, flooding me with his vile breath. “By Gawd, I got the dead-wood on you, you——!” and he had loosed such a torrent of low epithets that they are inconceivable.
“For that I’d kill you in any other place, Jim,” she said. “You know I’m not afraid of you. Now 45get, you wolf!” Her voice snapped like a whip-lash at the close; she had made sudden movement of hand—it was extended and I saw almost under my nose the smallest pistol imaginable; nickeled, of two barrels, and not above three inches long; projecting from her palm, the twin hammers cocked; and it was as steady as a die.
Assuredly My Lady did know how to take care of herself. Still, that was not necessary now.
“No!” I warned. “No matter. I’ll tend to him.”
The fellow’s face had convulsed with a snarl of redder rage, his mouth opened as if for fresh abuse—and half rising I landed upon it with my fist.
“Go where you belong, you drunken whelp!”
I had struck and spoken at the same time, with a rush of wrath that surprised me; and the result surprised me more, for while I was not conscious of having exerted much force he toppled backward clear across the aisle, crashed down in a heap under the opposite seat. His bottle shattered against the ceiling. The whiskey spattered in a sickening shower over the alarmed passengers.
“Look out! Look out!” she cried, starting quickly. Up he scrambled, cursing, and wrenching at his revolver. I sprang to smother him, but there was a flurry, a chorus of shouts, men leaped between us, the brakeman and conductor both had arrived, in a jiffy he was being hustled forward, swearing and 46blubbering. And I sank back, breathless, a degree ashamed, a degree rather satisfied with my action and my barked knuckles.
Congratulations echoed dully.
“The right spirit!”
“That’ll l’arn him to insult a lady.”
“You sartinly rattled him up, stranger. Squar’ on the twitter!”
“Shake, Mister.”
“For a pilgrim you’re consider’ble of a hoss.”
“If he’d drawn you’d have give him a pill, I reckon, lady. I know yore kind. But he won’t bother you ag’in; not he.”
“Oh, what a terrible scene!”
To all this I paid scant attention. I heard her, as she sat composedly, scarcely panting. The little pistol had disappeared.
“The play has been made, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. And to me: “Thank you. Yes,” she continued, with a flash of lucent eyes and a dimpling smile, “Jim has lost his whiskey and has a chance to sober up. He’ll have forgotten all about this before we reach Benton. But I thank you for your promptness.”
“I didn’t want you to shoot him,” I stammered. “I was quite able to tend to him myself. Your pistol is loaded?”
“To be sure it is.” And she laughed gaily. Her lips tightened, her eyes darkened. “And I’d kill him like a dog if he presumed farther. In this country we women protect ourselves from insult. I always carry my derringer, sir.”
The brakeman returned with a broom, to sweep up the chips of broken bottle. He grinned at us.
“There’s no wind in him now,” he communicated. “Peaceful as a baby. We took his gun off him. I’ll pass the word ahead to keep him safe, on from Cheyenne.”
“Please do, Jerry,” she bade. “I’d prefer to have no more trouble with him, for he might not come out so easily next time. He knows that.”
“Surely ought to, by golly,” the brakeman agreed roundly. “And he ought to know you go heeled. But that there tanglefoot went to his head. Looks now as if he’d been kicked in the face by a mule. Haw haw! No offense, friend. You got me plumb buffaloed with that fivespot o’ yourn.” And finishing his job he retired with dust-pan and broom.
“You’re going to do well in Benton,” she said suddenly, to me, with a nod. “I regret this scene—I couldn’t help it, though, of course. When Jim’s sober he has sense, and never tries to be familiar.”
She was amazingly cool under the epithets that he had applied. I admired her for that as she gazed at me pleadingly.
“A drunken man is not responsible for words or actions, although he should be made so,” I consoled her. “Possibly I should not have struck him. In the Far West you may be more accustomed to these episodes than we are in the East.”
“I don’t know. There is a limit. You did right. I thank you heartily. Still”—and she mused—“you can’t always depend on your fists alone. You carry no weapon, neither knife nor gun?”
“I never have needed either,” said I. “My teaching has been that a man should be able to rely upon his fists.”
“Then you’d better get ’heeled,’ as we say, when you reach Benton. Fists are a short-range weapon. The men generally wear a gun somewhere. It is the custom.”
“And the women, too, if I may judge,” I smiled.
“Some of us. Yes,” she repeated, “you’re likely to do well, out here, if you’ll permit me to advise you a little.”
“Under your tutelage I am sure I shall do well,” I accepted. “I may call upon you in Benton? If you will favor me with your address——?”
“My address?” She searched my face in manner startled. “You’ll have no difficulty finding me; not in Benton. But I’ll make an appointment with you in event”—and she smiled archly—“you are not afraid of strange women.”
“I have been taught to respect women, madam,” said I. “And my respect is being strengthened.”
“Oh!” I seemed to have pleased her. “You have been carefully brought up, sir.”
“To fear God, respect woman, and act the man as long as I breathe,” I asserted. “My mother is a saint, my father a nobleman, and what I may have learned from them is to their credit.”
“That may go excellently in the East,” she answered. “But we in the West favor the Persian maxim—to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth. With those three qualities even a tenderfoot can establish himself.”
“Whether I can ride and shoot sufficient for the purpose, time will show,” I retorted. “At least,” and I endeavored to speak with proper emphasis, “you hear the truth when I say that I anticipate much pleasure as well as renewed health, in Benton.”
“Were we by ourselves we would seal the future in another ’smile’ together,” she slyly promised. “Unless that might shock you.”
“I am ready to fall in with the customs of the country,” I assured. “I certainly am not averse to smiles, when fittingly proffered.”
So we exchanged fancies while the train rolled over a track remarkable for its smoothness and leading ever onward across the vast, empty plains bare save for the low shrubs called sage-brush, and rising here and there into long swells and abrupt sandstone pinnacles.
We stopped near noon at the town of Cheyenne, in Wyoming Territory. Cheyenne, once boasting the title (I was told) “The Magic City of the Plains,” was located upon a dreary flatness, although from it one might see, far southwest, the actual Rocky Mountains in Colorado Territory, looking, at this distance of one hundred miles, like low dark clouds. The up grade in the west promised that we should soon cross over their northern flanks, of the Black Hills.
Last winter, Cheyenne, I was given to understand, had ten thousand inhabitants; but the majority had followed the railroad west, so that now there remained only some fifteen hundred. After dinner we, too, went west.
We overcame the Black Hills Mountains about two o’clock, having climbed to the top with considerable puffing of the engine but otherwise almost imperceptibly to the passengers. When we were halted, upon the crown, at Sherman Station, to permit us to alight and see for ourselves, I scarcely might believe that we were more than eight thousand feet in air. There was nothing to indicate, except some little difficulty of breath; not so much as I had feared when in Cheyenne, whose six thousand feet gave me a slightly giddy sensation.
My Lady moved freely, being accustomed to the rarity; and she assured me that although Benton was seven thousand feet I would soon grow wonted to the atmosphere. The habitués of this country made light of the spot; the strangers on tour picked flowers and gathered rocks as mementoes of the “Crest of the Continent”—which was not a crest but rather a level 51plateau, wind-swept and chilly while sunny. Then from this Sherman Summit of the Black Hills of Wyoming the train swept down by its own momentum from gravity, for the farther side.
The fellow Jim had not emerged, as yet, much to my relief. The scenery was increasing in grandeur and interest, and the play of my charming companion would have transformed the most prosaic of journeys into a trip through Paradise.
I hardly noted the town named Laramie City, at the western base of the Black Hills; and was indeed annoyed by the vendors hawking what they termed “mountain gems” through the train. Laramie, according to My Lady, also once had been, as she styled it, “a live town,” but had deceased in favor of Benton. From Laramie we whirled northwest, through a broad valley enlivened by countless antelope scouring over the grasses; thence we issued into a wilder, rougher country, skirting more mountains very gloomy in aspect.
However, of the panorama outside I took but casual glances; the phenomenon of blue and gold so close at hand was all engrossing, and my heart beat high with youth and romance. Our passage was astonishingly short, but the sun was near to setting beyond distant peaks when by the landmarks that she knew we were approaching Benton at last.
We crossed a river—the Platte, again, even away in here; briefly paused at a military post, and entered 52upon a stretch of sun-baked, reddish-white, dusty desert utterly devoid of vegetation.
There was a significant bustle in the car, among the travel-worn occupants. The air was choking with the dust swirled through every crevice by the stir of the wheels—already mobile as it was from the efforts of the teams that we passed, of six and eight horses tugging heavy wagons. Plainly we were within striking distance of some focus of human energies.
“Benton! Benton in five minutes. End o’ track,” the brakeman shouted.
“My valise, please.”
I brought it. The conductor, who like the other officials knew My Lady, pushed through to us and laid hand upon it.
“I’ll see you out,” he announced. “Come ahead.”
“Pardon. That shall be my privilege,” I interposed. But she quickly denied.
“No, please. The conductor is an old friend. I shall need no other help—I’m perfectly at home. You can look out for yourself.”
“But I shall see you again—and where? I don’t know your address; fact is, I’m even ignorant of your name,” I pleaded desperately.
“How stupid of me.” And she spoke fast and low, over her shoulder. “To-night, then, at the Big Tent. Remember.”
I pressed after.
“The Big Tent! Shall I inquire there? And for whom?”
“You’ll not fail to see me. Everybody knows the Big Tent, everybody goes there. So au revoir.”
She was swallowed in the wake of the conductor, and I fain must gather my own belongings before following. The Big Tent, she said? I had not misunderstood; and I puzzled over the address, which impinged as rather bizarre, whether in West or East.
We stopped with a jerk, amidst a babel of cries.
“Benton! All out!” Out we stumbled. Here I was, at rainbow’s end.
What shall I say of a young man like myself, fresh from the green East of New York and the Hudson River, landed expectant as just aroused from a dream of rare beauty, at this Benton City, Wyoming Territory? The dust, as fine as powder and as white, but shot through with the crimson of sunset, hung like a fog, amidst which swelled a deafening clamor from figures rushing hither and thither about the platform like half-world shades. A score of voices dinned into my ears as two score hands grabbed at my valise and shoved me and dragged me.
“The Desert Hotel. Best in the West. This way, sir.”
“Buffalo Hump Corral! The Buffalo Hump! Free drinks at the Buffalo Hump.”
“Vamos, all o’ you. Leave the gent to me. I’ve had him before. Mike’s Place for you, eh? Come along.”
“The Widow’s Café! That’s yore grub pile, gent. All you can eat for two bits.”
A deep voice boomed, stunning me.
“The Queen, the Queen! Bath for every room. 55Individual towels. The Queen, the Queen, she’s clean, she’s clean.”
It was a magnificent bass, full toned as an organ, issuing, likewise as out of a reed, from a swart dwarf scarcely higher than my waist. The word “bath,” with the promise of “individual towels,” won me over. Something must be done, anyway, to get rid of these importunate runners. Thereupon I acquiesced, “All right, my man. The Queen,” and surrendering my bag to his hairy paw I trudged by his guidance. The solicitations instantly ceased as if in agreement with some code.
We left the station platform and went ploughing up a street over shoetops with the impalpable dust and denoted by tents and white-coated shacks sparsely bordering. The air was breezeless and suffocatingly loaded with that dust not yet deposited. The noises as from a great city swelled strident: shouts, hammerings, laughter, rumble of vehicles, cracking of lashes, barkings of dogs innumerable—betokening a thriving mart of industry. But although pedestrians streamed to and fro, the men in motley of complexions and costumes, the women, some of them fashionably dressed, with skirts eddying furiously; and wagons rolled, horses cantered, and from right and left merchants and hawksters seemed to be calling their wares, of city itself I could see only the veriest husk.
The majority of the buildings were mere canvas-faced up for a few feet, perhaps, with sheet iron or flimsy boards; interspersed there were a few wooden structures, rough and unpainted; and whereas several of the housings were large, none was more than two stories—and when now and again I thought that I had glimpsed a substantial stone front a closer inspection told me that the stones were imitation, forming a veneer of the sheet iron or of stenciled pine. Indeed, not a few of the upper stories, viewed from an unfavorable angle, proved to be only thin parapets upstanding for a pretense of well-being. Behind them, nothing at all!
In the confusion of that which I took to be the main street because of the stores and piles of goods and the medley of signs, what with the hubbub from the many barkers for saloons and gambling games, the constant dodging among the pedestrians, vehicles and horses and dogs, in a thoroughfare that was innocent of sidewalk, I really had scant opportunity to gaze; certainly no opportunity as yet to get my bearings. My squat guide shuttled aside; a group of loafers gave us passage, with sundry stares at me and quips for him; and I was ushered into a widely-open tent-building whose canvas sign depending above a narrow veranda declared: “The Queen Hotel. Beds $3. Meals $1 each.”
Now as whitely powdered as any of the natives I stumbled across a single large room bordered at one side by a bar and a number of small tables (all well patronized), and was brought up at the counter, under the alert eyes of a clerk coatless, silk-shirted, diamond-scarfed, pomaded and slick-haired, waiting with register turned and pen extended.
My gnome heavily dropped my bag.
“Gent for you,” he presented.
“I wish a room and bath,” I said, as I signed.
“Bath is occupied. I’ll put you down, Mr.——” and he glanced at the signature. “Four dollars and four bits, please. Show the gentleman to Number Six, Shorty. That drummer’s gone, isn’t he?”
“You bet.”
“The bath is occupied?” I expostulated. “How so? I wish a private bath.”
“Private? Yes, sir. All you’ve got to do is to close the door while you’re in. Nobody’ll disturb you. But there are parties ahead of you. First come, first served.”
I persisted.
“Your runner—this gentleman, if I am not mistaken (and I indicated the gnome, who grinned from dusty face), distinctly said ‘A bath for every room.’”
Bystanders had pushed nearer, to examine the register and then me. They laughed—nudged one another. Evidently I had a trace of green in my eye.
“Quite right, sir,” the clerk assented. “So there is. A bath for every room and the best bath in town. 58Entirely private; fresh towel supplied. Only one dollar and four bits. That, with lodging, makes four dollars and a half. If you please, sir.”
“In advance?” I remonstrated—the bath charge alone being monstrous.
“I see you’re from the East. Yes, sir; we have to charge transients in advance. That is the rule, sir. You stay in Benton City for some time?”
“I am undetermined.”
“Of course, sir. Your own affair. Yes, sir. But we shall hope to make Benton pleasant for you. The greatest city in the West. Anything you want for pleasure or business you’ll find right here.”
“The greatest city in the West—pleasure or business!” A bitter wave of homesickness welled into my throat as, conscious of the enveloping dust, the utter shams, the tawdriness, the alien unsympathetic onlookers, the suave but incisive manner of the clerk, the sense of having been “done” and through my own fault, I peeled a greenback from the folded packet in my purse and handed it over. Rather foolishly I intended that this display of funds should rebuke the finicky clerk; but he accepted without comment and sought for the change from the twenty.
“And how is old New York, suh?”
A hearty, florid, heavy-faced man, with singularly protruding fishy eyes and a tobacco-stained yellowish goatee underneath a loosely dropping lower lip, had stepped forward, his pudgy hand hospitably outstretched 59to me: a man in wide-brimmed dusty black hat, frayed and dusty but, in spots, shiny, black broadcloth frock coat spattered down the lapels, exceedingly soiled collar and shirt front and greasy flowing tie, and trousers tucked into cowhide boots.
I grasped the hand wonderingly. It enclosed mine with a soft pulpy squeeze; and lingered.
“As usual, when I last saw it, sir,” I responded. “But I am from Albany.”
“Of course. Albany, the capital, a city to be proud of, suh. I welcome you, suh, to our new West, as a fellow-citizen.”
“You are from Albany?” I exclaimed.
“Bohn and raised right near there; been there many a time. Yes, suh. From the grand old Empire State, like yourself, suh, and without apologies. Whenever I meet with a New York State man I cotton to him.”
“Have I your name, sir?” I inquired. “You know of my family, perhaps.”
“Colonel Jacob B. Sunderson, suh, at your service. Your family name is familiar to me, suh. I hark back to it and to the grand old State with pleasure. Doubtless I have seen you befoh, sur. Doubtless in the City—at Johnny Chamberlain’s? Yes?” His fishy eyes beamed upon me, and his breath smelled strongly of liquor. “Or the Astor? I shall remember. Meanwhile, suh, permit me to do the honors. First, will you have a drink? This way, suh. I am partial to a brand particularly to be recommended for clearing this damnable dust from one’s throat.”
“Thank you, sir, but I prefer to tidy my person, first,” I suggested.
“Number Six for the gentleman,” announced the clerk, returning to me my change from the bill. I stuffed it into my pocket—the Colonel’s singular eyes followed it with uncomfortable interest. The gnome picked up my bag, but was interrupted by my new friend.
“The privilege of showing the gentleman to his quarters and putting him at home shall be mine.”
“All right, Colonel,” the clerk carelessly consented. “Number Six.”
“And my trunk. I have a trunk at the depot,” I informed.
“The boy will tend to it.”
I gave the gnome my check.
“And my bath?” I pursued.
“You will be notified, sir. There are only five ahead of you, and one gentleman now in. Your turn will come in about two hours.”
“This way, suh. Kindly follow me,” bade the Colonel. As he strode before, slightly listed by the weight of the bag in his left hand, I remarked a peculiar bulge elevating the portly contour of his right coat-skirt.
We ascended a flight of rude stairs which quivered to our tread, proceeded down a canvas-lined corridor 61set at regular intervals on either hand with numbered deal doors, some open to reveal disorderly interiors; and with “Here you are, suh,” I was importantly bowed into Number Six.
We were not to be alone. There were three double beds: one well rumpled as if just vacated; one (the middle) tenanted by a frowsy headed, whiskered man asleep in shirt-sleeves and revolver and boots; the third, at the other end, recently made up by having its blanket covering hastily thrown against a distinctly dirty pillow.
“Your bed yonduh, suh, I reckon,” prompted the Colonel (whose accents did not smack of New York at all), depositing my bag with a grunt of relief. “Now, suh, as you say, you desire to freshen the outer man after your journey. With your permission I will await your pleasure, suh; and your toilet being completed we will freshen the inner man also with a glass or two of rare good likker.”
I gazed about, sickened. Item, three beds; item, one kitchen chair; item, one unpainted board washstand, supporting a tin basin, a cake of soap, a tin ewer, with a dingy towel hanging from a nail under a cracked mirror and over a tin slop-bucket; item, three spittoons, one beside each bed; item, a row of nails in a wooden strip, plainly for wardrobe purposes; item, one window, with broken pane.
The board floor was bare and creaky, the partition walls were of once-white, stained muslin through which sifted unrebuked a mixture of sounds not thoroughly agreeable.
The Colonel had seated himself upon a bed; the bulge underneath his skirts jutted more pronouncedly, and had the outlines of a revolver butt.
“But surely I can get a room to myself,” I stammered. “The clerk mistakes me. This won’t do at all.”
“You are having the best in the house, suh,” asserted the Colonel, with expansive wave of his thick hand. He spat accurately into the convenient spittoon. “It is a front room, suh. Number Six is known as very choice, and I congratulate you, suh. I myself will see to it that you shall have your bed to yourself, if you entertain objections to doubling up. We are, suh, a trifle crowded in Benton City, just at present, owing to the unprecedented influx of new citizens. You must remember, suh, that we are less than one month old, and we are accommodating from three to five thousand people.”
“Is this the best hotel?” I demanded.
“It is so reckoned, suh. There are other hostelries, and I do not desire, suh, to draw invidious comparisons, their proprietors being friends of mine. But I will go so far as to say that the Queen caters only to the élite, suh, and its patronage is gilt edge.”
I stepped to the window, the lower sash of which was up, and gazed out—down into that dust-fogged, noisy, turbulent main street, of floury human beings and grime-smeared beasts almost within touch, boiling about through the narrow lane between the placarded makeshift structures. I lifted my smarting eyes, and across the hot sheet-iron roofs I saw the country south—a white-blotched reddish desert stretching on, desolate, lifeless under the sunset, to a range of stark hills black against the glow.
“There are no private rooms, then?” I asked, choking with a gulp of despair.
“You are perfectly private right here, suh,” assured the Colonel. “You may strip to the hide or you may sleep with your boots on, and no questions asked. Gener’ly speaking, gentlemen prefer to retain a layer of artificial covering—but you ain’t troubled much with the bugs, are you, Bill?”
He leveled this query at the frowsy, whiskered man, who had awakened and was blinking contentedly.
“I’m too alkalied, I reckon,” Bill responded. “Varmints will leave me any time when there’s fresh bait handy. That’s why I likes to double up. That there Saint Louee drummer carried off most of ’em from this gent’s bed, so he’s safe.”
“You are again to be congratulated, suh,” addressed the Colonel, to me. “Allow me to interdeuce you. Shake hands with my friend Mr. Bill Brady. Bill, I present to you a fellow-citizen of mine from grand old New York State.”64
The frowsy man struggled up, shifted his revolver so as not to sit on it, and extended his hand.
“Proud to make yore acquaintance, sir. Any friend of the Colonel’s is a friend o’ mine.”
“We will likker up directly,” the Colonel informed. “But fust the gentleman desires to attend to his person. Mr. Brady, suh,” he continued, for my benefit, “is one of our leading citizens, being proprietor of—what is it now, Bill?”
“Wall,” said Mr. Brady, “I’ve pulled out o’ the Last Chance and I’m on spec’. The Last Chance got a leetle too much on the brace for healthy play; and when that son of a gun of a miner from South Pass City shot it up, I quit.”
“Naturally,” conceded the Colonel. “Mr. Brady,” he explained, “has been one of our most distinguished bankers, but he has retired from that industry and is considering other investments.”
“The bath-room? Where is it, gentlemen?” I ventured.
“If you will step outside the door, suh, you can hear the splashing down the hall. It is the custom, however, foh gentlemen at tub to keep the bath-room door closed, in case of ladies promenading. You will have time foh your preliminary toilet and foh a little refreshment and a pasear in town. I judge, with five ahead of you and one in, the clerk was mighty near right when he said about two hours. That allows twenty minutes to each gentleman, which is the limit. A gentleman who requires more than twenty minutes to insure his respectability, suh, is too dirty foh such accommodations. He should resort to the river. Ain’t that so, Bill?”
“Perfectly correct, Colonel. I kin take an all-over, myself, in fifteen, whenever it’s healthy.”
“But a dollar and a half for a twenty minutes’ bath in a public tub is rather steep, seems to me,” said I, as I removed my coat and opened my bag.
“Not so, suh, if I may question your judgment,” the Colonel reproved. “The tub, suh, is private to the person in it. He is never intruded upon unless he hawgs his time or the water disagrees with him. The water, suh, is hauled from the river by a toilsome journey of three miles. You understand, suh, that this great and growing city is founded upon the sheer face of the Red Desert, where the railroad stopped—the river being occupied by a Government reservation named Fort Steele. The Government—the United States Government, suh—having corralled the river where the railroad crosses, until we procure a nearer supply by artesian wells or by laying a pipe line we are public spirited enough to haul our water bodily, for ablution purposes, at ten dollars the barrel, or ten cents, one dime, the bucket. A bath, suh, uses up consider’ble water, even if at a slight reduction you are privileged to double up with another gentleman.”
I shuddered at the thought of thus “doubling up.” God, how my stomach sank and my gorge rose as I 66rummaged through that bag, and with my toilet articles in hand faced the washstand!
They two intently watched my operations; the Colonel craned to peer into my valise—and presently I might interpret his curiosity.
“The prime old bourbon served at the fust-class New York bars still maintains its reputation, I dare hope, suh?” he interrogated.
“I cannot say, I’m sure,” I replied.
“No, suh,” he agreed. “Doubtless you are partial to your own stock. That bottle which I see doesn’t happen to be a sample of your favorite preservative?”
“That?” I retorted. “It is toilet water. I am sorry to say I have no liquor with me.”
“The deficiency will soon be forgotten, suh,” the Colonel bravely consoled. “Bill, we shall have to personally conduct him and provide him with the proper entertainment.”
“What is your special line o’ business, if you don’t mind my axin’?” Bill invited.
“I am out here for my health, at present,” said I, vainly hunting a clean spot on the towel. “I have been advised by my physician to seek a place in the Far West that is high and dry. Benton”—and I laughed miserably, “certainly is dry.” For now I began to appreciate the frankly affirmative responses to my previous confessions. “And high, judging by the rates.”
“Healthily dry, suh, in the matter of water,” the Colonel approved. “We are not cursed by the humidity of New York State, grand old State that she is. Foh those who require water, there is the Platte only three miles distant. The nearer proximity of water we consider a detriment to the robustness of a community. Our rainy weather is toler’bly infrequent. The last spell we had—lemme see. There was a brief shower, scurcely enough to sanction a parasol by a lady, last May, warn’t it, Bill? When we was camped at Rawlins’ Springs, shooting antelope.”
“Some’ers about that time. But didn’t last long—not more’n two minutes,” Bill responded.
“As foh fluids demanded by the human system, we are abundantly blessed, suh. There is scurcely any popular brand that you can’t get in Benton, and I hold that we have the most skillful mixtologists in history. There are some who are artists; artists, suh. But mainly we prefer our likker straight.”
“We’re high, too,” Bill put in. “Well over seven thousand feet, ’cordin’ to them railroad engineers.”
“Yes, suh, you are a mile and more nearer Heaven here in Benton than you were when beside the noble Hudson,” supplemented the Colonel. “And the prices of living are reasonable; foh money, suh, is cheap and ready to hand. No drink is less than two bits, and a man won’t tote a match across a street foh less than a drink. Money grows, suh, foh the picking. Our merchants are clearing thirty thousand dollars a month, and the professional gentleman who tries to limit his game is considered a low-down tin-horn. Yes, suh. This is the greatest terminal of the greatest railroad in the known world. It has Omaha, No’th Platte, Cheyenne beat to a frazzle. You cannot fail to prosper.” They had been critically watching me wash and rearrange my clothing. “You are not heeled, suh, I see?”
“Heeled?” I repeated.
“Equipped with a shooting-iron, suh. Or do you intend to remedy that deficiency also?”
“I have not been in the habit of carrying arms.”
“’Most everybody packs a gun or a bowie,” Bill remarked. “Gents and ladies both. But there’s no law ag’in not.”
I had finished my meager toilet, and was glad, for the espionage had been annoying.
“Now I am at your service during a short period, gentlemen,” I announced. “Later I have an engagement, and shall ask to be excused.”
The Colonel arose with alacrity. Bill stood, and seized his hat hanging at the head of the bed.
“A little liquid refreshment is in order fust, I reckon,” quoth the Colonel. “I claim the privilege, of course. And after that—you have sporting blood, suh? You will desire to take a turn or two foh the honor of the Empire State?”
The inference was not quite clear. To develop it I replied guardedly, albeit unwilling to pose as a milksop.
“I assuredly am not averse to any legitimate amusement.”
“That’s it,” Bill commended. “Nobody is, who has red in him; and a fellow kin see you’ve cut yore eye-teeth. What might you prefer, in line of a pass-the-time, on spec’?”
“What is there, if you please?” I encouraged.
He and the Colonel gravely contemplated each other. Bill scratched his head, and slowly closed one eye.
“There’s a good open game of stud at the North Star,” he proffered. “I kin get the gentleman a seat. No limit.”
“Maybe our friend’s luck don’t run to stud,” hazarded the Colonel. “Stud exacts the powers of concentration, like faro.” And he also closed one eye. “It’s rather early in the evening foh close quarters. Are you particularly partial to the tiger or the cases, suh?” he queried of me. “Or would you be able to secure transient happiness in short games, foh a starter, while we move along, like a bee from flower to flower, gathering his honey?”
“If you are referring to card gambling, sir,” I answered, “you have chosen a poor companion. But I do not intend to be a spoil sport, and I shall be glad to have you show me whatever you think worth while in the city, so far as I have the leisure.”
“That’s it, that’s it, suh.” The Colonel appeared delighted. “Let us libate to the gods of chance, gentlemen; and then take a stroll.”
“My bag will be safe here?” I prompted, as we were about to file out.
“Absolutely, suh. Personal property is respected in Benton. We’d hang the man who moved that bag of yours the fraction of one inch.”
This at least was comforting. As much could not be said of New York City. The Colonel led down the echoing hall and the shaking stairs, into the lobby, peopled as before by men in all modes of attire and clustered mainly at the bar. He led directly to the bar itself.
“Three, Ed. Name your likker, gentlemen. A little Double X foh me, Ed.”
“Old rye,” Bill briefly ordered.
The bartender set out bottle and whiskey glasses, and looked upon me. I felt that the bystanders were waiting. My garb proclaimed the “pilgrim,” but I was resolved to be my own master, and for liquor I had no taste.
“Lemonade, if you have it,” I faltered.
“Yes, sir.” The bartender cracked not a smile, but a universal sigh, broken by a few sniggers, voiced the appraisal of the audience. Some of the loafers eyed me amusedly, some turned away.
“Surely, suh, you will temper that with a dash of fortifiah,” the Colonel protested. “A pony of brandy, Ed—or just a dash to cut the water in it. To me, suh, the water in this country is vile—inimical to the human stomick.”
“Thank you,” said I, “but I prefer plain lemonade.”
“The gent wants his pizen straight, same as the rest of you,” calmly remarked the bartender.
My lemonade being prepared, the Colonel and Bill tossed off full glasses of whiskey, acknowledged with throaty “A-ah!” and smack of lips; and I hastily quaffed my lemonade. From the dollar which the Colonel grandly flung upon the bar he received no change—by which I might figure that whereas whiskey was twenty-five cents the glass, lemonade was fifty cents.
We issued into the street and were at once engulfed by a ferment of sights and sounds extraordinary.
The sun had set and all the golden twilight was hazy with the dust suspended in swirl and strata over the ugly roofs. In the canvas-faced main street the throng and noise had increased rather than diminished at the approach of dusk. Although clatter of dishes mingled with the cadence, the people acted as if they had no thought of eating; and while aware of certain pangs myself, I felt a diffidence in proposing supper as yet.
My two companions hesitated a moment, spying up and down, which gave me opportunity to view the scene anew. Surely such an hotch-potch never before populated an American town: Men flannel shirted, high booted, shaggy haired and bearded, stumping along weighted with excess of belts and formidable revolvers balanced, not infrequently, by sheathed butcher-knives—men whom I took to be teamsters, miners, railroad graders, and the like; other men white skinned, clean shaven except perhaps for moustaches and goatees, in white silk shirts or ruffled bosoms, broadcloth trousers and trim footgear, unarmed, to all appearance, but evidently respected; men of Eastern garb like myself—tourists, maybe, or merchants; a squad of surveyors in picturesque neckerchiefs, and revolver girted; trainmen, grimy engineers and firemen; clerks, as I opined, dapper and bustling, clad in the latest fashion, with diamonds in flashy ties and heavy gold watch chains across their fancy waistcoats; soldiers; men whom I took to be Mexicans, by their velvet jackets, slashed pantaloons and filagreed hats; darkly weathered, leathery faced, long-haired personages, no doubt scouts and trappers, in fringed buckskins and beaded moccasins; blanket wrapped Indians; and women.
Of the women a number were unmistakable as to vocation, being lavishly painted, strident, and bold, and significantly dressed. I saw several in amazing costumes of tightly fitting black like ballet girls, low necked, short skirted, around the smooth waists snake-skin belts supporting handsome little pistols and dainty poignards. Contrasted there were women of other class and, I did not doubt, of better repute; some in gowns and bonnets that would do them credit anywhere in New York, and some, of course, more commonly attired in calico and gingham as proper to the humbler station of laundresses, cooks, and so forth.
The uproar was a jargon of shouts, hails, music, hammering, barking, scuff of feet, trample of horses and oxen, rumble of creaking wagons and Concord stages.
“Well, suh,” spoke the Colonel, pulling his hat over his eyes, “shall we stroll a piece?”
“Might better,” assented Bill. “The gentleman may find something of interest right in the open. How are you on the goose, sir?” he demanded of me.
“The goose?” I uttered.
“Yes. Keno.”
“I am a stranger to the goose,” said I.
He grunted.
“It gives a quick turn for a small stake. So do the three-card and rondo.”
Of passageway there was not much choice between the middle of the street and the borders. Seemed to me as we weaved along through groups of idlers and among busily stepping people that every other shop was a saloon, with door widely open and bar and gambling tables well attended. The odor of liquor saturated the acrid dust. Yet the genuine shops, even of the rudest construction, were piled from the front to the rear with commodities of all kinds, and goods were yet heaped upon the ground in front and behind as if the merchants had no time for unpacking. The incessant hammering, I ascertained, came from amateur carpenters, including mere boys, here and there engaged as if life depended upon their efforts, in erecting more buildings from knocked-down sections like cardboard puzzles and from lumber already cut and numbered.
My guides nodded right and left with “Hello, Frank,” “How are you, Dan?” “Evening, Charley,” and so on. Occasionally the Colonel swept off his hat, with elaborate deference, to a woman, but I looked in vain for My Lady in Black. I did not see her—nor did I see her peer, despite the fact that now and then I observed a face and figure of apparent attractiveness.
Above the staccato of conversation and exclamation there arose the appeals of the barkers for the gambling resorts.
“This way. Shall we see what he’s got?” the Colonel invited. Forthwith veering aside he crossed the street in obedience to a summons of whoops and shouts that set the very dust to vibrating.
A crowd had gathered before a youth—a perspiring, red-faced youth with a billy-cock hat shoved back upon his bullet head—a youth in galluses and soiled shirt and belled pantaloons, who, standing upon a box for elevation, was exhorting at the top of his lungs.
“Whoo-oop! This way, this way! Everybody this way! Come on, you rondo-coolo sports! Give us a bet! A bet! Rondo coolo-oh! Rondo coolo-oh! Here’s your easy money! Down with your soap! Let her roll! Rondo coolo-oh!”
“It’s a great game, suh,” the Colonel flung back over his shoulder.
We pushed forward, to the front. The center for the crowd was a table not unlike a small billiard table or, saving the absence of pins, a tivoli table such as enjoyed by children. But across one end there were 76several holes, into which balls, ten or a dozen, resembling miniature billiard balls, might roll.
The balls had been banked, in customary pyramid shape for a break as in pool, at the opposite end; and just as we arrived they had been propelled all forward, scattering, by a short cue rapidly swept across their base.
“Rondo coolo, suh,” the Colonel was explaining, “as you see, is an improvement on the old rondo, foh red-blooded people. You may place your bets in various ways, on the general run, or the odd or the even; and as the bank relies, suh, only on percentage, the popular game is strictly square. There is no chance foh a brace in rondo coolo. Shall we take a turn, foh luck?”
The crowd was craning and eyeing the gyrating balls expectantly. A part of the balls entered the pockets; the remainder came to rest.
“Rondo,” announced the man with the short cue, amidst excited ejaculations from winners and losers. And according to a system which I failed to grasp, except that it comprised the number of balls pocketed, he deftly distributed from one collection of checks and coins to another, quickly absorbed by greedy hands.
“She rolls again. Make your bets, ladies and gents,” he intoned. “It’s rondo coolo—simple rondo coolo.” And he reassembled the balls.
“I prefer not to play, sir,” I responded to the heavily 77breathing Colonel. “I am new here and I cannot afford to lose until I am better established.”
“Never yet seen a man who couldn’t afford to win, though,” Bill growled. “Easy pickin’, too. But come on, then. We’ll give you a straight steer some’rs else.”
So we left the crowd—containing indeed women as well as men—to their insensate fervor over a childish game under the stimulation of the raucous, sweating barker. Of gambling devices, in the open of the street, there was no end. My conductors appeared to have the passion, for our course led from one method of hazard to another—roulette, chuck-a-luck where the patrons cast dice for prizes of money and valuables arrayed upon numbered squares of an oilcloth covered board, keno where numbered balls were decanted one at a time from a bottle-shaped leather receptacle called, I learned, the “goose,” and the players kept tab by filling in little cards as in domestic lotto; and finally we stopped at the simplest apparatus of all.
“The spiel game for me, gentlemen,” said the Colonel. “Here it is. Yes, suh, there’s nothing like monte, where any man is privileged to match his eyes against fingers. Nobody but a blind man can lose at monte, by George!”
“And this spieler’s on the level,” Bill pronounced, sotto voce. “I vote we hook him for a gudgeon, and get the price of a meal. Our friend will join us in the turn. He can see for himself that he can’t lose. He’s got sharp eyes.”
The bystanders here were stationed before a man sitting at a low tripod table; and all that he had was the small table—a plain cheap table with folding legs—and three playing cards. Business was a trifle slack. I thought that his voice crisped aggressively as we elbowed through, while he sat idly skimming the three cards over the table, with a flick of his hand.
“Two jacks, and the ace, gentlemen. There they are. I have faced them up. Now I gather them slowly—you can’t miss them. Observe closely. The jack on top, between thumb and forefinger. The ace next—ace in the middle. The other jack bottommost.” He turned his hand, with the three cards in a tier, so that all might see. “The ace is the winning card. You are to locate the ace. Observe closely again. It’s my hand against your eyes. I am going to throw. Who will spot the ace? Watch, everybody. Ready! Go!” The backs of the cards were up. With a swift movement he released the three, spreading them in a neat row, face down, upon the table. He carelessly shifted them hither and thither—and his fingers were marvelously nimble, lightly touching. “Twenty dollars against your twenty that you can’t pick out the ace, first try. I’ll let the cards lie. I shan’t disturb them. There they are. If you’ve watched the ace fall, you win. If you haven’t, you lose unless you guess right.”
“Just do that trick again, will you, for the benefit of my friend here?” bade the Colonel.
The “spieler”—a thin-lipped, cadaverous individual, his soft hat cavalierly aslant, his black hair combed flatly in a curve down upon his damp forehead, a pair of sloe eyes, and a flannel shirt open upon his bony chest—glanced alert. He smiled.
“Hello, sir. I’m agreeable. Yes, sir. But as they lie, will you make a guess? No? Or you, sir?” And he addressed Bill. “No? Then you, sir?” He appealed to me. “No? But I’m a mind-reader. I can tell by your eyes. They’re upon the right-end card. Aha! Correct.” He had turned up the card and shown the ace. “You should have bet. You would have beaten me, sir. You’ve got the eyes. I think you’ve seen this game before. No? Ah, but you have, or else you’re born lucky. Now I’ll try again. For the benefit of these three gentlemen I will try again. Kindly reserve your bets, friends all, and you shall have your chance. This game never stops. I am always after revenge. Watch the ace. I pick up the cards. Ace first—blessed ace; and the jacks. Watch close. There you are.” He briefly exposed the faces of the cards. “Keep your eyes upon the ace. Ready—go!”
He spread the cards. As he had released he had tilted them slightly, and I clearly saw the ace land. The cards fell in the same order as arranged. To that I would have sworn.
“Five dollars now that any one card is not the ace,” he challenged. “I shall not touch them. A small bet—just enough to make it interesting. Five dollars from you, sir?” He looked at me direct. I shook my head; I was sternly resolved not to be over tempted. “What? No? You will wait another turn? Very well. How about you, sir?” to the Colonel.
“I’ll go halvers with you, Colonel,” Bill proposed.
“I’m on,” agreed the Colonel. “There’s the soap. And foh the honor of the grand old Empire State we will let our friend pick the ace foh us. I have faith in those eyes of his, suhs.”
“But that is scarcely fair, sir, when I am risking nothing,” I protested.
“Go ahead, suh; go ahead,” he urged. “It is just a sporting proposition foh general entertainment.”
“And I’ll bet you a dollar on the side that you don’t spot the ace,” the dealer baited. “Come now. Make it interesting for yourself.”
“I’ll not bet, but since you insist, there’s the ace.” And I turned up the right-end card.
“By the Eternal, he’s done it! He has an eye like an eagle’s,” praised the dealer, with evident chagrin. “I lose. Once again, now. Everybody in, this time.” He gathered the cards. “I’ll play against you all, this gentleman included. And if I lose, why, that’s life, gentleman. Some of us win, some of us lose. Watch the ace and have your money ready. You can follow this gentleman’s tip. I’m afraid he’s smarter than me, but I’m game.”
He was too insistent. Somehow, I did not like him, anyway, and I was beginning to be suspicious of my company. Their minds trended entirely toward gambling; to remain with them meant nothing farther than the gaming tables, and I was hungry.
“You’ll have to excuse me, gentleman,” I pleaded. “Another time, but not now. I wish to eat and to bathe, and I have an engagement following.”
“Gad, suh!” The Colonel fixed me with his fishy eyes. “Foh God’s sake don’t break your winning streak with eatin’ and washin’. Fortune is a fickle jade, suh; she’s hostile when slapped in the face.”
Bill glowered at me, but I was firm.
“If you will give me the pleasure of taking supper with me at some good place——” I suggested, as they pursued me into the street.
“We can’t talk this over while we’re dry,” the Colonel objected. “That is a human impossibility. Let us libate, suhs, in order to tackle our provender in proper spirit.”
“And no lemonade goes this time, either,” Bill declared. “That brand of a drink is insultin’ to good victuals.”
We were standing, for the moment, verging upon argument much to my distaste, when on a sudden who should come tripping along but My Lady of the Blue 82Eyes—yes, the very flesh and action of her, her face shielded from the dust by a little sunshade.
She saw me, recognized me in startled fashion, and with a swift glance at my two companions bowed. My hat was off in a twinkling, with my best manner; the Colonel barely had time to imitate ere, leaving me a quick smile, she was gone on.
He and Bill stared after; then at me.
“Gad, suh! You know the lady?” the Colonel ejaculated.
“I have the honor. We were passengers upon the same train.”
“Clean through, you mean?” queried Bill.
“Yes. We happened to get on together, at Omaha.”
“I congratulate you, suh,” affirmed the Colonel. “We were not aware, suh, that you had an acquaintance of that nature in this city.”
Again congratulation over my fortune! It mounted to my head, but I preserved decorum.
“A casual acquaintance. We were merely travelers by the same route at the same time. And now if you will recommend a good eating place, and be my guests at supper, after that, as I have said, I must be excused. By the way, while I think of it,” I carelessly added, “can you direct me how to get to the Big Tent?”
“The Big Tent? If I am not intruding, suh, does your engagement comprise the Big Tent?”
“Yes. But I failed to get the address.”
The Colonel swelled; his fishy eyes hardened upon me as with righteous indignation.
“Suh, you are too damned innocent. You come here, suh, imposing as a stranger, suh, and throwing yourself on our goodness, suh, to entertain you; and you conceal your irons in the fiah under your hat, suh. Do we look green, suh? What is your vocation, suh? I believe, by gad, suh, that you are a common capper foh some infernal skinning game, or that you are a professional. Suh, I call your hand.”
I was about to retort hotly that I had not requested their chaperonage, and that my affair with My Lady and the Big Tent, howsoever they might take it, was my own; when Mr. Brady, who likewise had been glaring at me, growled morosely.
“She’s waitin’ for you. You can square with us later, and if there’s something doin’ on the table we want a show.”
The black-clad figure had lingered beyond; ostensibly gazing into a window but now and again darting a glance in our direction. I accepted the glances as a token of inclination on her part; without saying another word to my ruffled body-guards I approached her.
She received me with a quick turn of head as if not expecting, but with a ready smile.
“Well, sir?”
“Madam,” I uttered foolishly, “good-evening.”
“You have left your friends?”
“Very willingly. Whether they are really my friends I rather question. They have seen fit to escort me about, is all.”
“And I have rescued you?” She smiled again. “Believe me, sir, you would be better off alone. I know the gentlemen. They have been paid for their trouble, have they not?”
“They have won a little at gambling, but in that I had no hand,” I replied. “So far they have asked nothing more.”
“Certainly not. And you put up no stakes?”
“Not a penny, madam. Why should I?”
“To make it interesting, as they doubtless said. The Colonel, as all the town knows, is a notorious capper and steerer, and the fellow Brady is no better, no worse. Had you stayed with them and suffered them to persuade you into betting, you would soon have been fleeced as clean as a shaved pig. The little gains they are permitted to make, to draw you on, is their pay. Their losses if any would have been restored to them, but not yours to you.”
“Strange to say, they have just accused me of being a ‘capper,’” I answered, nettled as I began to comprehend.
“From what cause, sir?”“They seemed to think that I am smarter than to my actual credit, for one thing.” I, of course, could not involve her in the subject, and indeed could not understand why she should have been held responsible, anyway. “And probably they were peeved because I insisted upon eating supper and then following my own bent.”
“You were about to leave them?” Her face brightened. “That is good. They were disappointed in finding you no gudgeon to be hooked by such raw methods. And you’ve not had supper yet? Promise me that you will take up with no more strangers or, I assure you, you may wake in the morning with your pockets turned inside out and your memory at fault. This is Benton.”
“Yes, this is Benton, is it?” I rejoined; and perhaps bitterly.
“Benton, Wyoming Territory; of three thousand people in two weeks; in another month, who knows how many? And the majority of us live on one another. The country furnishes nothing else. Still, you will find it not much different from what I told you.”
“I have found it high and dry, certainly,” said I.
“Where are you stopping?”
“At the Queen—with a bath for every room. I am now awaiting the turn of my room, at the end of another hour.”
“Oh!” She laughed heartily. “You are fortunate, sir. The Queen may not be considered the best in all ways, but they say the towels for the baths are more than napkin size. Meanwhile, let me advise 87you. Outfit while you wait, and become of the country. You look too much the pilgrim—there is Eastern dust showing through our Benton dust, and that spells of other ’dust’ in your pockets. Get another hat, a flannel shirt, some coarser trousers, a pair of boots, don a gun and a swagger, say little, make few impromptu friends, win and lose without a smile or frown, if you play (but upon playing I will advise you later), pass as a surveyor, as a railroad clerk, as a Mormon—anything they choose to apply to you; and I shall hope to see you to-night.”
“You shall,” I assured, abashed by her raillery. “And if you will kindly tell me——”
“The meals at the Belle Marie Café are as good as any. You can see the sign from here. So adios, sir, and remember.” With no mention of the Big Tent she flashed a smile at me and mingled with the other pedestrians crossing the street on diagonal course. As I had not been invited to accompany her I stood, gratefully digesting her remarks. When I turned for a final word with my two guides, they had vanished.
This I interpreted as a confession of jealous fear that I had been, in slang phrasing, “put wise.” And sooth to say, I saw them again no more.
The counsel to don a garb smacking less of the recent East struck me as sound; for although I was not the only person here in Eastern guise, nevertheless about the majority of the populace there was an easy aggressiveness that my appearance evidently lacked.
So I must hurry ere the shops closed.
“I beg your pardon. What time do the stores close, can you tell me?” I asked of the nearest bystander.
He surveyed me.
“Close? Hell!” he said. “They don’t close for even a dog fight, pardner. Business runs twenty-five hours every day, seven days the week, in these diggin’s.”
“And where will I find a haberdashery?”
“A what? Talk English. What you want?”
“I want a—an outfit; a personal outfit.”
“Blanket to moccasins? Levi’s, stranger. Levi’ll outfit you complete and throw in a yellow purp under the wagon.”
“And where is Levi’s?”
“There.” And he jerked his head aside. “You could shut your eyes and spit in the doorway.”
With that he rudely turned his back upon me. But sure enough, by token of the large sign “Levi’s Mammoth Emporium: Liquors, Groceries and General Merchandise,” I was standing almost in front of the store itself.
I entered, into the seething aisle flanked by heaped-up counters and stacked goods that bulged the partially boarded canvas walls. At last I gained position near one of the perspiring clerks and caught his eye.
“Yes, sir. You, sir? What can I do for you, sir?” He rubbed his hands alertly, on edge with a long day.
“I wish a hat, flannel shirt, a serviceable ready-made suit, boots, possibly other matters.”
“We have exactly the things for you, sir. This way.”
“Going out on the advance line, sir?” he asked, while I made selections.
“That is not unlikely.”
“They’re doing great work. Three miles of track laid yesterday; twelve so far this week. Averaging two and one-half miles a day and promising better.”
“So I understand,” I alleged.
“General Jack Casement is a world beater. If he could get the iron as fast as he could use it he’d build through to California without a halt. But looks now as if somewhere between would have to satisfy him. You are a surveyor, I take it?”
“Yes, I am surveying on the line along with the others,” I answered. And surveying the country I was.
“You are the gentlemen who lay out the course,” he complimented. “Now, is there something else, sir?”
“I need a good revolver, a belt and ammunition.”
“We carry the reliable—the Colt’s. That’s the favorite holster gun in use out here. Please step across, sir.”
He led.
“If you’re not particular as to shine,” he resumed, “we have a second-hand outfit that I can sell you cheap. Took it in as a deposit, and the gentleman never has called for it. Of course you’re broken in to the country, but as you know a new belt and holster are apt to be viewed with suspicion and a gentleman sometimes has to draw when he’d rather not, to prove himself. This gun has been used just enough to take the roughness off the trigger pull, and it employs the metallic cartridges—very convenient. The furniture for it is O. K. And all at half price.”
I was glad to find something cheap. The boots had been fifteen dollars, the hat eight, shirt and suit in proportion, and the red silk handkerchief two dollars and a half. Yes, Benton was “high.”
With my bulky parcel I sought the Belle Marie Café, ate my supper, thence hastened through the gloaming to the hotel for bath and change of costume.
I had yet time to array myself, as an experiment and a lark; and that I sillily did, hurriedly tossing my old garments upon bed and floor, in order to invest with the new. The third bed was occupied when I came in; occupied on the outside by a plump, round-faced, dust-scalded man, with piggish features accentuated by his small bloodshot eyes; dressed in Eastern mode but stripped to the galluses, as was the custom. He lay upon his back, his puffy hands folded across his spherical abdomen where his pantaloons met a sweaty pink-striped shirt; and he panted wheezingly through his nose.
“Hell of a country, ain’t it!” he observed in a moment. “You a stranger, too?”
“I have been here a short time, sir.”
“Thought so. Jest beginnin’ to peel, like me. I been here two days. What’s your line?”
“I have a number of things in view,” I evaded.
“Well, you don’t have to tell ’em,” he granted. “Thought you was a salesman. I’m from Saint Louie, myself. Sell groceries, and pasteboards on the side. Cards are the stuff. I got the best line of sure-thing stock—strippers, humps, rounds, squares, briefs and marked backs—that ever were dealt west of the Missouri. Judas Priest, but this is a roarer of a burg! What it ain’t got I never seen—and I ain’t no spring goslin’, neither. I’ve plenty sand in my craw. You ain’t been plucked yet?”
“No, sir. I never gamble.”
“Wish I didn’t, but my name’s Jakey and I’m a good feller. Say, I’m supposed to be wise, too, but they trimmed me two hundred dollars. Now I’m gettin’ out.” He groaned. “Take the train in a few minutes. Dasn’t risk myself on the street again. Sent my baggage down for fear I’d lose that. Say,” he added, watching me, “looks like you was goin’ out yourself. One of them surveyor fellers, workin’ for the railroad?”
“It might be so, sir,” I replied.
He half sat up.
“You’ll want to throw a leg, I bet. Lemme tell you. It’s a hell of a town but it’s got some fine wimmen; yes, and a few straight banks, too. You’re no crabber or piker; I can see that. You go to the North Star. Tell Frank that Jakey sent you. They’ll treat you white. You be sure and say Jakey sent you. But for Gawd’s sake keep out of the Big Tent.”
“The Big Tent?” I uttered. “Why so?”
“They’ll sweat you there,” he groaned lugubriously. “Say, friend, could you lend me twenty dollars? You’ve still got your roll. I ain’t a stivver. I’m busted flat.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t accommodate you, sir,” said I. “I have no more money than will see me through—and according to your story perhaps not enough.”
“I’ve told you of the North Star. You mention Jakey sent you. You’ll make more than your twenty 93back, at the North Star,” he urged inconsistent. “If it hadn’t been for that damned Big Tent——” and he flopped with a dismal grunt.
By this time, all the while conscious of his devouring eyes, I had changed my clothing and now I stood equipped cap-a-pie, with my hat clapped at an angle, and my pantaloons in my boots, and my red silk handkerchief tastefully knotted at my throat, and my six-shooter slung; and I could scarcely deny that in my own eyes, and in his, I trusted, I was a pretty figure of a Westerner who would win the approval, as seemed to me, of My Lady in Black or of any other lady.
His reflection upon the Big Tent, however, was the fly in my ointment. Therefore, preening and adjusting with assumed carelessness I queried, in real concern:
“What about the Big Tent? Where is it? Isn’t it respectable?”
“Respectable? Of course it’s respectable. You don’t ketch your Jakey in no place that ain’t. I’ve a family to think of. You ain’t been there? Say! There’s where they all meet, in that Big Tent; all the best people, too, you bet you. But I tell you, friend——”
He did not finish. An uproar sounded above the other street clamor: a pistol shot, and another—a chorus of hoarse shouts and shrill frightened cries, the scurrying rush of feet, all in the street; and in the 94hall of the hotel, and the lobby below, the rush of still more feet, booted, and the din of excited voices.
My man on the bed popped with the agility of a jack-in-the-box for the window.
“A fight, a fight! Shootin’ scrape!” In a single motion grabbing coat and hat he was out through the door and pelting down the hall. Overcome by the zest of the moment I pelted after, and with several others plunged as madly upon the porch. We had left the lobby deserted.
The shots had ceased. Now a baying mob ramped through the street, with jangle “Hang him! Hang him! String him up!” Borne on by a hysterical company I saw, first a figure bloody-chested and inert flat in the dust, with stooping figures trying to raise him; then, beyond, a man bareheaded, whiskered, but as white as death, hustled to and fro from clutching hands and suddenly forced in firm grips up the street, while the mob trailed after, whooping, cursing, shrieking, flourishing guns and knives and ropes. There were women as well as men in it.
All this turned me sick. From the outskirts of the throng I tramped back to my room and the bath. The hotel was quiet as if emptied; my room was vacant—and more than vacant, for of my clothing not a vestige remained! My bag also was gone. Worse yet, prompted by an inner voice that stabbed me like an icicle I was awakened to the knowledge that every cent I had possessed was in those vanished garments.
For an instant I stood paralyzed, fronting the calamity. I could not believe. It was as if the floor had swallowed my belongings. I had been absent not more than five minutes. Surely this was the room. Yes, Number Six; and the beds were familiar, their tumbled covers unaltered.
Now I held the bath-room responsible. The scoundrel in the bath had heard, had taken advantage, made a foray and hidden. Out I ran, exploring. Every room door was wide open, every apartment blank; but there was a splashing, from the bath—I listened at the threshold, gently tried the knob—and received such a cry of angry protest that it sent me to the right-about, on tiptoe. The thief was not in the bath.
My heart sank as I bolted down for the office. The clerk had reinstated himself behind the counter. He composedly greeted me, with calm voice and with eyes that noted my costume.
“You can have your bath as soon as the porter gets back from the hanging, sir,” he said. “That is, unless you’d prefer to hurry up by toting your own water. The party now in will be out directly.”
“Never mind the bath,” I uttered, breathless, in a voice that I scarcely recognized, so piping and aghast it was. “I’ve been robbed—of money, clothes, baggage, everything!”
“Well, what at?” he queried, with a glimmer of a smile.
“What at? In my room, I tell you. I had just changed to try on these things; the street fight sounded; I was gone not five minutes and nevertheless the room was sacked. Absolutely sacked.”
“That,” he commented evenly, “is hard luck.”
“Hard luck!” I hotly rejoined. “It’s an outrage. But you seem remarkably cool about it, sir. What do you propose to do?”
“I?” He lifted his brows. “Nothing. They’re not my valuables.”
“But this is a respectable hotel, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly; and no orphan asylum. We attend strictly to our business and expect our guests to attend to theirs.”
“I was told that it was safe for me to leave my things in my room.”
“Not by me, sir. Read that.” And he called my attention to a placard that said, among other matters: “We are not responsible for property of any nature left by guests in their rooms.”
“Where’s the chief of police?” I demanded. “You have officers here, I hope.”
“Yes, sir. The marshal is the chief of police, and he’s the whole show. The provost guard from the post helps out when necessary. But you’ll find the marshal at the mayor’s office or else at the North Star gambling hall, three blocks up the street. I don’t think he’ll do you any good, though. He’s not likely to bother with small matters, especially when he’s 97dealing faro bank. He has an interest in the North Star. You’ll never see your property again. Take my word for it.”
“I won’t? Why not?”
“You’ve played the gudgeon for somebody; that’s all. Easiest thing in the world for a smart gentleman to slip into your room while you were absent, go through it, and make his getaway by the end of the hall, out over the kitchen roof. It’s been done many a time.”
“A traveling salesman saw me dressing. He went out before me but he might have doubled,” I gasped. “He had one of the beds—who is he?”
“I don’t know him, sir.”
“A round-bellied, fat-faced man—sold groceries and playing cards.”
“There is no such guest in your room, sir. You have bed Number One, bed Number Two is assigned to Mr. Bill Brady, who doubtless will be in soon. Number Three is temporarily vacant.”
“The man said he was about to catch the train east,” I pursued desperately. “A round-bellied, fat-faced man in pink striped shirt——”
“If he was to catch any train, that train has just pulled out.”
“And who was in the bath, ten or fifteen minutes ago?”
“My wife, sir; and still there. She has to take her chances like everybody else. No, sir; you’ve been 98done. You may find your clothes, but I doubt it. You are next upon the bath list.” And he became all business. “The porter will carry up the water and notify you. You are allowed twenty minutes. That is satisfactory?”
A bath, now!
“No, certainly not,” I blurted. “I have no time nor inclination for a bath, at present. And,” I faltered, ashamed, “I’ll have to ask you to refund me the dollar and a half. I haven’t a cent.”
“Under the circumstances I can do that, although it is against our rules,” he replied. “Here it is, sir. We wish to accommodate.”
“And will you advance me twenty dollars, say, until I shall have procured funds from the East?” I ventured.
A mask fell over his face. He slightly smiled.
“No, sir; I cannot. We never advance money.”
“But I’ve got to have money, to tide me over, man,” I pleaded. “This dollar and a half will barely pay for a meal. I can give you references——”
“From Colonel Sunderson, may I ask?” His voice was poised tentatively.
“No. I never saw the Colonel before. My references are Eastern. My father——”
“As a gentleman the Colonel is O. K.,” he smoothly interrupted. “I do not question his integrity, nor your father’s. But we never advance money. It is against the policy of the house.”
“Has my trunk come up yet?” I queried.
“Yes, sir. If you’d rather have it in your room——”
“In my room!” said I. “No! Else it might walk out the hall window, too. You have it safe?”
“Perfectly, except in case of burglary or fire. It is out of the weather. We’re not responsible for theft or fire, you understand. Not in Benton.”
“Good Lord!” I ejaculated, weak. “You have my trunk, you say? Very good. Will you advance me twenty dollars and keep the trunk as security? That, I think, is a sporting proposition.”
He eyed me up and down.
“Are you a surveyor? Connected with the road?”
“No.”
“What is your business, then?”
“I’m a damned fool,” I confessed. “I’m a gudgeon—I’m a come-on. In fact, as I’ve said before, I’m out here looking for health, where it’s high and dry.” He smiled. “And high and dry I’m landed in short order. But the trunk’s not empty. Will you keep it and lend me twenty dollars? I presume that trunk and contents are worth two hundred.”
“I’ll speak with the porter,” he answered.
By the lapse of time between his departure and his return he and the gnome evidently had hefted the trunk and viewed it at all angles. Now he came back with quick step.
“Yes, sir; we’ll advance you twenty dollars on your trunk. Here is the money, sir.” He wrote, and passed me a slip of paper also. “And your receipt. When you pay the twenty dollars, if within thirty days, you can have your trunk.”
“And if not?” I asked uncomfortably.
“We shall be privileged to dispose of it. We are not in the pawn business, but we have trunks piled to the ceiling in our storeroom, left by gentlemen in embarrassed circumstances like yours.”
I never saw that trunk again, either. However, of this, more anon. At that juncture I was only too glad to get the twenty dollars, pending the time when I should be recouped from home; for I could see that to be stranded “high and dry” in Benton City of Wyoming Territory would be a dire situation. And I could not hope for much from home. It was a bitter dose to have to ask for further help. Three years returned from the war my father had scarcely yet been enabled to gather the loose ends of his former affairs.
“Now if you will direct me to the telegraph office——?” I suggested.
“The telegraph into Benton is the union Pacific Railroad line,” he informed; “and that is open to only Government and official business. If you wish to send a private dispatch you should forward it by post to Cheyenne, one hundred and seventy-five miles, where it will be put on the Overland branch line for the East by way of Denver. The rate to New York is eight dollars, prepaid.”
I knew that my face fell. Eight dollars would make a large hole in my slender funds—I had been foolish not to have borrowed fifty dollars on the trunk. So I decided to write instead of telegraph; and with him watching me I endeavored to speak lightly.
“Thank you. Now where will I find the place known as the Big Tent?”
He laughed with peculiar emphasis.
“If you had mentioned the Big Tent sooner you’d have got no twenty dollars from me, sir. Not that I’ve anything against it, understand. It’s all right, everybody goes there; perfectly legitimate. I go there myself. And you may redeem your trunk to-morrow and be buying champagne.”
“I am to meet a friend at the Big Tent,” I stiffly explained. “Further than that I have no business there. I know nothing whatever about it.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. No offense intended. The Big Tent is highly regarded—a great place to spend a pleasant evening. All Benton indulges. I wish you the best of luck, sir. You are heeled, I see. No one will take you for a pilgrim.” Despite the assertion there was a twinkle in his eye. “You will find the Big Tent one block and a half down this street. You cannot miss it.”
The hotel lamps were being lighted by the gnome porter. When I stepped outside twilight had deepened into dusk, the air was almost frosty, and this main street had been made garish by its nightly illumination.
It was a strange sight, as I paused for a moment upon the plank veranda. The near vicinity resembled a fair. As if inspired by the freshness and coolness of the new air the people were trooping to and fro more restlessly than ever, and in greater numbers. All up and down the street coal-oil torches or flambeaus, ruddily embossing the heads of the players and onlookers, flared like votive braziers above the open-air gambling games; there were even smoked-chimney lamps, and candles, set on pedestals, signalizing other centers. The walls of the tent store-buildings glowed spectral from the lights to be glimpsed through doorways and windows, and grotesque, gigantic figures flitted in silhouette. While through the interstices between the buildings I might see other structures, ranging from those of tolerable size to simple wall tents and makeshift shacks, eerily shadowed.
The noise had, if anything, redoubled. To the exclamations, the riotous shouts and whoops, the general gay vociferations and the footsteps of a busy people, the harangues of the barkers, the more distant puffing and shrieking of the locomotives at the railroad yards, the hammering where men and boys worked by torchlight, and now and then a revolver shot, there had been added the inciting music of stringed instruments, cymbals, and such—some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded the shuffling stamp of waltz, hoe-down and cotillion.
Night at Benton plainly had begun with a gusto. It stirred one’s blood. It called—it summoned with such a promise of variety, of adventure, of flotsam and jetsam and shuttlecock of chances, that I, a youth with twenty-one dollars and a half at disposal, all his clothes on his back, a man’s weapon at his belt, and an appointment with a lady as his future, forgetful of past and courageous in present, strode confidently, even recklessly down, as eager as one to the manners of the country born.
The mysterious allusions to the Big Tent now piqued me. It was a rendezvous, popular, I deemed, and respectable, as assured. An amusement place, judging by the talk; superior, undoubtedly, to other resorts that I may have noted. I was well equipped to test it out, for I had little to lose, even time was of no moment, and I possessed a friend at court, there, whom I had interested and who very agreeably interested me. This single factor would have glorified with a halo any tent, big or little, in Benton.
There was no need for me to inquire my way to the Big Tent. Upon pushing along down the street, beset upon my course by many sights and proffered allurements, and keenly alive to the romance of that hurly-burly of pleasure and business combined here two thousand miles west of New York, always expectant of my goal I was attracted by music again, just ahead, from an orchestra. I saw a large canvas sign—The Big Tent—suspended in the full shine of a locomotive reflector. Beneath it the people were streaming into the wide entrance to a great canvas hall.
Quickening my pace in accord with the increased pace of the throng, presently I likewise entered, unchallenged for any admission fee. Once across the threshold, I halted, taken all aback by the hubbub and the kaleidoscopic spectacle that beat upon my ears and eyes.
The interior, high ceilinged to the ridged roof, was unbroken by supports. It was lighted by two score of lamps and reflectors in brackets along the walls and hanging as chandeliers from the rafters. The floor, of planed boards, already teemed with men and women and children—along one side there was an ornate bar glittering with cut glass and silver and backed by a large plate mirror that repeated the lights, 105the people, the glasses, decanters and pitchers, and the figures of the white-coated, busy bartenders.
At the farther end of the room a stringed orchestra was stationed upon a platform, while to the bidding of the music women, and men with hats upon their heads and cigars in mouths, and men together, whirled in couples, so that the floor trembled to the boot heels. Scattered thickly over the intervening space there were games of chance, every description, surrounded by groups looking on or playing. Through the atmosphere blue with the smoke women, many of them lavishly costumed as if for a ball, strolled risking or responding to gallantries. The garb of the men themselves ran the scale: from the comme il faut of slender shoes, fashionably cut coats and pantaloons, and modish cravats, through the campaign uniforms of army officers and enlisted men, to the frontier corduroy and buckskin of surveyors and adventurers, the flannel shirts, red, blue and gray, the jeans and cowhide boots of trainmen, teamsters, graders, miners, and all.
From nearly every waist dangled a revolver. I remarked that not a few of the women displayed little weapons as in bravado.
What with the music, the stamp of the dancers, the clink of glasses and the ice in pitchers, the rattle of dice, the slap of cards and currency, the announcements of the dealers, the clap-trap of barkers and monte spielers, the general chatter of voices, one such as I, a newcomer, scarcely knew which way to turn.
Altogether this was an amusement palace which, though rough of exterior, eclipsed the best of the Bowery and might be found elsewhere, I imagined, not short of San Francisco.
From the jostle of the doorway to pick out upon the floor any single figure and follow it was well-nigh impossible. Not seeing my Lady in Black, at first sight—not being certain of her, that is, for there were a number of black dresses—I moved on in. It might be that she was among the dancers, where, as I could determine by the vista, beauty appeared to be whirling around in the embrace of the whiskered beast.
Then, as I advanced resolutely among the gaming tables, I felt a cuff upon the shoulder and heard a bluff voice in my ear.
“Hello, old hoss. How are tricks by this time?”
Facing about quickly with apprehension of having been spotted by another capper, if not Bill Brady himself (for the voice was not Colonel Sunderson’s unctuous tones) I saw Jim of the Sidney station platform and the railway coach fracas.
He was grinning affably, apparently none the worse for wear save a slightly swollen lower lip; he seemed in good humor.
“Shake,” he proffered, extending his hand. “No 107hard feelin’s here. I’m no Injun. You knocked the red-eye out o’ me.”
I shook hands with him, and again he slapped me upon the shoulder. “Hardly knowed you in that new rig. Now you’re talkin’. That’s sense. Well; how you comin’ on?”
“First rate,” I assured, not a little nonplussed by this greeting from a man whom I had knocked down, tipsy drunk, only a few hours before. But evidently he was a seasoned customer.
“Bucked the tiger a leetle, I reckon?” And he leered cunningly.
“No; I rarely gamble.”
“Aw, tell that to the marines.” Once more he jovially clapped me. “A young gent like you has to take a fling now and then. Hell, this is Benton, where everything goes and nobody the worse for it. You bet yuh! Trail along with me. Let’s likker. Then I’ll show you the ropes. I like your style. Yes, sir; I know a man when I see him.” And he swore freely.
“Another time, sir,” I begged off. “I have an engagement this evening——”
“O’ course you have. Don’t I know that, too, by Gawd? The when, where and who? Didn’t she tell me to keep my eyes skinned for you, and to cotton to you when you come in? We’ll find her, after we likker up.”
“She did?”
“Why not? Ain’t I a friend o’ hern? You bet! Finest little woman in Benton. Trail to the trough along with me, pardner, and name your favor-ite. I’ve got a thirst like a Sioux buck with a robe to trade.”
“I’d rather not drink, thank you,” I essayed; but he would have none of it. He seized me by the arm and hustled me on.
“O’ course you’ll drink. Any gent I ax to drink has gotto drink. Name your pizen—make it champagne, if that’s your brand. But the drinks are on me.”
So willy-nilly I was brought to the bar, where the line of men already loafing there made space.
“Straight goods and the best you’ve got,” my self-appointed pilot blared. “None o’ your agency whiskey, either. What’s yourn?” he asked of me.
“The same as yours, sir,” I bravely replied.
With never a word the bartender shoved bottle and glasses to us. Jim rather unsteadily filled; I emulated, but to scanter measure.
“Here’s how,” he volunteered. “May you never see the back of your neck.”
“Your health,” I responded.
We drank. The stuff may have been pure; at least it was stout and cut fiery way down my unwonted throat; the one draught infused me with a swagger and a sudden rosy view of life through a temporary mist of watering eyes.
“A-ah! That puts guts into a man,” quoth Jim. “Shall we have another? One more?”
“Not now. The next shall be on me. Let’s look around,” I gasped.
“We’ll find her,” he promised. “Take a stroll. I’ll steer you right. Have a seegar, anyway.”
As smoking vied with drinking, here in the Big Tent where even the dancers cavorted with lighted cigars in their mouths, I saw fit to humor him.
“Cigars it shall be, then. But I’ll pay.” And to my nod the bartender set out a box, from which we selected at twenty-five cents each. With my own “seegar” cocked up between my lips, and my revolver adequately heavy at my belt, I suffered the guidance of the importunate Jim.
We wended leisurely among games of infinite variety: keno, rondo coolo, poker, faro, roulette, monte, chuck-a-luck, wheels of fortune—advertised, some, by their barkers, but the better class (if there is such a distinction) presided over by remarkably quiet, white-faced, nimble-fingered, steady-eyed gentry in irreproachable garb running much to white shirts, black pantaloons, velvet waistcoats, and polished boots, and diamonds and gold chains worn unaffectedly; low-voiced gentry, these, protected, it would appear, mainly by their lookouts perched at their sides with eyes alert to read faces and to watch the play.
We had by no means completed the tour, interrupted by many jests and nods exchanged between Jim and sundry of the patrons, when we indeed met My Lady. She detached herself, as if cognizant of our approach, from a little group of four or five standing upon the floor; and turned for me with hand outstretched, a gratifying flush upon her spirited face.
“You are here, then?” she greeted.
I made a leg, with my best bow, not omitting to remove hat and cigar, while agreeably conscious of her approving gaze.
“I am here, madam, in the Big Tent.”
Her small warm hand acted as if unreservedly mine, for the moment. About her there was a tingling element of the friendly, even of the intimate. She was a haven in a strange coast.
“Told you I’d find him, didn’t I?” Jim asserted—the bystanders listening curiously. “There he was, lookin’ as lonesome as a two-bit piece on a poker table in a sky-limit game. So we had a drink and a seegar, and been makin’ the grand tower.”
“You got your outfit, I see,” she smiled.
“Yes. Am I correct?”
“You have saved yourself annoyance. You’ll do,” she nodded. “Have you played yet? Win, or lose?”
“I did not come to play, madam,” said I. “Not at table, that is.” Whereupon I must have returned her gaze so glowingly as to embarrass her. Yet she was not displeased; and in that costume and with 111that liquor still coursing through my veins I felt equal to any retort.
“But you should play. You are heeled?”
“The best I could procure.” I let my hand rest casually upon my revolver butt.
She laughed merrily. There were smiles aside.
“Oh, no; I didn’t mean that. You are heeled for all to see. I meant, you have funds? You didn’t come here too light, did you?”
“I am prepared for all emergencies, madam, certainly,” I averred with proper dignity. Not for the world would I have confessed otherwise. Sooth to say, I had the sensation of boundless wealth. The affair at the hotel did not bother me, now. Here in the Big Tent prosperity reigned. Money, money, money was passing back and forth, carelessly shoved out and carelessly pocketed or piled up, while the band played and the people laughed and drank and danced and bragged and staked, and laughed again.
“That is good. Shall we walk a little? And when you play—come here.” We stepped apart from the listeners. “When you play, follow the lead of Jim. He’ll not lose, and I intend that you shan’t, either. But you must play, for the sport of it. Everybody games, in Benton.”
“So I judge, madam,” I assented. “Under your chaperonage I am ready to take any risks, the gaming table being among the least.”
“Prettily said, sir,” she complimented. “And you 112won’t lose. No,” she repeated suggestively, “you won’t lose, with me looking out for you. Jim bears you no ill will. He recognizes a man when he meets him, even when the proof is uncomfortable.”
“For that little episode on the train I ask no reward, madam,” said I.
“Of course not.” Her tone waxed impatient. “However, you’re a stranger in Benton and strangers do not always fare well.” In this she spoke the truth. “As a resident I claim the honors. Let us be old acquaintances. Shall we walk? Or would you rather dance?”
“I’d cut a sorry figure dancing in boots,” said I. “Therefore I’d really prefer to walk, if all the same to you.”
“Thank you for having mercy on my poor feet. Walk we will.”
“May I get you some refreshment?” I hazarded. “A lemonade—or something stronger?”
“Not for you, sir; not again,” she laughed. “You are, as Jim would say, ’fortified.’ And I shall need all my wits to keep you from being tolled away by greater attractions.”
With that, she accepted my arm. We promenaded, Jim sauntering near. And as she emphatically was the superior of all other women upon the floor I did not fail to dilate with the distinction accorded me: felt it in the glances, the deference and the ready make-way which attended upon our progress. 113Frankly to say, possibly I strutted—as a young man will when “fortified” within and without and elevated from the station of nondescript stranger to that of favored beau.
Whereas an hour before I had been crushed and beggarly, now I turned out my toes and stepped bravely—my twenty-one dollars in pocket, my six-shooter at belt, a red ’kerchief at throat, the queen of the hall on my arm, and my trunk all unnecessary to my well-being.
Thus in easy fashion we moved amidst eyes and salutations from the various degrees of the company. She made no mention of any husband, which might have been odd in the East but did not impress me as especially odd here in the democratic Far West. The women appeared to have an independence of action.
“Shall we risk a play or two?” she proposed. “Are you acquainted with three-card monte?”
“Indifferently, madam,” said I. “But I am green at all gambling devices.”
“You shall learn,” she encouraged lightly. “In Benton as in Rome, you know. There is no disgrace attached to laying down a dollar here and there—we all do it. That is part of our amusement, in Benton.” She halted. “You are game, sir? What is life but a series of chances? Are you disposed to win a little and flout the danger of losing?”
“I am in Benton to win,” I valiantly asserted. 114“And if under your direction, so much the quicker. What first, then? The three-card monte?”
“It is the simplest. Faro would be beyond you yet. Rondo coolo is boisterous and confusing—and as for poker, that is a long session of nerves, while chuck-a-luck, though all in the open, is for children and fools. You might throw the dice a thousand times and never cast a lucky combination. Roulette is as bad. The percentage in favor of the bank in a square game is forty per cent. better than stealing. I’ll initiate you on monte. Are your eyes quick?”
“For some things,” I replied meaningly.
She conducted me to the nearest monte game, where the “spieler”—a smooth-faced lad of not more than nineteen—sat behind his three-legged little table, green covered, and idly shifting the cards about maintained a rather bored flow of conversational incitement to bets.
As happened, he was illy patronized at the moment. There were not more than three or four onlookers, none risking but all waiting apparently upon one another.
At our arrival the youth glanced up with the most innocent pair of long-lashed brown eyes that I ever had seen. A handsome boy he was.
“Hello, Bob.”
He smiled, with white teeth.
“Hello yourself.”
My Lady and he seemed to know each other.
“How goes it to-night, Bob?”
“Slow. There’s no nerve or money in this camp any more. She’s a dead one.”
“I’ll not have Benton slandered,” My Lady gaily retorted. “We’ll buck your game, Bob. But you must be easy on us. We’re green yet.”
Bob shot a quick glance at me—in one look had read me from hat to boots. He had shrewder eyes than their first languor intimated.
“Pleased to accommodate you, I’m sure,” he answered. “The greenies stand as good a show at this board as the profesh.”
“Will you play for a dollar?” she challenged.
“I’ll play for two bits, to-night. Anything to start action.” He twisted his mouth with ready chagrin. “I’m about ripe to bet against myself.”
She fumbled at her reticule, but I was beforehand.
“No, no.” And I fished into my pocket. “Allow me. I will furnish the funds if you will do the playing.”
“I choose the card?” said she. “That is up to you, sir. You are to learn.”
“By watching, at first,” I protested. “We should be partners.”
“Well,” she consented, “if you say so. Partners it is. A lady brings luck, but I shall not always do your playing for you, sir. That kind of partnership comes to grief.”
“I am hopeful of playing on my own score, in due time,” I responded. “As you will see.”
“What’s the card, Bob? We’ve a dollar on it, as a starter.”
He eyed her, while facing the cards up.
“The ace. You see it—the ace, backed by ten and deuce. Here it is. All ready?” He turned them down, in order; methodically, even listlessly moved them to and fro, yet with light, sure, well-nigh bewildering touch. Suddenly lifted his hands. “All set. A dollar you don’t face up the ace at first try.”
She laughed, bantering.
“Oh, Bob! You’re too easy. I wonder you aren’t broke. You’re no monte spieler. Is this your best?”
And I believed that I myself knew which card was the ace.
“You hear me, and there’s my dollar.” He coolly waited.
“Not yours; ours. Will you make it five?”
“One is my limit on this throw. You named it.”
“Oho!” With a dart of hand she had turned up the middle card, exposing the ace spot, as I had anticipated. She swept the two dollars to her.
“Adios,” she bade.
He smiled, indulgent.
“So soon? Don’t I get my revenge? You, sir.” And he appealed to me. “You see how easy it is. I’ll throw you a turn for a dollar, two dollars, five dollars—anything to combine business and pleasure. 117Whether I win or lose I don’t care. You’ll follow the lead of the lady? What?”
I was on fire to accept, but she stayed me.
“Not now. I’m showing him around, Bob. You’ll get your revenge later. Good-bye. I’ve drummed up trade for you.”
As if inspired by the winning several of the bystanders, some newly arrived, had money in their hands, to stake. So we strolled on; and I was conscious that the youth’s brown eyes briefly flicked after us with a peculiar glint.
“Yours,” she said, extending the coins to me.
I declined.
“No, indeed. It is part of my tuition. If you will play I will stake.”
She also declined.
“I can’t have that. You will at least take your own money back.”
“Only for another try, madam,” I assented.
“In that case we’ll find a livelier game yonder,” said she. “Bob’s just a lazy boy. His game is a piker game. He’s too slow to learn from. Let us watch a real game.”