Jesse's Narrative
Being married to a lady, and full of dumb yearnings for reform, I axed Dale when he was down to Vancouver to dicker for a book on etiquette.Deportment for Gentsbeing threw at a policeman and soiled, Dale only paid six bits; but I tossed him double or quits, and come out all right. As to the book, it's wrote mighty high and severe by Professor Aaron E. Honeypott, but when I tried some on my wife she laughed so she rolled on the floor. I know now that when I sweats at a dance I'm not to hang my collar on the chandileer, or press bottled beer on my partner. If ever I get to a town I'm to take the outside of the sidewalk, wipe my gums on the mat, and wash before I use them roller towels. But it doesn't say when I'm to wear my boots inside my pants, or how old Honeypott chews without having to spit, or what to say when Jones kicks me in the morning, or in deadfall timber, or when a bear dislikes me, or any unusual accident in this vale of tears; and there ain't one word about robbers.
Which these robbers we got in the cave is a disappointment. This old man what leads them with a plume on his face, ought to have more deportment, for screwing a gun in Kate's ear ain't no sort of manners. Even after I'd shot his hand to chips, he grabbed Ransome's gun with his left and tried to make me lie down. There's some folks jest don't know when you give them a hint.
And Bull, with the sad eyes, ought to comport himself around like a Honeypott, seeing the way he was raised, and how he claims on me his ancient friendship. While we lashed his thumbs behind him, he told us he'd been educated at Oxford and Cambridge.
"What!" Kate flashed out, "after leaving Eton and Harrow?"
"Yes, and I've enough education to guess this ain't no way to treat American citizens. You'll hear of this," he shouted, "from Uncle Sam!"
"Thar," says Dale, "I knew there'd be rewards for you, dead or alive. How much? Two thousand dollars a head?"
Then old Whiskers ordered this Bull to shut his head. He's a curious, slow, mournful voice, like a cat with the toothache.
"I demand—"
"Shut up."
So Bull shut up while we lashed him, likewise young Ginger and the greaser. Seeing the fellow I'd killed might want an inquest, we laid him straight in the ruined shack, and then marched our prisoners off to South Cave, where they'll wait until we get our constable to arrest them.
Now on the second day after we captures these ladrones, along toward supper, the depositions of the various parties is as follows, viz.:
Up to the ruined shack two mile north of my home, lies the remains of one robber expecting an inquest. Two miles south, right where the upper cliff cuts off the end of our pasture, there's our cave full of captured bandits, to wit; Whiskers, Bull Durham, Ginger, and the dago. Down on the bench in front of the cave is our guard-camp with Iron Dale in command, and Kate with the boys having supper. Right home at the ranch house is mefinishing my chores, and the widow spoiling hash for my supper, because she hates me worse nor snakes for being a Protestant. Away off beyond the horizon is old man Brown cussing blue streaks 'cause he can't find much constable.
Such being the combinations at supper-time, along comes the widow's orphan, young Billy O'Flynn, who handles my pack contract with the Sky-line. He's supposed to be on duty at the guard-camp, and his riding back to the home ranch completely disarranges the landscape. I'm busy, hungry, and expected to take charge of the night guard at the cave, but somehow this Billy attracts my attention by acting a whole lot suspicious. Instead of bringing me some message from Dale, he rides straight to the lean-to kitchen, steps off his pony, and whispers for his mother. I sneaks through the house to the kitchen in time to see this widow with a slip of paper, brown paper what we used to wrap up the prisoners' lunch. At sight of me she gets modest, shoving it into the stove, but I becomes prominent, and grabs it "Shure," she explains, "an' it's only a schlip av paper!"
Seems to be scratches on the smooth side of this paper, sort of reminding me that Bull has a fountainpen sticking out of his vest pocket. If he's been writing with milk, I'd warm the paper—but no, we use canned milk, and haven't got any either. I've heard faintly somewheres of things wrote in spittle, so I pours on a bottle of ink, and rinses the paper in the water-butt. Yes, there's the message plain as print.
"Gun to hand, but cartridges wrong size, no good. Get .45. Billy to wait with ponies under nearest pine N. of cave, when plough above N. Star. Send more gum for chief's wound.—Bull."
"Gun to hand, but cartridges wrong size, no good. Get .45. Billy to wait with ponies under nearest pine N. of cave, when plough above N. Star. Send more gum for chief's wound.—Bull."
Billy was mounting at the door to put out for solitude, but since he knows I can't miss under two hundred yards, he was persuaded to come into the cabin. There I read him some of the etiquette about keeping his temper, and not using coarse language. Also I told him politely what I thought of him, and where he'll go when he dies. He waited, stroking the little fur on his muzzle, till I got through, looking so damned patient with me that I came near handing him one in the eye.
"You invited these robbers to my grass?"
He nodded.
"Thanks to you, my wife had a gun muzzle screwed round in her ear."
"Bet she squinted!" said Billy.
If I lose my temper, I can't shoot, and Billy knew that well. "She's up agin it good and hard," said he.
"Agin what?"
"Making a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
"You lop-eared, mangy, pig-faced, herring-gutted son of a ——"
"From theEtiquette?" asked Billy. "I don' think much of you, anyway. Mother ain't got no use for you either, or any of the neighbors, you old cow thief!"
Now if Billy talked so big as all that, it must be to astonish his mother. So she must be at the key-hole, and sure enough I heard her grind her stump with the backache from stooping down. Happens Mrs. Smith has a garden squirt which it holds a gallon, so while I kep' young Billy interested with patches of etiquette, I took off the rose, filled the squirt, and let drive through the key-hole into the widow's ear. At that she lifted up her voice and wept.
Feeling better, I resumed the conversation."Billy," sez I, smooth as cream, while I filled the squirt, "on the shelf there you'll find a little small bottle." In my dim way I aimed to get him excited, and talkative, divulging secrets with all his heart. Then afterward I'd like him asleep, out of mischief.
"Get your bottle yourself," says he, sort of defiant, so I let drive at him with the squirt.
"If you please," said I, and he got the bottle all right.
"If you don't mind," said I, "will you just draw the cork?"
"And if I won't?"
I took my squirt and watched him pull the cork.
"Thank you," sez I, seeing how beautiful is the uses of true politeness. "Now may I trouble you to spill what's left in the bottle into that there goblet? Now be so kind."
"I refuse!"
The squirt won't scare any more Billy, so I exhibits my gun.
"I regrets to remark, Mr. O'Flynn, that this gun acts sort of sudden."
"Shoot, and you go to jail!"
"But first, my dear young friend, I've time to lop off a few fingers, one at a time—won't miss them allat once. May I request you to pour out the medicine? No—not on the floor, please, but into the goblet, while I observe that your right thumb seems tender after that cut, and ought to be treated. So, a little more. That's right. Now honor me by adding a little water from the pitcher. Thank you. Thumb feeling easier? Well, that there laudanum soothes the fractious infant, and causes a whole lot of repose. Quite sweet without sugar. Yes, please, you'll lift the goblet to your mouth while I watch that nothing goes wrong with your pug nose. You want to throw back your head, you treacherous swine. Drink, or I'll splash your brains on the floor!"
"I daren't! It's poison!"
"It's bullets—you'd better! Drink, or I'll kill you! Drink! One—two—much obliged, I'm sure. Hope you'll sleep well."
"Curse you!" he shrieked, and flung the glass at my head.
Then down came the widow like a landslide. She scratched my face, confessed my sins, sobbed over her darling Billyavick, prescribed for my future, wrung her wet frock, and made a soap emetic for her offspring all at once. It's a sure fact that widowwas plenty busy, and what with slinging that emetic at the patient, and gently introducing the lady to the kitchen cupboard, wall, I declare I didn't have a dull moment. Then distant shots brought us up all standing.
"At last!" Billy shouted, "they're off!"
"Who's off?"
"Father and his men—escaped while I kep' you in talk. Fooled, Jesse! Fooled! I fooled you to the eyes! My father's Larry O'Flynn, Captain Larry O'Flynn, captain of the outlaws!" My, there was pride in the lad! He sat on the table in the dusk, fighting to keep awake, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. "He's give me leave to join, and I'm hitting the trail to-night—hitting the trail, d'ye hear?" His eyes closed, his voice trailed off to a whisper, and then once more he roused. "I'm a wolf!" he howled. "I come from Bitter Creek! The higher up, the worse the waters, and I'm from the source! Robbery-under-arms, and don't you forget it, Mister Jesse Smith!" He rocked from side to side, gripping hard at the table, muttering threats.
Outside I could hear a rider coming swift, and Dale's voice hailing, "Jesse! Jesse!"
"Jesse," the lad was muttering, "lift his stock, and his woman, burn his ranch, and put his fires out—thatsh the way to—"
Dale had stepped from his horse, and stood in the doorway, making it dark inside. "Where in blazes are you?"
"Look," said I, and Dale watched, for the boy, dead pale, was lurching from side to side, his eyes closed, his lips still moving.
"Only drugged," said I. "Who let them robbers escape?"
"Ransome Pollock," said Dale.
"Who else?"
"Dave."
"How's his poor tooth?" says I, and Dale explained he'd been clubbed.
Young O'Flynn rolled over, and went down smash, so that I had to kneel, and try if his heart was all right. It thumped along steady and give no sign of quitting.
"I had to," said I, "old Whiskers yonder is the widow's husband, and father to this boy. He's clear grit, Iron."
"Where's the widow?"
"Resting." I heard horses come thundering out of the dusk. "Robbers broke south?"
"Yep."
"Hev they grow'd wings?"
"Nope."
"Can't swim the Fraser?"
"Bottled?" said he, cheering up.
"Some," says I. "Not corked yet. You want to make a line here quick, from the foot of the upper cliff to the edge of the river, and each man make three big fires. Then post half your men to tend fires, and the best shots to hold that line with rifles. Them robbers has got to break through when they knows they're cornered. Here's your boys, Iron. Git a move on!"
"That's so," says Dale, and in two shakes of a duck's tail he was throwing his men into line. Seems that some of the boys rode the robbers' horses, and the rest were bareback on my pack-ponies, so Kate had a fine gallop home with the mob. But when she saw what I'd prescribed for Billy's symptoms, she wasn't pleased, and by the time she'd made herself content, I had to be off on duty. Meanwhile the widow, wild and lone, had flew; so that left Katewithout help, her job being coffee to keep the boys awake till we'd daylight to corner the robbers.
Men watching on a strain like that get scary as cats, so by moonset some of our warriors would loose off guns at stumps, trees, rocks, or just because they felt lonesome. After the moon went down, dry fuel got scant, so that the fires waned, and some of our young men must have seen millions of outlaws. When at last something actually happened, it was natural that Ransome should have adventures. He wasn't built for solitude, and when he seen a flag wave from behind a bush, he called the boys from left and right to bunch in and corroborate. The flag kep' waving, and presently two more of our men had to join the bunch because they couldn't shout their good advice, lest the robbers hear every word. I was away to Apex Rock, Iron down in the cañon, and these blasted idiots talked.
Of course old Whiskers knew that antelope will always creep up to inspect any waving rag. Before the excitement was properly begun he and his robbers slipped through our broken line.
If Ransome has time to aim he's dangerous to the neighbors, but since the odds were a thousand toone the gun would kick him as far as next Thursday, I'd have bet my debts he wouldn't hit the party with that flag. Yet that's what happened. He got the widow O'Flynn.
With one heart-rending, devastating howl she went to grass, and she did surely shriek as if there was no hereafter. Murthered in the limb she was, and as I left to follow the sounds of them escaping robbers, I didn't have time to send a carpenter.
Jesse's Narrative
With creditors, women, robbers, and everything dangerous, you want to be chuck full of deportment, smooth as old Honeypott, and a whole lot tactful. Anything distractful or screeching disturbs one's peace of mind, and sends one's aplomb to blazes, just when a bear trap may happen at any moment. I traveled for all I was worth to put that widow behind me, and compose my mind.
Which her wolf howls was plumb deplorable. It wasn't her limb. Indeed, she wanted excuses for a new one ever since she seen that table limb in my barn. It was her husband, Whiskers, departing, desperate to get away from her. And I don't blame him. She was an irreverent detail anyhow, diminishing gradual into the night, for if I let them robbers once get out of hearing, they couldn't be tracked till morning. The worst of it was I'd nosmell dog; my Mick being sick with a cold and hot fermentations, had his nose out of action. No, the only thing was to get clear of the widow's concert, and keep in hearing while the outlaws traveled. I was laying a trail of torn paper, mostly unpaid bills, so that the boys could find which way I'd gone.
Maybe I'd gone a mile before remorse gnawed Whiskers because he'd abandoned the widow. He paused, and as I came surging along, he lammed me over the head with a gun.
Yes, I was captured. They got my gun, too, and marched me along between them. Mr. Bull, he yapped like a coyote, full of glory's if he'd captured me himself. What with being clubbed, and not feeling good just then, I didn't seem to be much interested, although I put up a struggle wherever the ground was muddy, leaving plenty tracks down to the ferry, so that the boys would know which way I'd been dragged.
Old man Brown was away, but as I'd left the scow on the near bank, the robbers were able to cross, and put the Fraser between me and rescue. That ought to have cheered them up, since it gave them a start of several hours toward safety, but instead of skinning out of British Columbia, as Iadvised them with powerful strong talk, they'd got to stop for breakfast on old Brown's beans and sow-belly, cussing most plenteous because he wasn't there to cook hot biscuits.
After breakfast they wasted an hour dressing his paw for old Whiskers, and wondering whether they'd waste one of my cartridges on me, or keep them all for my friends. On that I divulged a lot of etiquette out of my book. I told these misbegotten offspring they'd been brung up all wrong, or they'd have enough deportment to make tracks. "Now," says I, "in the land of the free and the home of the brave you been appreciated, whereas if you linger here till sunup you'll be shot."
That made poor Whiskers still more suspicious, wondering what sort of bear traps guileful Smith was projecting. "Wants to get us up on the bench," says he, "that means ware traps. We'll stay right here, boys, for daylight, when we'll be able to see ourselves, how to save them cattle."
"We'd better kill the prisoner," Bull argues, and this reminds me of his ancient friendship.
"Shut your fool head," says Whiskers. "His friends would rather us go free than see him killedbefore their eyes. You've no more brains than a poached owl."
"You're dead right, Whiskers!" says I. "Hair on you!"
But he being fretful with his wound, orders his men to disable Brown's fiddle, and lash me up with catgut. Moreover, when I was trussed, this Bull seen fit to kick me on the off chance, a part which ain't referred to in polite society, especially with a boot.
"Brave man!" says I, and the rest of them robbers was so shamed they got me a gag.
"Sorry," says I, "pity I won't be able to guide you to Brown's cigars. He keeps a bottle, too."
"Where are they?" says Bull.
"Gag Brooke," said I, for Bull went by that name, "and I'll divulge the drinks."
"Gag Brooke," says Whiskers, cheering up a little, "pity he weren't born gagged."
So they gagged Mr. Brooke, and mounted him on sentry while they had Brown's bottle of whisky and cigars. I got some, too.
Of course these or'nary, no-account, range wolves reckoned my friends would wait for day before they attempted tracking. Whereas Dale got the lantern,found my paper trail, and guessed at the ferry. Before we entered the cabin, I'd seen the glint of that lantern behind the rim of the bench, and I knew our boys trusted me to keep the robbers somehow down at the ferry-house. Ginger and the greaser lay down for an hour's sleep, Mr. Brooke, gagged and not at all pleased, kep' guard at the door, Whiskers, since the liquor made his wound worse, lurched groaning around the shack. At the first glint of dawn, he ordered Bull to take out the gag and lie down, then went to the door himself.
It's a pity that Dale, our leader, a sure fine shot, has a slight cast in his near eye, which throws his lead a little to the right. That's why, when Whiskers went to the door, Dale's bullet only whipped off his left ear. Instead of being grateful, Whiskers skipped around holding the side of his face, with remarks which for a poor man was extravagant. The shot made Bull bolt courageous behind the stove, to look for a bandage, he said, while Ginger and the greaser sat up on their tails looking sort of depressed. Not one of the four was happy on finding that they'd bottled themselves in the cabin instead of taking my advice and clearing for the States.
"Prisoner," says, Whiskers, dolesome, holding his poor ear, "you can talk to your friends acrost the river?"
"Why, certainly, Captain."
"What way?"
"Signaling."
"Then tell your friends that if they don't throw all their guns into the river, you die at sunrise. Have you got religion?"
"I didn't mention," says I, sort of thoughtful, "that any of my friends can read the signals."
"Then," says he, in that suicide manner he had, "they won't get your last sad words. Get them weapons thrown in the river, or grab religion right away, for you'll need it."
"Cut the catgut, Colonel."
So Ginger cut me free.
"Show a white flag, General," said I.
So Ginger waved a paper on a stick, and Dale replied with a white scarf from his neck.
When I walked out, the boys acrost the river gave three cheers, but I was halted from behind before I'd got far sideways. "Now," says Whiskers, "signal, and pray that you won't be tempted to send erroneous messages."
"Remember," Bull shouts, "I can read Morse. No fooling."
"All right, Mr. Brooke," I called back, "then I'll use semaphore."
I heard Whiskers in tears directing his two youngsters to put Mr. Brooke's head in the meal sack, and sit hard on top. So I began to signal, explaining each word to Whiskers.
Swim."That," says I, "means 'Dale.'"
Pool."That's 'fool,'" says I, "because he don't give the answer."
Below."That's 'Hello.'"
Rapids."That's 'Hello' again."
"You lie," says Whiskers, miserable, through his teeth. "You made six letters."
"Sorry," says I, "it got spelt wrong first time."
Float."That's 'skunk,'" says I, "because he's a polecat not to answer me."
Guns.
"What's that?" asked Whiskers, heaps suspicious because I couldn't think of another word of four letters. "Hell!" says I.
"Quite right," sighed Whiskers, "to think of your future home."
Dale signaled,Coming.
"Says he's ready for the Epistle and Gospel now. Spit it out, Whiskers."
"Tell him to throw his guns in the river, or I'll shoot prisoner. And what's more, young man, you don't want to call me Whiskers."
I wagged all that, word for word, as far as "Whiskers," and when the boys were through laughing, Dale asked if the robbers were serious.
I explained to the general that Dale wouldn't wet good guns to please a lot of—
"Lot of what?"
"Terms of endearment," says I, "which I blushes for Dale's morals."
Dale signaled,Keep your tail up.
"Well, General," says I, "without being able to read him exact, I guess Dale ain't drawing his men off along the bank with your outfit to shoot them like rabbits the moment they quit cover."
"Tell Dale," said Whiskers in his tired voice, "he needn't trouble to take his men along the bank to whar they can swim the river. Now if you had religion—"
I could have choked with grief.
"Tell Dale," says Whiskers, and his bereaved voice kind of jarred me now, "we're just goin' tokeep a gun at your ear-hole while we march up the trail. If Dale's men fire, your wife will be a widow, Mr. Smith."
At that I wagged my arms and signaled.No call to get wet. Hold-ups marching to Georgia. Kill man with gun. If you miss, ware Widow Smith.You see if Dale squinted and missed, my widow was apt to reproach. So I added,Allow windage for squint.
Dale answered,You bet your life I will.
Then I swung round facing the cabin, and saw the barrel of my own revolver just peering round the door. By its height from the ground I judged that poor young Ginger was the artist. I wished it had been Bull, for I'd taken a fancy to Ginger.
"Well, gents," says I, "your umbrellas is in the hat rack. All aboard for Robbers' Roost, and don't forget the lunch."
Talking encourages me, and it seemed even betting whether me or Ginger was booked right through to glory. Yes, I talked to gain time for Ginger, and for me a little, even persuading the robbers to take no risks. I forgot how them sort of cattle drives by contraries. I only set their minds on coming, and heard their boss give orders.
He wanted me into the cabin, but I'd taken a dislike to catgut, so Ginger got orders to shoot me. At that I flared up. "Shoot," says I, "you skulking cowards, scared to show your noses at the door. Hold your off ear, Whiskers. Charge, you curs!"
The chief came first, straight at me, and seemed to climb over my foot on to his nose. Mr. Bull Brooke got hurt on the nose too, and I'd just time to hand the greaser a left hander behind the ear, before I went down on top of Whiskers, and the four of us rolled in a heap. I learned when I was a sailor how to argue.
Then I struggled, dragging my pile of robbers off sideways, so that to keep me covered with the gun, poor Ginger showed his red head in the doorway. It was his life or mine, yet when the shot rang out from across the river, and I saw the lad come crashing to the ground, I felt sort of sick. Of course that shot slacked the grip of the three robbers, so I wrenched loose, struck hard, and jumped high, gaining the north wall of the cabin. When I turned round, our boys across the river were pouring hot lead after the robbers as they dived through the door of the shack. Ginger sprawled dead on the door-step, and my gun, six paces off, lay in the dust. The robbers were disarmed, and I was free.
"Boys," I called out to them, "you done like men. You put up a good fight and it ain't no shame to surrender."
Mr. Bull Brooke's voice answered.
"Jesse, old friend!"
I heard a crash inside and guessed that Mr. Brooke had been discouraged.
"Whiskers," I called, "don't make a mess of that cabin with Mr. Brooke."
"All right, young fellow," said Whiskers, "we've only put him back in the flour sack."
He spoke quite cheerful.
"Say, Whiskers," I called, "I want to save your lives, you and the greaser. Come and throw up your hands before you're hurt."
There was no answer. Rocky Mountain outlaws may be mean and bad, but they fight like Americans, and they know how to die. I'd only one way left to force their surrender, and save their lives, so I hustled brushwood, cord-wood, coal-oil from the shed, piled up the fuel, and got a sulphur match from the bunch in my hind pocket.
"Boys," I called, "Old Brown sort of values this place. It's all the home he's got, and it ain't insured."
No answer.
The little flame lep' up and caught the brushwood, the crackling lifted to a roar, and the robbers must surely know that their time was come, for if they showed at the door they would be shot. I grabbed my gun from the ground and ran to the doorway to stop our boys from firing. Then I shouted above the noise of the flames, "Come out and throw up your hands!"
They came, poor fellows, and I made them prisoners, marching them down to the ferry.
Kate's Narrative
At Hundred Mile House the long table had been removed from the dining hall, the benches set back to the log walls, and at the head of the room an enormous Union Jack draped a very small portrait of Queen Victoria. Beneath was the chair, in front of it a table set with writing materials and the Bible, while at one end the schoolma'am looked very self-conscious as clerk, in official black, with large red bows like signals of distress.
On the right sat Iron Dale, Jesse, and myself, and all our posse, very ill at ease. On the left were two gaunt American stockmen, both wearing hats, while one had the star of a United States marshal. Beside them sat the general public, consisting of Tearful George, two ranch-hands, an Indian, and the captain's bulldog. Wee James, the captain's grandson, sat with the dog at first, but presently he interrupted the court to say that he would like to sit on me. He sat with considerable weight for so small a person.
At Captain Taylor's entrance the constable ordered us all to stand. Every inch a naval officer, bluff, ruddy, cheery, choleric, frightfully impressive in a frock coat, he wore a Russian order slung by a ribbon at his throat, and a little row of miniature war medals, the ribbons, alas, too small to show me of which campaigns. At sight of the two strangers he mounted a single eye-glass, and stared with growing wrath until they removed their hats. Then, taking the chair, he permitted us to be seated and ordered his constable to "Bring the prisoners aft."
Had our captives been washed and brushed, they might not have looked so wretched or so guilty. Old O'Flynn, described by Jesse as Whiskers, with his head in a blood-stained bandage, his right hand in a gory handkerchief, looked so ill that he was given a seat. The Mexican, whose beautiful leather dress, and soft dark eyes reminded me sharply of the opera-house, seemed like a trapped wolf, only thinking of escape to the nearest woods. Bull Durham's swaggering gallantry was marred by obvious traces of the flour sack wherein he had been immersed by hisdisgusted chief, and the shower of rain which followed.
"Prisoners," said the magistrate.
At that moment the United States marshal squirted tobacco juice, adroitly hitting a spittoon distant some fourteen feet.
"Constable," said the magistrate austerely, "remove that person until he has washed his mouth." Every man present had been furtively chewing tobacco, but no one who knew Captain Taylor in his official mood would have presumed to spit. Every jaw became rigid, every eye looked reproachfully at the marshal, who rose protesting in stately sentences that he represented the majesty of the people.
"Take his majesty out," said the captain with dreadful calmness, "and put him under the pump."
The representative of the stock associations rose to support his countryman.
"Clap them in irons," said the captain. "I'll have no spitting on my quarter deck."
Jesse and Dale rose to assist the constable, and for some stirring moments we were threatened with international complications. Then in his quaint slow drawl my husband obtained leave to address the magistrate. "I got an American book right here,"said he, "in my hind pocket. It's calledDeportment for Gents. In real high-toned society, this Honeypott claims that Amurrican gentlemen chews, but reserves the juice until they happens on a yaller dawg. Then they assists that dawg with his complexion."
The marshal stooped to pet the captain's bulldog.
"I'd help this yaller purp," said he, with a grave smile, "if I'd thicker pants."
The captain chuckled and the case went on, our visitors having "allowed that they didn't propose to chew in a court of justice."
"Prisoners," said our justice of the peace, laying his hand on the Bible, "this book contains the only law I know. I'm not here as judge or lawyer, but as one of Her Majesty's officers trusted to do the sporting thing, and to deal fairly and squarely with three innocent men who have the misfortune to be charged with crime. You've only to prove to me that you're innocent, and I have power to let you go free. But I warn you to tell the truth."
"Seems a square deal, Cap," said Whiskers.
"It is a square deal. Now, would you like to have some one of your countrymen as prisoners' friend?"
Whiskers looked reproachfully at the UnitedStates marshal who demanded his extradition, and the representative of stock associations who offered fabulous rewards for his body "dead or alive."
"Wall," he drawled, "not exactly."
"You other prisoners. Do you accept this man as your spokesman?"
"Si, señor."
"That's all right," said Bull.
"Prisoner O'Flynn, you are charged with assaulting a woman, you others with aiding and abetting. Guilty or not guilty?"
"It's a fact," said Whiskers sadly, "and all three of us wishes to say what's got to be said"—he drew himself up to his full height—"by gentlemen! We tried to force a lady to give her husband away. She shamed us, and we honors Mrs. Smith for what she done. She told us to go to blazes. Yes, sir! We just owns up that we're guilty as hell, as the best way of showing our respect."
"Gentlemen," Captain Taylor spoke very gently. "I understand that you, O'Flynn, received two wounds in punishment, and that two of your comrades were killed by the men who avenged this affront. Is that true?"
"It's a fact."
"The verdict of the court is, 'not guilty.'
"But prisoner, your confession proves the right of the settlers to organize for defense of the settlement until the constable could be brought to their help. All you settlers who have taken part in the capture of these prisoners are engaged by the province as special constables from the day you undertook service, until I give you your discharge. You will be paid on such a scale as I direct.
"Rudolf Schweinfurth."
The marshal came forward and was sworn.
"You are a United States marshal?"
"Yes, your honor."
"You submit proof?"
The marshal's credentials were read.
"You claim these prisoners for extradition?"
"Yes, sir."
"Sit down. Cyrus Y. Jones." The other stockman was sworn. "You are representative of certain stock associations and submit proof? Right. You claim certain cattle alleged to be stolen, and found in possession of the prisoners? Right. You submit photographs identifying certain of these cattle and evidence of theft. And you offer twenty-five thousand dollars' reward for recovery of the stock. Pay that money into court and take my receipt.
"Prisoners, you are charged in your own country with robbery-under-arms and homicide in various degrees. Now, I don't pretend to understand to what particular degree you may or may not have murdered people, but it seems to me that being killed even to a very slight extent must be damned inconvenient. I don't want to know whether you're guilty or not guilty, because it's no business of mine. I do know that this official who claims you represents the republic. I have plenty of evidence that you were found in this country under suspicious circumstances, and that you proceeded to make yourselves a general nuisance. If I committed you for vagrancy or assault, it would delay you in a business which you must have deeply at heart. I know that if I were charged with a tenth part of these crimes I'd never sleep until I proved my innocence. Do you or do you not wish to prove your innocence?"
The prisoners scratched their heads.
"Marshal," said the magistrate. "I don't know what my powers are in this matter, but it's evident that the less red tape there is the sooner these men will get the justice they rightly demand. I don'twant them. Give me a receipt and engage what men you need for escort duty. You, Mr. Representative, give me your receipt for the cattle. Now clear out, and get to the States before you're interfered with by any lop-eared officials. Constable, hand over your prisoners.
"Mr. Dale and Mr. Smith, will you trust me as magistrate to make a fair division of this reward? All right. One-quarter goes to Dale, one-quarter to Smith, and the other half to be equally divided among you. Is that fair? All right, here's the plunder. Let's get the table in and dinner served. I'm famished."
So the court rose, and the dear old captain, having, I believe, broken every statute in British Columbia jurisprudence, asked all hands and the prisoners to dinner. "Of course," he said afterward to Jesse, "I ought to have committed you and Dale to trial for homicide, fined you all round for using guns without a license, turned the lawyers loose on a fat extradition case, and impounded the cattle to eat my grass at government expense. As it is, I'll be hanged, drawn, and quartered by the politicians, damned by the press, and jailed for thrashing editors. And I missed all the fun."
After dinner the crowd broke up into little groups. In one corner the American officials were bargaining with Mr. Dale for his Sky-line men to ride with the prisoners and the cattle. By the door stood Mr. Brooke, explaining something at great length to our bored constable. At the head of the long table Captain Taylor was telling me how difficult it was to find a suitable nursery governess for Wee James. At the foot of the table I saw the Mexican whispering to his unfortunate chief—plans for escape, no doubt. Then Jesse joined them, with a present of pipes, matches, and tobacco to ease their journey.
"Mr. Smith," said poor old O'Flynn, "this yere Sebastian Diaz has been with me these twelve year. He's only a greaser—"
"Medio Sangre, señor!" said the half-breed proudly.
"But he's got the heart of a white man. He's like a son to me."
"I'm proud," said Jesse, "to make your acquaintance, both of you. You are men, all right."
"We fought the rich men what had wronged us, them and their breed. We put up a good fight. Yes, sir! And we wouldn't have missed a mile ofthat twelve years' trail. It wasn't our way to insult women, Mr. Smith."
"You had to git that information somehow," said Jesse, "and Mrs. Smith forgives you."
The old man bowed his head.
"Muchos gracias, caballero!" said the Mexican, gently.
"That's off our minds, Mr. Smith."
"Mostly known as Jesse," said my husband.
"Jesse. We bin consulting, and we agree you're the only man here we'd care to ask favors of."
"I'm your friend all right."
"Jesse, if we don't escape, we are due to pass in our chips."
"I'm not going to help you escape."
"Wall, you haven't helped our escape to any great extent, so far as I know."
Jesse chuckled.
"But I'm asking you to look after my wife and my son."
"I'll do that."
"You'll save the boy from his father's trade?"
"I reckon."
"Put her thar."
And they shook hands.
"Them horses we was riding," said the outlaw, "is for my son."
"That's all right."
"And one thing more. This yere Brooke ain't white."
"You don't say!"
The outlaw grinned. "You sized him up all right. He joined us out of a Wild West show last fall. He's never done nothin' to earn hanging or jail, being too incompetent. But he's state's evidence enough to hang us twenty times over. He'll get off.
"Moreover, Jesse, take a dying man's word. That Brooke has an eye on your good lady. He's your enemy from times far back at Abilene. He'll live to do you dirt. Thar, I sort of hates to talk so of one of my men, and I won't say no more.
"Say, my hands being hurt, will you just reach into my off hind pocket? That's right. There's a gold watch. Take it, my time's up. Give that to your lady from us as a sort of keepsake. Good-by, partner."
"Good-by, friend."
"Adios," said the Mexican. "Vaya usted con Dios!" And the English of that is, "May you ride with God!"
From the other end of the room Captain Taylor and I were watching that little scene. Without hearing a word we could understand so well. "Young woman," said the captain, "when I was a younger fool than I am now, I was a naval attaché at St. Petersburg. I'd seen how the Russian Bear behaved at Sebastopol and I liked to watch how he behaved in the Winter Palace. One day a Cossack officer and his son came to make an appeal. Mrs. officer had been a puss and bolted with one of the court officials, so her husband and son wanted leave to go after the man with their guns. They were so miserable that they sat at a table and took no notice of anybody or anything. After they'd been sitting a long time, a man came and laid down a case of dueling pistols on the table beside them. I couldn't hear what he said, but he sat down with them. Presently I saw him shake hands with the general.
"Now your husband put something on the table, and sat down with those wretched prisoners, and presently shook hands with one of them.
"Your husband and that Russian chap did the very same things in the very same way. Yes, you've married a gentleman by mistake."
I was puzzled. "Who was the Russian?" I asked.
"Oh, didn't I tell you? He was the emperor."
After a minute, while I watched my royal man, the captain laid his hand on mine. "Don't let these loafers see you crying," he whispered.
"I'm not crying." I looked round to prove that I was not crying, and as I did so, my glance fell upon the old man's miniature medals. One of them was the Victoria Cross.
Kate's Narrative
Both Jesse and I have a habit of committing our thoughts to paper and not to speech. Things written can be destroyed, whereas things said stay terribly alive. I think if other husbands and wives I know of wrote more and talked less, their homes would not feel so dreadful, so full of horrible shadows. There are houses where I feel ill as soon as I cross the door-step, because the very air of the rooms is foul with the spite, the nagging, the strife of bitter souls. As to the houses where horrors have taken place—despair, madness, murder, suicide—these are always haunted, and sensitive people are terrified by ghosts.
My pen has rambled. I sat down to write a thing which must not be said.
Jesse is cruel to young O'Flynn. Perhaps he is justly, rightly cruel, in gibing at this young cow-boy, taunting him until the lad is on the very edge of murder. "Got to be done," says Jesse, "I promised his father that I'd break the colt until he's fed up with robbers. So just you watch me lift the dust from his hide, and don't you git gesticulating on my trail with your fool sympathies." Billy does not suspect that the tormentor loves his victim.
My heart aches with his humiliation. His mother is my cook, not a princess, as the boy's pride would have her. His father was one of the most dangerous leaders of the Rocky Mountain outlaws, so there the lad saw glory, and I don't blame him. But all the glamour was stripped away when Jesse tricked O'Flynn and his gang into surrender, handed them over to justice, and showed poor Billy his sordid heroes for what they really were. His father has been hanged.
Remember that this ranch, ablaze with romance for me, is squalid every-day routine for Billy, whose dreams are beyond the sky-line. He imagines railways as we imagine dragons, and the Bloomsbury boarding-house from which my sister wrote on her return from India is, from his point of view, a place in the Arabian Nights. I read to him Taddy's letter, about the new boarder from Selangor, whois down with fever, the German waiter caught reading Colonel Boyce's manuscript on protective color for howitzers, the tweeny's sailor father drowned at sea, and the excitement in that humdrum house when Lady Blacktail called. "Wish I'd had a shot," said Billy wistfully, his mind on the black-tail, our local kind of deer. Perhaps he saw forest behind the boarding-house. "In the old country," said he, "do the does call? Only the buck calls here. Your folks is easy excited, anyways."
"Lady Blacktail," said I, "is a woman."
"What was she shouting about?"
"She just called—came to take tea, you know."
"Got no job of work?"
"Oh, but her husband, Sir Tom, was a very rich man. He left her millions."
"Mother's first husband," said Billy, his mind running on widows, "had lots of wealth. He kep' a seegar stand down-town near the Battery, and had a brass band when they buried him. Mother came out West."
That night the lad had come from Hundred Mile House, with Jesse's pack-train bearing a load of stores. There was a dress length, music for my dear dumpy piano, spiced rolls of bacon, muchneeded flour and groceries, and an orange kerchief for Billy. From his saddle wallets he produced my crumpled letters and the weekly paper, a Vancouver rag. Therein Jesse labors among tangles of provincial politics, I gloat over the cooking recipes of America's nice cuisine, and spare maybe just a sigh over the London letter. Billy's portion consists of blood-curdling disasters and crimes, and the widow waits ravenous for her kindling, bed stuffing, wall paper, and new pads for her wooden leg. At ten cents that paper is a bargain.
She hovered presiding while her boy had supper, I checked stores against an untruthful invoice, and Jesse prepared to read: "Bribed with a Bridge! Who Stole the Bonds," etc. Dear Jesse takes his reading seriously. His mind must be prepared with a pipe. His stately spectacles are cleaned on his neck-cloth, and so mounted that he can see to read over the edges. Next he crawls under the stove to find the bootjack, and pull off his long boots. After that he fills the lamp, lights that and a cigar of fearful pungency, and settles his great limbs in the chair of state. When all was arranged that night he looked up from his paper. "Say," he drawled, "Billy. When you ride away and turnrobber, what's the matter with politics? You see if you was Sir Billy O'Flynn, and a Right Honorable Premier, you could steal enough to buy spurs as big as car wheels. You're fiercer than our member already with that new cow-scaring scarf, so all you'd need is a machine gun slung on your belt, a man-killer like my mare Jones, and you'll be the tiger of the forest. You git yo' mother's cat to learn you how to yowl."
After breakfast when Jesse had gone to work, the widow came to me in deep distress, leaning against the door-post, twisting up her apron with tremulous fingers, her eyes dark with dread. When I led her to a seat, perhaps she felt my sympathy, for a flood of tears broke loose, and wild Irish mixed with her sobs. The leprechawn possessed her bhoyavick, night-riders haunted him, divils was in himacushla, and the child was fey. His step-uncle went fey to his end in the dreadful quicksands, her brother-in-law went mad in the black Indian hills, running on the spears of the haythen, rest his sowl, and now Billy! He was gone this hour. Fiercely she ordered me out tosearch, for she would take the southern pasture, so surely I would find him in the pines. She feared that place; muttered of fires lighted by no mortal hands. She spoke of wandering lights; the cat had bristled sparks flying from his coat because of elfin voices, and Mick had howled all night down at the Apex. Yestreen a falling star had warned her that she was to lose her bhoy, and had I not seen that face in the windy last night?
Soothing the poor thing as best I could, I undertook the search, glad of an excuse to get away outdoors. Presently I came upon Billy perched on a root overhanging the depths of the cañon. He was cleaning Jesse's rifle, and I surprised him in a fit of angry laughter.
"Billy," I shouted, "come in off that root before you fall!"
He obeyed, with sulky patience at my whims.
"Why are you not at work? What are you doing with my husband's rifle?"
"I'm at work," he answered sulkily,—then with an odd vagueness of manner, "I'm cleaning the durned thing."
Being a woman, and cursed at that with the artistic temperament, I could not help being moved bythis lad's extraordinary beauty,—the curly red-gold hair, skin with the dusty block of a ripe peach, the poise of easy power and lithe grace, the sense he gave me of glowing color veiling rugged strength. As an artist studies a good model, I had observed very closely the moods of Billy's temperament.
His mother was right. That vagueness of manner was abnormal, and the lad was fey.
"But why are you cleaning his rifle?"
"It kicks when it's foul," he said absently.
"You're off hunting?"
"Goin' to shoot Jesse, thet's all."
"I'm sure," I said, "he cleaned it yesterday. Look here," and I took the rifle to show him it was clean. "See." I put my little finger nail in the breech while he looked down the barrel. "Come," said I, and told him that in my sewing-machine there was a bottle of gun oil. The rifle was in my possession, safe.
Then he heard Jesse coming. "Whist! Hide the gun!" he said, and as though we were fellow conspirators, I placed it behind a tree, so that my man saw nothing to cause alarm.
Jesse came, it seemed, in search of Billy.
"Hello, Kate," he said in greeting. "Say, youngster, when you sawed off that table leg to make your mother's limb, what did you do with the caster?"
I wonder how many persons live in Jesse's body? On the surface he is the rugged whimsical stockman, lazy, with such powers in reserve as would equip a first-class volcano. Sing to him and another Jesse emerges, an inarticulate poet, a craftless artist, an illiterate writer, passionate lover of all things beautiful in art and nature. And beneath all that is Jesse of the Sabbath, in bleak righteousness and harsh respectability, scion of many Smiths, the God-fearing head of his house, who reads and expounds the Scriptures on Sunday evenings to sullen Billy, the morose widow, and my unworthy self. Hear him expound in the vindictive mood:—
"When I survey the pasture in these here back blocks of Genesis, I know we got to make allowances. These patriarchs is only sheepmen anyhow, and sheep herders is trash. They're not what wecall white men, but Jews, which is a species of dago. When they get religion they're a sort Mormons, a low-lived breed, yet useful for throwing population quick into a lonesome country where they don't seem popular.
"Now here's Laban. He hasn't got religion, but keeps a trunk full of no-account gods, believed in by ignorant persons. Instead of attending to business, he trusts his foreman Jacob, so it serves him right if he's robbed. Yet the Lord ain't down on him quite so much as you'd think, for he's allowed to graze government land, with no taxes, mortgage, or railroads to rob the meat off his bones. Maybe the Lord's sort of sorry for the poor sheep-herding dago without no horses—the same being good for men's morals, though Jones did kick me out of the stable this very morning. Moreover, Laban lives in a scope of country where men is surely scarce, or he'd never give more'n one of his daughters to such a swine as Jacob. Laban tries to be white, so he'd get my vote at elections.
"You'd think that if the Lord could stand Jacob He must be plumb full of mercy—so there's hope for skunks. He's got so many millions of thoroughbred stud angels that even the best of men is lowgrade stock to Him. And regarding us mavericks, He has an eye on them as takes kindly to their feed. Yes, He claps His brand on them as know their work.
"So He sees Jacob is a sure glutton, and more, a great stockman, projucing an improved strain of ringstraked goats and sheep. And Jacob does his duty to his country, begetting twelve sons—mean as snakes but still the best he can raise. Yes, there's excuses for Jacob, and lynching ain't yet invented.
"Jacob throws dirt in old man Laban's face, then skins out for his own reservation. On this trail he's got to cross Esau's ranch—the first man he ever swindled. Just you watch him, abject as a yaller dawg, squirming and writhing and crawling to meet the only gentleman in that country. You or me, Billy, would have kicked Jacob good and plenty, but we're only scrub cow-boys, and that's what the Bible instructs.
"The mean trash agrees to keep off Laban's grass; he puts up bribes to Esau; he plays his skin game on the folks at Succoth, which I explain because there's ladies present, and the only comfort is that the angel of the Lord has sized him up, being due to twist his tail in next Sunday's chapter. Nowlet us get through praying, quick as the Lord will let us, because them calves ain't had their buttermilk."
When we knelt, the widow still sat rigid, and with her wooden leg scratched out upon the oil-cloth vague outlines of a gallows. Afterward she explained. "Yer husband, Mrs. Smith, bad cess to him, is mighty proud av his spectacles, phwat he can't see through and all, and showing off his learning and pride av a Sunday."
"But why draw gallows on the floor?"
"And why for should I not draw gallows on the flure, seeing he'll never drown? It's hung he'll be for a opprissing the fatherless and the widow, and burn he will afther for a Protestant. Yis," she flashed round on her son, "feed buttermilk to thim calves, and hould up yer headalladh, 'cause you inherit glory while he's frying!"
Away from the widow's hate and her son's vengeance, I led my man out under the stars. I gave him his cigar, that black explosive charged with deadly fumes, lighted him a sulphur match. It soothes his passions, and the pasture scent makes him gentle, but when I fear my grizzly bear, and hardly dare to stroke, I lead him by the keen silver spring,across the hollow where our flowers would make a devil smile, and on through the wild rose tangle, to my cathedral pines. To-night he seemed suspicious, even there, biting off tags of the vindictive Psalms. Nor would he sit under the father tree until I sang to him.
"When Faith's low doorway leads into the church,Light from austere saints mellows dusty gloom,Sad music echoes in the stony heavens,And this bleak pavement masks a charnel hell.Yet in man's likeness God makes Pain divineAnd here Truth's dawn breaks upwards towards the Light.Come to the hill-top: blackbird choristersPeal their clear anthem to the kneeling gorse;The old trees pray, their thirsty faces rapt,While congregations of great angel cloudsReceive the holy Sacramental LightFrom God's high priest, the ministering Sun!"
"What do you want?" asked Jesse, all the rancor gone.
"Jesse, do you know that it's nearly a year since we married?"
"Ten months, Kate, and fourteen days. Do you think I don't reckon?"
I sat down on the root of the little governess tree, the humblest in the grove. "In the Bible, dear, who was the son of Jesse?"
"David, of course."
"Do you remember, dear: 'for I have provided a king among his sons'?"
He looked away across the thundrous misty depths of the cañon, and the moonlight caught his profile as though it were etched in silver. "A mighty valiant man," he whispered, "prudent in matters, and a man of war."
"Jesse, I've got such a confession to make. When you settled Mr. Trevor's estate—"
"His estates were debts, and we paid 'em. There ain't no need to fuss."
"You paid the debts. You were hard driven to meet the interest on your mortgage."
"That's paid off now. Besides we've a clear title to our land, mother's gravestone's off my chest, we don't owe a cent in the world, and there's nary a worry left, except I'm sort of sorry for them poor robbers. Why fuss?"
"You earned six thousand dollars, at goodness knows what peril. I let you still imagine that you were poor."
"We got plenty wealth, Kate, wealth enough for—for David."
"I wanted you, Jesse, just you, I wanted poverty because you were poor. I have been content, and now you've won the capital to free the ranch, to buy a thoroughbred stallion, to stock the place."
"That's so."
"Jesse, under my dear father's will, I have seven thousand five hundred dollars a year."
"Awhat!"
"I'm a rich woman, dear. I've been saving my income, and there's ten thousand dollars for you at the bank."
So I gave him my check, which he receipted promptly with a kiss. He is so rough, too.
Then we discussed improvements. A bunch of East Oregon horses, three cow-boys to handle our stock, a man to run the Sky-line contract, an irrigated corn field, and winter feed, two Chinese servants, so many 'must haves' that we waxed quite despondent over ways and means. Jesse must go to Vancouver on business, and thus after much preamble I came at last to the point.
"Take Billy with you."
"But if I go, he's got to look after the ranch."
Men are so stupid. When I sing to my dear bull pines, they breathe a swaying thin echo like some distant chorus; yet at the sight of Jesse, become impassive as red Indian chiefs. How could I tell such a man of peril? The widow understands, and no sacrifice is too great for a mother.
"You preach at Billy," I said, "you pray at him. Remember he's wild as these woods, son of a dangerous felon. His mother goads him on, and there's danger, Jesse."
I knew while I spoke the folly of appealing to any sense of fear. He chuckled softly.
"Why, Billy daresn't say good morning to my pinto colt. He was bucking plentiful to-day, and me spitting blood before I got him conquered. Now just you leave me to tame colts and cow-boys. I propose to rub old man Jacob into Billy by way of liniment until he supples, yes, and works. Dreams earn no grub."
"Take him away, Jesse, dear."
"He bin making love to you, Kate?"
My heart stood still, and to my jealous husband silence means consent. Two bats came darkly by, with a business manner, having perhaps an appointment with some field mouse. Then the hypocritein me sighed, and Jesse flinging away his cigar stub, said with an oath that Billy should be on his way to Vancouver by daybreak.
Yes, Jesse is hard to manage, but presently he remembered about the check, which made him for the first time in his life feel rich. He's too rough when I let him love me. Indeed I had to do up my hair in the dark, though the fireflies offered the dearest little lamps. Besides a little jealousy is good for Jesse. I should not like to see his love go hungry.
Last night Jesse came home from Vancouver, and it being Sunday evening, he read and expounded the Scriptures to the amazement of the three new ranch-hands. The Chinamen, being heathens, were let off.
"Not being wise in the ways of high society, I ain't free to comment on Mrs. Potiphar, who kep' a steward instead of doing her job as housekeeper, or on this General Sir Something Potiphar, C.O.D., C.P.R., H.B.C., P.D.Q., commanding the Haw-Haw Guards, who seems to neglect his missus. As a plain stockman I pursues after Joseph."
By this time three godless cow-punchers, crimson with suppressed emotions, were digging one another fiercely in the ribs.
"This here Joseph is a sheep-herding swine from the desert, smooth because he's been brung up among range animals, but mean because he's raised for a pet by Jacob, the champion stinker of the wild west."
At that Pete exploded, and had to retire in convulsions, while the other two infants reproached him for interruption.
"Smooth and mean is Joseph, a cream-laid young person like Pete, who's going to have black draft to heal his cough before morning. Joseph is all deportment and sad eyes, with a crossed-in-love droop. His brothers is mean so far as they knows how without reading newspapers, but even they can't stand Joseph. General and Mrs. Potiphar don't seem to like his perfume. When he's in jail he's steward, so that the other prisoners has dreams of grub but nary a meal till he goes.
"I dunno, but if I was a self-made man, I'd hate to have my autobiography wrote by my poor relations, or the backers I'd cheated and left on my trail to Fifth Avenue. Them brethren, the Potipharoutfit, and the jailbirds, is plumb full of grief that they ever seen this Joseph, and you'll notice that when he dies, the Egyptians don't subscribe for a monument. He's a city man, a financier, and the Lord is with him, watching his natural history, this being the first warning of the plagues of Egypt.
"Thar's only one man as can afford to know the Honorable Joseph. Pharaoh has an ax, so any gent caught with more'n four aces, is apt to fade away out of Egypt. Yes, he can afford to know Joseph, and they're birds of a feather all right.
"Now horses is so scarce that up to now there ain't one in the Bible, until Pharaoh loans Joseph his second-best chariot, and gives him a sure fine sleigh-robe to go buggy riding.
"And Jews is scarce. This Pharaoh is the first king to get a Jew financier to do his graft.
"It ain't the king who pays for that corner in wheat, and you can bet your socks it's not Joseph. It's the bleeding, sweating, hungry Egyptians who pays the wheat trust which makes Pharaoh and Joseph multimillionaires. So there on the high lonesome is the Jew and His Majesty, with no club of millionaires to tell them they done right, and nobody in all Egypt left to swindle.
"Old Pharaoh's in a museum now, Joseph is located at Chicago, Egypt is sand-rock desert; but God's in His Heaven, and judging by the way us human beings behave, them golden pavements ain't got crowded yet.
"Oh, Lord, Thou knowest that we who ride herd in Thy pastures, haven't got much to be selfish about on earth. We cayn't make dollars out of Thy golden sunshine, or currency bills out of Thy silver streams, but all the same, deliver us from selfishness, and lead us not into the temptations of a large account at the bank, 'cause we're only kids when we gets down to civilization, and all our ways is muddy so soon as we quit Thy grass."
The cow-boys slipped away, no longer hilarious, perhaps even a little awed, for Jesse's quaint observances are spray from a sea, sparkling on the surface, but in its depths profound. And we two women waited, the widow longing for news about her son, while I was concerned for my man. Hard, bitter, sinister the sermon, humble and reverent the appeal for help, and now when the men had left us, Jesse remained in prayer. Almost with tears he pleaded for widows and fatherless children, until my servant's austere face became quite gentle, andshe was able to hobble off to her bed feeling that all was well.
The night being cold, Jesse had his cigar beside the stove, while I sat on the low stool so that the fumes might rise above my unworthy head.
"The widow believes," I said, "that her boy will get rich in the city."
"I got Billy a job."
Jesse's face looked very grave.
"At a grocery," he added.
I sighed for the romantic lad, condemned to an apron behind the counter.
"And the young hawk flew off."