IVTHE RACE
This story is most blood-and-thundery, but, then, it is true. It is one of the stories of Alfred; but Alfred is not the hero of it at all—quite another man, not nearly so interesting in himself as Alfred.
At the time, Alfred and this other man, whose name was Tom, were convoying a band of Mexican vaqueros over to the Circle-X outfit. The Circle-X was in the heat of a big round-up, and had run short of men. So Tom and Alfred had gone over to Tucson and picked up the best they could find, which best was enough to bring tears to the eyes of an old-fashioned, straight-riding, swift-roping Texas cowman. The gang was an ugly one: it was sullen, black-browed, sinister. But it, one and all, could throw a rope and cut out stock, which was not only the main thing—it was the whole thing.
Still, the game was not pleasant. Either Alfredor Tom usually rode night-herd on the ponies—merely as a matter of precaution—and they felt just a trifle more shut off by themselves and alone than if they had ridden solitary over the limitless alkali of the Arizona plains. This feeling struck in the deeper because Tom had just entered one of his brooding spells. Tom and Alfred had been chums now for close on two years, so Alfred knew enough to leave him entirely alone until he should recover.
The primary cause of Tom's abstraction was an open-air preacher, and the secondary cause was, of course, a love affair. These two things did not connect themselves consciously in Tom's mind, but they blended subtly to produce a ruminative dissatisfaction.
When Tom was quite young he had fallen in love with a girl back in the Dakota country. Shortly after a military-post had been established near by, and Anne Bingham had ceased to be spoken of by mayors' daughters and officers' wives. Tom, being young, had never quite gotten over it. It was still part of his nature, and went with a certain sort of sunset, or that kind of star-lit evening in which an imperceptible haze dims the brightness of the heavens.
The open-air preacher had chosen as his textthe words, "passing the love of woman," and Tom, wandering idly by, had caught the text. Somehow ever since the words had run in his mind. They did not mean anything to him, but merely repeated themselves over and over, just as so many delicious syllables which tickled the ear and rolled succulently under the tongue. For, you see, Tom was only an ordinary battered Arizona cow-puncher, and so, of course, according to the fireside moralists, quite incapable of the higher feelings. But the words reacted to arouse memories of black-eyed Anne, and the memories in turn brought one of his moods.
Tom, and Alfred, and the ponies, and the cook-wagon, and the cook, and the Mexican vaqueros had done the alkali for three days. Underfoot had been an exceedingly irregular plain; overhead an exceedingly bright and trying polished sky; around about an exceedingly monotonous horizon-line and dense clouds of white dust. At the end of the third day everybody was feeling just a bit choked up and tired, and, to crown a series of petty misfortunes, the fire failed to respond to Black Sam's endeavours. This made supper late.
Now at one time in this particular locality Arizona had not been dry and full of alkali. Amighty river, so mighty that in its rolling flood no animal that lives to-day would have had the slightest chance, surged down from the sharp-pointed mountains on the north, pushed fiercely its way through the southern plains, and finally seethed and boiled in eddies of foam out into a southern sea which has long since disappeared. On its banks grew strange, bulbous plants. Across its waters swam uncouth monsters with snake-like necks. Over it alternated storms so savage that they seemed to rend the world, and sunshine so hot that it seemed that were it not for the bulbous plants all living things would perish as in an oven.
In the course of time conditions changed, and the change brought the Arizona of to-day. There are now no turbid waters, no bulbous plants, no uncouth beasts, and, above all, no storms. Only the sun and one other thing remain: that other thing is the bed of the ancient stream.
On one side—the concave of the curve—is a long easy slope, so gradual that one hardly realises where it shades into the river-bottom itself. On the other—the convex of the curve—where the swift waters were turned aside to a new direction, is a high, perpendicular cliff runningin an almost unbroken breastwork for a great many miles, and baked as hard as iron in this sunny and almost rainless climate. Occasional showers have here and there started to eat out little transverse gullies, but with a few exceptions have only gone so far as slightly to nick the crest. The exceptions, reaching to the plain, afford steep and perilous ascents to the level above. Anyone who wishes to pass the barrier made by the primeval river must hunt out for himself one of these narrow passages.
On the evening in question the cowmen had made camp in the hollow beyond the easy slope. On the rise, sharply silhouetted against the west, Alfred rode wrangler to the little herd of ponies. Still farther westward across the plain was the clay-cliff barrier, looking under the sunset like a narrow black ribbon. In the hollow itself was the camp, giving impression in the background of a scattering of ghostly mules, a half-circle of wagons, ill-defined forms of recumbent vaqueros, and then in the foreground of Sam with his gleaming semicircle of utensils, and his pathetic little pile of fuel which would not be induced to gleam at all.
For, as has been said, Black Sam was having great trouble with his fire. It went out at leastsix times, and yet each time it hung on in a flickering fashion so long that he had felt encouraged to arrange his utensils and distribute his provisions. Then it had expired, and poor Sam had to begin all over again. The Mexicans smoked yellow-paper cigarettes and watched his off-and-on movements with sullen distrust; they were firmly convinced that he was indulging in some sort of a practical joke. So they hated him fervently and wrapped themselves in their serapes. Tom sat on a wagon-tongue swinging a foot and repeating vaguely to himself in a singsong inner voice, "passing the love of woman, passing the love of woman," over and over again. His mind was a dull blank of grayness. From time to time he glanced at Sam, but with no impatience: he was used to going without. Sam was to him a matter of utter indifference.
As to the cook himself, he had a perplexed droop in every curve of his rounded shoulders. His kinky gray wool was tousled from perpetual undecided scratching, and his eyes had something of the dumb sadness of the dog as he rolled them up in despair. Life was not a matter of indifference to him. Quite the contrary. The problem ofdamp wood+matches=cooking-firewas the whole tangle of existence. Therewas something pitiable in it. Perhaps this was because there is something more pathetic in a comical face grown solemn than in the most melancholy countenance in the world.
At last the moon rose and the fire decided to burn. With the seventh attempt it flared energetically; then settled to a steady glow of possible flap-jacks.
But its smoke was bitter, and the evening wind fitful. Bitter smoke on an empty stomach might be appropriately substituted for the last straw of the proverb—when the proverb has to do with hungry Mexicans. Most of the recumbent vaqueros merely cursed a little deeper and drew their serapes closer, but José Guiterrez grunted, threw off his blanket, and approached the fire.
Sam rolled the whites of his eyes up at him for a moment, grinned in a half-perplexed fashion, and turned again to his pots and pans. José, being sulky and childish, wanted to do something to somebody, so he insolently flicked the end of his long quirt through a mess of choice but still chaotic flap-jacks. The quirt left a narrow streak across the batter. Sam looked up quickly.
"Doan you done do dat!" he said, with indignation.
He looked upon the turkey-like José for aheavy moment, and then turned back to the cooking. In rescuing an unstable coffee-pot a moment later, he accidentally jostled against José's leg. José promptly and fiercely kicked the whole outfit into space. The frying-pan crowned a sage-brush; the coffee-pot rolled into a hollow, where it spouted coffee-grounds and water in a diminishing stream; the kettle rolled gently on its side; flap-jacks distributed themselves impartially and moistly; and, worst of all, the fire was drowned out altogether.
Black Sam began stiffly to arise. The next instant he sank back with a gurgle in his throat and a knife thrust in his side.
The murderer stood looking down at his victim. The other Mexicans stared. The cowboy jumped up from the tongue of the wagon, drew his weapon from the holster at his side, took deliberate aim, and fired twice. Then he turned and began to run toward Alfred on the hill.
A cowboy cannot run so very rapidly. He carries such a quantity of dunnage below in the shape of high boots, spurs, chaps, and cartridge-belts that his gait is a waddling single-foot. Still, Tom managed to get across the little stony ravine before the Mexicans recovered from their surprise and became disentangled from theirponchos. Then he glanced over his shoulder. He saw that some of the vaqueros were running toward the arroya, that some were busily unhobbling the mules, and that one or two had kneeled and were preparing to shoot. At the sight of these last, he began to jump from side to side as he ran. This decreased his speed. Half-way up the hill he was met by Alfred on his way to get in the game, whatever it might prove to be. The little man reached over and grasped Tom's hand. Tom braced his foot against the stirrup, and in an instant was astride behind the saddle. Alfred turned up the hill again, and without a word began applying his quirt vigorously to the wiry shoulders of his horse. At the top of the hill, as they passed the grazing ponies, Tom turned and emptied the remaining four chambers of his revolver into the herd. Two ponies fell kicking; the rest scattered in every direction. Alfred grunted approvingly, for this made pursuit more difficult, and so gained them a little more time.
Now both Alfred and Tom knew well enough that a horse carrying two men cannot run away from a horse carrying one man, but they also knew the country, and this knowledge taught them that if they could reach the narrow passagethrough the old clay bluff, they might be able to escape to Peterson's, which was situated a number of miles beyond. This would be possible, because men climb faster when danger is behind them than when it is in front. Besides, a brisk defence could render even an angry Mexican a little doubtful as to just when he should begin to climb. Accordingly, Alfred urged the pony across the flat plain of the ancient riverbed toward the nearest and only break in the cliff. Fifteen miles below was the regular passage. Otherwise the upper mesa was as impregnable as an ancient fortress. The Mexicans had by this time succeeded in roping some of the scattered animals, and were streaming over the brow of the hill, shouting wildly. Alfred looked back and grinned. Tom waved his wide sombrero mockingly.
When they approached the ravine, they found the sides almost perpendicular and nearly bare. Its bed was V-shaped, and so cut up with miniature gullies, fantastic turrets and spires, and so undermined by former rains as to be almost impassable. It sloped gently at first, but afterward more rapidly, and near the top was straight up and down for two feet or more. As the men reached it, they threw themselves from the horseand commenced to scramble up, leading the animal by the bridle-rein. From riding against the sunset their eyes were dazzled, so this was not easy. The horse followed gingerly, his nose close to the ground.
It is well known that quick, short rains followed by a burning sun tend to undermine the clay surface of the ground and to leave it with a hard upper shell, beneath which are cavities of various depths. Alfred and Tom, as experienced men, should have foreseen this, but they did not. Soon after entering the ravine the horse broke through into one of the underground cavities and fell heavily on his side. When he had scrambled somehow to his feet, he stood feebly panting, his nostrils expanded.
"How is it, Tom?" called Alfred, who was ahead.
"Shoulder out," said Tom, briefly.
Alfred turned back without another word, and putting the muzzle of his pistol against the pony's forehead just above the line of the eyes he pulled the trigger. With the body the two men improvised a breastwork across a little hummock. Just as they dropped behind it the Mexicans clattered up, riding bareback. Tom coolly reloaded his pistol.
The Mexicans, too, were dazzled from riding against the glow in the west, and halted a moment in a confused mass at the mouth of the ravine. The two cowboys within rose and shot rapidly. Three Mexicans and two ponies fell. The rest in wild confusion slipped rapidly to the right and left beyond the Americans' line of sight. Three armed with Winchesters made a long detour and dropped quietly into the sage-brush just beyond accurate pistol-range. There they lay concealed, watching. Then utter silence fell.
The rising moon shone full and square into the ravine, illuminating every inch of the ascent. A very poor shot could hardly miss in such a light and with such a background. The two cowmen realised this and settled down more comfortably behind their breastwork. Tom cautiously raised the pony's head with a little chunk of rock, thus making a loophole through which to keep tab on the enemy, after which he rolled on his belly and began whittling in the hard clay, for Tom had the carving habit—like many a younger boy. Alfred carefully extracted a short pipe from beneath his chaparajos, pushed down with his blunt forefinger the charge with which it was already loaded, and struck a match. He poised this for a moment above the bowl of the pipe.
"What's the row anyway?" he inquired, with pardonable curiosity.
"Now, it's jest fifteen mile to th' cut," said Tom, disregarding Alfred's question entirely, "an' of co'se they's goin' to send a posse down thar on th' keen jump. That'll take clost onto three hours in this light. Then they'll jest pot us a lot from on top."
Alfred puffed three times toward the moonlight, and looked as though the thing were sufficiently obvious without wasting so much breath over it.
"We've jestgotto git out!" concluded Tom, earnestly.
Alfred grunted.
"An' how are we goin' to do it?"
Alfred paused in the act of blowing a cloud.
"Because, if we makes a break, those Greasers jest nat'rally plugs us from behind th' minute we begins to climb."
Alfred condescended to nod. Tom suspended his whittling for a reply.
"Well," said Alfred, taking his pipe from his mouth—Tom contentedly took up whittling again—"there's only one way to do it, and that's to keep them so damn busy in front that theycan'tplug us."
Tom looked perplexed.
"We justgotto take our chances on the climbing. Of course, there's bound to be th' risk of accident. But when I give th' word,you mosey, and if one of them pots you, it'll be because my six-shooter's empty."
"But you can't expec' t' shootan'climb!" objected Tom.
"Course not," replied Alfred, calmly. "Division of labour: you climb; I shoot."
A light dawned in Tom's eyes, and he shut his jaws with a snap.
"I guess not!" said he, quietly.
"Yo' laigs is longer," Alfred urged, in his gentle voice, "and yo'll get to Peterson's quicker;" and then he looked in Tom's eyes and changed his tone. "All right!" he said, in a business-like manner. "I'll toss you for it."
For reply, Tom fished out an old pack of cards.
"I tell you," he proposed, triumphantly, "I'll turn you fer it. First man that gits a jack in th' hand-out stays."
He began to manipulate the cards, lying cramped on his side, and in doing so dropped two or three. Alfred turned to pick them up. Tom deftly slipped the jack of diamonds to the bottomof the pack. He inserted in the centre those Alfred handed him, and began at once to deal.
"Thar's yore's," he said, laying out the four of clubs, "an' yere's mine," he concluded, producing the jack of diamonds. "Luck's ag'in me early in th' game," was his cheerful comment.
For a minute Alfred was silent, and a decided objection appeared in his eyes. Then his instinct of fair play in the game took the ascendant. He kicked off his chaps in the most business-like manner, unbuckled his six-shooter and gave it to Tom, and perched his hat on the end of his quirt, which he then raised slowly above the pony's side for the purpose of drawing the enemy's fire. He did these things quickly and without heroics, because he was a plainsman. Hardly had the bullets from three Winchesters spatted against the clay before he was up and climbing for dear life.
The Mexicans rushed to the opening from either side, fully expecting to be able either to take wing-shots at close range, or to climb so fast as to close in before the cowboys would have time to make a stand at the top. In this they shut off their most effective fire—that of the three men with the Winchesters—and, instead of getting wing-shots themselves, they received an enthusiasticbattering from Tom at the range of six yards. Even a tenderfoot cannot over-shoot at six yards. What was left of the Mexicans disappeared quicker than they had come, and the three of the Winchesters scuttled back to cover like a spent covey of quail.
Tom then lit Alfred's pipe, and continued his excellent sculpture in the bed of hard clay. He knew nothing more would happen until the posse came. The game had passed out of his hands. It had become a race between a short-legged man on foot and a band of hard riders on the backs of very good horses. Viewing the matter dispassionately, Tom would not have cared to bet on the chances.
As has been stated, Alfred was a small man and his legs were short—and not only short, but unused to exertion of any kind, for Alfred's daylight hours were spent on a horse. At the end of said legs were tight boots with high French heels, which most Easterners would have considered a silly affectation, but which all Westerners knew to be purposeful in the extreme—they kept his feet from slipping forward through the wide stirrups. In other respects, too, Alfred was handicapped. His shoulders were narrow and sloping and his chest was flat. Indoors and backEast he would probably have been a consumptive; out here, he was merely short-winded.
So it happened that Alfred lost the race.
The wonder was not that he lost, but that he succeeded in finishing at Peterson's at all. He did it somehow, and even made a good effort to ride back with the rescuing party, but fell like a log when he tried to pick up his hat. So someone took off his boots, also, and put him to bed.
As to the rescuing party, it disbanded less than an hour later. Immediately afterward it reorganized into a hunting party—and its game was men. The hunt was a long one, and the game was bagged even unto the last, but that is neither here nor there.
Poor Tom was found stripped to the hide, and hacked to pieces. Mexicans are impulsive, especially after a few of them have been killed. His equipment had been stolen. The naked horse and the naked man, bathed in the light of a gray dawn, that was all—except that here and there fluttered bits of paper that had once been a pack of cards. The clay slab was carved deeply—a man can do much of that sort of thing with two hours to waste. Most of the decorative effects were arrows, or hearts, or brands, but in one corner were the words, "passing the love of woman,"which was a little impressive after all, even though Tom had not meant them, being, as I said, only an ordinary battered Arizona cow-puncher incapable of the higher feelings.
How do I know he played the jack of diamonds on purpose? Why, I knew Tom, and that's enough.
VTHE SAVING GRACE
Once upon a time there was an editor of a magazine who had certain ideas concerning short stories. This is not wonderful, for editors have such ideas; and when they find a short story which corresponds, they accept it with joy and pay good sums for it. This particular editor believed that a short story should be realistic. "Let us have things as theyare!" he was accustomed to cry to his best friend, or the printer's devil, or the office cat, whichever happened to be the handiest. "Life is great enough to say things for itself, without having to be helped out by the mawkish sentimentality of an idiot! Permit us to see actual people, living actual lives, in actual houses, and I should hope we have common-sense enough to draw our own morals!" He usually made these chaotic exclamations after reading through several pages of very neat manuscript in which the sentences were long and involved, and in whichwere employed polysyllabic adjectives of a poetic connotation. This editor liked short, crisp sentences. He wanted his adjectives served hot. He despised poetic connotation. Being only an editor, his name was Brown. If he had been a writer, he would have had three names, beginning with successive letters of the alphabet.
Now, one day, it happened that there appeared before this editor, Brown, a young man bearing a roll of manuscript. How he had gotten by the office boy Brown could not conceive, and rolled manuscript usually gave him spasms. The youth, however, presented a letter of introduction from Brown's best friend. He said he had a story to submit, and he said it with a certain appearance of breathlessness at the end of the sentence, which showed Brown that it was his first story. Brown frowned inwardly, and smiled outwardly. He begged the youth to take a seat. As all the seats were filled with unopened papers and unbound books, the youth said he preferred to stand.
Brown asked the youth questions, in a perfunctory manner, not because he cared to know anything about him, but because he liked the man who had written the letter. The youth's name proved to be Severne, and he was the mostserious-minded youth who had ever stepped from college into writing. He spoke of ideals. Brown concluded that the youth's story probably dealt with the time of the Chaldæan** astronomers, and contained a deep symbolical truth, couched in language of the school of Bulwer Lytton or Marie Corelli. So, after the youth had gone, he seized the roll of manuscript, for the purpose of glancing through it. If he had imagined the story of any merit, he would not have been in such haste; but as his best friend had introduced the writer, he thought he would like to get a disagreeable task over at once.
He glanced the story through. Then he read it carefully. Then he slammed it down hard on his desk—to the vast confusion of some hundreds of loose memoranda, which didn't matter much, anyway—and uttered a big, bad word. The sentences in the story were short and crisp. The adjectives were served very hot indeed. There was not a single bit of poetic connotation. It described life as it really was.
Brown, the editor, published the story, and paid a good price for it. Severne, the author, wrote more stories, and sold them to Brown. The two men got to be very good friends, and Severne heard exactly how Brown liked short stories andwhy, and how his, Severne's, stories were just that kind.
All this would have been quite an ideal condition of affairs, and an object-lesson to a harsh world and other editors, were it not that Severne was serious-minded. He had absolutely no sense of humour. Perspectives there were none for him, and due proportions did not exist. He took life hard. He looked upon himself gravely as a serious proposition, like the Nebular Hypothesis or Phonetic Reform. The immediate consequence was that, having achieved his success through realism, he placed realism on a pedestal and worshipped it as the only true (literary) god. Severne became a realist of realists. He ran it into the ground. He would not describe a single incident that he had not viewed from start to finish with his own eyes. He did not have much to do with feelingsdirect, but such as were necessary to his story he insisted on experiencing in his own person; otherwise the story remained unwritten. And as for emotions—such as anger, or religion, or fear—he would attempt none whose savour he had not tasted for himself. Unkind and envious rivals—not realists—insisted that once Severne had deliberately gotten very drunk on Bowery whiskey in order that he mightdescribe the sensations of one of his minor characters in such a condition. Certain it is, he soon gained the reputation among the unintelligent of being a crazy individual, who paid people remarkably well to do strange and meaningless things for him. He was always experimenting on himself and others.
This was ridiculous enough, but it would hardly have affected anyone but crusty old cranks who delight in talking about "young fools," were it not for the fact that Severne was in love. And that brings us to the point of our story.
Of course he was in love in a most serious-minded fashion. He did not get much fun out of it. He brooded most of the time over lovers' duties to each other and mankind. He had likewise an exalted conception of the sacred, holy, and lofty character of love itself. This is commendable, but handicaps a man seriously. Girls do not care for that kind of love as a steady thing. Far be it from me to insinuate that those quite angelic creatures ever actually want to be kissed; but if, by any purelyaccidentalchance, circumstances bring it about that, without their consent or suspicion, a brute of a manmightsurprise them awfully—well, said brute does not gainmuch by not springing the surprise. Being adored on a pedestal is nice—in public. So you must see that Severne's status in ordinary circumstances would be precarious. Conceive his fearful despair at finding his heart irrevocably committed to a young lady as serious-minded as himself, equally lacking in humour, and devoted mind and soul to the romantic or idealistic school of fiction! They often discussed the point seriously and heatedly. Each tried conscientiously to convert the other. As usual, the attempt, after a dozen protracted interviews, ended in the girl's losing her temper. This made Severne angry. Girls are so unreasonable!
"What do you suppose I care how your foolish imaginary people brush their teeth and button their suspenders and black their boots? I know how old man Smith opposite does, and that is more than enough for me!" she cried.
"The insight into human nature expresses itself thus," he argued, gloomily.
"Rubbish!" she rejoined. "The idea of a man's wasting the talents heaven has given him in describing as minutely and accurately as he can all the nasty, little, petty occurrences of everyday life! It is sordid!"
"The beautiful shines through the dreariness,as it does in the real life people live," he objected, stubbornly.
"The beautiful is in the imagination," she cried, with some heat; "and the imagination is God-given; it is the only direct manifestation of the divine on earth. Without imagination no writing can have life."
As this bordered on sentiment, abhorred of realism, Severne muttered something that sounded like "fiddlesticks." They discussed the relation of imagination to literature on this latter basis. At the conclusion of the discussion, Miss Melville, for that was her name, delivered the following ultimatum:
"Well, I tell you right now, Robert Severne, that I'll never marry a man who has not more soul in him than that. I am very much disappointed in you. I had thought you possessed of more nobility of character!"
"Don't say that, Lucy," he begged, in genuine alarm. Serious-minded youths never know enough not to believe what a girl says.
"I will say that, and I mean it! I never want to see you again!"
"Does that mean that our engagement is broken?" he stammered, not daring to believe his ears.
"I should think, sir, that a stronger hint would be unnecessary."
He bowed his head miserably. "Isn't there anything I can do, Lucy? I don't want to be sent off like this. Idolove you!"
She considered. "Yes, there is," she said, after a moment. "You can write a romantic story and publish it in a magazine. Then, and not until then, will I forgive you."
She turned coldly, and began to examine a photograph on the mantelpiece. After an apparently interminable period, receiving no reply, she turned sharply.
"Well!" she demanded.
Now, in the interval, Severne had been engaged in building a hasty but interesting mental pose. He had recalled to mind numerous historical and fictitious instances in which the man has been tempted by the woman to depart from his heaven-born principles. In some of these instances, when the woman had tempted successfully, the man had dwelt thenceforth in misery and died in torment, amid the execrations of mankind. In others, having resisted the siren, he had glowed with a high and exalted happiness, and finally had ascended to upper regions between applauding ranks of angels—which was notrealism in the least. Art, said Severne to himself, is an enduring truth. Human passions are misleading. Self-sacrifice is noble. He resolved on the spot to become a martyr to his art.
"I will never do it!" he answered, and stalked majestically from the room.
Severne took his trouble henceforward in a becomingly serious-minded manner. For many years he was about to live shrouded in gloom—a gloom in whose twilight could be dimly discerned the shattered wreck of his life. After a long period, from thedébrisof said wreck, he would build the structure of a great literary work of art, which all mankind would look upon with awe, but which he, standing apart, would eye with indifference, all joy being stricken dead by his memories of the past. But that was in the future. Just now he was in the gloom business. So, being a wealthy youth, he decided to go far, far away. This was necessary in order that he might bury his grief.
He rather fancied battle-fields and carnage, but there were no wars. It would add to the picture if he could return bronzed and battle-scarred, but as that was impossible, he resolved to return bronzed, at any rate. So he bought aticket to a small town in Wyoming. There he and his steamer-trunk boarded Thompson's stage, and journeyed to Placer Creek, where the two of them, he and the trunk, took up their quarters in a little board-ceiled room in the Prairie Dog Hotel.
The place was admirably adapted for glooming. It was a ramshackle affair of four streets and sixteen saloons. Some of the houses, and all of the saloons, had once been painted. In front were hitching-rails. To the hitching-rails, at all times of the day, were tied ponies patiently turning their tails to the Wyoming breezes. Wyoming breezes are always going somewhere at the rate of from thirty to sixty miles an hour. Beyond the town, in one direction, were some low mountains, well supplied with dark gorges, narrow canons, murmuring water-falls, dashing brooks, and precipitous descents. Beyond the town, in the other direction, lay a broad, rolling country, on which cattle and cowboys dwelt amid profanity and dust. Severne arose in a cold room, washed his face in hard water, and descended to breakfast. The breakfast could not have been better adapted to beginning a day of gloom. It started out with sticky oatmeal, and ended with clammy cakes, between which wasmuch horror. After breakfast, he wandered in the dark gorges, narrow canons,et cetera, and contemplated with melancholy but approving interest his noble sacrifice and the wreck of his life. Thence he returned to town.
In town, various incomprehensible individuals with a misguided sense of humour did things to him, the reason of which he could not understand in the least, mainly because he had himself no sense of humour, misguided or otherwise. The things they did frightened and bewildered him. But he examined them gravely through his shortsighted spectacles, noting just how they were done, just how their perpetrators looked and acted, and just how he felt.
After some days his literary instincts perforce awoke. In spite of his gloom, he caught himself sifting and assorting and placing things in their relative values. In fine, he began to conceive a Western story. Shortly after, he cleaned his fountain pen, by inserting a thin card between the gold and the rubber feeder, and sat down to write. As he wrote he grew more and more pleased with the result. The sentences became crisper and crisper. The adjectives fairly sizzled. Poetic connotation faded as a mountain mist. And he remembered and described justhow Alkali Ike spit through his mustache—which was disgusting, but real. It was his masterpiece. He wrote on excitedly. Never was such a short story!
But then there came a pause. He had successfully mounted his hero, and started him in full flight down the dark gorge or narrow cañon—I forget which—pursued by the avenging band. There interposed here a frightful difficulty. He did not know how a man felt when pursued by an avenging band. He had never been pursued by an avenging band himself. What was he to do? To be sure, he could imagine with tolerable distinctness the sensations to be experienced in such a crisis. He could have put them on paper with every appearance of realism. But he had no touchstone by which to test their truth. He might be unconsciously false to his art, to which he had vowed allegiance at such cost! It would never do.
So, naturally, he did the obvious thing—that is to say, the obvious thing to a serious-minded writer with no sense of humour. He went forth and sought an acquaintance named Colorado Jim, and made to him a proposition. It took Severne just two hours and six drinks to persuade Colorado Jim. At the end of that timeColorado Jim, in his turn, went forth, shaking his head doubtfully, and emitting from time to time cavernous chuckles which bubbled up from his interior after the well-known manner of the "Old Faithful" geyser. He hunted out six partners of his own—"pards," he called them—to whom he spoke at length. The six pards stared at Colorado Jim in gasping silence for some time. Then the seven went into a committee of the whole. The decision of the committee was that the tenderfoot was undoubtedly crazy, harmless, and to be humoured—at a price. Besides, the humouring would be fun. After a number of drinks, Colorado Jim and the pards concluded that it would belotsof fun!
Early the next morning, they rode out of town in the direction of the hills. At the entrance to the dark gorge—or deep cañon—they met Severne, also mounted. After greetings, the latter distributed certain small articles.
"Now," said he, most gravely, "I will ride ahead about as far as that rock there, and when I get ready to start, I will wave my hand. You're to chase me just as you'd chase a real horse-thief, and I'll try to keep ahead of you. You keep shooting with the blank cartridges as fast as you can. Understand?"
They said they did. They did not. But it was fun.
Severne rode to the bowlder in the dark gorge—I am sure it was the dark gorge—and turned. The pards were lined up in eagerness for the start. They had made side bets as to who would get there first. He waved his hand, and struck spurs to his horse. The pursuit began.
The horse on which Severne was mounted was a good one. The way he climbed up through that dark gorge was a caution to thoroughbreds. Behind whooped the joyous seven, and the cracking of pistols was a delight to the ear. The outfit swept up the gulch like a whirlwind.
Severne became quite excited. The swift motion was exhilarating. He mentally noted at least a hundred and ten most realistic minor details. He felt that his money had not been wasted. And then he noticed that he was gradually drawing ahead of his pursuit. Better and better! He would not only experience pursuit, but he would achieve in his own person a genuine escape, for he knew that, whatever the mythical character of the bullets, the Westerners had a real enough intention of racing each other and him to the top of the ridge. He plied his quirt, and looked back. The pursuers were actuallydropping behind. Even to his inexperienced eye their animals showed signs of distress.
At this place the narrow gulch divided. Severne turned to the left, as being more nearly level. Down from the right-hand bisection came the boys of the Triangle X outfit.
To the boys of the Triangle X outfit but one course was open. Here were Colorado Jim and the pards on foundered horses, pursuing a rapid individual who was escaping only too easily. Never desert a comrade. The Triangle X boys uttered whoops, and joined the game at speed. Not gaining as rapidly as they wished, they produced long revolvers—and began to shoot. It is a little difficult to hit anything from a running horse. Severne heard the reports, and congratulated himself on the realistic qualities of his little drama. Then suddenly his hat went spinning from his head. At the same instant a bullet ploughed through the leather on his pommel. Zip! zip! went other bullets past his ears. The boys of Triangle X outfit were beginning to get the range.
He looked back. To his horror he discovered that Colorado Jim and the pards had disappeared, and that their places had been taken by a number of maniacs on jumping little ponies.The maniacs were yelling "Yip! Yip! Yip!" and shooting at him. He could not understand it in the least; but the bullets were mighty convincing. He used his quirt and spurs.
If Severne really wished to experience the feelings of a man pursued, he attained his desire. It is not pleasant to be shot at. Severne entertained sensations of varied coherence, but one and all of a vividness which was of the greatest literary value. Only he was not in a mood to appreciate literary values. He attended strictly to business, which was to lift the excellent animal on which he was mounted as rapidly as possible over the ground. In this he attained a moderate success. Venturing a backward glance, after a few moments, he noted with pleasure that the distance between himself and the maniacs had sensibly increased. Then one of those zipping bullets passed between his body and his arm, cut off three heavy locks of the horse's mane, and entered the base of the poor animal's skull. Severne suddenly found himself in the road. The maniacs swept up at speed, reining in suddenly at the distance of three feet, in such a manner as to scatter much gravel over him. Severne sat up.
The maniacs, with commendable promptness,jerked Severne to his feet. Several more bent over his horse.
"Jess's I thought!" shouted one of these. "Jess's I thought! He's stole this cayuse. This is Hank Smith's bronc. I'd know him any-whar!"
"That's right! Bar O brand!" cried several.
Then men who held him yanked Severne here and there. "End of yore rope this trip! Steal hosses, will ye!" said they.
"I didn't steal the horse!" cried poor Severne; "I hired him from Smith."
A roar of laughter greeted this statement.
"Hired Colorado and the boys to chase you, too, didn't ye!" suggested one, with heavy sarcasm.
"Yes, I did," answered Severne, sincerely.
They laughed again. "Nerve!" said they.
Near the fallen horse several began discussing the affair. "I tell you IknowI done it!" argued one. "I ketched him between the sights, jest's fair as could be."
"G'wan, he flummuxed jest'sIcut loose!"
"Well, boys," called the leader, impatiently, "get along!"
A man came forward, and silently threw a loop about Severne's neck. In Wyoming they hanghorse-thieves. Severne realised this, and told them all about everything. They listened to him, and laughed delightedly. Never had they hanged such a funny horse-thief. They appreciated his efforts to amuse them, and assured him often that he was a peach. When he paused, they encouraged him to say some more. At every new disclosure they chuckled with admiration, as though at a tremendous but splendid lie. Severne was getting more realistic experience in ten minutes than he had had in all his previous life; but realistic experience does not do one much good at the end of a rope on top of a Wyoming mountain. Then, after a little, they deftly threw the coil of rope over the limb of a tree, and hung him up, and left him. They did not shoot him full of holes, as is the usual custom. He had been a funny horse-thief, so in return they were lenient. Severne kicked. "Dancin' good," they observed, as they turned the corner.
Around the corner they met the frantic James. They cut Severne down, and worked over him for some time. Then they carried him down to Placer Creek, and worked over him a lot more. The Triangle X boys were distinctly aggrieved. They had applauded those splendid lies, and now they turned out not to be lies at all, but merelyan extremely crazy sort of truth. They relieved their feelings by getting very drunk and shooting out the lights.
It took Severne a week to get over it. Ten days after that he returned East. He had finished a masterpiece. The flight down the cañon was pictured so vividly that you could almost hear the crack of the pistols, and the hero's sentiments were so well described that in reading about them you became excited yourself. Severne read it three times, and he thought it as good the third time as the first. Then he copied it all out on the typewriter. This is the severest test a writer can give his work. The most sparkling tale loses its freshness when run through the machine, especially if the unfortunate author cannot make the thing go very fast. It seemed as good even after this ordeal.
"Behold," said he, congratulating himself, "this is the best story I ever wrote! Blamed if it isn't one of the best stories I everread! Your romanticists claim that the realistic story has no charm, nor excitement, nor psychical thrill. This'll show them!"
So he hurried to deliver it to Brown. Then he posed industriously to himself, and tried hard to do some more glooming, but it was difficultwork. Someway he felt his cause not hopeless. This masterpiece would go far to convince her that he was right after all.
Three days later he received a note from Brown asking him to call. He did so. The editor handed him back his story, more in sorrow than in anger, and spoke reprovingly about deserting one's principles. Brown was conscientious. He believed that the past counted nothing in face of the present. Severne pressed for an explanation. Then said Brown:
"Severne, I have used much of your stuff, and I have liked it. The sentences have been crisp. The adjectives have been served hot. You have eschewed poetic connotation. And, above all, you have shown men and life as they are. I am sorry to see that you have departed from that noble ideal."
"But," cried Severne, in expostulation, "do not these qualities appear in my story?"
"At first they do," responded Brown, "but later—ah!" He sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"The ride down the cañon," he explained. "The sentences are crisp and the adjectives hot. But, alas! there is much poetic connotation, and, so far from representing real life, it seems to meonly the perperoid lucubrations of a disordered imagination."
"Why, that part is the most realistic in the whole thing!" cried the unhappy author, in distress.
"No," replied the editor, firmly, "it is not. It is not realism at all. Even if there were nothing objectionable about the incident, the man's feelings are frightfully overdrawn. No man ever was such an everlasting coward as you make out your hero! I should be glad to see something else of yours—but that, no!"
Somewhat damped, Severne took his manuscript home with him. There he re-read it. All his old enthusiasm returned. It was exactly true. Realism could have had no more accurate exposition of its principles. He cursed Brown, and inclosed stamps to theDecade. After a time he received a check and a flattering letter. Realism stood vindicated!
In due course the story appeared. During the interim Severne had found that his glooming was becoming altogether too realistic for his peace of mind. As time went on and he saw nothing of Lucy Melville, he began to realise that perhaps, after all, he was making a mistake somewhere. At certain recklessly immoral moments he eventhought a very little of proving false to art. To such depths can the human soul descend!
The evening after the appearance of his story in theDecade, he was sitting in front of his open fire in very much that mood. The lamps had not been lighted. To him came Mortimer, his man. "A leddy to see you, sir; no name," he announced, solemnly.
Severne arose in some surprise. "Light the lamp, and show her up," he commanded, wondering who she could be.
At the sound of his voice, the visitor pushed into the room past Mortimer.
"Never mind the lamp," cried Lucy Melville. The faithful Mortimer left the room, and—officially—heard no more.
"Why, Lucy!" cried Severne.
In the dim light he could see that her cheeks were glowing with excitement. She crossed the room swiftly, and put her hands on his shoulders. "Bob," she said, gravely, with tears in her eyes, "I know I ought not to be here, but I just couldn't help it! After you were so noble! And it won't matter, for I'm going in just a minute."
Severne cast his mind back in review of his noble acts. "What is it, Lucy?" he inquired.
"As if you could ask!" she cried. "I neverknew of a man's doing so tactful and graceful andbeautifula thing in my life! And I don't care a bit, and I believe you were right, after all."
"Right about what?" he begged, getting more and more bewildered.
"About the realism, of course."
She looked up at him again, pointing out her chin in the most adorable fashion. Even serious-minded men have moments of lucidity. Severne had one now.
"Oh, no, you mustn't, Bob—dear!" she cried, blushing.
"But really, Bob," she went on, after a moment, "even if realism is all right, you must admit that your last story is the best thing you ever wrote."
"Why, yes, I do think so," he agreed, wondering what that had to do with it.
"I'm so glad you do. Do you know, Bob," she continued, happily, "I read it all through before I noticed whose it was. And I kept saying to myself, 'Idowish Bob could see this story. I'm sure it would convince him that imagination is better than realism'; for really, Bob," she cried, with enthusiasm, "it is the best imaginative story I ever read. And when I got to the end, and saw the signature, and realised that you had desertedyour literary principles just for my sake, and had actually gone to work and written such asplendidimaginative story after all you had said; and then, too, when I realised what a delicate way you had taken to let me know—because, of course, I never read that magazine of Brown's—oh, Bob!" she concluded, quite out of breath.
Severne hesitated for almost a minute. He saw his duty plainly; he was serious-minded; he had no sense of humour. Then she looked up at him as before, pointing her chin out in the most adorable fashion.
"Oh, Bob! Again! I really don't think you ought to!"
And Art; oh, where was it?