* * * * *
* * * * *
Both Ajax and I took a profound dislike to Tomlinson-Thorpe the moment we set eyes upon him. He presented what is worst in the Briton abroad- -a complacent aggressiveness tempered by a condescension which nothing but a bullet can lay low. But undeniably he was specially designed to go through scrums or Kitchen Lancers, the admired of all beholders.
"A schoolgirl's darling," growled the injudicious Ajax.
"Nothing of the sort," retorted Jim. "I mean," he added, "that Thorpe appeals to--er--mature women. I know for a fact that the wife of a baronet is head over ears in love with him."
"I hope he didn't tell you so," said Ajax.
"I should think not. First and last he's a gentleman."
During the next few weeks we had abundant opportunity of testing this assertion, for Thorpe was kind enough to consume much of our time and provisions. He bought himself a smart pony, and, very accurately turned out, would canter down to the ranch-house three or four times a week.
"There's nothing to learn up there," he explained.
It is fair to add that he helped us on the range, and exhibited aptitude in the handling of cattle and horses.
Meanwhile, his advent had made an enormous difference to the Mistertons. Jim fetched a hired girl from town, and Angela was relieved, during a scorching summer, of a housewife's most intolerable duties. Also, when Jim was hard at work clearing his brush-hills, wrestling with refractory roots of chaparral and manzanita, his greatest pal was kind enough to undertake the entertainment of Angela. The pair rode about together, and Jim told us that it did his heart good to see how the little woman had brightened up. Thorpe, for his part, admitted with becoming modesty that he was most awfully sorry for his friend's wife.
"My heart bleeds for her," he told Ajax.
"The bounder with the bleeding heart," said Ajax to me that same evening.
"We don't know that he is a bounder," I objected.
"He bounds, and he is as unconscious of his bounds as a kangaroo. As for Jim, he is the apex of the world's pyramid of fools."
"Angela can take care of herself."
"Can she?"
At our fall round-up, Ajax's question was answered. Conspicuously Angela attached herself to Tomlinson-Thorpe, regardless of the gaping eyes and mouths of neighbours, Puritan to the backbone in everything except the stealing of unbranded calves.
Most unfortunately, Thorpe--I think more kindly of him when I don't give him his double-barrelled name--was daily exhibiting those qualities which had carried him through scrums. In a bar-room brawl with two pot-valiant cowboys, he had come out supremely "on top." They had jeered at his riding-breeches, at his bob-tailed cob, at his English accent, and Thorpe had suffered them gladly. Then, quite suddenly, Angela's name fell upon a silence. As suddenly Thorpe seized both men, one in each hand, and brought their heads together with a crash which the barkeeper described afterwards as "splendiferous." With an amazing display of physical violence, he flung them apart, each falling in a crumpled heap of profanity upon the floor.
"Don't fool with that feller," was the verdict in the foothills.
The affair would have been of no consequence had not Jim been present when the row took place. Jim might have played thebeau rôlehad he carried a pistol. Admittedly he would have been licked in a fight with either cowboy singly. Thorpe, so I was told, entreated Jim to keep the story from his wife. Angela had it, with slight exaggeration, from the hero-worshipper's lips within an hour. "It brought her heart into her mouth, I tell you," the simple fellow told Ajax, and later Ajax murmured to me: "I wonder whether it struck Angela that Jim would have tackled both of 'em, if Thorpe had not interfered."
A dozen trifles hardly worth recording emphasised the difference between Jim and his greatest pal. Thorpe mastered the colt which had thrown Jim; Thorpe, when fresh meat was wanted, killed handsomely the fat buck missed by the over-eager James; Thorpe made a pretty profit over a hog deal at the psychological moment when poor Misterton allowed three Poland-China sows to escape through an improperly constructed fence!
Thorpe was a man. Did Angela think of Jim as a mouse?
* * * * *
* * * * *
After the fall round-up, Ajax and I spent a month fishing in British Columbia. When we got back to the ranch, one of the first to greet us happened to be Jim Misterton. He looked so pale and thin that I thought for a moment his old enemy had attacked him. However, he assured us that he was perfectly well, but unable to sleep properly. We asked him to stay to supper, rather as a matter of form, for he had always refused our invitations unless Angela were included. To our surprise he accepted.
"He'll uncork himself after the second pipe," said the sage Ajax.
He did. And, oddly enough, our cousin's photograph in Court dress moved him as it had moved his wife.
"Boys," he said, "I'm the biggest fool that ever came to this burnt-up wilderness; and I'm a knave because I persuaded the sweetest girl in England to join me."
Oil may calm troubled waters, but it feeds flames. We said something, nothing worth repeating; then Jim stood up, trembling with agitation, waving his briar pipe (which had gone out), cursing himself and the brazen skies, and the sterile soil, and the jack-rabbits, and barb- wire, and his spring, now a pool of stagnant mud. When he had finished--and how his tongue must have ached!--Ajax said quietly--
"Were you any good as a clerk?"
Jim nodded sullenly.
"I knew my business, of course. Heavens! what a soft job that was compared to what I've tackled out here!"
"It might be possible to find another such job in California. You never thought of that?"
Jim's face brightened.
"Never," he declared. "Fresh air and exercise was the prescription-- and I'm fed up on both. If I could get a billet as clerk in San Lorenzo, if----" He clenched his fists, unable to articulate another word, then, very slowly, he went on: "Boys, I'd give my life to get Angela away from Paradise."
"We'll help you," said Ajax.
"Mrs. Misterton would be much happier in San Lorenzo," I added.
Jim flushed scarlet.
"Angela married the wrong man," he said deliberately.
Ajax interrupted.
"Jim, fill your pipe!"
He held out his pouch, which Jim waved aside.
"She married the wrong man," he repeated, "and that is what is keeping me awake nights. She'd have been happy with Thorpe. He could have given her all the little things women value."
"And how about the great things?"
"The little things are great things--to her. Good-night, boys." We shook hands and he went to the door. On the threshold he turned a tired face towards us. "I hope I haven't given you fellows the idea that Angela isn't the best little woman on earth. She never complains. And Thorpe has been a pal in ten thousand. His heart simply bleeds for Angela. So long!"
Ajax mixed a stiff tumbler. Before he put it to his lips he looked at me. "If that bounder's heart would bleed and bleed and bleed to death, I should not cross the road to fetch a doctor."
* * * * *
* * * * *
About a fortnight later the annual County Fair was held outside San Lorenzo. We drove to the Buena Vista Hotel, and, to our surprise, upon the broad verandah we discovered Angela, in the last of her pretty dresses, and Thorpe. Angela explained matters. Jim and she were Thorpe's guests for the week. They were going to the races, to the ball, to all the shows. She finished breathlessly--
"And there's a captive balloon!"
Thorpe added, "Jim is rather blue, you know." As soon as we were alone, Ajax said savagely--
"Do you think Jim understands?"
"Understands what?"
"Oh, don't pretend! We know our Thorpe by this time. He's a cutlet- for-a-cutlet fellow. What do I say? A cutlet-for-a-baron-of-beef gentleman. Hang him!"
"But Angela----"
"Angela is a reckless little idiot. She's been starving for a lark, and she's swallowed it without counting the cost."
"But I trust her," said I; "and Jim is here."
Ajax shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Next day, at the races, Jim attached himself to us, while aloft in the grand-stand Angela sat with Thorpe: the handsomest couple at the Fair. For the moment, at any rate, Angela was enjoying herself; Jim, on the other hand, looked miserable. Contrast had discoloured the good time. He couldn't snatch pleasure out of the present because he saw so plainly the future.
"I'm a wet blanket," he said dolefully. "Every time Angela laughs I want to cry, and yet I ought to be thankful that old Thorpe can give her what I can't."
"He's doing the thing well," said Ajax meaningly.
"He has been left a bit more money. Didn't he tell you? No? And he's going to buy that big tract to the north-west of us. Mum's the word, but--between ourselves--the agreement is signed."
"Oh!" said Ajax.
The big tract in question belonged to a bank, whose president, a very good fellow, was our particular friend. Early next morning I paid him a visit. Almost immediately he asked me questions about Thorpe, which I was able to answer satisfactorily from a business point of view.
"Mr. Thorpe struck me as a very shrewd young man. He'll get there."
"He played football for England."
"Ah! Well, indirectly, I suppose, we can thank you for this deal."
"You can thank Jim Misterton and his wife."
"I have not the pleasure of knowing them. They had something to do with this, eh?"
"Everything."
The president frowned; his voice was not quite so pleasant as he said- -
"Are they likely to claim a commission?"
"Certainly not. All the same, something is due. Without the Mistertons you would never have sold this ranch to Thorpe. One moment. It is in your power to do these people a service, and it will cost you nothing. Jim Misterton was a clerk in London, and a capable one, but his health broke down. He came out here to the brush-hills. He got back his health, but he's lost everything else. Give him a place in this bank. He's straight as a string, and he knows his work."
Before I left the bank it was understood that Jim was to call upon the president and submit his credentials. Humanly speaking, the billet was secured. Nothing remained but to find Jim. To my surprise, however, Ajax urged me to wait a few hours.
"I want to see Jim's honest grin again as much as you do, but we must tell him before Thorpe When I upset an apple-cart, I like to see the apple rolling about, don't you?"
"We'll tell 'em after dinner to-night."
That afternoon we forgathered in the Fair Grounds. The racing was uninteresting, and presently Angela suggested that we should go up in the captive balloon. We had watched it ascending and descending with interest. Some of our friends bored us by describing at too great length the panoramic splendour of the view. Angela and Ajax wanted to soar, Thorpe and I preferred Mother Earth; to Jim was offered the casting vote. He spun a dollar to decide, and within a few minutes the five of us were seated in the wicker-car. I remember that our aeronaut inspired confidence in Angela because he wore the Grand Army medal. A windlass and a donkey-engine controlled the big rope which held us captive. We went aloft in a series of disagreeable and upsetting jerks. This may be an unusual experience, but it was ours. I am a bad sailor, and so is Ajax. Neither of us smiled when Thorpe addressed the veteran as--"Steward!"
Suddenly there came a still sharper jerk, and the cable split. The balloon seemed to leap upwards, swerved like a frightened bird, and then, caught by the wind, sailed upward and seaward, swooping on with a paradoxically smooth yet uneven flight.
"Jeeroosalem!" ejaculated our aeronaut. Then he added coolly enough: "Sit tight; you'll none of you be the worse for this little trip."
His confidence diffused itself agreeably. Angela laughed, Thorpe's face relaxed, Jim peered over the edge of the car.
"Gad!" said he, "we seem to be going a tremendous pace."
The veteran took a squint alow and aloft as he fingered the rope that opened the valve. Next time he spoke the confidence had leaked from his voice, leaving behind a nervous squeak.
"This yere valve won't work!"
"Oh!" said Angela.
She looked at Thorpe as if seeking from him some word, some sign, of comfort and encouragement. At the same moment she made an instinctive movement towards him. Jim was staring at her, very pale. I saw him half-open his lips and then close them. Frightened as I was, I can swear that Jim was thinking only of his wife and what he could read upon her face. Thorpe was quite impassive, but his fingers were twitching. Then I heard Jim's voice curiously distinct--
"What are you going to do?"
"The valve may work loose. Anyways, she leaks a bit. Guess we're all right."
Once more his confidence diffused itself subtly, and again a phrase shattered it.
"How far is San Lorenzy from the ocean?"
"Eleven miles," said Ajax.
"We're sailin' plumb into the fog."
In late October the sea fog generally begins to roll up about four o'clock. If the breeze is from the land, the fog is kept at bay for an hour or two. As a rule, the breeze fails, and then the fog asserts its dominion over all things on land and sea. Without knowing much of aerial navigation, I grasped the fact that we were being swept into the fog, and that if we intended to descend on land there was not a minute to be lost. Thorpe, I fancy, had arrived at the same conclusion. He said in a queer, high-pitched tone--
"Can't you stick a knife into the balloon?"
"It ain't easy, and it's mighty risky."
Jerking at the two ropes in his hands, he spoke collectedly, in an indifferent tone--the tone of a man who has confronted death often, who realises his impotence, who submits apathetically to impending fate, whether good or ill.
"It's very cold," said Angela. Jim began to unbutton his jacket. "Don't," she said sharply; "all the coats in the world wouldn't warm me."
"Stick a knife into the confounded thing," repeated Thorpe.
"S'pose you do it," said the veteran snappishly.
Thorpe stood up at once, staggered, and fell upon the floor of the car. He could master a broncho, but he had never attempted to boss a balloon. The old man smiled.
"A man," said he, "may be mighty smart on land and behave like a baby in a balloon. You sit tight, mister."
The balloon was now careening like a racing-yacht in a squall. We had met opposing currents of air in the debatable area where wind and fog struggled for the mastery. The fog had the mighty trade wind behind it, forcing it landward. Already we were approaching the sand-dunes, the very spot for an easy descent if we could descend.
"Gosh, I've done it!"
Above I could hear the soft, sibilant sound of the escaping gas, not unlike the hiss of a snake. I was also sensible that my heart, not to mention other important organs, was trying to get into my throat.
"Valve must ha' bust," said the old man. "Stand by to throw out ballast."
The bottom of the car was covered with sacks of sand. Ordinarily one unties the sacks and the sand is allowed to trickle out in a harmless stream. I peered over the side. The balloon was now, so to speak, on an even keel, falling almost perpendicularly. I saw, far down, a flash of blue.
"Chuck 'em out, boys!"
Several sacks went overboard, and at once my solar plexus felt easier. Again I peered down and saw nothing. The fog had engulfed us, but I could hear the crash of the big combers as they broke upon the rocks to the north of Avila.
What followed took place within a few seconds. We were encompassed by thick dank fog. The balloon was perfectly steady, descending less quickly, but with inexorable certainty, into the ocean. Around, an uncanny silence encompassed us; above, we could hear the hiss of the serpent; below, the menacing roar of the breakers. Then the old man said curtly--
"Hurry up, boys. If we can get her up again, we may just strike the dunes. What wind there is blows from the west."
We threw out the rest of the sacks. The balloon rose and slowly sank again. The old man took off his coat.
"I can't swim worth a cent," he muttered grimly, "but I'm a-going to try. If she tumbles quietly into the water, the wind may blow us ashore."
A few more seconds passed. I heard a queer noise and discovered that my teeth were chattering. Thorpe was taking off his boots.
The next moment the balloon gave a tremendous bound. I know that I nearly fell upon my face, and Angela was thrown violently into the bottom of the car. For an appreciable interval not one of us realised that Jim had slipped overboard.
"The trade's got us," said the old man. "We shall just make them dunes."
"Oh, thank God!" exclaimed Angela.
By the tone of her voice, by the smile parting her lips, I could see that she did not know what had happened. Terror had dulled all faculties save the one overmastering instinct of self-preservation. Thorpe was about to speak, but Ajax caught his eye and with a gesture silenced him. Once more the balloon began to fall----
* * * * *
* * * * *
We were thrown out upon the dunes. Some of us were badly bruised. When we staggered to our feet, Angela said quickly--
"Why, where's Jim?"
Thorpe told her; let us give him credit for that. When he had finished, he put out his hand, but she turned from him to Ajax.
"Come," she said.
She ran past us towards the beach, instinctively taking the right direction. As she ran she called shrilly: "Jim--Jim!"
Ajax followed. For an instant Thorpe and I were alone, face to face.
"Why did he do it?" he asked.
"Because he thought that Angela had married the wrong man; but she-- didn't."
When I caught Ajax up, Angela was still ahead, running like a mad creature.
"Jim never took off his boots," said Ajax.
"Nor his coat."
"All the same, the love of life is strong."
"We don't know how far he was from the water; the fall may have killed him."
"I feel in my bones that he is not dead, and that Angela will find him."
We pressed on, unwilling to be outstripped by a woman, but sensible that we were running ourselves to a standstill. The fog was thicker near the water's edge, and Angela's figure loomed through the mist like that of a wraith, but we still heard her piteous cry: "Jim--Jim!"
We were nearly spent when we overtook her. She had stopped where the foam from the breakers lay thick upon the sand.
"Listen!" she said.
We heard nothing but our thumping hearts and the raucous note of some sea-bird.
"He answered me!" she asserted with conviction. "There!"
Certainly my ears caught a faint cry to the left. We ran on, forgetting our bruises. Again Angela called, and out of the mist beyond the breakers came an answering voice. We shouted back and plunged into the surf. Angela knelt down upon the sand.
Afterwards we admitted that Angela had saved his life, although Jim could not have fought his way through the breakers without our help. Indeed, when we got him ashore, I made certain that he was dead. Had Angela's instinct or intuition failed, had she hesitated for a few minutes, Jim would have drowned within a few hundred yards of the spot where the balloon struck. Since, Jim has maintained that he was sinking when he heard her voice; her faint, attenuated tones infused strength into his limbs and hope into his heart.
We dined together, and I delivered the president's message in Thorpe's presence. He shook hands with Jim, and said quietly--
"I am happier to-night than I ever expected to be again."
Bounder or not, he meant it.
Only the other day I received a letter from Angela. She wrote at length concerning her eldest child, my godson, and she mentioned incidentally that Jim was now cashier of the San Lorenzo Bank.
XVMARY
XV
MARY
His real name was Quong Wo, but my brother Ajax always called him Mary, because the boy's round, childish face had a singular smoothness and delicacy. A good and faithful servant he proved during three years. Then he ran away at the time of the anti-Chinese riots, despite our assurance that we wished to keep him and protect him.
"Me no likee Coon Dogs," said he, with a shiver.
The Coon Dogs were a pack of cowboys engaged in hunting Chinamen out of the peaceful, but sometimes ill-smelling, places which, by thrift, patience, and unremitting labour, they had made peculiarly their own. From the Coon Dogs Ajax and I received a letter commanding us to discharge Mary. A skull and cross-bones, and a motto, "Beware the bite of the Coon Dogs!" embellished this billet, which was written in red ink. Courtesy constrained us to acknowledge the receipt of it. Next day we put up a sign by the corral gate--
NO HUNTING ALLOWED ON THIS RANCH!
In the afternoon Mary disappeared.
Uncle Jake was of opinion that Mary had divined the meaning of our sign. He had said to Uncle Jake: "I go. Me makee heap trouble for boss."
Later, upon the same day, we learned from a neighbour that the Coon Dogs had tarred and feathered one poor wretch; another had been stripped and whipped; a third was found half-strangled by his own queue; the market-gardens near San Lorenzo, miracles of industry, had been ravaged and destroyed. Before taking leave our neighbour mentioned the sign.
"Boys," said he, "take that down--and ship Mary. I'm mighty glad," he added reflectively, "that my ole woman does the cookin."
"Mary skedaddled after dinner," said Ajax, frowning, "but I'm going into town to-morrow to bring him back."
However, Mary brought himself back that same night. We were smoking our second pipes after supper, when Ajax, pointing an expressive finger at the window, exclaimed sharply: "Great Scot! What's that?"
Pressed against the pane, glaring in at us, was a face--a face so blanched and twisted by terror and pain that it seemed scarcely human. We hurried out. Mary staggered towards us. In his face were the cruel, venomous spines of the prickly pear. The tough boughs of the manzanita thickets through which he had plunged had scourged him like a cat-o'- nine tails. What clothes he wore were dripping with mud and slime.
"Coon Dogs come," he gasped. "I tellee you."
Then he bolted into the shadows of the oaks and sage brush. We pursued, but he ran fast, dodging like a rabbit, till he tumbled over and over--paralysed by fear and fatigue. We carried him back to the ranch-house, propped him up in a chair, and despatched Uncle Jake for a doctor. Before midnight we learned what little there was to know. Mary had been chased by the Coon Dogs. He, of course, was a-foot; the cowboys were mounted. A couple of barbed-wire fences had saved him from capture. We had listened, that afternoon, too coolly, perhaps, to a tale of many outrages, but the horror and infamy of them were not brought home to us till we saw Mary, tattered scarred, bedraggled, lying crumpled up against the gay chintz of the arm-chair. The poor fellow kept muttering: "Coon Dogs come. I know. Killee you, killee me. Heap bad men!"
Next morning Uncle Jake and the doctor rode up.
"I can do nothing," said the latter, presently. "It's a case of shock. He may get over it; he may not. Another shock would kill him. I'll leave some medicine."
Upon further consultation we put Mary into Ajax's bed. The Chinaman's bunk-house was isolated, and the vaqueroes slept near the horse corral, a couple of hundred yards away. Mary feebly protested: "No likee. Coon Dogs--allee same debils--killee you, killee me. Heap bad men!"
We tried to assure him that the Coon Dogs were at heart rank curs. Mary shook his head: "I know. You see."
The day passed. Night set in. About ten, Mary said, convincingly--
"Coon Dogs coming! Coon Dogs coming!"
"No, no," said Ajax.
I slipped out of the house. From the marsh beyond the creek came the familiar croaking of the frogs; from the foothills in the cow-pasture came the shrilling of the crickets. A coyote was yapping far down the valley.
"It's all right, Mary," said I.
"Boss, Coon Dogs come, velly quick. I know."
Did he really know? What subtle instinct warned him of the approach of danger? Who can answer such questions? It is a fact that the Coon Dogs were on the road to our ranch, and that they arrived just one hour later. We heard them yelling and shouting at the big gate. Then the popping of pistols told us that the sign, clearly to be seen in the moonlight, was being riddled with bullets.
"We must face the music," said Ajax grimly. "Come on!"
Mary lay back on the pillow, senseless. Passing through the sitting- room, I reminded Ajax that my duck-gun, an eight-bore, could carry two ounces of buck-shot about one hundred yards.
"We mustn't fight 'em with their own weapons," he answered curtly.
The popping ceased suddenly; silence succeeded.
"They're having their bad time, too," said Ajax. "They are hitching their plugs to the fence. Hullo!"
Uncle Jake slipped on to the verandah, six-shooter in hand. Before he spoke, he spat contemptuously; then he drawled out: "Our boys say it's none o' their doggoned business; they won't interfere."
"Good," said Ajax cheerfully. "Nip back, Uncle; we can play this hand alone."
"Sure?" The old man's voice expressed doubt.
"Quite sure. Shush-h-h!"
Uncle Jake slid off the verandah, but he retired--so we discovered later--no farther than the water-butt behind it. Ajax and I went into the sitting-room. From the bed-room beyond came no sound whatever. Through the windows the pack was seen--slowly advancing.
"Come in, gentlemen," said Ajax loudly.
He stood in the doorway, an unarmed man confronting a dozen desperadoes.
"Wheer's the Chinaman--Quong?"
I recognised the voice of a cowboy whom we had employed: a man known in the foothills as Cock-a-whoop Charlie.
"He's here," Ajax answered quietly.
A tall, gaunt Missourian, also well known to us as a daring bull- puncher, laughed derisively.
"Here--is he? Wal, we want him, but we don't want no fuss with you, boys. Yer--white, but he's yaller, and he must go."
"He is going," said Ajax. "He's going fast."
"How's that?"
"Come in," retorted my brother impatiently. "It's cold out there and dark. You're not scared of two unarmed men--are you?"
They filed into the house, looking very sheepish.
"I'm glad you've come, even at this late hour," said Ajax, "for I want to have a quiet word with you."
The psychological characteristics of a crowd are receiving attention at the hands of a French philosopher. M. Gustave Le Bon tells us that the crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual of average brains.
"You have a nerve," remarked Cock-a-whoop Charlie.
"You Coon Dogs," continued my brother, "are making this county too hot for the Chinese--eh?"
"You bet yer life!"
"But won't you make it too hot for yourselves?"
The pack growled, inarticulate with astonishment and curiosity.
"Some of you," said Ajax, "have wives and children. What will they do when the Sheriff is hunting--you? You call this the Land of the Free, the Home of the Brave. So it is. And do you think that the Free and the Brave will suffer you to destroy property and life without calling you to account?"
"We ain't destroying life."
"And a heathen Chinee ain't a man."
"Quong," said Ajax, in his deep voice, "is hardly a man yet. We call him Mary, because he looks like a girl. You want him--eh? You are not satisfied with what you did yesterday? You want him? But--do you want himdying?"
The pack cowered.
"He is dying," said Ajax. "No matter how they live, and a wiser Judge than any of us will pronounce on that, no matter how they live--are your own lives clean?--the meanest of these Chinese knows how to die. One moment, please."
He entered the room where Mary lay blind and deaf to the terror which had come at last. When Ajax returned, he said quietly: "Come and see the end of what you began. What? You hang back? By God!--you shall come."
Dominated by his eye and voice, the pack slunk into the bed-room. Upon Mary's once comely face the purple weals were criss-crossed; and sores had broken out wherever the cactus spines had pierced the flesh. A groan escaped the men who had wrought this evil, and glancing at each in turn, I caught a glimpse of a quickening remorse, of a horror about to assume colossal dimensions. The Cock-a-whoop cowboy was seized with a palsy; great tears rolled down the cheeks of the gaunt Missourian; one man began to swear incoherently, cursing himself and his fellows; another prayed aloud.
"He's dead!" shrieked Charlie.
At the grim word, moved by a common impulse, whipped to unreasonable panic as they had been whipped to unreasoning cruelty, the pack broke headlong from the room--and fled!
Long after they had gone, Mary opened his eyes.
"Coon Dogs coming?" he muttered. "Heap bad men!"
"They have come and gone," said Ajax. "They'll never come again, Mary. It's all right. Go to sleep."
Mary obediently closed his eyes.
"He'll recover," Ajax said. And he did.
XVIOLD MAN BOBO'S MANDY'
XVI
OLD MAN BOBO'S MANDY'
Old man Bobo was the sole survivor of a once famous trio. Two out of the three, Doc Dickson and Pap Spooner, had passed to the shades, and the legend ran that when their disembodied spirits reached the banks of Styx, the ruling passion of their lives asserted itself for the last time. They demurred loudly, impatiently, at the exorbitant fee, ten cents, demanded by Charon.
"We weigh light," said Pap Spooner, "awful light! Call it, mister, fifteen cents for the two!"
"Ten cents apiece," replied the ferryman, "or three for a quarter."
Thereupon the worthy couple seated themselves in Cimmerian darkness, and vowed their intention of awaiting old man Bobo.
"He'll soon be along," they remarked. "He must be awful lonesome."
But the old gentleman kept them out of Hades for full five years.
He lived alone with his grand-daughter and a stable helper in the tumble-down adobe just to the left of the San Lorenzo race track. The girl cooked, baked, and washed for him. Twice a week she peddled fruit and garden stuff in San Lorenzo. Of these sales her grandsire exacted the most rigorous accounting, and occasionally, in recognition of her services, would fling her a nickel. The old man himself rarely left home, and might be seen at all hours hobbling around his garden and corrals, keenly interested in his own belongings, halter-breaking his colts, anxiously watching the growth of his lettuce, counting the oranges, and beguiling the fruitful hours with delightful calculation.
"It's all profit," he has often said to me. "We buy nothin' an' we sell every durned thing we raise."
Then he would chuckle and rub together his yellow, wrinkled hands. Ajax said that whenever Mr. Bobo laughed it behooved other folk to look grave.
"Mandy's dress costs something," I observed.
"Considerable,--I'd misremembered that. Her rig-out las' fall cost me the vally o' three boxes o' apples--winter pearmains!"
"She will marry soon, Mr. Bobo."
"An' leave me?" he cried shrilly. "I'd like to see a man prowlin' around my Mandy--I'd stimilate him. Besides, mister, Mandy ain't the marryin' kind. She's homely as a mud fence, is Mandy. She ain't put up right for huggin' and kissin'."
"But she is your heiress, Mr. Bobo."
"Heiress," he repeated with a cunning leer. "I'm poor, mister, poor. The tax collector has eat me up--eat me up, I say, eat me up!"
He looked such an indigestible morsel, so obviously unfit for the maw of even a tax collector, that I laughed and took my leave. He was worth, I had reason to know, at least fifty thousand dollars.
* * * * *
* * * * *
"Say, Mandy, I like ye awful well! D'ye know it?"
The speaker, Mr. Rinaldo Roberts, trainer and driver of horses, was sitting upon the top rail of the fence that divided the land of old man Bobo from the property of the Race Track Association.
Mandy, freckled, long-legged, and tow-headed, balanced herself easily upon one ill-shod foot and rubbed herself softly with the other. The action to those who knew her ways denoted mental perplexity and embarrassment. This assignation was bristling with peril as well as charm. Her grandfather had the eyes of a turkey-buzzard, eyes which she contrasted involuntarily with the soft, kindly orbs now bent upon her. She decided instantly that blue was a prettier colour than yellow. Rinaldo's skin, too, commended itself. She had never seen so white a forehead, such ruddy cheeks. David, she reflected, must have been such a man; but Rinaldo was a nicer name than David, ever so much nicer.
"Shakespeare never repeats," observed Mr. Roberts, "but I'll tell ye again, Mandy, that I like ye awful well."
"Pshaw!" she replied.
"Honest, Mandy, I ain't lyin'."
He smoothed his hair, well oiled by the barber an hour before, wiped his hand upon his brown overalls, and laughed. The overalls were worn so as to expose four inches of black trouser.
"Ye think more of your sorrel than ye do of me, Nal."
"I do?"
"Yes, indeed, you do. You know you do."
"I know I don't! Say--I've gone an' christened the cuss."
"You have?" said Mandy, in a tone of intense interest. "Tell me its name."
"It's a her, Mandy, an' me an' Pete fixed onBy-Jo. That's French, Mandy," he added triumphantly, "an' it means a gem, ajool, an' that's what she is--a regler ruby!"
"It don't sound like French," said Amanda doubtfully.
"That French feller," replied Nal, with the fine scorn of the Anglo- Saxon, "him as keeps the 'Last Chance' saloon, pronounces it By-Jew, but he's as ignorant as a fool, an' By-Jo seems to come kind o' nateral."
"Ye might ha' called the filly, Amandy, Nal."
The honest face of Rinaldo flushed scarlet. He squirmed--I use the word advisedly--and nearly fell off the fence.
"If there was a nickel-in-the-slot kickin' machine around San Lorenzy," he cried, "I'd take a dollar dose right now! Gosh! What a clam I am! I give ye my word, Mandy, that the notion o' callin' the filly after you never entered my silly head. Never onst!Jeewhillikins! this makes me feel awful bad."
He wiped his broad forehead with a large white silk pocket- handkerchief, horribly scented with patchouli. His distress was quite painful to witness.
"Never mind," said Amanda softly. "I was only joking, Nal. It's all right."
Looking at her now, what son of Adam could call her homely? Her slender figure, the head well poised upon shapely shoulders, suddenly straightened itself; her red lips parted, revealing a row of small, white teeth; her eyes were uplifted to meet the glance of her lover; her bosom rose and fell as Nal sprang from the fence and seized her hand.
A simple courtship truly! Love had written in plain characters upon their radiant faces an artless tale. With fingers interlaced they gazed tranquilly at each other, eloquently silent.
Then the man bent his head and kissed her.
* * * * *
* * * * *
"Marry my Mandy!" cried old man Bobo, a few hours later. "Why, Nal, ye must be crazy! Ye're both children."
"I'm twenty-two," said Mr. Roberts, expanding his broad chest, and towering six inches at least above his companion, "an' Mandy will be eighteen next December, and," he added with dignity, "I love Mandy an' Mandy loves me."
"Now, I ain't a goin' to git mad," said Mr. Bobo, stamping upon the ground and gnashing his teeth, "but I'll give ye a pointer, Nal Roberts; you go right home an' stay there! I need Mandy the worst kind, an' ye know it. I couldn't spare the girl nohow. An' there's another thing; I won't have no sparkin' aroun' this place. No huggin' an' kissin'. There's none for me an' there'll be none for you. Love, pah! I reckon that's all ye've got. Love! Ye make me sick to my stomach, Nal Roberts. Ye've bin readin' dime novels, that's what ails ye. Love! There ain't no dividen's in love."
"Naterally," observed Mr. Roberts, "ye know nothin' of love, Mister Bobo, an' ye never will. I'm sorry for ye, too. Life without love is like eatin' bull-beef jerky withoutsalsa!"
"I've raised Mandy," continued Mr. Bobo, ignoring this interruption, "very keerful. I give her good schoolin', victuals, an' a heap o' clothes. I've knocked some horse sense into the child. There ain't no nonsense in Mandy, an' ye won't find her equal in the land for peddlin' fruit an' sech. I've kep' her rustlin' from morn till night. When a woman idles, the ole Nick gits away with her mighty quick. I've salted that down many a long year. No, sir, Mandy is mine, an' Mandy will do jest as I say. She minds me well, does Mandy. She won't marry till I give the word--an' I ain't agoin' to give the word."
He snapped his lantern jaws, and grinned in Nal's face. The selfishness which rated its sordid interest paramount to any consideration for others appalled the young man. How could he stem this tide of avarice, this torrent of egoism?
"So love don't go?" said Nal shortly.
"No, sonny, love don't go--leastways not with me."
"Mebbe you think I'm after the grease," remarked Nal with deliberation, "but I ain't. Folks say ye're rich, Mr. Bobo, but I don't keer for that. I'm after Mandy, an' I'll take her in her chimmy."
"I'll be damned if ye will, Nal! Ye won't take Mandy at all, an' that's all there is about it."
"Say," said Mr. Roberts, his fine eyes aglow with inspiration, "say, I'll make ye a cold business proposition, fair an' square betwixt man an' man. I'll buy Mandy from ye, at the market price--there!"
From beneath his penthouse brows Mr. Bobo peered curiously at this singular youth.
"Buy her!" he repeated scornfully. "With what? Ye've got nothin', Nal Roberts--that is, nothin' but yer sorrel filly and a measly two, or three mebbe, hundred dollars. I vally Mandy at twenty dollars a month. At one per cent.--I allus git one per cent. a month--that makes two thousand dollars. Have ye got the cold cash, Nal?"
Honest Nal hung his head.
"Not the half of it, but I earn a hundred a month at the track."
"Bring me two thousand dollars, gold coin o' the United States, no foolin', an' I'll give ye Mandy."
"Ye mean that, Mr. Bobo?"
The old man hesitated.
"I was kind o' bluffin'," he admitted reluctantly, "but I'll stand by my words. Bring me the cash, an' I'll give ye Mandy."
"I'll guess I'll go," said Mr. Roberts.
"Yes, Nal, ye'd better go, an' sonny, ye needn't to come back; I like ye first rate, but ye needn't to come back!"
Rinaldo walked home to the race track, and as he walked, cursed old man Bobo, cursed him heartily, in copious Western vernacular, from the peaky crown of his bald head to the tip of his ill-shaped, sockless toe. When, however, he had fed the filly and bedded her down in cool, fresh straw, he felt easier in his mind. Running his hand down her iron forelegs, he reflected hopefully that a few hundred dollars were easily picked up on a race track. Bijou was a well-bred beast, with a marvellous turn of speed. For half-a-mile she was a wonder, a record breaker--so Nal thought. Presently he pulled a list of entries from his pocket and scanned it closely. Old man Bobo had a bay gelding in training for the half-mile race, Comet, out of Shooting Star, by Meteor. Nal had taken the measure of the other horses and feared none of them; but Comet, he admitted ruefully to be a dangerous colt. He was stabled at home, and the small boy that exercised him was both deaf and dumb.
"If I could hold my watch on him," said Nal to himself, "I'd give a hundred dollars."
A smile illumined his pleasant features as he remembered that Mr. Bobo, like himself, was sitting upon the anxious seat. That same afternoon he had tried, in vain, to extract from Nal some information about the filly's speed. The old man's weakness, if he had one, was betting heavily upon a certainty.
"By Jimminy," mused Mr. Roberts, patting affectionately the satin neck of Bijou, "it would be a nice howdy-do to win a thousand off the old son of a gun! Gosh, Mandy! how ye startled me."
Amanda, out of breath and scarlet of face, slipped quietly into the loose box and sat down in the straw.
"Hush," she said, panting, "grandfather would take a quirt to me if he knew I was here, but, Nal dear, I jest had to come. I've been talkin' with the old man, an' he won't let me leave him, but I'll be true to you, Nal, true as steel, an' you'll be true to me, won't you? Grandfather won't last long, he's----"
"Tough," said Mr. Roberts, "tough as abalone, tough as the hondo of my lariat. I suspicioned he'd peter out when Pap Spooner died, but he fooled us the worst kind. No, Mandy, the old gentleman ain't a-goin', as he says, till he gits ready. He told me that to-day, an' he ain't a liar. He's close as a clam, is Mr. Bobo, but he ain't no liar. As for bein' true to you, Mandy--why--dern it--my heart's jest froze to yours, it don't belong to Nal Roberts no longer."
The girl blushed with pleasure and rose to her feet.
"You won't quarrel, Nal," she said anxiously, "you an' grandfather. He gets awful hot at times, but your head is level. He's comin' down to the track to-morrow morning at five to work out Comet, an' you might have words about me."
"To work out Comet?" said Nal, pricking up his ears.
"Mercy!--" cried Amanda, "I've given it away, an' it's a deathly secret."
"It's safe enough with me," replied the young man carelessly. None the less his eyes brightened and he smiled beneath his blonde mustache. "An', Mandy, don't worry, I wouldn't touch the old gentleman with a pair o' tongs."
"Well, good night, Nal--no, you mustn't--somebody might see. Only one then! Let me go, let me go!--Good night, Nal."
She ran swiftly away, holding high her skirts on account of the sticker grass. Nal watched her retreating figure admiringly.
"A good gait," he murmured critically, "no interferin' an' nothin' gummy about the pastern!"
He then squatted down, cowboy fashion, upon his hams, and smoothing carefully a piece of level ground, began to--what he called "figger." He wrote with a pointed stick and presently broke into a loud laugh.
"A low down trick," he muttered, "to play upon a white man, but Mr. Bobo ain't a white man, an' mustn't be treated as sech."
He erased his hieroglyphics, and proceeded leisurely to prepare his simple supper. He ate his bacon and beans with even more than usual relish, laughing softly to himself repeatedly, and when he had finished and the dishes were washed and put away, he selected, still laughing, a spade and crowbar from a heap of tools in the corner of his shanty. These he shouldered and then strode out into the night.