CHAPTER XIXA TRIO OF SHOCKS
MR. JOHN GOLDEN, mining engineer at G-string, readily consented to help Joshua Cole for the sake of his friendship with California Bill. Nor did he ask anything for his trouble and experience, for such is the custom among friends who live in the free and generous outlands. Bill would have helped him build a stable or a house, had he required such aid, and would have been offended if he had offered pay. So now he helped Bill’s friend.
California Bill drove on to Spur after leaving the two in the vicinity of the newly named Spyglass Mountain. Joshua and Golden spent the entire day searching for the stakes of the recent survey and running lines. They discovered that only a part of Spyglass Mountain was covered by the survey, and the portion that had been included was within the limits simply because it had been impracticable to leave it out.
But this did not down Joshua’s ardor. The hundred and sixty acres finally settled upon lay at the foot of the steep rise, and a great deal of the land beyond it, on the desert side, would be in the forest reserve. It would therefore be open to his use, and it might be, even, that he could obtain a special permit from the forest service to build an observatory on the mountain’s top. So California Bill had encouraged him, anyway, and Bill knew much about the workings of the government offices that control the forest privileges of homesteaders and cattlemen.
So with the legal description of the desired land in his pocket, Joshua walked to Ragtown early next morning and took the stage to Spur. That evening he reached Los Angeles by train, and was on hand at the Federal Building next morning when the land office was opened.
He found the land office people unwilling to aid him beyond showing him a formidable-looking book wherein the land was listed. Unfamiliar with such procedures, he wrestled with the big book for an hour, then gave it up, secured an application blank, filled in the data, and passed it to a clerk. It was taken in to the commissioner, presumably, and presently he was called inside, where the fee was extracted from him. He was told that he would be notified by letter whether or not his claim would be allowed, and that if it was not allowed his money would be returned to him. This seemed to be all that was required of him, so he took his leave, in the dark as to whether or not his mission had been a success.
He had money left. He remembered what it would be necessary for him to buy in the way of materials for the building of his proposed telescope. So in order to forestall another trip to Los Angeles, he bought a seventy-inch piece of brass tubing, a small plano-convex lens about an inch in diameter, a few smaller pieces of tubing, a hand magnifying glass, and an ordinary camera tripod. And now there remained only five dollars and some odd cents of the money that both he and California Bill had saved from their first payday with Demarest, Spruce and Tillou. However, he had his return ticket to Spur and enough for stage fare back to Ragtown, but he could not buy a meal. Oh, well—hunger was no new thing to him. He could eat when he reached camp again, to-morrow night! He would be a poor servant of Science if he could not sacrifice four meals in her cause.
Shortly before dark the following evening the stage topped the summit of the mountains and rattled down the steep grade toward Stirrup Lake. Joshua still had four miles to walk after reaching Ragtown, and he wondered if he could persuade one of the cooks or flunkies to give him a hand-out. The stage reached the level of the lake and made speed around the eastern end toward Ragtown, whose lights blinked out with subtle invitation.
Ragtown was such a mushroom growth as springs up in wilderness localities wherever big construction is taking place. Like Wild Woman Springs, it was composed of new pine-shacks and tents. There is always a “rag town” close to a big railroad-building job, so called because of its tents, but this one had not chosen a name to distinguish it, so it was Ragtown to the thousands of laborers traveling up and down the line. It was a riotous place, of course, the scene of many drunken brawls and wild nights of carousal, but it was typical of the pioneering West, sinful but picturesquely sinful.
The tent saloons and dance halls were filled to overflowing as the stage wheeled to a stop before The Silver Dollar, in which was the store and post office, hypocritically partitioned off with thin boards from the bar and dance hall, with a convenient archway between. A hundred men, perhaps, were in the one street that extended through the town, and a dozen saddle horses were tied to a hitching rack, proving that the Box-R cowpunchers were making the most of this spark of civilization that had flared up over night.
Joshua climbed out of the stage, his heavy bundle under his arm. He had no money to buy food or entertainment at Ragtown, so without a look to right or left he started up the street, which was no more than an inhabited portion of the long road from Spur to the railroad grade. He sawa knot of men standing in front of The Golden Eagle, a saloon, restaurant, gambling den, and dance hall, next door to The Silver Dollar, and as he passed them he glanced at the object that held their interest. Just then a spectator swung away from the group, and Joshua saw a man seated on the beaten ground beside the road—there was no sidewalk—and before him a black cloth was spread, on which two skeletons five inches high danced weirdly.
It was the old game of The Whimperer, but Joshua was surprised to see anybody trying it here. He stepped closer and through the half-light looked at the operator’s face. The black hat was pulled down over the man’s eyes, but there was no mistaking the evil-looking scar that glared out from its surrounding patch of stubby beard.
The master of the skeleton dance was Joshua’s jocker, the man who had robbed him of his dearest treasure, The Whimperer.
For a little Joshua saw red, as thoughts came to him of all the misery that this tramp’s treachery had brought upon him. Next instant he had dropped his bundle and was elbowing men aside as he marched to the squatting panhandler.
“Well, Whimp,” he said in tones that trembled slightly, “where’s my telescope?”
The skeletons ceased their dance and toppled over. For two tense seconds the old John Yegg stared up at Joshua, his ugly mouth open. Then he made the quickest move that Joshua had ever seen him make, for with a squirming jump he had flipped himself to his feet and was fleeing down the street.
Joshua pursued, his youthful heart afire with the lust to mete out punishment for a great wrong done him. The Whimperer darted between two tents as Joshua closed in on him, then whipped to the left and was out of sight whenJoshua reached the rear. But ahead a tent swayed back and forth, as if some one had entered it violently and collided with one of the poles. Toward it Joshua darted, flung back the flaps, and looked inside.
There came a guttural howl, and The Whimperer threw himself flat on the hard earth and wriggled under the rear wall of the tent. But Joshua did not pursue him. He stood stock-still in the entrance, gazing in unbelief at a man who sat at a rude table, on which was a lighted candle in a beer bottle, and stared back at him, half risen from his chair, motionless.
And this man was Felix Wolfgang, lean and sandy-haired and freckled as the egg of a guinea hen—Number Twenty-three forty-four in the House of Refuge.
Joshua was the first to recover from the shock. His tense muscles relaxed and his surprise found voice.
“Say, am I off my nut, or are you Number Twenty-three forty-four? It’s one of the two—that’s certain.”
Slim Wolfgang settled back into his seat and a sickly smile played on his lips.
“Youse ain’t nuts, I guess,” he croaked half moodily. “I’m Slim Wolfgang, all right—Number Twenty-three forty-four. An’ youse’re ole Tony. I’d know youse any place. How’s ever’t’ing, Tony?”
“What in the dickens are you doing here?” Joshua took several steps into the tent, but did not offer his hand when he reached Wolfgang’s side.
“An’ I might ast de same of youse, ol’-timer,” Wolfgang retorted, rolling a cigarette and letting it drip from his lower lip when lighted.
“That’s quickly told. I’m working as a hammerman for Demarest, Spruce and Tillou.”
“Well, I’m runnin’ a stud game in De Golden Eagle,” Slim stated in his husky tones. “An’ I just drifted inhere because I hoid dere was good pickin’s among de construction stiffs. I been runnin’ stud layouts fer sev’ral years out West.”
Joshua pondered over this. Slim’s explanation seemed logical enough; and, but for the fact that The Whimperer had scurried through that tent, Joshua would have considered this one of those strange chance meetings that occur in the lives of men who travel far from home.
“But that tramp,” he questioned—“how does it come that he ducked through here when I chased him? Do you know him?”
“Who—dat geed-up guy? Yes, I seen um about here a little since I come. Dat was yesterday. But I don’t exactly know um. Was youse chasin’ um, Tony? Wot for? He comes bulgin’ in here an’ pretty near knocked de old rag flat. I’m buckin’ solitaire—see?” Slim indicated a spread of playing cards on the table. “An’ before I c’n get outa me chair to fin’ out wot’s doin’, youse show up an’ dat yegg frogs it unner de back wall o’ de tent an’ beats it. Wot’s it all about, Tony?”
Joshua did not answer the question. It struck him as the strangest coincidence imaginable that, away out here in Ragtown, six thousand feet above the sea, he should meet the man who had robbed him in the Middle West and chase him through the tent of his old enemy in the House of Refuge.
“And you say you don’t actually know this fellow?”
“Naw—jes’ seen um hangin’ aroun’. He’s a stiff—dey folly big construction, don’t dey? Maybe de likes o’ dis plug don’t woik much, but dey hang aroun’ an’ help de busy little bees spend dere payday. I don’t know nuttin’ about um. W’y’re youse astin’ me?”
This dialogue was bringing Joshua no information whatever, and it had caused him to lose track of The Whimperer,who by now was without doubt securely hidden. Joshua turned about and started for the entrance to the tent.
“Ain’t sore, are youse, Fifty-six thirty-five?”—from Slim.
Joshua turned at the door. “No, not at all,” he replied, regarding Wolfgang studiously. “In fact, I made a fool out of myself by chasing The Whimperer, and now I’m going home and forget it. Good-night.”
“I see youse don’ wanta renew de old acquaintance, Tony,” said Wolfgang, “so we’ll let ’er go at dat. But if youse feel like a little stud any time, drop into De Golden Eagle. Me game’s clean, an’ if youse win youse’ll get away wid it. I ain’t got no hard feelin’s, Fifty-six thirty-five. Wot we did as kids don’ count f’r nuttin’ now. We was bot’ nutty den, I guess.”
“Call me Tony, if you want to,” Joshua offered, “but cut out the Fifty-six thirty-five, will you, please?”
“Don’ like to remember, eh, Tony?”
“It’s just as well not to.”
“I guess youse’re right at dat. Maybe youse don’ want dese plugs aroun’ here to savvy dat youse was in de House o’ Refuge.”
“There’s no call to advertise it,” Joshua told him. “I was committed unjustly, and—”
“Dat’s wot dey all said, Tony.”
“Well, anyway, it’s more convenient to say ‘Tony’ than ‘Fifty-six thirty-five.’ Good-night.”
“S’long, Tony. Don’ forget de number.”
The tent flaps fell behind Joshua, and he hurried back to the street to recover his abandoned bundle.
He found it kicked to one side against the front of The Silver Dollar, shouldered it, and set off through the night toward camp, utterly amazed at what had taken place.
But a new shock awaited him there. One of the cook’s flunkies, whom he persuaded to go to the cook tent and set out some cold food for him, told him while he ate that Shanty Madge’s boss-powderman, Jawbone Mahoney, had gone on the job intoxicated and had fired a big shot, with the result that the wet, crumbly top of the big hill was sliding into the tunnel and that all efforts at stopping it had been of no avail. Shanty Madge, the old-time stiffs were gossiping, was ruined.