Throwing back along my trail, I notice that I've mentioned a whole lot of points about Curly which made him unusual, different from other boys. Remember how he balked and shied at Holy Cross until we allowed him to hole up in a den of his own. He was sure wild and scary of railroads, towns, or a strange house. Except with his own folks, the Balshannon outfit, and me, he was dumb as a bear, and showed wild-eyed fright when strangers spoke to him. The meanest horses went tame at a word from him; no dog ever barked at him except with tail signals of joy; cats followed him around, and any animal who was hurt or in trouble would run to Curly for help. Even the deer knew his calls, and would come quite near while he spoke to them in that low soft voice of his. That voice never broke gruff with manhood, but just stayed sweet, like the sound of running water.
He had a strong face, stern as our desert country, tanned, beautiful no end, so that one caught one's breath at the very sight of him. His smile turned me weak; his voice went through me, and I'm a sure hard case. Everybody just had to love that Curly—a born rider, a wonderful scout, a dead shot, a dangerous fighter, who bore pain like an Indian, and had heaps more sense and courage than Jim his partner.
Why do I say all this? Well, from the first, I saw that Curly youngster was undersized and weak, with a narrow chest and wide hips more like a girl than a boy. A right proper man is strong, rough, hardy; he ought to have a temper and be master, ready to work and fight for his women folk. That Curly broke down and sobbed like a girl after the gun-fight, and in a hundred soft ways was not a proper man. There were often times when I wanted to turn in and lam his head. Then I didn't, but somehow knew that Nature had played some scurvy trick on that well-meaning youngster.
Well, Jim was younger than me, so there's some excuse for him. He was rough on Curly—hostile and contemptuous when the little partner acted feminine. He owned up afterwards he'd behaved like a brute to that poor wounded, helpless critter, loving him all the while, but acting coarse; that humbled Curly, who weakened under his tongue lash, cried at times, and lay for hours sucking the wound on his arm, dumb like a dying animal. Both youngsters were surely miserable on the second and third days they lay together in prison. It was on the second morning that I sent down a doctor from Bisley to fix up Curly's wound.
Late that evening, towards midnight, a crowbar dropped down through the window-gap in the wall, and Jim began to labour out a hole for their escape. He dug out bricks of 'dobe one by one, and while he worked he made poor Curly sing hour after hour, to hide up the sound of the crowbar. Shall I tell you one of the songs? It's a cowboy tune for smoothing the feelings of driven cattle while they bed themselves down for night.
"Soh, Bossie, soh!The water's handy neah,The grass is plenty heah,An' all the stars a-sparkleBekase we drive no mo'—We drive no mo'!The long trail ends to-day,The long trail ends to-day,The punchers go to play,And all you weary cattleMay sleep in peace for sure—Sleep, sleep fo' sure.The moon cayn't bite you heah,Nor punchers fright you heah,And you-all will be beef befo'We need you any mo'—We need you mo'!"
"Soh, Bossie, soh!The water's handy neah,The grass is plenty heah,An' all the stars a-sparkleBekase we drive no mo'—We drive no mo'!
The long trail ends to-day,The long trail ends to-day,The punchers go to play,And all you weary cattleMay sleep in peace for sure—Sleep, sleep fo' sure.
The moon cayn't bite you heah,Nor punchers fright you heah,And you-all will be beef befo'We need you any mo'—We need you mo'!"
When morning broke Jim piled hay on the burrow he'd made in the foot of the wall, and lay on top, dead weary to get some sleep. At ten o'clock the doctor from Bisley found Curly still singing, light-headed, talking nonsense. The patient said he was a bear, so the doctor gave sleep medicine, and sat beside him. At noon he fed the boys their dinner and went away, but they didn't wake again until supper-time, when the man on guard came in.
"What's for supper?" says Curly.
"Tortillas,frijoles, coffee—same as usual."
"Eat it," says Curly, "'cause I'm only a bear holed up for winter. We don't eat in winter anyways."
"Bears have their coffee," says Jim.
"Oh yes, of course," and Curly fed coffee to the winter bear. That cleared his head, and he sat up watching Jim at work on the little round dishes. The food wasfrijoles, the same being beans, andtortillas, which is a thin corn-cake, pretty much the same as brown fly-papers, warm and damp, but sort of uninteresting to taste. The coffee was in a brown earthen pot, fresh from the fire, and mighty encouraging. Those three things make the proper feed for Mexicans, the same being simple, uninstructed people, knowing no better. When they feast they make a stew of red pepper, and take a little meat with it; but that dish is a luxury, and hot enough to burn a hole through a brick.
When Jim had eaten everything in sight he started cigarettes, listening to a banjo in the guardroom, a growing hum of talk, and the click of cups, for some Holy Cross riders were there with a jar of cactus spirit, a deck of cards, and other inducements sent in by Captain McCalmont. Jim heard them talking war because they'd never been paid off at Holy Cross, and had six months' wages coming. They allowed that el Chico their young patrone ought to hang, and the guards agreed that such was probable. To-morrow the prisoners were going to be collected by the United States authorities for trial. Jim looked at his partner for comfort, but saw big tears rolling down Curly's face.
"You ought to be ashamed of that," says he.
"It cayn't be helped." Curly swept his arm across his face. "You Jim, we got to part to-night."
"You wild ass of the desert! What's the matter now?"
"You're goin' through that hole to find yo' liberty, but I stay here."
"Stay, and be hanged to you."
"I got to. How should I be with this wound out there on the range?"
"I'll see to that, youngster. It's only a little way to La Soledad, and I'll get you through. It may hurt, but it's not so bad as being hanged."
"I cayn't travel. We're due to be caught and killed. You go alone, Jim."
"We go together and live, or we stay together and die. Take your choice, Curly."
"Oh, I cayn't bear it—you don't understand!"
"I understand you're a little coward!"
"That's no dream."
"You own to being a coward?"
"Yes. All these years I've tried to play the game, to be a boy, to live a boy's life, but now—I'd rather die, and get it finished."
"Why?"
"I've been off my haid last night and all to-day. This pain has stampeded me, and I'm goin' crazy. To-night the pain is worse. I'll be making fool talk, giving myself away, and you'll find me out. It's better to own up than to be found out."
"To own up what?"
"Oh, don't be hard on me, Jim! I tried so hard! I was born for a boy, I had to be a boy. Don't you see, girls was plumb impossible in a gang of robbers!"
"Have you gone mad?"
"Oh, you cayn't understand, and it's so hard to say." Curly lay face downwards, hiding a shamed face. "My mother must have made a mistake—I wasn't bawn for a boy."
"Good gracious!"
"I had to be raised for a boy—it had to be done. What else was possible at the Robbers' Roost?"
"And you're not a boy!"
"God help me, I'm only a girl."
"You, a girl?"
"Oh, don't be hard on me—it ain't my fault! I tried so hard to be a man—but I'm crazy with pain—and I wisht I was daid!"
"But I can't believe—it can't be true. Why, I've seen you ride—the first horseman in Arizona, scout, cowboy, desperado, wanted for robbery and murder—you a girl!"
"Have pity! Don't! Don't talk like that—I'm not so bad as you think—I never robbed—I never——"
"You killed men to save my life. Oh, Curly, I'm so sorry I talked like that—I take it all back. I must have beenlocoto call you a coward—I wish I'd half your courage! I never knew a woman could be brave; my mother wasn't, and all the girls I've known—they weren't like you. Oh, the things you've seen me do, the things I've said—treating you no better than a boy. Can you ever forgive the way I treated you?"
One little hand stole out and touched him: "Stop—talk no more."
Avaquerowas singing for all he was worth in the guardroom, to the strum of a guitar, while hands clapped out the time—
"I could not be so well content,So sure of thee,Señorita,Lolita;But well I know thou must relentAnd come to me,Lolita!"
"I could not be so well content,So sure of thee,Señorita,Lolita;But well I know thou must relentAnd come to me,Lolita!"
Jim set to work to finish his hole in the wall, prying out the 'dobe bricks with his crowbar, and he sure wrought furious, timing his strokes to the clapping hands, the guitar, and the swinging chorus—
"The caballeros throng to seeThy laughing face,Señorita,Lolita;But well I know thy heart's for me,Thy charm, thy grace,Lolita!"I ride the range for thy dear sake,To earn thee gold,Señorita,Lolita;And steal the gringo's cows to makeA ranche to holdLolita!"
"The caballeros throng to seeThy laughing face,Señorita,Lolita;But well I know thy heart's for me,Thy charm, thy grace,Lolita!
"I ride the range for thy dear sake,To earn thee gold,Señorita,Lolita;And steal the gringo's cows to makeA ranche to holdLolita!"
The cactus liquor was getting in its work, the guardroom crowded up all it would hold of soldiers,vaqueros, customs men, travellers; then there was dancing, singing, gambling, squabbling, all the row which belongs to a general drunk. Curly was fretted up to high fever, riding herd on a bunch of dream cows, and Jim was pouring in his strength on the 'dobe bricks. At two in the morning the Frontier Guards began to make war talk, wanting to turn the prisoners loose, with a prize for the soldier who got first kill with a gun. On that the Holy Crossvaquerosproposed to rescue their young patrone, and wipe out the Frontier Guards. There was considerable rough house with knife and gun, until the guards subdued thevaqueros, jumped on their heads, and herded them into No. 2 cell as prisoners of war. Thevaqueroswere just moaning for blood, the Guards turned loose to celebrate their victory with more drinks, and while the row was enough to drown artillery, Jim's crowbar drove a brick which fell outside the wall. Now he had only to pry 'dobes loose one by one until the hole was big enough to let out prisoners. Sometimes he had to quit and hold his breath while the sentry came reeling past along his beat. Once he had to play dead, because a drunken sergeant rolled into the cell to give him a drink ofmeseal. The sergeant called him brother, hugged him, kissed him, cried, and went away. At three o'clock Jim crawled out through the hole with his crowbar, lay for the sentry, jumped up behind, clubbed him, and got the rifle. Then he dragged Mr. Sentry into the cell, wrapped him in Curly's blanket, and made up a dummy to look like himself in case the sergeant of the guard should remember to call again.
"Curly," he shook his partner out of sleep. "Curly, the spring time is coming—it's time for little bears to come out of hole."
"Yo' gawn all foolish," says Curly, "callin' me a bear. I done forget who I am, but I'm too sure sick to be a bear."
"Let's play bear," says Jim, mighty shy; "I'll bet you I'm first through this hole!"
The guardroom had gone quiet, the men there being just sober enough not to fall off the floor, but the sergeant was droning with the guitar, sobbing out the tail end of the old Lolita song—
"I ride the range for thy dear sake,To win thee gold,S'rita,Lolita,To steal the gringo's cow-ow-ow——"
"I ride the range for thy dear sake,To win thee gold,S'rita,Lolita,To steal the gringo's cow-ow-ow——"
Curly was first out through the hole, chasing dream bears. "The wind's in the west," she said, looking at the big stars above.
"Crawl up the wind," Jim whispered. "We want our horses; where are they?"
Curly sat up snuffing at the wind, then pointed. "The hawss smell's thar," she said, "but there's a scent of pony-soldiers too—many soldiers."
Jim trailed over cat-foot to the stable and looked in through the door. A lantern hung in the place, and some of the Frontier Guards sat round a box on the hay gambling earnest. If he went off to a distance, and handed out a few shots to draw the guard away searching, he reckoned there might be time to sneak round and steal a horse before they began to stray back. But then there was Curly all delirious with fever, and whimpering small wolf calls, so that every dog in the place had started to bark. The wolf calls had to be stopped, and a new dream started which would keep the little partner good and silent. That is why Jim took a handful of dust which he said was salt.
"Come along, Curly," he whispered, "we're going to stalk the buffalo; to still hunt the buffalo; we must be fearfully quiet, or we'll never put the salt on their tails. Don't you see?"
"But the buffalo's all gawn extinct!"
"Oh, that's all right; it's not their fault, poor things. Come on, and we'll salt their tails."
"I'm sort of tired," says Curly right out loud, and Jim went cold with fright. He could hear the soldiers squabbling over their game not fifty feet away, then the sound of somebody's footsteps rambling over from the guard-house. A soldier staggered drunk within two yards of him, and rolled in at the stable door.
"Come on, old chap," Jim whispered; "I'm your horse, so climb on my back, and we'll travel."
So he put the little partner on his back, and staggered away into the desert. He had one cartridge in the gun, no water, only the stars to guide him, and at sunrise the Frontier Guards would see his tracks. There was no hope.
As soon as Captain McCalmont was clear of the city I meandered in a casual way around the saloons, taking a drink here, a cigar there, passing the word for a meeting of cowboys only. They were to ride out by twos and threes for home in the usual way, but the time for the meeting was sunset, and the place a slope of hillside beyond Balshannon's grave. There we gathered to the number of thirty head, and Mutiny rode into the bunch to cut out any strangers who might have strayed with the herd. There being no strays, I spoke—
"Boys, you-all knows who was buried here on the hilltop. He was my friend, and a sure friend of all range men." Some of the boys uncovered, one called—
"Spit it out, ole Chalkeye! When you starts up yo' church, rent me a stall!"
"I'll hire yo' ruddy scalp," says I, "instead of lamps. Wall, boys, these town toughs has shot out El Señor Don, and they're proposing to play their pure fountain of law on two more of our tribe, the same being young Jim his son, and little Curly McCalmont."
"Say, Chalkeye, when do you get yo' dividends from Messrs. Robbers, Roost, and Co.?"
"Why, Buck, it's on them days when I trusts you with loans of money."
The crowd knew Buck's habit of not paying his debts, and proposed to divide up his shirt and pants if he got too obvious with remarks.
"Boys," I went on, "we been letting these town citizens get too much happy and animated, throwing dirt in our face. Why, here's down east newspapers sobbing obituary notices over the poor cowboy species departed. Seems that we-all, and the mammoth, and the dodo, and the bison is numbered with the past, and our bones is used to manure the crops of the industrious farmer. Does that splash you?
"Dear departed, I appeals to you most sorrowful—ain't it time to show signs of being alive? Not being a worker of miracles, I don't aim to corrupt yo' morals, I ain't proposing to obliterate the town which provides us with our liquor and groceries, I ain't a party to acts of violence; but I do propose that we just whirl in to-night and rescue them po' kids at La Morita. Of course, in busting the calaboose we may have to shoot up a few Mexicans—but it does them good to be taken serious at times, and they'd sure hate to be ignored while we stole their captives."
Mutiny called out, "Say, now you've got yo' tail up, you ain't forgetting to talk."
And on that the boys got riotous—"Rair up some more, ole Chalkeye; let's see you paw the moon!"
"You tell the lies, we'll stick to 'em!"
"Who stole Ryan's cows, eh, Chalkeye?"
"Let the old horse-thief turn his wolf loose! Ki-yi-yeou-ou-ou!"
"Loo-loo-loo-Yip! Yow!"
"Girls," says I, "you're gettin' plenty obstreperous. Come on—let's roll our tails for old Mexico!"
The boys came yelping, and we trotted the night through, throwing the miles behind us.
At three o'clock, to judge by the stars of Orion, we rested our ponies near the boundary, at the streak of dawn loped on, and just as the day broke hurricaned in a gun-blaze down on La Morita.
I regret to state for your information that the Mexican Frontier Guards were too sleepy to play up their side of the game, but surrendered abject before they had time to get hurt. Moreover, our youngsters had vamoosed through a hole in the wall. So there were no captives to liberate, except four measlyvaqueros, which gave us a red-hot cussing at being waked too early for coffee time. We had a sickening miserable picnic, a waste of sweat and oratory.
Slow and solemn we gaoled up those soldiers in the calaboose, and mounted the sulkyvaquerosfor a guard to hold them, feeling all the time like a batch of widows.
In the stable I found Curly's buckskin mare and my fool horse Jones, the pair of which I took when we started for home. As to Jim and Curly, we held a council smoke, debating on their fate. The crowd agreed that these kids had been my pupils, and would be sure horse-thieves naturally. I felt they had gone afoot, but scouting around, I failed to find their sign. There was a track of a man with cowboy heels, going east, but it seemed to wiggle drunk. I never thought of Jim rolling along as he did with Curly on his back, but searched for the tracks of the pair running side by side. If I had only been a better scout I might have understood the lone track, and followed with horses to mount my youngsters for flight. We could have made an easy escape from the country, ending all our troubles—but I was a fool.
So soon as my tribe pulled out for home I knew that the Frontier Guards would be loose at once like burned-out hornets. To linger in their way would be unhealthy, and I had no tracks to follow anyway. So I pulled out with the rest, taking all guns and horses, leaving the Guards disarmed and afoot lest they should try to act warlike. Further north the guns were thrown away, except some retained as mementos, and we used the Mexican herd of ponies to cover our tracks where we scattered.
This episode is alluded to by the foolish cowboys as "Chalkeye's victory—all talk and run."
A couple of miles to the eastward of La Morita Jim found that his little partner weighed a ton. After working all night, and struggling to the limit of his strength, he could go no further. The day was breaking; to move by daylight meant an extra risk of being seen, and there was nothing to be gained by travelling. So he staggered to the nearest hilltop, found a good look-out point, then smashed up some local rattlesnakes, and laid Curly to rest under a sheltering rock. From there he watched what theWeekly Obituarydescribed as "an infamous outrage, perpetrated at La Morita by a gang of cowardly ruffians." Not that Jim was shocked—indeed, I reckon the lad put up signs of depraved joy. He said to the little partner—
"We're sure saved, Curly, from being tracked down by the Guards and murdered."
I calculate that one ordinary Arizona day without food and water would have finished Curly, but as it happened this was a desert Sabbath, when the clouds had a round-up for prayer. I ain't religious; it's no use for a poor devil like me to make a bluff at being holy, and if I went to church the Big Spirit would say: "Look at this Chalkeye person playing up at Me in a boiled shirt—ain't this plumb ridiculous?"
It's no use, because I'm bad, but yet it humbles me down low to watch the clouds when they herd together for prayers, flirting their angel wings against the sun, lifting their gruff voices in supplication, tearing up the sky with their lightnings, sending down the rain of mercy to us poor desert creatures. The respectable people hire preachers to tell the Big Spirit of their wants, but it's the white clouds of the sky that says prayers for us ignorant range folks, for the coyotes, the deer and panthers, the bears and cows, the ponies and the cowboys. Then the rain comes to save us from dying of thirst, and we cusses around ungrateful because it makes us wet.
When the storm broke that morning, the rain roared, the ground splashed, the hills ran cataracts, and Jim and Curly got washed out of their camp, the same becoming a pool all of a sudden, and were much too wet to go to sleep again. Moreover, the fever had left off prancing around in Curly's brain, and the cold had eased her wound like some big medicine.
Jim had found a corner under the rock ledge which was perfectly dry. His leather Mexican clothes were shrunk tight with rain, the staining ran in streaks on his face, his teeth played tunes with the cold.
"El Señor Don Santiago," says Curly, "yo' face has all gawn pinto, and it don't look Mexican that a-way in stripes. Maybe yo're changing into a sort of half-breed."
"I'm beastly cold," says Jim, grave as a funeral.
"Same here," she laughed. "Don't you think yo' disguise would pass for something in the way of striped squir'ls? With a rat in yo' paws you'd do for a chipmunk."
"Let me be," says Jim. "How's your wound?"
"Not aching to hurt, just to remind me it's there. How did we get to this rock?"
Jim told her about the escape, and how the Frontier Guards had been left afoot, and how the storm had come convenient to wash out the raiders' tracks as well as his own.
The rain had quit, and the plain was shining like a sea of gold which ran in channels between the island groups of purple mountains. So one could sure see range after range melting off into more than a hundred miles of clear distance, to where the sunshine was hot beyond the clouds. That clearness after rain is a great wonder to see, and makes one feel very good.
"Talk some more," says Curly, "then I won't be encouraging this wound by taking notice of it."
"Shall I lift you here to this dry corner?"
"No; it's sure fighting, moving. Leave me be."
"Curly, how did you get that scar above your eye?"
"Buck handed me that. He's shorely fretful at times. Who's Buck? Why, he's second in command of our gang. No, he's a sure man. I'm plenty fond of Buck."
"The brute! I'll wring his beastly neck! You love him?"
"Wouldn't you love all yo' brothers, Jim?"
"Oh, brothers—that's all right. But why did the rotten coward make that scar?"
"You see, Buck's plenty fond of me, and his emotions is r'aring high, specially when—wall, I refused to be Mrs. Buck. It sounded so funny that I had to laugh. Then he got bucking squealing crazy, and when he's feeling that a-way he throws knives, which it's careless of him."
"He wounded you with a knife? The cur!"
"Oh, but Buck was remorseful a whole lot afterwards, and father shot him too. Father always shoots when the boys get intimate. Poor Buck! I nursed him until he was able to get around again, and he loves me worse than ever. It cayn't be helped."
"So these robbers know that you—that you're a girl?"
"They found me out last year. Yes, it's at the back of their haids that I'm their lil sister, and they're allowed to be brothers to me, Jim. Now don't you snort like a hawss, 'cause they're all the brothers I've got."
"You're not afraid of them?"
"You cayn't think what nice boys they are. Of course, being robbers, they claims to have been hatched savage, and brung up dangerous, pore things. Father tells 'em that they has no occasion for vain-glorious pride, 'cause their vocation is mean."
"He's dead right, and I'm glad he shoots them!"
"Generally in the laigs. He says he reckons that a tender inducement to being good is better than a bullet through the eye. Of co'se thar has to be some discipline to chasten they'r hearts, or they'd get acting bumptious."
"Humph!"
"But you don't savvy. Father has to press his views on the boys, but they'd be much worse if it wasn't for him. He says he's a heaps indulgent parent to 'em, and I reckon he shorely is. Father's the best man in the whole world. Do you know he only kills when he has to, and not for his own honour and glory? Why, he won't rob a man unless he's got lots of wealth. Once he was a bad man, but that's a long while ago, before I remember."
"Were you always raised as a boy?"
"Allus. He made me learn to ride, and rope, and shoot, from—ever since I was weaned. When I got old enough he learned me scouting, cooking, packing a hawss, tending wounds, hunting—all sorts of things. I been well educated shore enough, more than most boys."
"It's all beastly rot calling him good—McCalmont good!"
"A hawss or a dawg, or a lil' child will run from a bad man, but they love my father. Oh, but you don't know how good he is!"
"Well, let it go at that. You wanted to be a robber?"
"Shorely, yes, but he never would let me. It ain't true what that sign-paper says up in the city yonder, that I robbed a train. I wasn't there at all. You see, father picked up on the home trail with a starving man, and helped him. That mean, or'nary cuss went and told Joe Beef, the sheriff, that I was in the gang which held up the train. That's why I'm due to be hunted and roped, or shot at by any citizen who wants two thousand dollars. Of co'se, it's nacheral there should be a bounty offered on wolf haids, but I'd like to have a nice wolf-time before I'm killed. I never had a chance to get my teeth in, 'cept only once. Yes, we stole six hundred head of cattle from the Navajos, and you should just have seen the eager way they put out after us. They was plenty enthoosiastic, and they came mighty near collecting our wigs."
"It makes me sick to think of you with a gang of thieves."
"Father says that the worst crimes is cowardice, meanness, and cheating. The next worse things is banks, railroad companies, lawyers; and that young Ryan—'specially Ryan—he says that us robbers is angels compared with trash like that."
"That's no excuse."
"Father says that robbery is a sign that the law is rotten, and a proof that the Government's too pore and weak to cast a proper shadow. He allows we're a curse to the country, and it serves the people right."
"It's bad—you know it's bad!"
"Shore thing it's bad. Do you know what made us bad? All of our tribe was cowboys and stockmen once; not saints, but trying to act honest, and only stealing cows quite moderate, like ole Chalkeye. Then rich men came stealing our water-holes, fencing in our grass, driving our cattle away."
"Why didn't you get a lawyer—wasn't there any law?"
"There shorely was. My father's farm was way back in Kansas. His neighbour was a big cattle company, which hadn't any use for farms or settlers. They turned their cattle into his crops, they shot my brother Bill, they wounded father. Then father went to law, and the lawyers skinned him alive, and the judge was a shareholder in the Thomas Cattle Company—he done gave judgment that we-all was in the wrong. Then father appealed to the big Court at Washington, which says he had the right to his land and home. So the cattle company set the grass on fire and burned our home. Mother was burned to death, and father he went bad. I was the only thing he saved from the fire."
"Poor beggar! No wonder he turned robber. I'd have done the same, by Jove!"
"He shot Judge Thomson first, then he killed Mose Thomson, and the sheriff put out to get him. He got the sheriff. Then he went all through Kansas and Colorado, gathering pore stockmen what had been robbed and ruined by the rich men's law. They held up pay-escorts, stage coaches, banks, the trains on the railroad. That was the beginning of the Robbers' Roost."
Jim sat heaps thoughtful looking away across the desert. "Our breeding cattle," says he, tallying on his fingers, "then Holy Cross, then mother, then father, and now I'm being hunted for a murder I didn't commit."
"Now you know," says Curly, "why we robbers played a hand in yo' game."
"I understand. Say, Curly, I take back all I said about it being bad—this robbery-under-arms. It's the only thing to do."
"Don't you get dreaming," says Curly, "we-all ain't blind; our eyes is open a whole lot wide to truth, and we make no bluff that robbery and murder is forms of holiness."
"It's all right for me. I'm a man, and I'm not a coward, either. But, Curly, you're not fit for a game like this. I'm going to take you away—where you'll be safe."
"And whar to?"
Jim looked at the desert steaming after the rain, hot as flame, reaching away all round for ever and ever. He looked at Curly's wound all swollen up, her face which had gone gaunt with pain and weakness. They were afoot, they were hunted, they had no place to hide.
"Whar do you propose to take me?" says Curly.
"I don't know," says Jim; "perhaps your people aren't so bad after all—anyway, they tried to keep you clean."
"And what's the use of that? D'ye think I want to be alone in the hull world—clean with no folks, no home? Why should I want to be different from my father, and all my tribe? Would I want to be safe while they're in danger? Would I want to play coward while they fight? Shucks! Father turned me out to grass onced at the Catholic Mission, and them priests was shorely booked right through to heaven. What's the use of my being thar, while the rest of my tribe is in hell? I dreamt last night I was in hell, carrying water to feed it to my wolves; I couldn't get a drop for myself—never a drop."
"Curly, I've got to save you—I must—I shall!"
She laughed at him. "You! Do you remember me at Holy Crawss when I punched cows for Chalkeye? I might ha' been thar still but for you."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Jim, I met up with yo' mother, and I didn't want to be bad any more when I seen her."
"She thought the world of you."
The poor child broke out laughing, "Oh, shucks!" Then her face went bitter. "She said she loved me, eh?"
"She said I was a beastly little cad compared with you. When I got home from college she held you up for a holy example, and rubbed my nose in it. She was right—but how I cursed you!"
Curly laughed faint and lay back moaning, for the sun had come hot from the clouds, and she was burning with pain. "So yo' mother claimed she loved me. Well, I know better!"
"Why didn't you stay with her, Curly?"
"I seen her face when she waited for you to come home—you, Jim, and she looked sure hungry. What was I to her, when she seen her own son a-coming? I waited to see you, Jim; I jest had to see you 'cause you was pizen to me. Then I went away 'cause I'd have killed you if I'd seen you any mo'."
"Where did you go?"
"Whar I belong, back to the wolf pack. What had I to do with a home, and a mother, with shelter, and livin' safe, and bein' loved? I'm only a wolf with a bounty on my hide, to be hunted down and shot."
"And you—a girl!"
"No, a mistake!"
Jim pawed out, and grabbed her small brown hand. "You came back," he whispered.
"I came back to see if that Ryan was goin' to wipe you out, you and yo' people. I came to see you die."
"And saved my life!"
"I reckon," says Curly, "I ain't quite responsible anyways for my life—'cause I'm only a mistake—jest a mistake. I feels one way, and acts the contrary; I whirl in to kill, and has to rescue; I aims to hate—and instead of that I——"
"What?"
"I dunno," she laughed. "Up home at Robbers' Roost we got a lil' book on etiquette what tells you how ladies and gentlemen had ought to act in heaps big difficulties. It shorely worries me to know whether I'm a lady or a gentleman, but it's mighty comfortin' the way that book is wrote. I done broke all my wolves outer that book to set up on their tails and act pretty. Now, if I had the book I'd know how I'd ought to act in regard to you-all."
Jim looked mighty solemn, being naturally about as humorous as a funeral. "Am I nothing to you?" he asked, feeling hurt; but she just opened one eye at him, smiling, and said nothing.
Presently the pain got so bad that she began to roll from side to side, scratching with her free hand at the face of the rock overhead.
"Can't I do something?" says Jim. "It's awful to sit and watch that pain. I must do something."
"If you climb to the top of this rock," she said between her teeth, "you'd see La Soledad. My father's thar."
"I'll run."
"Why run?" She snatched a small round looking-glass out of the breast of her shirt. "You've only to get the sun on this glass and flash the light three times upon La Soledad. The man on look-out will see the flash."
"Give me the glass, then."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Do you know what it means, Jim, if you flash that signal?"
"Rescue for you."
"And for you, Jim? It means that you quit bein' an honest man, it means shame, it means death. Us outlaws don't die in our beds, Jim."
"Give me the glass."
"No, Jim. Some time soon, when you and me is riding with the outfit, or camped at our stronghold, the army is goin' to come up agin' us—pony soldiers, and walk-a-heaps, and twice guns, to take our water-holes, to drive away ourremuda, to block our escape trails, to close in on us. Our fires are goin' to be put out, our corpses left to the coyotes and the eagles."
"Give me that glass!"
"And my father says that beyond that is the Everlastin' Death."
"Do you think you can frighten me? Give me that glass!" He snatched the glass from her hand, scrambled to the top of the rocks, and flashed the light three times upon La Soledad.
A white star answered.
McCalmont was hid up at theranchitaLa Soledad, with a sentry out to the south-west watching La Morita, a sentry out to the west to keep tab on the Bisley trail, a sentry out to the north on the Grave City road, and Buck Hennesy, his segundo, riding from point to point with feed and water. When anything happened the sentries flashed a signal to Buck, who warned the chief. At sunrise McCalmont had news of our raid on La Morita, and that made him think for sure that the kids were rescued. He'd been riding all night, so he got his eye down quick for a big sleep. The storm rolled up, burst, and trailed off to the eastward; the sun shone out, lifting white steam from the desert; then came the heat. At two o'clock, away southward through the quivering haze, Buck sighted the three-flash signal, which means "Help!" He threw back the two-flash, "Coming."
So he and the chief loped out, taking a canteen of cold tea, which is the proper medicine for thirst, and a led horse each, to bring the youngsters in to the little ranche. By four o'clock they had Curly bedded down in the shack, supposing herself to be a prairie-dog, and wanting to know who'd come and stole her tail. McCalmont nursed her, Buck went off to spoil the trail from the hill, and Jim squatted down on the doorstep for a feed of pork and beans, with lashings of coffee.
The main outfit of the robbers was camped at Las Aguas, some miles to the north-east, and three of them came in at dusk to get their supper and relieve the sentries around La Soledad. They were heaps shy when they saw what looked like a greaservaquerositting in the doorway of the cabin. One of them rode right at him.
"Here, you," he shouted. "Git out 'er herepronto! Vamoose!"
"Poco tiempo," says Jim.
"Who are you, anyways?"
"Quien sabe?"
"Wall, ye cayn't stay here, so ye'd best get absent." He pulled his gun on Jim's feet. "Now jest you prance!"
Jim laughed at him.
"Mañana," he said. Then in English, "You bark a lot, my friend. Whose dog are you?"
Then he heard McCalmont's slow, soft drawl. "I sure enjoy to see the sire's grit show out in the young colt. Spoke like a man, Jim! And as to you, Crazy Hoss, I want you to understand that if you don't learn deportment I'll politely lam yo' haid, you, you double-dealing foogitive, low-flung, sheep-herdin' son of a lop-eared thug! Hain't you got no more sense than a toorist, you parboiled, cock-eyed, spavined, broken-down, knock-kneed wreck o' bones? You——!"
With such genteel introductions McCalmont sure spouted burning wrath into that robber, scorching holes until he lost his breath.
"The evil communications of this young polecat," says he to Jim, "is shorely spoiling my manners. And now, you—you turtle-doves, you'll jest get away out of here and cook your supper thar by the barn. You want to be mighty quiet too, 'cause my Curly is lying in here wounded. Git over now!"
The robbers trailed off grinning, while the chief sat down on the doorstep next to Jim.
"The children make me peevish," he said, and began to roll a cigarette in his fingers. "Wall, do you remember, Jim? I allowed we'd be better friends when we met again."
Jim looked round sharp and sat there studying McCalmont. He didn't look bad or dangerous, but just a middle-aged cattle-man of the old long-horn desert breed. Our folks are rough and homely; we've got a hard name, too, but we stay alive in a country which kills off all but the fighters. McCalmont had a cool blue eye, humorous and kind, and grey hair straggling down over a face that was tanned to leather. The stiff-brimmed cowboy hat was jammed on the back of his head, the white silk handkerchief hung loose about his shoulders. He wore a grey army shirt, blue overalls, stuffed anyhow into his boots, and a loose belt of cartridges, slinging the Colt revolver on his hip. Somehow the youngster felt drawn to him, knowing he'd found a friend of the kind that lasts.
"And you were that sky-scout?" says he.
"A most unworthy shepherd! Jest you look at my sheep," says McCalmont.
Jim asked how long it was since they met that day on the range.
"It seems a year to you, eh, lad? That was six days ago, the way I reckon time."
"So much has happened—sir—can it be less than a week? I was only a boy then—and Curly——"
"My son has struck you serious."
"She has told me everything, sir."
"Yo' goin' to remember to speak of Curly as a boy. He is allooded to as a boy, or I get hawstile. You understand that?"
"I understand."
"And now," says McCalmont, "we'll have that buckboard ready in case we need to pull out."
There was a buckboard standing in the yard, the same being a four-wheel dogtrap, with a springy floor of boards, easy for travel. Jim helped McCalmont to stow some cases and a keg of water, fill sacks with sweet range hay for Curly's bed, and then cover the whole with a canvas ground-sheet.
"You think," says Jim, "that we'll be chased to-night?"
"I dunno, Jim, but it looks to me as that's how the herd is grazing."
When supper was ready they strayed across to the fire and joined issue with beef, hot bread, and coffee, the same being taken serious without waste of time or talk. We range-folk don't interrupt our teeth with aimless discourse. By smoke-time Buck loped off in the dusk to find theremudaof ponies out at grass, and the boys had a cigarette while he gathered, watered, and drove the ponies home. Then the team for the buckboard was caught, harnessed, and tied up with a feed of corn; each man roped and saddled his night horse; and Buck, with the three relief men, rode out slow, curving away into the starlight.
McCalmont roped a sorrel mare for Jim, then found him a spare saddle, a bridle, a blanket, belt, gun, and spurs.
"Now," says he, "jest bed yo'self down, but don't undress. Keep yo' hawss to hand, sleep rapid, and in case of alarm jump quick. An outlaw's bed, my son, ain't feathered for long sleeps."
Jim lay awake and watched until the day guard came loping in with Buck. He saw them rope and saddle their remounts, catch their supper, bed down, and smoke the final cigarette. It all felt homely and good to be with cowboys again, to have his blanket on the dust, his horse and gun beside him, to know he was free and moderately safe, to look up drowsy at a great white sky of stars. Jim was a plainsman in those days sure enough, content, range fashion, to have the whole earth for a bed, the night for a bedroom, and the starry palace of the Great Spirit to shelter him while he slept. Kings and emperors and such have to hole up at night in mean quarters compared with that.
Somewhere out on the range McCalmont's guard-camp kept a sentry alert through the night, and when Jim woke up he saw the day guard swarming off in the grey of dawn to relieve them. He washed himself in the horse-trough, and helped McCalmont to cook breakfast.
"Now don't you make too much fire," says the chief, "'cause the less smoke we show the better for our health. We want no strangers projecting around to pay us mawning visits."
"Colonel," says Jim, "how's Curly?"
"Right peart, and chirping for breakfast."
The boys came rolling in from night guard. "Now you, Crazy Hoss," says McCalmont, "rope the day hawsses, and put the herd to grass befo' you feed. You, Buck, is all secure?"
"Wall, boss, there's United States pony-soldiers, three hundred haid of 'em, comes trailing down out of the Mule Pass."
"Heading this way?"
"No, seh; they're pointing for La Morita."
"I see. It's because of the shockin' outrage yesterday on them pore Mexican Guards at La Morita. I expaict that ole Mexico is up on its ear for war, and they'll be sending their army to eat the United States. Jest take yo' glasses, Buck, and see if that Mexican army is coming along."
Buck rode to the nearest hill and looked over the top without showing himself on the skyline; then he came sailing back, and rolled up to the chief, all snorting.
"There's the dust of an army on the Fronteras trail."
"Them rival armies," McCalmont drawled, "will talk theyrselves into fits, and the rival Governments will talk theyrselves into fits; and all the newspapers will talk theyrselves into fits; then they'll agree that La Morita was raided, and they'll agree that it was the acts of wicked robbers, and they'll agree it wasme. 'Spose we have our coffee."
All through the night McCalmont had been sitting up with Curly, treating her wound to a course of cold wet bandages once in five minutes to reduce the swelling. After breakfast he went back again to her side, and his teeth were sure set hard, because he had made up his mind to dig for the bullet, which caused her more pain than was needful. As for Jim, he squatted on the doorstep outside, with time at last to think. His affairs had been some hurried and precipitous in this one week, which cost him his parents, his home, his business as master of a tribe of cowboys, his friends, his prospects, his reputation as an honest man. And now the whirlwind had dropped him on the doorstep of a 'dobe shack to think the matter over quietly and have a look at himself. He was an orphan now, poor as a wolf, hunted, desperate, herded with thieves. What was the use of trying to earn an honest living when the first respectable person he met would begin the conversation by shooting him all to pieces?
Then he heard McCalmont calling him: "Say, can yo' lawdship oblige me with the loan of a pin?"
His lordship! The poor chap remembered now that he was Viscount Balshannon, Baron Blandon, and several different sorts of baronets.
"Yo' lawdship!"
"McCalmont," he howled, "you brute!"
Then he heard Curly telling her father to behave himself, and his mind went off grazing again over the range of his troubles. There was that Curly, the famous desperado, the fighting frontiersman, the man who had saved his life—and all of a sudden he had to think of him—of her—as a poor girl crazy with pain. Jim had to face a fact which had hit his very soul, turned the world upside down, and left him wriggling. It was no use being hostile or disappointed; he couldn't make believe he was glad. Curly didn't feel like a chum or a partner now; he couldn't imagine her as any sort of sister or friend. She just filled his life until there was nothing else to care for on earth, and it made his bones ache.
Then McCalmont began to work with some sort of surgical instruments, probing her wound for the bullet. He heard her make little moans, whimpers, and stopped his ears with his fingers. Then she screamed.
Jim was shaking all over, but with that scream he knew what had happened to himself. He had fallen head over ears in love with that same Curly.
After a long time McCalmont came out of the shack and sat down alongside of Jim. The robber was white as a ghost; he was trembling and gulping for breath.
"Here," he cried, "you take this."
Jim took the thing in his hand—a flattened bullet, all torn around the edges and streaked with blood.
For some time he just sat staring at that bullet, scared by his own thoughts. "Captain," says he at last, "Curly's not dying?"
"Why, not to any great extent, my son." McCalmont lay back on a dirt floor, and yawned. "He's sleeping a whole lot now, and if you'll stay around in case he wakes, I'll take a few myself; I'm kinder tired."
The robber dropped off to sleep, and Jim sat watching beside him. At noon the boys off duty in the yard called him to dinner, but McCalmont slept far into the afternoon. Then of a sudden he started broad awake, his hand on his gun, staring out at the blazing heat of the desert.
"That's all right," says he; "three hours' rest is enough for hawsses and robbers, so I reckon I've took more'n my share."
"Curly's still sleeping," says Jim.
"I'll catch some lunch, then."
Jim watched him ranging about the yard, bread in one hand, meat in the other, eating his dinner while he hustled his men to work. He kept three young robbers busy until the camp gear was stowed for travel, and all the litter was hid away out of sight. Then he made them bury the ashes of the camp fire, and smooth over all the tracks until the ground looked as though there had been no visitors for a week.
After that he brought a pencil and notebook for Jim.
"I want you to write," he said; "scrawl yo' worst, and put down all the spellin' ignorant. Write:—'Dere Bill, I'm gawn with the buckboard for grub. Back this even.'—B. Brown.' Yes, that will do."
He took the book from Jim, tore out the leaf, and hung it on the door conspicuous.
"Thar's times," he said, "when sheriffs and marshals, and posses of virtuous citizens gets out on the warpath in pursuit of robbers. They comes pointing along mighty suspicious, and reads the tracks on the ground, and notes the signs, and sniffs the little smells, and in they'r ignorant way draws false concloosions. Meanwhile the robbers has adjourned."
Jim's face was as long as a coffin. "Captain," says he, "I've been thinking."
"I'm sorry yo're took bad, my son." The robber sat down beside him. "Let me see yo' tongue."
"Don't laugh at me. Will you mind, Captain McCalmont—if—if I speak of Curly—just this once—as—as a woman?"
"Turn yo' wolf loose, my son, I'm hearing."
"I love her, sir."
"Same here, Jim."
"Do you mind, though?"
"My boy, when I wanted to marry her mother, I jest up an' asked her."
"I'm not good enough for her."
"That's so, and yet I reckon Curly's been dead gentle with you-all. Why, she sure sits on all our haids."
"I'm afraid she doesn't care for me yet."
"I expaict, Jim, that an eye-doctor is what you need."
"And you'll consent?"
"If Curly consents, on one condition. You get her safely out of this country, you take her to civilised life, whar she can stay good, away from us—thieves. Take her to the Old Country."
"To starve!"
"I'll see to that. I've left enough wealth with Chalkeye to give you a start in life. He came down yesterday mawning to see you-all at La Morita—you were out."
"Do you suppose," says Jim, getting hot, "that I'd take your money?"
"If you take my child, yo're not above taking my money, Lord Balshannon!"
Jim pawed his gun—"I take no stolen money!"
"Yo're speaking too loud," says McCalmont, "come over by the corral."
He walked over to the bars of the corral, Jim following.
"And now," McCalmont's voice went softer than ever, "I may allude to the fact that if any cur insults my daughter or me, there is apt to be some unpleasantness."
"Don't you think," says Jim, his hand on his gun, "that we had better go a little further off—so that Curly won't be disturbed when we fire?"
"Why, boy, air you proposin' to dispense yo' gun at me?"
"As you please! You called me a cur—and you'll eat your words or fight!"
"And you only called me a thief? Wall, I shorely am for a fact, and you're not a cur—no. I reckon I was some impulsive in saying that. Come, we won't quar'l, for I like you a whole lot for yo' playing up against me that-a-way. What are yo' plans?"
Jim was breathing hard and acting defiant still. "I want to join your gang!"
"Which I accepts you glad, for I ain't refusing shelter to any hunted man."
"And I may marry Curly?"
"Not if you join my outfit. None of my wolves are invited to offer theyr paws in mar'iage with my Curly. Two or three of them young persons proposed theyrselves, and found my gun a whole lot too contagious for comfort."
Jim unbuckled his belt, and let it fall with holster and gun to the ground.
"I cannot accept the loan of that gun," he said, "or any favour from you. I've been hunted, I'm afoot, I'm unarmed, but now, by thunder! look out for yourself, because I'm going to hunt. I shall rob you if I can; I'm at war with you and every man on the stock range, until I've won back my house, my lands, my cattle. Then I'll come for your daughter, but I won't ask for her!"
McCalmont leaned his shoulder against the corral, and laughed at him.
"Wade in!" says he; "good luck, my boy. I mustn't ask you to divulge yo' plans, but I'm heaps interested."
"My father told me, Captain McCalmont, that all the first Balshannon won he got with the sword. Well, times are changed—we use revolvers now!"
"Only for robbery, my lad, and for murder. I thought as you do once, and reckoned I'd get even with the world. I started with a lone gun, I sure got even, but see the price I paid. My wife was—I cayn't talk of that. My lil' son was shot. My daughter is herding with thieves—and she's the only thing that I've got left on airth. Come, lad, if I can bear to part with her, and give her up to you, cayn't you give up a little of yo' fool pride and accept her dowry jest to save the child? Take her away to whar she can stay good—I ask no more of you."
"You want me to run away from Ryan, and let him keep Holy Cross? You want me to live in Ireland on a woman's money? You want to hire Lord Balshannon, with stolen money, to keep your daughter?" Jim spat on the ground. "If you want to give Curly to a filthy blackguard, why don't you marry her to Ryan?"
"You use strong words, seh."
"And mean them!"
McCalmont lowered his eyes, and pawed in the dust with his foot. Just for a moment he stood scratching the dust, then he looked up.
"Onced," he said, very quiet, "I aimed at being a gentleman. I beg yo' pardon, seh."
"You are a gentleman," says Jim, "that's just the worst of it—you understand things. What on earth makes you want to insult me?"
"It seems to me, Jim, that you might understand, more than you do, that I'm aiming to be yo' friend. Yo're at war with this yere Ryan to get back Holy Crawss, or a fair equivalent, eh, for what you've lost?"
"Go on, sir."
"I'm at war, too, with the breed of swine he belongs to. Would you be satisfied if Ryan paid in cash for yo' home, yo' land, and yo' cattle? You being an outlaw now, it wouldn't be healthy to live there to any great extent. Will you take cash?"
"Or blood!"
"I have no speshul use fo' blood. I reckon I'd as soon bleed a polecat as a Ryan, if I yearned for blood. What d'you reckon you could buy with blood—sections of peace, chunks of joy? I'd take mine in cash."
"You'll help, sir?"
"For all young Ryan's worth, and then"—McCalmont laid his hands on Jim's shoulders—"you'll take Curly home as yo' wife, eh, partner?"
"If she is willing, sir."
McCalmont's ears went back against his head, he lifted his nose to the west, pointing up wind. There was a sound like the thud of raindrops on dust, a soft pattering which came nearer and stronger. He loosed off the long yell to rouse the three men who were resting by the barn, he told Jim to pick up his gun and help, he jumped for the team horses and led them to the buckboard.
The pattering had grown up out of the distance to a steady rush of sound, the ground had begun to quiver, then to shake, then with a yell of warning, Buck and his sentries came thundering in from the desert.
McCalmont backed his team to the buckboard, lifted the waggon tongue to the ring of the yoke bar, and jumped to hitch on the traces, just as Buck reined all standing to report.
"There's a strong posse," says Buck, "coming out from the Mule Pass—maybe sixty riders, and they're shorely burning the trail straight for this ranche."
"Were you seen?"
"No, seh!"
"Bowlaigs, Johnny, Steve, yo're mounted, so you'll collect the herd, drive north, and keep wide of the trail! Crazy Hoss, hold this team! Doc, throw my saddle on that sorrel, and lead north; Buck, make the camp search, and follow, closing all signs 'cept the wheel-track! Jim, help the herders! Git a move on!"
McCalmont had got through with the harnessing while he slung his orders; now he went to work smooth and quiet, pulling on his shaps (leather leg-armour) and buckling his spurs while his cool eye searched the yard.
"Buck," he called, "let the water drain out of that hoss trough. That water wouldn't look natural on an empty ranche."
McCalmont brought Curly in his arms, bedded her down in the rig, drew the ground-sheet over to keep off the sun and dust, and passed a lashing across.
After that he locked the door of the cabin, and hung the key on its nail. It was just that thoughtfulness in little plays which made McCalmont loom up great in his business. Two minutes after the first alarm he grabbed the reins, jumped to his seat, and drove off slow from the yard, aiming to show by the tracks that Cocky Brown's old buckboard had not pulled out in a hurry. Buck and Crazy Hoss stayed to brush out a few spare tracks, put up the slip rails and follow. For all one could see at the littleranchitaLa Soledad, the owner, Cocky Brown, had trailed off for supplies to the city, then a couple of riders had happened along shortly after, and read the notice which was left for "Dere Bill" on the door.
McCalmont just poured his whip into the team as Buck came up abreast.
"All set?" he asked.
"All set, seh."
"Can we get behind them hills befo' we're seen by the posse?"
Buck looked back to the boys who were sweating the herd astern. "Yes," he shouted, "I reckon. You done right smart, seh, to get Curly out 'n that mess."
"You'll be pleased to know, Buck, that my Curly is engaged to be mar'ied to this du Chesnay colt."
Buck's face went white, but he just spurred along saying nothing. A fold of the ground shut out the ranche behind, a hill barred off the country to the left, and, if the posse could see the dust of the flying outfit, they might well mistake that for one of the whirlwinds which curve around the desert wherever the sun burns strong.
"Buck," says McCalmont, "reach back to the skyline, and see if that posse puts out on our trail from the ranche. At dusk I quit this Grave City road, and strike due east. If yo're delayed, jest roll yo' trail right east for Holy Crawss. In the mawning we round up all the stock we can find thar, and pull out for home. You understand?"
"I understand," says Buck, and swung off for the skyline.
The breaking out of evil passions between the cowboys and the Grave City citizens opened my eye to the fact that this city was getting a whole lot obsolete since the mines began to peter out. Its population of twelve thousand assorted criminals had shrunken away to mere survivals living to save the expense of funeral pomps. Counting in tramps, tourists, and quite a few dogs, expected visitors and the dear departed, these ruins claimed a population of one thousand persons, mostly escaped from penitentiary. It made me feel lonesome to think of such a tribe with its mean ways, distorted intellects, and narrow views about me.
On the other hand, there was Bisley, a sure live mining town in the Mule Pass, where the people were youthful, happy, and sympathetic. After that melancholy victory of mine at La Morita I came butting along to Bisley, where I reckoned I could have a glass of lager beer without being shot to any great extent. Besides that, United States Marshal Hawkins lives there, who's always been a white man and a good friend to me. I found his house away up the gulch, above Bisley City, and he being to home, just whirled right in, telling him how sick my heart was, and how my fur was all bristles.
He said he was disgusted with me for getting mixed up with local politics and robbers.
Naturally I explained how I'd only been acting as second in a duel between Balshannon and that Ryan.
He agreed I was modest in the way I put my case, and that I ought to be hanged some in the public interest.
"How about the robbers?" says he.
"Is there robbers about?" says I. "Is thar really now?"
He snapped out news of the La Morita raid that very morning, and I own up I was shocked all to pieces when he told me what had happened to those fragile guards.
"Why, man," says he, "it's all your doing, and I had to wire for the dog-gone cavalry."
"Cavalry?" says I. "Pore things; d'you reckon they'll get sore feet?"
"I opine," says the Marshal, "that you'll get a sore neck soon and sudden, you double-dealing, cattle-stealing, hoss thief. Whar do you think you'll go to when you're lynched?"
So he went on denouncing around until it was time to eat, then asked me to dinner. After that Mrs. Hawkins was plenty abusive, too, close-herding me until supper, when the Marshal came home. Hawkins, thoughtful to keep me out of mischief, made me bed down for the night in his barn; and I made no howl because here at Bisley, close to the boundary, I would get the first news of Jim and Curly. It made me sick to think how helpless I was to find them. In the morning a squadron of cavalry arrived by rail, had coffee in town, and trailed off in their harmless way to patrol the boundary for fear of somebody stealing Mexico. I lay low, but mended a sewing machine which had got the fan-tods, according to Mrs. Hawkins. I treated the poor thing for inflammation of the squeam until it got so dead I couldn't put it together any more. My mind was all set on my lost kids out yonder in the desert, but Mrs. Hawkins grieved for the dead machine, and chased me out of the house.
Just then came the Marshal swift back from Bisley town on a bicycle.
"Say, Chalkeye," he yelled, "I want you to saddle my mare, and get mounted yourself!Pronto!"
When I came out with the horses I found him fondling his shot-gun, so I buckled on my guns, and inquired for the name of my enemy.
"You know Cocky Brown?" he asked, as we rode down street.
"I know he makes a first-rate stranger," says I.
"His dog-gone son is here in Bisley drunk, and lets out that old Cocky is getting rent for La Soledad."
"Who is the locoed tenant—some poor tourist?"
"It's that dog-gone McCalmont and his robbers!"
"And yet, Mr. Hawkins, you laid the blame on me for raiding La Morita! It makes me sick!"
"For raiding La Morita? Why, of course—McCalmont's robbers—the same gang which shot up the 'Sepulchre' crowd at Grave City. That explains everything! Wall, I'm sure sorry, old friend, that I laid the blame on you."
"Mr. Hawkins," says I, "hadn't you better tell the pony-soldiers that they're barking up the wrong tree?"
"I will, and get their help in surprising that dog-gone McCalmont at La Soledad. A good idea."
That was his idea, not mine, and I disown it. Suppose that Jim and Curly were hid up there at La Soledad?
"We can get them or'nary hold-ups," says I indignant, "without being cluttered with a heap of military infants. Why, your half-fledged, moulting cavalry would just get right in our way by tumbling all over theirselves."
In the town we found the citizens surging around for encouraging liquors before they hit the trail. They were all bristling with pocket-flasks and artillery, some on mules, some on sore-back plugs from the livery stable. Besides that there were heroes in sulkies, and dog-traps, and buckboards, warriors on bicycles, and three on a pioneer motor-car, which blew up with a loud explosion in front of the Turkish Divan. Mixed in with that milling herd were seven of my La Morita raiders, howling for robbers' blood, and gassing about the disgracefulness of molesting frontier guards. Then they circled round a tenderfoot on a pinto horse, and told him how the robbers fed red-hot coals to a prisoner.
"Wall, I admire!" says the shorthorn.
"Oh, you needn't believe me," says Lying Ike, "ask Chalkeye here. He's truthful."
"Stranger," says I, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. Lying Ike. He has an impediment in his truth, but otherwise will survive until he's lynched. Now, seh, the Marshal over yonder says that he yearns for your advice."
That tenderfoot loped off joyful to teach the United States Marshal, while I spoke to my cowboys like a father.
"You moth-eaten bookworms," says I, "your stories is prehistoric, and your lies is relics. Now you want to encourage them pore toorists, 'cause we needs them. Toorists graze out slothful on the trail, they're noisy to warn their prey, and they flit like bats as soon as a robber shoots. Send all the toorists you can to tell good advice to Marshal Hawkins quick. As to the real folks who kin ride and shoot, beguile 'em to feed, lead 'em up against the fire-water, scatter 'em, delay! This Marshal needs our help, you blighted sufferers. Do you want the Marshal to get Jim and pore Curly McCalmont, you idiots?"
So we scattered to help the Marshal, sending him earnest talkers while his fighting-men went off and lost themselves.
Did I act mean? I wonder sometimes whether I done right for Jim, for Curly.
Dog-gone Hawkins was as mad as a wet hen, too hoarse for further comments when, after a couple of hours, he rode off alone to hunt robbers; so we had to follow to save the old man from being shot. I came up abreast as soon as I could, and in a voice all hushed into whispers, he just invoked black saints and little red angels to comfort me on a grid.
I reckon it was four o'clock when our circus, all hot and dusty after a ten-mile ride, charged down upon La Soledad. The place looked so blamed peaceful that the Marshal stared pop-eyed.
"Wall, I'll be dog-goned!" says he, and let us riders traffick around innocent, trampling out all the ground sign. When he saw Cocky's memorandum on the door of the shack he couldn't bear it any longer.
"Chalkeye," says he, "I'll be dog-goned if that ain't—'Gawn with the buckboard for grub.' If that ain't enough to scorch a yaller dawg!"
"And yet," says I, "you blamed us for hanging back!"
"Wall," he groaned, "the drinks is on me this time. Let's go home."
But I knew Jim's handwriting, I knew that he and Curly were with the buckboard, I knew that the brains of McCalmont himself were behind a play like this.
I looked up the Grave City trail, the way to my ranche, the way that the buckboard had gone with my kids.
"You may go home, sir," says I, "but I'm off to my home before you leads me any more astray, corrupting my pure morals."
Dog-gone Hawkins froze me with his eyes. "Ef your soul," he says, "were to stray out on to your dog-goned cheek it would get lost!"
I'm always getting misunderstood like that by people who ought to know better. You see, I had to shock old Hawkins, or he would notice at once that I aimed to follow the buckboard.
"Cyclists," says I, "dawg-traps, sulkies, buggies, waggons, sore-back horses, mules, tenderfoot—look at yo' circus and say if that ain't enough to corrupt a long-horn's mortals. Hello, look at that!"