“I don't guess I'll leave my card on 'em,” said McLean, grimly, “if I strike Laramie.”
“You don't mind my saying I think you're well out of that scrape?” Barker ventured.
“Shucks, no! That's all right, Doc. Only—yu' see now. A man gets tired pretending—onced in a while.”
Time had gone while they were in talk, and it was now half after one and Mr. McLean late for that long-plotted first square meal. So the friends shook hands, wishing each other Merry Christmas, and the cow-puncher hastened toward his chosen companions through the stirring cheerfulness of the season. His play-hour had made a dull beginning among the toys. He had come upon people engaged in a pleasant game, and waited, shy and well disposed, for some bidding to join, but they had gone on playing with each other and left him out. And now he went along in a sort of hurry to escape from that loneliness where his human promptings had been lodged with him useless. Here was Cheyenne, full of holiday for sale, and he with his pockets full of money to buy; and when he thought of Shorty, and Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, those dandies to hit a town with, he stepped out with a brisk, false hope. It was with a mental hurrah and a foretaste of a good time coming that he put on his town clothes, after shaving and admiring himself, and sat down to the square meal. He ate away and drank with a robust imitation of enjoyment that took in even himself at first. But the sorrowful process of his spirit went on, for all he could do. As he groped for the contentment which he saw around him he began to receive the jokes with counterfeit mirth. Memories took the place of anticipation, and through their moody shiftings he began to feel a distaste for the company of his friends and a shrinking from their lively voices. He blamed them for this at once. He was surprised to think he had never recognized before how light a weight was Shorty; and here was Chalkeye, who knew better, talking religion after two glasses. Presently this attack of noticing his friends' shortcomings mastered him, and his mind, according to its wont, changed at a stroke. “I'm celebrating no Christmas with this crowd,” said the inner man; and when they had next remembered Lin McLean in their hilarity he was gone.
Governor Barker, finishing his purchases at half-past three, went to meet a friend come from Evanston. Mr. McLean was at the railway station, buying a ticket for Denver.
“Denver!” exclaimed the amazed Governor.
“That's what I said,” stated Mr. McLean, doggedly.
“Gee whiz!” went his Excellency. “What are you going to do there?”
“Get good and drunk.”
“Can't you find enough whiskey in Cheyenne?”
“I'm drinking champagne this trip.”
The cow-puncher went out on the platform and got aboard, and the train moved off. Barker had walked out too in his surprise, and as he stared after the last car, Mr. McLean waved his wide hat defiantly and went inside the door.
“And he says he's got maturity,” Barker muttered. “I've known him since seventy-nine, and he's kept about eight years old right along.” The Governor was cross, and sorry, and presently crosser. His jokes about Lin's marriage came back to him and put him in a rage with the departed fool. “Yes, about eight. Or six,” said his Excellency, justifying himself by the past. For he had first known Lin, the boy of nineteen, supreme in length of limb and recklessness, breaking horses and feeling for an early mustache. Next, when the mustache was nearly accomplished, he had mended the boy's badly broken thigh at Drybone. His skill (and Lin's utter health) had wrought so swift a healing that the surgeon overflowed with the pride of science, and over the bandages would explain the human body technically to his wild-eyed and flattered patient. Thus young Lin heard all about tibia, and comminuted, and other glorious new words, and when sleepless would rehearse them. Then, with the bone so nearly knit that the patient might leave the ward on crutches to sit each morning in Barker's room as a privilege, the disobedient child of twenty-one had slipped out of the hospital and hobbled hastily to the hog ranch, where whiskey and variety waited for a languishing convalescent. Here he grew gay, and was soon carried back with the leg refractured. Yet Barker's surgical rage was disarmed, the patient was so forlorn over his doctor's professional chagrin.
“I suppose it ain't no better this morning, Doc?” he had said, humbly, after a new week of bed and weights.
“Your right leg's going to be shorter. That's all.”
“Oh, gosh! I've been and spoiled your comminuted fee-mur! Ain't I a son-of-a-gun?”
You could not chide such a boy as this; and in time's due course he had walked jauntily out into the world with legs of equal length after all and in his stride the slightest halt possible. And Doctor Barker had missed the child's conversation. To-day his mustache was a perfected thing, and he in the late end of his twenties.
“He'll wake up about noon to-morrow in a dive, without a cent,” said Barker. “Then he'll come back on a freight and begin over again.”
At the Denver station Lin McLean passed through the shoutings and omnibuses, and came to the beginning of Seventeenth Street, where is the first saloon. A customer was ordering Hot Scotch; and because he liked the smell and had not thought of the mixture for a number of years, Lin took Hot Scotch. Coming out upon the pavement, he looked across and saw a saloon opposite with brighter globes and windows more prosperous. That should have been his choice; lemon peel would undoubtedly be fresher over there; and over he went at once, to begin the whole thing properly. In such frozen weather no drink could be more timely, and he sat, to enjoy without haste its mellow fitness. Once again on the pavement, he looked along the street toward up-town beneath the crisp, cold electric lights, and three little bootblacks gathered where he stood and cried “Shine? Shine?” at him. Remembering that you took the third turn to the right to get the best dinner in Denver, Lin hit on the skilful plan of stopping at all Hot Scotches between; but the next occurred within a few yards, and it was across the street. This one being attained and appreciated, he found that he must cross back again or skip number four. At this rate he would not be dining in time to see much of the theatre, and he stopped to consider. It was a German place he had just quitted, and a huge light poured out on him from its window, which the proprietor's father-land sentiment had made into a show. Lights shone among a well-set pine forest, where beery, jovial gnomes sat on roots and reached upward to Santa Claus; he, grinning, fat, and Teutonic, held in his right hand forever a foaming glass, and forever in his left a string of sausages that dangled down among the gnomes. With his American back to this, the cow-puncher, wearing the same serious, absent face he had not changed since he ran away from himself at Cheyenne, considered carefully the Hot Scotch question, and which side of the road to take and stick to, while the little bootblacks found him once more and cried, “Shine? Shine?” monotonous as snow-birds. He settled to stay over here with the south-side Scotches, and the little one-note song reaching his attention, he suddenly shoved his foot at the nearest boy, who lightly sprang away.
“Dare you to touch him!” piped a snow-bird, dangerously. They were in short trousers, and the eldest enemy, it may be, was ten.
“Don't hit me,” said Mr. McLean “I'm innocent.”
“Well, you leave him be,” said one.
“What's he layin' to kick you for, Billy? 'Tain't yer pop, is it?”
“New!” said Billy, in scorn. “Father never kicked me. Don't know who he is.”
“He's a special!” shrilled the leading bird, sensationally. “He's got a badge, and he's goin' to arrest yer.”
Two of them hopped instantly to the safe middle of the street, and scattered with practiced strategy; but Billy stood his ground. “Dare you to arrest me!” said he.
“What'll you give me not to?” inquired Lin, and he put his hands in his pockets, arms akimbo.
“Nothing; I've done nothing,” announced Billy, firmly. But even in the last syllable his voice suddenly failed, a terror filled his eyes, and he, too, sped into the middle of the street.
“What's he claim you lifted?” inquired the leader, with eagerness. “Tell him you haven't been inside a store to-day. We can prove it!” they screamed to the special officer.
“Say,” said the slow-spoken Lin from the pavement, “you're poor judges of a badge, you fellows.”
His tone pleased them where they stood, wide apart from each other.
Mr. McLean also remained stationary in the bluish illumination of the window. “Why, if any policeman was caught wearin' this here,” said he, following his sprightly invention, “he'd get arrested himself.”
This struck them extremely. They began to draw together, Billy lingering the last.
“If it's your idea,” pursued Mr. McLean, alluringly, as the three took cautious steps nearer the curb, “that blue, clasped hands in a circle of red stars gives the bearer the right to put folks in the jug—why, I'll get somebody else to black my boots for a dollar.”
The three made a swift rush, fell on simultaneous knees, and clattering their boxes down, began to spit in an industrious circle.
“Easy!” wheedled Mr. McLean, and they looked up at him, staring and fascinated. “Not having three feet,” said the cow-puncher, always grave and slow, “I can only give two this here job.”
“He's got a big pistol and a belt!” exulted the leader, who had precociously felt beneath Lin's coat.
“You're a smart boy,” said Lin, considering him, “and yu' find a man out right away. Now you stand off and tell me all about myself while they fix the boots—and a dollar goes to the quickest through.”
Young Billy and his tow-headed competitor flattened down, each to a boot, with all their might, while the leader ruefully contemplated Mr. McLean.
“That's a Colt.45 you've got,” ventured he.
“Right again. Some day, maybe, you'll be wearing one of your own, if the angels don't pull yu' before you're ripe.”
“I'm through!” sang out Towhead, rising in haste.
Small Billy was struggling still, but leaped at that, the two heads bobbing to a level together; and Mr. McLean, looking down, saw that the arrangement had not been a good one for the boots.
“Will you kindly referee,” said he, forgivingly, to the leader, “and decide which of them smears is the awfulest?”
But the leader looked the other way and played upon a mouth-organ.
“Well, that saves me money,” said Mr. McLean, jingling his pocket. “I guess you've both won.” He handed each of them a dollar. “Now,” he continued, “I just dassent show these boots uptown; so this time it's a dollar for the best shine.”
The two went palpitating at their brushes again, and the leader played his mouth-organ with brilliant unconcern. Lin, tall and brooding leaned against the jutting sill of the window, a figure somehow plainly strange in town, while through the bright plate-glass Santa Claus, holding out his beer and sausages, perpetually beamed.
Billy was laboring gallantly, but it was labor, the cow-puncher perceived, and Billy no seasoned expert. “See here,” said Lin, stooping, “I'll show yu' how it's done. He's playin' that toon cross-eyed enough to steer anybody crooked. There. Keep your blacking soft, and work with a dry brush.”
“Lemme,” said Billy. “I've got to learn.” So he finished the boot his own way with wiry determination, breathing and repolishing; and this event was also adjudged a dead heat, with results gratifying to both parties. So here was their work done, and more money in their pockets than from all the other boots and shoes of this day; and Towhead and Billy did not wish for further trade, but to spend this handsome fortune as soon as might be. Yet they delayed in the brightness of the window, drawn by curiosity near this new kind of man whose voice held them and whose remarks dropped them into constant uncertainty. Even the omitted leader had been unable to go away and nurse his pride alone.
“Is that a secret society?” inquired Towhead, lifting a finger at the badge.
Mr. McLean nodded. “Turruble,” said he.
“You're a Wells & Fargo detective,” asserted the leader.
“Play your harp,” said Lin.
“Are you a—a desperaydo?” whispered Towhead.
“Oh, my!” observed Mr. McLean, sadly; “what has our Jack been readin'?”
“He's a cattle-man!” cried Billy. “I seen his heels.”
“That's you!” said the discovered puncher, with approval. “You'll do. But I bet you can't tell me what we wearers of this badge have sworn to do this night.”
At this they craned their necks and glared at him.
“We—are—sworn—don't yu' jump, now, and give me away—sworn—to—blow off three bootblacks to a dinner.”
“Ah, pshaw!” They backed away, bristling with distrust.
“That's the oath, fellows. Yu' may as well make your minds up—for I have it to do!”
“Dare you to! Ah!”
“And after dinner it's the Opera-house, to see 'The Children of Captain Cant'!”
They screamed shrilly at him, keeping off beyond the curb.
“I can't waste my time on such smart boys,” said Mr. McLean, rising lazily to his full height from the window-sill. “I am goin' somewhere to find boys that ain't so turruble quick stampeded by a roast turkey.”
He began to lounge slowly away, serious as he had been throughout, and they, stopping their noise short, swiftly picked up their boxes, and followed him. Some change in the current of electricity that fed the window disturbed its sparkling light, so that Santa Claus, with his arms stretched out behind the departing cow-puncher seemed to be smiling more broadly from the midst of his flickering brilliance.
On their way to turkey, the host and his guests exchanged but few remarks. He was full of good-will, and threw off a comment or two that would have led to conversation under almost any circumstances save these; but the minds of the guests were too distracted by this whole state of things for them to be capable of more than keeping after Mr. McLean in silence, at a wary interval, and with their mouths, during most of the journey, open. The badge, the pistol, their patron's talk, and the unusual dollars, wakened wide their bent for the unexpected, their street affinity for the spur of the moment; they believed slimly in the turkey part of it, but what this man might do next, to be there when he did it, and not to be trapped, kept their wits jumping deliciously; so when they saw him stop, they stopped instantly too, ten feet out of reach. This was Denver's most civilized restaurant—that one which Mr. McLean had remembered, with foreign dishes and private rooms, where he had promised himself, among other things, champagne. Mr. McLean had never been inside it, but heard a tale from a friend; and now he caught a sudden sight of people among geraniums, with plumes and white shirt-fronts, very elegant. It must have been several minutes that he stood contemplating the entrance and the luxurious couples who went in.
“Plumb French!” he observed at length; and then, “Shucks!” in a key less confident, while his guests ten feet away watched him narrowly. “They're eatin' patty de parley-voo in there,” he muttered, and the three bootblacks came beside him. “Say, fellows,” said Lin, confidingly, “I wasn't raised good enough for them dude dishes. What do yu' say! I'm after a place where yu' can mention oyster stoo without givin' anybody a fit. What do yu' say, boys?”
That lighted the divine spark of brotherhood!
“Ah, you come along with us—we'll take yer! You don't want to go in there. We'll show yer the boss place in Market Street. We won't lose yer.” So, shouting together in their shrill little city trebles, they clustered about him, and one pulled at his coat to start him. He started obediently, and walked in their charge, they leading the way.
“Christmas is comin' now, sure,” said Lin, grinning to himself. “It ain't exactly what I figured on.” It was the first time he had laughed since Cheyenne, and he brushed a hand over his eyes, that were dim with the new warmth in his heart.
Believing at length in him and his turkey, the alert street faces, so suspicious of the unknown, looked at him with ready intimacy as they went along; and soon, in the friendly desire to make him acquainted with Denver, the three were patronizing him. Only Billy, perhaps, now and then stole at him a doubtful look.
The large Country Mouse listened solemnly to his three Town Mice, who presently introduced him to the place in Market Street. It was not boss, precisely, and Denver knows better neighborhoods; but the turkey and the oyster stew were there, with catsup and vegetables in season, and several choices of pie. Here the Country Mouse became again efficient; and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocket and its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in the guests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host as frankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they all grew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. McLean stared and had a slight sense of blushing.
“Have a cigarette?” said the leader, over his pie.
“Thank yu',” said Lin. “I won't smoke, if yu'll excuse me.” He had devised a wholesome meal, with water to drink.
“Chewin's no good at meals,” continued the boy. “Don't you use tobaccer?”
“Onced in a while.”
The leader spat brightly. “He ain't learned yet,” said he, slanting his elbows at Billy and sliding a match over his rump. “But beer, now—I never seen anything in it.” He and Towhead soon left Billy and his callow profanities behind, and engaged in a town conversation that silenced him, and set him listening with all his admiring young might. Nor did Mr. McLean join in the talk, but sat embarrassed by this knowledge, which seemed about as much as he knew himself.
“I'll be goshed,” he thought, “if I'd caught on to half that when I was streakin' around in short pants! Maybe they grow up quicker now.” But now the Country Mouse perceived Billy's eager and attentive apprenticeship. “Hello, boys!” he said, “that theatre's got a big start on us.”
They had all forgotten he had said anything about theatre, and other topics left their impatient minds, while the Country Mouse paid the bill and asked to be guided to the Opera-house. “This man here will look out for your blackin' and truck, and let yu' have it in the morning.”
They were very late. The spectacle had advanced far into passages of the highest thrill, and Denver's eyes were riveted upon a ship and some icebergs. The party found its seats during several beautiful lime-light effects, and that remarkable fly-buzzing of violins which is pronounced so helpful in times of peril and sentiment. The children of Captain Grant had been tracking their father all over the equator and other scenic spots, and now the north pole was about to impale them. The Captain's youngest child, perceiving a hummock rushing at them with a sudden motion, loudly shouted, “Sister, the ice is closing in!” and she replied, chastely, “Then let us pray.” It was a superb tableau: the ice split, and the sun rose and joggled at once to the zenith. The act-drop fell, and male Denver, wrung to its religious deeps, went out to the rum-shop.
Of course Mr. McLean and his party did not do this. The party had applauded exceedingly the defeat of the elements, and the leader, with Towhead, discussed the probable chances of the ship's getting farther south in the next act. Until lately Billy's doubt of the cow-puncher had lingered; but during this intermission whatever had been holding out in him seemed won, and in his eyes, that he turned stealthily upon his unconscious, quiet neighbor, shone the beginnings of hero-worship.
“Don't you think this is splendid?” said he.
“Splendid,” Lin replied, a trifle remotely.
“Don't you like it when they all get balled up and get out that way?”
“Humming,” said Lin.
“Don't you guess it's just girls, though, that do that?”
“What, young fellow?”
“Why, all that prayer-saying an' stuff.”
“I guess it must be.”
“She said to do it when the ice scared her, an' of course a man had to do what she wanted him.”
“Sure.”
“Well, do you believe they'd 'a' done it if she hadn't been on that boat, and clung around an' cried an' everything, an' made her friends feel bad?”
“I hardly expect they would,” replied the honest Lin, and then, suddenly mindful of Billy, “except there wasn't nothin' else they could think of,” he added, wishing to speak favorably of the custom.
“Why, that chunk of ice weren't so awful big anyhow. I'd 'a' shoved her off with a pole. Wouldn't you?”
“Butted her like a ram,” exclaimed Mr. McLean.
“Well, I don't say my prayers any more. I told Mr. Perkins I wasn't a-going to, an' he—I think he is a flubdub anyway.”
“I'll bet he is!” said Lin, sympathetically. He was scarcely a prudent guardian.
“I told him straight, an' he looked at me an' down he flops on his knees. An' he made 'em all flop, but I told him I didn't care for them putting up any camp-meeting over me; an' he says, 'I'll lick you,' an' I says, 'Dare you to!' I told him mother kep' a-licking me for nothing, an' I'd not pray for her, not in Sunday-school or anywheres else. Do you pray much?”
“No,” replied Lin, uneasily.
“There! I told him a man didn't, an' he said then a man went to hell. 'You lie; father ain't going to hell,' I says, and you'd ought to heard the first class laugh right out loud, girls an' boys. An' he was that mad! But I didn't care. I came here with fifty cents.”
“Yu' must have felt like a millionaire.”
“Ah, I felt all right! I bought papers an' sold 'em, an' got more an' saved, ant got my box an' blacking outfit. I weren't going to be licked by her just because she felt like it, an' she feeling like it most any time. Lemme see your pistol.”
“You wait,” said Lin. “After this show is through I'll put it on you.”
“Will you, honest? Belt an' everything? Did you ever shoot a bear?”
“Lord! lots.”
“Honest? Silver-tips?”
“Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cub onced.”
“O-h! I never shot a bear.”
“You'd ought to try it.”
“I'm a-going to. I'm a-going to camp out in the mountains. I'd like to see you when you camp. I'd like to camp with you. Mightn't I some time?” Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly.
“You bet!” said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy. As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he met—the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite play for him, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder.
“Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off. Father gets awful drunk, too. I've quit Laramie for good.”
Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy. “Laramie!” said he, almost shouting it. “Yu'—yu'—is your name Lusk?”
But the boy had shrunk from him instantly. “You're not going to take me home?” he piteously wailed.
“Heaven and heavens!” murmured Lin McLean. “So you're her kid!”
He relaxed again, down in his chair, his legs stretched their straight length below the chair in front. He was waked from his bewilderment by a brushing under him, and there was young Billy diving for escape to the aisle, like the cornered city mouse that he was. Lin nipped that poor little attempt and had the limp Billy seated inside again before the two in discussion beyond had seen anything. He had said not a word to the boy, and now watched his unhappy eyes seizing upon the various exits and dispositions of the theatre; nor could he imagine anything to tell him that should restore the perished confidence. “Why did yu' lead him off?” he asked himself unexpectedly, and found that he did not seem to know; but as he watched the restless and estranged runaway he grew more and more sorrowful. “I just hate him to think that of me,” he reflected. The curtain rose, and he saw Billy make up his mind to wait until they should all be going out in the crowd. While the children of Captain Grant grew hotter and hotter upon their father's geographic trail, Lin sat saying to himself a number of contradictions. “He's nothing to me; what's any of them to me?” Driven to bay by his bewilderment, he restated the facts of the past. “Why, she'd deserted him and Lusk before she'd ever laid eyes on me. I needn't to bother myself. He wasn't never even my step-kid.” The past, however, brought no guidance. “Lord, what's the thing to do about this? If I had any home—This is a stinkin' world in some respects,” said Mr. McLean, aloud, unknowingly. The lady in the chair beneath which the cow-puncher had his legs nudged her husband. They took it for emotion over the sad fortune of Captain Grant, and their backs shook. Presently each turned, and saw the singular man with untamed, wide-open eyes glowering at the stage, and both backs shook again.
Once more his hand was laid on Billy. “Say!” The boy glanced at him, and quickly away.
“Look at me, and listen.”
Billy swervingly obeyed.
“I ain't after yu', and never was. This here's your business, not mine. Are yu' listenin' good?”
The boy made a nod, and Lin proceeded, whispering: “You've got no call to believe what I say to yu'—yu've been lied to, I guess, pretty often. So I'll not stop yu' runnin' and hidin', and I'll never give it away I saw yu', but yu' keep doin' what yu' please. I'll just go now. I've saw all I want, but you and your friends stay with it till it quits. If yu' happen to wish to speak to me about that pistol or bears, yu' come around to Smith's Palace—that's the boss hotel here, ain't it?—and if yu' don't come too late I'll not be gone to bed. But this time of night I'm liable to get sleepy. Tell your friends good-bye for me, and be good to yourself. I've appreciated your company.”
Mr. McLean entered Smith's Palace, and, engaging a room with two beds in it, did a little delicate lying by means of the truth. “It's a lost boy—a runaway,” he told the clerk. “He'll not be extra clean, I expect, if he does come. Maybe he'll give me the slip, and I'll have a job cut out to-morrow. I'll thank yu' to put my money in your safe.”
The clerk placed himself at the disposal of the secret service, and Lin walked up and down, looking at the railroad photographs for some ten minutes, when Master Billy peered in from the street.
“Hello!” said Mr. McLean, casually, and returned to a fine picture of Pike's Peak.
Billy observed him for a space, and, receiving no further attention, came stepping along. “I'm not a-going back to Laramie,” he stated, warningly.
“I wouldn't,” said Lin. “It ain't half the town Denver is. Well, good-night. Sorry yu' couldn't call sooner—I'm dead sleepy.”
“O-h!” Billy stood blank. “I wish I'd shook the darned old show. Say, lemme black your boots in the morning?”
“Not sure my train don't go too early.”
“I'm up! I'm up! I get around to all of 'em.”
“Where do yu' sleep?”
“Sleeping with the engine-man now. Why can't you put that on me to-night?”
“Goin' up-stairs. This gentleman wouldn't let you go up-stairs.”
But the earnestly petitioned clerk consented, and Billy was the first to hasten into the room. He stood rapturous while Lin buckled the belt round his scanty stomach, and ingeniously buttoned the suspenders outside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent to earth.
“Did it ever kill a man?” asked Billy, touching the six-shooter.
“No. It ain't never had to do that, but I expect maybe it's stopped some killin' me.”
“Oh, leave me wear it just a minute! Do you collect arrow-heads? I think they're bully. There's the finest one you ever seen.” He brought out the relic, tightly wrapped in paper, several pieces. “I foun' it myself, camping with father. It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock, but nobody'd seen it till I came along. Ain't it fine?”
Mr. McLean pronounced it a gem.
“Father an' me found a lot, an' they made mother mad laying around, an' she throwed 'em out. She takes stuff from Kelley's.”
“Who's Kelley?”
“He keeps the drug-store at Laramie. Mother gets awful funny. That's how she was when I came home. For I told Mr. Perkins he lied, an' I ran then. An' I knowed well enough she'd lick me when she got through her spell—an' father can't stop her, an' I—ah, I was sick of it! She's lamed me up twice beating me—an' Perkins wanting me to say 'God bless my mother!' a-getting up and a-going to bed—he's a flubdub! An' so I cleared out. But I'd just as leaves said for God to bless father—an' you. I'll do it now if you say it's any sense.”
Mr. McLean sat down in a chair. “Don't yu' do it now,” said he.
“You wouldn't like mother,” Billy continued. “You can keep that.” He came to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands, standing beside him. “Do you like birds' eggs? I collect them. I got twenty-five kinds—sage-hen, an' blue grouse, an' willow-grouse, an' lots more kinds harder—but I couldn't bring all them from Laramie. I brought the magpie's, though. D' you care to see a magpie egg? Well, you stay to-morrow an' I'll show you that en' some other things I got the engine-man lets me keep there, for there's boys that would steal an egg. An' I could take you where we could fire that pistol. Bet you don't know what that is!”
He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble, in which were things that rattled.
Mr. McLean gave it up.
“That's kinni-kinnic seed. You can have that, for I got some more with the engine-man.”
Lin received this second token also, and thanked the giver for it. His first feeling had been to prevent the boy's parting with his treasures, but something that came not from the polish of manners and experience made him know that he should take them. Billy talked away, laying bare his little soul; the street boy that was not quite come made place for the child that was not quite gone, and unimportant words and confidences dropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr. McLean, and inadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had not hitherto met. It lasted but a short while, however, for he went to sleep in the middle of a sentence, with his head upon Lin's breast. The man held him perfectly still, because he had not the faintest notion that Billy would be impossible to disturb. At length he spoke to him, suggesting that bed might prove more comfortable; and, finding how it was, rose and undressed the boy and laid him between the sheets. The arms and legs seemed aware of the moves required of them, and stirred conveniently; and directly the head was upon the pillow the whole small frame burrowed down, without the opening of an eye or a change in the breathing. Lin stood some time by the bedside, with his eyes on the long, curling lashes and the curly hair. Then he glanced craftily at the door of the room, and at himself in the looking-glass. He stooped and kissed Billy on the forehead, and, rising from that, gave himself a hangdog stare in the mirror, and soon in his own bed was sleeping the sound sleep of health.
He was faintly roused by the church bells, and lay still, lingering with his sleep, his eyes closed, and his thoughts unshaped. As he became slowly aware of the morning, the ringing and the light reached him, and he waked wholly, and, still lying quiet, considered the strange room filled with the bells and the sun of the winter's day. “Where have I struck now?” he inquired; and as last night returned abruptly upon his mind, he raised himself on his arm.
There sat Responsibility in a chair, washed clean and dressed, watching him.
“You're awful late,” said Responsibility. “But I weren't a-going without telling you good-bye.”
“Go?” exclaimed Lin. “Go where? Yu' surely ain't leavin' me to eat breakfast alone?” The cow-puncher made his voice very plaintive. Set Responsibility free after all his trouble to catch him? This was more than he could do!
“I've got to go. If I'd thought you'd want for me to stay—why, you said you was a-going by the early train!”
“But the durned thing's got away on me,” said Lin, smiling sweetly from the bed.
“If I hadn't a-promised them—”
“Who?”
“Sidney Ellis and Pete Goode. Why, you know them; you grubbed with them.”
“Shucks!”
“We're a-going to have fun to-day.”
“Oh!”
“For it's Christmas, an' we've bought some good cigars, an' Pete says he'll learn me sure. O' course I've smoked some, you know. But I'd just as leaves stayed with you if I'd only knowed sooner. I wish you lived here. Did you smoke whole big cigars when you was beginning?”
“Do you like flapjacks and maple syrup?” inquired the artful McLean. “That's what I'm figuring on inside twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes! If they'd wait—”
“See here, Bill. They've quit expecting yu', don't yu' think? I'd ought to waked, yu' see, but I slep' and slep', and kep' yu' from meetin' your engagements, yu' see—for you couldn't go, of course. A man couldn't treat a man that way now, could he?”
“Course he couldn't,” said Billy, brightening.
“And they wouldn't wait, yu' see. They wouldn't fool away Christmas, that only comes onced a year, kickin' their heels and sayin' 'Where's Billy?' They'd say, 'Bill has sure made other arrangements, which he'll explain to us at his leesyure.' And they'd skip with the cigars.”
The advocate paused, effectively, and from his bolster regarded Billy with a convincing eye.
“That's so,” said Billy.
“And where would yu' be then, Bill? In the street, out of friends, out of Christmas, and left both ways, no tobaccer and no flapjacks. Now, Bill, what do yu' say to us putting up a Christmas deal together? Just you and me?”
“I'd like that,” said Billy. “Is it all day?”
“I was thinkin' of all day,” said Lin. “I'll not make yu' do anything yu'd rather not.”
“Ah, they can smoke without me,” said Billy, with sudden acrimony. “I'll see 'em to-morro'.”
“That's you!” cried Mr. McLean. “Now, Bill, you hustle down and tell them to keep a table for us. I'll get my clothes on and follow yu'.”
The boy went, and Mr. McLean procured hot water and dressed himself, tying his scarf with great care. “Wished I'd a clean shirt,” said he. “But I don't look very bad. Shavin' yesterday afternoon was a good move.” He picked up the arrow-head and the kinni-kinnic, and was particular to store them in his safest pocket. “I ain't sure whether you're crazy or not,” said he to the man in the looking-glass. “I ain't never been sure.” And he slammed the door and went down-stairs.
He found young Bill on guard over a table for four, with all the chairs tilted against it as warning to strangers. No one sat at any other table or came into the room, for it was late, and the place quite emptied of breakfasters, and the several entertained waiters had gathered behind Billy's important-looking back. Lin provided a thorough meal, and Billy pronounced the flannel cakes superior to flapjacks, which were not upon the bill of fare.
“I'd like to see you often,” said he. “I'll come and see you if you don't live too far.”
“That's the trouble,” said the cow-puncher. “I do. Awful far.” He stared out of the window.
“Well, I might come some time. I wish you'd write me a letter. Can you write?” “What's that? Can I write? Oh yes.”
“I can write, an' I can read too. I've been to school in Sidney, Nebraska, an' Magaw, Kansas, an' Salt Lake—that's the finest town except Denver.”
Billy fell into that cheerful strain of comment which, unreplied to, yet goes on contented and self-sustaining, while Mr. McLean gave amiable signs of assent, but chiefly looked out of the window; and when the now interested waiter said respectfully that he desired to close the room, they went out to the office, where the money was got out of the safe and the bill paid.
The streets were full of the bright sun, and seemingly at Denver's gates stood the mountains sparkling; an air crisp and pleasant wafted from their peaks; no smoke hung among the roofs, and the sky spread wide over the city without a stain; it was holiday up among the chimneys and tall buildings, and down among the quiet ground-stories below as well; and presently from their scattered pinnacles through the town the bells broke out against the jocund silence of the morning.
“Don't you like music?” inquired Billy.
“Yes,” said Lin.
Ladies with their husbands and children were passing and meeting, orderly yet gayer than if it were only Sunday, and the salutations of Christmas came now and again to the cow-puncher's ears; but to-day, possessor of his own share in this, Lin looked at every one with a sort of friendly challenge, and young Billy talked along beside him.
“Don't you think we could go in here?” Billy asked. A church door was open, and the rich organ sounded through to the pavement. “They've good music here, an' they keep it up without much talking between. I've been in lots of times.”
They went in and sat to hear the music. Better than the organ, it seemed to them, were the harmonious voices raised from somewhere outside, like unexpected visitants; and the pair sat in their back seat, too deep in listening to the processional hymn to think of rising in decent imitation of those around them. The crystal melody of the refrain especially reached their understandings, and when for the fourth time “Shout the glad tidings, exultingly sing,” pealed forth and ceased, both the delighted faces fell.
“Don't you wish there was more?” Billy whispered.
“Wish there was a hundred verses,” answered Lin.
But canticles and responses followed, with so little talking between them they were held spellbound, seldom thinking to rise or kneel. Lin's eyes roved over the church, dwelling upon the pillars in their evergreen, the flowers and leafy wreaths, the texts of white and gold. “'Peace, good-will towards men,'” he read. “That's so. Peace and good-will. Yes, that's so. I expect they got that somewheres in the Bible. It's awful good, and you'd never think of it yourself.”
There was a touch on his arm, and a woman handed a book to him. “This is the hymn we have now,” she whispered, gently; and Lin, blushing scarlet, took it passively without a word. He and Billy stood up and held the book together, dutifully reading the words: