This is of a day prior to Dave Tutt's taking a wife, and a year before the nuptials of Benson Annie, as planned and executed by Old Man Enright, with one, French.
Wolfville is dissatisfied; what one might call peevish. A man has been picked up shot to death, no one can tell by whom; no one has hung for it. Any one familiar with the Western spirit and the Western way would note the discontent by merely walking through the single, sun-burned street. When two citizens of the place make casual meeting in store or causeway, they confine their salutations to gruff “how'd!” and pass on. Men are even seen to drink alone in a sullen, morbid way.
Clearly something is wrong with Wolfville. The popular discontent is so sufficiently pronounced as to merit the notice of leading citizens. Therefore it is no marvel that when Old Man Enright, who, by right of years—and with a brain as clear and as bright as a day in June—is the head man of the hamlet, meets Doc Peets at the bar of the Red Light, the discussion falls on affairs of public concern.
“Whatever do you reckon is the matter with this camp, Enright?” asks Doc Peets, as they tip their liquor into their throats without missing a drop.
Doc Peets is the medical practitioner of Wolfville, but his grammar, like that of many another man, has lost ground before his environment.
“Can't tell!” replied Enright, with a mien dubious yet thoughtful. “Looks like the whole outfit is somehow on a dead kyard. Mebby it's that Denver party gettin' downed last week an' no one lynched. Some folks says the Stranglers oughter have swung that Greaser.”
“Well!” retorts Doc Peets, “you as chief of the Stranglers, an' I as a member in full standin', knows thar's no more evidence ag'in that Mexican than ag'in mypintohoss.”
“Of course, I knows that too!” replies Enright, “but still I sorter thinks general sentiment lotted on a hangin'. You know, Doc, it ain't so important from a public stand that you stretches the right gent, as that you stretches somebody when it's looked for. Nacherally it would have been mighty mortifyin' to the Mexican who's swung off at the loop-end of the lariat for a killin' he ain't in on; but still I holds the belief it would have calmed the sperit of the camp. However, I may be 'way off to one side on that; it's jest my view. Set up the nosepaint ag'in, barkeep!”
While Doc Peets is slowly freighting his glass with a fair allowance, he is deep in meditation.
“I've an idee, Enright,” says Doc Peets at last. “The thing for us to do is to give the public some new direction of thought that'll hold 'em quiet. The games is all dead at this hour, an' the boys ain't doin' nothin'; s'pose we makes a round-up to consider my scheme. The mere exercise will soothe 'em.”
“Shall we have Jack Moore post a notice?” asks
Enright. “He's Kettle Tender to the Stranglers, an' I reckons what he does that a-way makes it legal.”
“No,” says Peets, “let's rustle 'em in an' hold the meetin' right now an' yere in the Red Light. Some of the boys is feelin' that petulant they're likely to get to chewin' each other's manes any minute. I'm tellin' you, Enright, onless somethin' is done mightypoce tiempoto cheer 'em, an' convince 'em that Wolfville is lookin' up an' gettin' ahead on the correct trail, this outfit's liable to have a killin' any time at all. The recent decease of that Denver person won't be a marker!”
“All right!” says Enright, “if thar ain't no time for Moore an' a notice, a good, handy, quick way to focus public interest would be to step to the back door, an' shake the loads outen my six-shooter. That'll excite cur'osity, an' over they'll come all spraddled out.”
Thus it comes to pass that the afternoon peace of Wolfville is suddenly disparaged and broken down by six pistol shots. They follow each other like the rapid striking of a Yankee clock.
“Any one creased?” asks Jack Moore, by general consent a fashion of marshal and executive officer for the place, and who, followed by the population of Wolfville, rushes up the moment following the shooting.
“None whatever!” replies Doc Peets, cheerfully. “The shootin' you-alls hears is purely bloodless; an' Enright an' me indulges tharin onder what they calls the 'public welfare clause of the constitootion.' The intent which urges us to shake up the sereenity of the hour is to convene the camp, which said rite bein' now accomplished, the barkeep asks your beverages, an' the business proceeds in reg'lar order.”
Enright, who has finished replenishing the pistol from which he evicted the loads, draws a chair to a monte table and drums gently with his fingers.
“The meetin' will please bed itse'f down!” says Enright, with a sage dignity which has generous reflection in the faces around him. “Doc Peets, gents, who is a sport whom we all knows an' respects, will now state the object of this round-up. The barkeep meanwhile will please continue his rounds, the same not bein' deemed disturbin'; none whatever.”
“Gents, an' fellow townsmen!” says Doc Peets, rising at the call of Enright and stepping forward, “I avoids all harassin' mention of a yeretofore sort. Comin' down to the turn at once, I ventures the remark that thar's somethin' wrong with Wolfville. I would see no virtue in pursooin' this subject, which might well excite the resentment of all true citizens of the town, was it not that I feels a crowdin' necessity for a change of a radical sort. Somethin' must be proposed, an' somethin' must be did. I am well aware thar's gents yere to-day as holds a conviction that a bet is overlooked in not stringin' the Mexican last week on account of the party from Denver. That may or may not be true; but in any event, that hand's been played, an' that pot's been lost an' won. Whether on that occasion we diskyards an' draws for the best interests of the public, may well pass by onasked. At any rate we don't fill, an' the Greaser wins out with his neck. Lettin' the past, tharfore, drift for a moment, I would like to hear from any gent present somethin' in the line of a proposal for future action; one calc'lated to do Wolfville proud. As affairs stand our pride is goin' our brotherly love is goin', our public sperit is goin', an' the way we're p'intin' out, onless we comes squar' about on the trail, we won't be no improvement on an outfit of Digger Injuns in a month. Gents, I pauses at this p'int for su'gestions.”
As Doc Peets sits down a whispered buzz runs through the room. It is plain that what he has said finds sympathy in his audience.
“You've heard Peets,” observes Enright, beating softly. “Any party with views should not withhold 'em. I takes it we-all is anxious for the good of Wolfville. We should proceed with wisdom. Red Dog, our tinhorn rival, is a-watchin' of this camp, ready to detect an' take advantages of any weakenin' of sperit on the Wolfville part. So far Red Dog has been out-lucked, out-played, an' out-held. Wolfville has downed her on the deal, an' on the draw. But, to continue in the future as in the past, requires to-day that we acts promptly, an' in yoonison, an' give the sitooation, mentally speakin', the best turn in the box.”
“What for a play would it be?” asks Dan Boggs, doubtfully, as he rises and bows stiffly to Enright, who bows stiffly in return; “whatever for a play would it be to rope up one of these yere lecture sharps, which the same I goes ag'inst the other night in Tucson? He could stampede over an' put us up a talk in the warehouse of the New York Store; an' I'm right yere to say a lecture would look mighty meetropolitan, that a-way, an' lay over Red Dog like four kings an' an ace.”
“Whatever was this yere ghost dancer you adverts to lecturin' about?” asks Jack Moore.
“I never do hear the first of it,” replies Boggs. “Me an' Old Monte, the stage driver, is projectin' about Tucson at the time we strikes this lecture game, an* it's about half dealt out when he gets in on it. But as far as we keeps tabs, he's talkin' about Roosia an' Siberia, an' how they were pesterin' an' playin' it low on the Jews. He has a lay-out of maps an' sech, an' packs the whole racket with him from deal box to check-rack. Folks assabeslectures allows he turns as strong a game, with as high a limit, as any sport that ever charged four bits for a back seat. The lecture sharp's all right; the question is do you-alls deem highly of the scheme? If it's the sense of this yere town, it don't take two days to cut this short-horn out of the Tucson herd an' drive him over yere.
“Onder other, an' what one might call a more concrete condition of public feelin',” says Doc Peets, cutting rapidly and diplomatically into the talk, “the hint of our esteemed townsman would be accepted on the instant. But to my mind this yere camp ain't in no proper frame of mind for lectures on Roosia. It'll be full of trouble,—sech a talk. IsabesRoosia as well as I does an ace. Thar's an old silver tip they calls the Czar, which is their language for a sort o' national chief of scouts, an' he's always trackin' 'round for trouble. Thar's bound to be no end of what you might call turmoil in a lecture on Roosia, and the sensibilities of Wolfville, already harrowed, ain't in no shape to bear it. Now, while friend Boggs has been talkin', my idees has followed off a different waggon track. What we-all needs, is not so much a lecture, which is for a day, but somethin' lastin', sech as the example of a refined an' elevated home life abidin' in our very midst. What Wolfville pines for is the mollifyin' inflooence of woman. Shorely we has Faro Nell! who is pleasantly present with us, a-settin' back thar alongside Cherokee Hall; an' that gent never makes a moccasin track in Wolfville who don't prize an' value Nell. Thar ain't a six-shooter in camp but what would bark itse'f hoarse in her behalf. But Nell's young; merely a yearlin' as it were. What we wants is the picture of a happy household where the feminine part tharof, in the triple capacity of woman, wife an' mother, while cherishin' an' carin' for her husband, sheds likewise a radiant inflooence for us.”
“Whoopee! for Doc Peets!” shouts Faro Nell, flourishing her broad sombrero over her young curls.
“Pausin' only to thank our fair young townswoman,” says Doc Peets, bowing gallantly to Faro Nell, who waves her hand in return, “for her endorsements, which the same is as flatterin' as it is priceless, I stampedes on to say that I learns from first sources, indeed from the gent himse'f, that one of the worthiest citizens of Wolfville, Mr. Killifer, who is on the map as blacksmith at the stage station, has a wife in the states. I would recommend that Mr. Killifer be requested to bring on this esteemable lady to keep camp for him. The O. K. Restaurant will lose a customer, the same bein' the joint where Kif gets his dailycon-carne; but Rucker, the landlord, will not repine for that. What will be Rucker's loss will be general gain, an' for the welfare of Wolfville, Rucker makes a sacrifice. Mr. Chairman, my su'gestion takes the form of a motion.”
“Which said motion,” responds Enright, with such vigorous application of his fist to the purpose of a gavel that nervous spirits might well fear for the results, “which said motion, onless I hears a protest, goes as it lays. Thar bein' no objection the chair declares it to be the commands of Wolfville that Syd Killifer bring on his wife. What heaven has j'ined together, let no gent——”
“See yere, Mr. Chairman!” interposes Killifer, with a mixture of decision and diffidence, “I merely interferes to ask whether, as the he'pless victim of this on-looked for uprisin', do my feelin's count? Which if I ain't in this—if it's regarded as the correct caper to lay waste the future of a gent, who in his lowly way is doin' his best to make good his hand, why! I ain't got nothin' to say. I'm impugnin' no gent's motives, but I'm free to remark, these yere proceeding strikes me as the froote of reckless caprice.”
“I will say to our fellow gent,” says Enright with much dignity, “that thar's no disp'sition to force a play to which he seems averse. If from any knowledge we s'posed we entertained of the possession of a sperit on his part, which might rise to the aid of a general need—I shorely hopes I makes my meanin' plain—we over-deals the kyards, all we can do is to throw our hands in the diskyard an' shuffle an' deal ag'in.”
“Not at all, an' no offence given, took or meant!” hastily retorts Killifer, as he balances himself uneasily upon his feet, and surveys first, Enright and then Peets. “I has the highest regard for the chair, personal, an' takes frequent occasion to remark that I looks on Doc Peets as the best eddicated scientist I ever sees in my life. But this yere surge into my domestic arrangements needs to be considered. You-alls don't know the lady in question, which, bein' as it's my wife, I ain't assoomin' no airs when I says I does.”
“Does she look like me, Kif?” asks Faro Nell from her perch near Cherokee Hall.
“None whatever, Nell!” responds Killifer. “To be shore! I ain't basked none in her society for several years, an' my mem'ry is no doubt blurred by stampedes, an' prairie fires, an' cyclones, an' lynchin's, an' other features of a frontier career; but she puts me in mind, as I recalls the lady, of an Injun uprisin' more'n anythin' else. Still, she's as good a woman as ever founds a flap-jack. But she's haughty; that's what she is, she's haughty.
“I might add,” goes on Killifer, in a deprecatory way, “that inasmuch as I ain't jest lookin' for the camp yere to turn to me in its hour of need, this proposal to transplant the person onder discussion to Wolfville, is an honour as onexpected as a rattlesnake in a roll of blankets. But you-alls knows me!”—And here Killifer braces himself desperately.—“What the camp says, goes! I'm avox populisort of sport, an' the last citizen to lay down on a duty. Still!”—here Killifer's courage begins to ebb a little—“I advises we go about this yere enterprise mighty conserv'tive. My wife has her notions, an' now I thinks of it she ain't likely to esteem none high neither of our Wolfville ways. All I can say, gents, is that if she takes a notion ag'in us, she's as liable to break even as any lady I knows.”
“Thar ain't a gent here but what honours Kif,” says the sanguine Peets, as he looks encouragingly at Killifer, who has resumed his seat and is gloomily shaking his head, “for bein' frank an' free in this.”
“Which I don't want you-alls to spread your blankets on no ant-hill, an' then blame me!” interrupts Killifer dejectedly.
“I believe, Mr. Chairman,” continues Doc Peets, “we fully onderstands the feelin's of our townsman in this matter. But I'm convinced of the correctness of my first view. Thar can shorely be nothin' in the daily life of Wolfville at which the lady could aim a criticism, an' we needs the beneficent example of a home. I would tharfore insist on my plan with perhaps a modification.”
“I rises to ask the Preesidin' Officer a question!” interrupts Dave Tutt.
“Let her roll!” retorts Enright.
“How would it be to invite Kif's wife to come yere on a visit?” queries Tutt. “Sorter take her on probation! That's the way an oncle of mine back in Missouri j'ines the Meth'dist Church. An' it's lucky the congregation takes them precautions; which they saves the trouble of cuttin' the old felon out of the herd later, when he falls from grace. Which last he shorely does!”
“Not waitin' for the chair to answer,” replies Doc Peets, “I holds the limitation of Tutt to be good. I tharfore pinches down my original resolootion to the effect that Kif bring his wife yere for a month. Let her stack up ag'inst our daily game, an' triumph through a deal or so, an' she'll never quit Wolfville nor Wolfville her. I shorely holds the present occasion the openin' of a new era.”
It is a month later, perhaps, when everybody assembles at the post-office to receive the lady on whom the local public has built so many hopes. Killifer has gone over to Tucson to act as her escort into Wolfville, and, as he said, “to sorter break the effect.”
She is an iron-visaged heroine. As Killifer hands her from the stage—a ceremony upon which he bestows that delicate care wherewith he would have aided the unloading of so much dynamite—Doc Peets steps gallantly forward, raising his hat. Doc Peets is the proprietor of the only stiff hat in town, and presumes on it.
0253
“Who is that insultin' drunkard, Mr. Killifer?” demands the lady, as she bends her eyes on the suave Peets, with such point-blank wrath that it silences the salutation on Peets' lips; “no friend of your'n I hope?”
“Which I says it in confidence,” remarks Old Monte, as an hour later he refreshes himself at the bar of the Red Light, “for I holds it onprofessional to go blowin' the private affairs of my passengers, but I shorely thinks the old grizzly gives Kif a clawin' on the way over. I hears him yell like a wolf back in Long's canyon. To be shore! he's inside an' I can't see, but I'm offerin' two to one up to $100 she was lickin' him; if I don't I'm a Siwash!”
It turns out as Killifer predicted. He read the lady aright. There is nothing in Wolfville to which she yields approval. It would be as impossible as it would be terrific, to repeat in print the conduct of this remarkable woman. She utterly abashes Enright; while such hare-hearts as Jack Moore, Cherokee Hall, Dave Tutt, Texas Thompson, Short Creek Dave and Dan Boggs, fly from her like quicksilver. Even Doc Peets acknowledges himself defeated and put to naught. The least of her feats is the invasion of a peaceful poker game to which Killifer is party, and the sweeping confiscation of every dollar in the bank on claim that it is money ravished from Killifer by venal practices. The mildest of her plans is one to assail the Red Light with an axe, should she ever detect the odour of whiskey about Killifer again.
“An' do you know, Doc!” observes Enright, a fortnight later, as they meet for their midday drink, “the boys sorter lays it on you. You know me, Doc! I'll stand up ag'in the iron for you; but as a squar' man, with a fairly balanced mind, I'm bound to admit the boys is right. Now I don't say they feels resentful; it's more like they was mournful over what used to be, an' a day of peace gone by. But you knows what people be whose burdens is more'n they can bear; an' if I was you, this yere lady or I would leave the camp. I'm the last gent to go dictatin' about the details of another gent's game; but you an' me, Doc, has been old friends, an' as a warnin' from a source which means you well, I gives it to you cold the camp is gettin' hostile.”
It is always a spectacle to inspire, to witness a great soul rise to an occasion. Doc Peets never so proves the power of his nature as now, when the tremendous shadow of “Kif's wife” has fallen across Wolfville like a blight. Peets, following Enright's forebodings, holds a long and secret conference with the unhappy Killifer. That night Peets rides to Tucson. The next day Old Monte, with his six horses a-foam, comes crashing into Wolfville two hours ahead of schedule. Before even a mail bag is thrown off, Old Monte unpouches a telegram received at the Tucson office for Mistress Killifer. Its earmark is Illinois; its contents moving. No matter what it tells, its news is cogent enough to decide the lady's mind.
The next morning this dread woman departs, leaving, as she came, with a withering look at all around. That night Killifer gets drunk. Wolfville not only pardons Killifer in his weakness; it joins him.
“But you suppresses the facts, Kif, when you says she's haughty,” observes Dan Boggs. “Haughty, as a deescription, ain't a six-spot!”
“It's with no purpose, Kif,” says Doc Peets, as he fills his glass, “to discourage you—whom I sympathises with as an onfortunate, an' respects as a dead game gent—that I yereby invites the pop'lation to join me in a drink of congratulation on Wolfville's escape from your wife. An' all informal though this assemblage be, I offers a resolootion that this, the 23d of August, the date when the lady in question pulls her freight, be an' remain forevermore a day of yearly thanksgivin' to Wolfville.”
“Which I libates to that myse'f!” says Killifer as he drains his cup to the last lingering drop. “Also I trusts this camp will proceed with caution the next time it turns in to play my domestic hand.”
Bears are peaceful folk. They are a mild and lowly citizenry of the woods—I'm talking of the black sort—and shuffle modestly away the moment they hear you coming. We get many of our impressions of the ferocity of animals and the deadly poisons of reptiles from an unworthy sort of hearsay evidence. Much of it comes from Mexicans and Indians rather than from real experience. Now I wouldn't traduce either the Mexicans or the Indians, for their lot is one of hard, sodden ignorance; but it must be conceded that they're by no means careful historians, and run readily to tales of the marvellous and the tragic. I am going back to a bear story I have in mind before I get through; but I want to interject here, while I think of it, that though the centipede, the rattlesnake, the tarantula and the Gila monster, have bitter repute as able to deal death with their poisonous feet or fangs, I was never, in my years on the plains and in the mountains, able to secure proof of even the shallowest sort that a death, whether of man or animal, had ever resulted from the sting of any one of these. On the other hand, I have been with men who were bitten by rattlesnakes, or stung by tarantulas; or who while asleep had suffered as the inadvertent promenade of a centipede, with its hundred hooked, poison-exuding feet; but none of them died. They were sick in an out-of-sort, headache fashion for a day or two; the bitten place inflamed and was sore for a week or a month; that was all. I suppose I've known of fully one hundred horses, cows and sheep which were bitten by rattlesnakes; none died. They were invariably fanged in the nose, too, as they grazed towards my lord of the rattlers. On more than one occasion I kept the animal so bitten in sight to note results. Its head would swell and puff; it would lounge about with a sick listlessness for several days; then the poison would wear away in force, and back to its grass it would go with the wire-edge appetite of a sailor home from sea.
But about bears. I was remarking that my black, shaggy cousins of the woods were a peaceful folk. So much is this true, and so little do their neighbours apprehend violence at their clumsy hands, that they who live in regions which abound in bears evince not the least alarm about the safety of their children. The babies, some as young as five or six years, roam the same mountains with the bears; and, while the latter will swoop upon a pig and run dangers with wide-open eyes in doing it, never did I hear of one who disturbed a ringlet on a child's head. They had daily opportunities enough, for many are the households to live in the wide, pine-sown Rockies.
Our bears, too, are creatures of vast physical power. Often, as I rode the mountain for cattle, have I come across a dead and fallen pine tree, which would have defeated the best efforts of a horse to move, completely torn from its bed in the earth and leaves, and either overturned or thrown one side by the mighty arms of a bear. He was in search of a dinner cf grubs—those white, helpless worms which make their dull homes under rotten logs—and Sir Bear made no more ado of lifting and laying aside a pine tree in his grub-hunt than would you or I of a billet of firewood.
While in the mountains I marvelled over the fact that the bears and the mountain lions never assailed the young calves. The hills were rife with cattle, and every spring found the canyons and oak-bushed slopes a perfect nursery of calves. And yet neither the panthers nor the bears disturbed them. It was due, I think, more to the bellicose character of the old cow and her relatives, than any uprightness of character on the part of the bears, and the panthers. Let a calf raise but one yell of distress in those mountains—and I assure you he can make their walls and valleys ring with his youthful music when so disposed—and, out of canyons and off mesas, over logs and crashing through the oak bushes, will come plunging all the cattle within hearing. Not thirty seconds will elapse before as many cattle will be by the side of the threatened calf, lusting for battle. They make such a phalanx of sharp, threatening horns, coupled with their rolling, wrath-red eyes and ferocious breathings, that, I warrant you, they have so shocked the nerves of past bears and panthers, it has become instinct with these latter to give the whole horned, truculent brood a wide berth.
The Indians are very fond of the bear for his wisdom, and he divides their respect with the beaver as a personage of sagacity. The curiosity of my shaggy friend would shame any boy or girl of ten. You may be sure, were a bear to visit you for a week at your home, he would open every door, ransack every bureau, take every garment off every hook in every closet—and I had almost said “try it on”—before he had been with you an hour. Not a box nor a barrel, not a nook nor cranny, from cellar to ridge pole, would escape his investigation. His black nose would sniff at every crack, his black hand explore every crevice. Nor, beyond what he bestowed in his remorseless stomach, would he destroy anything. I have the black coat of a bear at my house, who might be wearing it himself to-day, were it not for his curiosity.
There was a salt spring near my camp on the upper Red River; perhaps two miles away, which is “near” in the mountains. This salt spring was popular with the deer. They repaired thither to lick the salt earth about the waters. I had, among the lumber at my camp, a big, two-spring trap of steel; I suppose it must have weighed sixty pounds. It occurred to me that a lazy way to kill a deer would be to set this wide-jawed engine near the spring and let one walk into it. I'm not proud of this plan as a method in deer-killing, and wouldn't do it now. On this occasion, however I was not particular. I “set” the trap at my camp—for I had to use a hand-spike to crush down the springs, and it all gave me a deal of work and trouble—and then, with its jaws wide open, but held so that it wouldn't nip me in case it did snap, I crept carefully aboard my pony and rode over to the spring. The next morning early I had to go again to remove the trap, as during the day the cattle would take the places of the deer at this delectable salt spring, and I didn't care to break the legs of a thirty-dollar steer with my trapping. I went over while it was yet dark, and found no deer in the trap. I took it and hid it, face downward—the jaws still spread and “set”—by the of a big yellow pine log, which stretched its decayed length along the slope of the canyon. There I left it, intending to return and rearrange it for deer at dusk.
It snowed that day, and as I grew lazy towards night, I left my trap where I'd hidden it by the yellow pine log. The deer would have one night of safety. What was safety for the deer proved otherwise for the bear.
The following day I rode over just as the canyons were getting dark and the cattle climbing out of them to pass the night on the hills. Behold! my trap was gone!
There was a great flourish of tracks in the snow; long plantigrade impressions like the bare footprints of some giant! I knew that a bear had somehow acquired my trap, or the trap, him; at that time I couldn't tell which. To make it short, however, it came to this: The bear, scouting in a loaferish way down the hill, and pausing no doubt to make an estimate of the probable grubs he would find beneath this particular yellow pine next summer, had chanced upon the trap. Here was a great find. Thoughts of grubs and common edible things at once deserted him. The mysterious novelty he had found took possession of his addle-pate like a new toy. A wolf or a fox would have smelled the odour of my handling, even off the cold steel of the trap, and been over the hills and far away in a twinkling. Your wolf is the canniest of timber folk; a grey Scotchman of the mountains. But my bear was reared on a different bottle. He sat down at once and actually took the new plaything in his lap. Then it would seem as if he deliberately thrust his paw into it and sprung its savage jaws on his forearm.
In his first wrathful surprise, my bear tore up the snow and bushes for twenty feet about; but at last he set off with the trap on his foot.
It was late. For half an hour I followed the broad track where his bearship had dragged the trap in the snow at a gallop. It was dark when at last I turned off for camp. Bright and betimes, I took the trail next day. It carried me over some ten miles of rough, close country. About midday I stood on the bluff edge of the Canyon Caliente, picking a pathway with my eyes along its steep, perilous side for my pony to get down. The bear had crossed here; but he was in the roughest of moods, and seemingly made no more of hurling himself over twenty-foot precipices—himself and my trap—or sublimely sliding down dangerous descents of hundreds of feet where foothold was impossible, than you would of eating buttered buns. So I had to pick out paths for myself; I couldn't trust to so reckless and uncivil an engineer as my bear.
As I sat in the saddle running a quick eye over the slope for a trail, I, of an instant, heard a most surprising noise. It was indeed a noble racket, and might have passed for a blacksmith shop. But I knew the hills too well. It was of a verity my bear; and from the riot he was making, it was plain I would have to get there soon if I wanted to save the trap.
This formidable uproar came from across the Caliente, perhaps half a mile. I slid from the saddle and went forward afoot. It didn't take long to cover the distance. I fell and tumbled down the first third, much as the bear had done a bit earlier.
Once on the other side, I came upon my rough gentleman cautiously, and found him sitting by the side of a round, boulder-like rock, something the size and contour of a load of hay. And he was smiting the enduring granite with my trap in a way which told more of his feelings than would have been possible with mere words. He would raise his arm clumsily, 60-pound trap and all, and then bring it against the rock with all the fervour of rage and giant strength.
He was so wrapt in the enterprise, he never heard me until a shot from my Winchester met him just under the ear. One shot did it; and I had trap and bear. He had ruined the trap; one spring was broken and the whole disparaged beyond my power to repair. Wherefore I stripped him of his black overcoat to pay for the damage he had done; and that and the grease I took from him covered all costs and damages.
Me fren', Mollie Matches,” observed Chucky.
That was our introduction. A moment later Chucky whispered in a hoarse aside:
“Matches is d' dip I chins youse about, who gets d' Hummin' Boid t'run into him.”
“Matches,” as Chucky called him, was a sad, grey, broken man. Years and a life of flight and anxious furtivity had told on him. His eye was dancing and birdlike; resting on nothing, roving always; the sure mark of one sort of criminal. Matches drank for an hour before he felt at ease. That time arrived, however, and I took advantage of it to feed my curiosity. It was no easy matter, but at last I won him by a deft blending of flattery and drink to talk of his crimes. And indeed I fear—for I suppose the expert thief does plume himself a bit on his art—that Matches took some sort of wretched pride in his illicit pocket searchings.
“D' biggest touch I ever makes,” said Matches, in response to a query, “was $36,000; quite a bunch of dough. Gettin' it was easy; gettin' away wit' it was d' squeak.
“We toins d' trick on d' train from Albany. D' tip comes straight to me in New York that a bloke is goin' to draw $36,000 from d' Albany bank on such a day. I makes up a mob; t'ree stalls an' meself;—all pretty fly we was—an' lands in Albany.
“We gets onto d' party who's to be woiked early in d' mornin', an' shadows him so dost he's never out of reach. Our play is to follow him to d' bank an' do him wit 'd' drop game. If that misses, we're to stay wit' him till d' bundle's ours be one racket or another.
“This sucker is pretty soon himself, see! He ain't such a mut as we figgers. His train starts at 1 o'clock, an' he takes in d' bank on his way to d' station.
“Of course we was wit' him; but he's dead leary an' never t'rows himself open to be woiked. D' stuff is in t'ousand-dollar willyums, an' as he just sinks it in his keck d' minute his hooks is onto it, an' never stops to count or run his lamps over it, we don't get no chanct to do d' drop. D' instant d' money's in his mits he plants it—all stretched out long in a big leather, it is—in his inside pocket, an' screws his nut for d' door. D' hack slams an' he's on his way to d' train.
“Yes; we starts for d' station be another street. D' bloke ain't onto us yet, an' we tries not to plant a scare into him. He's leary enough as it is; just havin' such a roll wit' him rattles him.
“So I makes up me mind to do d' job on d' train runnin' into New York. As he sinks d' stuff away, I notes how d' ends of d' bills sticks out over d' pocket-book. Me idee is to weed it—get d' dough an' leave d' leather in his pocket—if I can make d' play. Weedin' was d' way to do; you gets d' long green an 'd' sucker still has d' leather to feel of, an' it's some time before he tumbles he's been touched, see!
“D' guy wit 'd' stuff plants himself in a seat. Two of me stalls sits ahead of him, me an' me other pal is behint him. We only waits now for him to get up an' come along d' aisle of d' car to get in our hooks.
“Foist I goes d' len'th of d' train to see who's onto it. I always does that; I wants to see if any guy aboard knows Mollie Matches. You see, if there is, when d' holler comes, an' some duck declares himself shy his spark, or roll, or ticker, it's 40 to 1 Mr. Know-all, who's onto me for a crook, sends a tip to d' p'lice: 'Matches was on d' train!' an' I gets d' collar. No, I never woiks when one of me acquaintances is along be accident. D' cops, in such case, as I says, is put onto me an' spots me wit 'd' foist yell.
“I covers d' train an' comes back. There's no guy on me visiting list who's along. So I sits down wit' me pal to d' rear of d' sucker an' waits.
“It's not for long. D' leather's still in his inside keck, 'cause I can see him pressin' on it wit' his mit to make sure it's there. At last he gets up to go to d' watercooler. I sees d' move comin', an' is in d' aisle before him. So's me stalls. From start to finish no one bungles d' stunt. There's a tangle—all be accident, of course—every mug 'pologises, we break away, an' I've got d' blunt. But d' woist part is, I can't weed it. D' stuff won't come no other way, an' so I lifts leather an' all.
“There's due to be a roar in no time;—this mark's bound to be on he's frisked!—so I splits out each stall's bit in a hurry an' says: 'Every gent for himself! an' if youse is nipped, don't knock!' an' then I sherries me nibs for d' rear coach. It was great graft. Me bit was $9,000, an' I has me plan all set up to save it an' meself wit' it. This is d' racket I has in me cocoa.
“In d' last coach is an old w'ite choker—a pulpit t'umper, you understand. Wit' him is his daughter, an' wit' her is her kid. Mebby d' kid, say, is six years. I heads for 'em an' begins to give d' old skate a jolly. I was dead strong on patter in them days, an' puts it up I'm a gospel sharp from Hamilton. I saws it off on his nibs how me choich boins down, an' how I'm linin' out to New York to see if d' good folks down there won't spring their rolls—cough up be way of donations, you understand, an' help us slam up a new box—choich, I means—so we can go back to our graft.
“It's all right. Me razzle dazzle takes like spring water. In two minutes me an 'd' old party an 'd' loidy, an' for that matter d' kid, is t'ick as t'ieves. We was bunched together, singin' 'Jesus, Lover of me Soul,' to beat four of a kind, when d' galoot I skins for his bundle lifts d' shout he's been done, see!
“This dub who lose is t'ree coaches ahead. D' foist we knows of his troubles—all but me—d' Con' comes an' locks d' door. No one can get off d' train. Then he stops an' taps d' wires wit' a machine from d' baggage car an' sends d' story chasin' into New York.
“'Party t'run down for $36,000, says d' message; 'swag an' crooks still on me train. Send orders.'
“D' order comes to keep d' doors locked an' run to New York wit' no more stops. An' after puttin' a Brakey in each coach to see what goes on, that's what dey does. We go spinnin' into New York at forty-five miles an hour.
“Naturally, I'm in a steam. I goes all right wit 'd' Con', an' d' train crew, as a sky pilot, but how was I to make d' riffle wit' de fly cop of New York, who'd be waitin' for d' train—me mug in d' gallery, an' four out o' five of 'em twiggin' me be me foist name? But I t'ought it out.
“When d' train rumbles into d' Gran' Central, d' door is slammed open an' we all gets up to go. A fly-cop is comin' in just as we starts. I grabs up d' kid to carry him, see! bein' d' old preacher party nor d' skirt ain't so able as me.
“Say! it was a winner. I buries me map in d' kid's make-up, gets between d' goil an' d' old stumblin' mucker of a gran'dad, an' walks slap t'rough d' entire day-push of d' Central office. An' hard, sharp marks dey is to beat, see!
“Fly dey is, but not swift enough for Matches wit a scare on, see! Not a dub of 'em tumbles to me.
“In two moves an' ten seconts I'm in d' street. As I goes along I pulls a ring off one of me north hooks wit' me teet,' an' t'oins it over to d' kid as his bit for makin' d' good front for me. No; d' others don't catch on, but d' way he cinches it in his small mit shows me he's goin' to save it out for fair.
“When I hits d' street I drops d' youngone, who's still froze to his solitaire, an' grabs off a cab, an' in twenty minutes I'm buried where all d' p'lice in New York couldn't toin me up in a t'ousand years.
“No; me pals got d' collar, an' each does a stretch. But dey lays dead about me; never peached nor squealed. I win out.
“Who?—d' w'ite choker an' his party? Nit; never hears of 'em ag'in. For four days I gets one of d' fam'ly—he's a crook who's under cover for a bank trick, an' who's eddicted—to read me all d' poipers. I wants to see if d' preacher an' his goil gives up anyt'ing about d' ring I swaps to d' kid.
“Never hears a peep! Nixie; dey was on all right, you bet your life! when their lamps lights on that jewelry; but most likely dey needs d' ring in their graft. It was a spark wort' five hundred cases from any fence in d' land, an' so d' old guy an' his goil sort o' stan's for d' play, see!”
Young Jenkins prided himself on sharp eyes. He said he could “give a hawk cards and spades.” He could find four-leaf clovers where no one else could see them. He took in the smallest detail of the scenery all about him.
As a result, young Jenkins was a great finder of small trifles, and that he might miss nothing, lost, strayed or stolen, he went about during the little journeys of the day, with his eyes searching the ground. And he picked up many trinkets of a personal sort that other men had lost. Nothing of much value, perhaps, but it served to please young Jenkins, and it gave him a chance to boast of the sharp, devouring character of his eyes.
Even as a child, young Jenkins was prone to find things. He told how once his talents as a retriever made him the subject of parental suspicion. He was ten years old when he picked up a four-blade Barlow knife.
“Where did you get it?” queried old Jenkins, as young Jenkins displayed his treasure trove.
“Found it,” was the reply.
“Oh, you found it!” snorted old Jenkins. “Well, take it straight back, and put it where you found it, and don't 'find' any more. If you do, I'll lick you out of your knickerbockers!”
In spite of such discouragement, young Jenkins kept on finding all sorts of bric-à-brac. He does even to this day.
One evening young Jenkins had a disagreeable adventure, as the fruit of his talent, which for an hour or so made him wish he had weaker vision.
It was on Great Jones Street, and young Jenkins, hurrying along, noticed in the half moonlight a big store key, where the owner had dropped it just after locking up for the night. The hour was full midnight.
Young Jenkins possessed himself of the key. He looked at it as he held it in his hand, and wondered how the careless shopman would open up in the morning without it.
From where it lay it wasn't hard to infer the store to which the key belonged. Yet to make sure on that point it occurred to young Jenkins that he might better try the lock with it.
Young Jenkins had just fitted the big key to the lock when some one seized him by the wrist. It startled him so that he dropped the key and allowed it to go rattling along the sidewalk. As young Jenkins looked up he saw that the party who had got him was a member of the police.
“I was trying to unlock the door!” stammered young Jenkins.
“I saw what you were about,” said the officer with suspicious severity. “What were you monkeying with the door for? You aren't the owner of this store?”
“No, sir,” said young Jenkins, much impressed. “No, sir; I——”
“Nor one of the clerks?”
“No, sir,” replied young Jenkins again, “I have nothing to do with the store. I found the key, and thought I'd see if it opened this door.”
“What did you want to see if it would open the door for? Don't you think it is a little late for a joke of that sort?”
“It wasn't a joke,” said young Jenkins, beginning to perspire rather copiously; “it was an experiment. I found the key on the sidewalk, and wanted to see——”
“Yes!” interrupted the blue coat with a fine scorn; “you wanted to see if you could get into the store and rob it bare. That is what you wanted to see. You're a box-worker, if ever I met one, and if I hadn't come along you would have had this bin cracked and cleaned out in another ten minutes.”
“I told you I found the key,” protested young Jenkins.
“That's all right about your finding the key!” said the policeman in supreme contempt. “You found the key and I found you, and we'll both keep what we've found. That's square, ain't it?”
And in spite of all young Jenkins could say at that late hour of the twenty-four, the faithful officer dragged him to the station, where a faithful sergeant faithfully registered him, and a faithful turnkey locked him faithfully up.
As young Jenkins sat unhappy in his cell, while vermin sparred with him for an opening, he registered a vow that never again would he find anything.
Young Jenkins wouldn't pick up a twenty-dollar gold piece were he to meet one to-day in the street.