“I won’t,” he exclaimed, half aloud. “I will not read it until I am worthy to do so, or until I have a great need of it.” Reluctantly he slid the note back into his blouse. Then, coloring, he pushed it over to his left side. His heart seemed to beat more strongly, more manfully, for the companionship.
He had eaten no breakfast, and began to be conscious of a great hunger. He ate, down to the last crust, the pie which Wah had given to him. It was as good as its maker had claimed it to be.
There is nothing in the world equal to food for restoring self-respect, and Stephen, having eaten, began to see the world more normally. Tightening his belt, he took a long drink from the stream, then saddled “Muy Bueno” and started again on his way.
All the afternoon he rode continually up hill, till towards five o’clock he struck the Dominion divide, and timber. The air here, in contrast to the valley below, was cold, and Loring, only thinly dressed, shivered. Several times cattle “outfits” passed him on the trail. Men were driving in from the range scraggly bunches of steers, to be fattened before selling. Once he did not pull his horse out of the trail in time, and sent a bunch of frightened cattle stampeding into the underbrush. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he hardly noticed the cursing which he received from the ranchmen.
At dusk, beside the trail, he saw a bright fire in front of a tent. Two men, occupied in frying bacon, and boiling coffee, were seated before it. The smell that arose from the cooking appealed strongly to Stephen, and he reined in his horse.
“Howdy, stranger! Making for Dominion?” one of the men called out. “Well, you won’t get there for some time yet. It is twelve miles from here. Better let us stake you to a meal. Come from Quentin, do you? Me and my pardner was going there to-morrow.”
Stephen, with alacrity, accepted the proffered hospitality.
“Much obliged, friend,” he said. “I’m pretty well broke, and I was not expecting to get anything to eat to-night.”
“Don’t worry about that. You shan’t go by our outfit hungry. We ain’t made that way. There was a cuss I knowed once,” continued one of Loring’s hosts, “up in Cochise County. I was broke, flat busted, when I was there, and I asked him to stake me to a meal, and say, the mean skunk wouldn’t come through at all. Said I could ‘watch him eat.’ Now what do you think of that?” As he recalled the crime against hospitality, the man kicked vigorously at one of the logs on the fire.
Loring listened, with due sympathy, to the tale, the while he eyed with hopeful glances the coffee-pot, at the edge of which a yellow foam soon appeared, serving as signal that the meal was ready.
“Sorry we can’t give you flapjacks,” remarked one of the men, as he lifted the bacon off the fire. “Pardner here makes swell ones, but we’re pretty low on our grub outfit now. Hope we can get work at Quentin. Any jobs floating round loose there?”
Stephen slowly filled his tin cup with coffee,and paused, after the western fashion, to blow into it a spoonful of condensed milk, before he answered.
“I am not sure,” he said, “but I think that there is a vacancy on one of the hoists. I think they fired a man there recently.”
“That’s good for us,” exclaimed one of the men. “Wish they’d fire some more!” Stephen did not continue the discussion.
After a quiet smoke beside the embers of the fire, Stephen rose, and thanking his hosts warmly, prepared to leave. As he was mounting he happened to feel a flask that was in his pocket. He remembered vaguely having filled it the night before. Reaching down from the saddle he held out the flask.
“Have a drink, gentlemen?” he asked.
One of the men took the flask in his hands, almost reverently.
“I don’t know that I won’t,” he said. He took a long pull, then handed the flask to his partner.
“Regards!” drawled the latter.
The words brought to Loring a bitter train of memories.
“Keep the damned stuff if you want it. Iam through with it,” he said. Then, with a quick good night, he rode off.
The men, in mild wonder, looked after him for a moment. Then they relighted their pipes, and settled themselves by the fire.
“Mighty nice chap, that,” remarked one, “but he must feel powerful bad about something to give away good whisky like that.”
It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening when Stephen rode into Dominion. The main street was brightly lighted, and as it was Saturday night, the sidewalks were crowded with people walking restlessly up and down. The shop windows glowed attractively. Through several open doors he could see men gathered about pool tables. The bright lights by the cinematograph theater showed clearly the faces of the passing crowd.
Dominion had passed from the camp into the town stage, as was evinced by the liberal scattering of brick houses among those of wooden construction. Many horsemen were passing in the street. Fresh from the hills, Loring felt almost dazed by this renewed contact with established humanity.
His first care was to seek a stable for “MuyBueno.” Seeing in one of the side streets a livery sign, he entered the place and tied his pony among the long line of horses in the shed. Then, after saying to the proprietor: “Hay and not oats,” he walked out into the street.
“I hope the confounded expensive little beast won’t order champagne for himself,” he thought. “He is almost clever enough to do so.”
As he walked slowly along, he mentally calculated his resources. Three dollars in cash. Nothing in credit. A few cents Mexican in prospect. He would have to sell the pony and saddle to complete the payment of his poker debt.
A group of men, thoroughly drunk, passed by, singing noisily. Idly, Stephen followed after them, until they came to the little creek that runs through the center of the town. Across the creek, high above the dark, silent water, lay a narrow swinging bridge. One of the group of men called out: “Let’s go across the bridge of sighs to Mowrie’s.” The others noisily assented and soon Loring could hear the bridge ahead of him creaking beneath their weight. He stood for a moment, hesitating, staring at the lights across the bridge, then he deliberately followed.
The opposite shore of the creek was linedwith “cribs” and shanties stretched in a long, sodden row along the bank. From many of them came the brazen notes of gramophones in a jarring discord of popular tunes. Women’s voices were mixed with the music, in shrill unpleasant laughter. A board walk ran before the close built houses, and up and down this tramped throngs of men, talking noisily, singing, swearing. The faces of some group or other were now and then visible, as some one scratched a match to light a cigarette.
Women of almost every nationality on the globe stood in the doorways, French, Japanese, Negroes, Swedes, all dressed in flaunting kimonas. They called to the men in the crowd, exchanged jests, or leaned idly against the door-posts, staring fixedly into the faces of the men. From many of the places a bright light streamed out across the water. The shutters of several were drawn.
In strange contrast to the scene, in one of the houses some one was singing in a clear tenor voice, which sounded as sweet and pure as if it had been in a choir. For a moment the murmur of voices and tramp of feet ceased, as people paused to listen.
Stephen walked slowly down the street. A woman in one of the darker doorways called out to him. He stopped, bit his lip hard.
“Why not? What is the use, now?” he thought.
He ran up the steps and opened the door. Inside, half a dozen painted women were drinking with the men there. The proprietress beckoned to him to enter.
Then like a veil, before his eyes dropped a cloud of memory. He saw the shed at the hoist, two bodies laid limply on the ground; figures moving in dim lantern light.
He staggered out into the street, drew a deep breath and strode back across the bridge.
“I am through with this sort of thing for good,” he muttered. “I owe the world too big a debt of reparation now. But I will pay it.”
For the first time in his life, Loring’s smile was a smile of power, that power which rises sometimes from a supreme sorrow, sometimes from supreme holiness, sometimes, as now, springing from the black soil of crime; but bespeaking the discipline which has learned to control passion, to bring desire to heel, and to make a man master of himself despite all thedevils that this world or the next can send against him.
He had learned his lesson at last, learned it at the cost of two lost lives, and the cost to himself of an overshadowing remorse which he could never escape, let the future hold what it would. But he had learned it.
After three days of fruitless search for work, Stephen’s outlook upon life grew very gloomy. Dominion was over-supplied with laborers. In looking backward, Stephen felt that he had applied for every sort of position from bank president to day laborer, but everywhere the answer had been the same: “Sorry, but we have nothing for you. We are even turning off our old workmen.”
In the West, in time of prosperity, positions and opportunities of every sort go begging. In time of depression there is no harder place in which to get work.
To make matters worse, Stephen from principle had always refused to affiliate himself with one of the labor organizations, and in Dominion the power of the Union is paramount. Once he had almost persuaded the foreman at one of the smelters to put him on the rolls; but when the fact had appeared that he was a non-Union man the official had changed his mind.
“I can’t risk it. It is all wrong; but if I was to hire you to-day, why to-morrow I wouldn’t have three men working.” This had been his final answer.
Shortly after this experience, Loring had been approached by a delegate who had tried to persuade him to join the Miners’ Union. The delegate had enumerated the advantages, and they were many,—a sick benefit of ten dollars a week, friends wherever he should go, work at high wages, and a seventy-five dollar funeral when he died. The delegate had asked Stephen if it were fair that when the Union, by concerted action, had brought about the prevailing high scale of wages, outsiders should both share the advantage, and yet weaken the Union position by working contrary to the fixed scale. At the end, as a peroration, the man had cited the possibilities of crushing capital at the polls, arguing with the general point of view of such men, that the chief aim of capital was to crush labor.
“You needn’t pay your dues until you get your first month’s wages,” he had concluded.
Stephen had begun to feel that perhaps his anti-Union convictions had been prejudiced, forthe man had clearly shown many good arguments. Then the delegate, seeing that Stephen was weakening, had thought to clinch the matter. Changing his manner, he had shaken his finger in Loring’s face and said: “If you don’t join the Union, we’ll see to it that you don’t get a job in the territory. We’ll send your picture to every camp in Arizona, and life will be hell for you. There was a man only last week who wouldn’t join. He is in the hospital now, and, by Gawd, he will stay there for a while.”
“That settles it,” Loring had answered.
The man had become all smiles again.
“I thought you would see it that way,” he had rejoined.
“I think that you misunderstand me,” had been Stephen’s reply. “I would not join your Union if you hired me to do so. As a matter of fact, the Miners’ Union here is not a true labor union. It is a thugs’ Union, and the sooner all honest workingmen find it out, the better for the cause of Unionism throughout the country.”
The scuffle that had ensued had resulted in Loring’s favor, but it had not helped him to find work.
One morning, rather from want of occupation than from any definite expectations, Stephen took his place in the post-office at the general delivery window. He was greatly surprised when, in answer to his inquiry, the clerk slipped a letter through the grating. It bore the Quentin postmark; but the writing was unfamiliar. Stephen walked across the room, and leaning in the doorway opened the letter with curiosity. It was from Mr. Cameron, and ran in this fashion:
“Quentin, September 20th.“Stephen Loring.“Dear Sir: I suppose that you realize how final your actions here must be in regard to any trust being placed in you. I shall say no more upon the subject. The fact remains that unfortunately I am in your debt.”
“Quentin, September 20th.
“Stephen Loring.
“Dear Sir: I suppose that you realize how final your actions here must be in regard to any trust being placed in you. I shall say no more upon the subject. The fact remains that unfortunately I am in your debt.”
Stephen read this sentence over several times before continuing:
“I feel bound to make one more effort to repay you, which must be regarded as final. I have interests in several companies in Montana, and I will offer you a position with one of them, on the understanding that you will never come into my way again or—”
“I feel bound to make one more effort to repay you, which must be regarded as final. I have interests in several companies in Montana, and I will offer you a position with one of them, on the understanding that you will never come into my way again or—”
here several words were scratched out
“You must realize how unpleasant it is for my daughter to be under any obligation to a man, who, to put thematter plainly, is a worthless drunkard. In offering this position to you, I may as well say that this is the only motive which actuates me. The position is one in which no responsibility is involved, being merely clerical. The pay would be sufficient to maintain you as long as you remain steady. The condition I impose would be absolute.“Yours truly,“Donald H. Cameron.”
“You must realize how unpleasant it is for my daughter to be under any obligation to a man, who, to put thematter plainly, is a worthless drunkard. In offering this position to you, I may as well say that this is the only motive which actuates me. The position is one in which no responsibility is involved, being merely clerical. The pay would be sufficient to maintain you as long as you remain steady. The condition I impose would be absolute.
“Yours truly,
“Donald H. Cameron.”
Stephen noticed with interest the character of the signature.
“I don’t believe that man ever failed at anything,” he thought. “There is only one thing that he never learned, and that is how to deal with a failure.”
It was the noon hour, and the various whistles told of lunch, for some. Stephen read the letter over and over.
“Why not accept the offer?” he questioned. Mr. Cameron could certainly feel no more disrespect for him than he did now, and the blatant fact that he was hungry and without work forced itself upon his attention.
“It means another chance,” he muttered, and now that he was sure of himself, he knew that a chance meant success. He thrust the letter into his pocket.
“Hang it, I’ll take him up,” he thought. “I have been everything else; I may as well be a grafter.”
As he slid his hand out of his coat pocket, he felt another envelope. He pulled it out, and looked longingly at it. It was Jean’s note. He hesitated, then tore it open.
“I need it now, if ever I shall,” he said to himself. There was only a line, signed with Jean’s initials.
“I still believe in you.”
“I still believe in you.”
Stephen read it with bowed head. His shoulders shook. The paper danced up and down before his eyes. Over and over he read the note. Unconsciously he stretched out his hand, as if to press in gratitude and devotion the hand of some one before him. At length, with a start, he came to himself. He returned the note to his pocket, and in a determined fashion walked up to a man who was standing near him.
“I would like to borrow two cents for a stamp,” he said.
The stranger roared with laughter.
“Well, you are broke! Say, friend, I’ll stake you to a meal, if you’re that hard up.”
Stephen shook his head: “No, thank you. I have still my coat, which I can pawn; but I am much obliged for the stamp.”
He found an odd envelope lying on a table. Going over to the desk, he addressed this to Mr. Cameron. Then taking from the waste basket a sheet of paper, he wrote quickly upon it five words:
“I’m damned if I will.”
“I’m damned if I will.”
He put on the stamp with a hard pound of his fist, and threw the letter into the mail-box. Then, with his heart beating joyously, he walked out of the post-office. Inside his coat a note lay warm against his heart.
On the corner stood a pawnbroker’s shop. The brightness of the gilding upon the three balls showed that it was a successful one. The place was crowded with men who were disposing of everything that duty, a mild sense of decency, or necessity did not for the moment require. Loring entered the shop, and elbowing his way to the desk, laid down his coat. The proprietor picked it up, prodded the cloth with his thumb-nail, shook his head over the worn lining, then said:
“Two bits on that.”
Stephen silently took the proffered quarter, and went out.
“That means one meal, anyhow,” he thought.
A gaudy sign attracted his attention: “Chinese-American Restaurant”—“All you can eat for two bits.”
“I think that they do not lose much on their sign,” he reflected when, a few minutes later, seated at a counter, he gnawed at some bread and stew, and drank bitter coffee. “Any man who ate more than a quarter’s worth would die.”
Having eaten, he sauntered over to the cashier’s window and nonchalantly slid his quarter across the counter. Then no longer a capitalist, but also no longer hungry, he stepped out into the street again. He looked to right and left wondering in what direction to turn his footsteps. The sight of a crowd in front of the post-office determined him. He questioned a man on the outskirts of the group, and found that the excitement was caused by a telegram, the contents of which was posted in the window. Working his way through the crowd, Loring reached a position whence hecould make out the notice. The telegram was from the governor of Sonora, the Mexican province which lay just across the line from Dominion.
“Outbreak of Yaquis. No troops near. Would deeply appreciate help from Dominion.”
“Outbreak of Yaquis. No troops near. Would deeply appreciate help from Dominion.”
The crowd was laughing and cheering.
“Me for Old Mexico!” called one.
“Perhaps we’ll all be generals,” shouted another.
The news had spread like wild-fire, and from every direction appeared groups of men, armed with Winchesters, shotguns, or Colts. All were rushing toward the Southern Pacific station. Stephen hurried up the street to a gun store, and by dint of hard persuasion obtained from the proprietor an old Spencer forty-five calibre, single shot carbine.
“It will at least make a noise,” thought Loring. He joined a group of men who were on their way to the train.
“I might as well go to Mexico as anywhere,” he reflected. “My responsibilities are not heavy just at present.”
Within half an hour after the receipt of thetelegram in Dominion, three hundred men, all armed to the teeth, were at the station. For in a region where the sheriff’s posse is one of the regular forms of entertainment, there are many men who joyously start upon an expedition of this kind.
A cheer arose from the crowd when Harry Benson, at one time the captain of the “Arizona Rangers,” appeared upon the scene, clearing a way for himself by the adept fashion in which he spat tobacco juice.
“Going along, Harry? Good boy,” some one called. “You ought to have brought all the Rangers with you.”
“See here,” answered Benson, “this ain’t in no wise official business. This is sort of a pleasure excursion.” There was a howl of laughter at this, then as the engine whistle blew sharply, all scampered for places in the “special” which the railway company had provided.
A man who was on the front platform of one of the cars began to sing a song—a very popular song, of which the verse and chorus were unprintable, but very singable. With men hanging out of the windows, standing on the roofsof the cars, and with platforms and steps jammed, the train pulled out of the station, headed for the Mexican Line, only fifteen miles away.
Half an hour brought them to the border. Here were waiting the governor of Sonora and many Mexicans, who cheered excitedly as the train drew into the station. Benson, by unanimous consent, was acting as director-general of warfare. As the train slowed down, he jumped to the platform. A Mexican official resplendent in uniform and gold braid, in strange contrast to the motley throng following at Benson’s heels, stepped forward to greet him. Benson sang out cheerfully: “Hello, here we are; what is there for us to do?”
While the official was explaining the situation, he looked a bit anxiously at the crowd, hoping that when the trouble was over, they would all depart from the province of Sonora with the same celerity with which they had come. It certainly was a hard-looking aggregation.
The Governor talked earnestly with Benson, speaking excellent English. “I do not know what to do. According to the laws, no armed force can enter our territory. It is a bad precedent.And yet we need help. There are no troops near Los Andes where the raiders are feared. Yet the laws are very strict, and as an officer of the law I must not let them be broken. The law says plainly: ‘No armed force.’ What shall I do?” The Governor was in despair over the situation.
Benson saved the day.
“Look here, Gov,” he said. “I used to be an officer of the law myself. A man must conform strictly to the laws; I know all about it. But,” he added, with a wink, “we’re here, just sort of a disorganized party as happened to meet on the train. We was all going hunting near Los Andes, and we sort of came over without formalities.”
The Governor’s face beamed with happiness at this solution.
“It ismagnifico! And as the custom-house cannot appraise so many weapons at once, you are permitted to carry them, gentlemen. In bond, of course, in bond,” he added hastily.
“Yesterday we had news from the hills that the Yaquis were raiding again,” he said to Benson. “Two prospectors were killed, not fifty miles from Los Andes. A bridge on themain line is down. The troops cannot be there for twenty-four hours.”
Benson nodded comprehendingly. “Same old trouble, ain’t it? I wonder these Yaquis wouldn’t get tired. We’ll fix them up good for you if they come.”
These formalities of international law having been settled, all again boarded the train, and a slow hour’s run toward the west brought them to Los Andes.
The inhabitants of this sleepy little town of Old Mexico thronged about the station and welcomed their prospective rescuers with enthusiasm. Loud cries of “Vivan Los Americanos!” echoed from end to end of the platform, as the men swarmed out of the train.
Soon the men were assigned to quarters in the various houses and shops. The plaza before the cathedral in the center of the town became, for probably the first time in its existence, a scene of activity.
As Benson was completing the disposition of his men, a Mexican ranch owner rode up to him.
“The Señor is thecomandante?” he asked in broken English.
“Sure, Mike,Seguro Miguel—Fire away!” answered Benson.
The ranchman looked puzzled, then commenced to explain his errand. His ranch, it appeared, was situated some twenty miles outside the town, in the direction from which the Yaquis were expected, and his ranchmen were all absent upon the range. He asked for five or six men to defend hishacienda:
Benson waved his hand airily, in feeble imitation of the Mexican’s grand manner: “’Sta ’ueno, you shall have them.”
Turning, he saw Loring, who had been listening to the talk. Benson was accustomed to judging men quickly, and he was rarely deceived. A quick survey of Loring’s face satisfied him.
“He is no quitter, anyhow,” he thought, “and at present his moral character don’t matter.” He called to Loring: “Say, you Mr. What’s-your-name, you get four other men and go with this chap to his ranch!”
“Have youcaballosfor them here?” Benson asked the ranchman.
“Sí, sí, I can procure them at once,” exclaimed Señor Hernandez. “And my gratitude, it is eternal.”
“Never mind that,” said Benson, turning away.
A very short while sufficed for Stephen to find four volunteers to accompany them, and within an hour the little party was riding out of the town to the southward, where lay the ranch and the threatened pass. The country was desolation itself, rocky ground covered with layers of dust and sand. All was gray in color. The little clusters of sage-brush, all dried and lifeless in the heat, made no change in the gray hue. The road was merely a track across the desert, beaten by chance horsemen or cattle. Along this the horses scuffled, sending up clouds of alkali dust into the air for the benefit of the riders who were behind.
Stephen rode beside Señor Hernandez, speaking only in short sentences, to answer or ask some question. The leather of the saddles, beneath the sun, was burning hot.
After four hours of riding, just as the sun was beginning to drop behind the foothills, they saw before them in the desert a large patch of green, as vivid as if painted upon the ground, fresh and succulent, amidst the desolation of the plain.
“My alfalfa crop!” exclaimed the Señor, pointing with pride. “We have irrigated. Much water. Big crop.He aqui la casa—there, behind the alfalfa.”
Stephen saw rise, as if by magic, a long one-story structure of adobe, so much the color of the earth as to have been till now almost indistinguishable. Beside the house was a large brush corral. So perfectly was all blended with the landscape, that not until they were very near did Loring appreciate the great size of the building.
At the corral they dismounted and unsaddled.
“Better carry the saddles up to the house!” said Loring to the men, who had hung them over the corral bars. So, carrying their guns and saddles, they all walked up to the house.
Here they were received by the ranchman’s wife, a striking Spanish beauty.
“It is Señora Hernandez,” said the Mexican, with justifiable pride. The Señora showed the men the rooms where they were to sleep. Stephen, as commander, was given the largest room.
Pepita was very well pleased with the appearance of the defender whom her husbandhad selected, for in spite of his flannel shirt and dusty boots, Loring was not bad to look upon.
In a few moments, Stephen re-entered the main room. The Señora was there, leaning against one of the easements. The scarf that was thrown over her head added to her charms, and lent a subtlety to her dark beauty. As Stephen walked across the room toward her, he admired her greatly.
“By George! She is a beauty,” he exclaimed under his breath. Then answered a voice within him: “Yes, but at thirty, she will be fat, oh, very fat.”
As the Señora turned to greet him, the first voice made answer: “Yes, but it will be at least twelve years before she is thirty.”
While Stephen was talking with the Señora, a gong in an inner room clanged.
“It is the time for our evening meal, Señor,” she said, with a pretty little Spanish accent. After Loring had perjured his soul by swearing that he was loath to change his occupation for the pleasure of eating, she smiled at him mockingly, and led the way into the dining-room.
The Hernandez ranch was the largest in the Los Andes region, and the house was furnished and decorated in an elaborate manner. The walls of the dining-room were hung with gay pictures, and the table, set for supper, boasted several pieces of silver.
Señor Hernandez presided at the table with true Latin hospitality, and Stephen, his previous protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, did full justice to the excellent fare, at the same time keeping up a lively conversation with the Señora. The men with him ate vigorously, the only break in their steady eatingbeing caused by glances at the pretty Mexican girl who served the meal.
After supper, Stephen and the Señor went outside, and walked about the ranch, studying the possibilities of defense in case of trouble. At Stephen’s suggestion, they led the horses from the corral, and picketed them behind the house, as the first thought of any marauders would undoubtedly be to raid the corral.
Like most adobe houses, the ranch house consisted of a main building, with two wings running at right angles, thus enclosing three sides of a court. All the windows of the ground floor had iron shutters, fastening on the inside. The ground about the building was as flat as a board, and was broken only by the lines of the irrigation ditches which ran amidst the alfalfa fields.
“If we station a man to watch upon the roof,” said Stephen, as they returned to the house, “it will be all the precaution that we need to take. On a clear night such as this, a man can see far in every direction.”
“It will be well,” answered the Señor. “And, this door here, it is a heavy one. It will be hard to break down.”
“I don’t believe that it will come to that,” laughed Stephen. “I don’t believe that we shall have any trouble at all.”
“I pray not,” answered Señor Hernandez. His was not a nature which was exhilarated by prospective danger.
When they re-entered the main room, Stephen glanced quickly from the Señora to her husband.
“It is strange,” he said to himself, “how a little swarthy man like that could have won such a beauty for a wife. I suppose, though, that if she really loves him, she does not care if his ears are a bit like an elephant’s, his eyes too close together, and his nose as thin as a razor.” The husband of a pretty woman is not likely to have his charms exaggerated by other men.
They spent the evening smoking and talking. The Señora rolled cigarettes with the greatest deftness, and the smile with which she administered the final little pat did much to enhance the taste of the tobacco.
At ten o’clock the Señora rose, and after calling the servant to light the men to their rooms, bade them good night.
It had been agreed that Stephen should standthe first watch. He insisted that the Señor, tired as he was from two sleepless nights of worry, should not share his vigil.
Having exchanged his carbine for one of his host’s Winchesters, Loring mounted the ladder that ran from the hallway of the second story to the roof. It was a perfect night. The heavens were glittering with stars, and all was silent. Not a breath of air came from across the desert to cool the copings, which were still warm from the day’s heat.
Stephen leaned his rifle against the chimney, then felt in his pockets for a little sack of coarse “Ricorte” which some one in the town had given to him. He filled his pipe carefully, packing the tobacco down with his forefinger, till all was even; then striking a match, he held it far from him, until the blue flame of the sulphur burned to a clear yellow. He held the match to his pipe until the bowl glowed in an even circle of fire, and the smoke drew through the stem in rich, full clouds. Then, picking up his rifle again, he began a careful lookout over the plain towards the pass.
A fact which greatly facilitates the building of air castles, is that, unlike most buildings,they need no foundations. The castles which Stephen built that night, as he paced up and down the roof, biting hard on his pipe-stem, would have done credit to a very good school of architecture. The general design may be imagined from the fact that time and time again he drew from his pocket a little crumpled envelope, and holding it close to the glow of his pipe, read and reread it. Once he carried it to his lips, and with a feeling almost as of sacrilege, kissed it. Then he turned sharply, for on the roof behind him he heard light footsteps and the tinkle of a woman’s laughter.
“Oh, but Señor Loring is a faithful lover,” exclaimed Pepita, stepping toward him.
Even in the darkness, Stephen felt himself blushing up to his hair. He stammered, then laughed: “I plead guilty, but I am not generally like that.”
“It does no harm,” she murmured softly. “And the Señorita, does she also care so much?”
“Not in the least,” answered Stephen. “The Señorita does not even know that I care.”
“Oh, you think so? Women are not so—how do you say—? so blind,” laughed theSeñora. “But you have not asked me why I am here, Señor.”
“No,” answered Stephen rather bluntly. In the light of his reveries of the past hour he felt rather ashamed of the little flirtation that he had carried on after dinner with the Señora.
“You need not be embarrassed,” she went on, laughing at his stiffness. “It was not to see the gallant Señor that I came, though no doubt there are many who—”
Loring silenced her with an imploring gesture.
“No, I came to see if all were well. I was afraid that I heard noises,” she confessed.
“All right, so far,” said Stephen. “I do not think that we shall have any trouble.”
“Then I will again go down,” she said.
Stephen walked with her over to the ladder, and bowing low over her hand, whispered a low “Buenas noches!” As he helped her to the ladder, he looked into her eyes rather curiously. He could not understand their expression.
When she had her foot upon the uppermost rung, she said good night to him. Then, as he turned, she said, half shyly: “The letter,Señor; you will watch thecartaof the Señorita well?”
Laughing softly, yet not altogether gaily, she ran down the ladder.
“My husband, he is good,” she reflected. “Ah, very good, but he is as homely as a—monkey.”
Wiping two little tears from the corners of her eyes, she stepped quickly back into her room.
The time passed very slowly for Stephen. The clock in the courtyard below struck two. His rifle barrel began to feel cold in his fingers, as he fought against sleep. The night had grown thicker, and he could no longer see far out into the distance.
“It will be morning soon,” he thought. “I don’t believe that the Yaquis mean business this time.”
Even as he spoke, his ear caught a low sound. Then there was a silence. Doubtingly, he leaned far out over the wall, and listened intently. Again he heard the sound; again it ceased. Then once more it arose and became continuous,—very soft, but insistent, a solid, dull, irregular thud, as of many hoofs beatingupon soft ground. The blood in Stephen’s face boiled with quivering excitement. The hoof-beats came nearer and nearer, then stopped. The next sound that he heard was a grating click by the corral, as of some one slipping down the bars. He thought with lightning rapidity: “A shot will be the best way to awaken the men.”
Almost instantly afterwards he saw against the gray-white of the opposite side of the court a shadow, then another and another. Kneeling behind the coping, he covered the leader with his rifle.
The click of the action as he cocked his Winchester sounded to him preternaturally loud. He dropped the muzzle of his rifle a fraction of an inch until the first shadow drifted across the sights. He fired, and the shadow dropped. The flash of his rifle was answered from the dark by a dozen spurts of flame. All around him the bullets whined, or clicked against the dry adobe, sending great chips flying in all directions. Three times Loring fired, lying with the butt of his rifle cuddled close against his cheek. Would the men below never hear!
As the vague shapes rushed across the court for the door with a shrill yell, five knife-like jets of flame shot from the windows, and the reports echoed staccato in answer to the fusillade from the courtyard. The leaders of the Yaquis had almost reached the shelter of the doorway, but the angle windows fairly spat fire as the defenders emptied their repeaters. Unable to face the withering fire the raiders wavered, then fell back to the line of the irrigation ditches, whence they sent a rain of bullets against the windows of the houses. The tinkle of breaking glass on all sides was mingled with the reports of the rifles. The surprise had been complete for the Yaquis, as they had expected to find the ranch unprotected.
As soon as this first attack was repulsed, Stephen ran to the ladder and jumped down to join the others. His rifle barrel was burning hot from the rapidity of his fire.
He found the men all gathered in one room. It was a strange looking group which the flashes of the rifles revealed in the smoky air, half dressed, kneeling by the shutters, shooting viciously out into the darkness, at the blurred things in the ditches. A bullet whistled byStephen’s ear as he entered the room, and with a dull spat buried itself in the plaster behind him.
“Easy on the cartridges, boys!” he called. “They may rush again.” His advice was well called for, as in their excitement the men were firing wildly.
“It is lucky that there are no windows in the back of the house,” he exclaimed to Señor Hernandez.
The latter was engaged in trying to make himself an inconspicuous target.
There was the sound of footsteps at the door of the room and a blinding glare of light, as Pepita entered, carrying a large lamp. Stephen snatched it from her and hurled it out the window through the splintered panes. But its work had been done. One of the men by the window sobbed, staggered to his feet, and leaned out into the night, shaking his fist towards the ditches. Then he fell face downward across the ledge, where for an instant he was silhouetted by the last flicker of the lamp below. Loring flung himself upon him and dragged him back into the room, but not before the body was riddled with bullets. Stephen felt the sting ofseveral as they grazed his clothes, by some miracle leaving him unhurt.
“Dios!” gasped the woman.
“Lie down!” shouted Loring, forcing her to the floor. Then he took the dead man’s place by the shutter, and began to fire methodically.
Encouraged by their success, the Yaquis again swarmed forward. The whiplike crack of five Winchesters checked them before they were within the courtyard.
The black of the night began to turn to gray-blue with the hint of dawn. The figures in the ditches stirred, and as they began to run for their ponies, the defenders fired into them with telling effect. Then, in contrast to the previous rattle of shots, came the sound of the hoofs of a hundred ponies, scampering back up the trail.
“All over!” called out Stephen. Rising from his knees, he leaned out of the casement, and sent one more shot towards the flying Yaquis. It brought no response.
They carried Haskins, the man who had been shot, into the next room, and laid him on the bed. He was quite dead. The Señorafollowed, sobbing. Wildly she turned to Stephen as he tried to comfort her.
“You, Señor—you do not know what it is to kill, by madness, by folly.”
“Not know?—I—not know?” Stephen smiled a smile that was not good to see, as he broke off.
“Good God!” he thought, “had it left no trace on him, that haunting vision of two corpses flung twisted and out of shape on the wreckage of timber, those two things that had been men sent out of life by his guilty hand? Had it not lived with him by night and refused to be put aside by day? Had they not risen up in the dark hours and called him by a name from which he shrank like a blow, and now this woman told him he could not know what it meant to kill a man!”
He put his hands in his pockets, bowed his head, and walked slowly back into the other room.
The light breaking fast in the eastern sky, showed a disheveled scene. Mattresses were scattered on the floor, the bedding was thrown about the room, all of the windows were smashed. By each casement was a pile of empty brasscartridge shells. By one window was a mess of something red. The air was stale, and filled with acid-tasting powder smoke.
Loring went downstairs, and slipping back the bolts on the heavy door, stepped out into the cool of the early morning. Outside everything seemed in strange order, compared with the scene that he had left. He started on a tour of investigation about the ranch. The ditches amidst the alfalfa showed no trace of the death-dealing occupants of an hour before. As he walked around the corner of an outbuilding, he stumbled over a body which the Yaquis had overlooked in their flight. The Indian’s stiff, square shoes lay with their toes unbending in the dust. The blue denim of the overalls and the buckle of the suspenders showed the trademark of a Chicago firm! A bullet hole was clean through the middle of the swarthy, bronze-colored forehead. Even through the rough clothing, the flat, rangey build of the man was evident. The hair, falling forward in the dust, was coarse and black.
“Poor devil!” thought Stephen. “He has ridden on his last raid.”
He walked quietly away from the body, andwent back to the house. “Everything is all right,” he reported.
Soon the stove was lighted, and coffee boiling. The men were laughing and telling stories. The Señor strode up and down, twisting his little spikes of mustachios, and exclaiming upon the valor of the defense.
When they sat down to breakfast, there was a seat too many at the table. Loring thought of the silent form in the room above, and for a moment felt weak. Then, shaking off his depression, he entered into the general hilarity. Time after time, the servant passed the great platter of drytortillas. The big cakes tasted delicious to the tired men.
As they finished breakfast, the sound of a bugle call sent every one to the window. Outside was a troop of Mexican cavalry, hot on the trail of the Yaquis. Señor Hernandez invited the officers to enter, and while he pressed whisky upon them, gave a voluble account of the fight. He spoke in such rapid Spanish that Stephen could understand little; but from the frequent sweeping gestures, he judged that the story lost nothing in the telling.
The officers remained but a short while, thenremounted, and rode at a sharp trot towards the hills.
“I wonder that the government does not send enough troops to wipe out these fellows. These cavalry will only drive them back into the hills, and in a few months they will again swoop down upon the outlying towns and ranches, just as they have been doing for the past ten years,” thought Stephen.
After breakfast, Loring prepared to return to Los Andes. The others had accepted the invitation of Señor Hernandez to stay for a few days as his guests. A spirit of restlessness pervaded Stephen, and prevented him from remaining.
The Señor was to arrange to send home Haskins’s body.
“He came from Trinidad, he always said. Guess he had folks there,” one of the men had volunteered.
Just as Loring was mounting, Pepita ran forward, and whispered something to him.
He shook his head in reply.
“Try and see!” was her rejoinder.
The thought which she had put into his head made the long ride back to Los Andes pass very quickly.
The town had resumed its normal appearance. The loafers were again stretched upon the steps of the little stores or on the pavements. Those who were not rolling cigarettes were comfortably asleep.
“Los Americanos vamos,” was the answer to Stephen’s inquiries.
After leaving his borrowed horse at a stable, he wandered idly towards the plaza. Now that the reaction had come, he felt very tired. Spying a bench beneath some palm trees, he stretched himself upon it, and in the security of him who has nothing, dozed peacefully.
A mosquito, buzzing vapidly about his head, caused him to exert himself to the extent of a few useless blows. A wagon, rumbling down the street, caused him to look up. Then after these two exhibitions of energy, he fell soundly asleep.
Towards ten o’clock in the evening Stephen directed his steps to the railroad station, and seating himself on a side-tracked flat car, kicked his heels over the edge, and smoked his last pipeful of tobacco. He jangled some keys in his pocket, pretending to himself that they were money. It was bad enough, he reflected, to be “broke” in the States, where he could talk the language; but here—He looked disconsolately at the throng of Mexicans who were on the platform. “Buenos dies, andque hora?although I am sure I pronounce them well, will not take me very far in the world,” he thought. “It does not matter much where I go; but I certainly must go somewhere. I will board the first freight train that appears, whether it is going north, south, east or west.”
Having come to this determination, he jumped down from the car, and walking over to the bulletin board, ran his finger down the time-table.
“Nine o’clock—train for La Punta. Well, that’s gone. Hello! Here we are—eleven P. M. express for the City of Mexico. I wonder what that asterisk means. Oh, yes, Pullmans only. That would be infinitely more pleasant than the brake-beams of a freight,” he mused, “and for me it would be equally cheap.”
Stephen was a novice at the art of “beating it,” but he possessed two very valuable assets, a keen observation and a vivid imagination. Having thus resolved to travel in state, he returned to his flat car, and set about planning ways and means. A few minutes of solemn thought gave him his first conclusion: that at this time of year the southbound trains would not be running full.
“Therefore there will be many vacant berths,” he thought.
A few more puffs upon his pipe gave him the next link in his plan. “Whether empty, or full, the Pullman company has all the berths down.”
Thought number three: “At night they make long runs, without stopping. Therefore,” thought Stephen, “once on board, and safely tucked in an upper berth, I can travel untilmorning without being discovered and thrown off the train.”
“Now comes the second part of my problem: how to get on the train and into my berth without being discovered.” He shut his eyes, and visualized a train standing at the station. “Where would the porters stand?” he asked himself.
He thought hard, and remembered that at night the porters generally stand at opposite ends of their cars, so that every alternate set of steps is unguarded.
“Now,” he reflected, “if the berths are down, the curtains will be drawn, therefore there will be little light from the car windows, to bring me into prominence, and the passengers will probably be asleep. All will go well, if the vestibule doors are not locked. But generally on hot nights they are unlocked. Anyhow, I must risk it.”
As he mused over his plan giving it the final touches, the express for the City of Mexico thundered into the station.
With a grating of brakes, and a squish of steam, the heavy train sobbed itself to a stop, the engine dropping from the fire-box a streamof glowing coals between the gleaming steel rails, and blowing forth steam from the exhaust.
“Here’s my train,” thought Loring. “It looks very comfortable.”
He slipped his pipe into his pocket, and stepping back into a shadowy corner, awaited his opportunity.
From the platform arose an irregular murmur of voices, such as always attends the arrival of a train at night. That murmur which, to the passengers lying half awake, sounds so far away, and unreal! He heard the bang and thump of trunks being thrown out of the baggage car. A party of tourists, weighted down with hand-luggage, hurried by him. Even as he thought, the white-jacketed porters stood with their little steps alternately at the right and left ends of their respective cars, so that in the long train there were three unguarded platforms.
A man was rapidly testing and oiling the car wheels. His torch flared yellow-red against the greasy brown of the trucks, and made queer shadows dance on the red varnished surface of the cars.
Stephen tried to make out the name of the car nearest to him. The first four gilt lettersshowed clearly in the torchlight: “ELDO”—The man with the torch moved nearer. “ELDORADO,” spelled Stephen. “Perhaps the name is a delicate hint to me from Fate.”
The inspector passed on up the train, hitting ringing blows on the wheels with his short, heavy mallet. He tested the last car, then stepped back from the train, swinging his torch around his head as a signal to the engineer.
“It must be now or never,” thought Loring. But which platform to try! At that instant, from the car opposite him, came a great puff of white steam, for a moment almost obscuring the steps from view.
Loring darted forward, and jumped upon the train platform. Anxiously he thrust his shoulder against the vestibule door. It was unlocked. As he gained the vestibule, the car couplings tightened with a jerk, and the train clumsily started. He took a hasty glance down the interior of the car. At the opposite end the porter was closing the vestibule door. The aisle was clear.
Stephen stepped quickly into the car, pulled back the curtain of the nearest section, and stepping on the lower berth, caught hold ofthe curtain bar, and with one pull swung himself up. In the process, he inadvertently stepped on the fat man in the lower berth. Stephen knew that he was fat, because he felt that way. The man swore sleepily, and twitched the curtain back into place.
“I think that I won’t put my boots out to be cleaned to-night,” said Loring to himself. “It would be tactless.” Then he pulled the blankets up over him, rolled over close to the far side of the berth, and fell asleep, lulled by the hum of the car wheels, pounding southward fifty miles an hour.
Tired out by his vigil of the night before, Stephen slept until it was late. He awoke with a start to find that it was broad daylight. Sleepily he tried to think where he was. His eye fell on the dome of polished mahogany above him, upon the swaying green curtain, and the swinging bellrope. Then he recalled the situation. For a few moments he lay back, blissfully comfortable. His weary muscles were grateful for the rest. Then he roused himself, and peered cautiously out from between the curtains. While he was looking up and down the dusty stretch of carpet in the aisle, the colored porterrapped hard on the woodwork of the lower berth, and proceeded to awake the occupant.
“Last call for breakfast, number twelve, last call; half-past nine, sir, half-past nine.”
Stephen curbed a childlike desire to reach over and pull the kinky hair of the darky.
“I am sure that he would think that I was a ghost,” he laughed to himself.
He could hear the man below him turn over heavily, then grunt, and begin to dress.
“I think I also had better arise,” reflected Loring. He watched the porter until the latter was at the far end of the car, then dropping his feet over the edge of the berth he slid out onto the swaying floor, almost into the arms of the amazed Pullman conductor, who at that instant had entered the car.
“Where did you get on?” gasped the brass-buttoned official. “I didn’t know that there was an ‘upper’ taken in this car.”
“At Los Andes,” answered Stephen, “I was rather tired, so I thought I would not bother you at the time.”
The conductor looked hard at Stephen, and took in at a glance his ragged clothes, dirty shoes, and flannel shirt; then he grinned.
“That was mighty considerate of you, stranger; now let’s have your ticket. We have almost reached our next stop.”
Stephen pretended to feel in his pockets, though he well knew that it was useless. The other people in the train were beginning to stare.
“To be put off a train would be far pleasanter in imagination than in reality,” flashed across Stephen’s mind.
“Hurry up, now,” repeated the conductor. “Where is your ticket?”
“I haven’t any,” Loring blurted out.
“Come on, now, no nonsense! fork up!” insisted the conductor.
“I would gladly, if I had any money,” rejoined Stephen, then with seeming irrelevancy, he added: “How far is it from here to the ‘City’?”
“It is about seven hundred miles,” answered the conductor, “but I am sure you will find it a delightful walk.”
“Last call for breakfast in the dining-car. Last call,” again echoed through the car.
“Better hurry, sir,” said the porter, not realizing the situation, as he passed Stephen.
“Thank you,” said Loring, with a grim smile. “But I think I will refrain from eating this morning.”
A rather heavy faced man, who was sitting near by, laughed audibly. Stephen became the center of interest for the passengers. For them, the little scene was a perfect bonanza, serving to break the monotony of the trip. Loring was conscious of the stare of many eyes, about as effectually concealed behind books and magazines as is an ostrich with its head in the sand.
“Come out into the vestibule with me!” said the conductor, rather gruffly. Stephen followed him in silence. When they were on the platform, the conductor turned and looked at him squarely. Loring noticed that there could be kind lines about the close-set jaw.
“See here,” began the former, “you don’t look to me like a man who is often working this sort of game. I guess you must be sort of up against it, ain’t you?”
Stephen bowed his head slowly, in non-committal agreement.
“Now I don’t like to see a man down and out,” went on the conductor, “unless he is thekind that deserves to be, and you ain’t. Besides, you’re from the States like I am, and so, though I’d lose my job if it were found out, the company is going to set you up to this ride free.”
Stephen’s face lighted with gratitude, as he grasped the man’s hand, and thanked him.
“When did you have anything to eat last?” asked the conductor suddenly.
“Not since yesterday morning,” answered Stephen.
“Well, you go right into that car” (he pointed forward with his thumb) “and eat. I’ll make it all right with the dining-car people.”
“That is too much,” said Loring. “I can’t”—
The conductor cut him short. “Some time when you have the money, you can pay me back. If you don’t ever have it, don’t worry. No, you mustn’t thank me any more. It is just that you are an American, and I don’t like to see a fellow from the States up against it in this Godforsaken land.”
As Loring walked through the train, his blood tingled with the pride of race and citizenship, tingled with the glow that comes or should cometo every man, when he realizes the strength of the great brotherhood to which he belongs: realizes that when things are stripped to their elemental facts, and the veneer of international courtesy and friendliness removed, he is standing shoulder to shoulder with his countrymen against the world.
When at last the train drew into the “City,” Stephen said a warm good-bye to his benefactor, then followed the line of passengers out into the street. With no definite purpose in mind, he wandered up and down the city, staring idly into the shop windows. By accident, he found himself in a great plaza. He was pleased with the gaiety.
“If it were not for economic distress, I should be very well off,” he thought. “I must get work somewhere, and immediately.”
He walked up one of the side streets, looking at all the signs, hoping that one might give him a clew. For a long time he saw nothing helpful, and he was on the brink of discouragement, when his eye was attracted by a large gilt umbrella on the next corner, hung out over the street. Beneath it was a Spanish sign to the effect that umbrellas could be bought, sold, orrepaired within. In the window was a large placard: “We speak English.”
“If I were skilful with my hands,” thought Loring, “I might get a job repairing here; but I am not skilful with my hands.”
He stood reflecting, his hands deep in his pockets. An idea soon came to him, for he had always been more resourceful than successful.
He walked boldly into the shop, and approached the proprietor. The man began to assume the smile with which he welcomed prospective buyers, noticed Loring’s clothes, and checking the smile, waited in silence for him to speak. Stephen, unabashed, smiled in a most friendly fashion, and a few words of comment upon the admirable situation of the shop, and the excellence of the stock, quite won the owner’s confidence. After a few moments of conversation, in a guile-free manner he asked: “And do you do much repairing here?”
“No,” the proprietor admitted, “very little. Most of my business is to buy and sell.”
“It seems strange that in a big city such as this there should be no demand for repairs?”
Stephen made the statement a question by the rising inflection. He spoke with the hesitating assurance which had made so many people trust him.
The proprietor shook his head in answer: “No, there is no demand.”
“Is it not that people do not think, perhaps, do not know of your place?”
“Very likely you are right,” answered the storekeeper. He was pleased by the stranger’s interest in his business.
Then Loring played his high card.
“Suppose that you had an active English-speaking agent, who would go to the offices and homes of the American and English colony, and collect umbrellas to be repaired, then would not your business flourish?”
The shop owner grasped the plan, but not with both hands.
“Y-e-s,” he answered slowly. In dealing with an American he felt that he must be on his guard.
“Well,” continued Stephen, “I am such a man, very efficient (Heaven help me!) and reliable (It won’t!). For a commission, no pay in advance, but for a commission of say tencents for each umbrella, I will collect for you.” The umbrella man consented half reluctantly. The matter was soon arranged, and Loring hastened forth upon his rounds.
By six o’clock, after many strange experiences, and rebuffs, he had managed to collect ten umbrellas. Gaudy red, somber black, two green ones, and one white. All were in advanced stages of decrepitude. He had pleaded with the owners to let them be restored, as if each umbrella had an “inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
With his odd collection bundled under his arms, Loring started on his return to the store. Greatly pleased with the success of his scheme, he strolled along talking to himself, and not noticing where he was going.
Walking in the opposite direction to Loring on the same sidewalk was another man. His quick, decisive steps and the slightly deprecating glance which he cast at any thing of beauty in the windows of the shops that he passed proclaimed him an American. The expression on his face varied from amusement to scorn as he glanced at things that were different from those in the States. There was in his wholemanner that good-humored toleration of the best achievements of another nation that marks the travelling American. The sidewalk was narrow, and the heavy shoulders of this man overshadowed half the distance across. He was covering a good yard at a stride, which was all the more remarkable as the most of his height was above the waist. Had he been a girl, his hair would have been called auburn where it showed beneath his hat. Being a man, it may be truthfully said that it matched the bricks of the building he was passing. His eyes, which were as round as the portholes of a ship, betokened a degree of honesty and kindness which matched well with the general effect of strength and homeliness given by his whole appearance. The energy of all his motions was a sharp contrast to Loring’s lazy stroll. At the second that he reached Loring, his eyes were uplifted in wondering curiosity at the bright colors of the roof tiles. His preoccupation, combined with Loring’s absorption, made a collision inevitable. And the inevitable, as usual, took place.
“I beg your pard—” began Stephen, raising his eyes.
“Stephen Loring!” exclaimed the stranger. “Where in the devil did you come from?”
“Baird Radlett!” called Stephen, as if stupefied.
They shook hands warmly. Radlett was an old friend of Stephen’s, one who had been an intimate in the days before Loring’s misfortunes.
“Come on, Steve, we’ll go and get a drink,” said Radlett.
Loring shook his head. “Not for me, thanks,” he answered.
“Phew!” whistled Radlett. “Since when?” he involuntarily exclaimed. Then for the first time he took notice of the strange load which Loring was carrying.
“What on earth, Steve?” he asked, pointing to the umbrellas.
In the old days Loring had been well off, Radlett rich, and it hurt Stephen to explain his abject poverty. He hesitated a moment, then unblushingly replied:
“Why you see, Baird, I am on a sort of house-party here, and the weather being fine, I thought that I would take all the girls’ umbrellas around to be fixed.”
Radlett stared in amazement, then both brokeinto shouts of laughter, as the ridiculousness of the excuse struck them simultaneously.
“See here, Steve, I know that you are in hard luck. Come down to my hotel with me, and we will talk things over,” said Radlett. Putting his arm affectionately through Loring’s, he dragged him, protesting, along with him. As they walked, Stephen explained the matter of the umbrellas, while Radlett listened amused, but a bit saddened.