THERE were four or five passengers inside the coach, and I boosted the judge over the wheel and put him in there. There was no one on the box with the driver, and that was not surprising, for I must say he did not have any coaxing way with him: he had his fists full of muddy reins and looked down on me with his mouth screwed around. I asked meekly if I might ride up there with him.
“If you think a plug-hat is going to help me any getting acrost sixteen miles of ’dobe clay, climb up! But do one thing or t’other damn quick!”
It did not look as if I would be making a specially promising friend, but I climbed just the same.
“Good luck!” said the landlord, “and I hope you’ll take it all right from us if we let ’em loose after we have shaken ’em down.”
“Send ’em along, sir. One at a time or the lot in a bunch!”
That little speech suited the crowd; I got a lot of friendly hand-waves.
A few rods from the last house in Royal City the muddy street swung to the right and sort of sneaked into the river, as if it were ashamed and wanted to wash the dirt off itself. There was no bridge. The horses plunged into the water and dragged the coach across the stream, floundering in depths that barely allowed them footing.
On the other side of the river the road whiplashed in long curves up the canon’s wall to reach the level of Callas prairie; I should say it was all of a thousand feet above the stream.
I offered to the driver comments on the weather, on the road: I offered him a cigar. I had stocked up with smokes with which to curry favor. The driver paid no attention to the comments and snarled his refusal of the cigar. Even with six horses leaping to their work under the lash, our crawl up the muddy slope was snail-like. The wheelers and swing team got the whip, and the driver heaved curses and little rocks at the leaders. He had nearly a peck of pebbles in a canvas bag at his side. When we were over the rim-rock at last and upon the prairie, I looked for more speed. But no such luck! The straining horses, half-way to their knees in the black mud, could barely move the heavy coach.
After a time the driver left what some flatterers might call a road and took to the open prairie, zigzagging here and there to find solid ground. Then intersecting gullies drove him back into the rutted road again. It was adobe mud—black as zip and as sticky as cold molasses. Every little while the driver was obliged to jump down from his seat and poke the clotted mud out between the spokes of the wheels. Otherwise the coach would have been anchored in spite of the best tussles of the horses.
“I should think they’d have to give up trying to run a stage across this prairie in mud-time,” I ventured to suggest to the driver when he came climbing back to his seat after a long assault on the mud-clogged wheels with his piece of joist.
“The mailshaveto go, but the damn fools that I haul don’t have to,” he retorted, sorting his reins between his muddy fingers. “If you ain’t satisfied with the way I’m running this thing, mister, you can tuck yourself into that plug-hat of yours and roll across to Breed City. E-e-oyah! Go ‘long, you wall-eyed, splint-legged goats of the Bitter Root, you!”
However, I was thankful I was on the outside; the sun warmed me and the warmth was grateful, for the breeze was chilly on that upland. I could see snow on the far-distant peaks to the south. The passengers inside the coach were plainly far from feeling any thankfulness whatsoever. They groaned and growled and complained. I glanced down over the side dining one stop for wheel-clearing, and found myself looking into the face of Judge Kingsley, who had stuck his head out of the window. His false mustache gave him the appearance of an angry cat.
“How much more of this devilishness have we got to endure?” he demanded.
“That’s easy figuring, sir! Sixteen miles, sixteen hours! It must be the regular running time on this road.”
“I don’t want no sarcasm from no one,” yelped the driver, straightening up and shaking his joist. “And if any gent reckons he can keep passing out his cheap slurs on this trip he’d better come down here now and get his card entitling him to.”
I kept my gaze on the distant mountains, but when the driver climbed back to his seat and kept on cussing me out, I reckoned we’d better have a little understanding for the rest of the trip. I closed my fingers around his arm. It was only a pipe-stem arm—and his eyes were of the sad, pale-blue kind. I said very near to his ear: “Your breakfast seems to be hurting you, son! The stage company pays you to drive and to be respectful to passengers. Mind your tongue after this.”
I was trying on a little something. I have found that when you bluster and shout, the blusterer usually recognizes his own kind and blusters back. But the blowhard hasn’t any weapon when a man fights with a look and a quiet word.
“It’s the mud. It’s getting on to my nerves,” whined the man after he had driven a short distance.
“Have a smoke—it’s good for the nerves,” I invited. The driver’s hands were full of reins and whip and pebbles, so I set the end of a cigar to the drooping mouth and the driver bit off the end. Then I held a match while he sucked. And when the cigar was going he turned an appreciative grin on me.
“A fellow can’t bluff you much, can he, mister?” he remarked. “I didn’t have you sized up right at the start-off, I reckon. Why,Icouldn’t lick a prairie-dog with a hammer. But I bluff out most of the dudes who travel with me. I get a lot of innocent enjoyment that way. It helps pass the time for me on this jodiggered trip.”
Out of his cocoon of grouchiness he broke as a real butterfly of chatter. I got a lot of good stuff from him, for I learned the name of the mayor of Breed City and what sort of a man he was—a dry-goods merchant who took his job seriously and hollered about the development of the new place and loved those who said a good word for the municipality.
I also learned that many miners and prospectors from the Buffalo Hump region were mudbound, on their annual spree, in Breed—the nearest town where they could find all the rum and roulette they demanded. The driver stated that one or two of his friends who had a little spare cash for speculation made it a practice to loaf around the gambling-places and buy in from busted players any mining shares that a man wanted to realize on in a hurry. Most of these shares thus offered for sale were shares in undeveloped prospects, the driver explained, but one could never tell when a share bought for a cent would be worth a hundred. That driver certainly liked the sound of his voice when he got started! He offered the confidential tip that the Blacksnake Gully region would develop into the howler of the season. It wasn’t being talked of much. Nothing real definite was known outside. He guessed they hadn’t opened up anything to prove the hunch some folks had—but mining is like betting on the races. A tip floats in from somewhere—if a hunch goes with it, play it, that was his motto. He had been able to pick up a few loose shares.
The mine in which he was most interested had been located for a long time. Shares had been out for some years, scattered around. He couldn’t tell for sure who had started the new stories, but he did know that a friend of his—an humble friend called “Dirty-shirt” Maddox—was up in this section, nosing around, and he reckoned he’d get some inside information when “Dirty-shirt” returned to Breed.
Of course I wasn’t surprised. My idea of the West was a place where every man was trying to unload mining stock on an Eastern sucker.
“The particular claim in the Blacksnake that I’m speaking of is ‘Her Two Bright Eyes,’” stated the gossiper. “Mebbe that name is a hunch that it’s worth looking into,” he added, with a cackle to point his little joke.
I thought of a couple of bright eyes, and felt homesick when the driver drawled the name of the mine.
“Two bright eyes are always worth looking into,” said I.
That was some ride!
The stage wallowed into Breed City about nightfall. It had tipped over twice on the way, its wheels sinking into “honey-pots” of mud, rolling over slowly like a tired cow lying down to rest. We swearing passengers had been compelled to pry it up with poles borrowed from a rancher. During these waits and during the meal at a sort of half-way house, Judge Kingsley, mud-spattered, scared into conniptions when he thought of what would be coming behind us from Royal City, miserable as a wet cat, and seeing nothing ahead for consolation, muttered to me constantly his familiar taunt that he was being teamed about the country by a lunatic.
I didn’t know exactly what to say, and made him still angrier by confessing that he was undoubtedly correct.
We left the coach in front of the hotel that the driver had recommended, and we stepped from the board sidewalk like passengers disembarking from a boat; the mud in the street was fairly a river of mire.
“Even if you don’t like the ‘Prairie Pride’ very well,” my new friend had said, “you’ll have a lot of fun watching the White Ghost operate. There’s only one of his kind in these parts, or anywhere else in the world, so fur’s I know. Folks come from a long ways off and stand around the windows and doors of the ‘Prairie Pride’ hotel and see the White Ghost perform. Oh no, I don’t mean that the house is haunted. The White Ghost is the waiter. He’s the only waiter they have in the dining-room. He won’t have anybody else there. He prides himself on doing it all alone. Says he is the only waiter in the world who can handle fifty guests and four Chinese cooks single-handed and keep everybody happy and busy eating. He’s a little cracked in the head, but he’s sure a wonder on his feet. A streak of white lightning would have to whistle for him to turn around and come back and meet it.”
Now this bit of information, when I listened to it, stirred in me merely a half-determination to go to another hotel, where the waiter did not give a show along with his services.
How often does man slight some odd tools that Fate lays in his way, especially when Fate doesn’t draw his attention to them!
The “Prairie Pride” hotel deserved its name in some measure. It had smooth floors, real doors, and walls of plaster. Its big office thronged with guests, whose character was plain enough. There were slick drummers and bearded and booted miners fresh from the hills, down for a bit of a spring whirl, and there were mining engineers and such like.
We were given a room and at the same time we were given a hint that we’d better hurry to supper before the hungry mob cleaned up all the best dishes. Again my clothes coaxed this courtesy!
“Cross the big dining-room and go into the alcove,” directed the clerk, after a glance at my hat. “The alcove is for gents. We herd the others in the big room.”
I crossed this main hall a few steps in advance of Judge Kingsley. Men were crowded at the tables gobbling food. No fancy feeding! Men jabbed knives into their mouths and grabbed stuff off plates and smacked their lips and snuffled and grunted. I stopped in the alleyway between these tables to look about. I heard a yell of warning and dodged just in time to escape.
Double swinging doors with spring hinges were burst open by the impact of a foot that must have been swung waist high for the kick. Out into the dining-room shot the individual who had kicked.
It was an apparition!
He was more than six feet tall and as slim as a beanpole. He wore a white cap, a white jacket, a white apron shrouded him to his heels, and he wore white shoes. He had a white, peaked face and his hair was tow-colored. On a huge tray that he held well above his head dishes were heaped high. He went past me and down the alleyway on the dead run, and wisps of steam from his load followed after, trailing on the air.
“You want to keep out of the road in this dining-room when the White Ghost is on the rampage,” advised a guest at the table in the alcove where we took seats. “He’s going to get somebody some day fine and plenty. A few months ago he got old Babb Coan, who was down here on crutches, nursing a broken leg, and couldn’t get out of the way in season. But the White Ghost was loaded with empty dishes—just empties. Some day he’s going to connect when he’s loaded with about seventeen hot dinners.”
The next moment a white streak came into the alcove, took half a dozen orders and darted back into the kitchen with a tray-load of empty dishes.
“It advertises the hotel,” explained the talkative guest. “Men come here from far and near to see the White Ghost razoo up and down the stretch, but for me I’d rather have more waiters and less slamming. It keeps me nervous, and when I’m nervous I can’t do justice to my vittles. I’m all the time expecting to see that man that’s doomed to gethisget it. It’ll be a mighty mushy affair.”
By this time the White Ghost was back and was scaling loaded dishes about the table with a deftness that a quick dealer shows in a poker game.
And I, still blind to what Fate was preparing for my side of the case, was merely irritated by this tophet-te-larrup!
When supper was over we seized an opportunity when the White Ghost was on an outward trip and escaped.
I advised the judge that he’d better take the key and go to our room and get into bed, and the old man accepted that advice with a sigh of thankfulness. He looked bent, weary, and broken as he climbed the stairs; homesick hopelessness showed in every line of his face and in every motion of his body. I did pity him then!
“Poor old father of the girl with the two bright eyes,” I said, not realizing that I had spoken aloud.
A man sidled up and prodded me with his thumb.
“I heard what you said to the old gent just now! Where did you get your tip, pard?” he whispered.
I had already forgotten just what the driver had said.
“You needn’t let it out if you don’t want to. But there’s a little inside guessing in these parts and when you hear a man let drop anything about the ‘Two Bright Eyes,’ it’s reckoned he has had a hunch of some kind.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that mine!”
The man grinned.
“That’s right—keep it sly! But see here, pard, I’m going to test you out a little on this thing. I’ve got a few thousand shares of the old stock. Took it over in a poker game a long time ago—we gamble mining stocks out this way when we’re busted. I’m busted now—and they won’t take mining stock at the roulette wheel. I’ll sell you five hundred shares of ‘Bright Eyes’ at fifty cents a share.”
He peered anxiously into my face as he made the offer. He was plainly trying to get a hint from my expression, but he didn’t, of course. I knew nothing about mining stock.
‘I don’t want it.”.
“Twenty-five cents a share, then. I want to chase the wheel.”
“You’re on a wrong lead, my friend.”
Just then a man bumped against me as if by accident and promptly apologized. It was the stage-driver.
The owner of the stock scowled and backed into the crowd in the office.
“I was trying to jolt a little hoss sense into you,” explained the driver. “Why didn’t you buy that stock? I passed the hunch to you to-day.”
“I haven’t any money for wildcatting in gold-mines,” I said.
The man came close to me and spoke low.
“Don’t you remember what I said?”
“Yes, but grabbing gold-mine stock from the first comer—say, my friend, do I look as green as that?”
“Hish! Don’t rear up, sir! Please don’t! But I know that fellow who just tried to sell. He’s fresh in from the hills. He doesn’t know what’s going on—and only a few do know. But I carry men on my stage who talk and don’t know I’m overhearing. I say no more! But I hope you’ll take the hint. If I could rake and scrape another dollar I’d buy that stock myself. That fellow has some kind of a hunch—but he has been too far away in the hills to know anything special. I guess he just smells it in the air. There isn’t much stock in ‘Bright Eyes’ left loose these days. I have smelt around; I know! That tells a long story, sir. If that fellow hadn’t been off in the hills they’d have got his away from him!”
He was urgent and appealing. I couldn’t understand this special interest in me and I told him so plainly.
“I don’t exactly know, either,” he said, unabashed. “I’m thinking it over and I’ll tell you when I get it thought out. Maybe it’s your style. I have always hoped to be able to wear a suit of clothes like that.”
He surveyed me with candid admiration.
My tartness didn’t bother him a bit. He beamed on me—and plainly had taken a few drinks. I asked the driver to tell me how I could reach the mayor’s store. My friend offered to conduct me. I had resolved to throw up my Breed City earthworks!
“When I take a liking to a gent I don’t do nothing by halves,” declared my guide when we were on our way. “You come unwrapped enough to-day so that I could see that you’ve got real whalebone in your stock and silk in your snapper—and that’s the kind of a whip for my hand! You come along with me and I’ll introduce you to the mayor. Him and me are chums. He ain’t none of your stuck-up dudes. I’ll tell him you’re a special friend of mine. There’s nothing like getting in right.”
He left me in the back office of a dry-goods store, sitting knees to knees in the tiny room with a fat and placid man who smiled amiably and seemed to be impressed by my dress and demeanor.
He launched out at me in a way that was surely astonishing.
“You are the kind we like to see coming into our new and growing city. We are anxious for a touch of the dignity and refinement of the East here in our midst. We hope we can offer you inducements which will wean you from that East which, though its traditions are glorious and its civilization is sublime, is nevertheless a bit—I may say, without offense, I trust—effete” By the way in which Mayor David Ware smacked his lips over that sentence I was pretty sure that he was quoting from his inaugural address.
“I’m very glad to have you feel that way toward me, coming here a stranger, Mr. Mayor.”
“But strangers are certified to a man of insight by the masonry of breeding.”
I thanked him again and proceeded to a matter of business connected with my earthworks.
I told him of the plans of one Dragg, as I had gleaned them from accidental association with that individual. I said that Dragg had now attached to himself two blacklegs and undoubtedly would soon arrive in Breed City for the purpose of taking advantage of technicalities in the land law, jumping claims, holding up enterprises, giving Breed City a black eye outside as a municipality where titles were not assured.
“I am not a spy, a tattletale, or a meddler,” I said. “But this matter was forced on my attention when I was on my way here, and I did not want to see a hustling mayor and city set back by the schemes of blacklegs. I had heard of your city and of you, and I said to myself, ‘If warning will enable such a city to head off a plot and put the plotters where they belong I’ll hurry to headquarters with my information.’ Those men are now in Royal City and are on their way here.”
The mayor’s mild eyes bulged and his face showed his dismay.
“It’s plain you are a friend who wouldn’t take advantage of our situation, sir. That’s shown because you are not trying to operate on the tip this crook gave you. So I’m going to be frank with you, as a friend. We were so anxious to get things moving here that we took a lot for granted in the matter of land titles Those men can make trouble—or at least they could have made trouble if we had not been warned in season by you. You will find that this city can be grateful, Mr. Mann.”
I was sticking to my assumed name.
“Will you allow me to make a suggestion?”
“I certainly will. I’ll be glad to have your advice.”
“Don’t undertake to jump on them, officially, the moment they strike town. In order to have your proof you must wait until they try to operate. Have them watched sharply. If you’ll give me permission to take a hand in the matter, on the side, I may be able to bluff them out entirely. I reckon it’s for the interests of your city to close the thing up without the public knowing there’s any doubt about land titles. Of course I don’t need to suggest to you that you make a flying start now and straighten out your law and titles so that no other shysters can come along making trouble after we get rid of these gentlemen.”
“Watch me in that line,” declared the mayor, thumping his breast. “You’re right about handling them with gloves, Mr. Mann. I tell you if you can do anything to help us you will stand mighty high with me and with Breed City.”
“In handling them I may be able to make it seem like a personal quarrel between them and myself,” I suggested. My horizon was growing wider all the time. “They are dangerous men, but I’m not afraid of them.”
“But I don’t want you to be a martyr.”
“I’m not afraid of them, I say. If trouble does happen here and it seems like a personal quarrel, you will understand it all, Mr. Mayor!”
“Certainly, sir!”
“It may seem strange to have a stranger come along like this and offer to meddle in matters where he has no personal interest. Those men are nothing to me, one way or the other. But I’m for fair play always!”
His Honor warmed to this modest candor.
“The city is behind you in whatever you may do in this thing, sir. As mayor I say it. You’ll be backed to the limit. And if you get hurt while you are trying to do a bit of a trick for us I’ll be scissored if I don’t toss law and order up for a little while and organize a lynching party and head it in person.”
“If I thought it would come to that I wouldn’t meddle in the affair! The only reason I am offering my services is because I hope to be able to keep Breed City from suffering a setback.”
“Hand ’em any jolt that’s coming to ’em in the name of Breed City and its mayor.” His Honor clapped his hand on my shoulder.
I trudged back to the hotel in a fairly comfortable frame of mind. It’s a lucky general who can choose his own battle-field, get to it well ahead of the enemy, throw up earthworks and set a big gun or two in position. So, I said to myself, “Let ’em come!”
IWAS a bit embarrassed next morning and wondered if I hadn’t overdone the thing.
I was waited on by a delegation in the crowded office of the Pride of the Prairie. Mayor David Ware headed the delegation and he introduced the half-dozen amiable gentlemen as leading members of the Breed City Chamber of Commerce. Then the mayor pulled me aside.
“You understand that I haven’t whispered a word of what you and I talked about last night. That’s to be buried between you and me, but there’s nothing like getting in sneck with the big boys of this town. It’ll be easier for me when I have to back you up—if it comes to that. I’ve explained that you’re a friend of mine who is West looking for prospects.”
“I’m glad to be called a friend of yours—and you told the truth about my business here, Mr Mayor. We start on a square basis.”
With the mayor, followed by the delegation, I was escorted through the main street of Breed City It seemed to afford the gentlemen honest gratification to follow along behind that plug-hat which I had freshly slicked that morning to the best of my ability. I was lunched at the Chamber of Commerce—a half-finished board structure; I was dined by the mayor at his own home; and I returned to the hotel in the evening to find the judge marooned in the office.
“Please don’t scowl at me that way,” I pleaded, humbly. “I was afraid you might drop something that would queer the whole proposition. You are looking over your shoulder as if you expected damnation to jump on to your back!”
“Damnationisgetting ready to jump on to our backs,” growled the old man. “One of ’em has got here. He came in on the stage to-night.”
“Which one?”
“The scalawag with the flashy clothes.”
I had looked for pretty quick action, but “Peacock” Pratt had got away sooner than I expected he would. He had been free with his money, I concluded.
I got down-stairs early the next morning, the judge tagging at my heels. But we were not ahead of Mr. Pratt. I didn’t have to hunt for him. He stood out like Jeff Dawlin’s “Peruvian cockatoo” would have shown up in a flock of crows. He followed us into the diningroom, and sat down at the same table and scowled at me with ugly fire in his little eyes above their pouches of flesh. Then he leaned across the table. We three were alone when the White Ghost had frisked away after our breakfasts.
“I’m here,” said he.
“Glad to see you,” said I.
“You’re a dog-eyed liar! You didn’t expect to see me. You thought you had the three of us canned till you could put something across here. It cost me a hundred dollars to grease the lock of that calaboose—and at that I couldn’t bring out the other two. But they’re coming! You needn’t worry any about that part, you punk-faced Piute!”
He dove a pudgy hand down into the breast pocket of his vest. He got his wallet out and banged it down on the table. It was a big wallet and it was well stuffed. Judge Kingsley gulped when he saw it and his hands worked like claws.
“That’s how I’m heeled, and I’ll spend it getting you, if it comes to that.”
He packed the big wallet back into his waistcoat, galloped down his eggs and bacon, and then banged away from the table. He called back over his shoulder, “I wish I hadn’t promised that I’d anchor you and wait for ’em, else I’d take you now and settle my breakfast with you.”
“Did you see that money?” gasped the old man. “It’s my money, There’s a lot of it. My God! I could hardly keep my hands off it.”
“It was a nice, fat wallet, Judge Kingsley. I was glad to see it. It all looks very encouraging.”
“Encouraging! Where do you see any encouragement? Two more men coming full of blood and thunder to join him—and you waiting here for them to get along! Anybody with sense would have that man grabbed by the police on my charges. I thought you told me you were bringing me out here to make the complaint? Now you’re only dillydallying. A man with, sense, I say—”
“Oh, I suppose a man with sense would never have come out here, at all.”
When I went out and stood on the hotel porch, my friend, the stage-driver, lounged up.
“I’ve knocked off for a few days’ vacation,” he explained, sociably. “Sent another man for my trip to Royal City yesterday. Mud was getting on to my nerves. You noticed how it was the day you rode out with me. I came nigh queering myself with you and spoiling one of the pleasantest friendships I ever made. I was mighty glad to see the mayor and the boys taking you around town yesterday.”
I told him I appreciated his regard.
“There’s another reason why I’m taking a few days off,” he confided. “I’ve got a hunch that ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox is about due here. And in the case of ‘Dirty-shirt’ Maddox it’s needful to be Johnny-on-the-spot when he hits town if I’m going to cash in on that grubstake I advanced to him.”
I handed him a cigar and he explained further.
“If I ain’t here to clap a hand over his mouth to keep the rum out and the news in, he’ll get four slugs of language-loosener into him inside of four minutes after striking the first board-walk here and then it’s brakes off, all into a gallop and hell-bent up the rise for that ‘Bright Eyes’ stock.”
At a little distance the stylish Mr. Pratt paced his way to and fro on the porch, scowling.
“Please take a good look at that fellow,” said I.
“I’ll do the best I can without smoked glasses,” promised the stage-driver. “I’ve seen him before—and I never liked his style.”
“His name is Pratt,” I said loud enough to be heard by that gentleman. “He seems to hold some kind of a grudge against me and is following me.”
Mr. Pratt let loose a torrent of cuss words that were fully as highly colored as his rig-out. He wound up by saying, “And, by the gods! I’ll get you, and get you fine and plenty!”
“Will you remember that?” I asked the stage-driver.
I realized that I had pretty good control of the movements of Mr. Pratt. For where I did go there went Pratt also. Mr. Pratt was decidedly on his job. Personal hatred moved him and he felt responsible, I suppose, for the interests of the two who were frothing behind the bars of the calaboose in Royal City. He seemed to be guarding me as a morsel for a feast of revenge at which three proposed to sit down. He stuck to me so closely that my big idea became firm enough to handle. The ability to move Pratt, and to be near Pratt at all times by Pratt’s own wish, suggested my scheme to me.
When the noon hour was at hand I led the way back to the hotel, and, while I tidied myself for dinner, taking my turn at the mirror in the wash-room, I had an eye for the manoeuvers of Pratt, who was preening and pluming himself, whisking all the stains of outdoors from his clothing, settling his gorgeous tie, smoothing his waistcoat across his expansive front.
I couldn’t help it—I grinned in his face when I thought of my plan.
I buttoned my frock-coat carefully and started for the dining-room—and Pratt followed close. On the threshold I cast a look within. The White Ghost was not there—he was in eclipse in the kitchen for the moment. I started through the big hall, toward the alcove, crossing near the swing doors. Pratt came on behind me and I halted and turned suddenly on him.
“I’m going to shoot you now and here in your tracks, where every one can look on,” I told him in a whisper—and I kept smiling. “Don’t you dare to pull a gun. I’ve got you covered. I’ve got a revolver in that hand that’s wrapped in the tail of this coat and it’s aimed at you. I’m going to shoot you while I’m smiling. There are men looking at me. I’ll say that the gun went off by accident. It’ll be believed, because we look so sociable. Hold on! Don’t you open that mouth to yell. You’ve got one chance for your life. I’ll tell you now—because I’ll never have a better chance to get you proper if you don’t take that chance I offer.”
I was stalling then, for I had not intended to talk so long. Mr. Pratt stood there as stiff as a wooden man.
He took a peep at my hand that was muffled in the skirt of my frock-coat. The unseen terrifies most. His face grew pale. He continued-to stare at the hidden thing that threatened his life. My smile broadened—it was no assumed smile—for my wrapped hand was empty.
“You may think that this is a queer place for me to hold you up”
If Pratt could have known what was passing in my mind at that moment he would have agreed. It would also have astonished Mr. Pratt to know that I was just then raking my soul in order to think of something to say next.
There seemed to be an infernally long time between the shuttlings of the White Ghost. I felt like an anarchist who has timed a bomb and finds his fuse faulty. Where in the devil’s name was the fool? I knew I couldn’t stand there and tell a serial story to Pratt. A dangerous light was coming into the man’s eyes. Astonishment had held him for the first few moments, then fear had chained him, but finally panic was plainly breaking out in him, and in such cases a victim will run amuck regardless of consequences. I felt that Pratt was getting ready to howl and leap upon me.
Where was the White Ghost?
The thought came to me that this prolonged absence hinted at one consolation—the White Ghost must be filling many orders—his tray would be heaped to the ceiling.
“Your one chance is—” said I—and then it happened!
Without warning, the swing doors burst open under the kick of the White Ghost’s foot and forth from the cavern of the kitchen came the thunderbolt. I had been waiting and listening, and was ready to dodge. The petrified Pratt never stirred a stump. There was a howl from warning diners—a collision, a terrific crash, and Pratt went down under the avalanche. The White Ghost was lugging one of the biggest loads of his career. There were deep plates in which hot and greasy soup swam, there were gravied meats, nappies of vegetables, tea, coffee, macaroni, pies, and puddings. Mr. Pratt was buried under dishes, hot soup blinded his eyes, macaroni was twined around his neck, pies plastered his shirt bosom, and his clothes sopped up liquids. He might have been labeled, “A dinner in eruption!” The White Ghost dove across him and skated along the floor on his nose.
I hurried to Pratt and began to paw the dishes from off him. And having planned just what I was going to do and knowing just where to seek for what I wanted, I dove a hand into Pratt’s inside vest pocket and yanked out the big wallet. Other men ran to help me, there was excitement, and in that mess of provisions which I was cuffing to right and left my handling of the wallet was noticed by no one. I was kneeling close beside Pratt and I shoved the wallet between my knees, and when I arose, slid it up under my coat.
There were plenty of volunteers whose hands were out to boost Mr. Pratt to his feet. His eyes were tightly shut and he was bellowing about the pain the soup was giving him. I took the rôle of close friend and ordered the rescuers to carry Mr. Pratt to the wash-room and give him first aid with towels and water. I followed close upon their heels and elbowed Kingsley along with the push. The judge had stood at some distance during our drama. I pulled his hand up under my coat and set it on the wallet.
“Grab it!” I whispered. “Slip it under your coat; get out of this hotel and around the corner. Jam the money into your stocking and stamp the wallet down into the mud. Be careful no one sees you.”
It was on me that Pratt’s eyes first opened—for I was swabbing the soup out of those eyes with the end of a wet towel.
But when he opened his mouth I swabbed the towel across his lips. Other volunteers were working away at the clothing of the victim with wet towels.
All at once Pratt began to slap himself on the breast and howl. His laments in regard to the hot soup in his eyes had been loud, but in contrast to his latest outburst they were as the voice of the chickadee compared with the roar of the lion. After he had beat upon his breast, he dove a greasy hand into his vest pocket. It was empty. His eyes goggled, his face grew purple, he shouted, he swore, and he raved.
He had been done, trimmed, robbed, frisked, touched—so were his bellowings! He searched his soul for synonyms with which to announce to the world that his wallet had been stolen. And then he accused me—accused me with violence and profanity.
“Just one moment, sir,” I suggested, taking advantage of a moment when Mr. Pratt was choking. “You are sure those dishes didn’t crack your skull a bit and injure your brain?”
After spitting many oaths, Mr. Pratt declared that he was all right and knew what he was talking about.
“You’ll have to back that up,” I told him. “Fifty men were looking at you when that thing happened. I have not been out of the sight of those men since. You say it was a large wallet.” I unbuttoned my coat and slung it open. “Will any gentleman present kindly search me?”
“He is going too far when he shoots off his mouth about a gent like you,” declared somebody in the crowd. “We all saw you. All you did was try to help the son of a gun out of his mess—and that’s all the thanks you get!”
“Mistakes are bound to occur. I demand that some gentleman make sure that I have no wallet on my person. My own money is in a roll in my trousers pocket.”
A solid-looking citizen searched me, uttering apologies. “There ain’t any wallet on this gent, and you’d better ask his pardon for remarks offered,” suggested the citizen.
But Pratt only raved the louder.
“I’d like to say a word just here,” called a voice. The stage-driver pushed to the front. “You all know me and you know I ain’t any liar. This gent, here, is a friend of mine and he wouldn’t do dirt to anybody. He’s a friend of our mayor, too.” He put his hand affectionately on my shoulder. “But as for that other cuss, there, in the piebald clothes, I heard him make threats not longer ago than this morning that he would get my friend, and get him good and plenty.”
“Maybe you think I arranged to have those seventeen dinners dumped over me so as to make the plot a good one, you pie-eyed horse-walloper, you,” squealed Pratt, beginning to “weave” in his fury like a caged bear.
“I wouldn’t wonder a mite,” replied the driver, coolly. “When I heard you threatening to get my friend you was mad enough to try on most anything.”
“He got my money, I tell you. I felt him at my pocket while I was trying to get my senses back. Blast you all for infernal fools, I’ve been robbed right before your eyes and you’re backing up the thief.”
There was a stir at the door and the crowd glanced that way and parted respectfully. It was His Honor the Mayor of Breed City. He stood for a few moments and listened to the language Pratt addressed to me. Then he broke in with authority:
“Just a moment, citizens! There’s a lot about this affair, here, that I know and cannot tell. As for that knave who accuses Mr. Mann, I declare on my honor that he is a dangerous foe to this city. He has come here to try to ruin it if his scheme works.”
Mr. Pratt at this point managed to control the amazement that was provoked by the appearance of this new champion.
“I tell you, Mayor,” he shouted, “you’ve got the wrong dope about me. Dragg tried to get me into the scheme, but I——”
“You are convicting yourself right now out of your own mouth,” broke in the mayor. He marched up to Pratt, finger upraised: “You are as dangerous here as a dynamite bomb. I’ll allow you thirty minutes to get out of town. Get to those other two knaves and warn them that they’ll be lynched if they show up here—and I’ll lead the lynching-bee.”
There was immediate change in Mr. Pratt’s demeanor and the mayor and the bystanders listened to him. The fat face was lined with grief, and tears ran down his cheeks and mingled with the grub stains.
“I’m not lying about that wallet, gents. I’ve lost my bundle. It has been stolen. That’s a nice word to go out about Breed City—that a visitor to town loses his wad and the mayor backs up the man who stole it!”
“Silence!” said the mayor.
“Then I’ll simply say that I’ve lost my money—and how about law and order in a city that will let a man be trimmed in that style? Hold on one minute, Mr. Mayor! It isn’t merely a case of my own money! If it was, I’d shut up now and pass on. But I had along with mine the money of a good friend who trusted me with his roll. I left him in the calaboose back on the trail and I brought out his money to take care of it for him, for he was afraid they’d get to him for it. That’s God’s truth, Mayor.”
In a crowd there may be found champions for the under dog—even when a mayor has turned down his thumb. I heard murmurs. One voice suggested that the matter better be looked into—the good name of Breed City demanded it.
“I haven’t much to say in this business, even though this man has accused me,” I said in the silence that followed. “Now that you are on the subject of your money, Mr. Pratt, and are making such a squeal in regard to the loss of it, will you allow me to ask you how much of it was money you stole in the East—especially from Zebulon Kingsley of Levant?”
If I had struck “Peacock” Pratt between the eyes the effect could not have been more noticeable. Most of those men who were present had been trained to gauge the human expression in that region of plain and mountain where life itself sometimes depends on the ability to judge between bluff and resolve. His fat cheeks flushed and then they grew pale. That a stranger in the Far West should be able to cast in his teeth one of his latest exploits staggered him. He tried to speak and couldn’t.
“Pratt, you have twenty-two more minutes left of that half hour,” stated the mayor, after silence had continued for some moments.
“I suppose that has to go for to-day,” said Pratt. “But it doesn’t go for to-morrow—nor for next day if my friends and I can get back here, Mr. Mayor! Lynch or no lynch!”
He buttoned his waistcoat, took a mournful look at himself in the wash-room mirror, and headed for a livery-stable which a sarcastic bystander recommended. I knew that threat to come back wasn’t mere talk. Mr. Pratt had good reason to take the risks!
I took my first chance and escaped from the populace of Breed City to hunt up Kingsley in the little room in the hotel.
“How much?” I was all a-tremble.
“A little over six thousand dollars. Mostly five-hundred-dollar bills. Part of it is tied up in a separate package and marked with Dawlin’s name.” The judge was not very enthusiastic.
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“In order to be on the right side and make allowance for delays here and there, we ought to leave here tomorrow, Judge Kingsley. And even then we’d be having hours for a margin—not days. I felt pretty good when I heard Pratt say that he had Dawlin’s money along. I figured there would be more between the two of ’em.”
“Then it’s all over, is it? We’re beaten, eh?”
“What doyouthink?”
“I think we are.”
“Well, sir,” I said, “you and I have always seemed to make more progress when I take the opposite side in an argument. I predict that we shall win out. Please hand over that money.”
“The money is mine—it was stolen from me. You’re too reckless to handle money. We’re beaten, I tell you. I’ll send that money home to my wife and daughter. It’s something for them to live on. I’ll kill myself out here.”
Judge Kingsley put both hands over his breast pocket. He was hysterical. There was no reasoning with him and so I rose from the bed, walked across the room, and snapped a finger under his nose. Zebulon Kingsley must not have money in his pocket—in that case I could not handle him or trust him to stay with me!
“Give—me—that—money!”
He stared and groaned and obeyed.
I divided the bills into packets, tucked them into my various pockets, and walked out of the room.
“This money needs an airing,” I informed the judge. “I’ll take it outdoors and give it one. It has been in some mighty bad company.”