"On this lake," declaimed the Colonel, "farther from tide water than any
other like body of water on this earth, could float our entire navy."
"Safest place in the world for it, too," declared the Groom.
"I know some awfully nice navy men," protested the Bride; "so don't be
cattish about the navy."
They had spent many hours on Yellowstone Lake, and days in its vicinity.
Paint pots, geysers, and iridescent springs were no longer recorded in
the log-book; but when, at the Fishing Cone, the Hired Man came into
camp asking for salt, with a cooked trout on his line, and the Bride
learned that he had hooked the fish in cold water, and cooked it in hot
without moving from the spot, wonder at the marvel was swallowed up in
protest on the Bride's part, against such an atrocity.
"Oh, Mr. Snoke, Mr. Snoke!" said she, almost tearful. "How could you!
How could you! How would you like to have a thing like that done to
you--cooked alive. Oh!"
"Well," said Mr. Snoke. "If you put it that way, I wouldn't be very
strong for bein' hooked, let alone cooked. After I'd been snaked out of
the drink, I wouldn't care, Bride."
"Well, I move we don't cook any more of 'em until they have gasped out
their lives slowly and in the ordinary mode," said the Artist.
"Shore," said Aconite, "no more automobiles de fe for the trout--hear
that, Bill? An' speakin' of cookin' fish that-a-way," he went on,
creating a conversational diversion. "Old Jim Bridger found a place out
here som'eres, where the water was shore deep. At the bottom it was
cold, and on the top hot--hot as it is in the Fish Cone over yon. He
used to hook trout down in the cold water, and they'd cook to a turn
while he was bringin' 'em to the surface an' playin' 'em."
"That sounds to me all right," assented the Colonel.
"The hot water," observed the Professor, "would naturally be at the
surface; but as for the tale itself--"
"It would, eh?" queried Aconite. "Well, I've forded the Firehole where
the bottom was hot, an' the top cold. An' Old Jim Bridger knowed of a
place where the water of a cold spring starts at the top of a mountain,
and slides down so fast that the friction heats the water hot--just
rubbin' on the rocks comin' down. It's here in these hills som'eres,
yet!"
The Artist, the Groom and the Colonel fished industriously for one day
and then handed in a unanimous verdict that it was a shame to take
advantage of the trout's verdancy. So the Hired Man and Aconite foraged
for the frying-pan.
The change to boat from land carriage was so grateful, now, that they
made wondrous voyages, first to the scenes reached by water. They
photographed bears near camp and both deer and elk in the meadows and on
their shore feeding-grounds. It was no longer a strange or startling
thing to see a grizzly bear, and to stalk him with a kodak. The pelicans
on the lake were to them as the swans on a private pond. The sense of
ownership grew upon them. Here was their own pleasure-ground. It was
theirs by virtue of their citizenship. They might not visit it
often--though all declared their intention of coming back every
summer--but, anyhow, it would be fine to know that here on the summit of
the continent was this wonderland, owned by them and each of them.
They took saddle horses down the southern approach to Heart Lake, and
voted it the loveliest lake in the park.
"That is," said the Bride, "it doesn't compare with the big lake up
yonder in greatness; but it's just pure joy. Let's camp here for the
night. Let's draw another romance from the library right now; and give
the victim time to compose his thoughts while we go see that Rustic
Geyser, with the stone logs around it."
Somehow they seemed farther from the haunts of men here than anywhere
else in the Park. The stream of tourists seemed to sweep on past the
Thumb Lunch Station, toward the Lake Hotel; and Heart Lake, with Mount
Sheridan brooding over it, was theirs alone. And it was here that the
Hired Man, with many protests that he wasn't really a member of the
party, but only working his way, told his story--like another Ulysses
returned from Troy and his wanderings.
FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA
THE HIRED MAN'S STORY
It narrows a man to stick around in one place. You broaden out more
pan-handling over one division, than by watching the cars go by for
years. I've been everywhere from Alpha, Illinois, to Omega, Oklahoma,
and peeked over most of the jumping-off places; and Iowa is not the
whole works at all. That's why I'm here now. Good quiet state to moss
over in; but no life! Me for the mountains where the stealing is good
yet, and a man with genius can be a millionaire!
I was in one big deal, once--the Golden Fountain Mine. Pete Peterson and
I worked in the Golden Fountain and boarded with Brady, a pit boss. Ever
hear of psychic power? A medium told me once that I have it, and that's
why folks tell me their secrets. The second day Brady told me the mine
was being wrecked.
"How do you know?" said I.
"They're minin' bird's-eye porphyry," said Brady, "purtendin' they've
lost the lode."
"Maybe they have," said I.
"Not them," replied Brady, who never had had any culture. "I can show
you the vein broad's a road an' rich as pudd'n'!"
I didn't care a whoop, as long as they paid regular; but Brady worried
about the widows and orphans that had stock. I said I had no widows and
orphans contracting insomnia for me, and he admitted he hadn't. But he
said a man couldn't tell what he might acquire. Soon after, a load of
stulls broke loose, knocked Pete Peterson numb, and in the crash Brady
accumulated a widow. It was thought quite odd, after what he'd said.
The union gave him a funeral, and then we were all rounded up by a
lawyer that insisted on being a pall-bearer and riding with the
mourners, he and Brady had been such dear friends. The widow never heard
of him; but unless he was dear to Brady, why did he cry over the bier,
and pass out his cards, and say he'd make the mine sweat for this? It
didn't seem reasonable, and the widow signed papers while he held in his
grief.
Then we found he had awful bad luck losing friends. A lot of them had
been killed or hurt, and he was suing companies to beat fours. We were
going over our evidence, and another bunch was there with a doctor
examining to see how badly they were ruined.
"Beautiful injury!" said the lawyer, thumping a husky Hun on the leg.
"No patellar reflex! Spine ruined! Beautiful! We'll make 'em sweat for
this!"
He surely was a specialist in corporate perspiration. I asked what the
patellar reflex was, and the doc had Pete sit and cross his legs, and
explained.
"Mr. Peterson," said he, "has a normal spine. When I concuss the limb
here, the foot will kick forward involuntarily. But in case of spinal
injury, it will not. Now observe!"
He whacked Pete's shin with a rubber hammer, but Pete never kicked. His
foot hung loose like, not doing a blamed thing that the doc said it
would if his spine was in repair. The doc was plumb dumb-foundered.
"Most remarkable case of volitional control--" he began.
"Volitional your grandmother!" yells the lawyer. "Mr. Peterson is ruined
also! He was stricken prone in the same negligent accident that killed
dear Mr. Brady! He is doomed! A few months of progressive induration of
the spinal cord, and breaking up of the multipolar cells, and--death,
friend, death!"
The widow begun to whimper, and the lawyer grabbed Pete's hand and
bursted into tears. Pete, being a Swede, never opened his face.
"But," said the lawyer, cheering up, "we'll make them sweat for this.
Shall we not vindicate the right of the working-man to protection, Mr.
Peterson?"
"Yu bat!" said Pete. "Ay bane gude Republican!"
"And vindicate his right," went on the lawyer, "to safe tools and
conditions of employment?"
"Ay tank we windicate," said Pete.
"Nobly said!" said the lawyer and hopped to it making agreements for
contingent fees and other flimflams. It was wonderful how sort of
patriotic and unselfish and religious and cagey he always was.
We quit the Golden Fountain, and I got some assessment work for Sile
Wilson. Pete wouldn't go. He was sort of hanging around the widow, but
his brains were so sluggish that I don't believe he knew why. I picked
up a man named Lungy to help. Sile's daughter Lucy kept house for Sile
in camp, and in two days she was calling Lungy "Mr. Addison," and
reproaching me for stringing a stranger that had seen better days and
had a bum lung and was used to dressing for dinner. I told her I most
always allowed to wear something at that meal myself, and she snapped
my head off. He was a nice fellow for a lunger.
When I had to go and testify in the Brady and Peterson cases against the
Golden Fountain, old Sile was willing.
"I'd like to help stick the thieves!" he hissed.
"How did you know they were thieves?" asked I.
"I located the claim," said he, "and they stole it on a measley little
balance for machinery--confound them!"
"Well, they're stealing it again," said I; and I explained the lost vein
business.
"They've pounded the stock away down," said the lunger. "I believe it's
a good buy!"
"Draw your eighteen-seventy-five from Sile," said I; "and come with me
and buy it!"
"I think I will go," said he. And he did. He was a nice fellow to travel
with.
Well, the Golden Fountain was shut down, and had no lawyer against us.
It was a funny hook-up. We proved about the stulls, and got a judgment
for the widow for ten thousand. Then we corralled another jury and
showed that Pete had no patellar reflex, and therefore no spine, and got
a shameful great verdict for him. And all the time the Golden Fountain
never peeped, and Lungy Addison looked on speechless. Our lawyer was
numb, it was so easy.
"I don't understand--" said he.
"The law department must be connected in series with the mine
machinery," said I, "and shuts off with the same switch. Do we get this
on a foul?"
"Oh, nothing foul!" said he. "Default, you see--"
"No showup at ringside," said I; "9 to 0? How about bets?"
"Everything is all right," said he, looking as worried. "We'll sell the
mine, and make the judgments!"
"And get the Golden Fountain," said I, "on an Irish pit boss and a
Swede's spine?"
"Certainly," said he, "if they don't redeem."
"Show me," said I; "I'm from Missouri! It's too easy to be square. She
won't pan!"
"Dat bane hellufa pile money f'r vidder," said Pete when we were alone.
"Ten thousan' f'r Brady, an' twelf f'r spine! Ay git yob vork f'r her in
mine!"
"You wild Skandihoovian," said I, "that's _your_ spine!"
"Mae spine?" he grinned. "Ay gass not! Dat leg-yerkin' bane only
effidence. Dat spine bane vidder's!"
I couldn't make him see that it was his personal spine, and the
locomotor must be attaxing. He smiled his fool smile and brought things
to comfort Mrs. Brady's last days. But she knew, and took him to Father
Mangan, and Pete commenced studying the catechism against the time of
death; but it didn't take. The circuit between the Swedenwegian
intellect and the Irish plan of salvation looks like it's grounded and
don't do business.
"Very well said," commented the Groom. "I couldn't have put it more
engenerically myself."
One night the lawyer asked me to tell "the Petersons," as he called
them, that some New Yorker had stuck an intervention or mandamus into
the cylinder and stopped the court's selling machinery. "We may be
delayed a year or so," said he. Pete had gone to the widow's with a
patent washboard that was easy on the spine, and I singlefooted up, too.
And there was that yellow-mustached Norsky holding the widow on his lap,
bridging the chasm between races in great shape. He flinched some, and
his neck got redder, but she fielded her position in big league form,
and held her base.
"Bein' as the poor man is not long f'r this wicked world," said she,
"an' such a thrue man, swearin' as the l'yer wanted, I thought whoile
the crather stays wid us--"
"Sure," said I. "Congrats! When's the merger?"
"Hey?" says Pete.
"The nuptials," said I. "The broom-stick jumping."
The widow got up and explained that the espousals were hung up till Pete
could pass his exams with Father Mangan.
"Marriage," said she, "is a sacrilege, and not lightly recurred. Oh, the
thrials of a young widdy, what wid Swedes, and her sowl, an' the childer
that may be--Gwan wid ye's, ye divvle ye!"
Now there was a plot for a painter: the widow thinking Pete on the blink
spinally, and he soothing her last days, all on account of a patellar
reflex that an ambulance chaser took advantage of--and the courts full
of quo-warrantoes and things to keep the Jackleg from selling a listed
mine, with hoisting-works and chlorination-tanks!
I got this letter from Pete, or the widow, I don't know which
[displaying a worn piece of paper], about the third year after that.
Here's what it says:
"Ve haf yust hat hell bad time, savin' yer prisence, and Ay skal
skip for tjiens of climit to gude pless Ay gnow in Bad Lands.
Lawyer faller sell mine fer 10 tousan to vidder, an thin, bad cess
to him, sells it agin to Pete fer 12000$ an git 2 stifkit off
sheriff an say hae keep dem fer fees, an Ay gnok him in fess an
take stifkit. Hae say hae tell mae spine bane O K all tem, an
thrittened to jug Pete, an the back of me hand and the sole of me
fut to the likes of him, savin' yer prisence, an Fader Mangan call
me big towhead chump an kant lern catty kismus an marry me to
vidder, an Pete, God bliss him, promised to raise the family in
Holy Church, but no faller gnow dem tings Bfour hand, an Ay tank ve
hike to dam gude pless in Bad Lands vun yare till stifkit bane ripe
an Mine belong vidder an Ay bane Yeneral Manager an yu pit Boss vit
gude yob in Yune or Yuly next, yours truely, an may the Blessid
Saints purtect ye, PETER PETERSON.
"P. S. Vidder Brady mae vife git skar an sine stifkit fer Brady to
lawyer faller like dam fool vooman trik an sattle vit him, but Ay
tink dat leg-yerkin bane bad all sem an yump to Bad Lands if we
dodge inyunction youre frend. PETE."
"So they got married," said Aconite.
Just the way I figured it.
Well, this lunger sleuthed me out when I was prospecting alone next
summer.
"Hello, Bill," said he, abrupt-like. "Cook a double supply of bacon."
"Sure," I said. "Got any eating tobacco, Lungy?"
"Bill," said he, after we had fed our respective faces, "did you ever
wonder why that Swede received such prompt recognition without
controversy for his absent patellar reflex?"
"Never wonder about anything else," said I. "Why?"
"It was this way," said he. "The crowd that robbed Sile Wilson found
they had sold too much stock, and quit mining ore to run it down so they
could buy it back. Some big holders hung on, and they had to make the
play strong. So they went broke for fair, and let Brady's widow and Pete
and a lot of others get judgments, and they bought up the certificates
of sale. D'ye see?"
"Kind of," said I. "It'll come to me all right."
"It was a stock market harvest of death," said Lungy. "The judgments
were to wipe out all the stock. This convinces me that the vein is
hidden and not lost, as you said."
"I thought I mentioned the fact," said I, "that Brady showed me the
ore-chute."
"That's why I'm here," said he. "I want you to find Pete Peterson for
me."
"Why?" I said.
"Because," answered Addison, "he's got the junior certificate."
"Give me the grips and passwords," I demanded; "the secret work of the
order may clear it up."
"Listen," said he. "Each certificate calls for a deed to the mine the
day it's a year old; but the younger can redeem from the older by paying
them off--the second from the first, the third from the second, and so
on."
"Kind of rotation pool," said I, "with Pete's claim as ball fifteen?"
"Yes," said he; "only the mine itself has the last chance. But they
think they know that Pete won't turn up, and they gamble on stealing the
mine with the Brady certificate. Your perspicacity enables you to
estimate the importance of Mr. Peterson."
"My perspicacity," I said, giving it back to him cold, "informs me that
some jackleg lawyer has been and bunked Pete out of the paper long
since. And he couldn't pay off what's ahead of him any more'n he could
buy the Homestake? Come, there's more than this to the initiation!"
"Yes, there is," he admitted. "You remember Lucy, of course? No one
could forget her! Well, her father and I are in on a secret pool of his
friends, they to find the money, we to get this certificate."
"Where does Lucy come in?" said I.
"I get her," he replied, coloring up. "And success makes us all rich!"
I never said a word. Lungy was leery that I was soft on Lucy--I might
have been, easy enough--and sat looking at me for a straight hour.
"Can you find him for me?" said he, at last.
"Sure!" said I.
He smoked another pipeful and knocked out the ashes.
"Will you?" said he, kind of wishful.
"If you insult me again," I hissed, "I'll knock that other lung out!
Turn in, you fool, and be ready for the saddle at sun-up!"
We rode two days in the country that looks like the men had gone out
when they had the construction work on it half done, when a couple of
horsemen came out of a draw into the cañon ahead of us.
"The one on the pinto," said I, "is the perspiration specialist."
"If he doesn't recognize you," said Lungy, "let the dead past stay
dead!"
Out there in the sunshine the Jackleg looked the part, so I wondered
how we come to be faked by him. We could see that the other fellow was a
sheriff, a deputy-sheriff, or a candidate for sheriff--it was in his
features.
"Howdy, fellows!" said I.
"Howdy!" said the sheriff, and closed his face.
"Odd place to meet!" gushed the Jackleg, as smily as ever. "Which way?"
"We allowed to go right on," I said.
"This is our route," said Jackleg, and moseys up the opposite draw,
clucking to his bronk, like an old woman.
"What do you make of his being here?" asked Lungy.
"Hunting Swedes," I said. "And with a case against Pete for robbery and
assault. I hope we see him first!"
We went on, Lungy ignorantly cheerful, I lost-like to know what was
what, and feeling around with my mind's finger for the trigger of the
situation. Suddenly I whoaed up, shifted around on my hip, and looked
back.
"Lost anything, Bill?" asked Lungy.
"Temporarily mislaid my brains," said I. "We're going back and pick up
the scent of the Jackleg."
Lungy looked up inquiringly, as we doubled back on our tracks.
"When you kick a covey of men out of this sagebrush," I explained, "they
naturally ask about anything they're after. They inquire if you know a
Cock-Robin married to a Jenny-Wren, or an Owl to a Pussycat, or whatever
marital misdeal they're trailing. They don't mog on like it was Kansas
City or Denver."
"Both parties kept still," replied Lungy. "What's the answer, Bill?"
"Both got the same guilty secret," said I, "and they've got it the
worst. They know where Pete is. So will we if we follow their spoor."
We pelted on right brisk after them. The draw got to be a cañon, with
grassy, sheep-nibbled bottom, and we knew we were close to somewhere. At
last, rolling to us around a bend, came a tide of remarks, rising and
swelling to the point of rough-house and riot.
"The widow!" said I. "She knows me. You go in, Lungy, and put up a stall
to keep 'em from seeing Pete alone first!"
I crept up close. The widow was calling the Jackleg everything that a
perfect lady as she was, you know, could lay her tongue to, and he
trying to blast a crack in the oratory to slip a word into.
"I dislike," said Lungy, "to disturb privacy; but we want your man to
show us the way."
"Who the devil are you?" said the sheriff.
"My name--" began Lungy.
"Whativer it is, sorr," said the widow, "it's a betther name nor his you
shpake to--the black far-down, afther taking me man and lavin' me
shtarve wid me babbies he robbed iv what the coort give! But as long as
I've a tongue in me hid to hould, ye'll not know where he's hid!"
And just then down behind me comes Pete on a fair-sized cayuse branded
with a double X.
"Dat bane you, Bill?" said he casual-like. "You most skar me!"
I flagged him back a piece and told him the Jackleg was there. He ran,
and I had to rope him.
"You're nervous, Pete," said I, helping him up. "What's the matter?"
"Dis blame getaway biz," he said, "bane purty tough on fallar. Ay listen
an' yump all tem nights!"
"How about going back for the mine?" I asked.
"Dat bane gude yoke!" he grinned. "Ay got gude flock an' planty range
hare, an' Ay stay, Ay tank. Yu kill lawyer fallar, Bill, an' take half
whole shooting-match!"
"Got that certificate?" I asked.
It was all worn raw at the folds, but he had it. The Jackleg had an
assignment all ready on the back, and I wrote Addison's name in, and
made Pete sign it.
"Now," said I. "We'll take care of Mr. Jackleg, and you'll get something
for this, but I don't know what. Don't ever come belly-aching around
saying we've bunked you after Lungy has put up his good money and copped
the mine. These men want this paper, not you. Probably they've got no
warrant. Brace up and stand pat!"
So we walked around bold as brass. The widow was dangling a
Skandy-looking kid over her shoulder by one foot, and analyzing the
parentage of Jackleg. Lungy was grinning, but the sheriff's face was
shut down.
"Ah, Mr. Peterson!" said the lawyer. "And our old and dear friend
William Snoke, too! I thought I recognized you this morning! And now,
please excuse our old and dear friend Mr. Peterson for a moment's
consultation."
"Dis bane gude pless," said Pete. "Crack ahead!"
"This is a private matter, gentlemen," said Jackleg.
"Shall we withdraw?" asks Lungy.
"No!" yells Pete. "You stay--be vitness!"
"I wish to remind you, dear Mr. Peterson," said he as we sort of settled
in our places, "that your criminal assault and robbery of me has
subjected you to a long term in prison. And I suffered great damage by
interruption of business, and bodily and mental anguish from the wounds,
contusions and lesions inflicted, and especially from the compound
fracture of the inferior maxillary bone--"
"Dat bane lie!" said Pete. "Ay yust broke your yaw!"
"He admits the _corpus delicti_!" yelled the lawyer. "Gentlemen, bear
witness!"
"I didn't hear any such thing," said Lungy.
"Neither did I," I said.
"I figure my damages," he went on, "at twelve thousand dollars."
Pete picked a thorn out of his finger.
"Now, Mr. Peterson," went on the lawyer, "I don't suppose you have the
cash. But when I have stood up and fought for a man for pure friendship
and a mere contingent fee, I learn to love him. I would fain save you
from prison, if you would so act as to enable me to acquit you of
felonious intent. A prison is a fearful place, Mr. Peterson!"
"Ay tank," said Pete, "Ay brace up an' stand pat!"
"If you would do anything," pleaded the Jackleg, "to show good
intention, turn over to me any papers you may have, no matter how
worthless--notes, or--or certificates!"
Pete pulled out his wallet. Lungy turned pale.
"Take dis," said Pete. "Dis bane order fer six dollar Yohn Yohnson's
wages. Ay bane gude fallar!"
"Thanks!" said the Jackleg, pious-like. "And _is_ that long document the
certificate of sale in Peterson _vs._ Golden Fountain, etc.?"
"Dat bane marryin' papers," said Pete. "Dat spine paper bane N. G. Mae
spine all tem O. K. Dat leg-yerkin' bane yust effidence. Ay take spine
paper to start camp-fire!"
It was as good as a play. Lungy turned pale and trembled. The lawyer
went up in the air and told the sheriff to arrest Pete, and appealed to
the widow to give up the certificate, and she got sore at Pete, and
called him a Norwegian fool for burning it, and cuffed the bigger kid,
which was more Irish-looking. Pete dug his toe into the ground and
looked ashamed and mumbled something about it not being his spine. The
sheriff told Pete to come along, and I asked him to show his warrant. He
made a bluff at looking in his clothes for it, and rode away with his
countenance tight-closed.
Lungy and I rode off the other way.
That night Lungy smiled weakly as I started the fire with paper.
"Bill," said he, "I shall never burn paper without thinking how near I
came to paradise and dropped plump--"
"Oh, I forgot," said I. "Here's that certificate."
Lungy took it, looked it over, read the assignment, and broke down and
cried.
* * * * *
"How did it come out?" asked the Bride.
"Oh," said the Hired Man, "Lungy waited till the last minute, flashed
the paper and the money, and swiped the mine. The company wanted to give
a check and redeem, but the clerk stood out for currency, and it was too
late to get it. He got the mine, and Lucy, and is the big Mr. Addison,
now. No, me for where you can carry off things that are too big for the
grand larceny statutes. This business of farming is too much like
chicken-feed for me!"