went with him to the office of his friend, a young doctor named Traumer,
who lived in a part of the town bordering on the working people's
section, which, fortunately, was not far from where we got off the car.
Also, fortunately, we found him at home. He was a slim young fellow with
a quiet, self-assured manner and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair of
frank, blue eyes.
"Doc," said my conductor, "here's a friend of mine who wants a little
patching up."
"That's the way with most friends of yours, Bill," said the doctor, who
had given me a single keen look. "What's the matter with him? Shot? Or
have the pickets been after him?"
"No, he's got his arm smashed saving a man's life."
"What! Well, let's have a look at it. He doesn't look very bad." He
helped me off with my coat and, as he glanced at the sleeve, gave a
little exclamation.
"Hello!"
"Whose life did he save?" he asked, as he was binding up the arm.
"That's partly a mash."
"Mine."
"Oh! I see." He went to work and soon had me bandaged up. "Well, he's
all right now. What were you doing?" he asked as he put on the last
touches.
"Jumping on a car."
"Ah!" The doctor was manifestly amused. "You observe that our friend is
laconic?" he said to me.
"What's that?" asked the other. "Don't prejudice him against me. He
don't know anything against me yet--and that's more than some folks can
say."
"Who was on that car that you were following?" asked the doctor, with a
side glance at my friend. The latter did not change his expression a
particle.
"Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said to herself after she had
sicked the dog on, and the dog not seeing anything but her, jumped on
her?"
"No--what?"
"'Polly, you talk too d----d much.'"
The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. "What's your labor-friend,
Wringman, doing now? What did he come back here for?"
"Same old thing--dodging work."
"He seems to me to work other people pretty well."
The other nodded acquiescingly.
"He's on a new line now. McSheen's got him. Yes, he has," as the doctor
looked incredulous.
"What's he after? Who's he working for?"
"Same person--Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, too. Mr. Glave there knows him
already."
"Glave!--Glave!" repeated the doctor. "Where did I hear your name? Oh,
yes! Do you know a preacher named John Marvel!"
"John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college with him. I knew him well."
"You knew a good man then."
"He is that," said the other promptly. "If there were more like him I'd
be out of a job."
"You know Miss Leigh, too?"
"What Miss Leigh?" My heart warmed at the name and I forgot all about
Marvel. How did he know that I knew her?
"'The Angel of the Lost Children.'"
"'The Angel--'? Miss Eleanor Leigh?" Then as he nodded--"Slightly." My
heart was now quite warm. "Who called her so?"
"She said she knew you. I look after some of her friends for her."
"Who called her the 'Angel of the Lost Children'?"
"A friend of mine--Leo Wolffert, who works in the slums--a writer. She's
always finding and helping some one who is lost, body or soul."
"Leo Wolffert! Do you know him?"
"I guess we all know him, don't we, Doc?" put in the other man. "And so
do some of the big ones."
"Rather."
"And the lady, too--she's a good one, too," he added.
I was so much interested in this part of the conversation that I forgot
at the moment to ask the doctor where he had known John Marvel and
Wolffert.
I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he replied,
"Not a cent. Any of Langton's friends here or John Marvel's friends, or
(after a pause) Miss Leigh's friends may command me. I am only too glad
to be able to serve them. It's the only way I can help."
"That's what I told him," said my friend, whose name I heard for the
first time. "I told him you weren't one of these Jew doctors that
appraise a man as soon as he puts his nose in the door and skin him
clean."
"I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that kind."
"No; but there are plenty of 'em."
I came away feeling that I had made two friends well worth making. They
were real men.
When I parted from my friend he took out of his pocket-book a card. "For
my friends," he said, as he handed it to me. When I got to the light I
read:
"Wm. Langton, Private Detective."
It was not until long afterward that I knew that the man he was
following when he sprang on the car and I saved him was myself, and that
I owed the attention to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, to whom Peck had
given a rather sad account of me. My kinsman had asked him to ascertain
how I lived.
I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier than he had expected. In my
distress about Dix I consulted him the very next day and he undertook to
get him back. I told him I had not a cent to pay him with at present,
but some day I should have it and then----
"You'll never owe me a cent as long as you live," he said. "Besides, I'd
like to find that dog. I remember him. He's a good one. You say you used
the back stairway at times, opening on the alley near Mick Raffity's?"
"Yes."
He looked away out of the window with a placid expression.
"I wouldn't go down that way too often at night," he said presently.
"Why?"
"Oh! I don't know. You might stumble and break your neck. One or two men
have done it."
"Oh! I'll be careful," I laughed. "I'm pretty sure-footed."
"You need to be--there. You say your dog's a good fighter?"
"He's a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I never fought him, but I
had a negro boy who used to take him off till I stopped him."
"Well, I'll find him--that is, I'll find where he went."
I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to get a glimpse of
the "Angel of the Lost Children." I saw her in a carriage with another
young girl, and as I gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and
looked straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, and the
smile she gave me, though only that which a pleasant thought wings,
lighted my heart for a week.
A day or two later my detective friend dropped into my office.
"Well, I have found him." His face showed that placid expression which,
with him, meant deep satisfaction. "The police have him--are holding him
in a case, but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands of a
negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They pulled one of the
toughest joints in town when there was a fight going on and pinched a
full load. The nigger was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight and
they had to hammer him good before they quieted him. He'll go down for
ninety days sure. He was a fighter, they said--butted men right and
left."
"I'm glad they hammered him--you're sure it's Dix?"
"Sure; he claimed the dog; said he'd raised him. But it didn't go. I
knew he'd stolen him because he said he knew you."
"Knew me--a negro? What did he say his name was?"
"They told me--let me see--Professor Jeams--something."
"Not Woodson?"
"Yes, that's it."
"Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He sold me the dog. You
say he's in jail? I must go and get him out."
"You'll find it hard work. Fighting the police is a serious crime in
this city. A man had better steal, rob, or kill anybody else than fight
an officer."
"Who has most pull down there?"
"Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs the police. He may be next
Mayor."
I determined, of course, to go at once and see what I could do to get
Jeams out of his trouble. I found him in the common ward among the
toughest criminals in the jail--a massive and forbidding looking
structure--to get into which appeared for a time almost as difficult as
to get out. But on expressing my wish to be accorded an interview with
him, I was referred from one official to another, until, with my back to
the wall, I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who went by
the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my request to him. I might as
well have undertaken to argue with the stone images which were rudely
carved as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed his big black
cigar in silence, shook his head, and looked away from me; and my urging
had no other effect than to bring a snicker of amusement from a couple
of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, with a nod to him, had sunk
into greasy chairs.
"Who do you know here?"
A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it.
"Among others, I know Mr. McSheen," and as I saw his countenance fall, I
added, "and he is enough for the present." I looked him sternly in the
eye.
He got up out of his seat and actually walked across the room, opened a
cupboard and took out a key, then rang a bell.
"Why didn't you say you were a friend of his?" he asked surlily. "A
friend of Mr. McSheen can see any one he wants here."
I have discovered that civility will answer with nine-tenths or even
nineteen-twentieths of the world, but there is a class of intractable
brutes who yield only to force and who are influenced only by fear, and
of them was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now subserviently
enough, growling from time to time some explanation, which I took to be
his method of apologizing. When, after going through a number of
corridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, we came at
length to the ward where my unfortunate client was confined, the
atmosphere was wholly different: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air
struck me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind the grating
which shut off the miscreants within from even the modified freedom of
the outer court was a mass of humanity of all ages, foul enough in
appearance to have come from hell.
At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest manifested in their
evil faces and some of them shouted back, repeating the name of Jim
Woodson; some half derisively, others with more kindliness. At length,
out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, Oh, how changed!
His head was bandaged with an old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien
was dejected, and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me,
however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing forward tried to thrust
his hands through the bars of the grating to grasp mine. "Lord, God!" he
exclaimed. "If it ain't de Captain. Glory be to God! Marse Hen, I knowed
you'd come, if you jes' heard 'bout me. Git me out of dis, fur de Lord's
sake. Dis is de wuss place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat
me up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling me in de
patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, and put me through the third
degree, till I thought if de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be
gone for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away?"
I explained the impossibility of doing this immediately, but assured him
that he would soon be gotten out and that I would look after his case
and see that he got justice.
"Yes, sir, that is what I want--jestice--I don't ax nothin' but
jestice."
"How did you get here?" I demanded. And even in his misery, I could not
help being amused to see his countenance fall.
"Dey fetched me here in de patrol-wagon," he said evasively.
"I know that. I mean, for what?"
"Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' drunk, but you know I
don' drink nothin'."
"I know you do, you fool," I said, with some exasperation. "I have no
doubt you were what they say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and how
did you get hold of him?"
"Well, you see, Marse Hen, it's dthis way," said Jeams falteringly. "I
come here huntin' fur you and I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I
got a place, and while I wus lookin' 'roun' fur you one day, I come 'pon
Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' like you wus, an' he didn't know where you
wus, an' you didn't know where he wus, I tuk him along to tek care of
him till I could fin' you."
"And incidentally to fight him?" I said.
Again Jeams's countenance fell. "No, sir, that I didn't," he declared
stoutly. "Does you think I'd fight dthat dog after what you tol' me?"
"Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying about it and tell me where he
is, or I will leave you in here to rot till they send you down to the
rockpile or the penitentiary."
"Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur God's sake, don' do dat, Marse Hen.
Jes' git me out o' here an' I will tell you everything; but I'll swear I
didn't fight him; he jes' got into a fight so, and then jist as he hed
licked de stuffin out of dat Barkeep Gallagin's dog, them d----d
policemen come in an' hammered me over the head because I didn't want
them to rake in de skads and tek Dix 'way from me."
I could not help laughing at his contradictions.
"Well, where is he now?"
"I'll swear, Marse Hen, I don' know. You ax the police. I jes' know he
ain't in here, but dey knows where he is. I prays night and day no harm
won't happen to him, because dat dog can beat any dog in this sinful
town. I jes' wish you had seen him."
As the turnkey was now showing signs of impatience, I cut Jeams short,
thereby saving him the sin of more lies, and with a promise that I would
get him bailed out if I could, I came away.
The turnkey had assured me on the way that he would find and return me
my dog, and was so sincere in his declaration that nothing would give
him more pleasure than to do this for any friend of Mr. McSheen's, that
I made the concession of allowing him to use his efforts in this
direction. But I heard nothing more of him.
With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon learned the names of
the police officers who had arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from
them the particulars of the trouble which caused his arrest.
It seemed that, by one of the strange and fortuitous circumstances which
so often occur in life, Jeams had come across Dix just outside of the
building in which was my law office, and being then in his glory, he had
taken the dog into the bar-room of Mick Raffity, where he had on arrival
in town secured a place, to see what chance there might be of making a
match with Dix. The match was duly arranged and came off the following
night in a resort not far from Raffity's saloon, and Dix won the fight.
Just at this moment, however, the police made a raid, pulled the place
and arrested as many of the crowd as could not escape, and held on to as
many of those as were without requisite influence to secure their prompt
discharge. In the course of the operation, Jeams got soundly hammered,
though I could not tell whether it was for being drunk or for engaging
in a scrimmage with the police. Jeams declared privately that it was to
prevent his taking down the money.
When the trial came off, I had prepared myself fully, but I feel
confident that nothing would have availed to secure Jeams's acquittal
except for two circumstances: One was that I succeeded in enlisting the
interest of Mr. McSheen, who for some reason of his own showed a
disposition to be particularly civil and complacent toward me at that
time--so civil indeed that I quite reproached myself for having
conceived a dislike of him. Through his intervention, as I learned
later, the most damaging witness against my client suddenly became
exceedingly friendly to him and on the witness-stand failed to remember
any circumstance of importance which could injure him, and finally
declared his inability to identify him.
The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and when he was so informed, he
arose and made a speech to the Court and the Jury which would certainly
fix him in their memory forever. In the course of it, he declared that I
was the greatest lawyer that had ever lived in the world, and I had to
stop him for fear, in his ebullient enthusiasm, he might add also that
Dix was the greatest dog that ever lived.
XXI
THE RESURRECTION OF DIX
Still, I had not got Dix back, and I meant to find him if possible! It
was several days before I could get on the trace of him, and when I
undertook to get the dog I found an unexpected difficulty in the way. I
was sent from one office to another until my patience was almost
exhausted, and finally when I thought I had, at last, run him down, I
was informed that the dog was dead. The gapped-tooth official, with a
pewter badge on his breast as his only insignia of official rank, on my
pressing the matter, gave me a circumstantial account of the manner in
which the dog came to his death. He had attempted, he said, to get
through the gate, and it had slammed to on him accidentally, and, being
very heavy, had broken his neck.
I had given Dix up for lost and was in a very low state of mind, in
which Jeams sympathized with me deeply, though possibly for a different
reason. He declared that we had "lost a dog as could win a ten-dollar
bill any day he could get a man to put it up."
"Cap'n, you jes' ought to 'a' seen the way he chawed up that bar-keep
Gallagin's dog! I was jes' gittin' ready to rake in de pile when dem
perlice jumped in an' hammered me. We done los' dat dog, Cap'n--you an'
I got to go to work," he added with a rueful look.
It did look so, indeed. A few days later, a letter from him announced
that he had gotten a place and would call on me "before long." As he
gave no address, I assumed that his "place" was in some bar-room, and I
was much disturbed about him. One day, not long after, Dix dashed into
my office and nearly ate me up in his joy. I really did not know until
he came back how dear he was to me. It was as if he had risen from the
dead. I took him up in my arms and hugged him as if I had been a boy. He
wore a fine new collar with a monogram on it which I could not decipher.
Next day, as I turned into the alley at the back of the building on
which opened Mick Raffity's saloon, with a view to running up to my
office by the back way, I found Dix in the clutches of a man who was
holding on to him, notwithstanding his effort to escape. He was a short,
stout fellow with a surly face. At my appearance Dix repeated the
man[oe]uvres by which he had escaped from Jeams the day I left him
behind me back East, and was soon at my side.
I strode up to the man.
"What are you doing with my dog?" I demanded angrily.
"He's Mr. McSheen's dog."
"He's nothing of the kind. He's my dog and I brought him here with me."
"I guess I know whose dog he is," he said, insolently. "He got him from
Dick Gallagin."
Gallagin! That was the name of the man who had put up a dog to fight
Dix. A light began to break on me.
"I guess you don't know anything of the kind, unless you know he's mine.
He never heard of Gallagin. I brought him here when I came and he was
stolen from me not long ago and I've just got him back. Shut up, Dix!"
for Dix was beginning to growl and was ready for war.
The fellow mumbled something and satisfied me that he was laboring under
a misapprehension, so I explained a little further, and he turned and
went into Raffity's saloon. Next day, however, there was a knock at my
door, and before I could call to the person to come in, McSheen himself
stood in the door. The knock itself was loud and insolent, and McSheen
was glowering and manifestly ready for trouble.
"I hear you have a dog here that belongs to me," he began.
"Well, you have heard wrong--I have not."
"Well--to my daughter. It is the same thing."
"No, I haven't--a dog that belongs to your daughter?"
"Yes, a dog that belongs to my daughter. Where is he?"
"I'm sure I don't know. I wasn't aware that you had a daughter, and I
have no dog of hers or any one else--except my own."
"Oh! That don't go, young man--trot him out."
At this moment, Dix walked out from under my desk where he had been
lying, and standing beside me, gave a low, deep growl.
"Why, that's the dog now."
I was angry, but I was quiet, and I got up and walked over toward him.
"Tell me what you are talking about," I said.
"I'm talking about that dog. My daughter owns him and I've come for
him."
"Well, you can't get this dog," I said, "because he's mine."
"Oh! he is, is he?"
"Yes, I brought him here with me when I came. I've had him since he was
a puppy."
"Oh! you did!"
"Yes, I did. Go back there, Dix, and lie down!" for Dix, with the hair
up on his broad back and a wicked look in his eye, was growling his low,
ominous bass that meant war. At the word, however, he went back to his
corner and lay down, his eye watchful and uneasy. His prompt obedience
seemed to stagger Mr. McSheen, for he condescended to make his first
attempt at an explanation.
"Well, a man brought him and sold him to my daughter two months ago."
"I know--he stole him."
"I don't know anything about that. She paid for him fair and
square--$50.00, and she's fond of the dog, and I want him."
"I'm sorry, for I can't part with him."
"You'd sell him, I guess?"
"No."
"If I put up enough?"
"No."
"Say, see here." He put his hand in his pocket. "I helped you out about
that nigger of yours, and I want the dog. I'll give you $50.00 for the
dog--more than he's worth--and that makes one hundred he's cost."
"He's not for sale--I won't sell him."
"Well, I'll make it a hundred." A hundred dollars! The money seemed a
fortune to me; but I could not sell Dix.
"No. I tell you the dog is not for sale. I won't sell him."
"What is your price, anyhow?" demanded McSheen. "I tell you I want the
dog. I promised my daughter to get the dog back."
"Mr. McSheen, I have told you the dog is not for sale--I will not sell
him at any price."
He suddenly flared up.
"Oh! You won't! Well, I'll tell you that I'll have that dog and you'll
sell him too."
"I will not."
"We'll see. You think you're a pretty big man, but I'll show you who's
bigger in this town--you or Coll McSheen. I helped you once and you
haven't sense enough to appreciate it. You look out for me, young man."
He turned slowly with his scowling eye on me.
"I will."
"You'd better. When I lay my hand on you, you'll think an earthquake's
hit you."
"Well, get out of my office now," I said.
"Oh! I'm going now, but wait."
He walked out, and I was left with the knowledge that I had one powerful
enemy.
I was soon to know Mr. Collis McSheen better, as he was also to know me
better.
A few days after this I was walking along and about to enter my office
when a man accosted me at the entrance and asked if I could tell him of
a good lawyer.
I told him I was one myself, though I had the grace to add that there
were many more, and I named several of the leading firms in the city.
"Well, I guess you'll do. I was looking for you. You are the one she
sent me to," he said doubtfully, when I had told him my name. He was a
weather-beaten little Scotchman, very poor and hard up; but there was
something in his air that dignified him. He had a definite aim, and a
definite wrong to be righted. The story he told me was a pitiful one. He
had been in this country several years and had a place in a
locomotive-shop somewhere East, and so long as he had had work, had
saved money. But they "had been ordered out," he said, and after waiting
around finding that the strike had failed, he had come on here and had
gotten a place in a boiler-shop, but they "had been ordered out" again,
"just as I got my wife and children on and was getting sort of fixed
up," he added. Then he had resigned from the union and had got another
place, but a man he had had trouble with back East was "one of the big
men up here now," and he had had him turned out because he did not
"belong to the union." He was willing to join the union now, but
"Wringman had had him turned down." Then he had gotten a place as a
driver. But he had been ill and had lost his place, and since then he
had not been able to get work, "though the preacher had tried to help
him." He did not seem to complain of this loss of his place.
"The wagon had to run," he said, but he and his wife, too, had been ill,
and the baby had died and the expenses of the burial had been
"something." He appeared to take it as a sort of ultimate decree not to
be complained of--only stated. He mentioned it simply by way of
explanation, and spoke as if it were a mere matter of Fate. And, indeed,
to the poor, sickness often has the finality of Fate. During their
illness they had sold nearly all their furniture to live on and pay
rent. Now he was in arrears; his wife was in bed, his children sick, and
his landlord had levied on his furniture that remained for the rent. At
the last gasp he had come to see a lawyer.
"I know I owe the rent," he said, "but the beds won't pay it and the
loan company's got all the rest."
I advised him that the property levied on was not subject to levy; but
suggested his going to his landlord and laying the case before him.
"If he has any bowels of compassion whatever--" I began, but he
interrupted me.
"That's what the preacher said." But his landlord was "the Argand
Estate," he added in a hopeless tone. He only knew the agent. He had
been to him and so had the preacher; but he said he could do
nothing--the rent must be paid--"the Argand Estate had to be kept up,
or it couldn't do all the good it did"--so he was going to turn them out
next day.