His aunt met him angrily on the porch. “Thar ye are at last, and yer's a
stranger waitin to see you. He's been axin all sorts o' questions, about
the house and the business, and kinder snoopin' round permiskiss.
I don't like his looks, Jeff, but thet's no reason why ye should be
gallivantin' round in business hours.”
A large, thick-set man, with a mechanical smile that was an overt act of
false pretense, was lounging in the bar-room. Jeff dimly remembered to
have seen him at the last county election, distributing tickets at the
polls. This gave Jeff a slight prejudice against him, but a greater
presentiment of some vague evil in the air caused him to motion the
stranger to an empty room in the angle of the house behind the barroom,
which was too near the hall through which Miss Mayfield must presently
pass.
It was an infelicitous act of precaution, for at that very moment Miss
Mayfield slowly passed beneath its open window, and seeing her chair
in the sunny angle, dropped into it for rest and possibly meditation.
Consequently she overheard every word of the following colloquy.
The Stranger's voice: “Well, now, seein' ez I've been waitin' for ye
over an hour, off and on, and ez my bizness with ye is two words, it
strikes me yer puttin' on a little too much style in this yer interview,
Mr. Jefferson Briggs.”
Jeff's voice (a little husky with restraint): “What is yer business?”
The stranger's voice (lazily): “It's an attachment on this yer property
for principal, interest, and costs--one hundred and twelve dollars and'
seventy-five cents, at the suit of Cyrus Parker.”
Jeff's voice (in quick surprise): “Parker? Why, I saw him only
yesterday, and he agreed to wait a spell longer.”
The Stranger's voice: “Mebbee he did! Mebbee he heard afterwards suthin'
about the goin's on up yar. Mebbee he heard suthin' o' property bein'
converted into ready cash--sich property ez horses, guns, and sich!
Mebbee he heard o' gay and festive doin's--chickin every day, fresh
eggs, butcher's meat, port wine, and sich! Mebbee he allowed that his
chances o' gettin' his own honest grub outer his debt was lookin' mighty
slim! Mebbee” (louder) “he thought he'd ask the man who bought yer
horse, and the man you pawned your gun to, what was goin' on! Mebbee he
thought he'd like to get a holt a suthin' himself, even if it was only
some of that yar chickin and port wine!”
Jeff's voice (earnestly and hastily): “They're not for me. I have a
family boarding here, with a sick daughter. You don't think--”
The Stranger's voice (lazily): “I reckon! I seed you and her
pre-ambulating down the hill, lockin' arms. A good deal o' style,
Jeff--fancy! expensive! How does Aunt Sally take it?”
A slight shaking of the floor and window--a dead silence.
The Stranger's voice (very faintly): “For God's sake, let me up!”
Jeff's voice (very distinctly): “Another word! raise your voice above a
whisper, and by the living G--”
Silence.
The Stranger's voice (gasping): “I--I--promise!”
Jeff's voice (low and desperate): “Get up out of that! Sit down thar!
Now hear me! I'm not resisting your process. If you had all h-ll as
witnesses you daren't say that. I've shut up your foul jaw, and kept
it from poisoning the air, and thar's no law in Californy agin it! Now
listen. What! You will, will you?”
Everything quiet; a bird twittering on the window ledge, nothing more.
The Stranger's voice (very huskily): “I cave! Gimme some whiskey.”
Jeff's voice: “When we're through. Now listen! You can take possession
of the house; you can stand behind the bar and take every cent that
comes in; you can prevent anything going out; but as long as Mr.
Mayfield and his family stay here, by the living God--law or no
law--I'll be boss here, and they shall never know it!”
The Stranger's voice (weakly and submissively): “That sounds square.
Anythin' not agin the law and in reason, Jeff!”
Jeff's voice: “I mean to be square. Here is all the money I have, ten
dollars. Take it for any extra trouble you may have to satisfy me.”
A pause--the clinking of coin.
The Stranger's voice (deprecatingly): “Well! I reckon that would be
about fair. Consider the trouble” (a weak laugh here) “just now. 'Tain't
every man ez hez your grip. He! he! Ef ye hadn't took me so suddent
like--he! he!--well!--how about that ar whiskey?”
Jeff's voice (coolly): “I'll bring it.”
Steps, silence, coughing, spitting, and throat-clearing from the
stranger.
Steps again, and the click of glass.
The Stranger's voice (submissively): “In course I must go back to the
Forks and fetch up my duds. Ye know what I mean! Thar now--don't, Mr.
Jeff!”
Jeff's voice (sternly): “If I find you go back on me--”
The Stranger's voice (hurriedly): “Thar's my hand on it. Ye can count on
Jim Dodd.”
Steps again. Silence. A bird lights on the window ledge, and peers into
the room. All is at rest.
Jeff and the deputy-sheriff walked through the bar-room and out on the
porch. Miss Mayfield in an arm-chair looked up from her book.
“I've written a letter to my father that I'd like to have mailed at
the Forks this afternoon,” she said, looking from Jeff to the stranger;
“perhaps this gentleman will oblige me by taking it, if he's going that
way.”
“I'll take it, miss,” said Jeff hurriedly.
“No,” said Miss Mayfield archly, “I've taken up too much of your time
already.”
“I'm at your service, miss,” said the stranger, considerably affected by
the spectacle of this pretty girl, who certainly at that moment, in
her bright eyes and slightly pink cheeks, belied the suggestion of ill
health.
“Thank you. Dear me!” She was rummaging in a reticule and in her pocket,
etc. “Oh, Mr. Jeff!”
“Yes, miss?”
“I'm so frightened!”
“How, miss?”
“I have--yes!--I have left that letter on the stump in the woods, where
I was sitting when you came. Would you--”
Jeff darted into the house, seized his hat, and stopped. He was thinking
of the stranger.
“Could you be so kind?”
Jeff looked in her agitated face, cast a meaning glance at the stranger,
and was off like a shot.
The fire dropped out of Miss Mayfield's eyes and cheeks. She turned
toward the stranger.
“Please step this way.”
She always hated her own childish treble. But just at that moment she
thought she had put force and dignity into it, and was correspondingly
satisfied. The deputy sheriff was equally pleased, and came towards the
upright little figure with open admiration.
“Your name is Dodd--James Dodd?”
“Yes, miss.”
“You are the deputy sheriff of the county? Don't look round--there is no
one here!”
“Well, miss--if you say so--yes!”
“My father--Mr. Mayfield--understood so. I regret he is not here. I
regret still more I could not have seen you before you saw Mr. Briggs,
as he wished me to.”
“Yes, miss.”
“My father is a friend of Mr. Briggs, and knows something of his
affairs. There was a debt to a Mr. Parker” (here Miss Mayfield
apparently consulted an entry in her tablets) “of one hundred and twelve
dollars and seventy-five cents--am I right?”
The deputy, with great respect: “That is the figgers.”
“Which he wished to pay without the knowledge of Mr. Briggs, who would
not have consented to it.”
The official opened his eyes. “Yes, miss.”
“Well, as Mr. Mayfield is NOT here, I am here to pay it for him. You can
take a check on Wells, Fargo & Co., I suppose?”
“Certainly, miss.”
She took a check-book and pen and ink from her reticule, and filled up a
check. She handed it to him, and the pen and ink. “You are to give me a
receipt.”
The deputy looked at the matter-of-fact little figure, and signed and
handed over the receipted bill.
“My father said Mr. Briggs was not to know this.”
“Certainly not, miss.”
“It was Mr. Briggs's intention to let the judgment take its course, and
give up the house. You are a man of business, Mr. Dodd, and know that
this is ridiculous!”
The deputy laughed. “In course, miss.”
“And whatever Mr. Briggs may have proposed to you to do, when you go
back to the Forks, you are to write him a letter, and say that you will
simply hold the judgment without levy.”
“All right, miss,” said the deputy, not ill-pleased to hold himself in
this superior attitude to Jeff.
“And--”
“Yes, miss?”
She looked steadily at him. “Mr. Briggs told my father that he would pay
you ten dollars for the privilege of staying here.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And, of course, THAT'S not necessary now.”
“No-o, miss.”
A very small white hand--a mere child's hand--was here extended, palm
uppermost.
The official, demoralized completely, looked at it a moment, then went
into his pockets and counted out into the palm the coins given by Jeff;
they completely filled the tiny receptacle.
Miss Mayfield counted the money gravely, and placed it in her
portemonnaie with a snap.
Certain qualities affect certain natures. This practical business act of
the diminutive beauty before him--albeit he was just ten dollars out
of pocket by it--struck the official into helpless admiration. He
hesitated.
“That's all,” said Miss Mayfield coolly; “you need not wait. The letter
was only an excuse to get Mr. Briggs out of the way.”
“I understand ye, miss.” He hesitated still. “Do you reckon to stop in
these parts long?”
“I don't know.”
“'Cause ye ought to come down some day to the Forks.”
“Yes.”
“Good morning, miss.”
“Good morning.”
Yet at the corner of the house the rascal turned and looked back at the
little figure in the sunlight. He had just been physically overcome by a
younger man--he had lost ten dollars--he had a wife and three children.
He forgot all this. He had been captivated by Miss Mayfield!
That practical heroine sat there five minutes. At the end of that time
Jeff came bounding down the hill, his curls damp with perspiration; his
fresh, honest face the picture of woe, HER woe, for the letter could not
be found!
“Never mind, Mr. Jeff. I wrote another and gave it to him.”
Two tears were standing on her cheeks. Jeff turned white.
“Good God, miss!”
“It's nothing. You were right, Mr. Jeff! I ought not to have walked down
here alone. I'm very, very tired, and--so--so miserable.”
What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? I
fear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief,
and said: “Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I've
sent him off.”
“Nothing,” said Jeff hurriedly; and she saw that all his other troubles
had vanished at the sight of her weakness. She rose tremblingly from her
seat. “I think I will go in now, but I think--I think--I must ask you
to--to--carry me!”
Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!
The next moment, Jeff, pale, strong, passionate, but tender as a
mother, lifted her in his arms and brought her into the sitting-room.
A simultaneous ejaculation broke from Aunt Sally and Mrs. Mayfield--the
possible comment of posterity on the whole episode.
“Well, Jeff, I reckoned you'd be up to suthin' like that!”
“Well, Jessie! I knew you couldn't be trusted.”
Mr. James Dodd did not return from the Forks that afternoon, to Jeff's
vague uneasiness. Towards evening a messenger brought a note from him,
written on the back of a printed legal form, to this effect:
DEAR SIR--Seeing as you Intend to act on the Square in regard to that
little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you
but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink--respy
yours, J. DODD.
In this latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of his
heads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could see
her “onct in a wile,” and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent
Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked,
and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of his
absence. “He might hev been ugly,” said Jeff. He did not know how, in
this selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, active
ugliness.
Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind was
getting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on his
porch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparition
of Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usual
refreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain from
mixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill,
partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowly
drew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Bill
without them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when he
laid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, which
gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.
“Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear
up yer this evening,” said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, “I don't know
ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the
Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!”
Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.
“Because ef ye ARE,” said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of
the overgrown spiders with his fist, “I've got a word or two to say to
the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez
blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word
to him at the right time.”
“Bill,” said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only
from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--“thar's a sick woman
in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it
quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low.”
Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your
shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more
than his words, dropped his own.
“I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the
last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the
matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all
your doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe that
sneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't and
wouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--ef
I'd allowed it to be the square thing for ye. But I know ye, Jeff. I
know what's in your BLOOD. I knew your father--allus dreamin', hopin,'
waitin'; I know YOU, Jeff, dreamin', hopin', waitin' till the end. And I
stood by, givin' you a free rein, and let it come!”
Jeff buried his face in his hands.
“It ain't your blame--it's blood! It ain't a week ago ez the kimpany
passes me over a hoss. 'Three-quarters Morgan,' sez they. Sez I: 'Wot's
the other quarter?' Sez they: 'A Mexican half-breed.' Well, she was
a fair sort of hoss. Comin' down Heavytree Hill last trip, we meets a
drove o' Spanish steers. In course she goes wild directly. Blood!”
Bill raised his glass, softly swirled its contents round and round,
tasted it, and set it down.
“The kepple o' words I had to say to ye was this: Git up and git!”
Something like this had passed through Jeff's mind the day before the
Mayfields came. Something like it had haunted him once or twice since.
He turned quickly upon the speaker.
“Ez how? you sez,” said Bill, catching at the hook. “I drives up yer
some night, and you sez to me, 'Bill, hev you got two seats over to the
Divide for me and aunty--out on a pasear.' And I sez, 'I happen to hev
one inside and one on the box with me.' And you hands out yer traps and
any vallybles ye don't want ter leave, and you puts your aunt inside,
and gets up on the box with me. And you sez to me, ez man to man,
'Bill,' sez you, 'might you hev a kepple o' hundred dollars about ye
that ye could lend a man ez was leaving the county, dead broke?' and I
sez, 'I've got it, and I know of an op'nin' for such a man in the next
county.' And you steps into THAT op'nin', and your creditors--'spesh'ly
Parker--slips into THIS, and in a week they offers to settle with ye ten
cents on the dollar.”
Jeff started, flushed, trembled, recovered himself, and after a moment
said, doggedly: “I can't do it, Bill; I couldn't.”
“In course,” said Bill, putting his hands slowly into his pockets, and
stretching his legs out--“in course ye can't because of a woman!”
Jeff turned upon him like a hunted bear. Both men rose, but Bill already
had his hand on Jeff's shoulder.
“I reckoned a minute ago there was a sick gal in the house! Who's going
to make a row now! Who's going to stamp and tear round, eh?”
Jeff sank back on his chair.
“I said thar was a woman,” continued Bill; “thar allus is one! Let a man
be hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his track is a woman's feet.
I don't say anythin' agin this gal, ez a gal. The best of 'em, Jeff, is
only guide-posts to p'int a fellow on his right road, and only a fool or
a drunken man holds on to 'em or leans agin em. Allowin' this gal is all
you think she is, how far is your guide-post goin' with ye, eh? Is she
goin' to leave her father and mother for ye? Is she goin' to give up
herself and her easy ways and her sicknesses for ye? Is she willin' to
take ye for a perpetooal landlord the rest of her life? And if she is,
Jeff, are ye the man to let her? Are ye willin' to run on her errants,
to fetch her dinners ez ye do? Thar ez men ez does it; not yer in
Californy, but over in the States thar's fellows is willing to take that
situation. I've heard,” continued Bill, in a low, mysterious voice,
as of one describing the habits of the Anthropophagi--“I've heard o'
fellows ez call themselves men, sellin' of themselves to rich women
in that way. I've heard o' rich gals buyin' of men for their shape;
sometimes--but thet's in furrin' kintries--for their pedigree! I've
heard o' fellows bein' in that business, and callin' themselves men
instead o' hosses! Ye ain't that kind o' man, Jeff. 'Tain't in yer
blood. Yer father was a fool about women, and in course they ruined him,
as they allus do the best men. It's on'y the fools and sneaks ez a woman
ever makes anythin' out of. When ye hear of a man a woman hez made,
ye hears of a nincompoop. And when they does produce 'em in the way
o' nater, they ain't responsible for 'em, and sez they're the image o'
their fathers! Ye ain't a man ez is goin' to trust yer fate to a woman!”
“No,” said Jeff darkly.
“I reckoned not,” said Bill, putting his hands in his pockets again. “Ye
might if ye was one o' them kind o' fellows as kem up from 'Frisco with
her to Sacramento. One o' them kind o' fellows ez could sling poetry and
French and Latin to her--one of HER kind--but ye ain't! No, sir!”
Unwise William of Yuba! In any other breast but Jeff's that random shot
would have awakened the irregular auxiliary of love--jealousy! But Jeff,
being at once proud and humble, had neither vanity nor conceit, without
which jealousy is impossible. Yet he winced a little, for he had
feeling, and then said earnestly:
“Do you think that opening you spoke of would hold for a day or two
longer?”
“I reckon.”
“Well, then, I think I can settle up matters here my own way, and go
with you, Bill.”
He had risen, and yet hesitatingly kept his hand on the back of his
chair. “Bill!”
“Jeff!”
“I want to ask you a question; speak up, and don't mind me, but say the
truth.”
Our crafty Ulysses, believing that he was about to be entrapped,
ensconced himself in his pockets, cocked one eye, and said: “Go on,
Jeff.”
“Was my father VERY bad?”
Bill took his hands from his pockets. “Thar isn't a man ez crawls above
his grave ez is worthy to lie in the same ground with him!”
“Thank you, Bill. Good night; I'm going to turn in!”
“Look yar, boy! G-d d--n it all, Jeff! what do ye mean?”
There were two tears--twin sisters of those in his sweetheart's eyes
that afternoon--now standing in Jeff's!
Bill caught both his hands in his own. Had they been of the Latin race
they would have, right honestly, taken each other in their arms, and
perhaps kissed! Being Anglo-Saxons, they gripped each other's hands
hard, and one, as above stated, swore!
When Jeff ascended to his room that night he went directly to his trunk
and took out Miss Mayfield's slipper. Alack! during the day Aunt Sally
had “put things to rights” in his room, and the trunk had been moved.
This had somewhat disordered its contents, and Miss Mayfield's slipper
contained a dozen shot from a broken Eley's cartridge, a few quinine
pills, four postage stamps, part of a coral earring which Jeff--on the
most apocryphal authority--fondly believed belonged to his mother, whom
he had never seen, and a small silver school medal which Jeff had once
received for “good conduct,” much to his own surprise, but which he
still religiously kept as evidence of former conventional character. He
colored a little, rubbed the medal and earring ruefully on his sleeve,
replaced them in his trunk, and then hastily emptied the rest of the
slipper's contents on the floor. This done, he drew off his boots, and,
gliding noiselessly down the stair, hung the slipper on the knob of Miss
Mayfield's door, and glided back again without detection.
Rolling himself in his blankets, he lay down on his bed. But not to
sleep! Staringly wide awake, he at last felt the lulling of the wind
that nightly shook his casement, and listened while the great, rambling,
creaking, disjointed “Half-way House” slowly settled itself to repose.
He thought of many things; of himself, of his past, of his future, but
chiefly, I fear, of the pale proud face now sleeping contentedly in the
chamber below him. He tossed with many plans and projects, more or less
impracticable, and then began to doze. Whereat the moon, creeping in
the window, laid a cold white arm across him, and eventually dried a few
foolish tears upon his sleeping lashes.