a big lay-out. Finest meal in the world. Charge, a dollar."
"Oh, do they?" cried the bride. "Charge a dollar? Why, that's too
much--for us--ain't it, Jack?"
"Not this trip, anyhow," he answered bravely. "We're going to go the
whole thing."
Later, he explained to her about the train. "You see, it's a thousand
miles from one end of Texas to the other, and this train runs right
across it, and never stops but four times."
He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the dazzling
fittings of the coach, and, in truth, her eyes opened wider as she
contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver,
and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface
of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support
for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were
frescoes in olive and silver.
To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of
their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment
of their new estate, and the man's face, in particular, beamed with
an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This
individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior
grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did
not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He
subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery.
He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and
they speedily forgot that unfrequently a number of travellers covered
them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed
to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.
"We are due in Yellow Sky at 3.42," he said, looking tenderly into her
eyes.
"Oh, are we?" she said, as if she had not been aware of it.
To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely
amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she
held it before her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new
husband's face shone.
"I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine," he told her
gleefully.
"It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said, looking up at him with
a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry.
A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at
himself in one of the numerous mirrors.
At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters in
dazzling white suits surveyed their entrance with the interest, and
also the equanimity, of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to
the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them
through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot,
his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage entwined with
the ordinary deference was not palpable to them. And yet as they
returned to their coach they showed in their faces a sense of escape.
To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of
mist, where moved the keening Rio Grande. The train was approaching it
at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent
that as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became
commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in
their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far
away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him.
As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a
deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab. He, the town-marshal of Yellow
Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person,
had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there,
after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him without
consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now
bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community.
Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them in
accordance with a general custom, but such was Potter's thought of his
duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken
form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was
heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with
this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone
headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man
hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was
easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the
hour of daylight, was approaching.
He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his
town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel. His
friends would not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected upon the
advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been
upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward
a scene of amazement, glee, reproach. He glanced out of the window at
the line of haze swinging slowly in toward the train.
Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band which played painfully to the
delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it.
If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride,
they would parade the band at the station, and escort them, amid
cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home.
He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plainscraft
in making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that
safe citadel, he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then
not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of
their enthusiasm.
The bride looked anxiously at him. "What's worrying you, Jack?"
He laughed again. "I'm not worrying, girl. I'm only thinking of Yellow
Sky."
She flushed in comprehension.
A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds, and developed a finer
tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly aglow. But
Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon the bride's
face seemed quite permanent.
The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding
landscape.
"We're nearly there," he said.
Presently the porter came and announced the proximity of Potter's home.
He held a brush in his hand, and, with all his airy superiority gone,
he brushed Potter's new clothes, as the latter slowly turned this way
and that way. Potter fumbled out a coin, and gave it to the porter as
he had seen others do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as
that of a man shoeing his first horse.
The porter took their bag, and, as the train began to slow, they moved
forward to the hooded platform of the car. Presently the two engines
and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky.
"They have to take water here," said Potter, from a constricted throat,
and in mournful cadence as one announcing death. Before the train
stopped his eye had swept the length of the platform, and he was glad
and astonished to see there was no one upon it but the station-agent,
who, with a slightly hurried and anxious air, was walking toward the
water-tanks. When the train had halted, the porter alighted first and
placed in position a little temporary step.
"Come on, girl," said Potter, hoarsely.
As he helped her down, they each laughed on a false note. He took the
bag from the negro, and bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk
rapidly away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were unloading
the two trunks, and also that the station-agent, far ahead, near the
baggage-car, had turned, and was running toward him, making gestures.
He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect
of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky. He gripped his wife's arm firmly
to his side, and they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling
fatuously.
II
The California Express on the Southron Railway was due at Yellow Sky
in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary
Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer, who talked a great deal and
rapidly; three were Texans, who did not care to talk at that time;
and two were Mexican sheep-herders, who did not talk as a general
practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the
board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws,
and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of
a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some
vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that
burned near them in a blazing sun, that they caused a doubt in the
mind. They exactly resembled the grass-mats used to represent lawns on
the stage. At the cooler end of the railway-station a man without a
coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut bank of
the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it
a great plum-coloured plain of mesquit.
Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky
was dozing. The new-comer leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited
many tales with the confidence of a bard who has come upon a new field.
"And at the moment that the old man fell down-stairs, with the bureau
in his arms, the old woman was coming up with two scuttles of coal,
and, of course----"
The drummer's tale was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared
in the open door. He cried--
"Scratchy Wilson's drunk, and has turned loose with both hands."
The two Mexicans at once set down their glasses, and faded out of the
rear entrance of the saloon.
The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered--
"All right, old man. S'pose he has. Come and have a drink, anyhow."
But the information had made such an obvious cleft in every skull in
the room, that the drummer was obliged to see its importance. All had
become instantly morose.
"Say," said he, mystified, "what is this?"
His three companions made the introductory gesture of eloquent speech,
but the young man at the door forestalled them.
"It means, my friend," he answered, as he came into the saloon, "that
for the next two hours this town won't be a health resort."
The bar-keeper went to the door, and locked and barred it. Reaching
out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden shutters and barred them.
Immediately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the place. The drummer
was looking from one to another.
"But say," he cried, "what is this, anyhow? You don't mean there is
going to be a gun-fight?"
"Don't know whether there'll be a fight or not," answered one man
grimly. "But there'll be some shootin'--some good shootin'."
The young man who had warned them waved his hand. "Oh, there'll be a
fight, fast enough, if any one wants it. Anybody can get a fight out
there in the street. There's a fight just waiting."
The drummer seemed to be swayed between the interest of a foreigner,
and a perception of personal danger.
"What did you say his name was?" he asked.
"Scratchy Wilson," they answered in chorus.
"And will he kill anybody? What are you going to do? Does this happen
often? Does he rampage round like this once a week or so? Can he break
in that door?"
"No, he can't break down that door," replied the bar-keeper. "He's
tried it three times. But when he comes you'd better lay down on the
floor, stranger. He's dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come
through."
Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye on the door. The time had not
yet been called for him to hug the floor, but as a minor precaution he
sidled near to the wall.
"Will he kill anybody?" he said again.
The men laughed low and scornfully at the question.
"He's out to shoot, and he's out for trouble. Don't see any good in
experimentin' with him."
"But what do you do in a case like this? What do you do?"
A man responded--"Why, he and Jack Potter----"
But, in chorus, the other men interrupted--"Jack Potter's in San
Anton'."
"Well, who is he? What's he got to do with it?"
"Oh, he's the town-marshal. He goes out and fights Scratchy when he
gets on one of these tears."
"Whow!" said the drummer, mopping his brow. "Nice job he's got."
The voices had toned away to mere whisperings. The drummer wished to
ask further questions, which were born of an increasing anxiety and
bewilderment, but when he attempted them, the men merely looked at him
in irritation, and motioned him to remain silent. A tense waiting hush
was upon them. In the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as
they listened for sounds from the street. One man made three gestures
at the bar-keeper, and the latter, moving like a ghost, handed him a
glass and a bottle. The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down
the bottle noiselessly. He gulped the whisky in a swallow, and turned
again toward the door in immovable silence. The drummer saw that the
bar-keeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester from beneath the
bar. Later, he saw this individual beckoning to him, so he tip-toed
across the room.
"You better come with me back of the bar."
"No, thanks," said the drummer, perspiring. "I'd rather be where I can
make a break for the back-door."
Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but peremptory gesture.
The drummer obeyed it, and finding himself seated on a box, with his
head below the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at sight
of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a resemblance to plate
armour. The bar-keeper took a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box.
"You see," he whispered, "this here Scratchy Wilson is a wonder with a
gun--a perfect wonder--and when he goes on the war-trail, we hunt our
holes--naturally. He's about the last one of the old gang that used
to hang out along the river here. He's a terror when he's drunk. When
he's sober he's all right--kind of simple--wouldn't hurt a fly--nicest
fellow in town. But when he's drunk--whoo!"
There were periods of stillness.
"I wish Jack Potter was back from San Anton'," said the bar-keeper. "He
shot Wilson up once--in the leg--and he would sail in and pull out the
kinks in this thing."
Presently they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed
by three wild yells. It instantly removed a bond from the men in the
darkened saloon. There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each
other.
"Here he comes," they said.
III
A man in a maroon-coloured flannel shirt, which had been purchased for
purposes of decoration, and made, principally, by some Jewish women
on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the
middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In either hand the man held
a long, heavy blue-black revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries
rang through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over
the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary
vocal strength of a man. It was as if the surrounding stillness formed
the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang
against walls of silence. And his boots had red tops with gilded
imprints, of the kind beloved in winter by little sledging boys on the
hillsides of New England.
The man's face flamed in a rage begot of whisky. His eyes, rolling and
yet keen for ambush, hunted the still door-ways and windows. He walked
with the creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it occurred to him,
he roared menacing information. The long revolvers in his hands were
as easy as straws; they were moved with an electric swiftness. The
little fingers of each hand played sometimes in a musician's way. Plain
from the low collar of the shirt, the cords of his neck straightened
and sank as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible
invitations. The calm adobes preserved their demeanour at the passing
of this small thing in the middle of the street.
There was no offer of fight--no offer of fight. The man called to the
sky. There were no attractions. He bellowed and fumed and swayed his
revolver here and everywhere.
The dog of the bar-keeper of the Weary Gentleman saloon had not
appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his
master's door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his
revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked
diagonally away, with a sullen head and growling. The man yelled,
and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley,
there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground
directly before it. The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped
headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and
sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and
flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons
at his hips.
Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the Weary
Gentleman saloon. He went to it, and, hammering with a revolver,
demanded drink.
The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the
walk, and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his
back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and, walking to the
opposite side of the street and spinning there on his heel quickly and
lithely, fired at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half-inch. He
swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the
windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this
town. It was a toy for him.
But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his
ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be
a glad thing if he should go to Potter's house, and, by bombardment,
induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his
desire, chanting Apache scalp music.
When he arrived at it, Potter's house presented the same still, calm
front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the
man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great
stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further
challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets.
Presently there came the spectacle of a man churning himself into
deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the
winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the north. To the distance there
should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of two hundred
Mexicans. As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his
revolvers.
IV
Potter and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. Sometimes they
laughed together shamefacedly and low.
"Next corner, dear," he said finally.
They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong
wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance
of the new home, when, as they circled the corner, they came face to
face with a man in a maroon-coloured shirt, who was feverishly pushing
cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped this
revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its
holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom's chest.
There was a silence. Potter's mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his
tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the
woman's grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her
face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites,
gazing at the apparitional snake.
The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the
revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity. "Tried to sneak up on
me!" he said. "Tried to sneak up on me!" His eyes grew more baleful. As
Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously
forward. "No; don't you do it, Jack Potter. Don't you move a finger
towards a gun just yet. Don't you move an eyelash. The time has come
for me to settle with you, and I'm going to do it my own way, and loaf
along with no interferin'. So if you don't want a gun bent on you, just
mind what I tell you."
Potter looked at his enemy. "I ain't got a gun on me, Scratchy," he
said. "Honest, I ain't." He was stiffening and steadying, but yet
somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated--the
sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the
wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of
oil--all the glory of their marriage, the environment of the new estate.
"You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I
ain't got a gun on me. You'll have to do all the shootin' yourself."
His enemy's face went livid. He stepped forward, and lashed his weapon
to and fro before Potter's chest.
"Don't you tell me you ain't got no gun on you, you whelp. Don't tell
me no lie like that. There ain't a man in Texas ever seen you without
no gun. Don't take me for no kid."
His eyes blazed with light and his throat worked like a pump.
"I ain't takin' you for no kid," answered Potter. His heels had not
moved an inch backward. "I'm takin' you for a ---- fool. I tell you I
ain't got a gun, and I ain't. If you're goin' to shoot me up, you'd
better begin now. You'll never get a chance like this again."
So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson's rage. He was calmer.
"If you ain't got a gun, why ain't you got a gun?" he sneered. "Been to
Sunday school?"
"I ain't got a gun because I've just come from San Anton' with my wife.
I'm married," said Potter. "And if I'd thought there was going to be
any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I'd
had a gun, and don't you forget it."
"Married!" said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.
"Yes, married! I'm married," said Potter, distinctly.
"Married!" said Scratchy; seeming for the first time he saw the
drooping drowning woman at the other man's side. "No!" he said. He
was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a
pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. "Is
this--is this the lady?" he asked.
"Yes, this is the lady," answered Potter.
There was another period of silence.
"Well," said Wilson at last, slowly, "I s'pose it's all off now?"
"It's all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn't make the
trouble."
Potter lifted his valise.
"Well, I 'low it's off, Jack," said Wilson. He was looking at the
ground. "Married!" He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that
in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the
earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both
weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped
tracks in the heavy sand.
THE WISE MEN
They were youths of subtle mind. They were very wicked according to
report, and yet they managed to have it reflect great credit upon them.
They often had the well-informed and the great talkers of the American
colony engaged in reciting their misdeeds, and facts relating to their
sins were usually told with a flourish of awe and fine admiration.
One was from San Francisco and one was from New York, but they
resembled each other in appearance. This is an idiosyncrasy of
geography.
They were never apart in the City of Mexico, at any rate, excepting
perhaps when one had retired to his hotel for a respite, and then the
other was usually camped down at the office sending up servants with
clamorous messages. "Oh, get up and come on down."
They were two lads--they were called the kids--and far from their
mothers. Occasionally some wise man pitied them, but he usually was
alone in his wisdom. The other folk frankly were transfixed at the
splendour of the audacity and endurance of these kids.
"When do those boys ever sleep?" murmured a man as he viewed them
entering a café about eight o'clock one morning. Their smooth infantile
faces looked bright and fresh enough, at any rate. "Jim told me he saw
them still at it about 4.30 this morning."
"Sleep!" ejaculated a companion in a glowing voice. "They never sleep!
They go to bed once in every two weeks." His boast of it seemed almost
a personal pride.
"They'll end with a crash, though, if they keep it up at this pace,"
said a gloomy voice from behind a newspaper.
The Café Colorado has a front of white and gold, in which is set
larger plate-glass windows than are commonly to be found in Mexico.
Two little wings of willow flip-flapping incessantly serve as doors.
Under them small stray dogs go furtively into the café, and are shied
into the street again by the waiters. On the side-walk there is always
a decorative effect of loungers, ranging from the newly-arrived and
superior tourist to the old veteran of the silver mines bronzed by
violent suns. They contemplate with various shades of interest the show
of the street--the red, purple, dusty white, glaring forth against the
walls in the furious sunshine.
One afternoon the kids strolled into the Café Colorado. A half-dozen
of the men who sat smoking and reading with a sort of Parisian effect
at the little tables which lined two sides of the room, looked up and
bowed smiling, and although this coming of the kids was anything but an
unusual event, at least a dozen men wheeled in their chairs to stare
after them. Three waiters polished tables, and moved chairs noisily,
and appeared to be eager. Distinctly these kids were of importance.
Behind the distant bar, the tall form of old Pop himself awaited them
smiling with broad geniality. "Well, my boys, how are you?" he cried in
a voice of profound solicitude. He allowed five or six of his customers
to languish in the care of Mexican bartenders, while he himself gave
his eloquent attention to the kids, lending all the dignity of a great
event to their arrival. "How are the boys to-day, eh?"
"You're a smooth old guy," said one, eying him. "Are you giving us this
welcome so we won't notice it when you push your worst whisky at us?"
Pop turned in appeal from one kid to the other kid. "There, now, hear
that, will you?" He assumed an oratorical pose. "Why, my boys, you
always get the best that this house has got."
"Yes, we do!" The kids laughed. "Well, bring it out, anyhow, and if
it's the same you sold us last night, we'll grab your cash register and
run."
Pop whirled a bottle along the bar and then gazed at it with a rapt
expression. "Fine as silk," he murmured. "Now just taste that, and if
it isn't the best whisky you ever put in your face, why I'm a liar,
that's all."
The kids surveyed him with scorn, and poured their allowances. Then
they stood for a time insulting Pop about his whisky. "Usually it
tastes exactly like new parlour furniture," said the San Francisco
kid. "Well, here goes, and you want to look out for your cash
register."
"Your health, gentlemen," said Pop with a grand air, and as he wiped
his bristling grey moustaches he wagged his head with reference to the
cash register question. "I could catch you before you got very far."
"Why, are you a runner?" said one derisively.
"You just bank on me, my boy," said Pop, with deep emphasis. "I'm a
flier."
The kids sat down their glasses suddenly and looked at him. "You must
be," they said. Pop was tall and graceful and magnificent in manner,
but he did not display those qualities of form which mean speed in the
animal. His hair was grey; his face was round and fat from much living.
The buttons of his glittering white waistcoat formed a fine curve, so
that if the concave surface of a piece of barrel-hoop had been laid
against Pop it would have touched every button. "You must be," observed
the kids again.
"Well, you can laugh all you like, but--no jolly now, boys, I tell you
I'm a winner. Why, I bet you I can skin anything in this town on a
square go. When I kept my place in Eagle Pass there wasn't anybody who
could touch me. One of these sure things came down from San Anton'. Oh,
he was a runner he was. One of these people with wings. Well, I skinned
'im. What? Certainly I did. Never touched me."
The kids had been regarding him in grave silence, but at this moment
they grinned, and said quite in chorus, "Oh, you old liar!"
Pop's voice took on a whining tone of earnestness. "Boys, I'm telling
it to you straight. I'm a flier."
One of the kids had had a dreamy cloud in his eye and he cried out
suddenly--"Say, what a joke to play this on Freddie."
The other jumped ecstatically. "Oh, wouldn't it though. Say he wouldn't
do a thing but howl! He'd go crazy."
They looked at Pop as if they longed to be certain that he was, after
all, a runner. "Now, Pop, on the level," said one of them wistfully,
"can you run?"
"Boys," swore Pop, "I'm a peach! On the dead level, I'm a peach."
"By golly, I believe the old Indian can run," said one to the other, as
if they were alone in confidence.
"That's what I can," cried Pop.
The kids said--"Well, so long, old man." They went to a table and sat
down. They ordered a salad. They were always ordering salads. This was
because one kid had a wild passion for salads, and the other didn't
care. So at any hour of the day they might be seen ordering a salad.
When this one came they went into a sort of executive session. It was
a very long consultation. Men noted it. Occasionally the kids laughed
in supreme enjoyment of something unknown. The low rumble of wheels
came from the street. Often could be heard the parrot-like cries of
distant vendors. The sunlight streamed through the green curtains, and
made little amber-coloured flitterings on the marble floor. High up
among the severe decorations of the ceiling--reminiscent of the days
when the great building was a palace--a small white butterfly was
wending through the cool air spaces. The long billiard hall led back
to a vague gloom. The balls were always clicking, and one could see
countless crooked elbows. Beggars slunk through the wicker doors, and
were ejected by the nearest waiter. At last the kids called Pop to them.
"Sit down, Pop. Have a drink." They scanned him carefully. "Say now,
Pop, on your solemn oath, can you run?"
"Boys," said Pop piously, and raising his hand, "I can run like a
rabbit."
"On your oath?"
"On my oath."
"Can you beat Freddie?"
Pop appeared to look at the matter from all sides. "Well, boys,
I'll tell you. No man is ever cock-sure of anything in this world,
and I don't want to say that I can best any man, but I've seen
Freddie run, and I'm ready to swear I can beat him. In a hundred
yards I'd just about skin 'im neat--you understand, just about neat.
Freddie is a good average runner, but I--you understand--I'm just--a
little--bit--better." The kids had been listening with the utmost
attention. Pop spoke the latter part slowly and meanfully. They thought
he intended them to see his great confidence.
One said--"Pop, if you throw us in this thing, we'll come here and
drink for two weeks without paying. We'll back you and work a josh on
Freddie! But O!--if you throw us!"
To this menace Pop cried--"Boys, I'll make the run of my life! On my
oath!"
The salad having vanished, the kids arose. "All right, now," they
warned him. "If you play us for duffers, we'll get square. Don't you
forget it."
"Boys, I'll give you a race for your money. Book on that. I may
lose--understand, I may lose--no man can help meeting a better man. But
I think I can skin him, and I'll give you a run for your money, you
bet."
"All right, then. But, look here," they told him, "you keep your face
closed. Nobody gets in on this but us. Understand?"
"Not a soul," Pop declared. They left him, gesturing a last warning
from the wicker doors.
In the street they saw Benson, his cane gripped in the middle,
strolling through the white-clothed jabbering natives on the shady
side. They semaphored to him eagerly. He came across cautiously, like a
man who ventures into dangerous company.
"We're going to get up a race. Pop and Fred. Pop swears he can skin
'im. This is a tip. Keep it dark. Say, won't Freddie be hot?"
Benson looked as if he had been compelled to endure these exhibitions
of insanity for a century. "Oh, you fellows are off. Pop can't beat
Freddie. He's an old bat. Why, it's impossible. Pop can't beat Freddie."
"Can't he? Want to bet he can't?" said the kids. "There now, let's
see--you're talking so large."
"Well, you----"
"Oh, bet. Bet or else close your trap. That's the way."
"How do you know you can pull off the race? Seen Freddie?"
"No, but----"
"Well, see him then. Can't bet with no race arranged. I'll bet with you
all right--all right. I'll give you fellows a tip though--you're a pair
of asses. Pop can't run any faster than a brick school-house."
The kids scowled at him and defiantly said--"Can't he?" They left him
and went to the Casa Verde. Freddie, beautiful in his white jacket, was
holding one of his innumerable conversations across the bar. He smiled
when he saw them. "Where you boys been?" he demanded, in a paternal
tone. Almost all the proprietors of American cafés in the city used to
adopt a paternal tone when they spoke to the kids.
"Oh, been 'round,'" they replied.
"Have a drink?" said the proprietor of the Casa Verde, forgetting his
other social obligations. During the course of this ceremony one of the
kids remarked--
"Freddie, Pop says he can beat you running."
"Does he?" observed Freddie without excitement. He was used to various
snares of the kids.
"That's what. He says he can leave you at the wire and not see you
again."
"Well, he lies," replied Freddie placidly.
"And I'll bet you a bottle of wine that he can do it, too."
"Rats!" said Freddie.
"Oh, that's all right," pursued a kid. "You can throw bluffs all you
like, but he can lose you in a hundred yards' dash, you bet."
Freddie drank his whisky, and then settled his elbows on the bar.
"Say, now, what do you boys keep coming in here with some pipe-story
all the time for? You can't josh me. Do you think you can scare me
about Pop? Why, I know I can beat him. He can't run with me. Certainly
not. Why, you fellows are just jollying me."
"Are we though!" said the kids. "You daren't bet the bottle of wine."
"Oh, of course I can bet you a bottle of wine," said Freddie
disdainfully. "Nobody cares about a bottle of wine, but----"
"Well, make it five then," advised one of the kids.
Freddie hunched his shoulders. "Why, certainly I will. Make it ten if
you like, but----"
"We do," they said.
"Ten, is it? All right; that goes." A look of weariness came over
Freddie's face. "But you boys are foolish. I tell you Pop is an old
man. How can you expect him to run? Of course, I'm no great runner, but
then I'm young and healthy and--and a pretty smooth runner too. Pop is
old and fat, and then he doesn't do a thing but tank all day. It's a
cinch."
The kids looked at him and laughed rapturously. They waved their
fingers at him. "Ah, there!" they cried. They meant that they had made
a victim of him.
But Freddie continued to expostulate. "I tell you he couldn't win--an
old man like him. You're crazy. Of course, I know you don't care about
ten bottles of wine, but, then--to make such bets as that. You're
twisted."
"Are we, though?" cried the kids in mockery. They had precipitated
Freddie into a long and thoughtful treatise on every possible chance
of the thing as he saw it. They disputed with him from time to time,
and jeered at him. He laboured on through his argument. Their childish
faces were bright with glee.
In the midst of it Wilburson entered. Wilburson worked; not too much,
though. He had hold of the Mexican end of a great importing house of
New York, and as he was a junior partner, he worked. But not too much,
though. "What's the howl?" he said.
The kids giggled. "We've got Freddie rattled."
"Why," said Freddie, turning to him, "these two Indians are trying to
tell me that Pop can beat me running."
"Like the devil," said Wilburson, incredulously.
"Well, can't he?" demanded a kid.
"Why, certainly not," said Wilburson, dismissing every possibility of
it with a gesture. "That old bat? Certainly not. I'll bet fifty dollars
that Freddie----"
"Take you," said a kid.
"What?" said Wilburson, "that Freddie won't beat Pop?"
The kid that had spoken now nodded his head.
"That Freddie won't beat Pop?" repeated Wilburson.
"Yes. It's a go?"
"Why, certainly," retorted Wilburson. "Fifty? All right."
"Bet you five bottles on the side," ventured the other kid.
"Why, certainly," exploded Wilburson wrathfully. "You fellows must
take me for something easy. I'll take all those kinds of bets I can
get. Cer--tain--ly."
They settled the details. The course was to be paced off on the asphalt
of one of the adjacent side-streets, and then, at about eleven o'clock
in the evening, the match would be run. Usually in Mexico the streets
of a city grow lonely and dark but a little after nine o'clock. There
are occasional lurking figures, perhaps, but no crowds, lights and
noise. The course would doubtless be undisturbed. As for the policeman
in the vicinity, they--well, they were conditionally amiable.
The kids went to see Pop; they told him of the arrangement, and then in
deep tones they said, "Oh, Pop, if you throw us!"
Pop appeared to be a trifle shaken by the weight of responsibility
thrust upon him, but he spoke out bravely. "Boys, I'll pinch that race.
Now you watch me. I'll pinch it."
The kids went then on some business of their own, for they were not
seen again till evening. When they returned to the neighbourhood of
the Café Colorado the usual stream of carriages was whirling along the
calle. The wheels hummed on the asphalt, and the coachmen towered in
their great sombreros. On the sidewalk a gazing crowd sauntered, the
better class self-satisfied and proud, in their Derby hats and cut-away
coats, the lower classes muffling their dark faces in their blankets,
slipping along in leather sandals. An electric light sputtered and
fumed over the throng. The afternoon shower had left the pave wet and
glittering. The air was still laden with the odour of rain on flowers,
grass, leaves.
In the Café Colorado a cosmopolitan crowd ate, drank, played billiards,
gossiped, or read in the glaring yellow light. When the kids entered a
large circle of men that had been gesticulating near the bar greeted
them with a roar.
"Here they are now!"
"Oh, you pair of peaches!"
"Say, got any more money to bet with?" Colonel Hammigan, grinning,
pushed his way to them. "Say, boys, we'll all have a drink on you now
because you won't have any money after eleven o'clock. You'll be going
down the back stairs in your stocking feet."
Although the kids remained unnaturally serene and quiet, argument in
the Café Colorado became tumultuous. Here and there a man who did not
intend to bet ventured meekly that perchance Pop might win, and the
others swarmed upon him in a whirlwind of angry denial and ridicule.
Pop, enthroned behind the bar, looked over at this storm with a shadow
of anxiety upon his face. This widespread flouting affected him, but
the kids looked blissfully satisfied with the tumult they had stirred.
Blanco, honest man, ever worrying for his friends, came to them. "Say,
you fellows, you aren't betting too much? This thing looks kind of
shaky, don't it?"
The faces of the kids grew sober, and after consideration one
said--"No, I guess we've got a good thing, Blanco. Pop is going to
surprise them, I think."
"Well, don't----"
"All right, old boy. We'll watch out."
From time to time the kids had much business with certain orange, red,
blue, purple, and green bills. They were making little memoranda on the
back of visiting cards. Pop watched them closely, the shadow still upon
his face. Once he called to them, and when they came he leaned over the
bar and said intensely--"Say, boys, remember, now--I might lose this
race. Nobody can ever say for sure, and if I do, why----"
"Oh, that's all right, Pop," said the kids, reassuringly. "Don't mind
it. Do your derndest, and let it go at that."
When they had left him, however, they went to a corner to consult.
"Say, this is getting interesting. Are you in deep?" asked one
anxiously of his friend.
"Yes, pretty deep," said the other stolidly. "Are you?"
"Deep as the devil," replied the other in the same tone.
They looked at each other stonily and went back to the crowd. Benson
had just entered the café. He approached them with a gloating smile of
victory. "Well, where's all that money you were going to bet?"
"Right here," said the kids, thrusting into their waistcoat pockets.
At eleven o'clock a curious thing was learned. When Pop and Freddie,
the kids and all, came to the little side street, it was thick with
people. It seemed that the news of this race had spread like the wind
among the Americans, and they had come to witness the event. In the
darkness the crowd moved, mumbling in argument.
The principals--the kids and those with them--surveyed this scene with
some dismay. "Say--here's a go." Even then a policeman might be seen
approaching, the light from his little lantern flickering on his white
cap, gloves, brass buttons, and on the butt of the old-fashioned Colt's
revolver which hung at his belt. He addressed Freddie in swift Mexican.
Freddie listened, nodding from time to time. Finally Freddie turned to
the others to translate. "He says he'll get into trouble if he allows
this race when all this crowd is here."
There was a murmur of discontent. The policeman looked at them with an
expression of anxiety on his broad, brown face.
"Oh, come on. We'll go hold it on some other fellow's beat," said one
of the kids. The group moved slowly away debating. Suddenly the other
kid cried, "I know! The Paseo!"
"By jiminy," said Freddie, "just the thing. We'll get a cab and go out
to the Paseo. S-s-h! Keep it quiet; we don't want all this mob."
Later they tumbled into a cab--Pop, Freddie, the kids, old Colonel
Hammigan and Benson. They whispered to the men who had wagered, "The
Paseo." The cab whirled away up the black street. There were occasional
grunts and groans, cries of "Oh, get off me feet," and of "Quit! you're
killing me." Six people do not have fun in one cab. The principals
spoke to each other with the respect and friendliness which comes to
good men at such times. Once a kid put his head out of the window and
looked backward. He pulled it in again and cried, "Great Scott! Look at
that, would you!"
The others struggled to do as they were bid, and afterwards shouted,
"Holy smoke! Well, I'll be blowed! Thunder and turf!"
Galloping after them came innumerable cabs, their lights twinkling,
streaming in a great procession through the night.
"The street is full of them," ejaculated the old colonel.
The Paseo de la Reforma is the famous drive of the city of Mexico,
leading to the Castle of Chapultepec, which last ought to be well known
in the United States.
It is a fine broad avenue of macadam with a much greater quality of
dignity than anything of the kind we possess in our own land. It seems
of the old world, where to the beauty of the thing itself is added the
solemnity of tradition and history, the knowledge that feet in buskins
trod the same stones, that cavalcades of steel thundered there before
the coming of carriages.
When the Americans tumbled out of their cabs the giant bronzes of Aztec
and Spaniard loomed dimly above them like towers. The four roads of
poplar trees rustled weirdly off there in the darkness. Pop took out
his watch and struck a match. "Well, hurry up this thing. It's almost
midnight."
The other cabs came swarming, the drivers lashing their horses, for
these Americans, who did all manner of strange things, nevertheless
always paid well for it. There was a mighty hubbub then in the
darkness. Five or six men began to pace the distance and quarrel.
Others knotted their handkerchiefs together to make a tape. Men were
swearing over bets, fussing and fuming about the odds. Benson came to
the kids swaggering. "You're a pair of asses." The cabs waited in a
solid block down the avenue. Above the crowd the tall statues hid their
visages in the night.
At last a voice floated through the darkness. "Are you ready there?"
Everybody yelled excitedly. The men at the tape pulled it out straight.
"Hold it higher, Jim, you fool," and silence fell then upon the throng.
Men bended down trying to pierce the deep gloom with their eyes. From
out at the starting point came muffled voices. The crowd swayed and
jostled.
The racers did not come. The crowd began to fret, its nerves burning.
"Oh, hurry up," shrilled some one.
The voice called again--"Ready there?" Everybody replied--"Yes, all
ready. Hurry up!"
There was a more muffled discussion at the starting point. In the crowd
a man began to make a proposition. "I'll bet twenty--" but the crowd
interrupted with a howl. "Here they come!" The thickly-packed body of
men swung as if the ground had moved. The men at the tape shouldered
madly at their fellows, bawling, "Keep back! Keep back!"
From the distance came the noise of feet pattering furiously. Vague
forms flashed into view for an instant. A hoarse roar broke from the
crowd. Men bended and swayed and fought. The kids back near the tape
exchanged another stolid look. A white form shone forth. It grew like a
spectre. Always could be heard the wild patter. A scream broke from the
crowd. "By Gawd, it's Pop! Pop! Pop's ahead!"
The old man spun towards the tape like a madman, his chin thrown back,
his grey hair flying. His legs moved like oiled machinery. And as he
shot forward a howl as from forty cages of wild animals went toward the
imperturbable chieftains in bronze. The crowd flung themselves forward.
"Oh, you old Indian! You savage! Did anybody ever see such running?"
"Ain't he a peach! Well!"
"Where's the kids? H-e-y, kids!"
"Look at him, would you? Did you ever think?" These cries flew in the
air blended in a vast shout of astonishment and laughter.
For an instant the whole tragedy was in view. Freddie, desperate, his
teeth shining, his face contorted, whirling along in deadly effort,
was twenty feet behind the tall form of old Pop, who, dressed only
in his--only in his underclothes--gained with each stride. One grand
insane moment, and then Pop had hurled himself against the tape--victor!
Freddie, fallen into the arms of some men, struggled with his breath,
and at last managed to stammer--
"Say, can't--can't--that old--old--man run!"
Pop, puffing and heaving, could only gasp--"Where's my shoes? Who's got
my shoes?"
Later Freddie scrambled panting through the crowd, and held out his
hand. "Good man, Pop!" And then he looked up and down the tall, stout
form. "Hell! who would think you could run like that?"
The kids were surrounded by a crowd, laughing tempestuously.
"How did you know he could run?"
"Why didn't you give me a line on him?"
"Say--great snakes!--you fellows had a nerve to bet on Pop."
"Why, I was cock-sure he couldn't win."
"Oh, you fellows must have seen him run before."
"Who would ever think it?"
Benson came by, filling the midnight air with curses. They turned to
jibe him.
"What's the matter, Benson?"
"Somebody pinched my handkerchief. I tied it up in that string. Damn
it."
The kids laughed blithely. "Why, hello! Benson," they said.
There was a great rush for cabs. Shouting, laughing, wondering, the
crowd hustled into their conveyances, and the drivers flogged their
horses toward the city again.
"Won't Freddie be crazy! Say, he'll be guyed about this for years."
"But who would ever think that old tank could run so?"
One cab had to wait while Pop and Freddie resumed various parts of
their clothing.
As they drove home, Freddie said--"Well, Pop, you beat me."
Pop said--"That's all right, old man."
The kids, grinning, said--"How much did you lose, Benson?"
Benson said defiantly--"Oh, not so much. How much did you win?"
"Oh, not so much."
Old Colonel Hammigan, squeezed down in a corner, had apparently been
reviewing the event in his mind, for he suddenly remarked, "Well, I'm
damned!"
They were late in reaching the Café Colorado, but when they did, the
bottles were on the bar as thick as pickets on a fence.
THE FIVE WHITE MICE
Freddie was mixing a cock-tail. His hand with the long spoon was
whirling swiftly, and the ice in the glass hummed and rattled like a
cheap watch. Over by the window, a gambler, a millionaire, a railway
conductor, and the agent of a vast American syndicate were playing
seven-up. Freddie surveyed them with the ironical glance of a man who
is mixing a cock-tail.
From time to time a swarthy Mexican waiter came with his tray from the
rooms at the rear, and called his orders across the bar. The sounds
of the indolent stir of the city, awakening from its siesta, floated
over the screens which barred the sun and the inquisitive eye. From
the far-away kitchen could be heard the roar of the old French _chef_,
driving, herding, and abusing his Mexican helpers.
A string of men came suddenly in from the street. They stormed up to
the bar. There were impatient shouts. "Come now, Freddie, don't stand
there like a portrait of yourself. Wiggle!" Drinks of many kinds and
colours, amber, green, mahogany, strong and mild, began to swarm
upon the bar with all the attendants of lemon, sugar, mint and ice.
Freddie, with Mexican support, worked like a sailor in the provision
of them, sometimes talking with that scorn for drink and admiration for
those who drink which is the attribute of a good bar-keeper.
At last a man was afflicted with a stroke of dice-shaking. A herculean
discussion was waging, and he was deeply engaged in it, but at the
same time he lazily flirted the dice. Occasionally he made great
combinations. "Look at that, would you?" he cried proudly. The others
paid little heed. Then violently the craving took them. It went along
the line like an epidemic, and involved them all. In a moment they had
arranged a carnival of dice-shaking with money penalties and liquid
prizes. They clamorously made it a point of honour with Freddie that
he should play and take his chance of sometimes providing this large
group with free refreshment. With bended heads like football players,
they surged over the tinkling dice, jostling, cheering, and bitterly
arguing. One of the quiet company playing seven-up at the corner table
said profanely that the row reminded him of a bowling contest at a
picnic.
After the regular shower, many carriages rolled over the smooth calle,
and sent a musical thunder through the Casa Verde. The shop-windows
became aglow with light, and the walks were crowded with youths, callow
and ogling, dressed vainly according to superstitious fashions. The
policemen had muffled themselves in their gnome-like cloaks, and placed
their lanterns as obstacles for the carriages in the middle of the
street. The city of Mexico gave forth the deep organ-mellow tones of
its evening resurrection.
But still the group at the bar of the Casa Verde were shaking dice.
They had passed beyond shaking for drinks for the crowd, for Mexican
dollars, for dinners, for the wine at dinner. They had even gone to
the trouble of separating the cigars and cigarettes from the dinner's
bill, and causing a distinct man to be responsible for them. Finally
they were aghast. Nothing remained in sight of their minds which
even remotely suggested further gambling. There was a pause for deep
consideration.
"Well----"
"Well----"
A man called out in the exuberance of creation. "I know! Let's shake
for a box to-night at the circus! A box at the circus!" The group was
profoundly edified. "That's it! That's it! Come on now! Box at the
circus!" A dominating voice cried--"Three dashes--high man out!" An
American, tall, and with a face of copper red from the rays that flash
among the Sierra Madres and burn on the cactus deserts, took the little
leathern cup and spun the dice out upon the polished wood. A fascinated
assemblage hung upon the bar-rail. Three kings turned their pink faces
upward. The tall man flourished the cup, burlesquing, and flung the
two other dice. From them he ultimately extracted one more pink king.
"There," he said. "Now, let's see! Four kings!" He began to swagger in
a sort of provisional way.
The next man took the cup, and blew softly in the top of it. Poising
it in his hand, he then surveyed the company with a stony eye and
paused. They knew perfectly well that he was applying the magic of
deliberation and ostentatious indifference, but they could not wait in
tranquillity during the performance of all these rites. They began to
call out impatiently. "Come now--hurry up." At last the man, with a
gesture that was singularly impressive, threw the dice. The others set
up a howl of joy. "Not a pair!" There was another solemn pause. The men
moved restlessly. "Come, now, go ahead!" In the end, the man, induced
and abused, achieved something that was nothing in the presence of four
kings. The tall man climbed on the foot-rail and leaned hazardously
forward. "Four kings! My four kings are good to go out," he bellowed
into the middle of the mob, and although in a moment he did pass into
the radiant region of exemption, he continued to bawl advice and scorn.
The mirrors and oiled woods of the Casa Verde were now dancing with
blue flashes from a great buzzing electric lamp. A host of quiet
members of the Anglo-Saxon colony had come in for their pre-dinner
cock-tails. An amiable person was exhibiting to some tourists this
popular American saloon. It was a very sober and respectable time of
day. Freddie reproved courageously the dice-shaking brawlers, and, in
return, he received the choicest advice in a tumult of seven combined
vocabularies. He laughed; he had been compelled to retire from the
game, but he was keeping an interested, if furtive, eye upon it.
Down at the end of the line there was a youth at whom everybody railed
for his flaming ill-luck. At each disaster, Freddie swore from behind
the bar in a sort of affectionate contempt. "Why, this kid has had no
luck for two days. Did you ever see such throwin'?"
The contest narrowed eventually to the New York kid and an individual
who swung about placidly on legs that moved in nefarious circles. He
had a grin that resembled a bit of carving. He was obliged to lean
down and blink rapidly to ascertain the facts of his venture, but fate
presented him with five queens. His smile did not change, but he puffed
gently like a man who has been running.
The others, having emerged unscathed from this part of the conflict,
waxed hilarious with the kid. They smote him on either shoulders.
"We've got you stuck for it, kid! You can't beat that game! Five
queens!"
Up to this time the kid had displayed only the temper of the gambler,
but the cheerful hoots of the players, supplemented now by a ring of
guying non-combatants, caused him to feel profoundly that it would be
fine to beat the five queens. He addressed a gambler's slogan to the
interior of the cup.
"Oh, five white mice of chance,
Shirts of wool and corduroy pants,
Gold and wine, women and sin,
All for you if you let me come in--
Into the house of chance."
Flashing the dice sardonically out upon the bar, he displayed three
aces. From two dice in the next throw he achieved one more ace. For
his last throw, he rattled the single dice for a long time. He already
had four aces; if he accomplished another one, the five queens were
vanquished and the box at the circus came from the drunken man's
pocket. All the kid's movements were slow and elaborate. For the last
throw he planted the cup bottom-down on the bar with the one dice
hidden under it. Then he turned and faced the crowd with the air of a
conjuror or a cheat.
"Oh, maybe it's an ace," he said in boastful calm. "Maybe it's an ace."
Instantly he was presiding over a little drama in which every man was
absorbed. The kid leaned with his back against the bar-rail and with
his elbows upon it.
"Maybe it's an ace," he repeated.
A jeering voice in the background said--"Yes, maybe it is, kid!"
The kid's eyes searched for a moment among the men. "I'll bet fifty
dollars it is an ace," he said.
Another voice asked--"American money?"
"Yes," answered the kid.
"Oh!" There was a genial laugh at this discomfiture. However, no one
came forward at the kid's challenge, and presently he turned to the
cup. "Now, I'll show you." With the manner of a mayor unveiling a
statue, he lifted the cup. There was revealed naught but a ten-spot. In
the roar which arose could be heard each man ridiculing the cowardice
of his neighbour, and above all the din rang the voice of Freddie
be-rating every one. "Why, there isn't one liver to every five men in
the outfit. That was the greatest cold bluff I ever saw worked. He
wouldn't know how to cheat with dice if he wanted to. Don't know the
first thing about it. I could hardly keep from laughin' when I seen
him drillin' you around. Why, I tell you, I had that fifty dollars
right in my pocket if I wanted to be a chump. You're an easy lot----"
Nevertheless the group who had won in the theatre-box game did not
relinquish their triumph. They burst like a storm about the head of
the kid, swinging at him with their fists. "'Five white mice'!" they
quoted, choking. "'Five white mice'!"
"Oh, they are not so bad," said the kid.
Afterward it often occurred that a man would jeer a finger at the kid
and derisively say--"'Five white mice.'"
On the route from the dinner to the circus, others of the party often
asked the kid if he had really intended to make his appeal to mice.
They suggested other animals--rabbits, dogs, hedgehogs, snakes,
opossums. To this banter the kid replied with a serious expression
of his belief in the fidelity and wisdom of the five white mice. He
presented a most eloquent case, decorated with fine language and
insults, in which he proved that if one was going to believe in
anything at all, one might as well choose the five white mice. His
companions, however, at once and unanimously pointed out to him that
his recent exploit did not place him in the light of a convincing
advocate.
The kid discerned two figures in the street. They were making imperious
signs at him. He waited for them to approach, for he recognized one as
the other kid--the Frisco kid: there were two kids. With the Frisco kid
was Benson. They arrived almost breathless. "Where you been?" cried
the Frisco kid. It was an arrangement that upon a meeting the one that
could first ask this question was entitled to use a tone of limitless
injury. "What you been doing? Where you going? Come on with us. Benson
and I have got a little scheme."
The New York kid pulled his arm from the grapple of the other. "I
can't. I've got to take these sutlers to the circus. They stuck me for
it shaking dice at Freddie's. I can't, I tell you."
The two did not at first attend to his remarks. "Come on! We've got a
little scheme."
"I can't. They stuck me. I've got to take'm to the circus."
At this time it did not suit the men with the scheme to recognize these
objections as important. "Oh, take'm some other time. Well, can't you
take'm some other time? Let 'em go. Damn the circus. Get cold feet.
What did you get stuck for? Get cold feet."
But despite their fighting, the New York kid broke away from them. "I
can't, I tell you. They stuck me." As he left them, they yelled with
rage. "Well, meet us, now, do you hear? In the Casa Verde as soon as
the circus quits! Hear?" They threw maledictions after him.
In the city of Mexico, a man goes to the circus without descending in
any way to infant amusements, because the Circo Teatro Orrin is one
of the best in the world, and too easily surpasses anything of the
kind in the United States, where it is merely a matter of a number of
rings, if possible, and a great professional agreement to lie to the
public. Moreover, the American clown, who in the Mexican arena prances
and gabbles, is the clown to whom writers refer as the delight of their
childhood, and lament that he is dead. At this circus the kid was not
debased by the sight of mournful prisoner elephants and caged animals
forlorn and sickly. He sat in his box until late, and laughed and swore
when past laughing at the comic foolish-wise clown.
When he returned to the Casa Verde there was no display of the Frisco
kid and Benson. Freddie was leaning on the bar listening to four men
terribly discuss a question that was not plain. There was a card-game
in the corner, of course. Sounds of revelry pealed from the rear rooms.
When the kid asked Freddie if he had seen his friend and Benson,
Freddie looked bored. "Oh, yes, they were in here just a minute ago,
but I don't know where they went. They've got their skates on. Where've
they been? Came in here rolling across the floor like two little gilt
gods. They wobbled around for a time, and then Frisco wanted me to send
six bottles of wine around to Benson's rooms, but I didn't have anybody
to send this time of night, and so they got mad and went out. Where did
they get their loads?"
In the first deep gloom of the street the kid paused a moment debating.
But presently he heard quavering voices. "Oh, kid! kid! Com'ere!"
Peering, he recognized two vague figures against the opposite wall. He
crossed the street, and they said--"Hello-kid."
"Say, where did you get it?" he demanded sternly. "You Indians better
go home. What did you want to get scragged for?" His face was luminous
with virtue.
As they swung to and fro, they made angry denials. "We ain' load'! We
ain' load'. Big chump. Comonangetadrink."
The sober youth turned then to his friend. "Hadn't you better go home,
kid? Come on, it's late. You'd better break away."
The Frisco kid wagged his head decisively. "Got take Benson home first.
He'll be wallowing around in a minute. Don't mind me. I'm all right."
"Cerly, he's all right," said Benson, arousing from deep thought. "He's
all right. But better take'm home, though. That's ri--right. He's
load'. But he's all right. No need go home any more'n you. But better
take'm home. He's load'." He looked at his companion with compassion.
"Kid, you're load'."
The sober kid spoke abruptly to his friend from San Francisco. "Kid,
pull yourself together, now. Don't fool. We've got to brace this ass of
a Benson all the way home. Get hold of his other arm."
The Frisco kid immediately obeyed his comrade without a word or a
glower. He seized Benson and came to attention like a soldier. Later,
indeed, he meekly ventured--"Can't we take cab?" But when the New York
kid snapped out that there were no convenient cabs he subsided to an
impassive silence. He seemed to be reflecting upon his state, without
astonishment, dismay, or any particular emotion. He submitted himself
woodenly to the direction of his friend.
Benson had protested when they had grasped his arms. "Washa doing?"
he said in a new and guttural voice. "Washa doing? I ain' load'.
Comonangetadrink. I----"
"Oh, come along, you idiot," said the New York kid. The Frisco kid
merely presented the mien of a stoic to the appeal of Benson, and
in silence dragged away at one of his arms. Benson's feet came from
that particular spot on the pavement with the reluctance of roots and
also with the ultimate suddenness of roots. The three of them lurched
out into the street in the abandon of tumbling chimneys. Benson was
meanwhile noisily challenging the others to produce any reasons for his
being taken home. His toes clashed into the kerb when they reached the
other side of the calle, and for a moment the kids hauled him along
with the points of his shoes scraping musically on the pavement. He
balked formidably as they were about to pass the Casa Verde. "No! No!
Leshavanothdrink! Anothdrink! Onemore!"
But the Frisco kid obeyed the voice of his partner in a manner that was
blind but absolute, and they scummed Benson on past the door. Locked
together the three swung into a dark street. The sober kid's flank was
continually careering ahead of the other wing. He harshly admonished
the Frisco child, and the latter promptly improved in the same manner
of unthinking complete obedience. Benson began to recite the tale of a
love affair, a tale that didn't even have a middle. Occasionally the
New York kid swore. They toppled on their way like three comedians
playing at it on the stage.
At midnight a little Mexican street burrowing among the walls of the
city is as dark as a whale's throat at deep sea. Upon this occasion
heavy clouds hung over the capital and the sky was a pall. The
projecting balconies could make no shadows.
"Shay," said Benson, breaking away from his escort suddenly, "what
want gome for? I ain't load'. You got reg'lar spool-fact'ry in your
head--you N' York kid there. Thish oth' kid, he's mos' proper shober,
mos' proper shober. He's drunk, but--but he's shober."
"Ah, shup up, Benson," said the New York kid. "Come along now. We can't
stay here all night." Benson refused to be corralled, but spread his
legs and twirled like a dervish, meanwhile under the evident impression
that he was conducting himself most handsomely. It was not long before
he gained the opinion that he was laughing at the others. "Eight purple
dogsh--dogs! Eight purple dogs. Thas what kid'll see in the morn'. Look
ou' for 'em. They--"
As Benson, describing the canine phenomena, swung wildly across the
sidewalk, it chanced that three other pedestrians were passing in
shadowy rank. Benson's shoulder jostled one of them.
A Mexican wheeled upon the instant. His hand flashed to his hip. There
was a moment of silence, during which Benson's voice was not heard
raised in apology. Then an indescribable comment, one burning word,
came from between the Mexican's teeth.
Benson, rolling about in a semi-detached manner, stared vacantly at
the Mexican, who thrust his lean face forward while his fingers played
nervously at his hip. The New York kid could not follow Spanish well,
but he understood when the Mexican breathed softly: "Does the señor
want to fight?"
Benson simply gazed in gentle surprise. The woman next to him at
dinner had said something inventive. His tailor had presented his
bill. Something had occurred which was mildly out of the ordinary, and
his surcharged brain refused to cope with it. He displayed only the
agitation of a smoker temporarily without a light.
The New York kid had almost instantly grasped Benson's arm, and was
about to jerk him away, when the other kid, who up to this time had
been an automaton, suddenly projected himself forward, thrust the
rubber Benson aside, and said--"Yes."
There was no sound nor light in the world. The wall at the left
happened to be of the common prison-like construction--no door, no
window, no opening at all. Humanity was enclosed and asleep. Into the
mouth of the sober kid came a wretched bitter taste as if it had filled
with blood. He was transfixed as if he was already seeing the lightning
ripples on the knife-blade.
But the Mexican's hand did not move at that time. His face went still
further forward and he whispered--"So?" The sober kid saw this face
as if he and it were alone in space--a yellow mask smiling in eager
cruelty, in satisfaction, and above all it was lit with sinister
decision. As for the features, they were reminiscent of an unplaced, a
forgotten type, which really resembled with precision those of a man
who had shaved him three times in Boston in 1888. But the expression
burned his mind as sealing-wax burns the palm, and fascinated,
stupefied, he actually watched the progress of the man's thought toward
the point where a knife would be wrenched from its sheath. The emotion,
a sort of mechanical fury, a breeze made by electric fans, a rage made
by vanity, smote the dark countenance in wave after wave.
Then the New York kid took a sudden step forward. His hand was at his
hip. He was gripping there a revolver of robust size. He recalled that
upon its black handle was stamped a hunting scene in which a sportsman
in fine leggings and a peaked cap was taking aim at a stag less than
one-eighth of an inch away.
His pace forward caused instant movement of the Mexicans. One
immediately took two steps to face him squarely. There was a general
adjustment, pair and pair. This opponent of the New York kid was a
tall man and quite stout. His sombrero was drawn low over his eyes.
His serape was flung on his left shoulder. His back was bended in the
supposed manner of a Spanish grandee. This concave gentleman cut a fine
and terrible figure. The lad, moved by the spirits of his modest and
perpendicular ancestors, had time to feel his blood roar at sight of
the pose.
He was aware that the third Mexican was over on the left fronting
Benson, and he was aware that Benson was leaning against the wall
sleepily and peacefully eying the convention. So it happened that
these six men stood, side fronting side, five of them with their right
hands at their hips and with their bodies lifted nervously, while the
central pair exchanged a crescendo of provocations. The meaning of
their words rose and rose. They were travelling in a straight line
toward collision.
The New York kid contemplated his Spanish grandee. He drew his revolver
upward until the hammer was surely free of the holster. He waited
immovable and watchful while the garrulous Frisco kid expended two and
a half lexicons on the middle Mexican.
The eastern lad suddenly decided that he was going to be killed. His
mind leaped forward and studied the aftermath. The story would be a
marvel of brevity when first it reached the far New York home, written
in a careful hand on a bit of cheap paper, topped and footed and
backed by the printed fortifications of the cable company. But they
are often as stones flung into mirrors, these bits of paper upon which
are laconically written all the most terrible chronicles of the times.
He witnessed the uprising of his mother and sister, and the invincible
calm of his hard-mouthed old father, who would probably shut himself
in his library and smoke alone. Then his father would come, and they
would bring him here and say--"This is the place." Then, very likely,
each would remove his hat. They would stand quietly with their hats in
their hands for a decent minute. He pitied his old financing father,
unyielding and millioned, a man who commonly spoke twenty-two words a
year to his beloved son. The kid understood it at this time. If his
fate was not impregnable, he might have turned out to be a man and have
been liked by his father.
The other kid would mourn his death. He would be preternaturally
correct for some weeks, and recite the tale without swearing. But it
would not bore him. For the sake of his dead comrade he would be glad
to be preternaturally correct, and to recite the tale without swearing.
These views were perfectly stereopticon, flashing in and away from his
thought with an inconceivable rapidity until after all they were simply
one quick dismal impression. And now here is the unreal real: into this
kid's nostrils, at the expectant moment of slaughter, had come the
scent of new-mown hay, a fragrance from a field of prostrate grass, a
fragrance which contained the sunshine, the bees, the peace of meadows,
and the wonder of a distant crooning stream. It had no right to be
supreme, but it was supreme, and he breathed it as he waited for pain
and a sight of the unknown.
But in the same instant, it may be, his thought flew to the Frisco kid,
and it came upon him like a flicker of lightning that the Frisco kid
was not going to be there to perform, for instance, the extraordinary
office of respectable mourner. The other kid's head was muddled, his
hand was unsteady, his agility was gone. This other kid was facing the
determined and most ferocious gentleman of the enemy. The New York kid
became convinced that his friend was lost. There was going to be a
screaming murder. He was so certain of it that he wanted to shield his
eyes from sight of the leaping arm and the knife. It was sickening,
utterly sickening. The New York kid might have been taking his first
sea-voyage. A combination of honourable manhood and inability prevented
him from running away.
He suddenly knew that it was possible to draw his own revolver, and
by a swift manoeuvre face down all three Mexicans. If he was quick
enough he would probably be victor. If any hitch occurred in the draw
he would undoubtedly be dead with his friends. It was a new game; he
had never been obliged to face a situation of this kind in the Beacon
Club in New York. In this test, the lungs of the kid still continued to
perform their duty.
"Oh, five white mice of chance,
Shirts of wool and corduroy pants,
Gold and wine, women and sin,
All for you if you let me come in--
Into the house of chance."
He thought of the weight and size of his revolver, and dismay
pierced him. He feared that in his hands it would be as unwieldy as
a sewing-machine for this quick work. He imagined, too, that some
singular providence might cause him to lose his grip as he raised his
weapon. Or it might get fatally entangled in the tails of his coat.
Some of the eels of despair lay wet and cold against his back.
But at the supreme moment the revolver came forth as if it were greased
and it arose like a feather. This somnolent machine, after months of
repose, was finally looking at the breasts of men.
Perhaps in this one series of movements, the kid had unconsciously
used nervous force sufficient to raise a bale of hay. Before he
comprehended it he was standing behind his revolver glaring over the
barrel at the Mexicans, menacing first one and then another. His finger
was tremoring on the trigger. The revolver gleamed in the darkness with
a fine silver light.
The fulsome grandee sprang backward with a low cry. The man who had
been facing the Frisco kid took a quick step away. The beautiful array
of Mexicans was suddenly disorganized.
The cry and the backward steps revealed something of great importance
to the New York kid. He had never dreamed that he did not have a
complete monopoly of all possible trepidations. The cry of the grandee
was that of a man who suddenly sees a poisonous snake. Thus the kid
was able to understand swiftly that they were all human beings. They
were unanimous in not wishing for too bloody combat. There was a sudden
expression of the equality. He had vaguely believed that they were not
going to evince much consideration for his dramatic development as an
active factor. They even might be exasperated into an onslaught by
it. Instead, they had respected his movement with a respect as great
even as an ejaculation of fear and backward steps. Upon the instant he
pounced forward and began to swear, unreeling great English oaths as
thick as ropes, and lashing the faces of the Mexicans with them. He
was bursting with rage, because these men had not previously confided
to him that they were vulnerable. The whole thing had been an absurd
imposition. He had been seduced into respectful alarm by the concave
attitude of the grandee. And after all there had been an equality of
emotion, an equality: he was furious. He wanted to take the serape of
the grandee and swaddle him in it.
The Mexicans slunk back, their eyes burning wistfully. The kid took aim
first at one and then at another. After they had achieved a certain
distance they paused and drew up in a rank. They then resumed some of
their old splendour of manner. A voice hailed him in a tone of cynical
bravado as if it had come from between lips of smiling mockery. "Well,
señor, it is finished?"
The kid scowled into the darkness, his revolver drooping at his side.
After a moment he answered--"I am willing." He found it strange that he
should be able to speak after this silence of years.
"Good-night, señor."
"Good-night."
When he turned to look at the Frisco kid he found him in his original
position, his hand upon his hip. He was blinking in perplexity at the
point from whence the Mexicans had vanished.
"Well," said the sober kid crossly, "are you ready to go home now?"
The Frisco kid said--"Where they gone?" His voice was undisturbed but
inquisitive.
Benson suddenly propelled himself from his dreamful position against
the wall. "Frishco kid's all right. He's drunk's fool and he's all
right. But you New York kid, you're shober." He passed into a state of
profound investigation. "Kid shober 'cause didn't go with us. Didn't
go with us 'cause went to damn circus. Went to damn circus 'cause lose
shakin' dice. Lose shakin' dice 'cause--what make lose shakin' dice,
kid?"
The New York kid eyed the senile youth. "I don't know. The five white
mice, maybe."
Benson puzzled so over this reply that he had to be held erect by his
friends. Finally the Frisco kid said--"Let's go home."
Nothing had happened.
FLANAGAN AND HIS SHORT FILIBUSTERING ADVENTURE
I
"I have got twenty men at me back who will fight to the death," said
the warrior to the old filibuster.
"And they can be blowed for all me," replied the old filibuster.
"Common as sparrows. Cheap as cigarettes. Show me twenty men with steel
clamps on their mouths, with holes in their heads where memory ought to
be, and I want 'em. But twenty brave men merely? I'd rather have twenty
brave onions."
Thereupon the warrior removed sadly, feeling that no salaams were paid
to valour in these days of mechanical excellence.
Valour, in truth, is no bad thing to have when filibustering; but many
medals are to be won by the man who knows not the meaning of "pow-wow,"
before or afterwards. Twenty brave men with tongues hung lightly may
make trouble rise from the ground like smoke from grass, because of
their subsequent fiery pride; whereas twenty cow-eyed villains who
accept unrighteous and far-compelling kicks as they do the rain from
heaven may halo the ultimate history of an expedition with gold, and
plentifully bedeck their names, winning forty years of gratitude from
patriots, simply by remaining silent. As for the cause, it may be only
that they have no friends or other credulous furniture.
If it were not for the curse of the swinging tongue, it is surely to
be said that the filibustering industry, flourishing now in the United
States, would be pie. Under correct conditions, it is merely a matter
of dealing with some little detectives whose skill at search is rated
by those who pay them at a value of twelve or twenty dollars each week.
It is nearly axiomatic that normally a twelve dollar per week detective
cannot defeat a one hundred thousand dollar filibustering excursion.
Against the criminal, the detective represents the commonwealth, but in
this other case he represents his desire to show cause why his salary
should be paid. He represents himself merely, and he counts no more
than a grocer's clerk.
But the pride of the successful filibuster often smites him and his
cause like an axe, and men who have not confided in their mothers go
prone with him. It can make the dome of the Capitol tremble and incite
the Senators to over-turning benches. It can increase the salaries of
detectives who could not detect the location of a pain in the chest. It
is a wonderful thing, this pride.
Filibustering was once such a simple game. It was managed blandly by
gentle captains and smooth and undisturbed gentlemen, who at other
times dealt in law, soap, medicine, and bananas. It was a great pity
that the little cote of doves in Washington were obliged to rustle
officially, and naval men were kept from their berths at night, and
sundry Custom House people got wiggings, all because the returned
adventurer pow-wowed in his pride. A yellow and red banner would
have been long since smothered in a shame of defeat if a contract to
filibuster had been let to some admirable organization like one of our
trusts.
And yet the game is not obsolete. It is still played by the wise and
the silent men whose names are not display-typed and blathered from one
end of the country to the other.
There is in mind now a man who knew one side of a fence from the other
side when he looked sharply. They were hunting for captains then to
command the first vessels of what has since become a famous little
fleet. One was recommended to this man, and he said, "Send him down to
my office and I'll look him over." He was an attorney, and he liked to
lean back in his chair, twirl a paper-knife, and let the other fellow
talk.
The sea-faring man came and stood and appeared confounded. The attorney
asked the terrible first question of the filibuster to the applicant.
He said, "Why do you want to go?"
The captain reflected, changed his attitude three times, and decided
ultimately that he didn't know. He seemed greatly ashamed. The
attorney, looking at him, saw that he had eyes that resembled a
lambkin's eyes.
"Glory?" said the attorney at last.
"No-o," said the captain.
"Pay?"
"No-o. Not that so much."
"Think they'll give you a land grant when they win out?"
"No; never thought."
"No glory; no immense pay; no land grant. What are you going for, then?"
"Well, I don't know," said the captain, with his glance on the floor
and shifting his position again. "I don't know. I guess it's just for
fun mostly." The attorney asked him out to have a drink.
When he stood on the bridge of his out-going steamer, the attorney
saw him again. His shore meekness and uncertainty were gone. He was
clear-eyed and strong, aroused like a mastiff at night. He took his
cigar out of his mouth and yelled some sudden language at the deck.
This steamer had about her a quality of unholy mediæval disrepair,
which is usually accounted the principal prerogative of the United
States Revenue Marine. There is many a seaworthy ice-house if she were
a good ship. She swashed through the seas as genially as an old wooden
clock, burying her head under waves that came only like children at
play, and, on board, it cost a ducking to go from anywhere to anywhere.
The captain had commanded vessels that shore-people thought were
liners; but when a man gets the ant of desire-to-see-what-it's-like
stirring in his heart, he will wallow out to sea in a pail. The thing
surpasses a man's love for his sweetheart. The great tank-steamer
_Thunder-Voice_ had long been Flanagan's sweetheart, but he was far
happier off Hatteras watching this wretched little portmanteau boom
down the slant of a wave.
The crew scraped acquaintance one with another gradually. Each man came
ultimately to ask his neighbour what particular turn of ill-fortune
or inherited deviltry caused him to try this voyage. When one frank,
bold man saw another frank, bold man aboard, he smiled, and they became
friends. There was not a mind on board the ship that was not fastened
to the dangers of the coast of Cuba, and taking wonder at this prospect
and delight in it. Still, in jovial moments they termed each other
accursed idiots.
At first there was some trouble in the engine-room, where there were
many steel animals, for the most part painted red and in other places
very shiny--bewildering, complex, incomprehensible to any one who don't
care, usually thumping, thumping, thumping with the monotony of a snore.
It seems that this engine was as whimsical as a gas-meter. The chief
engineer was a fine old fellow with a grey moustache, but the engine
told him that it didn't intend to budge until it felt better. He came
to the bridge and said, "The blamed old thing has laid down on us, sir."
"Who was on duty?" roared the captain.
"The second, sir."
"Why didn't he call you?"
"Don't know, sir." Later the stokers had occasion to thank the stars
that they were not second engineers.
The _Foundling_ was soundly thrashed by the waves for loitering while
the captain and the engineers fought the obstinate machinery. During
this wait on the sea, the first gloom came to the faces of the company.
The ocean is wide, and a ship is a small place for the feet, and an
ill ship is worriment. Even when she was again under way, the gloom
was still upon the crew. From time to time men went to the engine-room
doors, and looking down, wanted to ask questions of the chief engineer,
who slowly prowled to and fro, and watched with careful eye his
red-painted mysteries. No man wished to have a companion know that he
was anxious, and so questions were caught at the lips. Perhaps none
commented save the first mate, who remarked to the captain, "Wonder
what the bally old thing will do, sir, when we're chased by a Spanish
cruiser?"
The captain merely grinned. Later he looked over the side and said to
himself with scorn, "Sixteen knots! sixteen knots! Sixteen hinges on
the inner gates of Hades! Sixteen knots! Seven is her gait, and nine if
you crack her up to it."