everything, first with dainty sniffs, then with long, deep inhalations.
Thus he came to know the inner nature of table legs and chairs, of
men's boots and of dark corners. Between investigations he would stand
in front of the bar and stretch, sticking first one hind leg, then the
other, at stiff angles behind him, and then, fore feet far in front,
pressing the chest of his long body nearly to the floor.
These things irritated Cheyenne Harry. He attempted to command Peter
harshly, but Peter paid no attention.
"Off his feed," observed Dave Williams to young Barker in an undertone.
"Yeah," agreed the latter.
About eight o'clock Blair and the stage drew in and drew out again,
after warming at the red-hot stove a little cross man who cursed the
whole West--climate, scenery, and all--with a depth and heartiness that
left these loyal Westerners gasping. Billy Knapp had attempted to
reply, but had not held his own in the interchange.
After the stranger had gone out, the pristine calm broke into a froth
of recrimination. The room shouted. It blamed Billy. It cursed the
stranger. It thought of a dozen things that might have been said or
done, as is the fashion of rooms. Billy vociferated against the
tourist.
"Little two by four prospec' hole!" he cried. "He may be all right
whar he comes from, which don't rank high anyhow, but when he comes out
yar makin' any sech fool breaks as that, he don't assay a cent a ton
fo' sense!"
"Oh, hell," growled Cheyenne Harry. "You-all make me tired!"
"Shake yore grouch, Harry," they advised good-humoredly. Cheyenne
Harry was popular, fearless and a good shot. He had a little the
reputation, in some quarters, of being a "bad man."
Billy went on with his tirade. The men shook their heads. "You wasn't
ace high, Billy," said they. Billy insisted, getting more and more
excited. They looked down from the calm of superior wisdom. Their
anger vanished in Billy's. He was angry for the whole crowd.
"Moroney ought to have been here," they observed regretfully. "He's
th' boy! He'd have trimmed th' little cuss good. Can't get ahead of
Moroney nohow."
Billy denied that Moroney could have done better than he, Billy, did.
The men championed Moroney's cause with warmth. A new discussion arose
out of the old. With a prodigious clatter every man drew up his chair
until a circle was formed. Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, the
barkeeper, leaned his head on his fists across the bar, trying to hear.
The two men at the faro game cashed in and quit. The faro dealer,
imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like, shuffled his cards. Around the
outside of the word-hurling circle Peter wandered, sniffing at chairs
and the boots of men.
Then on a sudden Molly and the half-breed arrived, to the vast
astonishment of Copper Creek, which had no women and expected none.
The newcomers appeared in the doorway, apparently from nowhere, pausing
a moment before entering the saloon. Molly leaned a hand on each jamb,
and calmly surveyed the room. Lafond blinked his eyes at the light,
imperturbably awaiting the girl's good pleasure. After a moment she
stepped inside, and again looked the apartment over, slowly,
searchingly. She saw in that long sweeping glance everything there was
to be seen--the men and their various attitudes, the bar, the glasses,
the mirror draped with mosquito bar, the white cotton sheet, the lamps,
the faro table, even the three sporting pictures on the wall.
In that moment she made up her mind what to do. Her heart was beating
fast and her color was high. She experienced all the sensations of a
man going into battle, but not a timid man, or one not sure. Rather,
she felt a new access of force, a new confidence, a new imperious power
that would bend conditions to suit itself. She knew in a flash just
how to tame these untamed men.
Then she stepped swiftly forward and marched up to the bar, against
which she leaned the broad of her back, running her arms along the rail
on either side and resting one heel against the foot rest. She tossed
her curls back, and again looked coolly at the silent men.
An observer might have found it interesting to note how the different
inmates of the room took this unexpected appearance of the First Woman.
Billy Knapp stared with round, gloating eyes, in which a hundred
possibilities awoke. Cheyenne Harry, aroused from his slouching
attitude, thrust his pipe into his pocket and furtively smoothed his
moustache. Graham looked the newcomer over with cool inquiring
scrutiny. Frosty began to polish a glass, finding relief from his
embarrassment in accustomed and commonplace occupation. The faro
dealer shuffled his cards, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. Peter
sat upright on his haunches, sniffing daintily, first in the girl's
direction, then in the man's, watching, bright-eyed and alert. Peter
was the only being in the place who noticed the girl's companion. The
latter, in turn, inspected the room deliberately, with a crafty
calculation.
"Well," said Molly Lafond, with slow scorn, "how long are you going to
sit there before you take care of a lady's horses?"
Then they suddenly became aware of the half-breed and of the
white-covered schooner, dimly visible through the door. They began to
regain control of their wits. The arrested currents of life moved once
more. Who was this girl? Why should she command? Above all, why did
not this little black hairy man take care of his own horses? Men
helped themselves in the West.
They stirred uneasily, but no one responded. The girl's eyes flashed.
"Move!" she commanded, stretching her arm with a sudden and regal
gesture toward the door.
The three men nearest jumped up and hurried out. The girl stood for an
instant, her arm still outstretched; then she dropped it to her side
with a rippling laugh.
"You boys need someone to make you stand 'round, that's all," she said.
"Next time I speak, you _rustle_!"
She placed her hands behind her on the bar, and jumped lightly upward,
perching on one corner and swinging her little feet to and fro. She
sat in the focus of one of the larger lamps, seeming to radiate with a
strange hard brilliancy. Her eyes sparkled and her curly golden hair
escaped from under her old peaked cap in a bewildering tangle of
twisted and glittering fire. She went on easily, without
embarrassment, chattering in so assured a manner that the men were
silenced by the very shyness that should have been hers.
"We got here a little late, boys," she said, conversationally, "on
account of a hot box, but here we are--me and Mike. You don't know us
though, do you? Well, this is Mike Lafond." She looked toward the
half-breed, and a sudden inspiration lit her eye. "Black Mike!" she
cried, clapping her hands. "That's it; Black Mike." She paused in
happy contemplation of the appropriateness of this nickname. It seemed
to fit; and it stuck forever after. "He owns this joint here, he says,
and I reckon he says right," she went on after a pause. "He ain't
pretty, but I'll tend to that for the family." She perked her head
sideways, proving the point beyond contest.
Peter, who had been watching her, his own head in the same attentive
pose, took this as a signal. He barked sharply. "Shut up, dog!"
commanded Molly. She seized a pretzel from a tin pan at her side and
threw it at Peter. Peter considered the pretzel as a contribution, so
subsided.
"Well, boys, I'm glad to be here. I'm going to stay. You might look
more pleased." She cast her eye along the group of men, each in a
tense attitude of uneasiness. Graham's nonchalant and lounging
self-poise struck her. "Aren't you glad?" she asked, pointing her
finger at him. His quizzical smile only deepened. Failing to confuse
him, as she intended, Molly hastily abandoned him. "You ought to be,"
she asserted, skilfully turning the remark in the direction of Cheyenne
Harry. "Come here and let's look at you. I want to know your name.
You ain't bashful, are you?"
Harry put on an appearance of ease and sauntered over to the bar. He
would show the boys that he was used to society. He grinned at her
pleasantly.
"Can't no one look purty nex' to you!" he said boldly.
"Well, well!" cried Molly, clapping him lightly on the shoulder.
"That's the first pleasant word I've had, and after I've told you I was
coming here to live, too!"
Billy Knapp bounced up, eager to retrieve his reputation.
"Th' camp bids you welcome, ma'am, an' is proud and pleased that such a
beauteous member of her lovely sect is come amongst us!" he orated.
The men moved their chairs slightly. One or two cleared their throats.
The constraint was beginning to break.
"Thank you," replied Molly prettily. "This is an occasion. Mike here
asks you all to have a drink. Don't you, Mike?"
The half-breed nodded. He was watching the progress of affairs keenly.
Frosty set out glasses, into which the men poured whiskey from small
black bottles. Harry gave his own to the girl, and then procured
another for himself. Mike sat by the stove. Peter approached
tentatively, but decided to remain at a wary distance. At the other
end of the room the faro dealer shuffled his cards, indifferent,
imperturbable, cat-like; a strange man, without friends, implacable and
just. The men who had gone to stable the horses entered and received
their glasses. The girl raised hers high in the air.
"Now," she cried, "here's hoping we'll all be good friends!"
The men drank their whiskey. They were slowly developing a certain
enthusiasm over the new girl. Constraint was gone. They lounged
easily against the bar. Two stood out near the middle of the floor,
where they could see better, their arms across each other's shoulders.
Molly touched her lips to her glass, and handed it to Billy, who stood
on the other side of her. "Drink it for me," she whispered
confidentially in his ear.
"It'll make me drunk," he said in mock objection. She looked
incredulous. "You have touched it with yore lips," he explained
sentimentally, and drank to cover his confusion. He felt elated. He
had made a pretty speech, too.
The girl laughed and put her hand caressingly on his shoulder. At
either knee was one of these great men; about were many others, all
looking at her with admiration, waiting for her words. This was
triumph! This was power! And then she looked up and found Graham's
calm gray eyes fixed on her in quizzical amusement. She turned away
impatiently and began to talk.
Never was such airy persiflage heard in a mining camp before. The
prospectors were dissolved in a continual grin, exploded in a perpetual
guffaw. Now they understood the charm of woman's conversation, which
Moroney had so often extolled. They spared a thought to wish that
Moroney were here to take part in this. "Moroney can do such elegant
horsing," they said. What a pair this would be! How she glanced from
one member to the other of the group with her witty speeches! She
rapped each man's knuckles hard, to the delight of all the rest, and
yet the fillip left no pain, but only a pleasant glow. They laughed
consumedly.
And then, after a little, she asked them if they could sing; and
without waiting for a reply, she struck up a song of her own in a high,
sweet voice. With a gripping of the heart and a catching of the
breath, they recognized the air. Not one man there had ever heard its
words in a woman's voice before. It was "Sandy Land," the universal,
the endless, the beloved, the song that brings back to every Westerner
visions of other times when he has sung it, and other places--the night
herd, the camp fire, the trail. With the chorus there came a roar as
every man present sang out the heart that was in him. The girl was
surrounded in an instant. This was the moment of which she had
dreamed. She half closed her eyes, and laughed with the gurgling
over-note of a triumphant child.
Cheyenne Harry straightened from his lounging position at the girl's
left, slipped his arm about her waist, and kissed her full upon the
lips.
The room suddenly became very still. Peter could be heard scratching
his neck with stiffened hind leg behind the stove. Graham half started
from his seat, but sank back as he saw the girl's face. Mike never
stirred or missed a puff on his short pipe.
The girl paled a little, and, putting her hands behind her, slid
carefully off the edge of the bar to the floor. Then she walked with
quick firm steps to the offender and slapped him vigorously, first on
one side of the head, then on the other. He raised his elbows to
defend his ears, whereupon she reached swiftly forward under his arm
and slipped his pistol from its open holster; after which she retreated
slowly backward, holding both hands behind her. Cheyenne Harry turned
red and white, and looked about him helplessly.
"You ain't big enough to have a gun!" she said, with scorn. "When you
get man enough to tell me you're sorry, I'll give it back."
She crossed the room toward the street, dangling the pistol on one
finger by the trigger guard.
"I reckon I'll go now," she said simply. She passed through the door
to the canvas-covered schooner outside.
A breathless but momentary silence was broken by Cheyenne Harry.
"I know it, boys, I know it," he protested. "Don't say a word.
Frosty, trot out the nose paint."
Billy was fuming.
"_Hell_ of a way to do!" he muttered. "Nice _hospitable_ way to welkim
a lady! _Lovely_ idee she gets of this camp!"
Harry turned on him slowly. "What's it to yuh?" he asked malevolently.
"What's it to yuh, eh? I want to know! Who let _you_ in this, anyway?"
He thrust his head forward at Billy.
"For the love of Peter the Hermit, shut up, you fellows!" cried Jack
Graham. "Don't make ever-lasting fools of yourselves. That girl can
take care of herself without any of your help, Billy; and it served you
dead right, Harry, and you know it."
"That's right, Billy," said several.
Harry growled sulkily in his glass. "Ain't I knowin' it?" he objected.
"Ain't I payin' fer this drink because I know it? But I ain't goin' t'
have any ranikahoo ijit like Billy Knapp rubbin' it in."
"Billy didn't mean to rub it in," said Jack Graham, "so shake hands and
let up."
The threatened quarrel was averted, and the men drank on Harry. Then
Mike set up the drinks to the furtherance of their friendly relations.
They talked to Mike at length, inquiring his plans, approving his sense
in choosing Copper Creek as a residence, congratulating him on his
daughter, commending her style. Mike hoped they would make the Little
Nugget their evening headquarters. They replied with enthusiasm that
they would. Mike made himself agreeable in a quiet way, without saying
much. Everybody was "stuck" on him--everybody but Harry. Harry sulked
over Billy's insults. His sullen mood had returned. Finally, late in
the evening, he pushed his chair back abruptly and went up to the bar.
"I'm goin'," he announced. "Give me that bottle."
He poured himself a stiff drink, which he absorbed at a toss of the
wrist, and turned away.
"Mr. Mortimer," called Frosty, "did you pay for this?"
"Chalk it down to me," called Harry, without looking back.
Frosty caught the snake eye of his proprietor fixed upon him. He
twisted his feet in terror beneath the bar. "It's agin the rules," he
called at last, weakly, just as Harry reached the door.
The latter turned in heavy surprise. Then he walked deliberately back
to the bar, on which he leaned his elbows.
"Look yere," he said truculently, "ain't I good fer that?"
"Why, yes, I reckon so," cried poor Frosty in an agony. "But it's agin
the rules."
"Rules, rules!" sneered Harry. "Since when air you runnin' this joint
on rules? Ain't you chalked drinks up to me before? Ain't you?
Answer me that. Ain't you?"
"But it's different now," objected Mudge.
"Different, is it? Well, you chalk that drink up to me as I tell yuh,
or go plumb to th' devil for the pay. And don't you bother me no more,
or I'll have to be harsh to yuh!" Harry loved to bully, and he was
working off his irritation. The men in the room stood silent. Harry
liked an audience. He went on: "I'll shoot up yore old rat joint yere
till you ain't got glass enough left to mend your wall eye, you
white-headed little varmint."
Lafond had come softly to the end of the bar. "Naw," he interrupted
quietly, "you are not shooting up anything."
Harry turned slowly to him and spread his legs apart. "And did you
address me, sir?" he begged with mock politeness. "Would you be so
p'lite as to repeat yore remarks?"
"You are not shooting up anything," reiterated Mike, "and it is you who
will settle for this drink. Behold the sign which you have read!"
Harry turned to the room wide eyed. "Did you hear the nerve of it?" he
inquired. "Tellin' me what I'll do! You damn little greaser," he
cried in sudden fury, "I'll show you whether I'm shootin' up anythin'!"
He reached for his gun, remembered on the instant that his holster was
empty, and sprang for Lafond. The half-breed calmly lifted a whiskey
glass, near which he had taken the precaution to stand, and slopped its
contents full in the other's eyes. Harry, blinded, struck against the
corner of the bar. Mike slipped to one side and produced his revolver.
Several sprang between the two men. The room was in an uproar. Peter
barked, clamant, frantic. Everybody tried to talk at once. In the
background the faro dealer ceased shuffling his cards, and began
imperturbably, indifferently, to pack together his layout. He had made
little that night. After a moment he went out, without a glance toward
the excited group.
The men were forcing the blinded and raving Harry toward the door.
Mike leaned over the bar, watching with bright eyes, his arms folded
across his chest and the pistol barrel peeping over the crook of one
elbow.
When they had all gone out, most of them shouting good-natured
farewells, he turned savagely on the pale-faced Mudge. The native
cruelty of the man blazed forth. He scored the barkeeper with a tongue
that lashed like a whip, vituperating, crushing with the weight of his
sarcasm, frightening with the vividness of his threats. Mudge shrank
back into the corner of the space behind the bar, spreading his arms
along either side, watching the half-breed with wide-open fascinated
eyes, as one would watch a dangerous wild beast.
After a little the storm passed. Lafond asked in surly tones where the
bunk was. Frosty showed him his own, behind the saloon, in a little
shack of hewn timbers. Without a word Lafond turned in, dressed as he
was, and closed his eyes. For a time he ruminated slowly. He had seen
his man, and already he could put his finger on one weak point in
Billy's personality--love of the spectacular, of bombast. A blow to
his vanity would hurt. The half-breed had also taken fair measure of
most of the other men in the room. He knew how to ingratiate himself,
and his bold move in the case of Cheyenne Harry had had that object
directly in view. He did not as yet see clearly just what form his
blow to Billy's vanity was to take, but that would come with time.
Lafond's calling and his position in the new town gave him unlimited
opportunities for observation, and he was in no hurry. After waiting
fifteen years, another twelvemonth would not matter.
"Go slow," said Black Mike to himself.
His doze was abruptly broken by Frosty's scared voice asking a
question. The barkeeper's thick wits could not take in the situation.
He was frightened almost out of his senses, and incapable of
consecutive thought.
"And where shall I sleep, sir?" he asked stupidly in a timid little
voice.
Mike turned over explosively. "You can sleep in hell for all of me!"
he shouted angrily. "Get out!"
Frosty returned to the main room of the saloon. There he spread a
horse blanket, redolent of the stables, on the floor behind the stove.
After a time Peter lay down beside him. The barkeeper, frightened,
stupid, vaguely nervous, in his slow nerveless way, gathered the
strange intelligent dog to him, and the two slept.
The men took Harry to the creek, where he washed out his eyes. They
had many comments to make, to none of which Harry vouchsafed a reply.
But his sulkiness was gone. Suddenly he paused for a moment in his
ablutions, and laughed.
"Damned if they ain't a pair!" he asserted. "And that gal----"
"She shore beats grass-widders and school-ma'ams!" said Old Mizzou.
XVI
AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN
The girl had seen all that Lafond had seen and more. She knew now that
Billy Knapp was easily the most important figure in the camp; that
Cheyenne Harry was the most admired and feared; that Jack Graham was
the most likely to be heard from in the future. The other men fell
into the background behind these three figures. The situation was
simplified by the fact. All she needed now for complete triumph was,
to discover the vulnerable points of these three, attack them craftily,
and the game was hers.
She thought she knew the way. She fell asleep dreaming of it. She
awoke in the early morning with the day's plan clear and perfect in her
mind, each move in the game she was to play clearly outlined before
her. It had come to her in the night without conscious effort on her
own part.
She dressed herself in the semi-obscurity of the wagon-body, and
stepped out into the morning. The brook was not far away. She
discovered it, and bathed her face and throat in its ice-cold waters.
Then she returned to the wagon, where she made breakfast of a huge
irregular chunk of bread and slices of cold bacon, sitting on the wagon
tongue and swinging her feet carelessly back and forth while eating.
Occasionally she threw a remnant to the few silent Canada jays that
drifted here and there in the sleeping town, fluffed out like milkweed
pollen in the summer, searching for scraps. They swooped to her
offerings on swift motionless wing, and then retreated to a distance,
whence they abused their benefactor with strident voice. The girl
watched them idly.
How to impress her personality in the most agreeable way on the
greatest number of men! The problem was many faceted. She must not
show favoritism; therefore the method must be general. She must render
herself and not merely her sex agreeable: therefore it would have to be
personal. It must appeal to the men's sense of protection rather than
to their mere admiration; therefore in it she must efface herself, and
exalt them. This was all apparently contradictory. But no; she saw it
clearly in a flash. She must let them do her a favor. Instinctively
she realized, though she did not formulate the thought, that this is
one of the sure ways of gaining a man's good will. She cast back over
the necessities of the case, and saw that it would suffice. In doing
something for her, they would at once stand well in their own eyes,
because of a certain consciousness of unselfish effort; they would
expand protectively toward her, because of her weakness, implied in the
fact that they could do her a kindness. What was the favor to be? The
wagon behind her answered the question. They should build her a house.
All this passed through her mind, as a drift setting in from upstream,
gliding before her consciousness, and floating on down stream in
unhasting progression. She did not realize that she was thinking out a
problem; at least she made no effort to do so. It came to her as she
needed it. To all appearance she was watching idly, with unruffled
brow, the tenuous threads of smoke which indicated that the camp was
awakening. The number of these smoke signals suggested a new problem.
She could hardly enlist the entire population of a camp the size of
Copper Creek in the task of building one little log cabin. The idea of
the swarming multitude struck her as so funny that she laughed aloud.
She must choose; and the choice must be judicious. The men selected
must represent the influential element, the leaders of opinion; while
those denied the privilege of serving her must be the sort who always
follow with the majority. Here her intuition balked, and her scanty
knowledge could not help it out. She was frankly puzzled.
As she sat there knitting her brows, a boy came up the street. He was
bare-foot, straw-hatted, freckled. He had wide gray eyes, a snub nose,
and an impudent mouth. His clothes were varied and inadequate. Over
his arm he carried a little rifle. About him, at a wary distance,
frisked Peter, escaped from the Little Nugget through some mysterious
back exit.