"The Poorman?"
"No good," I replied.
"Well, did you try the Molly Magee?"
"Yes."
"And?" he inquired, elevating his brows.
"Same old story," said I. "They all say they only take on experienced
men."
He looked at me with a half-smile, half-sneer, and the grey parrot
hanging above him with his head cocked on one side, just like his
master's, ejaculated:
"Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"
Shakespeare says that "what the declined is he will as soon read in the
eyes of others as feel in his own fall." I was beginning to read in the
eyes of others, those who knew that I had been in this roaring Baker
City almost a fortnight and was still idle, contempt for my incapacity.
Really, I do not believe now that any of them looked on me with
contempt; it was only my own inward self-reproach which I imagined
there, for men and women are kindlier than we think them in our own dark
days. But on that and at that moment it seemed to me as though the very
parrot jeered at me.
"You don't savvy this country," said the landlord. "You want always to
say, when they ask you: 'Do you understand the work?' 'why sure! I'm
experienced all right; I never done nothing else in my life.' You want
to say that, no matter what the job is you 're offered. If you want
ever to make enough money to be able to get a pack-horse and a outfit
and go prospectin' on your own, that's what you want to say."
"But that would be to tell a downright lie," said I.
"Well," drawled the landlord, lifting his soft hat between his thumb and
his first finger and scratching his head on the little bald part of the
crown with the third finger, the little finger cocked in the air; "well,
now that you put it that way--well, I guess it would. I never looked at
it that way before. You see, they all ask you first pop: 'Did you ever
do it before?' You says: 'Yes, never did anything else since I left the
cradle.' It's just a form of words when you strike a man for a job."
I broke into a feeble laugh, which the parrot took up with such a
raucous voice that the landlord turned and yelled to it: "Shut up!"
"I don't have to!" shrieked the parrot, promptly, and you could have
thought that his little eyes sparkled with real indignation. Just then
the landlord's wife appeared at the door.
"See here," cried Mr. Laughlin, turning to her, "there 's that parrot o'
yourn, I told him to shut up his row just now, and he rips back at me,
'I don't have to!' What you make o' that? Are you goin' to permit
that? Everything connected with you seems conspirin' agin' me to
cheapen me--you and your relations what come here and put up for months
on end, and your--your--your derned old grey parrot!"
"Abraham Laughlin," said the lady, her green eyes flashing, "you bin
drinkin' ag'in, and ef you ain't sober to-morrow I go back east home to
my mother."
It gave me a new thought as to the longevity of the human race to hear
Mrs. Laughlin speak of her mother back east. I hung my head and studied
the planking of the verandah, then looked upward and gazed at the
far-off glacier glittering under the blue sky, tried to wear the
appearance of a deaf man who had not heard this altercation. Really I
took the matter too seriously. Had I only known it at the time, they
were a most devoted couple and would--not "kiss again with tears" and
seek forgiveness and reconciliation, but--speak to each other most
kindly, as though no "words" had ever passed between them, half an hour
later. But at the time of the little altercation on the verandah, when
Mrs. Laughlin gave voice to her threat and then, turning, stalked back
into the hotel, Laughlin wheeled about with his head thrust forward,
showing his lean neck craning out of his wide collar, and opened his
lips as though to discharge a pursuing shot. But the parrot took the
words out of his mouth, so to speak, giving a shriek of laughter and
crying out: "Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"
The landlord looked up quizzically at the bird and then there was an
awkward pause. I wondered what to say to break this silence that
followed upon the exhibition of the break in the connubial bliss of my
landlord and his wife. Then I remembered something that I decidedly did
want to ask, so I was actually more seeking information than striving to
put Mr. Laughlin at his ease again, when I said:
"By the way, what is all this talk I hear about the Lost Cabin Mine?
Everybody is speaking about it, you know. What is the Lost Cabin Mine?
What is the story of it? People seem just to take it for granted that
everybody knows about it."
"Gee-whiz!" said the landlord in astonishment, wheeling round upon me.
He stretched out a hand to a chair, dragged it along the verandah, and
sat down beside me in the shadow. "You don't know that story? Why,
then I 'll give you all there is to it so far. And talking about the
Lost Cabin, now there's what you might be doin' if on'y you had the
price of an outfit--go out and find it, my bold buck, and live happy
ever after----"
He stopped abruptly, for a man had come out of the hotel and now stood
meditating on the verandah. He was a lithe, sun-browned fellow, this,
wearing a loose jacket, wearing it open, disclosing a black shirt with
pearl buttons. Round his neck was a great, cream-coloured kerchief that
hung half down his back in a V shape, as is the manner with cowboys and
not usual among miners. This little detail of the kerchief was
sufficient to mark him out in that city, for the nearest cattle ranch
was about two hundred miles to the south-east and when the "boys" who
worked there sought the delights of civilisation it was not to Baker
City, but to one of the towns on the railroad, such as Bogus City or
Kettle River Gap, that they journeyed. On his legs were blue dungaree
overalls, turned up at the bottom as though to let the world see that he
wore, beneath the overalls, a very fine pair of trousers. On his head
was a round, soft hat, not broad of brim, but the brim in front was bent
down, shading his eyes. The cream-colour of his kerchief set off his
healthy brown skin and his black, crisp hair. There were no spurs in
his boots; for all that he had the bearing of one more at home on the
plains than in the mountains. A picturesque figure he was, one to
observe casually and look at again with interest, though he bore himself
without swagger or any apparent attempt at attracting attention, except
for one thing, and that was that in either ear there glistened a tiny
golden ear-ring. His brows were puckered as in thought and from his
nostrils came two long gusts of smoke as he stood there biting his cigar
and glaring on the yellow sand and the chirring cicadi. Then he raised
his head, glancing round on us, and his face brightened.
"Warmish," he said.
"That's what, right warmish," the proprietor replied affably, and now
the man with the ear-rings, having apparently come to the end of his
meditations, stepped lightly off into the loose sand and Laughlin jogged
me with his elbow and nodded to me, rolling his eyes toward the
departing man as though to say, "Take a good look at him, and when he is
out of earshot I shall tell you of him." This was precisely the
proprietor's meaning.
"That's Apache Kid," he said softly at last, and when Apache Kid had
gone from sight he turned again to me and remarked, with the air of a
man making an astounding disclosure:
"That's Apache Kid, and he's in this here story of the Lost Cabin. Yap,
that's what they call him, though he ain't the real original, of course.
The real original was hanged down in Lincoln County, New Mexico, about
twenty-five year back. Hanged at the age of twenty-one he was, and had
killed twenty-one men, which is an interesting fact to consider. That's
the way with names. I know a fellow they call Texas Jack yet, but the
real original died long ago. I mind the original. Omohundro was his
correct name; as quiet a man as you want to see, Jack B. Omohundro, with
eyes the colour of a knife-blade. But I 'm driftin' away. What you
want to get posted up on is the Lost Cabin Mine."
He jerked his chair closer to me, tapped me on the knee, and cleared his
throat; but I seemed fated not to hear the truth of that mystery yet,
for Mrs. Laughlin stood again on the verandah.
"Abraham," she said in an aggrieved tone, "there ain't nobody in the
bar."
Up jumped Abraham, his whole bearing, from his bowed head to his bent
knees, apologetic.
"I was just tellin' this gentleman a story," he explained.
"I 'm astonished at you then," she said. "An old man like you a-telling
your stories to a young lad like that! You 'd be doin' better slippin'
into the bar and takin' a smell at that there barkeep's breath."
Mr. Laughlin turned to me.
"Come into the bar, sir; come into the bar. We 've got a new barkeep
and the mistress suspects him o' takin' some more than even a barkeep is
expected to take. I hev to take a look to him once in a while."
Mrs. Laughlin disappeared into her own sanctum, satisfied; while the
"pro-prietor" and I went into the bar-room.
The "barkeep" was polishing up his glasses. In one corner sat a grimy,
bearded man in the prime of life but with a dazed and lonely eye. He
always sat in that particular corner, as by ancient right, morning,
noon, and evening, playing an eternal solitary game of cards, the whole
deck of cards spread before him on a table. He moved them about,
changing their positions, lifting here and replacing there, but, though
I had watched him several times, I could never discover the system of
his lonely game.
"Who is that man?" I quietly inquired. "He is always playing there,
always alone, never speaking to a soul."
"The boys call him 'The Failure,'" Laughlin explained. "You find a man
like that in the corner of most every ho-tel-bar you go into in this
here Western country--always a-playing that there lonesome game, I 'm
always scared to ask 'em what the rudiments o' that game is for they 're
always kind o' rat-house,--of unsound mind, them men is. I heerd a
gentleman explain one day that it's a great game for steadyin' the head.
He gets a remittance from England, they say. Anyhow, he stands up to
the bar once every two months and blows himself in for about three-four
days. Then he goes back to his table there and sets down to his
lonesome card game again and frowns away over it for another couple o'
months. I guess that gentleman was right in what he explained. I guess
he holds his brains together on that there game."
We found seats in a corner of the room and Laughlin again cleared his
throat. He had a name for taking a real delight in imparting
information and spinning yarns, true, fictitious, and otherwise, to his
guests, and this time we were not interrupted. He told me the story of
the Lost Cabin Mine, or as much of that story as was known by that time,
ere his smiling Chinese cook came to inform him "dinnah vely good.
Number A1 dinnah to-day, Misholaughlin, ledy in half-oh."
*CHAPTER II*
_*Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date*_
Mr. Laughlin's suggestion that I should go out and look for this Lost
Cabin and, finding it, "live happy ever after," made me but the more
anxious to hear all that was to be told regarding it.
"Well, about this here Lost Cabin Mine," he said. "There's a little,
short, stubby fellow that you maybe have noticed around here, with a
pock-marked face,--Mike Canlan, they call him. He was up to Tremont
putting in assessment on a claim he has in the mountains there away, and
he was comin' along back by the trail on the mountains that runs kind o'
parallel with the stage road, but away up on the hills, and there he
picks up a feller nigh dead,--starved to death, pretty nigh. Mike gets
him up on his pack-horse and comes along slow down through the mountain
till he hits the waggon road from the Poorman. There a team from the
Poorman Mine makes up on him. That there fellow, Apache Kid, was
drivin' the team, and along with him was Larry Donoghue, a partner o'
his, with another team. They had been haulin' up supplies for one of the
stores, and was comin' down light. They offer to help Canlan down with
the dying man, seein' as how the hoss was gettin' pretty jaded with all
Canlan's outfit on its back, and this here man, too, tied on, and
wabbling about mighty weak."
Laughlin broke off here to nod his head sagaciously. "From what has
transpired since, I guess Canlan was kind o' sorry he fell in with them
two, and I reckon he wondered if there was no kind of an excuse he could
put up for rejecting their offer o' service and continuin' to pack the
feller down himself. Anyways, they got the man into the Apache's
waggon, and my house bein' the nighest to the waggon road and the
mountain, they pulled up at my door and we all carries the fellow up to
a room. I was at the door. Canlan was sitting on the bed-foot. Apache
Kid and Larry Donoghue was laying him out comf'able. The fellow groans
and mumbles something, and Canlan gave a bit of a start forward, and
says he: 'There, there now, that 'll do; you 've got him up all right.
I reckon that's all that's wanted. You can go for a doctor, now, if you
want to help at all.' There was something kind o' strained in his
voice, and I think Apache Kid noticed it the way he looks round. 'Why,'
he says, 'I think, seein' as you,' and he stops and looks Canlan plumb
in the eye, 'seein' as you _found_ the man, you had better fetch the
doctor and finish your job. My partner and I will sit by him till the
doctor comes.' Canlan looked just a little bit rattled when Apache Kid
says, lookin' at the man in the bed: 'He seems to have got a kind o' a
knock on the head here.' 'Yes,' says Canlan, 'I got him where he had
fallen down. I reckon he got that punch then.' And then Apache Kid
looks at Larry Donoghue, and Larry looks at him, and they both smile,
and Canlan cries out: 'Oh, if that's what you think, why I 'll go for
the doctor without any more ado!'"
Laughlin paused, and, "You savvy the idea?" he asked.
"Not quite," I said.
He tapped me on the knee, and, bending forward, said: "Don't you see,
Apache Kid and Larry hed no suspicions o' foul play at all, but they was
wanting to get alone in the room with the feller, and this was just
Apache's bluff to get a move on Canlan. Canlan was no sooner gone than
Apache Kid asks me to fetch a glass o' spirits. It was only thinkin' it
over after that I saw through the thing; anyhow, I come down for the
glass, and when I got up, derned if they did n't hev the man propped up
in bed, and him mumblin' away and them bendin' over him listening eager
to him. They gave him the liquor, and he began talking a trifle
stronger, and took two-three deep gusts o' breath. Then he began
mumblin' again."
Mr. Laughlin looked furtively round and then, leaning forward again,
thrust his neck forward and with infinite disgust in his voice said:
"And damn me if that wife o' mine did n't come to the stair-end right
then and start yellin' on me to come down."
Laughlin shook his head sadly. "Seems her derned old parrot was
shoutin' for food and as it had all give out she wants me to go down to
the store for some more. But I must say that she had just come in
herself and did n't know nothin' about the business that was goin' on
upstairs. When Canlan and the doctor did arrive and go up the fellow
was dead--sure thing--dead as--dead as--" he searched for the simile
without which he could not speak for long. "Dead as God!" he said in a
horrible whisper, raising his grey eyebrows.
I shuddered somehow at the words, and yet in such a red-hot, ungodly
place as Baker City I could almost understand the phrase. There was
another pause after that and then Laughlin cleared his throat again and
held up a lean finger in my face.
"There's where the place comes in," said he, "where you says 'the plot
thickens,' for I 'm a son of a gun if word did n't come down next day
that the fellers up at the Poorman Mine had picked up just such another
dead-beat. This here corpse of which I bin tellin' you was indemnified
after as having been in company with the other. But the man the Poorman
boys picked up was jest able to tell them that he had seen the lights o'
their bunk-house and was trying to make for it. Told them that he and
two partners had struck it rich in the mountains, pow'ful rich, he said,
and hed all been so fevered like that they let grub run out. Then they
went out looking for something to shoot up and could n't find a thing.
One of 'em went off then to fetch supplies, lost his way in them
mountains, wanders about nigh onto a week--and hits their own camp ag'in
at the end o' that time. Isn't it terrible? You'd think that after
striking it luck jest turned about and hed a laugh at 'em for a change.
They comes rushin' on him, the other two, expecting grub-- Grub
nothing! He was too derned tired to budge then, and so the other two
sets out then-- This fellow what the Poorman boys picked up was doin'
his level best to tell 'em where the place was, for the sake of his
partner left there, and in the middle of his talk he took a fit and
never came out of it. All they know is that there was a cabin built at
the place. That's the story for you."
"But what about the man who was brought down here; did he not leave any
indication?"
"Now you 're askin'," said Laughlin. "But I see you bin payin'
attention to this yere story. Now you're askin'. Nobody knows whether
he did or not. But this I can tell you--that Apache Kid and Larry
Donoghue has done nothing since then but jest wander about with the tail
of an eye on Canlan, and Canlan returns the compliment. And here 's
miners comin' in from the Poorman and stoppin' in town a night and
trying to fill Apache Kid and his mate full, and trying the same on
Canlan to get them to talk, and them just sittin' smilin' through it
all, and nobody knows what they think."
"But," said I, "if they do know, could the three of them not come to
some agreement and go out and find the place? If the third man is dead
there, I suppose the mine would be theirs and they could share on it.
Besides, while they stay here doubtless other men will be out looking
for the cabin."
The landlord listened attentively to me.
"Well," said he, "as for your first remark, Canlan is too all-fired hard
a man to make any such daffy with them, and there's just that touch of
the devil in Apache Kid and that amount of hang-dog in Donoghue to
prevent them making up to Canlan, I reckon. Not but what they pump each
other. Sometimes they get out there on the verandah nights, and, you
bein' in the know now, you 'll understand what's running underneath
everything they say. As for the other men goin' out and looking for a
cabin! Shucks! Might as well go and look for that needle you hear
people talk about in the haystack. Not but what a great lot has gone
out. Most every man in the Poorman Mine went off with a pack-hoss to
hunt it, and plenty others too. And between you and me," said the
landlord, "I reckon they 're all on the wrong scent. They 're all away
along Baker Range, and I reckon they must be on the wrong scent there or
else them three others wouldn't be sittin' here in Baker City smiling;
that is, if they dew know where the location is."
Just then the Chinese cook arrived quietly on the scene to inform Mr.
Laughlin of the progress of dinner. Then a laugh sounded in the passage
and Apache Kid entered the bar-room accompanied by a heavy-set,
loose-jawed man of thirty years or thereby, a man with a slovenly
appearance in his dress and a cruel expression on his face.
"That's them both," said Laughlin, prodding me with his elbow as they
marched through the bar and out to the rear verandah where we heard them
dragging chairs about, and the harsh voice of the parrot, evidently
awakened from his reveries in the sunshine:
"Well, well! If this ain't----" and a dry cackle of laughter.
"They 're lookin' right lively and pleased with themselves," said the
proprietor. "I reckon if Canlan comes along to-night it will be worth
your while, now that you know the ins and outs of the business, to keep
an eye on the three and watch the co-mical game they keep on playin'
with each other. But it can't go on forever, that there game. I do
hope, if they make a bloody end to it, it don't take place in my house.
Times is changed from the old days. I 've seen when it was quite an
advertisement to have a bit of shooting in your house some night. And
if there was n't enough holes made in the roof and chairs broke, you
could make some more damage yourself; and the crowd would come in, and
you 'd point out where so-and-so was standing, and where so-and-so was
settin', and tell 'em how it happened, and them listening and setting up
the drinks all the time. It certainly was good for business, a little
shooting now and then, in the old days. But times is changed, and the
sheriff we hev now is a very lively man. All the same, we ain't done
with Lost Cabin Mine yet--and that ain't no lie."
*CHAPTER III*
_*Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled*_
A sense of exhilaration filled me, as I strolled down town that evening,
which I can only ascribe to the rare atmosphere of that part of the
world. It was certainly not due to any improvement in my financial
condition, nor to any hope of "making my pile" speedily, and to "make a
pile" is the predominating thought in men's minds there, with an
intensity that is known in few other lands. I was pondering the story of
the Lost Cabin Mine as I went, and in my own mind had come to the
decision that Apache Kid and his comrade knew the whereabouts of that
bonanza. Canlan, I argued, if he knew its locality at all, must have
come by his news before he fell in with his rivals on the waggon road,
for after that, according to the hotel-keeper's narrative, he had had no
speech with the dying man.
I was in the midst of these reflections when I turned into Baker Street,
the main street of Baker City. There was a wonderful bustle there; men
were coming and going on either sidewalk thick as bees in hiving time;
the golden air of evening was laden with the perfume of cigars; indeed,
the blue of the smoke never seemed to fly clear of Baker Street on the
evenings; and the sound of the many phonographs that thrust their
trumpets out from all the stores on that thoroughfare, added to the din
of voices and laughter, rose above the sounds of talk, to be precise,
with a barbaric medley of hoarse songs and throaty recitations. So much
for the sidewalks. In the middle of the street, to cross which one had
to wade knee-deep in sand, pack-horses were constantly coming and going
and groaning teams arriving from the mountains. To add to the barbarous
nature of the scene, now and again an Indian would go by, not with
feathered head-dress as in former days, but with a gaudy kerchief bound
about his head, tinsel glittering here and there about his half-savage,
half-civilised garb, and a pennon of dust following the quick patter of
his pony's hoofs. I walked the length of Baker Street and then turned,
walking back again with a numb pain suddenly in my heart, for as I
turned right about I saw the great, quiet hills far off, and beyond them
the ineffable blue of the sky. And there is something in me that makes
me always fall silent when amidst the din of men I see the enduring,
uncomplaining, undesiring hills. So I went back to the hotel again, and
without passing through the bar but going around the house, found the
rear verandah untenanted, with its half dozen vacant chairs, and there I
sat down to watch the twilight change the hills. But I had not been
seated long when a small set man, smelling very strongly of whisky, came
out with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and, leaning against one
of the verandah props, looked up at the hills, spitting at regular
intervals far out into the sand and slowly ruminating a chew of tobacco.
"Canlan, for a certainty," I said to myself, when he, looking toward the
door from which he had emerged, attracted by a sudden louder outbreak of
voices and rattling of chairs within, revealed to me a face very sorely
pock-marked, as was easily seen with the lamplight streaming out on him
from the bar. On seeing me he made some remark on the evening, came
over and sat down beside me, and asked me why I sat at the back of the
hotel instead of at the front.
"Because one can see the hills from here," said I.
He grunted and remarked that a man would do better to sit at the front
and see what was going on in the town. Then he rose and, walking to and
fro, flung remarks to me, in passing, regarding the doings in the city
and the mines and so forth, the local gossip of the place. He had just
reverted to his first theme of the absurdity of sitting at the rear of
the house when out came Apache Kid and Donoghue and threw themselves
into the chairs near me, Donoghue taking the one beside me which Canlan
had just vacated. If Canlan thought a man a fool for choosing the rear
instead of the front, he was evidently, nevertheless, content to be a
fool himself, for after one or two peregrinations and expectorations he
drew a chair to the front of the verandah and seated himself, half
turned towards us, and began amusing himself with tilting the chair to
and fro like a rocker. The valley was all in shadow now, and as we sat
there in the silence the moon swam up in the middle of one of the clefts
of the mountains, silhouetting for a brief space, ere it left them for
the open sky, the ragged edge of the tree-tops in the highest forest.
Apache Kid muttered something, Donoghue growled, "What say?" And it
surprised me somewhat to hear the reply: "O! I was only saying 'with
how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies.' It's lonesome-like, up
there, Larry."
"Aye! Lonesome!" replied Larry with a sigh.
A fifth man joined us then, and, hearing this, remarked: "A man thinks
powerful up there."
"That's no lie," Donoghue growled, and so the conversation, if
conversation you can call it, went on, interspersed with long spaces of
silence, broken only by the gurgling of the newcomer's pipe and Canlan's
"spit, spit" which came quicker now. Men are prone in such times as
these to sit and exchange truisms instead of carrying on any manner of
conversation. Yet to me, not long in the country, there was a touch of
mystery in even the truisms.
"I never seen a man who had spent much time in the mountains that was
just what you could call all there in the upper story," said the man
with the juicy pipe.
"Nor I," said Donoghue.
"They 're all half crazy, them old prospectors," continued the first,
"and tell you the queerest yarns about things they 've seen in the
mountains and expect you to believe them. You can see from the way they
talk that they believe 'em themselves. But I don't see why a man should
lose his reason in the hills. If a man lets his brain go when he 's up
there, then he don't have any real enjoyment out of the fortune he
makes--if he happens to strike it."
The moon was drifted far upward now and all the frontage of the hill was
tipped with light green, among the darker green, where the trees that
soared above their neighbours caught the light. "And there must be lots
of fortunes lying there thick if one knew where to find them," continued
the talker of truisms.
"Where?" said Apache in a soft voice.
"In the mountains, in the mountains," was the reply.
"Why do you ask where?" said Donoghue sharply. "Do you think if this
gentleman knew where to find 'em he would be sitting here this blessed
night?"
I felt my heart take a quicker beat at that. Knowing what I knew of
three of these men here I began to see what Mr. Laughlin meant by the
"game" they were playing.
"O, he might," said Canlan, now speaking for the first time since
Apache's arrival.
"That would be a crazy thing to do," said Donoghue. "That would--a
crazy thing--to set here instead of going and locating it."
"O, I don't know about _crazy_," said Mike. "You see, he might be
waiting to see if anybody else knew where it was."
The soft-footed Chinese attendant appeared carrying a lamp which he hung
up above our heads, and in the light of it I saw the face of the man
whose name I did not know, and he seemed mystified by the turn the
conversation had taken. I was looking at him now, thinking to myself
that I too would have been mystified had I not been posted in the matter
that afternoon, and suddenly I heard Donoghue say: "By God! he knows
right enough, Apache," and a gleam of light flashed in my eyes. It was
the barrel of a revolver, but not aimed at me. It was in Donoghue's
hand, and pointed fairly at Canlan's head. With a sudden intake of my
breath in horror I flung out my hand and knocked the barrel up. There
was a little shaft of flame, a sharp crack and puff of bitter smoke, and
next moment a clatter of feet within and a knot of men thronging and
craning at the door, while the window behind was darkened with others
shouldering there and pressing their faces against the glass.
"O you----" began Apache, and "What's this?" cried Laughlin, coming out,
no coward, as one might imagine, but calm enough and yet angry as I
could see.
"What in thunder are you all rubber-necking at the door there for?"
cried Apache Kid, springing up.
"Was it you fired that gun?" challenged the landlord.
"No, not I," cried Apache so that all could hear. "Not but what I was
the cause of it, by betting my partner here he could n't snap a bat on
the wing in the dusk. I never thought he'd try it, but he's as
crazy----"
"I crazy!" cried out Donoghue; and to look at him you would have thought
him really infuriated by the suggestion; but they knew how to play into
each other's hands.
All this time I sat motionless. The stranger rose and passed by,
remarking: "This ain't my trouble, I guess," and away indoors he went
among the throng, and I heard him cry out in reply to the questions: "I
don't know anything about it--saw nothing--I was asleep--I don't even
know who fired."
"Haw! Did n't even wake in time to see whose pistol was smoking, eh?"
"No," cried he, "not even in time for that."
"Quite right, you," cried another. But the trouble was not yet quite
over on the verandah, for Laughlin, with his little eyes looking very
fierce and determined, remarked: "Well, gentlemen, I can't be having any
shooting of any kind in my hotel. Besides, you know there 's a law
ag'in' carrying weapons here."
"No there ain't!" cried Donoghue. "It's concealed weapons the law is
against, and I carry my gun plain for every man to see."
Canlan had sat all this while on his seat as calm as you please, but
suddenly the crowd at the door opened out and somebody said: "Say, here
's the sheriff, boys," and at these words two men sprang from the
verandah; the one was Donoghue, and Canlan the other. I saw them a
moment running helter-skelter in the sand, but when the sheriff made his
appearance they were gone.
The sheriff had to get as much of the story as he could from the
proprietor, who was very civil and polite, but lied ferociously, saying
he did not know who the men were who had been on the verandah.
"I know you, anyhow," said the sheriff, turning on Apache Kid. "Allow
me, sir," and walking up to Apache Kid he drew his hand over his pockets
and felt him upon the hips.
Then I knew why Canlan, though entirely innocent in this matter, had
fled at the cry of "sheriff." He, I guessed, would not have come off so
well as Apache Kid in a search for weapons.
At this stage of the proceedings the Chinese attendant passed me, quiet
as is the wont of his race, and brushed up against Apache Kid just as
the sheriff turned to ask Mr. Laughlin if he could not describe the man
who had fired the shot. "I ain't been out on the verandah not for a
good hour," began the landlord, when Apache Kid broke in, "Well,
Sheriff, I can tell you the name of one of the men who was here."
"O!" said the sheriff, "and what was his name?"
"Mike Canlan," said the Apache Kid, calmly.
"Yes," said the sheriff, looking on him with narrowing eyes, "and the
name of the other was Larry Donoghue."
"Could n't very well be Larry," said Apache Kid. "Larry was drunk
to-night before sunset, and I believe you 'll find him snoring in room
number thirty at this very moment."
The sheriff gazed on him a little space and I noticed, on stealing a
glance at Mr. Laughlin, that a quick look of surprise passed over his
colourless face.
There was a ring as of respect in the sheriff's voice when, after a
long, eye-to-eye scrutiny of Apache Kid, he said slowly: "You 're a deep
man, Apache, but you won't get me to play into your hands."
So saying he stepped over to me and for the first time addressed me.
"As for you, my lad, I have n't asked you any questions, because it's
better that the like of you don't get mixed up at all in these kind of
affairs, not even on the right side." He laid his hand on my shoulder
in a fatherly fashion, "I 've had my eye on you, as I have my eye on
everybody, and I know you 're an honest enough lad and doing your best
to get a start here. I ain't even blaming you for being in the middle
of this, but you take the advice of a man that has been sheriff in a
dozen different parts of the West, and when you see signs of trouble
just you go away and leave it. Trouble with a gun seldom springs up
between a good man and a bad, but most always between two bad men."
"Is that my character you are soliloquising on?" said Apache Kid. The
sheriff turned on him and his face hardened again. "For Heaven's sake,
Apache," he said, "if you and Canlan both know where the Lost Cabin is,
why can't you have the grit to start off? If he follows you, well, you
can fix him. It'll save me a job later on."
"Well, for the sake of the argument," said Apache, "but remember I 'm
not saying I know, suppose he followed up and shot me out of a bush some
night?"
"I'd be mighty sorry," said the sheriff, "for I think between the pair
of you he 's a worse man for the health of the country."
A boyish look came over Apache Kid's face that made me think him younger
than I had at first considered him. He looked pleased at the sheriff's
words and bowed in a way that betokened a knowledge of usages other than
those of Baker City.
"Thank you, Sheriff," he said. "I 'll see what can be done."
Off went the sheriff smartly then, without another word, and Apache Kid
turned to me.
"I 've got to thank you for preventing----" he began, and then the
Chinaman appeared beside us. "Well, Chink?"
"Maybe that littee jobee woth half a dollah, eh?"
"Did Donoghue give you nothing for bringing the message?"
"Oh, no," and a bland smile. "Mishadonah think you give me half a
dollah."
"Well, it was certainly worth half a dollar; but remember, if I find out
that Donoghue gave you anything,----"
"Oh yes," said the Chinaman, with a slight look of perturbation,
"Mishadonah he gave me half-dollah."
Apache Kid laughed. "Well," he said, "you don't hold up your bluff very
long. However, here you are, here's half a dollar to you all the
same--for your truthfulness."
I experienced then a feeling of great disgust. Here was this Chinaman
lying and wheedling for half a dollar; here just a few minutes gone I
had seen murder attempted--and for what? All occasioned again by that
lust for gold. And here beside me was a man with a certain likableness
about him (so that, as I had observed, even the sheriff, who suspected
him, had a warm side to him) lying and humbugging and deceiving. I
thought to myself that doubtless his only objection to Larry Donoghue's
attempt at murder was because of the prominence of it in this place and
the difficulties that would have ensued in proving Larry guiltless had
the attempt been consummated. "This man," said I to myself, "for all
that likableness in his manner, the kindly sparkle of his eyes, and the
smile on his lips, is no better than the hang-dog fellow he sought to
shield--worse, indeed, for he has the bearing of one who has had a
training of another order." And then I saw Mrs. Laughlin's red head and
freckled face and lean, lissome form in the doorway. She was beckoning
me to her, and when I made haste to see what she wanted with me she
looked on me with much tenderness and said: "You want to remember what
the sheriff said to you, my lad. Take my advice and leave that fellow
out there alone for to-night. He's a reckless lad and from the way he
is talking to you he seems to have taken a fancy to you. But you leave
him alone. He 's a deep lad, is Apache Kid, and for all his taking way
he leads a life I 'm sure neither his mother would like to see him in,
nor your mother (if you have one) would like to see you taking up.
There's some says he's little better than the fellow he gets his name
from. I 'm sorry for you lads when I see you getting off the trail."
So what with the words of the sheriff and this well-meant talk and my
own disgust at all these doings, I made up my mind to keep clear of
these three men and not permit my curiosity regarding the Lost Cabin
Mine to lead me into their company again. But when I went up to my
room, before going to bed, I counted my remaining money and found that I
had but seven dollars to my name. I thought to myself then that the
Lost Cabin Mine would be a mighty convenient thing to find. And in my
dreams that night I wandered up hill and down dale seeking for the Lost
Cabin and engaging in hand-to-hand conflicts with all three of these
men, Canlan, Donoghue, and the Apache Kid. It was on awakening from one
of these conflicts that I lay thinking over all that I had heard of that
mysterious Cabin and all that I had seen of the three principally
connected with it. Revolving these thoughts in my mind, it occurred to
me that it was an unaccountable thing, if all three knew the situation
of the mine, that the two who were "partners" should not simply start
out for it and risk being followed up and shadowed by Canlan. They were
always two to one and could take watch and watch by night lest Canlan
should follow and attempt to slay them from the bushes; for that, it
would appear, was the chief danger in the matter.
Canlan's dread of starting alone I could understand. Then suddenly I
sat upright in bed with the sudden belief that the truth of the matter
was that Canlan, and Canlan only, knew of the mine's situation. "But
that again can't be," said I, "for undoubtedly Donoghue meant murder
to-night and that would be to kill the goose with the golden eggs." I
was no nearer a solution of the mystery but I could not dismiss the
matter from my mind. "I believe," said I to myself, "that instead of
having nothing to do with this Lost Cabin Mine I will yet find out the
truth of it from these men. Who knows but what I, even I, may be the
one for whom the mine with all its treasure waits?"
*CHAPTER IV*
_*I Take My Life in My Hands*_
After breakfast on the day following the incident of the verandah I was
journeying down town to post two letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still
uppermost in my mind, when I came, at the turning into Baker Street,
face to face with the man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me,--he
could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,--and I wondered
if now he would have a word to say to me regarding the part I played on
the preceding evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was only
friendliness on his face and the heaviness of it and the sulkiness were
hardly visible when he smiled.
He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, and said that he had
to thank me for preventing what he called "an accident last night."
I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as though the whole
thing were a mere bagatelle to him. "It was right stupid of me," he
said. "But Laughlin keeps such bad liquor! Canlan, too, had had too
much of it, or he would never have tried to irritate me with his
remark." I was trying to recollect the exact words of that remark which
Donoghue classified as "irritating" when he interrupted my thoughts
with: "The Apache Kid and me has quit the Laughlin House."
"Yes, I did n't see you at breakfast there," said I.
"Was Canlan there?" he asked eagerly.
"Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate," I replied.
He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood pondering something.
Then: "Quite so, quite so," he commented as though to himself. Then to
me: "By the way, would you be so kind as to come down this evening to
Blaine's? The Apache Kid asked me to try and see you and ask you if you
would be good enough to come down."
"Blaine's?" I asked. "Where is Blaine's?"
"Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue; near the corner of Twenty-second
Street."
It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in this city that boasted
only one long street (Baker Street) and six streets running off it. But
of course, a street is a street in a new city even though it can boast
only of a house at either corner and has nothing between these corner
houses but tree-stumps, or sand, or sage-bushes, and little boards
thrust into the ground announcing: "This is a sure-thing lot. Its day
will come very soon. See about it when it can be bought cheap from
----, Real Estate Agent, office open day and night."
But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the streets of the city by
name, directed me:
"You go right along Baker Street,--you know it, of course, the main
street of this progressive burgh?--straight ahead west; turn down third
on the right; look up at the store front there and you read 'H.B.
Blaine. Makes you think o' Home and Mother.' It's a coffee-joint, you
see. There 's a coffee urn in the window and two plates, one with
crackers on it and t' other with doughnuts. You walk right in and ask
for the Apache Kid--straight goods--no josh." He stopped to give
emphasis to the rest and after that pause he said in a meaning tone:
"And--you--will--hear--o' something to your advantage."
He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to say anything in reply,
moved off. You may be sure I pondered this invitation as I went along
roaring Baker Street to the post-office. And I was indeed in two minds
about it, uncertain whether to call in at Blaine's or not. Both the
sheriff and Mrs. Laughlin had cautioned me against these men, and I had,
besides, seen enough of them to know myself that they were not just all
that could be desired. The word the sheriff had used regarding Apache
Kid's nature, "deep," came into my mind, along with reflections on all
his prevarications of the previous day. It occurred to me that it would
be quite in keeping with him to pretend gratefulness to me, at the
moment, for my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the same,
with the intention in his mind all the while of "getting me in a quiet
corner," as the phrase is. I think I may be excused this judgment
considering all the duplicity I had already seen him practise. A story
that I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a floor which opened and
precipitated whoever stood upon it down into a hole among rats came into
my head. Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in his floor. One
could believe anything of half the men one saw here, with their
blood-shot eyes, straggling hair, and cruel mouths. Still, I had felt
real friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last night and
Donoghue to-day.
A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion came over me to aid me
toward the decision that my curiosity was already crying for and so,
when the day wore near an end, I set forth--for Blaine's, the
"coffee-joint."
When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see another sight such as
only the West could show. The phonographs, as usual, it being now
evening, were all grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls and
open windows. The wonted din was in the air when suddenly an eddy began
in the crowd on the opposite sidewalk. It was in front of one of the
"toughest" saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man, hatless,
and broke away pell-mell along the street. Next moment the saloon door
swung again, and after him there went running another fellow, with a
tomahawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran, his legs
straddled wide to prevent him tripping up on his great spurs. Where the
third party in this scene sprang from I cannot tell. I only know that
he suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue serge suit, with a
Stars-and-Stripes kerchief round his slouch hat in place of a band, and
a silver star on his breast. It was my friend the portly, fatherly,
stern sheriff.
"Stop, you!" he cried.
But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out shot the sheriff's leg
and tripped the man up. The tomahawk flew from his hand and buried
itself almost to the end of the handle in the dust of the road.
"Stop, you!" cried the sheriff again to the other fellow, who was still
posting on. But the fugitive gave only a quick glance over his shoulder
and accelerated his speed. It looked as though he would escape, when
down flew the sheriff's hand to his belt, then up above his head. He
thrust out his chin vindictively, down came his revolver hand in a
half-circle and--it was just as though he pointed at the flying man with
his weapon--"flash!" The man took one step more, but not a second. His
leg was shot, and he fell. A waggon had stopped on the roadway, the
teamster looking on, and him the sheriff immediately pressed into
service. The man of the tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man of
law-and-order, climbed into the waggon; he of the shot leg was assisted
to follow; the sheriff mounted beside them, and with a brief word to the
teamster away went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round the
corner to the court-house. And then the crowd in the street moved on as
usual, the talk buzzed, the cigar smoke crept overhead.
"Would n't that jar you?" said a voice in my ear, and turning I found
Donoghue by my side. "Just toddling down to Blaine's?"
"Yes," I said, and fell in step with him.
Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the way reassured me
to the extent of making me think that if I was to be shot in the
"coffee-joint," there was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless my
demise was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the way of making
inquiries.
With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the sign "H. B. Blaine.
Makes you think of Home and Mother," I followed Donoghue into the
sweet-scented "joint" with the gleaming coffee urn in the window.
He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind the doughnut-heaped
counter--H. B. Blaine, I presumed--who jerked his head towards the rear
of the establishment.
"Step right in, Mr. Donoghue," he said. "Apache Kid is settin' there."
*CHAPTER V*
_*I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense*_
It was at once evident that I was not to be murdered in H. B. Blaine's
place, and also evident that I had been invited to meet Apache Kid to
hear some matter that was not for all to hear; for immediately on our
entering the little rear room he flung aside a paper he had been reading
and leaped to his feet to meet us. He put a hand on Donoghue's shoulder
and the other he extended to me.
"We'll not talk here," he said. "Walls have ears:" and so we all turned
about and marched out again.
"Going out for a strowl?" asked Blaine.
"Yes," said Apache. "Fine night for a strowl." And we found ourselves
on the street down which we turned and walked in silence.
Suddenly Apache Kid slowed down and swore to himself.
"I should n't have said that!" he remarked angrily.
"Said what?" Donoghue interrogated.
"O! mocked Blaine like that--said we were going for a strowl."
"What do you mean?" asked Donoghue, whose ear did not seem very acute.
Apache looked at him with a relieved expression.
"Well, that's hopeful," he said. "Perhaps Blaine would n't catch it
either. Still, still, I should n't have mocked him. You noticed, I
bet?" he said to me.
"Strowl?" I inquired.
He sighed.
"There 's no sense in trying to make fun of anything in a man's clothes
or talk or manner. Besides, it's excessively vulgar, excessively
vulgar."
"Here 's an interesting 'bad man,'" I mused; but there was no more said
till we won clear of the town, quite beyond the last sidewalks that
stretched and criss-crossed among the rocks and sand, marking out the
prospective streets. There, on a little rising place of sand and rocks,
we sat down.
It was a desolate spot. A gentle wind was blowing among the dunes and
the sand was all moving, trickling down here and piling up there. Being
near sunset the cicadi had disappeared and the evening light falling wan
on the occasional tufts of sage-brush gave them a peculiar air of
desolation. Donoghue pulled out a clasp-knife and sat progging in the
sand with it, and then Apache Kid jerked up his head and smiled on me, a
smile entirely friendly. And suddenly as he looked at me his face
became grave.
"Have you had supper yet?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It's early yet."
He looked at me keenly and then: "You 'll excuse me remarking on your
appearance, but you look extraordinarily tired."
"Oh," said I, lightly, "I have not been feeling just up to the scratch
and--well, I thought I 'd try the fasting cure."
He hummed to himself and dived a hand into his trousers pocket and held
out a five-dollar bill under my nose.
"There," he said, "go and eat and don't lie any more. I 've been there
myself--when I was new to the country and could n't get into its ways."
There was something of such intense warm-heartedness behind the
peremptory tones (while Donoghue turned his face aside, running the sand
between his fingers and looking foolishly at it) that to tell you the
truth, I found the tears in my eyes before I was aware. But this sign
of weakness Apache Kid made pretence not to observe.
"We 'll wait here for you till you get fed," said he, examining the back
of his hand.
"No, no," I answered hastily, "I had rather hear what you have to say
just now." Thank him for his kindness I could not, for I felt that
thanks would but embarrass him. "To tell you the truth, the mere
knowledge that I need not go to bed hungry is sufficient."
"Well," said he, looking up when my voice rang firm. "The fact is, I am
going to offer you a job; but it is a job you might not care to take
unless you were hard pressed; so you will please consider that a loan,
not a first instalment, and the fact of settling it must not influence."
This was very fairly spoken and I felt that I should say something
handsome, but he gave me no opportunity, continuing at once: "Donoghue
here and I are wanting a partner on an expedition that we are going on.
We 're very old friends, we two, but for quite a little while back we
had both been meditating going on this expedition separately. Fact is,
we are such very old friends and know each other's weaknesses so well
that, though we both had the idea of the expedition in our heads, we did
n't care about going together."
All this he spoke as much to Donoghue as to me, with a bantering air;
and one thing at least I learned from this--the reason why these two had
not done as Laughlin thought the natural thing for them to do, namely,
to go out together, heedless of Canlan. For I had no doubt whatever
that the expedition was to the Lost Cabin Mine. That was as clear as
the sun. Further observation of their natures, if further observation I
was to have, might explain their long reluctance to "go partners" on the
venture, a reluctance now evidently overcome.
"Get to your job," growled Donoghue, "and quit palaver."
It was evident that Apache Kid was determined not to permit himself to
be irritated, for he only smiled on Donoghue's snarl and turned to me:
"My friend Donoghue and I," said he, "it is necessary to explain, are
such very old friends that we can cordially hate each other."
"At times," interjected Donoghue.
"Yes; upon occasion," said Apache Kid. "To you, new to this country,
such a state of things between friends may be scarcely comprehensible,
but----" and Apache Kid stopped.
"It's them mountains that does it," said Donoghue, with a heavy frown.
"Them mountains, as Donoghue says; that's it. It's queer how the
mountains, when you get among them, seem to creep in all round you and
lock you up. It does n't take long among them with a man to know whether
you and he belong to the same order and breed. There are men who can
never sleep under the same blanket; yes, never sleep on the same side of
the fire; never, after two days in the hills, ride side by side, but
must get space between them."
His eyes were looking past me on things invisible to me, looking in
imagination, I suppose, on his own past from which he spoke.
"And if you don't like your partner, you know it then," Donoghue said.
"You go riding along and if he speaks to you, you want him to shut it.
And if he don't speak, you ask him what in thunder he's broodin' about.
And you look for him to fire up at you then, and if he don't, you feel
worse than ever and go along with just a little hell burning against him
in here," and he tapped his chest. "You could turn on him and eat him;
yes siree, kill him with your teeth in his neck."
"This is called the return to Nature," said Apache Kid, calmly.
"Return to hell!" cried Donoghue, and Apache Kid inclined his head in
acquiescence. He seemed content to let Donoghue now do the talking.
"Apache and me has come to an agreement, as he says, to go out on the
trail, and though we 've chummed together a heap----"
"In the manner of wolves," said Apache, with a half sneer.
"Yes," said Donoghue, "a good bit like that, too. Well, but on this
trail we can't go alone. It's too all-fired far and too all-fired
lonely."
His gaze wandered to the mountains behind the town and Apache took up
the discourse.
"You see the idea? We want a companion to help us to keep the peace.
Foolish--eh? Well, I don't blame you if you don't quite understand. You
're new here. You 've never been in the mountains, day in day out, with
a man whose soul an altogether different god or devil made; with a man
that you fervently hope, if there's any waking up after the last kick
here, you won't find in your happy hunting-ground beyond. You won't
have to come in between and hold us apart, you know. The mere presence
of a third party is enough."
He looked on me keenly a space and added:
"Somehow I think that you will do more than keep off the bickering
spirit. I think you 'll establish amicable relations."
It was curious to observe how the illiterate Donoghue took his partner's
speech so much for granted.
"What's amicable?" he said.
"Friendly," said Apache Kid.
"Amicable, friendly," said Donoghue, thoughtfully. "Good word,
amicable."
"The trip would be worth a couple of hundred dollars to you," said
Apache, with his eyes on mine. "And if we happened to be out over two
months, at the rate of a hundred a month for the time beyond."
"Well, that's straight enough talk, I guess," said Donoghue. "Is the
deal on?"
My financial condition itself was such as to preclude any doubt. Had I
been told plainly that it was to the Lost Cabin Mine we were going and
been offered a share in it I would, remembering Apache Kid and Donoghue
of the verandah, as I may put it, in distinction from Apache Kid and
Donoghue of to-night--well, I would have feared that some heated sudden
turn of mind of one or the other or both of these men might prevent me
coming into my own. Donoghue especially had a fearsome face to see. But
there was no such suggestion. I was offered two hundred dollars and,
now that the night fell and the silence deepened and the long range of
hills gloomed on us, I thought I could understand that the presence of a
third man might be well worth two hundred dollars to two men of very
alien natures among the silence and the loneliness that would throw them
together closely whether they would or not.
"The deal is on," I said.
We shook hands solemnly then and Donoghue looked toward Apache Kid as
though all the programme was not yet completed. Apache Kid nodded and
produced a roll of bills. The light was waning and he held them close
to him as he withdrew one.
"That'll make us square again," he said, handing me the roll. "I 've
kept off a five; so now we 're not obliged to each other for anything."
And then, as though to seal the compact and bear in upon me a thought of
the expedition we were going upon, the sun disappeared behind the
western hills and from somewhere out there, in the shadows and deeper
shadows of the strange piled landscape, came a long, faint sound, half
bay, half moan. It was the dusk cry of the mountain coyotes; and either
the echo of it or another cry came down from the hills beyond the city,
only the hum of which we heard there. And when that melancholy cry, or
echo, had ended, a cold wind shuddered across the land; all that
loneliness, that by day seemed to lure one ever with its sunlit peaks
and its blue, meditative hollows, seemed now a place of terrors and
strange occurrences; but the lure was still there, only a different
lure,--a lure of terror and darkness instead of romance and sunlight.
*CHAPTER VI*
_*Farewell to Baker City*_
We all came to our feet then, Apache Kid carefully flicking the sand
from his clothing.
"Now," he said, "that settles us. We 're quits." And we all walked
slowly and silently back in company toward the city. When we came to
Blaine's "coffee-joint" Apache Kid stopped, and told me he would see me
later in the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about the starting
out on our venture. Donoghue wanted him to go on with him, but Apache
Kid said he must see Blaine again before leaving the city.
"I desire to leave a good impression of myself behind me," he said with
a laugh. "I should like Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when
that occurs, and as things stand I don't think he 'd care, to use the
language of the country, a continental cuss."
So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered Blaine's.
At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped.
"I 'll be seeing you two days from now," he said.
"Do we not start for two days then?" I asked.
"O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make all the arrangements about
pulling out. So-long, just now."
So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from poverty on the very day
that I had the first taste of it, I felt very much contented and
cheered, and it was with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out,
after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road as far as the
foothill woods and back, breathing deep of the thin air of night and
rejoicing in the starlight.
When I returned to the hotel there was a considerable company upon the
rear verandah, as I could see from quite a distance--dim, shadowy forms
sprawled in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open door behind
shining out on the blue night, and over them was the lamp that always
hung there in the evenings, where the parrot's cage hung by day.
When I came on to the verandah I picked out Apache Kid at once.
A man who evidently did not know him was saying:
"What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging away down your neck
that way?"
There were one or two laughs of other men, who thought they were about
to see a man quietly baited. But Apache Kid was not the man to stand
much baiting, even of a mild stamp.
I think few of the men there, however, understood the nature that
prompted him when he turned slowly in his chair and said:
"Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons."
"Oh! What's them?"
"Well, the first reason is personal--I like to wear it."
There was a grin still on the face of the questioner. He found nothing
particularly crushing in this reply, but Apache went on softly: "Then
again, I wear it so as to aid me in the study of the character of the
men I meet."
"O! How do you work that miracle?"
"Well, when I meet a man who does n't seem to see anything strange in my
wearing of the kerchief I know he has travelled a bit and seen the like
elsewhere in our democratic America. Other men look at it and I can see
they think it odd, but they say nothing. Well, that is a sign to me
that they have not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this way,
but I know that they are gentlemen all the same."
There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in his voice and I saw
the faces of the men on the outside of the crowd turn to observe the
speaker. I thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling looked a
trifle perturbed, but Apache was not looking at him. He lay back in his
chair, gazing before him with a calm face. "Then again," he said
leisurely, as though he had the whole night to himself, "if I meet a man
who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know that he is the sort of man
about whom people say here,--in the language of the country,--'Don't
worry about him; he 's a hog from Ontario and never been out of the bush
before!'"
There was a strained silence after these words. Some of the more
self-reliant men broke it with a laugh. The most were silent.
"I'm a hog--eh? You call me a hog?" cried the man, after looking on the
faces of those who sat around. I think he would have swallowed Apache
Kid's speech without a word of reply had it not been spoken before so
large an audience.
"I did not say so," said Apache Kid, "but if I were you, I would n't
make things worse by getting nasty. I tried to josh a man myself this
afternoon, and do you know what I did? I called in on him to-night to
see whether he had savveyed that I had been trying to josh him. I found
out that he had savveyed, and do you know what I did? I apologised to
him----"
"D' ye think I 'm going to apologise for askin' you that question?"
"You interrupt me," said Apache Kid. "I apologised to him, I was going
to say, like a man. As to whether I think you are going to apologise or
not--no."
He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head to toe and back again.
"No," he repeated decidedly. "I should be very much surprised if you
did."
"By Moses!" cried the man. "You take the thing very seriously. I only
asked you----" and his voice grumbled off into incoherence.
"Yes," said Apache Kid. "I have a name for being very serious. Perhaps
I did answer your question at too great length, however."
He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and broke out with such a
peal of laughter, as he looked at him, that every one else followed
suit; and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and went indoors.