Looking back, I am quite sure that John Jacob Dumble's chief claim to
the confidence of our community--a confidence invariably abused--was
the fact that the rascal's family were such "nice folks," "so well-
raised," so clean, so respectable, such constant and punctual "church-
members." After the Presbyterian Church was built in Paradise, no more
edifying spectacle could be seen than the arrival on Sunday mornings
of the Dumble family in their roomy spring wagon. The old man--he was
not more than fifty-five--had two pretty daughters and a handsome son.
Mrs. Dumble, a comely woman, always wore grey clothes and grey thread
gloves. She had a pale, too impassive face, and her dark hair, tightly
drawn back from her brows, had curious white streaks in it. Ajax said
a thousand times that he should not sleep soundly until he had
determined whether or not Mrs. Dumble was a party to her husband's
misdemeanours. My brother's imagination, as I have said before, runs
riot at times. He was of opinion that the wearing of grey indicated a
character originally white, but discoloured by her husband's dirty
little tricks. Certainly Mrs. Dumble was a woman of silence,
secretive, with lips tightly compressed, as if--as Ajax remarked--she
feared that some of John Jacob's peccadilloes might escape from them.
The father was inordinately proud of his son, Quincey, who in many
respects took after the mother. He, too, was quiet, self-possessed,
and somewhat pale. He worked for us and other cattlemen, not for his
father, and after the lad left school Ajax fell to speculating about
him, as he speculated about the mother.
"Is Quincey on to the old man's games?" he would ask.
It must be recorded that John Jacob was very careful to keep within
the limits of the law, but he ploughed close to the line, where the
soil, as we all know, is richest and, comparatively speaking, virgin.
But no man in the county was louder than he in denouncing such crimes
as horse-stealing or cattle-lifting, crimes in those days
disgracefully common. He might ear-mark a wandering piglet, for
instance, or clap his iron upon an unbranded yearling; but who could
swear that these estrays were not the lawful property of him upon
whose land they were found?
At that time Ajax and I were breeding Cleveland Bays, and amongst our
colts we had two very promising animals likely to make a match team,
and already prize-winners at the annual county fair. One day in
October, Uncle Jake, our head vaquero, reported the colts to be
missing out of our back pasture. Careful examination revealed the
cutting of the fence. Obviously the colts had been stolen.
Ajax suggested that we should employ old man Dumble to help us to
recover the stolen property. He was shrewd and persevering, and he
knew every man, woman, and child within a radius of fifty miles.
"Why, boys," said he, when we asked him to undertake the job, "I'd do
more than this to help friends and neighbours. It's a dooty to hunt
down these scallywags, a dooty, yas--and a pleasure."
We took the trail that night. The thief, so far as we could
conjecture, had about twenty hours start, but then he would be obliged
to travel by night and by devious mountain-paths. According to old
Dumble, his objective would be Bakersfield, and to reach Bakersfield
some dry plains must be traversed. At the watering-places upon these
plains we might expect to hear from sheep-herders and vaqueros some
information respecting animals so handsome and so peculiarly marked as
our colts.
And so it proved. At a dismal saloon, where water was nearly as
expensive and quite as bad as the whisky, we learned that a bright bay
colt with a white star and stocking, and another with a white nose,
had been seen early that morning. Old man Dumble gleaned more.
"We're dealing with a tenderfoot and a stranger to the saloon-keeper,"
he said, as we struck into the sage-brush wilderness. "The fool didn't
know enough to spend a few dollars at the bar. He called for one
lemonade."
"Well," said Ajax, "you are teetotal yourself; you ought to respect a
man who calls for lemonade."
"I ain't a thief," said our neighbour. "If I was," he added, "I reckon
I'd cover my tracks around saloons with a leetle whisky. Boys, there's
another thing. This feller we're after is ridin' too fast. Them colts
won't stand it. Young things must feed an' rest. The saloon-keeper
allowed they were footsore a'ready, and kinder petered out. We must
keep our eyes skinned."
"You're a wonder," said Ajax. "How you divined that the thief would
travel this trail beats me."
"Wal," said old man Dumble, "it's this way. There's a big dealer comes
three times a year to Bakersfield; he pays good money for good stuff--
an' he asks no questions. I happened to hear he was a-comin' down only
las' Sunday."
Something in his voice, some sly gleam in his eye, aroused my
suspicions. As soon as we happened to be alone, I whispered to my
brother: "I say, what if the old man is playing hare and hound with
us?"
"Pooh!" said Ajax. "He's keen as mustard to collar this thief--the
keener, possibly, since he discovered that the fellow is a tenderfoot.
I've sized him up about right. He wants to establish a record. It's
like this teetotal business of his. The people here refuse to believe
evil of a man who drinks water, goes to church, and catches horse-
thieves. I'll add one word more. To give the old fraud his due, he
really holds in abhorrence any crime that might land him in the State
penitentiary. Hullo! There's a faint reek out yonder. I'll take a
squint through my glasses."
We called a halt. We were now on the alkaline plains beyond the San
Emigdio mountains. Riding all through the night, we had changed horses
at a ranch where we were known. Ajax stared through his binoculars.
"What we're after," said he quietly, "is in sight."
He handed his glasses to me. I could barely make out a horseman,
herding along two animals. The plains were blazing with heat. In the
distance a soft blue haze obscured the horizon; faintly outlined
against this were three spirals of what seemed to be white smoke:
three moving pillars of alkaline dust.
"He can't git away from us," said old man Dumble.
Looking at him, my suspicions took flight. He was, as Ajax said,
keener than we to arrest the thief. His small eyes sparkled with
excitement; his right index-finger was crooked, as if itching for the
trigger; his lips moved. In fancy he was rehearsing the "Stand and
deliver" of an officer of the law!
"We kin ride him down," he muttered.
"Yes," said Ajax.
We looked to our girths and our pistols. It was unlikely that the
thief would show fight, but--he might. Then we mounted, and galloped
ahead.
"Forrard--for-r-rard!" shouted Ajax.
Within a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at most, the man we were
hunting would see us; then the chase would really begin. He would
abandon the footsore colts, and make for the hills. And so it came to
pass. Presently, we saw the horseman turn off at right angles; the
jaded colts hesitated, trotted a few yards, and stood still. A faint
neigh floated down wind.
"Doggone it!" exclaimed old man Dumble, "his horse is fresh. He's got
friends in the hills."
We had left the trail, and were pounding over the sage-brush desert. I
could smell the sage, strongly pungent, and the alkaline dust began to
irritate my throat; the sun, if one stood still, was strong enough to
blister the skin of the hands.
For three-quarters of an hour it seemed to me that the distance
between us and our quarry remained constant; but Dumble said we were
falling behind. The thief was lighter than any of us, and his horse
was evidently a stayer. The hills rose out of the haze, bleak and
bare, seamed with gulches, a safe sanctuary for all wild things.
"If the cuss was within range, I'd try a shot," said the old man.
"I'd like to make out who he is," said Ajax.
Suddenly the horse of the thief fell. We discovered later that the
beast had plunged into a piece of ground honeycombed with squirrel-
holes. The man staggered to his feet; the horse struggled where he
fell, but did not rise. His shoulder was broken.
"We have him!" yelled Dumble.
"Yes; we have him," repeated my brother. "Suppose we take a look at
him?"
The thief had abandoned all idea of escape. He stood beside his horse,
waiting for us; but at the distance we could not determine whether he
intended to surrender quietly or to fight. Ajax adjusted his glasses,
and glanced through them. Then, with an exclamation, he handed them to
me.
"Kin ye make him out, boys?" asked our neighbour.
"Yes," said I, giving back the glasses to Ajax. He handed them in
silence to old man Dumble. Then, instinctively, both our right hands
went to our belts. We were not quite sure what a father might do.
He did what should have been expected--and avoided. He dropped the
binoculars. Then he turned to us, trembling, livid--a scarecrow of the
man we knew;
"It's my boy," he said hoarsely. "And I thought he was the best boy in
the county. Oh God!"
A minute may have passed, not more. One guesses that in that brief
time the unhappy father saw clearly the inevitable consequences of his
own roguery and sharp practice. He had sowed, broadcast, innumerable,
nameless little frauds; he reaped a big crime. I looked across those
dreary alkaline plains and out of the lovely blue haze beyond I seemed
to see the Dumbles' spring wagon rolling to church. Mrs. Dumble's
pale, impassive face was turned to the bleak plains. At last I read
her aright, that quiet woman of silence. She knew the father of her
children from the outer rind to the inmost core. I thought of the
pretty daughters, who did not know. And out yonder stood the son.
Ajax beckoned me aside. We whispered together for a moment or two.
Then my brother spoke--
"We're going to lead home our colts," he said curtly; "and you can
lead home yours. We shall take better care of ours after this
experience. They won't be allowed to run wild in the back pasture."
"Boys--Quincey an' me----"
"Shush-h-h!" said Ajax. "That fellow out there is a long way off. I
could not swear in a court of law that he is the person we take him to
be. Whom he looks like we know, who he is we don't know, and we don't
wish to know. So long."
We rode back to our colts.