Departures are usually cheerless affairs, but the morning sun loosed a
flood of gold into the _patio_ where the party was in process of
dissolution. William Benson had left with Jake and Sliver, when they
went out on the range, so Bull sat and smoked alone.
It was very pleasant there. His after-breakfast pipe was always the
sweetest of the day, and while puffing contentedly Bull observed with an
indulgent grin two small brown _criadas_, darting with needle and thread
and pins from room to room with first-aid-to-injured habits; the
transparent flirtations, stealthy glances after the girls came out; the
beauty of innocent sex, of youth in love--set his big rough heart aglow.
The girls, with keen instinct for honest feeling, felt it. The young
men, with natural respect for quiet power, admired his kindliness and
strength. Their farewells and invitations were hearty and sincere.
"You've promised and promised and never come yet--that is, for a real
visit," Phoebe and Phyllis rebuked him.
The young men earnestly charged him, "We look to you to take care of our
girls till we're in shape to look after them ourselves."
Not till the Icarzas bid him good-by did that kindly glow fade. Even
when Isabel slid a small soft hand into his huge paw and turned on him
the full power of her big Spanish eyes while uttering lovely felicities,
he remained non-committal. He frowned hearing Lee accept an invitation
for a visit in the near future. But when she came in, after they left,
the hostile look had faded.
"Oh, didn't we have a lovely time?" She patted his arm. "And it was all
due to you."
"And now I'll take my pay. I want to go up to El Paso."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" Darting into her room, she came running back with a
fat roll of bills. "I felt dreadfully, yesterday, because you and Mr.
Sliver and Mr. Jake had to wear your working-clothes. While you are in
El Paso I want you to buy a nice suit apiece."
Now fine raiment, even of the vogue of the Western cow towns, was the
last thing in the world that Bull's heart desired. But she looked so
pretty in her earnestness, he found it hard to refuse. His laugh rumbled
through the _patio_.
"Now that's real nice of you. But back up at the mine we've all got
store clothes to burn. One o' these days, when the work ain't so
pressing, Sliver kin ride over an' get 'em. Fifty'll be all I'll need."
"Oh _dear_!" she gave in, with a little disappointed sigh. "I did want
to do something; you've all been so kind."
But she made up for the disappointment by busy preparations for his
comfort. She packed her own suit-case with socks and clean shirts, then
bossed the job while her _criadas_ brushed and curried and sponged him.
After tying one of her father's cravats around his neck she turned him
round and round like a mother inspecting a school-boy, finally dismissed
him with a gentle pat.
On the Mexican Central, trains were running, as Bull put it, "be how an'
when," but fortune favored him. Catching a mixed freight and passenger
at the burned station that midnight, he camped down on the rear platform
to avoid the fetor of unwashed bodies and tobacco smoke exhaled by the
mixture of _peones_, revolutionary soldiers, and fat Mexican
_comerciantes_ that jammed the only first-class car. When he fell asleep
he could make out the dim outlines of another form that evolved under
the light of the following morning into an American war correspondent.
"'Morning, friend," he greeted Bull, cordially. "My name is Naylor.
Yours? Glad to meet you, Mr. Perrin. Now if you'll tip this water-bottle
for me, I'll do the same by you, and we can take off at least one layer
of dust and cinders."
The operations placed them at once on terms that would have taken years
to establish in civilization's cultured circles. Before it was over,
Bull had learned that his companion was "on a little _pasear_ between
revolutionary battles," and had given, in return, some inkling of his
own affairs. The young fellow's lithe, spare figure, clean face,
fearless gray eyes, impressed him strongly, and while the train ambled
along through the scrubby desert of sand and cactus toward Juarez, he
eyed and estimated and measured him with a care that attracted, at last,
the other's attention.
"Hey!" he demanded. "Is my nose out of plumb, or what?"
Bull warded off offense with the truth. "I happened to be looking for a
man about your size. Any chance of your changing your job?"
"That depends." The correspondent answered, breezily, but with caution.
"Without being what you could call wedded to this sandy, thirsty,
cutthroat business of Mexican revolutions, I like it better than
anything else in sight. But what's your lay? Ranching?" He repeated it
after Bull. "In central Chihuahua? Forget it, friend."
Bull eyed him wistfully. He fitted so closely to specifications.
Finally, in desperation, he opened his simple heart; was explaining his
quest when the young fellow burst out laughing.
"I beg your pardon." He raised a protesting hand against Bull's black
glower, then went on with sympathetic seriousness: "But you'll have to
admit that one doesn't see a man of your build every day in this
matrimonial business. So there's a damsel in distress, hey? That alters
the case. If it wasn't for a little girl up in San Francisco that I
expect to marry some day when I become very rich and famous, I'd try and
help you out, for I know just how you feel. It would be a damned shame
to have her throw herself away on a Mexican. But you've laid yourself
out some job. Not that you won't be able to find men, good-looking chaps
at that. But to get the right one calls for some picking and choosing.
But I tell you what I will do--I shall be up for a week and I'd love to
give you a hand."
"Sure you kedn't tackle it yourself?"
The young fellow denied the wistful appeal. "Hombre! a million wouldn't
release my girl's mortgage."
With a regretful sigh Bull struck hands on the compact. While they were
talking the train had ambled through the brown adobe skirts of Juarez,
the squalid Mexican town across the Rio Grande, whence they were
presently shot by automobile over the international bridge into the
spacious bosom of El Paso's largest hotel. Bull had calculated to go
out, at once, on his search, but while they sat at breakfast there
descended upon them a host of reporters and correspondents, ravenous for
news and aching to dispense hospitality.
"Might as well put it off till to-morrow, Diogenes." His friend had
already named Bull after the person who had such a deuce of a time
hunting an honest man among the grafters and ward heelers of ancient
Greece. "We'll devote to-day to the irrigation of our desiccated
systems, then go to it mañana like hungry dogs. But safety first! Take a
ten out of your wad and give the rest to the clerk."
Instead of one day, however, three passed during which Bull's huge bulk
upreared alongside a hundred bars. In all that time he never went to
bed, for, intensified by long abstinence, the outbreak proved unusually
virulent. Generally the conclusion of his debauches found him broke.
But, thanks to the correspondent's prevision, he awoke on the fourth
morning, in bed at the hotel, with the bulk of his money still in the
office safe. While he was draining the water-jug according to
time-honored precedents, his friend appeared in the doorway of the
adjoining room. His own head was swathed in a wet towel that almost hid
his rueful grin.
"One never knows what one is starting. You certainly went the limit,
Diogenes. Are you quite sure you're through?"
Bull nodded and put down the jug with a satisfied sigh. "It's a bit of a
strain, this fathering an' mothering a lone girl, a feller's gotter keep
so straight." He added, apologetically, "I was jest plumb ripe for a
bust, but I reckon this orter hold me for another three months."
"Very well, then, let's get down to work. At intervals, while I could
still see, I kept one eye open for possibles. But it's like looking for
gold or diamonds; the supply doesn't touch the demand. The few prospects
all proved to have attachments in the shape of sweetheart or wife. Good
ones, I suppose, are so rare that the girls grab them at sight like
marked-down waists on a bargain-counter."
After two days of vain search through the plazas and parks, hotel
lobbies, streets, and bars of El Paso, Bull was almost driven to the
same conclusion. Short men, tall men, thin men, broad men; some that
were ugly, others handsome; well and ill clad from all walks of
life--passed under his observation. The few he trailed were either
engulfed within the sacred precincts of some bank or met at the doors of
suburban bungalows and there warmly kissed by young and pretty wives.
Without fulfilling the specifications called for in the potential
husband, it would have been difficult enough to have enlisted an
ordinary ranch hand for service across the line. At the close of the
second day Bull reported as much to the correspondent when they met in
the hotel lobby.
"Guess I'll have to give it up."
"Now if _that_ was only free." The other bowed, just then, to a young
man who had just walked in from the street. "Look at him! Five-eleven in
his socks, hazel eyes, brown hair, good strong jaw, flat shoulders and
flanks, deep chest; walks the earth like he owned it. Some dresser, too.
That mixed plaid cost a hundred at his New York tailor's."
"Some banker's son, I'll bet you," Bull grumbled.
"That or better. I had a little chat with him this morning. A 'varsity
man by his accent and manner. Seemed to know the Mexican situation down
to the ground from the Wall Street end, so papa's probably a broker.
Holy snakes! Look at that! Neat work! Neat work!"
Walking up to the counter, the young man had held out his
hand--evidently for the key of his room--while his indifferent gaze
traveled around the lobby. The clerk, who departed in no wise from the
casual specifications of his supercilious breed, glanced at the hand
contemptuously. Turning, the young man spoke. Then as, without glancing
up, the clerk answered, he snatched, hauled that superior person across
the counter, and slammed him down hard on the floor. Next, as they came
on, he felled one large door porter and three oversized bell-boys who
had answered the clerk's yell. This done, he waited, expectantly,
quietly surveying the wreck, the hazel eye admired by Naylor transmuted
into hard steel flecked with dots of brown light.
Jaw, eyes, pose, all said, "Next!" But the "wreck" was complete. The
oversized bell-boys ran off to answer imaginary calls. An automobile
party at the door called for the porter's attention. Deserted, the clerk
swiftly retreated behind his counter, behind which, from a safe
distance, he issued defiant mutterings. With a slight nod that expressed
comprehension and satisfaction, Hazel-Eyes sauntered across the lobby
out into the street.
All had passed in the time required for the correspondent to reach the
desk. He was back again in five seconds. "He's broke--owes two weeks'
room rent. Clerk told him to get out; hence the scrap. Diogenes, we're
in luck! Venus and Cupid are in the ascendant. He's our meat."
Grabbing Bull's arm, he hustled him outside, where they spied the quarry
turning up a cross-street that led to the plaza. When he finally settled
down on an empty bench, the correspondent nudged Bull in the ribs.
"Look at them!" He indicated the hundreds of men idling on the benches
or sprawled out on the turf. "Last refuge of the broke, home of the
out-of-works. That settles it. Bet you he hasn't the price of a meal.
But, say! he's plucky. The beggar is actually smiling."
From the way in which the young fellow's glance wandered around the
assembled out-of-works, it was easy to see that he rather enjoyed the
novel situation. When Bull had noted and commented on the fact, the
correspondent went on:
"Now, Diogenes, we must proceed with due regard for the traditions. When
grand dukes, princes, and caliphs in disguise befriend some worthy
person, they invariably begin by testing his honesty--see _Arabian
Nights_ and other authorities. Split a couple of tens off your wad and
drop them as you stroll past him. I'll stay here and watch lest he be
found wanting."
Bull managed it, too, quite cleverly, scraping the bills out of his
pocket along with his tobacco-pouch. Watching closely, the correspondent
saw the young fellow look, pick them up, then run and tap Bull's
shoulder. Leaning back, he shook with silent laughter.
"And they say romance is dead," his thought ran. "_Dead!_ while this
big, black giant stalks around like a knight of old seeking a perfect
husband for a girl he's known only a few weeks. Diogenes, my friend, Don
Quixote had nothing on you. Of all the lovely, fine pieces of idiocy
that ever helped to raise us out of the muck of commercialism, this is
the very finest. And wouldn't it be queer if it worked? It's almost too
good to be true, and yet--a girl that can move a man to do things like
that must be remarkably worth while. Quien sabe? Perhaps it will end
like all true romances, with a happy marriage."
Till the two settled down side by side on a bench, the correspondent
watched. Then with a satisfied nod he rose and walked out of Bull's life
in the same casual way he had entered it; to return once more, however,
at a critical juncture, many months later.
Thus left to his own devices, Bull carried on the campaign with
diplomacy quite foreign to his Goliath makeup. From thanks and casual
observations anent the weather, he led by gradual stages to labor
conditions as exemplified by the surrounding out-of-works. His simulated
astonishment when the young fellow claimed community with them was
remarkably well done.
"_No-o-o!_" he protested.
"Sure!" the other nodded. "I was turned out of my hotel only half an
hour ago."
Quite in the fashion of grand dukes and caliphs, Bull still pretended
doubt. "Broke, mebbe, but you don't belong with these. What was it?
Wine, weemen, or cyards?"
The young fellow grinned a little ruefully. "A woman, yes, but not in
the usual way. What would you think if I told you--But, pshaw! what's
the use? It would sound to you just like any other out-of-work
fairy-tale. Well, it may amuse you. If you really want to know, I'm
here, busted and broke, because I refused a hundred thousand dollars'
worth of gilt-edged securities and real estate."
"A hundred thousand!" Bull's financial acquaintance having rarely risen
above the sixty-a-month class, he could not repress his surprise.
"There, I told you. Nevertheless, it is true. I am here because I
refused a hundred thousand--with a girl attached."
Bull's face fell. "I see. Folks wanted you to marry her an' you refused
beca'se you'd already picked one for yourself."
The young man nodded. "Correct except in one or two particulars. I
disliked the girl so much that her money couldn't tempt me. As for the
one I'll marry, I haven't picked her yet. But I mean to when I'm taken
that way."
Bull's face lit up with hope again as, with naïve frankness, the young
fellow went into details; told how his father had set his heart on a
marriage that would unite the wealth of two families. The girl, an only
daughter, was desirable; pretty, accomplished, played, sang, and all
that! They had been brought up almost like brother and sister, and there
was the hitch!
"For a fellow doesn't want to marry his sister," he explained. "I know
her so well she hasn't a surprise in her hand. When I hook up, it will
be with a girl that can bowl me over at first sight and keep me guessing
forever after. But the Relieving Officer"--he broke off, laughing at
Bull's puzzled look--"that's my name for my father. He was always coming
through when I got in debt at college, hence the title. He's a good old
scout, but obstinate as--as--"
"--yourself?" Bull suggested.
"Right-o! Well, you know what happens when the irresistible force hits
the immovable obstacle--something busts. That was me. Without even the
last check the stern parent presents to the undutiful son in melodrama,
I got. Of course the dear old gentleman wouldn't have me suffer. He
supposed I'd presently come home to partake of the fatted calf; and just
for fear that I might, I took my last money and bought a ticket West. So
here I am, without money and without friends. Add it up and subtract the
result--pick and shovel. I see them looming in the future."
"Oh, shore!" The caliph--that is, Bull--was proceeding very cautiously.
"You'll get a job in some bank."
"Don't believe it. You see, I'd just come home from Princeton and had no
commercial training. Anyway, I'd rather work in the open, ranching, or
something like that. If I had a little capital, I'd buy in. As I
haven't, I'm open for any kind of a job. But there, again, I've got no
experience further than the fact that I can ride a horse. I'm afraid
it's pick and shovel."
The abused and hackneyed psychological moment had arrived! The net was
spread, the twigs limed, the cage door open! With great artfulness Bull
proceeded to shoo the bird inside. He knew of a job--in fact, it was on
the same _hacienda_ where he worked himself! Of course it had the
disadvantage of being located in Mexico, across the line where nothing
was certain but death and "requisitions"! And there was always the
chance of a scrap! He, Bull, wouldn't advise any one to try it that had
too strong a grip on this life, for there was no saying just when one
might be launched into "Kingdom Come." But for a man who liked action
and would take a fighting chance--so forth and so on.
A disinterested listener would have thought these and kindred
inducements were eminently fitted to scare the bird away. If so--Bull
did not want him. But, sizing him for a lad of spirit with the romantic
outlook of his years, he counted on their appeal. Nor was he mistaken.
He had finished telling of Carleton's death at the hands of the
Colorados, and was relating the accidental manner in which he and his
_compañeros_ had assumed the guardianship of Lee, when the young fellow
thrust out his hand.
"Say, that's fine, old man! I'd be proud to have you take me in. My name
is Nevil--Gordon Nevil, at your service. When do we start?"
"Whenever the train goes, an' that's be guess an' be God. It's billed to
pull out from Juarez this evening, but we'll be lucky if it leaves
before morning. But sometimes they do make a mistake an' start almost on
time. So we'll go aboard to-night."
"What about clothes?" The recruit glanced down with distaste and dismay
at his fashionable tweeds. "I can't punch cows in these."
"Hardly," Bull grinned. "You'd come out from your first bunch of pear
chaparral naked as on the day you were born. Come on an' we'll see about
an outfit."
It was found without any trouble in a convenient Jew store, and Gordon
changed into it there and then. In cord riding-breeches, a brown army
shirt, shoes, and leather puttees, topped with a conical cowman's hat,
his length of limb, flat flanks, deep chest, appeared to even better
advantage. Bull's expression, looking him over, would have fitted a
match-making mama surveying a pretty daughter arrayed for her début. His
comment, "You'll do," would have surprised the recipient could he have
divined all of its implications.
Thoroughly satisfied, Bull was producing the money to pay, when Gordon
stopped him. "Here, you can't do that!"
"But you're broke."
"I still have these." He held out the tweeds. "How much boot do I get,
Father Abraham?"
Already the Jew had felt with secret rumblings of the material, but he
stood for his tradition. "Only vot iss on your feet. These ain'd much
good. But you are a nice young veller. I make it an even trade."
"You'll chuck in that pair of chaps?"
With the customary grumblings that he would be ruined by his own
generosity, the Hebrew eventually complied. While his customers were
stowing away the _chaparros_ and a few extras in a slop-bag, he made out
a ticket for the suit, and pausing on their way out, their late owner
read the legend which announced to the world that it was to be had very
cheap for twenty-nine dollars and ninety cents.
Gordon burst into a merry laugh. "Father Abraham isn't on to real
clothes. They stung me a hundred and ten for that in New York."