As has been intimated elsewhere in this story, San Pasqual has the
reputation of being a “tough” town. This is due in a large measure to
the fact that it is a division terminal, and at all division terminals
train crews must reckon with that element in our leisure class which
declines to pay railroad fare and elects to travel on brake-beams rather
than in Pullman sleepers. Having been unceremoniously plucked from his
precarious perch, the dispossessed hobo, finding himself stranded in a
desert town where the streets are not electrically lighted, follows the
dumb dictates of his stomach and the trend of his abnormal ambition, and
promptly “turns a trick.” Occasionally there is an objection on the part
of the “trickee” and somebody gets killed. Naturally enough, it follows
that the sound of pistol shots is frequently heard in the land, and
since it happens nine times out of ten that the argument is between
transients, the permanent resident is not nearly so interested in the
outcome as one might imagine--particularly when the shooting takes place
at night and beyond the town limits.
Harley P. Hennage had crossed from the eating-house, and had just
reached the porch of the Silver Dollar saloon, when above the whistling
of the “zephyr” he heard the muffled reports of three pistol shots.
One “Borax” O'Rourke, a “mule-skinner” from up Keeler way, who had just
arrived in San Pasqual to spend his pay-day after the fashion of the
country, heard them also.
“Down the tracks,” O'Rourke elucidated. “Tramps fightin' with a railroad
policeman, I guess. Let's go down.”
“What's the use?” objected Mr. Hennage. “A yegg never does any damage
unless he's right on top of his man. They all carry little short bulldog
guns, an' I never did see one o' them little bar pistols that would
score a hit at twenty yards after sundown. They carry high.”
At that instant the sound of another shot was heard, but faintly.
“That's the hobo” announced Mr. Hennage with conviction. “Them first
three shots came from a life-size gun.”
Half a minute passed; then came the report of six shots, following so
quickly upon each other that they sounded almost like a volley.
“Nine shots” commented “Borax” O'Rourke. “That's an automatic.”
“That's what it is!” Mr. Hennage walked to the end of the porch. He was
just a little excited. “It's all off with the hobo” he continued. “I
know the man that's using that automatic, and he can shoot your eye
out at a hundred yards. I saw him ridin' in just as I left the eatin'
house.”
“He must have been movin' to get down there in such a hurry. What's a
man on horseback doin' chasin' hobos across a web of railroad tracks,
an' if he was headed south, seems to me he'd have laid over for
supper--”
But Harley P. had a flash of inspiration now. “Come on, O'Rourke” he
shouted, and made a flying leap off the saloon porch. Borax followed,
and the two raced down the street at top speed--which, in the case of
Mr. Hennage, owing to his weight and his bow-legs, was not remarkable.
Borax easily outdistanced him.
Meanwhile, a rather spectacular panorama had been unfolding itself back
of the string of box-cars. Guided by Donna's screams, Bob McGraw sent
his horse away at a tearing gallop, lifting him in great leaps across
the maze of railroad tracks, and in a shower of flying cinders brought
him up, almost sitting, in the little foot-path between two lines of
track. Almost under Friar Tuck's front feet, Donna was struggling in
the grasp of three ruffians, one of whom was endeavoring to tie a
handkerchief across her mouth. The velocipede had been derailed by means
of a car-stake placed across the track.
Bob McGraw's long gun rose and fell three times, and at each deadly drop
a streak of flame punctured the moon-light. The three assailants went
down, shot through their respective legs--which remarkable coincidence
was not a coincidence at all, but merely a touch of kindly consideration
on the part of Bob McGraw, who didn't believe in killing his man when
wounding him would serve the same purpose.
As the three brutes dropped away from her the man from Owens river
valley lowered his weapon, and Donna, pale, terrorized and disheveled,
reeled toward him. He swung his horse a little, leaned outward and
downward, and with a sweep of his strong left arm he lifted her off the
ground and set her in front of him on Friar Tuck's neck, just as one of
the wounded thugs straightened up, cut loose with his bulldog gun and
shot Bob McGraw through the right breast.
Donna heard a half-suppressed “Oh!” from her deliverer, and felt him
sway forward a little. Then, seeming to summon every atom of grit and
strength he possessed, he whirled his horse, scuttled away around the
rear of the box-car, out of danger, and set Donna on the ground.
“Wait here” he commanded, through teeth clenched to keep back the blood
that welled from within him. “I was too kind--to those hounds.”
He rode back and finished his night's work. War-mad, he sat his horse,
reeling in the saddle, and emptied his gun into the squirming wretches
as they sought to crawl under the car for protection.
Donna was terribly frightened, but she was the last woman in the world
to go into hysterics. She realized that she was saved, and accordingly
commenced to cry, while waiting for the horseman to reappear. A minute
passed and still he did not come, and suddenly, without quite realizing
what she was doing or why she did it, the girl went back to the scene
of the battle to look for him. She was not so badly frightened now, but
rather awed by the silence, Donna was desert-bred, and in all her life
she had never fainted. For a girl she was remarkably free from “nerves,”
and she had lived too long in San Pasqual to faint now at sight of the
three still figures huddled between the ties, even had she seen them;
which, she had not. All that Donna saw was a roan range pony, standing
quietly with drooping head, while his master sprawled in the saddle with
his arms around his horse's neck. Donna went quickly to him, and when
the moon came out from behind a hurrying cloud she was enabled, with the
aid of the ghastly green glare from a switch lantern which shone on his
face, to observe that he was quite conscious and looking at her with
untroubled boyish eyes.
His hat was lying on the ground, securely anchored by the pony's left
fore foot. With rather unnatural calmness and following, subconsciously
perhaps, her acquired instinct for salving hats for the men of her
little world, Donna stooped, slapped the pony's leg to make him release
the hat and picked it up. She stood for a few seconds, with the hat in
her hand, looking at him pityingly. The man's brown eyes blazed with
admiration.
“What a woman!” he wheezed. “You're brave--like a man. You came back.
I'd like--to live--to serve you further--”
He gurgled, a red stain appeared at the corners of his mouth, and he
closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again his soul was
shining through and he smiled a little. He did not again attempt to
speak, yet, for all that, Donna heard the man-call to the woman that
belonged to him, the mate for whom he had been destined when the world
was first created. There are in this world personalities so finely
attuned to each other that mere words are unnecessary to express the
feelings of each for the other when first they meet. Between certain
rare souls the gulf of convention may be bridged by a glance; the divine
miracle of a pure and holy love, leaping to life in an instant, can
suffer no defilement by a spontaneous and human impulse to grasp the
precious gift ere life departs.
Some women love at first sight, but the vast majority, lacking the
imagination to perceive, at a glance, the attributes that go toward the
making of a Man, only think they love and delay a conventional period
before yielding. But Donna Corblay had lived so long in sordid,
unimaginative, unromantic San Pasqual that, from much inhibition and
introspection, she was different from most women. She had grown to rely
on herself, to trust her own judgment and to bank on first impressions.
As she faced Bob McGraw now, her first impression was that he was
telling her with his eyes that he loved her, that he had ridden in
behind this string of box-cars to purchase her honor at the price of his
life, because he loved her. And inasmuch as there appeared to be nothing
unusual or unconventional in his telling her this--with his eyes, Donna
was sensible of but one feeling and one desire; a feeling of gratitude
to him for the priceless gift of his love and her honor, a desire to--
She dropped his hat, wiped the blood from his lips and kissed him.
Bob McGraw smiled wistfully.
“It's worth it,” he whispered, “and few women are--worth--dying for.”
“You must not die,” the girl cried passionately. “You're my Dream Man
and I've waited so long for you and dreamed of your coming! I'll pray
for you, I'll ask God to give you to me--”
An almost fanatical joy beamed in her wonderful eyes, the color had
returned to her cheeks; and to Bob McGraw, faltering there on the edge
of eternity, her radiant regal presence brought a wondrous peace. For a
moment he saw the moonlight reflecting the light in her eyes; a
strand of her hair blew across his face--he smelled its perfume; the
intoxication of her glorious personality caused him to marvel and doubt
his own waning sense of the reality of things. He leaned toward her
hungrily and lapsed into unconsciousness, while his big limp body
commenced to slide slowly out of the slippery saddle. She caught him in
her strong arms, eased him to the ground and knelt there with his red
head in her lap, showering his face with her kisses and her tears. It
was thus that “Borax” O'Rourke, badly blown after his three-hundred-yard
dash, found them.
“Great snakes, young lady, what's happened?” gasped Mr. O'Rourke.
“Three brutes and a man have been killed” she replied.
“What the--who--who's that feller? Are you--”
“Don't ask questions, Borax. I am not hurt, but I have no time to answer
questions. Please remove that car-stake and replace the velocipede on
the tracks.”
Her cool demeanor, despite her tears, her terse commands, indicating
a plan for prompt action of some kind, flabbergasted Borax to such an
extent that he commenced to swear very fluently, without for a moment
realizing that there was a lady present. And just at this juncture
Harley P. Hennage arrived.
As might be expected, Harley P. wasted no time catering to the call of
curiosity.
“Let me have him, Miss Donna,” he ordered. “We'll put him on the
velocipede and rush him up to the hotel. I'll--”
“No, Mr. Hennage. He belongs to me. Place him on the velocipede and help
me take him home.”
“To the Hat Ranch?”
“Yes, of course, I can care for him there, if he lives.”
“Why, Miss Donna--”
“Do it, please” she commanded. “I know best. Set him on the little
platform and tie his legs to the reach. Then stand behind him to work
the lever, and let him rest against your knees. I'll follow with the
horse.”
“Remarkable! Very remarkable!” soliloquized the big gambler. Without
further ado he proceeded to carry out Donna's orders.
“Borax,” Donna continued, “you run up to the drug store and tell Doc
Taylor what's happened. I'll send Sam Singer back with the velocipede
for him.”
She gathered the reins in her left hand and swung aboard Friar
Tuck. Harley P., having disposed of his gory burden on the limited
accommodations of the track velocipede, seized the levers and trundled
away, followed by Donna on Friar Tuck, cautiously picking his way
between the ties.
Borax O'Rourke stood for a moment, gazing after them.
“She acts like a mother cat with a kitten” he muttered. “Damned if she
wasn't kissin' the feller--an' him a stranger in town!”
He walked rapidly back to San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation
that he sought to have “Doc” Taylor unravel the puzzle for him.
“Hysterics” was the doctor's explanation.
“Rats” retorted O'Rourke.
“All right, then. It's rats.” The doctor grabbed his emergency grip and
departed on the run for the Hat Ranch. Sam Singer met him half-way with
the velocipede.
O'Rourke returned to the Silver Dollar saloon where, since he was a
vulgarian and a numbskull, he retailed his story to the loungers there
assembled.
“I'll never git over the sight o' that girl a-kissing that young feller”
he concluded. “Why, I'd down a hobo every mornin' before breakfast if I
knowed for certain she'd treat _me_ that-a-way for doin' it.”
The situation was canvassed at considerable length, and only the
entrance of the constable with a request, for volunteers to help him
remove the “remainders” that were littering up the right of way below
town, served to turn the conversation into other channels.
Upon their arrival at the Hat Ranch a shout from Harley P. Hennage
brought Sam Singer and Soft Wind to the front gate. Donna dismounted,
tying Friar Tuck to the “zephyr” by the simple process of dropping the
reins over his head, and hurried into the house to prepare her mother's
old room for the reception of the wounded man. Bob McGraw was very
limp and white as Harley P. and the Indian carried him in. The gambler
undressed him while Sam Singer sprang aboard the velocipede and sped
back toward town to meet the doctor.
When the doctor arrived, he and Harley P. Hennage went into the bedroom,
closing the door after them. Donna remained in the kitchen. She had
already ordered Soft Wind to light a fire in the range and heat some
water, and when presently the gambler came out to the kitchen he nodded
his appreciation of her forethought ere he disappeared again with the
hot water and a basin.
In about an hour Doctor Taylor emerged, grip in hand.
“I've done all I can for him, Miss Corblay” he told her. “I'm going up
town to close the drug store and get a few things I may need, but I'll
be back within an hour and spend the balance of the night with him.”
“Will he live?”
Donna's voice was calm, her tones hinting of nothing more than a
friendly interest and sympathy; yet Harley P., watching her over the
doctor's shoulder, guessed the stress of emotion under which she strove,
for he, too, had seen her kiss Bob McGraw as he lay unconscious in her
arms.
“I fear he will not. The bullet ranged upward, perforating the top of
his right lung, and went on clean through. I've seen men recover from
wounds in more vital parts, but a .45-caliber bullet did the trick to
our young friend, and a .45 tears quite a hole. He's big and strong and
has a fighting chance, but I'm afraid--very much afraid--of internal
hemorrhage, and traumatic pneumonia is bound to set in.”
“He will not die!” said Donna.
The doctor looked at her curiously. “I hope not” he said. “But he'll
need a trained nurse and the best of care to pull through. It's long
odds.”
“That young feller's middle name is Long Odds.” Mr. Hennage had arrived
at the conclusion that Donna needed a great deal of comforting at that
moment. “He's lived on long odds ever since he came into this country.”
“How do you know, Hennage?” the doctor demanded. “I tell--”
“Long odds an' long guns, like birds o' feather always flock together”
the gambler answered him drily, “This young feller wouldn't feel that he
was gettin' any joy out o' life if he didn't tackle the nub end o'
the deal. I'm layin' even money he comes up to the young lady's
expectations.”
Donna thanked him with her eyes, and Harley P. crossed to the door and
looked down the long patio to where a small white wooden cross gleamed
through the festoons of climbing roses.
“He ought to have a nurse” the doctor advised Donna.
“Very well, doctor. You will telephone to Bakersfield, or Los Angeles,
will you not, and engage one?”
“I don't think our patient can afford the expense. Hennage frisked him
and all the money--”
“Thank you, I will attend to the financial side of this case, Doctor
Taylor.”
Mr. Hennage turned from his survey of the patio.
“Doc,” he complained, “it's time for you to move out o' San Pasqual.
You've stayed too long already. You're gettin' the San Pasqual sperrit,
Doc. You ain't got no sympathy for a stranger.”
“Well, you don't expect me to put up twenty-five a week and railroad
fare--”
“Never mind worryin' about what you've got to put up with, Doc. If you
know all the things I put up with--thanks, Doc. Hurry back, and don't
forget to 'phone for that nurse.”
“Ain't it marvelous how a small camp always narrers the point o' view?”
the gambler observed when the doctor had gone. “Always thinkin' o'
themselves an' money, A man in my business, Miss Donna, soon learns that
mighty few men--an' women, too--will stand the acid. That young feller
inside (he jerked a fat thumb over his shoulder) will stand it. I know.
I've applied the acid. An' you'll stand the acid, too,” he added--“when
Mrs. Pennycook hears you kissed Bob McGraw. Ouch! That woman's tongue
drips corrosive sublimate.”
Donna blushed furiously.
“You--you--won't tell, will you, Mr. Hennage?”
“Of course not. But that chuckleheaded roughneck O'Rourke will. Why did
you kiss him? I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but I'd like to know,
Miss Donna.”
“I kissed him”--Donna commenced to cry and hid her burning face in her
hands. “I kissed him because--because--I thought he was dying--and he
was the first man--that looked at--me so different. And he was so brave,
Mr. Hennage--”
“That you thought he was a man an' worth the kiss, eh, Miss Donna?”
“I guess that's the explanation” she confessed, the while she marveled
inwardly that she should feel such relief at unburdening her secret to
the worst man in San Pasqual.
“If some good woman had only done that for me” the gambler murmured a
little wistfully. “If she only had! But of course this young Bob, he's
different from--what I was at his age--”
“I couldn't help it” Donna sobbed; “he's one of the presuming kind.”
Harley P. sat down and laughed until his three gold teeth almost
threatened to fall out.
“God bless your sweet soul, Miss Donna,” he gasped, “go in and kiss
him again! He needs you worse than he does a nurse. Go in an' kiss the
presumin' cuss.”
“You're making fun of me” Donna charged.
“I'm not. Can't a low-down, no-account man like me even laugh where
there's happiness? Why, if that young feller goes to work an' spoils it
all by kickin' the bucket, I'd die o' grief.”
“You know him, do you not?”
“I should say so.”
“Is he--”
“Yes, he's the nicest kind of a boy.”
“How old is he!”
“Twenty-eight.”
Donna was thoughtful.
“Nice disparity in ages, don't you think, Miss Donna?”
Donna blushed again. “What is his business!” she asked.
“Well, that's a right hard question to answer, Miss Donna. He was a
lawyer once for about a month, after he got out o' college, an' then he
worked on a newspaper. After that, just to prove he was a human bein',
he got the notion that there was money in the chicken business. Well,
he got out o' the chicken business with a couple o' hundred dollars,
an' then he come breezin' into a minin' camp one day an' tried bustin'
a faro bank. Failed agin. I'm responsible for that failure, though. The
next I see of him is a year later, in McKittrick, where he's runnin' a
real estate office an' dealin' in oil lands. But somehow there never was
no oil on none o' the land that Bob tied up, so he got plumb disgusted
an' quit. He was thinkin' o' tourin' the country districts sellin'
little pieces o' bluestone to put in the bowls of kerosene lamps to keep
'em from explodin', when I see him next. He borrowed fifty dollars from
me--which he ain't paid back yet, come to think on't--an' went to
Nevada minin' an' just at present he's about settled into his regular
legitimate business. He was headed that way from birth. I could read the
signs.”
“What is his present profession?”
“He's an Inspector o' Landscapes.”
“You're wrong. He's not a Desert Rat.”
“He is. I can prove it.”
“He's too young. They don't begin to 'rat' until they're close to forty.
I could name you a dozen, and the youngest is thirty-eight.”
“Oh, you're thinkin' o' the ordinary, garden variety. But I tell you
this McGraw man's a Desert Rat. The desert's got him. Generally it don't
get 'em so young, but once in a while it does, An' of all the Desert
Rats that ever sucked a niggerhead cactus, the feller that goes huntin'
lost mines is the worst. They never get over it.”
Donna permitted herself a very small smile.
“Sometimes they do” she reminded him.
“I wouldn't be surprised. But not until they've found what they're
lookin' for. However, we'll wait an' see if Bob McGraw--like that name,
Miss Donna?”
“I love it.”
“We'll wait an' see if he pulls through this, an' then we'll find out if
he can be cured o' desert-rattin'. In the meantime I'll wait here until
Doc gets back. I ain't one of the presumin' kind, but I think I'd better
stay. An' you--I think you'd better go in an' have another good look
at this Desert Rat o' yours. He's breathin' like the north wind sighin'
through a knot-hole.”
He watched her disappear.
“For the sight o' a good woman, O Lord, we thank Thee,” he murmured,
“an' for the sight o' a good woman with grit, we thank Thee some more.
Great grief, why wasn't I born good an' good-lookin' 'stead o' fat an'
no account?”
At ten o'clock Doc Taylor returned to the Hat Ranch and found the
condition of his patient unchanged. He was still unconscious and his
loud, stertorous breathing, coupled with the ghastly exhaust of air
through the hole on his breast, testified to the seriousness of his
condition. Throughout the night Donna sat by the bedside watching him,
while the doctor remained in the kitchen with Mr. Hennage.
Toward morning Bob McGraw opened his eyes and looked at Donna very
wonderingly. Then his glance wandered around the room and back to the
girl. He was plainly puzzled.
“Where's my horse,” he whispered, “and my spurs and my gun and hat?”
Donna bent over him and placed two cool fingers on his lips.
“The hemorrhage has stopped,” she warned him, “and you mustn't speak or
move, or you may bring it on again.”
“I remember--now. I fired--low--and he--got me. Where's Friar Tuck?”
“Your horse? He's in the corral at San Pasqual, and your gun is in the
kitchen with your spurs, and your hat--why, I guess I forgot to bring
your hat with me. But don't worry about it. I'm Donna Corblay of the Hat
Ranch, and I'll give you your choice of a hundred hats if you'll only
get well.”
“Are you--the--girl--that kissed me?”
Donna's voice was very low, her face was very close to his as she
answered him. His lean brown hand stole confidingly into hers--for a
long time he was silent, content to lie there and know that she was near
him.
Presently he looked up at her again, with the same dominating, wistful
entreaty in his brown eyes. She lowered her head until her cheek rested
against his, and his arm went upward and around her neck.
“God--made you--for me” he whispered. “I love you, and my name is Bob
McGraw. I guess--I'll--get well.”
“Beloved,” she breathed, “of course you'll get well. I want you to.” She
smoothed the wavy auburn hair back from his forehead. “Go to sleep” she
commanded. “You can't talk to me any more. I'm going to go to sleep,
too.”
She drew a bright Mexican serape over her shoulders, sat down in a
rocking-chair by the side of the bed and closed her eyes. For what
seemed to her a lapse of hours, although in reality it was less than
five minutes, she tried to induce a clever counterfeit of sleep, but
unable longer to deprive herself of another look at her prize she opened
her eyes and gazed at Bob McGraw. To her almost childish delight he was
watching her; and then she noticed his little, cheerful, half-mocking
smile.
She flushed hotly. For the first time she permitted the searchlight of
reason to play on the events of the night, and it occurred to her
now that she had been guilty of a monstrous breach of convention, an
unprecedented, unmaidenly action. She felt like crying now, with the
thought that she had held herself so cheap. Bob McGraw saw the flush
and the pallor that followed it. He read the unspoken thought behind the
changing rush of color.
“Don't feel--that way--about it” he whispered haltingly. “It's
unusual--but then--you and I are unusual, too. There seems to
be--perfect--understanding, and between a--man and a woman that
means--perfect peace. It had to--be. It was preordained--our meeting.
What is--your name?”
Donna again told him.
“Nice--name. Like it.”
He closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep like a tired boy.