and in making threats. In consequence of specific declarations which he
had heard, at nine o’clock that night Denny was crossing the Drasnoe
oil-field, following the ridge that denoted the pipe-line.
As he walked, he kept his eyes on the ridge, intent for any sign that it
had been tampered with. After he had gone a mile he came to a strip of
woods, through which the pipe-line was laid, although at this point the
road diverged and made a circuit.
The woods were not more than half a mile in area, and except for another
clump of forest six miles distant, near the railway station, made the
only secluded spot through which the pipe-line passed.
The teamsters all lived in the vicinity of the Drasnoe field.
“They won’t go six miles to cut pipe,” Denny thought. “Right here’s the
place to catch ’em.”
The sky had cleared during the afternoon; it was a mild, clear night,
with a moon that showed the road from the edge of the woods for some
distance.
Denny sat down on a log, lighted the lantern he had brought, and taking a
book from his pocket, began to read.
Presently he looked up, and made out a figure approaching across the
fields, following the pipe-line. He shielded the lantern and waited. When
the approaching man entered the woods he stepped out to meet him.
“Mr. Ross!” Denny ejaculated, contemptuously.
“What are you doing here?” The superintendent’s voice was menacing.
“I’m constable of this borough, Mr. Ross, and I’m here to prevent
mischief.”
“Then we’re on the same errand.”
“Are we?” Denny asked. “You’d better go home to bed, Mr. Ross. You don’t
want to get mixed up in this. You wouldn’t be any good—and it mightn’t be
good for you.”
“Look here, John Denny!” Ross stepped up close; his eyes flashed in the
light of the lantern that Denny held aloft. “You the same as called me
a coward to-day, and because you’ve got only one arm I can’t resent it!
You told me that if I was any good for fighting I’d be somewhere else
than here. Now I want you to know one thing—my plans were laid last week
to leave for the front next Monday. You think I haven’t wanted to go! I
don’t tell my private affairs to you or any other man, but I’ll say this
much: over in Oil City I’m leaving a family provided for if anything
happens to me.”
“If that’s the case,” Denny said, slowly, “I take it back, Mr. Ross. I
take everything back.”
They sat down together on the log and talked amicably. Denny’s thoughts
were turned back to his war experience. He told the new recruit stories
of campaigning and battle. Ross listened with a respect of which his
maimed subordinate became somehow conscious. That tribute of respect
from one whom he had both envied and despised, and whom he had come so
suddenly to like, swept the bitterness from Denny’s soul.
“You’re giving up a good bit to go,” he said, at last. “Old man Drasnoe
likes you; you’ve got a start toward being a millionaire. You throw it
all up and go off to the war—and you can’t tell what you may come back
to.”
“I’ll have to run my chance,” Ross answered.
“Mr. Drasnoe satisfied to have you leave?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Ross, quietly, “Mr. Drasnoe is quite satisfied. He
likes the man I’ve picked to take my place.” Denny’s interest was at once
awakened.
“And who might that be?”
Ross hesitated. “It’s hardly time to talk about it yet.”
“Oh, all right. I wasn’t meaning to pry.”
They arranged to divide the night into watches Denny was to sleep until
twelve, then Ross would rouse him and sleep till four.
At about one o’clock, while Ross, lying at the foot of a tree, was
sleeping, the marauders came. Denny saw them as they climbed over the
fence by the roadside. He awakened Ross, and said:
“They’re coming. You’d better leave this to me—as constable. If they see
you, they’ll get ugly. You go in behind that thicket and wait.”
Ross protested. “You can come out if you’re needed,” Denny said; and
the superintendent reluctantly withdrew. Denny put out his lantern, and
stepping behind a great oak, awaited the approach.
There were a dozen men, carrying lanterns, mattocks and spades; they
passed close by where Denny stood.
“Spread out, now—and rip it up all along!” cried one; and he lifted his
mattock and brought it down upon the earth.
Denny stepped forward.
“Boys,” he said, “hold on!”
They faced him, startled. The one who had spoken caught up a lantern and
turned it on him.
“Denny!” he exclaimed. “Spyin’ on us!”
“I’m borough constable,” said Denny. “Destroying property has a penalty
attached.” The men crowded round him, disturbed, angry, threatening.
“Well, here we are!” said the leader, scornfully. “Arrest us.”
“There won’t be any arrests if there’s no damage done, O’Brien,” Denny
answered.
O’Brien turned and struck his mattock into the earth. “Show him a little
damage, boys,” he urged. “Yank up the pipe.”
The others set to work, cursing at Denny meanwhile. The dirt flew; they
flung it jeeringly at him.
“All right,” said Denny. “You are twelve men against one. Maybe I can’t
arrest you to-night, but I’ve got your names.”
In a few moments they had exposed the pipe, which was not buried deep.
Then O’Brien knelt and sawed it through in two places, and cast the
section at Denny’s feet.
“There!” he said. “How d’ye like the looks of that, Mr. Constable? And
now, so’s you won’t follow us and see where else we operate, we’ll just
tie you up for a while.”
“You fellows will be piling up trouble for yourselves,” Denny warned
them. “Murphy and Conway, there—you ought to have more sense.”
One of these two men, Murphy, spoke in a low voice, unwillingly:
“I guess maybe we’d better quit. If he reports us—”
“He ain’t going to report us!” interrupted O’Brien. “He don’t dare. Come,
boys, get a-hold of him, and we’ll tie him up—”
He advanced a step toward Denny, and in the same instant Denny drew a
revolver and leveled it at O’Brien’s head.
“Don’t lay a hand on me,” he said, quietly.
“Get behind him and grab him, somebody!” shouted O’Brien. “Spread out and
get round him.”
But the men hesitated. “I said we’d ought to have wore masks!” muttered
one. “He’s seen us all now.”
O’Brien made a quick dash, trying to circle Denny, who whirled and held
the revolver pointed at O’Brien’s face.
“Jump on him now!” shouted O’Brien; and then one, bolder than the others,
sprang upon Denny’s shoulders and bore him to the ground. O’Brien was
instantly upon him also, got possession of his revolver, and then with
breathless imprecations began winding a rope about his ankles.
“All right!” muttered Denny. “You’ve got me—but you fellows will pay for
this.”
Then Ross walked into the midst of the group. The leader of the gang
looked up from where he knelt. “It’s you, is it?” he said, defiantly.
Ross turned from him to the others.
“Will you give me five minutes?” he asked. “I’m in your power; I’m all
alone. Will you let me have five minutes to talk?”
“Go on,” said one of the men.
“Just five minutes, mind,” said O’Brien, truculently. He tightened the
rope that bound Denny’s arm behind his back and stood up.
“When I came here to-night,” Ross began, persuasively, “it was with the
idea that there might be some trouble over this pipe-line. But though
I was expecting trouble, there was only one man that I looked on as my
personal enemy, and that was John Denny. He called me a coward to my face
this morning; and when I came here a couple of hours ago, and found him
on duty as constable, I felt I’d found more trouble than I was looking
for. Well, we talked the whole matter out—and came to an understanding.
And maybe, after talking this other matter out, you and I can come to an
understanding.
“Here’s the situation. A pump and a pipe together are going to do for
almost nothing more than all you men have been in the habit of doing for
a good deal of money. They’re going to put you out of business. So you
get together and decide to put the pipe out of business. And you mean to
keep putting it out of business just as often as it resumes. Isn’t that
stating the case.”
Two or three of the men laughed uneasily; there was no dissent.
“Now you can do that to-night; you can keep on doing it for a while. But
you must see—your common sense must tell you—that when an economical
way of doing a thing is discovered, the expensive way has got to be
abandoned. They are to have a pipe-line over in the Deepwater valley,
and the teamsters will have to quit; they are to have another up at
Anderson, and the teamsters will have to quit; they’re putting pipe-lines
in everywhere. It’s a fact you’ve got to face; the day of the teamster in
the oil regions is over.
“Just to make it practical—to demonstrate it, not to make threats—listen.
You cut this pipe to-night. What happens? There are two witnesses against
you—John Denny and myself. All that the law requires is two witnesses.
It’s true you have us in your power to-night—but I hardly think any of
you mean to do murder in cold blood. You may think of keeping us out of
the way for a while—maybe using force on us to make us hold our tongues.
But some time you’ll have to let us go free—and I expect we will go free
without making any promises.”
He spoke these words with slow distinctness and emphasis; there was an
uneasy stirring in the crowd.
“Moreover,” Ross continued, “before I started out to-night I left a note
at home, saying where I was going and why. If I should mysteriously
disappear, that note will afford a clue. You may all feel that you’re
strong enough to defy the law and destroy property and commit violence.
But even supposing this is true—what can you gain by it? Do you think
the company whose pipe you cut will ever again employ you to drive its
wagons? Drasnoe would rather let his oil forever run to waste than be
coerced into letting you handle it. And you can’t so easily carry matters
with a high hand—”
“You begin to threaten us!” cried O’Brien. “We’ve had enough—”
“I don’t mean to threaten,” Ross replied. “I’m just trying to make a
complete statement of the case. In a moment I’ll talk in a way that
you can’t regard as threatening. But as to your being able to override
the law—you know, of course, what will happen. The company will spend
its last cent fighting for its rights. It will hire men to protect its
property. The community will be roused against you. You’ll have to fight
with the company’s watchmen; you can’t go on cutting its pipe with
impunity. And meanwhile you’ll be blacklisted by the company, whereas, if
you accept this overturn in a peaceful spirit, the company will try to
give work of some kind to as many of you as want it. Now I’ve come to the
end of everything that may sound threatening. Are you willing I should go
on for a few moments longer?”
“No,” shouted O’Brien. But “Yes!” cried the others; and some of them
turned to O’Brien and bade him be still.
“I want you to know that last week I tendered my resignation as
superintendent, to take effect next Monday. Next Monday I start for
Virginia, to join Grant’s army. It’s just occurred to me that that would
be a pretty good thing for those of you to do who are out of a job and so
have a hankering to fight somebody.” He spoke the words with a smile; by
the lantern-light he could see the smile reflected on the face of some of
the men. “I hope you’ll think better of fighting the company—for if you
don’t, I’ll have to stay here and deprive General Grant of my services.”
This time the smile on his face was echoed by a murmur of laughter. “I’d
be mighty glad if those of you who feel bound to fight somebody would
join me next Monday and start for the Wilderness. I don’t know that it
would be any more of a fight than you’d get by staying here and tackling
the company—but I guess it would be enough. That’s all I have to say; and
now if you think the only thing is to string me up on one of those trees,
I can’t help myself.”
“I guess there won’t be any lynching!” muttered one of the men; from the
others there issued only sheepish, uncomfortable laughter. O’Brien was
silent.
“Well,” remarked Murphy, at last. “I don’t know but I may join your
soldier squad on Monday, captain. Looks like things will be kind of quiet
round here for a full-grown fightin’ man.”
At this there was loud laughter, and Ross knew that he had won.
“You think, Mr. Ross,” said a man, hesitatingly, “if a fellow was to
stay, the company might find him a job?”
“I think so. That will be one of the problems for my successor—who, by
the way, is lying there with his feet tied.”
The men gazed at one another; Denny lay speechless and amazed. Then one
of the men turned to O’Brien.
“O’Brien,” he said, gravely, “if you and me are looking for jobs, suppose
we untie his feet.”
At eight o’clock on Monday morning there waited at the railway station
a group of ten men, who were starting South to join Grant’s army. Among
them was one whom the others half jestingly, yet half-seriously also,
called “Captain.” He stepped apart from the rest to speak to a one-armed
man and a boy who had just driven up to the platform. The sound of the
approaching train made itself heard.
“You’ll be sure to see father for me, won’t you, Mr. Ross?” said the boy.
“Sure. I’m glad you had word he was all right. I’ll send you a letter as
soon as I see him—and I’ll tell him all about you. Good-by, Elmer!”
He turned to the one-armed man.
“Good-by, Denny!”
The train rushed along the platform as Denny gripped Ross’s hand.
“Good-by, Mr. Ross—thank you—” His voice broke, but he regained it. “Come
back to us—and come back—_whole_!”
Then, amid the cheers of the few who had gathered to see the departure,
the recruits boarded the train, and the train pulled away.
“He _will_ come back!” said Denny to Elmer, with conviction. “Even if the
whole of Lee’s army lays a trap for him, he’ll come back.”
MANUK DEL MONTE
By Rowland Thomas
Early one morning, just before the dawn, three of us were riding wearily
down the slope of one of the great grassy hills—some people call them
mountains—which lie between the provinces of Isabella and Nueva Vizcaya.
We had been travelling all night by moonlight, and now as the east was
growing rosy we were winding down to a little wood in the valley, where
we hoped to find a mountain stream to give us water for our breakfast,
and a thing of far more importance, grazing for the horses, for it was
the dry season, and the grass on the hills was parched and dead. The
breakfast swung with mocking lightness behind Justin’s saddle, merely
a few handfuls of cold rice rolled in the butt of a banana leaf. It
was also tiffin and dinner, for we were travelling light and fast, and
carried not even chocolate, nothing but the rice.
I was watching the gyrations of the breakfast moodily, for I was sleepy
and hungry and sore, when suddenly from the wood below us the crow of a
cock rang out, shrill and triumphant. I was surprised, for few people
live along a trail used mostly by bandits and head-hunters.
Suddenly from the slope of a farther hill the call rang out again, and
then the whole wood echoed with the sounds of the farmyard.
“What town is this?” I asked the boys, although we were at least a day’s
journey from any settlement which I knew.
Justin laughed, and even Tranquid smiled stiffly.
“It is no town, señor,” said Justin. “It is the _manuk del monte_—the
wild chicken—which you hear.”
After saddles were off and the horses’ backs were washed, the animals
rolled and grazed luxuriously by the swift, clear stream, and Tranquid,
prince of servants, dexterously unrolled the breakfast.
He laid stones on the corners of the leaf, and patted the snowy mass of
rice out smoothly, and filled a bamboo drinking-cup from the brook, while
I pretended not to see. At meal-times Tranquid has a solemn and important
air worthy of the most autocratic of London butlers, and I am a babe in
his hands.
“Breakfast is served, señor,” said Tranquid, gravely.
“I come,” I replied, with equal gravity, and rolled over twice and came
up on my knees, Japanese fashion, beside my lowly table.
Just as I was going to plunge my fingers into the rice, a cock crowed
loud and clear among the trees close at hand. A great ferocity of meat
hunger swept over me.
“Give me the boom-boom, Justin!” I commanded. “We will have manuk del
monte for breakfast.”
The cock crowed often while I stole through the undergrowth, as softly as
the ferns and bristly creepers would let me.
As I drew near, the crowing ceased, and I was peering about the brush and
shrub for a sight of the cock when—_whir_! From the lower branches of a
tree, fifty feet above my head, a splendid bird shot out with a boom like
a partridge and sailed away between the tree trunks, a dazzling vision of
white and green and gold.
I was too startled to shoot, for I had never before seen chickens that
roost like eagles and flew like pheasants and were as brilliant as
humming-birds.
In a moment I heard his strong wings beating on the other side of the
valley, and I went back and ate my rice quietly.
That incident began my acquaintance with the wild chickens, and they
soon grew to be a very dear part of the forest life, bringing me an odd
mixture of pleasant memory and homesickness as I listened to them.
We heard them always when we made and left our one-night homes along
the trail. The cocks proved to be just as exacting husbands as their
domesticated cousins, crowing their families home and abroad with fussy
punctuality.
If a gay young cockerel or a giddy pullet lingered too long afield, the
lord of the flock grew noisy with anxiety as the sunset faded. With the
dawn he woke, brisk and important, and woe betide the sleepyhead of the
family.
There was no “Rouse up, sweet slugabed” for him, but an ear-splitting
call, and we often chuckled at thought of the sheepish haste of the
laggard when that sound penetrated to his sleepy brain.
A tropical forest is a thing of awe and mystery, with its eternal dim
twilight and tangled creepers, and innumerable dark vistas which hide
inhabitants one seldom hears and never sees. Most of the creatures seem
to feel the silent immensity and vagueness as a man does, and seek safety
in unobtrusiveness.
These brave, cheery birds alone were unaffected by it, and they crowed
and cackled and clucked about their business of living as carelessly as
if there were no such thing as fear in the world.
Yet with all their independence they showed a baffling shyness, and many
weeks went by before I caught more than a distant glimpse of one.
Tranquid hunted them with painful devotion. But he was a child of the
cities, lost in the mountains as a puppy would have been. When a cock
crowed near a camping-place, his face would brighten hopefully, and he
would go creeping off with the noiselessness of a young elephant. Back
and forth he crashed in the brush, pulling branches aside with excessive
caution and peeping behind them.
At last the bird would flush from a tree and shoot away in a blur of
colored light. Then Tranquid would straighten up with a nervous jerk, and
cry triumphantly:
“There, señor, I have found him! There he goes. Look! Look!” pointing up
to the tree where he had been.
On these occasions Justin always lay on the grass and laughed.
Justin was a woodland philosopher, and had discovered that town-bred folk
and wild chickens had been sent into the world for his amusement. He
never deigned to take any further part in the pursuit.
When it came to stalking a deer or running down a pig he was all
eagerness and skill, and would lead me for hours without a thought of
rest, but chickens were beneath him. Occasionally, however, as we rode
along, a crow would caw somewhere above us. Then Justin was full of
excitement.
“Look, señor!” he would shout, pointing up to the empty sky. “I have
found him. There! There!”
In spite of Justin’s jesting, my desire to see a wild cock face to face
only increased with repeated failure.
I never tried to shoot one after that first experience. I would as soon
have thought of shooting at a monkey. But I wanted to have one for my
own, to look at, and draw pictures of, and show to my poor friends
who lived down in the plains through the hot season, and complained
of prickly heat. I even dreamed of presenting one to my friend, the
captain, and letting him create a new and lusty race of fowls, a breed
which would meet the hawk in his own element, and laugh at woven-wire
fences.
At last, up in a little mountain village, my opportunity came. Tranquid
announced, with the respectful elation he sometimes permitted himself,
that a man had a wild rooster. Would the señor like to come to see it?
The señor was willing, so we went down the narrow grass-grown street
together, stepping carefully over the babies and pigs that were basking
in the sun.
In the yard of a little tumble-down shack we found a rusty brown bird
tied to a post by a bit of twine about his leg. The old man, his owner,
scattered a few kernels of corn, and the poor dingy thing pecked at them
in a half-hearted way. A hen came bustling up and he pecked peevishly at
her once or twice, and then hopped back to his post and stood there, dull
and round-shouldered, like a sulky boy who had decided that the corn was
not of much importance, anyway, and had put his hands in his pockets.
I was slow to believe that this could be a brother of the swift, bright
bird which had boomed out of a treetop that first morning, but I
presently discovered that it was. The long, slender body, the powerful
wings, the sharp, heavy bill, were the product of generations of wild
life. And under the dust and rustiness of the feathers there were still
traces of the green and gold of the forest. The changes were due only to
a changed mode of life.
“The man says,” explained Tranquid, “that he has had this rooster for
a long time, and it is dirty. He says he will catch a clean one for the
señor, if he pleases.”
Of course the señor pleased; and one bright morning we set out. The old
man, our guide, marched in front, most importantly, for it is not every
day that one has a chance to show a señor what a clever man one is at
catching wild chickens, and the old man knew that his grandchildren would
tell their children about this expedition.
Under his arm he carried a red fighting cock. It struck me as a bit odd
to carry such an animal on a hunting trip, but I asked no questions. One
feels no surprise in the Philippines in meeting people with roosters
under their arms; it is quite the usual thing. Tranquid followed the old
man, respectfully hopeful. Then came Justin, smiling, and I brought up
the rear.
A mile or so from the village the wall of the forest rose, dark and
impenetrable. But at one point a stream came down from the hills, and
there the field extended into the woods for a little way, making a sort
of room, cool and shadowy, and carpeted with short, thick turf.
Here the old man halted, and waited till we all stood about him. Then
he drew from the pocket of his blouse a bundle of twine, wound on four
pointed sticks. Justin stopped smiling. Anything in the nature of a
trap, anything which matched man’s wits against the instinct of the wild
creatures, interested Justin.
The old man chose a spot of level ground and set to work. He drove one of
the little stakes into the ground, uncoiled the twine, drove another,
and so on, until he had marked out a square, about a yard on a side. On
three sides the twine was carried on the stakes a few inches above the
ground, and from this fence, every hand’s breadth or so, hung a little
noose of fiber.
The fourth side of the square was a wall of brush, and at the center of
this the old man now drove a fifth stake, and tied his fighting cock
to it by a very short tether. Then he opened all the little nooses and
spread them carefully on the ground within the square. Justin inspected
the work.
“It is very good,” he announced at last. “One would not believe that this
old man could be so wise. The wild rooster hears this one. He wishes
to fight. All roosters wish to fight always. He comes from the wood,
dancing, so! This one crows and fluffs out his feathers, so! The wild
rooster comes to the little fence and they look at each other, so!” said
Justin, using Tranquid for illustration. “He cannot pass under the little
fence; it is too low. He cannot step over it; it is too high. He hops,
so! His foot falls in the noose, and—so!” said Justin, dancing on one
foot and cackling shrilly. “_Abáa._ It is very good. The old man is much
wiser than one would think to look at him.”
The old man listened to this monologue with disgust.