WHY THE WEEKLY PLANET DIED
The Weekly Planet, founded and edited during its brief existence by
Higginson Peabody, and issued every Saturday to the hebdomadal joy of
Dodge, might have flourished unto this day if it hadn’t been for Jack.
It was a circulation scheme proposed by Jack, and adopted by Higginson
Peabody, which undid the destinies of the _Weekly Planet_ to such a
degree that, in the quicksands of a bottomless trouble into which they
were thereby betrayed, a trouble, as Higginson Peabody averred, “so
vast, that against it no human ingenuity could prevail,” they bogged
down and disappeared.
Not but what Jack was wholly true to the _Weekly Planet_ and its
fortunes. Indeed it was Jack, in his intense loyalty to the paper and
those that gave it the aid and comfort of their countenance, and despite
the fact that Mr. Masterson’s recommendation had originally paved his
way into journalism, who misled that officer as to the flight-direction
taken by Rattlesnake Sanders on the occasion of his winging Mr. Kelly.
Perhaps, in defence of Jack, that episode should be briefly told.
Rattlesnake Sanders played a cold hand, being four kings and an ace,
against a quartette of queens, the then armament of Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly
pointed out the frigid character of those four kings, and thereupon
Rattlesnake, in a feeling of chagrin natural to one who finds himself
detected in a wrong, shot Mr. Kelly in the arm. Following this
ebuillition of temper, Rattlesnake mounted his pony and spurred away into
the dark.
The office of the _Weekly Planet_ was on the northern fringe of Dodge.
It was ten o’clock of the night when Rattlesnake expressed his
dissatisfaction with Mr. Kelly in manner and form set forth. The
editorial and mechanical forces of the _Weekly Planet_, made up of
Higginson Peabody, Jack, and a trio of printers, were hard at work at
the time and knew nothing of Rattlesnake and his exploits. Indeed, the
earliest word which they received of Rattlesnake was when that impulsive
cowboy pulled up at their door.
The cause of Rattlesnake’s pulling up was simple. When he and Mr. Kelly
sat down to that friendly game, which in its finale was so
disappointing, Rattlesnake, the evening being warm, had cast aside his
coat and hat. Being more or less preoccupied when ready to leave, he
forgot to reassume those garments. His halt at the _Weekly Planet_ was
with a purpose of repairs.
Bare of head and coatless, Rattlesnake called from the saddle to
Higginson Peabody. The latter, with Jack at his elbow, appeared in the
door.
“Got a hat and coat you don’t want?” asked Rattlesnake.
There were two six-shooters in the belt of Rattlesnake and a Winchester
in its saddle-scabbard under his left leg, and it may have been this
stock of ironware that awoke the generosity of Higginson Peabody.
Whatever it was to move his benevolence, the truth remains that he took
his own hat and coat from their peg and conferred them on Rattlesnake.
As he picked up the bridle reins to ride away Rattlesnake ran his hand
into his pocket.
“What’s the damage?” he queried.
“Nothing,” returned Higginson Peabody; “they are freely yours.”
“What’s the subscription to this rag?” asked Rattlesnake, pointing up at
the sign above the door. “How much does she cost for a year?”
“Two dollars,” broke in Jack, who was the circulating agency of the
_Weekly Planet_.
“Thar’s a saw-buck,” quoth Rattlesnake, bringing up a ten-dollar
goldpiece and tossing it to Jack. “Put down Rattlesnake Sanders for five
years.” Then, as he buried a spur in his pony’s flank and fled like an
arrow: “I’ll send th’ address as soon as I settle down.”
When Rattlesnake Sanders injured Mr. Kelly’s arm Mr. Masterson was at
the other end of town. It was ten minutes before he heard of the gay
doings of Rattlesnake. When word reached him he threw a saddle onto a
pony and started in pursuit. Mr. Masterson also halted at the open door
of the _Weekly Planet_, only he was after information, not apparel.
“Did you see a cowboy without coat or hat go by?” asked Mr. Masterson,
on the bare chance that the phenomenon had caught the eye of Higginson
Peabody.
“I just gave one my coat and hat,” replied Higginson Peabody.
“It was Rattlesnake Sanders,” said Mr. Masterson, settling himself in
his stirrups for a run. “He’s creased Kelly. Which way did he go?”
Before Higginson Peabody could answer, Jack took reply from his mouth.
“I’ll show you, Mr. Masterson,” observed the eager Jack, pointing
westward towards the Cimarron Crossing. “He lined out in that direction.
An’ say, he was simply hittin’ the high places!”
Now, be it known that Rattlesnake had fled away to the north and east,
as though heading for Hays—a course the reverse of that given by Jack.
The intervention, and the brisk falsehoods so cheerfully fulminated,
took away the breath of Higginson Peabody. Before he regained it Mr.
Masterson was a mile on his way to the Cimarron Crossing.
“How could you lie like that?” demanded Higginson Peabody, regarding
Jack with wondering horror; “how could you lie like that, and you but
fourteen! That Rattlesnake man went east, not west; and Mr. Masterson is
an officer of the law!”
“What of it?” retorted Jack, indignantly; “d’you think I’d throw down a
subscriber?” Then, as he reached for his cap: “I reckon I’d better go
over to the Alhambra an’ see how hard old Kell got plugged. It ought to
be good for a column. Say!” and Jack beamed on Higginson Peabody, “if
he’d only beefed old Kell, wouldn’t it have been hot stuff?”
Higginson Peabody, when he graduated from Harvard, had been invited into
the counting-room of his father’s State Street bank. But the old
migratory instinct of his puritan ancestry was rife within him, and he
hungered to go abroad into the land. The expanding West invited him;
also, he distasted a bank and liked the notion of a paper.
“Well,” said the elder Peabody, “I don’t blame you. Massachusetts and
Boston aren’t what they were. New England to-day is out in Kansas and
Nebraska.”
Higginson Peabody resolved to start a paper. Dodge occurred to him; a
friend returning had told him that newsy things were prone to happen in
Dodge. The soil, by the friend’s word, was kindly; Higginson Peabody
thought it would nourish and upbuild a paper. Wherefore, one bright
autumnal morning, he dropped off at Dodge. Going over to the hotel he
took a room by the month and confided to Mr. Wright that he would found
the _Weekly Planet_.
Mr. Wright squeezed the hand of Higginson Peabody until it hung limp as
a rag.
“It was an inspiration when you decided to come to Dodge,” said Mr.
Wright.
“Do you think,” asked Higginson Peabody, painfully separating each
finger from its fellows, “do you think your city ready for the birth of
a great paper?”
“Ready? Dodge’ll sit up nights to rock its cradle and warm its milk!”
quoth Mr. Wright.
Mr. Wright went down to the Long Branch and told Mr. Short. As
information radiated from the Long Branch the extremest corner of Dodge
was filled with the news in an hour.
When Mr. Wright withdrew to the Long Branch he left Higginson Peabody
sitting on the hotel porch. The costume of Higginson Peabody culminated
in a silk hat that would have looked well on Boston Common. The tall,
shiny hat excited the primitive interest of Cimarron Bill, who lightly
shot it from the head of its owner. Then, with bullet following bullet,
he rolled it along the sidewalk. Several gentlemen joined Cimarron Bill
in this sprightly pastime of the hat. Full twenty took part, and
Higginson Peabody’s headgear, to quote Cimarron Bill as he reported the
episode later to Mr. Masterson, was:
“A heap shot up.”
“He’s an editor,” warned Mr. Masterson, “and going to start a paper.
Mind, you mustn’t hurt him!”
“Hurt him!” retorted Cimarron Bill. “If I do I hope to go afoot the
balance of my life—I do, shore!”
Mr. Wright returned from the Long Branch, bringing Mr. Short. Higginson
Peabody mentioned the adventures of his hat.
“It’s my fault,” said Mr. Wright; “I’d ought to have told you. That
breed of war-bonnet is ag’inst the rules of our set.”
“That’s right,” coincided Mr. Short; “only sooicides wear ’em in Dodge.”
“We’ll fix it,” observed Mr. Wright, who noticed that Higginson Peabody
looked cast down. “What’s the size of your head?”
“Seven and an eighth,” returned Higginson Peabody, doubtfully.
“Seven and an eighth!” repeated Mr. Wright: “It’ll grow in Dodge. See if
it ain’t two sizes larger in a month.”
Mr. Wright sent over to that mart whereof he was proprietor, and
presently a pearl-gray sombrero appeared.
“There you are!” exclaimed Mr. Wright. “As good a Stetson as ever rode
in a round-up! Price? Not a word! I’ll take it out in advertising.”
Mr. Wright became as an elder brother to Higginson Peabody. On the
morning following the latter’s advent the two sat convenient to the
hotel bar and talked of Indians. That is, Mr. Wright talked of Indians,
and Higginson Peabody gulped and listened, pale of cheek.
Mr. Wright said a Cheyenne was as full of the unexpected as a career in
Wall Street. He hoped the Cheyennes wouldn’t kill and scalp anybody
about Dodge between then and Christmas. Mr. Wright set his limit at
Christmas because that was three months away, and three months was as
long as even an optimist was licensed to hope anything of a Cheyenne.
No, Mr. Wright did not think the Cheyennes would immediately bother
Dodge. They were busy with the buffaloes at that season. Moreover, there
were a number of buffalo hunters along the Medicine Lodge and the
Cimarron whom they, the Cheyennes, might capture and burn at the stake.
This would, so Mr. Wright argued, slake the Cheyenne thirst for
immediate amusement. Later, when they had burned up that year’s stock of
buffalo hunters and were suffering from ennui, the Cheyennes would
doubtless visit Dodge.
“But,” declared Mr. Wright, triumphantly, “we generally beat ’em off.
They never capture or kill more’n fifty of us before we have ’em routed.
Sure; we down three times as many of them as they do of us. Which
reminds me: come down to Kelly’s Alhambra and let me show you the
head-dresses and bead jackets we shucked from the last outfit we wiped
out.”
Mr. Wright exhibited to Higginson Peabody what trophies had been brought
north from the ’Dobe Walls and were then adorning the walls of the
Alhambra. Also, he had Mr. Kelly, who was their custodian, bring out the
eighty scalps, and counted them into the shrinking fingers of Higginson
Peabody, who handled them gingerly. They were one and all, so Mr. Wright
averred, stripped from slaughtered Cheyennes in the streets of Dodge.
“Isn’t that so, Kell?” asked Mr. Wright, appealing to Mr. Kelly.
“Shore!” assented Mr. Kelly. Then, by way of particular corroboration
and picking out a brace of scalps whereof the braided hair was unusually
long and glossy, “I killed an’ skelped these two right yere in the
s’loon.”
Higginson Peabody was impressed and said he would one day write up what
he had heard for the _Weekly Planet_.
Mr. Wright invited Higginson Peabody to explore the region lying back of
Dodge. They would make the trip on ponies. Mr. Wright held that the
exploration was requisite to the right editing of a local paper.
“For how,” demanded Mr. Wright, plausibly, “can you get out a paper and
know nothing of the country you’re in? As for Cheyennes, you need
entertain no fear. You’ll have a pony under you that can beat an
antelope.”
Higginson Peabody, with Mr. Wright as guide, philosopher and friend,
broke into the gray rolling desert to the north of Dodge. At the end of
the first mile Dodge dropped out of sight behind a swell and Higginson
Peabody found himself surrounded by naught save the shadowless plains—as
grimly stark as when they slipped from the palm of the Infinite! The
very picture of loneliness, the scene pressed upon the unsophisticated
sensibilities of Higginson Peabody like a menace. He wanted to return to
Dodge, but he didn’t like to say so.
Mr. Wright became replete of reminiscences. He showed Higginson Peabody
where a party of emigrants had been butchered by the Cheyennes only
eight weeks before.
By the side of a water hole Mr. Wright pointed to the ashes of a fire.
The Cheyennes had there grilled a victim on the coals.
“You see,” explained Mr. Wright, in apology for the Cheyennes, “they
didn’t have any stake. The best they could do was tie him, wrist and
heel, toss him in the fire and then keep him there with their lances.”
“Was he from Dodge?” faltered Higginson Peabody.
“No,” said Mr. Wright, carelessly, “if my memory serves, he was a sot
from Abilene.”
Ten minutes later they were winding along a dry arroya.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Mr. Wright, and he leaped from his pony.
Mr. Wright held up a moccasin which, apparently, he had taken from the
ground.
“Cheyenne,” said Mr. Wright, sinking his voice to a whisper. “Warm, too;
that moccasin was on its owner not five minutes ago!”
Higginson Peabody took the buckskin footgear in his hands, which shook a
little. The moccasin _was_ warm. It could hardly have been otherwise
since Mr. Wright had carried it in an inside pocket.
Mr. Wright glanced furtively about.
“We’d better skin out for Dodge,” said he.
Higginson Peabody wheeled, being quite in the humour for Dodge. He was
on the threshold of saying so when a medley of yelps and yells broke
forth. Higginson Peabody cast a look to the rear; a score of befeathered
and ochre-bedabbled demons were in open cry not a furlong away.
Mr. Wright had made no idle brag when he said the pony bestrode by
Higginson Peabody could outstrip an antelope. The latter gave that
animal its head and the scenery began racing rearward in a
slate-coloured blur. Mr. Wright’s pony was panting on the flank of its
flying mate.
“Ride hard!” shouted Mr. Wright. “To be captured is death by torture!”
Higginson Peabody did ride hard. There was a rattle of rifles and
six-shooters; the high lead ripped and whined and whistled—new sounds to
the shrinking ears of Higginson Peabody! Now and again a bullet
scuttered along the ground to right or left and threw up ominous pinches
of dust. Suddenly Mr. Wright reeled in the saddle.
“Save yourself!” he gasped. “Tell Masterson and the boys——”
The rest was lost to Higginson Peabody, for Mr. Wright’s pony, evidently
as badly wounded as its rider, began falling to the rear.
On tore Higginson Peabody. Dodge at last! Drawing a deep breath he swept
down the main street like a tornado.
“Indians! Indians!” yelled Higginson Peabody.
Arriving opposite its home corral the pony set four hoofs and skated;
recovering, it wheeled to the left. Higginson Peabody, by these abrupt
manoeuvres, was spilled from the saddle “like a pup from a basket,”
according to Mr. Kelly, who watched the ceremony from the Alhambra door.
Higginson Peabody reached the grass in a convenient ball. After a
prolonged roll of twenty feet he scrambled up uninjured.
“Get your guns!” he cried to Mr. Kelly, and then began to run.
It was afterward a matter of regret in Dodge that no arrangements had
been made for timing Higginson Peabody. He had only covered one hundred
yards when he ran into the arms of Mr. Masterson, but it was the
dispassionate judgment of both Mr. Kelly and Mr. Short, who, from their
respective houses of entertainment, reviewed the feat, that he did those
one hundred yards in better than ten seconds. Indeed, so much was
popular admiration excited by the winged work of Higginson Peabody that,
in commemoration thereof, Dodge renamed him the “Jackrabbit,” by which
honourable appellation he was ever afterward known to its generous
inhabitants.
“Get your guns!” shouted Higginson Peabody when stopped by the outspread
arms.
“What’s the trouble?” asked Mr. Masterson.
“Indians!” yelled the fugitive, making an effort to resume his flight.
“Come,” said Mr. Masterson, refusing to be shaken off, “it’s only a
joke. What you need now is a drink. Let’s push for Luke Short’s.”
While Higginson Peabody stood at the Long Branch bar and restored that
confidence in his fellow-men which a two-days’ stay in Dodge had done
much to shake, Cimarron Bill and a select bevy, clad in full Cheyenne
regalia, faces painted, blankets flying, feathers tossing, came whooping
down the street. They jumped from their steaming ponies and joined Mr.
Masterson and their victim.
“The drinks is on me!” shouted Cimarron Bill, giving the counter a
resounding slap. “Which I’m as dry as a covered bridge!”
“The drinks is on the house,” said Mr. Short, severely. Then to
Higginson Peabody, “Here’s to you, stranger! An’ let me say,” concluded
Mr. Short, while a colour of compliment showed through his tones, “that
if ever you do run a footrace I’ll string my money on you.”
As he considered the incident, Higginson Peabody was inclined to refuse
the boon of Mr. Wright’s further acquaintance, but Mr. Masterson and Mr.
Kelly explained that to do so would be regarded, by the liberal
sentiment of Dodge, as churlish in the extreme.
“That scamper into camp,” urged Mr. Kelly, “oughtn’t to count. It’s only
folks we like an’ intend to adopt into our midst on whom we confer them
rites of initiation.”
“That’s whatever,” observed Cimarron Bill, who came up. “Which we shore
wouldn’t take that much trouble with any gent onless we liked him.”
During his last year at Harvard Higginson Peabody edited the college
paper, and that, when he landed in Dodge, had been the whole of his
journalistic experience. While he conducted that vehicle of college
information his one notable triumph was an article on Bible reading, in
which he urged that all Bibles be bound in red. He pointed out an
inherent interest to abide in red and quoted its effect on turkey
gobblers. On the other hand, black, the usual cover-colour of Bibles,
was a hue sorrowful and repellant; so far from inviting human interest,
it daunted it. Higginson Peabody insisted that were every copy of the
scriptures bound in red a score would read where only one perused them
in their black uniform of gloom. This article gained him the compliment
of a reprimand from the university heads and an accusation on the part
of rivals that he was trying to promote an importance for his college
colours.
Notwithstanding this meagre apprenticeship in journalism Higginson
Peabody, from its initial issue, made the _Weekly Planet_ a highly
readable paper. This was peculiarly the case after he, on Mr.
Masterson’s endorsement, had added Jack to his staff. It was Jack who
brought in those spicy personal items which told in complimentary
fashion the daily or rather nightly doings at Mr. Kelly’s Alhambra, Mr.
Short’s Long Branch, Mr. Webster’s Alamo, and Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall,
to say nothing of the Dodge Opera House and Mr. Wright’s store, and
which caused every reader to pick up the paper with pleasure and lay it
down with regret. Also, it was Jack who taught Higginson Peabody the
money value of a line of advertising that published cattle brands and
set forth the boundaries of ranges, so that round-up outfits might
intelligently hold the herds and cut out each ranchman’s cattle in what
regions they belonged. Indeed, with Jack at his elbow Higginson Peabody
carried the _Weekly Planet_ to a point where it almost paid.
It was when the _Weekly Planet_ had counted its thirteenth issue that
Higginson Peabody took up the question of a circulation. At that time
the paper owned but thirty-four subscribers. Dodge was small; the paper
could be passed from hand to hand; those thirty-four copies, during the
seven days when they were fresh, were read and appreciated by every eye
in Dodge. Under such circumstances thirty-four copies would be enough;
the demands of Dodge did not call for any more. Clearly, some argument
beyond the argument of mere news was required to build up a _Weekly
Planet_ circulation.
Higginson Peabody, in conference with Jack, said that he thought of
starting a baby contest. The paper would offer a prize for the most
beautiful baby in Dodge.
Jack stood like a rock against this proposition. He showed how in all
Dodge there were but two babies, and that the mother in each marvellous
instance held her darling to be a cherub fresh descended from on high.
That mother would make trouble for the _Weekly Planet_ and all connected
therewith if any rival infant were pitched upon as that cherub’s
superior.
“The mother,” said Jack, ominously, “whose young one got beat would let
her hair down her back, give her war-yell, and simply leave the _Weekly
Planet_ on both sides of the Arkansaw. Besides, that gent don’t jingle a
spur in Dodge who’s game to act as judge. But,” continued Jack, when
Higginson Peabody, impressed by the serpent-like wisdom of his young
assistant, had abandoned every notion of a baby contest, “I’ve thought
up a play that ought to make the paper as popular as tortillas with a
Mexican. How about a pie contest? Wouldn’t that meet the needs of the
hour?” And Jack’s mouth took on an unctuous expression.
Jack explained his scheme. The _Weekly Planet_ would offer a five-years’
subscription, free, for the best pie, any sort or species, sent to its
editorial rooms, accompanied by the name of the authoress, within four
calendar weeks of the announcement.
“We want to personally interest the ladies,” said Jack, “and a pie
contest will do it.”
Higginson Peabody was struck by the original force of Jack’s suggestion.
Hailing from what Mr. Warner called “the region of perpetual pie,” he
could appreciate its merits. He put but one question:
“Whom shall we name as judge?” Higginson Peabody also added that it was
beyond his own genius to act in that capacity, alleging a dyspepsia.
Jack’s eyes lit up like the windows of a hurdy-gurdy on the evening of a
fandango.
“I’ll be judge,” said Jack.
The value of a pie contest as a spur to circulation gained immediate
exhibition. The _Weekly Planet_ jumped from thirty-four to one hundred
and ten, and new subscriptions coming every hour.
Also, pies began to appear—pies of every kind. There was the morose
mince, the cheerful dried apple, the sedate pumpkin, the consoling
custard, the flippant plum; every variety of dried or canned goods on
Mr. Wright’s broad shelves was drawn upon to become the basis of pie.
Since no limit had been placed upon her labours, every fair contestant
sent ardent scores of entries. Lest one baking had been slightly burned
on the under crust, each lady broke forth in further bakings, and by the
end of the second day of that rivalry pies had accumulated on the
premises of the _Weekly Planet_ by the gross. They were stacked up in
tiers of twelve on the editorial table, they covered printing-press and
make-up stones, there were no chairs left and hardly room remained to
move about among the cases because of pies. And the end was not yet; the
third day opened with an aggregate consignment of eighty pies, and each
confection a hopeful claimant of that five-years’ free subscription.
When Jack evolved a pie contest he had no foreknowledge of what would be
its fatal popularity. In proposing to act as judge of that pastry
competition he in no wise foresaw the pie-deluge which would set in.
Still, being of the material from which heroes are made, Jack bore
himself doughtily. The first day he ate twenty-eight pies; the second
day he got no further than twenty; on the third day, with two hundred
untouched pies awaiting his sampling tooth, Jack fell ill.
“Of course,” said Jack, feebly, “I could go on, I s’ppose, and I’ll sell
my life dearly; but what’s the use? What could one boy do against two
hundred pies?”
Jack was undeniably ill, but as one whose spirit remains unconquerable,
he would not go to bed. Although he could not look at a pie, he appeared
about the office, like some criminal ghost obliged to haunt the scenes
of its malefactions. And Jack was still capable of a suggestion. It was
by his word that the three printers were named as an auxiliary
commission to aid in forming an official judgment of those pies.
It was of scant avail. At the close of the fifth day the foreman came to
Higginson Peabody wearing a look of defeat. Even three printers had been
powerless before that storm of pie.
“Bill’s down an’ out,” said the foreman, dejectedly. Bill was one of the
two journeymen printers. “It was a lemon pie Miss Casey made that
floored him. To get the kinks out o’ Bill I had to give him a gallon of
Kelly’s best Old Jordan, an’ at that he ain’t been the same man since.”
“What shall we do?” queried Higginson Peabody, desperately. “We’ll be
buried alive beneath an avalanche of pie!”
The foreman was a fertile printer, and thought he might find a purchaser
for those pies. Higginson Peabody recklessly authorised him in that
behalf. Borrowing a pony from Mr. Trask’s corral, the foreman went to
Cimarron and arranged for the disposal of present as well as future pies
at the rate of a dollar the dozen pies, to Mr. Ingalls of the Golden Rod
restaurant. The following evening the premises of the _Weekly Planet_
were happily free from pies, and the greenish cast in Jack’s cheek was
giving way to the old-time hue of boyish health.
No harm would have come, and the _Weekly Planet_ might have continued in
its useful orbit undisturbed, had it not been for a visit that Aunt
Nettie Dawson paid to Cimarron. Aunt Nettie was sedately walking in
Cimarron’s only thoroughfare, intent on naught save a social hour with a
valued friend, resident of that hamlet, when her glance was arrested by
a certain pie in the window of the Golden Rod. It was of the mince
family, and its top crust was ornamented with sundry nicks and
flourishes, made by the point of a knife, and which in their whole
effect resembled the remains of a pair of centipedes that had met a
violent death. Aunt Nettie put on her glasses, took a second look to
make sure, and then stalked into the Golden Rod, demanding its
proprietor by name.
“Wherever did you-all get my pie, Bill Ingalls?” was the question which
Aunt Nettie put. The frown that darkened her brow was like a threat.
Mr. Ingalls, commonly, was a brave and truthful man, and yet he told
Aunt Nettie that he didn’t know. Mr. Ingalls said that the particular
pie to which she pointed was a mystery and its origin wrapped in fog.
Aunt Nettie snorted.
“You needn’t lie to me, Bill Ingalls,” she retorted; “you got it of that
beanstalk editor. I’ll show that cheap Yankee who he’s foolin’ with as
soon as ever I see Dodge ag’in.”
Higginson Peabody was discussing some subject of _Weekly Planet_ economy
with Jack when Aunt Nettie came in. Jack, being a frontier lad and keen
to every sign of danger, realised the storm in its approach and fled for
Mr. Masterson. His chief, less alive to the peril, turned pleasantly on
Aunt Nettie.
“What can I do, Miss Dawson?” he said.
“Where’s that mince I sent y’ yisterday?” demanded Aunt Nettie, manner
as brittle and as hard as glass. “It’s got two fern leaves marked on the
kiver.”
Higginson Peabody said never a word; panting like some trapped animal,
he could only look at Aunt Nettie. Then Aunt Nettie unfurled the story
of his perfidy.
“An’ so,” said Aunt Nettie, in sour conclusion, “you allowed you’d
dee-fraud us ladies of Dodge into bakin’ onlimited pies for them
drunkards over in Cimarron!”
Aunt Nettie made a house to house canvass and told each lady the story
of their mutual wrongs. There was a scurrying round-up of shawls and
shakers. Within thirty minutes fourscore pie contestants, Aunt Nettie at
their angry head, were moving on the office of the _Weekly Planet_. They
found the door closed and locked. Mr. Masterson, urged by Jack and
realising the danger, had been before them. By advice of that tried
strategist Higginson Peabody had barricaded his portals. He dragged the
office counter across the locked door and then cowered behind double
defences, fearing the worst.
“Never mind,” said Aunt Nettie, addressing her injured sisters, “he’s
simply got to come out, an’ we’ll jest nacherally camp on his doorstep
till he does.” This last ferociously.
The _Weekly Planet_ was in a state of siege, and word of that
beleaguerment went through Dodge like wildfire. With scared faces Mr.
Wright, Mr. Masterson, Mr. Short, Mr. Trask, Mr. Kelly and others among
the town’s bravest spirits, gathered for conference in the Long Branch.
“What are we to do?” asked Mr. Masterson, anxiously. “I don’t want to be
understood as shirking a duty, but if I’d known there was to be any such
feminine uprising as this I’d never been sheriff of Ford.”
Mr. Wright made a despairing gesture.
“I haven’t,” said Mr. Wright, “felt so he’pless an’ unprotected since
Mr. Lee’s surrender.”
“What be we to do?” and Mr. Kelly repeated Mr. Masterson’s question.
Then, as though making reply: “Whatever can we do? Thar’s them ladies on
the warpath, an’ Aunt Nettie at their head! She’s that inflexible,
granite’s easy to her! An’ as for courage, Aunt Nettie teaches it.
Thar’s nothin’ she’s feared of on four legs or two.”
“Yes thar is,” interjected Cimarron Bill, who stood listening. “Which
Aunt Nettie’s timid of cows.”
There was a suggestion in the remark; strung like a bow by the
difficulties of the situation Mr. Masterson seized upon it. Two words to
Cimarron Bill and in another moment that hard-riding gentleman and a
dozen hard-riding companions were cinching the hulls onto their ponies
in Mr. Trask’s corral. Once in the saddle, away they tore for the river
and began scrambling across, through deeps and shallows, with dire riot
and uproar.
On the south side of the river, up to their stolid knees in the rank
grasses, were from fifty to one hundred head of cattle. These tossed
wondering horns and blew loudly through their noses as Cimarron Bill and
his mates came charging across. Their ruminations suffered further
disturbance when, with headlong speed, those charging ones fell bodily
upon them, rounded them up, hurled them into the river and sent them for
the north bank on the jump. With bellow of protest the outraged cattle
were rushed along. Once on the north bank they were cleverly bunched
and, still on the canter, swung down on the office of the _Weekly
Planet_.
The first to observe the approach of that horned phalanx, with the
urgent riders whooping and dashing about in the rear, was Miss Casey of
the lemon pies.
“Oh, look at them awful cows, Miss Dawson, dear!” she screamed, and
pointed with horrified finger.
Not alone Aunt Nettie, but every lady looked. It was enough; there was a
chorus of squeaks, a vast flutter of skirts, and the fair vigilantes,
gathered to revenge their betrayed pies, had scattered like a flock of
blackbirds. Aunt Nettie was the last to go. She gazed at the oncoming
cattle as they swept down upon the _Weekly Planet_, with lowered horn
and steamy nostril; she identified her recreant nephew, Cimarron Bill,
and knew the whole as a masterpiece of Mastersonian diplomacy.
“The cowards!” she exclaimed. Then Aunt Nettie clawed her petticoats
about her and skurried after the others. The next moment the pushing,
milling, foaming band were jammed and held about the building of the
_Weekly Planet_. The ruse had worked, the siege was lifted.
Mr. Masterson, on his best pony and with a lead pony by the bridle, made
his way through the herd to the door.
“Don’t waste a moment,” cried Mr. Masterson to Higginson Peabody,
tossing him the reins of the lead pony the moment that journalist could
be prevailed on to open his doors; “into the saddle with you and head
for Cimarron. As sheriff of Ford I’ll see you safe as far as the county
line.”
When Mr. Masterson, with Higginson Peabody, drew bridle at the boundary
line between Ford and Gray counties, Mr. Masterson gave the other his
hand.
“Look out for yourself,” he said; “catch the express for the East!”
“Don’t you think,” inquired Higginson Peabody, quaveringly, “that after
the excitement cools off I can come back?”
Mr. Masterson firmly shook his head.
“There isn’t a chance,” said he. “If they were white men, or even
Cheyennes, I’d say ‘Yes.’ But they’re ladies, and you know what ladies
are! I’m reckoned a judge in matters of life and death, and I tell you
frankly that if it were twenty years from now, and you showed up in
Dodge, I wouldn’t guarantee your game a moment.”