the burro's pack, and the milk-cans rolled on the ground. The burro
began grazing quietly, with now and then a step towards new patches of
grass. The horses stood where their riders had left them, their reins
over their heads, hanging and dragging. From two hundred yards on the
hill the ambushed Apaches showed, their dark, scattered figures
appearing cautiously one by one, watching with suspicion. Specimen
Jones seized up one milk-can, and Cumnor obediently did the same.
[Illustration: THE MEXICAN FREIGHT-WAGON]
"You kin dance, kid, and I kin sing, and we'll go to it," said Jones. He
rambled in a wavering loop, and diving eccentrically at Cumnor, clashed
the milk-cans together. "'Es schallt ein Ruf wie Donnerhall,'" he
bawled, beginning the song of "Die Wacht am Rhein." "Why don't you
dance?" he shouted, sternly. The boy saw the terrible earnestness of his
face, and, clashing his milk-cans in turn, he shuffled a sort of jig.
The two went over the sand in loops, toe and heel; the donkey continued
his quiet grazing, and the flames rose hot and yellow from the
freight-wagon. And all the while the stately German hymn pealed among
the rocks, and the Apaches crept down nearer the bowing, scraping men.
The sun shone bright, and their bodies poured with sweat. Jones flung
off his shirt; his damp, matted hair was half in ridges and half glued
to his forehead, and the delicate gold chain swung and struck his broad,
naked breast. The Apaches drew nearer again, their bows and arrows held
uncertainly. They came down the hill, fifteen or twenty, taking a long
time, and stopping every few yards. The milk-cans clashed, and Jones
thought he felt the boy's strokes weakening. "Die Wacht am Rhein" was
finished, and now it was "'Ha-ve you seen my Flora pass this way?'"
"Y'u mustn't play out, kid," said Jones, very gently. "Indeed y'u
mustn't;" and he at once resumed his song. The silent Apaches had now
reached the bottom of the hill. They stood some twenty yards away, and
Cumnor had a good chance to see his first Indians. He saw them move, and
the color and slim shape of their bodies, their thin arms, and their
long, black hair. It went through his mind that if he had no more
clothes on than that, dancing would come easier. His boots were growing
heavy to lift, and his overalls seemed to wrap his sinews in wet,
strangling thongs. He wondered how long he had been keeping this up. The
legs of the Apaches were free, with light moccasins only half-way to the
thigh, slenderly held up by strings from the waist. Cumnor envied their
unencumbered steps as he saw them again walk nearer to where he was
dancing. It was long since he had eaten, and he noticed a singing
dulness in his brain, and became frightened at his thoughts, which were
running and melting into one fixed idea. This idea was to take off his
boots, and offer to trade them for a pair of moccasins. It terrified
him--this endless, molten rush of thoughts; he could see them coming in
different shapes from different places in his head, but they all joined
immediately, and always formed the same fixed idea. He ground his teeth
to master this encroaching inebriation of his will and judgment. He
clashed his can more loudly to wake him to reality, which he still could
recognize and appreciate. For a time he found it a good plan to listen
to what Specimen Jones was singing, and tell himself the name of the
song, if he knew it. At present it was "Yankee Doodle," to which Jones
was fitting words of his own. These ran, "Now I'm going to try a bluff.
And mind you do what I do"; and then again, over and over. Cumnor waited
for the word "bluff"; for it was hard and heavy, and fell into his
thoughts, and stopped them for a moment. The dance was so long now he
had forgotten about that. A numbness had been spreading through his
legs, and he was glad to feel a sharp pain in the sole of his foot. It
was a piece of gravel that had somehow worked its way in, and was
rubbing through the skin into the flesh. "That's good," he said, aloud.
The pebble was eating the numbness away, and Cumnor drove it hard
against the raw spot, and relished the tonic of its burning friction.
The Apaches had drawn into a circle. Standing at some interval apart,
they entirely surrounded the arena. Shrewd, half convinced, and yet with
awe, they watched the dancers, who clashed their cans slowly now in
rhythm to Jones's hoarse, parched singing. He was quite master of
himself, and led the jig round the still blazing wreck of the wagon, and
circled in figures of eight between the corpses of the Mexicans,
clashing the milk-cans above each one. Then, knowing his strength was
coming to an end, he approached an Indian whose splendid fillet and
trappings denoted him of consequence; and Jones was near shouting with
relief when the Indian shrank backward. Suddenly he saw Cumnor let his
can drop, and without stopping to see why, he caught it up, and, slowly
rattling both, approached each Indian in turn with tortuous steps. The
circle that had never uttered a sound till now receded, chanting almost
in a whisper some exorcising song which the man with the fillet had
begun. They gathered round him, retreating always, and the strain, with
its rapid muttered words, rose and fell softly among them. Jones had
supposed the boy was overcome by faintness, and looked to see where he
lay. But it was not faintness. Cumnor, with his boots off, came by and
walked after the Indians in a trance. They saw him, and quickened their
pace, often turning to be sure he was not overtaking them. He called to
them unintelligibly, stumbling up the sharp hill, and pointing to the
boots. Finally he sat down. They continued ascending the mountain,
herding close round the man with the feathers, until the rocks and the
filmy tangles screened them from sight; and like a wind that hums
uncertainly in grass, their chanting died away.
The sun was half behind the western range when Jones next moved. He
called, and, getting no answer, he crawled painfully to where the boy
lay on the hill. Cumnor was sleeping heavily; his head was hot, and he
moaned. So Jones crawled down, and fetched blankets and the canteen of
water. He spread the blankets over the boy, wet a handkerchief and laid
it on his forehead; then he lay down himself.
The earth was again magically smitten to crystal. Again the sharp cactus
and the sand turned beautiful, and violet floated among the mountains,
and rose-colored orange in the sky above them.
"Jock," said Specimen at length.
The boy opened his eyes.
"Your foot is awful, Jock. Can y'u eat?"
"Not with my foot."
"Ah, God bless y'u, Jock! Y'u ain't turruble sick. But _can_ y'u eat?"
Cumnor shook his head.
"Eatin's what y'u need, though. Well, here." Specimen poured a judicious
mixture of whiskey and water down the boy's throat, and wrapped the
awful foot in his own flannel shirt. "They'll fix y'u over to Grant.
It's maybe twelve miles through the canon. It ain't a town any more than
Carlos is, but the soldiers'll be good to us. As soon as night comes you
and me must somehow git out of this."
Somehow they did, Jones walking and leading his horse and the
imperturbable little burro, and also holding Cumnor in the saddle. And
when Cumnor was getting well in the military hospital at Grant, he
listened to Jones recounting to all that chose to hear how useful a
weapon an ice-cream freezer can be, and how if you'll only chase Apaches
in your stocking feet they are sure to run away. And then Jones and
Cumnor both enlisted; and I suppose Jones's friend is still expecting
him in Tucson.
THE SERENADE AT SISKIYOU
Unskilled at murder and without training in running away, one of the two
Healy boys had been caught with ease soon after their crime. What they
had done may be best learned in the following extract from a certain
official report:
"The stage was within five miles of its destination when it
was confronted by the usual apparition of a masked man
levelling a double-barrelled shot-gun at the driver, and the
order to 'Pull up, and throw out the express box.' The driver
promptly complied. Meanwhile the guard, Buck Montgomery, who
occupied a seat inside, from which he caught a glimpse of
what was going on, opened fire at the robber, who dropped to
his knees at the first shot, but a moment later discharged
both barrels of his gun at the stage. The driver dropped from
his seat to the foot-board with five buckshot in his right
leg near the knee, and two in his left leg; a passenger by
his side also dropped with three or four buckshot in his
legs. Before the guard could reload, two shots came from
behind the bushes back of the exposed robber, and Buck fell
to the bottom of the stage mortally wounded--shot through the
back. The whole murderous sally occupied but a few seconds,
and the order came to 'Drive on.' Officers and citizens
quickly started in pursuit, and the next day one of the
robbers, a well-known young man of that vicinity, son of a
respectable farmer in Fresno County, was overtaken and
arrested."
Feeling had run high in the streets of Siskiyou when the prisoner was
brought into town, and the wretch's life had come near a violent end at
the hands of the mob, for Buck Montgomery had many friends. But the
steadier citizens preserved the peace, and the murderer was in the
prison awaiting his trial by formal law. It was now some weeks since the
tragedy, and Judge Campbell sat at breakfast reading his paper.
"Why, that is excellent!" he suddenly exclaimed.
"May I ask what is excellent, judge?" inquired his wife. She had a big
nose.
"They've caught the other one, Amanda. Got him last evening in a
restaurant at Woodland." The judge read the paragraph to Mrs. Campbell,
who listened severely. "And so," he concluded, "when to-night's train
gets up, we'll have them both safe in jail."
Mrs. Campbell dallied over her eggs, shaking her head. Presently she
sighed. But as Amanda often did this, her husband finished his own eggs
and took some more. "Poor boy!" said the lady, pensively. "Only
twenty-three last 12th of October. What a cruel fate!"
Now the judge supposed she referred to the murdered man. "Yes," he said.
"Vile. You've got him romantically young, my dear. I understood he was
thirty-five."
"I know his age perfectly, Judge Campbell. I made it my business to find
out. And to think his brother might actually have been lynched!"
"I never knew that either. You seem to have found out all about the
family, Amanda. What were they going to lynch the brother for?"
The ample lady folded her fat, middle-aged hands on the edge of the
table, and eyed her husband with bland displeasure. "Judge Campbell!"
she uttered, and her lips shut wide and firm. She would restrain
herself, if possible.
"Well, my dear?"
"You ask me that. You pretend ignorance of that disgraceful scene. Who
was it said to me right in the street that he disapproved of lynching? I
ask you, judge, who was it right there at the jail--"
"Oh!" said the enlightened judge.
"--Right at the left-hand side of the door of the jail in this town of
Siskiyou, who was it got that trembling boy safe inside from those
yelling fiends and talked to the crowd on a barrel of number ten nails,
and made those wicked men stop and go home?"
"Amanda, I believe I recognize myself."
"I should think you did, Judge Campbell. And now they've caught the
other one, and he'll be up with the sheriff on to-night's train, and I
suppose they'll lynch _him_ now!"
"There's not the slightest danger," said the judge. "The town wants them
to have a fair trial. It was natural that immediately after such an
atrocious act--"
"Those poor boys had never murdered anybody before in their lives,"
interrupted Amanda.
"But they did murder Montgomery, you will admit."
"Oh yes!" said Mrs. Campbell, with impatience. "I saw the hole in his
back. You needn't tell me all that again. If he'd thrown out the express
box quicker they wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head. Wells and
Fargo's messengers know that perfectly. It was his own fault. Those boys
had no employment, and they only wanted money. They did not seek human
blood, and you needn't tell me they did."
"They shed it, however, Amanda. Quite a lot of it. Stage-driver and a
passenger too."
"Yes, you keep going back to that as if they'd all been murdered instead
of only one, and you don't care about those two poor boys locked in a
dungeon, and their gray-haired father down in Fresno County who never
did anything wrong at all, and he sixty-one in December."
"The county isn't thinking of hanging the old gentleman," said the
judge.
"That will do, Judge Campbell," said his lady, rising. "I shall say no
more. Total silence for the present is best for you and best for me.
Much best. I will leave you to think of your speech, which was by no
means silver. Not even life with you for twenty-five years this coming
10th of July has inured me to insult. I am capable of understanding whom
they think of hanging, and your speaking to me as if I did not does you
little credit; for it was a mere refuge from a woman's just accusation
of heartlessness which you felt, and like a man would not acknowledge;
and therefore it is that I say no more but leave you to go down the
street to the Ladies' Lyceum where I shall find companions with some
spark of humanity in their bosoms and milk of human kindness for those
whose hasty youth has plunged them in misery and delivered them to the
hands of those who treat them as if they were stones and sticks full of
nothing but monstrosity instead of breathing men like themselves to be
shielded by brotherhood and hope and not dashed down by cruelty and
despair."
It had begun stately as a dome, with symmetry and punctuation, but the
climax was untrammelled by a single comma. The orator swept from the
room, put on her bonnet and shawl, and the judge, still sitting with his
eggs, heard the front door close behind her. She was president of the
Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum, and she now trod thitherward through
Siskiyou.
"I think Amanda will find companions there," mused the judge. "But her
notions of sympathy beat me." The judge had a small, wise blue eye, and
he liked his wife more than well. She was sincerely good, and had been
very courageous in their young days of poverty. She loved their son, and
she loved him. Only, when she took to talking, he turned up a mental
coat-collar and waited. But if the male sex did not appreciate her
powers of eloquence her sister citizens did; and Mrs. Campbell, besides
presiding at the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum in Siskiyou, often
addressed female meetings in Ashland, Yreka, and even as far away as
Tehama and Redding. She found companions this morning.
"To think of it!" they exclaimed, at her news of the capture, for none
had read the paper. They had been too busy talking of the next debate,
which was upon the question, "Ought we to pray for rain?" But now they
instantly forgot the wide spiritual issues raised by this inquiry, and
plunged into the fascinations of crime, reciting once more to each other
the details of the recent tragedy. The room hired for the Lyceum was in
a second story above the apothecary and book shop--a combined enterprise
in Siskiyou--and was furnished with fourteen rocking-chairs. Pictures of
Mount Shasta and Lucretia Mott ornamented the wall, with a photograph
from an old master representing Leda and the Swan. This typified the
Lyceum's approval of Art, and had been presented by one of the husbands
upon returning from a three days' business trip to San Francisco.
"Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Parsons, after they had all shuddered anew over
the shooting and the blood. "With so much suffering in the world, how
fulsome seems that gay music!" She referred to the Siskiyou brass-band,
which was rehearsing the march from "Fatinitza" in an adjacent room in
the building. Mrs. Parsons had large, mournful eyes, a poetic
vocabulary, and wanted to be president of the Lyceum herself.
"Melody has its sphere, Gertrude," said Mrs. Campbell, in a wholesome
voice. "We must not be morbid. But this I say to you, one and all: Since
the men of Siskiyou refuse, it is for the women to vindicate the town's
humanity, and show some sympathy for the captive who arrives to-night."
They all thought so too.
"I do not criticise," continued their president, magnanimously, "nor do
I complain of any one. Each in this world has his or her mission, and
the most sacred is Woman's own--to console!"
"True, true!" murmured Mrs. Slocum.
"We must do something for the prisoner, to show him we do not desert him
in his hour of need," Mrs. Campbell continued.
"We'll go and meet the train!" Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, eagerly. "I've
never seen a real murderer."
"A bunch of flowers for him," said Mrs. Parsons, closing her mournful
eyes. "Roses." And she smiled faintly.
"Oh, lilies!" cried little Mrs. Day, with rapture. "Lilies would look
_real_ nice."
"Don't you think," said Miss Sissons, who had not spoken before, and sat
a little apart from the close-drawn clump of talkers, "that we might
send the widow some flowers too, some time?" Miss Sissons was a pretty
girl, with neat hair. She was engaged to the captain of Siskiyou's
baseball nine.
"The widow?" Mrs. Campbell looked vague.
"Mrs. Montgomery, I mean--the murdered man's wife. I--I went to see if I
could do anything, for she has some children; but she wouldn't see me,"
said Miss Sissons. "She said she couldn't talk to anybody."
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Campbell. "I dare say it was a dreadful shock to
her. Yes, dear, we'll attend to her after a while. We'll have her with
us right along, you know, whereas these unhappy boys may--may be--may
soon meet a cruel death on the scaffold." Mrs. Campbell evaded the
phrase "may be hanged" rather skilfully. To her trained oratorical sense
it had seemed to lack dignity.
"So young!" said Mrs. Day.
"And both so full of promise, to be cut off!" said Mrs. Parsons.
"Why, they can't hang them both, I should think," said Miss Sissons. "I
thought only one killed Mr. Montgomery."
"My dear Louise," said Mrs. Campbell, "they can do anything they want,
and they will. Shall I ever forget those ruffians who wanted to lynch
the first one? They'll be on the jury!"
The clump returned to their discussion of the flowers, and Miss Sissons
presently mentioned she had some errands to do, and departed.
"Would that that girl had more soul!" said Mrs. Parsons.
"She has plenty of soul," replied Mrs. Campbell, "but she's under the
influence of a man. Well, as I was saying, roses and lilies are too
big."
"Oh, _why_?" said Mrs. Day. "They would _please_ him so."
"He couldn't carry them, Mrs. Day. I've thought it all out. He'll be
walked to the jail between strong men. We must have some small bokay to
pin on his coat, for his hands will be shackled."
"You don't say!" cried Mrs. Slocum. "How awful! I must get to that
train. I've never seen a man in shackles in my life."
So violets were selected; Mrs. Campbell brought some in the afternoon
from her own borders, and Mrs. Parsons furnished a large pin. She
claimed also the right to affix the decoration upon the prisoner's
breast because she had suggested the idea of flowers; but the other
ladies protested, and the president seemed to think that they all should
draw lots. It fell to Mrs. Day.
"Now I declare!" twittered the little matron. "I do believe I'll never
dare."
"You must say something to him," said Amanda; "something fitting and
choice."
"Oh dear no, Mrs. Campbell. Why, I never--my gracious! Why, if I'd known
I was expected--Really, I couldn't think--I'll let _you_ do it!"
"We can't hash up the ceremony that way, Mrs. Day," said Amanda,
severely. And as they all fell arguing, the whistle blew.
"There!" said Mrs. Slocum. "Now you've made me late, and I'll miss the
shackles and everything."
She flew down-stairs, and immediately the town of Siskiyou saw twelve
members of the Ladies' Reform and Literary Lyceum follow her in a hasty
phalanx across the square to the station. The train approached slowly up
the grade, and by the time the wide smoke-stack of the locomotive was
puffing its wood smoke in clouds along the platform, Amanda had
marshalled her company there.
"Where's the gals all goin', Bill?" inquired a large citizen in boots of
the ticket-agent.
"Nowheres, I guess, Abe," the agent replied. "Leastways, they 'ain't
bought any tickets off me."
"Maybe they're for stealin' a ride," said Abe.
The mail and baggage cars had passed, and the women watched the
smoking-car that drew up opposite them. Mrs. Campbell had informed her
friends that the sheriff always went in the smoker; but on this
occasion, for some reason, he had brought his prisoner in the Pullman
sleeper at the rear, some way down the track, and Amanda's vigilant eye
suddenly caught the group, already descended and walking away. The
platoon of sympathy set off, and rapidly came up with the sheriff, while
Bill, Abe, the train conductor, the Pullman conductor, the engineer, and
the fireman abandoned their duty, and stared, in company with the
brakemen and many passengers. There was perfect silence but for the
pumping of the air-brake on the engine. The sheriff, not understanding
what was coming, had half drawn his pistol; but now, surrounded by
universal petticoats, he pulled off his hat and grinned doubtfully. The
friend with him also stood bareheaded and grinning. He was young Jim
Hornbrook, the muscular betrothed of Miss Sissons. The prisoner could
not remove his hat, or he would have done so. Miss Sissons, who had come
to the train to meet her lover, was laughing extremely in the middle of
the road.
"Take these violets," faltered Mrs. Day, and held out the bunch, backing
away slightly at the same time.
"Nonsense," said Amanda, stepping forward and grasping the flowers. "The
women of Siskiyou are with you," she said, "as we are with all the
afflicted." Then she pinned the violets firmly to the prisoner's flannel
shirt. His face, at first amazed as the sheriff's and Hornbrook's,
smoothed into cunning and vanity, while Hornbrook's turned an angry red,
and the sheriff stopped grinning.
"Them flowers would look better on Buck Montgomery's grave, madam," said
the officer. "Maybe you'll let us pass now." They went on to the jail.
"Waal," said Abe, on the platform, "that's the most disgustin' fool
thing I ever did see."
"All aboa-rd!" said the conductor, and the long train continued its way
to Portland.
The platoon, well content, dispersed homeward to supper, and Jim
Hornbrook walked home with his girl.
"For Lord's sake, Louise," he said, "who started that move?"
She told him the history of the morning.
"Well," he said, "you tell Mrs. Campbell, with my respects, that she's
just playing with fire. A good woman like her ought to have more sense.
Those men are going to have a fair trial."
"She wouldn't listen to me, Jim, not a bit. And, do you know, she really
didn't seem to feel sorry--except just for a minute--about that poor
woman."
"Louise, why don't you quit her outfit?"
"Resign from the Lyceum? That's so silly of you, Jim. We're not all
crazy there; and that," said Miss Sissons, demurely, "is what makes a
girl like me so valuable!"
"Well, I'm not stuck on having you travel with that lot."
"They speak better English than you do, Jim dear. Don't! in the street!"
"Sho! It's dark now," said Jim. "And it's been three whole days since--"
But Miss Sissons escaped inside her gate and rang the bell. "Now see
here, Louise," he called after her, "when I say they're playing with
fire I mean it. That woman will make trouble in this town."
"She's not afraid," said Miss Sissons. "Don't you know enough about us
yet to know we can't be threatened?"
"You!" said the young man. "I wasn't thinking of you." And so they
separated.
Mrs. Campbell sat opposite the judge at supper, and he saw at once from
her complacent reticence that she had achieved some triumph against his
principles. She chatted about topics of the day in terms that were
ingeniously trite. Then a letter came from their son in Denver, and she
forgot her role somewhat, and read the letter aloud to the judge, and
wondered wistfully who in Denver attended to the boy's buttons and
socks; but she made no reference whatever to Siskiyou jail or those
inside it. Next morning, however, it was the judge's turn to be angry.
"Amanda," he said, over the paper again, "you had better stick to socks,
and leave criminals alone."
Amanda gazed at space with a calm smile.