ALGY STIRS UP TROUBLE
Bostwick arrived in Goldite at three in the afternoon, dressed in
prison clothes. He came on a freight wagon, the deliberate locomotion
of which had provided ample time for his wrath to accumulate and
simmer. His car was forty miles away, empty of gasolene, stripped of
all useful accessories, and abandoned where the convicts had compelled
him to drive them in their flight.
A blacker face than his appeared, with anger and a stubble of beard
upon it, could not have been readily discovered. His story had easily
outstripped him, and duly amused the camp, so that now, as he rode
along the busy street, in a stream of lesser vehicles, autos, and dusty
horsemen, arriving by two confluent roads, he was angered more and more
by the grins and ribald pleasantries bestowed by the throngs in the
road.
To complicate matters already sufficiently aggravating, Gettysburg,
Napoleon C. Blink, and Algy, the Chinese cook, from the Monte Cristo
mine, now swung into line from the northwest road, riding on horses and
burros. They were leading three small pack animals, loaded with all
their earthly plunder.
The freight team halted and a crowd began to congregate. Bostwick was
descending just as the pack-train was passing through the narrow way
left by the crowd. His foot struck one of the loaded burros in the
eye. The animal staggered over against the wall of men, trampling on
somebody's feet. Somebody yelled and cursed vehemently, stepping on
somebody else. A small-sized panic and melee ensued forthwith. More
of the animals took alarm, and Algy was frightened half to death. His
pony, a wall-eyed, half-witted brute, stampeded in the crowd. Then
Algy was presently in trouble.
There had been no Chinese in Goldite camp, largely on account of race
prejudice engendered and fostered by the working men, who still
maintained the old Californian hatred against the industrious
Celestials. In the mob, unfortunately near the center of confusion,
was a half-drunken miner, rancorous as poison. He was somewhat roughly
jostled by the press escaping Algy's pony.
"Ye blank, blank chink--I'll fix ye fer that!" he bawled at the top of
his voice, and heaving his fellow white men right and left he laid
vicious hands on the helpless cook and, dragging him down, went at him
in savage brutality.
"Belay there, you son of a shellfish!" yelled Napoleon, dismounting and
madly attempting to push real men away. "I'll smash in your
pilot-house! I'll---- Leave me git in there to Algy!"
Gettysburg, too, was on the ground. He, Bostwick, and a hundred men
were madly crowded in together, where two or three were pushing back
the throng and yelling to Algy to fight.
Algy was fighting. He was also spouting most awful Chinese oaths,
sufficient to warp an ordinary spine and wither a common person's
limbs. He kicked and scratched like a badger. But the miner was an
engine of destruction. He was aggravated to a mood of gory slaughter.
He broke the Chinaman's arm, almost at once, with some viciously
diabolical maneuver and leaped upon him in fury.
In upon this scene of yelling, cursing, and fighting Van rode
unannounced. He saw the crowd increasing rapidly, as saloons, stores,
hay-yard, bank, and places of lodging poured out a curious army, mostly
men, with a few scattered women among them--all surging eagerly forward.
Algy, meantime, in a spasm of pain and activity, struggled to his feet
from the dust and attempted to make his escape. Van no more than
beheld him that he leaped from his horse and broke his way into the
ring.
When he laid his hand on the miner's collar it appeared as if that
individual would be suddenly jerked apart. Algy went down in collapse.
"Why don't you pick on a man of your color?"
Van demanded, and he flung the miner headlong to the ground.
A hundred lusty citizens shouted their applause.
Little Napoleon broke his way to the center. Gettysburg was just
behind him. Van was about to kneel on the ground and lift his
prostrate cook when someone bawled out a warning.
He wheeled instantly. The angered miner, up, with a gun in hand, was
lurching in closer to shoot. He got no chance, even to level the
weapon. Van was upon him like a panther. The gun went up and was
fired in the air, and then was hurled down under foot.
Two things happened then together. The sheriff arrived to arrest the
drunken miner, and a woman pushed her way through the press.
"Van!" she cried. "Van--oh, Van!"
He was busy assisting his partners to escort poor Algy away. He noted
the woman as she parted the crowd. He was barely in time to fend her
off from flinging herself in his arms.
"Oh, Van!" she repeated wildly. "I thought you was goin' to git it
sure!"
"Don't bother me, Queenie," he answered, annoyed, and adding to
Gettysburg, "Take him to Charlie's," he turned at once to his broncho,
mounted actively, and began to round up the scattered animals brought
into camp by his partners.
He had barely ridden clear of the crowd when his glance was caught by a
figure off to the left.
It was Beth. She was standing on a packing case, where the surging
disorder had sent her. She had seen it all, the fight, his arrival,
and the woman who would have clasped him in her arms.
Her face was flushed. She avoided his gaze and turned to descend to
the walk. Then Bostwick, in his convict suit, stepped actively forward
to meet her.
Van saw the look of surprise in her face, at beholding the man in this
attire. She recoiled, despite herself, then held forth her hand for
his aid. Bostwick took it, assisted her down, and they hastily made
their escape.