before using; for sulphur will not dissolve. Then Dry Valley saturated
a small sponge with the liquid and rubbed it carefully into the roots
of his hair. Besides sulphur there was sugar of lead in it and tincture
of nux vomica and bay rum. Dry Valley found the recipe in a Sunday
newspaper. You must next be told why a strong man came to fall a victim
to a Beauty Hint.
Dry Valley had been a sheepman. His real name was Hector, but he had
been rechristened after his range to distinguish him from “Elm Creek”
Johnson, who ran sheep further down the Frio.
Many years of living face to face with sheep on their own terms wearied
Dry Valley Johnson. So, he sold his ranch for eighteen thousand dollars
and moved to Santa Rosa to live a life of gentlemanly ease. Being a
silent and melancholy person of thirty-five—or perhaps thirty-eight—he
soon became that cursed and earth-cumbering thing—an elderlyish
bachelor with a hobby. Some one gave him his first strawberry to eat,
and he was done for.
Dry Valley bought a four-room cottage in the village, and a library on
strawberry culture. Behind the cottage was a garden of which he made a
strawberry patch. In his old grey woolen shirt, his brown duck
trousers, and high-heeled boots he sprawled all day on a canvas cot
under a live-oak tree at his back door studying the history of the
seductive, scarlet berry.
The school teacher, Miss De Witt, spoke of him as “a fine, presentable
man, for all his middle age.” But, the focus of Dry Valley’s eyes
embraced no women. They were merely beings who flew skirts as a signal
for him to lift awkwardly his heavy, round-crowned, broad-brimmed felt
Stetson whenever he met them, and then hurry past to get back to his
beloved berries.
And all this recitative by the chorus is only to bring us to the point
where you may be told why Dry Valley shook up the insoluble sulphur in
the bottle. So long-drawn and inconsequential a thing is history—the
anamorphous shadow of a milestone reaching down the road between us and
the setting sun.
When his strawberries were beginning to ripen Dry Valley bought the
heaviest buggy whip in the Santa Rosa store. He sat for many hours
under the live oak tree plaiting and weaving in an extension to its
lash. When it was done he could snip a leaf from a bush twenty feet
away with the cracker. For the bright, predatory eyes of Santa Rosa
youth were watching the ripening berries, and Dry Valley was arming
himself against their expected raids. No greater care had he taken of
his tender lambs during his ranching days than he did of his cherished
fruit, warding it from the hungry wolves that whistled and howled and
shot their marbles and peered through the fence that surrounded his
property.
In the house next to Dry Valley’s lived a widow with a pack of children
that gave the husbandman frequent anxious misgivings. In the woman
there was a strain of the Spanish. She had wedded one of the name of
O’Brien. Dry Valley was a connoisseur in cross strains; and he foresaw
trouble in the offspring of this union.
Between the two homesteads ran a crazy picket fence overgrown with
morning glory and wild gourd vines. Often he could see little heads
with mops of black hair and flashing dark eyes dodging in and out
between the pickets, keeping tabs on the reddening berries.
Late one afternoon Dry Valley went to the post office. When he came
back, like Mother Hubbard he found the deuce to pay. The descendants of
Iberian bandits and Hibernian cattle raiders had swooped down upon his
strawberry patch. To the outraged vision of Dry Valley there seemed to
be a sheep corral full of them; perhaps they numbered five or six.
Between the rows of green plants they were stooped, hopping about like
toads, gobbling silently and voraciously his finest fruit.
Dry Valley slipped into the house, got his whip, and charged the
marauders. The lash curled about the legs of the nearest—a greedy
ten-year-old—before they knew they were discovered. His screech gave
warning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of
_javelis_ flushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley’s whip drew a toll of
two more elfin shrieks before they dived through the vine-clad fence
and disappeared.
Dry Valley, less fleet, followed them nearly to the pickets. Checking
his useless pursuit, he rounded a bush, dropped his whip and stood,
voiceless, motionless, the capacity of his powers consumed by the act
of breathing and preserving the perpendicular.
Behind the bush stood Panchita O’Brien, scorning to fly. She was
nineteen, the oldest of the raiders. Her night-black hair was gathered
back in a wild mass and tied with a scarlet ribbon. She stood, with
reluctant feet, yet nearer the brook than to the river; for childhood
had environed and detained her.
She looked at Dry Valley Johnson for a moment with magnificent
insolence, and before his eyes slowly crunched a luscious berry between
her white teeth. Then she turned and walked slowly to the fence with a
swaying, conscious motion, such as a duchess might make use of in
leading a promenade. There she turned again and grilled Dry Valley
Johnson once more in the dark flame of her audacious eyes, laughed a
trifle school-girlishly, and twisted herself with pantherish quickness
between the pickets to the O’Brien side of the wild gourd vine.
Dry Valley picked up his whip and went into his house. He stumbled as
he went up the two wooden steps. The old Mexican woman who cooked his
meals and swept his house called him to supper as he went through the
rooms. Dry Valley went on, stumbled down the front steps, out the gate
and down the road into a mesquite thicket at the edge of town. He sat
down in the grass and laboriously plucked the spines from a prickly
pear, one by one. This was his attitude of thought, acquired in the
days when his problems were only those of wind and wool and water.
A thing had happened to the man—a thing that, if you are eligible, you
must pray may pass you by. He had become enveloped in the Indian Summer
of the Soul.
Dry Valley had had no youth. Even his childhood had been one of dignity
and seriousness. At six he had viewed the frivolous gambols of the
lambs on his father’s ranch with silent disapproval. His life as a
young man had been wasted. The divine fires and impulses, the glorious
exaltations and despairs, the glow and enchantment of youth had passed
above his head. Never a thrill of Romeo had he known; he was but a
melancholy Jaques of the forest with a ruder philosophy, lacking the
bitter-sweet flavour of experience that tempered the veteran years of
the rugged ranger of Arden. And now in his sere and yellow leaf one
scornful look from the eyes of Panchita O’Brien had flooded the
autumnal landscape with a tardy and delusive summer heat.
But a sheepman is a hardy animal. Dry Valley Johnson had weathered too
many northers to turn his back on a late summer, spiritual or real.
Old? He would show them.
By the next mail went an order to San Antonio for an outfit of the
latest clothes, colours and styles and prices no object. The next day
went the recipe for the hair restorer clipped from a newspaper; for Dry
Valley’s sunburned auburn hair was beginning to turn silvery above his
ears.
Dry Valley kept indoors closely for a week except for frequent sallies
after youthful strawberry snatchers. Then, a few days later, he
suddenly emerged brilliantly radiant in the hectic glow of his belated
midsummer madness.
A jay-bird-blue tennis suit covered him outwardly, almost as far as his
wrists and ankles. His shirt was ox-blood; his collar winged and tall;
his necktie a floating oriflamme; his shoes a venomous bright tan,
pointed and shaped on penitential lasts. A little flat straw hat with a
striped band desecrated his weather-beaten head. Lemon-coloured kid
gloves protected his oak-tough hands from the benignant May sunshine.
This sad and optic-smiting creature teetered out of its den, smiling
foolishly and smoothing its gloves for men and angels to see. To such a
pass had Dry Valley Johnson been brought by Cupid, who always shoots
game that is out of season with an arrow from the quiver of Momus.
Reconstructing mythology, he had risen, a prismatic macaw, from the
ashes of the grey-brown phoenix that had folded its tired wings to
roost under the trees of Santa Rosa.
Dry Valley paused in the street to allow Santa Rosans within sight of
him to be stunned; and then deliberately and slowly, as his shoes
required, entered Mrs. O’Brien’s gate.
Not until the eleven months’ drought did Santa Rosa cease talking about
Dry Valley Johnson’s courtship of Panchita O’Brien. It was an
unclassifiable procedure; something like a combination of cake-walking,
deaf-and-dumb oratory, postage stamp flirtation and parlour charades.
It lasted two weeks and then came to a sudden end.
Of course Mrs. O’Brien favoured the match as soon as Dry Valley’s
intentions were disclosed. Being the mother of a woman child, and
therefore a charter member of the Ancient Order of the Rat-trap, she
joyfully decked out Panchita for the sacrifice. The girl was
temporarily dazzled by having her dresses lengthened and her hair piled
up on her head, and came near forgetting that she was only a slice of
cheese. It was nice, too, to have as good a match as Mr. Johnson paying
you attentions and to see the other girls fluttering the curtains at
their windows to see you go by with him.
Dry Valley bought a buggy with yellow wheels and a fine trotter in San
Antonio. Every day he drove out with Panchita. He was never seen to
speak to her when they were walking or driving. The consciousness of
his clothes kept his mind busy; the knowledge that he could say nothing
of interest kept him dumb; the feeling that Panchita was there kept him
happy.
He took her to parties and dances, and to church. He tried—oh, no man
ever tried so hard to be young as Dry Valley did. He could not dance;
but he invented a smile which he wore on these joyous occasions, a
smile that, in him, was as great a concession to mirth and gaiety as
turning hand-springs would be in another. He began to seek the company
of the young men in the town—even of the boys. They accepted him as a
decided damper, for his attempts at sportiveness were so forced that
they might as well have essayed their games in a cathedral. Neither he
nor any other could estimate what progress he had made with Panchita.
The end came suddenly in one day, as often disappears the false
afterglow before a November sky and wind.
Dry Valley was to call for the girl one afternoon at six for a walk. An
afternoon walk in Santa Rosa was a feature of social life that called
for the pink of one’s wardrobe. So Dry Valley began gorgeously to array
himself; and so early that he finished early, and went over to the
O’Brien cottage. As he neared the porch on the crooked walk from the
gate he heard sounds of revelry within. He stopped and looked through
the honeysuckle vines in the open door.
Panchita was amusing her younger brothers and sisters. She wore a man’s
clothes—no doubt those of the late Mr. O’Brien. On her head was the
smallest brother’s straw hat decorated with an ink-striped paper band.
On her hands were flapping yellow cloth gloves, roughly cut out and
sewn for the masquerade. The same material covered her shoes, giving
them the semblance of tan leather. High collar and flowing necktie were
not omitted.
Panchita was an actress. Dry Valley saw his affectedly youthful gait,
his limp where the right shoe hurt him, his forced smile, his awkward
simulation of a gallant air, all reproduced with startling fidelity.
For the first time a mirror had been held up to him. The corroboration
of one of the youngsters calling, “Mamma, come and see Pancha do like
Mr. Johnson,” was not needed.
As softly as the caricatured tans would permit, Dry Valley tiptoed back
to the gate and home again.
Twenty minutes after the time appointed for the walk Panchita tripped
demurely out of her gate in a thin, trim white lawn and sailor hat. She
strolled up the sidewalk and slowed her steps at Dry Valley’s gate, her
manner expressing wonder at his unusual delinquency.
Then out of his door and down the walk strode—not the polychromatic
victim of a lost summertime, but the sheepman, rehabilitated. He wore
his old grey woolen shirt, open at the throat, his brown duck trousers
stuffed into his run-over boots, and his white felt sombrero on the
back of his head. Twenty years or fifty he might look; Dry Valley cared
not. His light blue eyes met Panchita’s dark ones with a cold flash in
them. He came as far as the gate. He pointed with his long arm to her
house.
“Go home,” said Dry Valley. “Go home to your mother. I wonder lightnin’
don’t strike a fool like me. Go home and play in the sand. What
business have you got cavortin’ around with grown men? I reckon I was
locoed to be makin’ a he poll-parrot out of myself for a kid like you.
Go home and don’t let me see you no more. Why I done it, will somebody
tell me? Go home, and let me try and forget it.”
Panchita obeyed and walked slowly toward her home, saying nothing. For
some distance she kept her head turned and her large eyes fixed
intrepidly upon Dry Valley’s. At her gate she stood for a moment
looking back at him, then ran suddenly and swiftly into the house.
Old Antonia was building a fire in the kitchen stove. Dry Valley
stopped at the door and laughed harshly.
“I’m a pretty looking old rhinoceros to be gettin’ stuck on a kid,
ain’t I, ’Tonia?” said he.
“Not verree good thing,” agreed Antonia, sagely, “for too much old man
to likee _muchacha_.”
“You bet it ain’t,” said Dry Valley, grimly. “It’s dum foolishness;
and, besides, it hurts.”
He brought at one armful the regalia of his aberration—the blue tennis
suit, shoes, hat, gloves and all, and threw them in a pile at Antonia’s
feet.
“Give them to your old man,” said he, “to hunt antelope in.”
Just as the first star presided palely over the twilight Dry Valley got
his biggest strawberry book and sat on the back steps to catch the last
of the reading light. He thought he saw the figure of someone in his
strawberry patch. He laid aside the book, got his whip and hurried
forth to see.
It was Panchita. She had slipped through the picket fence and was
half-way across the patch. She stopped when she saw him and looked at
him without wavering.
A sudden rage—a humiliating flush of unreasoning wrath—came over Dry
Valley. For this child he had made himself a motley to the view. He had
tried to bribe Time to turn backward for himself; he had—been made a
fool of. At last he had seen his folly. There was a gulf between him
and youth over which he could not build a bridge even with yellow
gloves to protect his hands. And the sight of his torment coming to
pester him with her elfin pranks—coming to plunder his strawberry vines
like a mischievous schoolboy—roused all his anger.
“I told you to keep away from here,” said Dry Valley. “Go back to your
home.”
Panchita moved slowly toward him.
Dry Valley cracked his whip.
“Go back home,” said Dry Valley, savagely, “and play theatricals some
more. You’d make a fine man. You’ve made a fine one of me.”
She came a step nearer, silent, and with that strange, defiant, steady
shine in her eyes that had always puzzled him. Now it stirred his
wrath.
His whiplash whistled through the air. He saw a red streak suddenly
come out through her white dress above her knee where it had struck.
Without flinching and with the same unchanging dark glow in her eyes,
Panchita came steadily toward him through the strawberry vines. Dry
Valley’s trembling hand released his whip handle. When within a yard of
him Panchita stretched out her arms.
“God, kid!” stammered Dry Valley, “do you mean—?”
But the seasons are versatile; and it may have been Springtime, after
all, instead of Indian Summer, that struck Dry Valley Johnson.
XVII
CHRISTMAS BY INJUNCTION
Cherokee was the civic father of Yellowhammer. Yellowhammer was a new
mining town constructed mainly of canvas and undressed pine. Cherokee
was a prospector. One day while his burro was eating quartz and pine
burrs Cherokee turned up with his pick a nugget, weighing thirty
ounces. He staked his claim and then, being a man of breadth and
hospitality, sent out invitations to his friends in three States to
drop in and share his luck.
Not one of the invited guests sent regrets. They rolled in from the
Gila country, from Salt River, from the Pecos, from Albuquerque and
Phoenix and Santa Fe, and from the camps intervening.
When a thousand citizens had arrived and taken up claims they named the
town Yellowhammer, appointed a vigilance committee, and presented
Cherokee with a watch-chain made of nuggets.
Three hours after the presentation ceremonies Cherokee’s claim played
out. He had located a pocket instead of a vein. He abandoned it and
staked others one by one. Luck had kissed her hand to him. Never
afterward did he turn up enough dust in Yellowhammer to pay his bar
bill. But his thousand invited guests were mostly prospering, and
Cherokee smiled and congratulated them.
Yellowhammer was made up of men who took off their hats to a smiling
loser; so they invited Cherokee to say what he wanted.
“Me?” said Cherokee, “oh, grubstakes will be about the thing. I reckon
I’ll prospect along up in the Mariposas. If I strike it up there I will
most certainly let you all know about the facts. I never was any hand
to hold out cards on my friends.”
In May Cherokee packed his burro and turned its thoughtful,
mouse-coloured forehead to the north. Many citizens escorted him to the
undefined limits of Yellowhammer and bestowed upon him shouts of
commendation and farewells. Five pocket flasks without an air bubble
between contents and cork were forced upon him; and he was bidden to
consider Yellowhammer in perpetual commission for his bed, bacon and
eggs, and hot water for shaving in the event that luck did not see fit
to warm her hands by his campfire in the Mariposas.
The name of the father of Yellowhammer was given him by the gold
hunters in accordance with their popular system of nomenclature. It was
not necessary for a citizen to exhibit his baptismal certificate in
order to acquire a cognomen. A man’s name was his personal property.
For convenience in calling him up to the bar and in designating him
among other blue-shirted bipeds, a temporary appellation, title, or
epithet was conferred upon him by the public. Personal peculiarities
formed the source of the majority of such informal baptisms. Many were
easily dubbed geographically from the regions from which they confessed
to have hailed. Some announced themselves to be “Thompsons,” and
“Adamses,” and the like, with a brazenness and loudness that cast a
cloud upon their titles. A few vaingloriously and shamelessly uncovered
their proper and indisputable names. This was held to be unduly
arrogant, and did not win popularity. One man who said he was
Chesterton L. C. Belmont, and proved it by letters, was given till
sundown to leave the town. Such names as “Shorty,” “Bow-legs,” “Texas,”
“Lazy Bill,” “Thirsty Rogers,” “Limping Riley,” “The Judge,” and
“California Ed” were in favour. Cherokee derived his title from the
fact that he claimed to have lived for a time with that tribe in the
Indian Nation.
On the twentieth day of December Baldy, the mail rider, brought
Yellowhammer a piece of news.
“What do I see in Albuquerque,” said Baldy, to the patrons of the bar,
“but Cherokee all embellished and festooned up like the Czar of Turkey,
and lavishin’ money in bulk. Him and me seen the elephant and the owl,
and we had specimens of this seidlitz powder wine; and Cherokee he
audits all the bills, C.O.D. His pockets looked like a pool table’s
after a fifteen-ball run.
“Cherokee must have struck pay ore,” remarked California Ed. “Well,
he’s white. I’m much obliged to him for his success.”
“Seems like Cherokee would ramble down to Yellowhammer and see his
friends,” said another, slightly aggrieved. “But that’s the way.
Prosperity is the finest cure there is for lost forgetfulness.”
“You wait,” said Baldy; “I’m comin’ to that. Cherokee strikes a
three-foot vein up in the Mariposas that assays a trip to Europe to the
ton, and he closes it out to a syndicate outfit for a hundred thousand
hasty dollars in cash. Then he buys himself a baby sealskin overcoat
and a red sleigh, and what do you think he takes it in his head to do
next?”
“Chuck-a-luck,” said Texas, whose ideas of recreation were the
gamester’s.
“Come and Kiss Me, Ma Honey,” sang Shorty, who carried tintypes in his
pocket and wore a red necktie while working on his claim.
“Bought a saloon?” suggested Thirsty Rogers.
“Cherokee took me to a room,” continued Baldy, “and showed me. He’s got
that room full of drums and dolls and skates and bags of candy and
jumping-jacks and toy lambs and whistles and such infantile truck. And
what do you think he’s goin’ to do with them inefficacious
knick-knacks? Don’t surmise none—Cherokee told me. He’s goin’ to lead
’em up in his red sleigh and—wait a minute, don’t order no drinks yet—
he’s goin’ to drive down here to Yellowhammer and give the kids—the
kids of this here town—the biggest Christmas tree and the biggest
cryin’ doll and Little Giant Boys’ Tool Chest blowout that was ever
seen west of the Cape Hatteras.”
Two minutes of absolute silence ticked away in the wake of Baldy’s
words. It was broken by the House, who, happily conceiving the moment
to be ripe for extending hospitality, sent a dozen whisky glasses
spinning down the bar, with the slower travelling bottle bringing up
the rear.
“Didn’t you tell him?” asked the miner called Trinidad.
“Well, no,” answered Baldy, pensively; “I never exactly seen my way to.
“You see, Cherokee had this Christmas mess already bought and paid for;
and he was all flattered up with self-esteem over his idea; and we had
in a way flew the flume with that fizzy wine I speak of; so I never let
on.”
“I cannot refrain from a certain amount of surprise,” said the Judge,
as he hung his ivory-handled cane on the bar, “that our friend Cherokee
should possess such an erroneous conception of—ah—his, as it were, own
town.”
“Oh, it ain’t the eighth wonder of the terrestrial world,” said Baldy.
“Cherokee’s been gone from Yellowhammer over seven months. Lots of
things could happen in that time. How’s he to know that there ain’t a
single kid in this town, and so far as emigration is concerned, none
expected?”
“Come to think of it,” remarked California Ed, “it’s funny some ain’t
drifted in. Town ain’t settled enough yet for to bring in the
rubber-ring brigade, I reckon.”
“To top off this Christmas-tree splurge of Cherokee’s,” went on Baldy,
“he’s goin’ to give an imitation of Santa Claus. He’s got a white wig
and whiskers that disfigure him up exactly like the pictures of this
William Cullen Longfellow in the books, and a red suit of fur-trimmed
outside underwear, and eight-ounce gloves, and a stand-up, lay-down
croshayed red cap. Ain’t it a shame that a outfit like that can’t get a
chance to connect with a Annie and Willie’s prayer layout?”
“When does Cherokee allow to come over with his truck?” inquired
Trinidad.
“Mornin’ before Christmas,” said Baldy. “And he wants you folks to have
a room fixed up and a tree hauled and ready. And such ladies to assist
as can stop breathin’ long enough to let it be a surprise for the
kids.”
The unblessed condition of Yellowhammer had been truly described. The
voice of childhood had never gladdened its flimsy structures; the
patter of restless little feet had never consecrated the one rugged
highway between the two rows of tents and rough buildings. Later they
would come. But now Yellowhammer was but a mountain camp, and nowhere
in it were the roguish, expectant eyes, opening wide at dawn of the
enchanting day; the eager, small hands to reach for Santa’s bewildering
hoard; the elated, childish voicings of the season’s joy, such as the
coming good things of the warm-hearted Cherokee deserved.
Of women there were five in Yellowhammer. The assayer’s wife, the
proprietress of the Lucky Strike Hotel, and a laundress whose washtub
panned out an ounce of dust a day. These were the permanent feminines;
the remaining two were the Spangler Sisters, Misses Fanchon and Erma,
of the Transcontinental Comedy Company, then playing in repertoire at
the (improvised) Empire Theatre. But of children there were none.
Sometimes Miss Fanchon enacted with spirit and address the part of
robustious childhood; but between her delineation and the visions of
adolescence that the fancy offered as eligible recipients of Cherokee’s
holiday stores there seemed to be fixed a gulf.
Christmas would come on Thursday. On Tuesday morning Trinidad, instead
of going to work, sought the Judge at the Lucky Strike Hotel.
“It’ll be a disgrace to Yellowhammer,” said Trinidad, “if it throws
Cherokee down on his Christmas tree blowout. You might say that that
man made this town. For one, I’m goin’ to see what can be done to give
Santa Claus a square deal.”
“My co-operation,” said the Judge, “would be gladly forthcoming. I am
indebted to Cherokee for past favours. But, I do not see—I have
heretofore regarded the absence of children rather as a luxury—but in
this instance—still, I do not see—”
“Look at me,” said Trinidad, “and you’ll see old Ways and Means with
the fur on. I’m goin’ to hitch up a team and rustle a load of kids for
Cherokee’s Santa Claus act, if I have to rob an orphan asylum.”
“Eureka!” cried the Judge, enthusiastically.
“No, you didn’t,” said Trinidad, decidedly. “I found it myself. I
learned about that Latin word at school.”
“I will accompany you,” declared the Judge, waving his cane. “Perhaps
such eloquence and gift of language as I possess will be of benefit in
persuading our young friends to lend themselves to our project.”
Within an hour Yellowhammer was acquainted with the scheme of Trinidad
and the Judge, and approved it. Citizens who knew of families with
offspring within a forty-mile radius of Yellowhammer came forward and
contributed their information. Trinidad made careful notes of all such,
and then hastened to secure a vehicle and team.
The first stop scheduled was at a double log-house fifteen miles out
from Yellowhammer. A man opened the door at Trinidad’s hail, and then
came down and leaned upon the rickety gate. The doorway was filled with
a close mass of youngsters, some ragged, all full of curiosity and
health.
“It’s this way,” explained Trinidad. “We’re from Yellowhammer, and we
come kidnappin’ in a gentle kind of a way. One of our leading citizens
is stung with the Santa Claus affliction, and he’s due in town
to-morrow with half the folderols that’s painted red and made in
Germany. The youngest kid we got in Yellowhammer packs a forty-five and
a safety razor. Consequently we’re mighty shy on anybody to say ‘Oh’
and ‘Ah’ when we light the candles on the Christmas tree. Now, partner,
if you’ll loan us a few kids we guarantee to return ’em safe and sound
on Christmas Day. And they’ll come back loaded down with a good time
and Swiss Family Robinsons and cornucopias and red drums and similar
testimonials. What do you say?”
“In other words,” said the Judge, “we have discovered for the first
time in our embryonic but progressive little city the inconveniences of
the absence of adolescence. The season of the year having approximately
arrived during which it is a custom to bestow frivolous but often
appreciated gifts upon the young and tender—”
“I understand,” said the parent, packing his pipe with a forefinger. “I
guess I needn’t detain you gentlemen. Me and the old woman have got
seven kids, so to speak; and, runnin’ my mind over the bunch, I don’t
appear to hit upon none that we could spare for you to take over to
your doin’s. The old woman has got some popcorn candy and rag dolls hid
in the clothes chest, and we allow to give Christmas a little whirl of
our own in a insignificant sort of style. No, I couldn’t, with any
degree of avidity, seem to fall in with the idea of lettin’ none of ’em
go. Thank you kindly, gentlemen.”
Down the slope they drove and up another foothill to the ranch-house of
Wiley Wilson. Trinidad recited his appeal and the Judge boomed out his
ponderous antiphony. Mrs. Wiley gathered her two rosy-cheeked
youngsters close to her skirts and did not smile until she had seen
Wiley laugh and shake his head. Again a refusal.
Trinidad and the Judge vainly exhausted more than half their list
before twilight set in among the hills. They spent the night at a stage
road hostelry, and set out again early the next morning. The wagon had
not acquired a single passenger.
“It’s creepin’ upon my faculties,” remarked Trinidad, “that borrowin’
kids at Christmas is somethin’ like tryin’ to steal butter from a man
that’s got hot pancakes a-comin’.”
“It is undoubtedly an indisputable fact,” said the Judge, “that the—
ah—family ties seem to be more coherent and assertive at that period of
the year.”
On the day before Christmas they drove thirty miles, making four
fruitless halts and appeals. Everywhere they found “kids” at a premium.
The sun was low when the wife of a section boss on a lonely railroad
huddled her unavailable progeny behind her and said:
“There’s a woman that’s just took charge of the railroad eatin’ house
down at Granite Junction. I hear she’s got a little boy. Maybe she
might let him go.”
Trinidad pulled up his mules at Granite Junction at five o’clock in the
afternoon. The train had just departed with its load of fed and
appeased passengers.
On the steps of the eating house they found a thin and glowering boy of
ten smoking a cigarette. The dining-room had been left in chaos by the
peripatetic appetites. A youngish woman reclined, exhausted, in a
chair. Her face wore sharp lines of worry. She had once possessed a
certain style of beauty that would never wholly leave her and would
never wholly return. Trinidad set forth his mission.
“I’d count it a mercy if you’d take Bobby for a while,” she said,
wearily. “I’m on the go from morning till night, and I don’t have time
to ’tend to him. He’s learning bad habits from the men. It’ll be the
only chance he’ll have to get any Christmas.”
The men went outside and conferred with Bobby. Trinidad pictured the
glories of the Christmas tree and presents in lively colours.
“And, moreover, my young friend,” added the Judge, “Santa Claus himself
will personally distribute the offerings that will typify the gifts
conveyed by the shepherds of Bethlehem to—”
“Aw, come off,” said the boy, squinting his small eyes. “I ain’t no
kid. There ain’t any Santa Claus. It’s your folks that buys toys and
sneaks ’em in when you’re asleep. And they make marks in the soot in
the chimney with the tongs to look like Santa’s sleigh tracks.”
“That might be so,” argued Trinidad, “but Christmas trees ain’t no
fairy tale. This one’s goin’ to look like the ten-cent store in
Albuquerque, all strung up in a redwood. There’s tops and drums and
Noah’s arks and—”
“Oh, rats!” said Bobby, wearily. “I cut them out long ago. I’d like to
have a rifle—not a target one—a real one, to shoot wildcats with; but I
guess you won’t have any of them on your old tree.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure,” said Trinidad diplomatically; “it might
be. You go along with us and see.”
The hope thus held out, though faint, won the boy’s hesitating consent
to go. With this solitary beneficiary for Cherokee’s holiday bounty,
the canvassers spun along the homeward road.
In Yellowhammer the empty storeroom had been transformed into what
might have passed as the bower of an Arizona fairy. The ladies had done
their work well. A tall Christmas tree, covered to the topmost branch
with candles, spangles, and toys sufficient for more than a score of
children, stood in the centre of the floor. Near sunset anxious eyes
had begun to scan the street for the returning team of the
child-providers. At noon that day Cherokee had dashed into town with
his new sleigh piled high with bundles and boxes and bales of all sizes
and shapes. So intent was he upon the arrangements for his altruistic
plans that the dearth of children did not receive his notice. No one
gave away the humiliating state of Yellowhammer, for the efforts of
Trinidad and the Judge were expected to supply the deficiency.
When the sun went down Cherokee, with many wings and arch grins on his
seasoned face, went into retirement with the bundle containing the
Santa Claus raiment and a pack containing special and undisclosed
gifts.
“When the kids are rounded up,” he instructed the volunteer arrangement
committee, “light up the candles on the tree and set ’em to playin’
‘Pussy Wants a Corner’ and ‘King William.’ When they get good and at
it, why—old Santa’ll slide in the door. I reckon there’ll be plenty of
gifts to go ’round.”
The ladies were flitting about the tree, giving it final touches that
were never final. The Spangled Sisters were there in costume as Lady
Violet de Vere and Marie, the maid, in their new drama, “The Miner’s
Bride.” The theatre did not open until nine, and they were welcome
assistants of the Christmas tree committee. Every minute heads would
pop out the door to look and listen for the approach of Trinidad’s
team. And now this became an anxious function, for night had fallen and
it would soon be necessary to light the candles on the tree, and
Cherokee was apt to make an irruption at any time in his Kriss Kringle
garb.
At length the wagon of the child “rustlers” rattled down the street to
the door. The ladies, with little screams of excitement, flew to the
lighting of the candles. The men of Yellowhammer passed in and out
restlessly or stood about the room in embarrassed groups.
Trinidad and the Judge, bearing the marks of protracted travel,
entered, conducting between them a single impish boy, who stared with
sullen, pessimistic eyes at the gaudy tree.
“Where are the other children?” asked the assayer’s wife, the
acknowledged leader of all social functions.
“Ma’am,” said Trinidad with a sigh, “prospectin’ for kids at Christmas
time is like huntin’ in a limestone for silver. This parental business
is one that I haven’t no chance to comprehend. It seems that fathers
and mothers are willin’ for their offsprings to be drownded, stole, fed
on poison oak, and et by catamounts 364 days in the year; but on
Christmas Day they insists on enjoyin’ the exclusive mortification of
their company. This here young biped, ma’am, is all that washes out of
our two days’ manoeuvres.”
“Oh, the sweet little boy!” cooed Miss Erma, trailing her De Vere robes
to centre of stage.
“Aw, shut up,” said Bobby, with a scowl. “Who’s a kid? You ain’t, you
bet.”
“Fresh brat!” breathed Miss Erma, beneath her enamelled smile.
“We done the best we could,” said Trinidad. “It’s tough on Cherokee,
but it can’t be helped.”
Then the door opened and Cherokee entered in the conventional dress of
Saint Nick. A white rippling beard and flowing hair covered his face
almost to his dark and shining eyes. Over his shoulder he carried a
pack.
No one stirred as he came in. Even the Spangler Sisters ceased their
coquettish poses and stared curiously at the tall figure. Bobby stood
with his hands in his pockets gazing gloomily at the effeminate and
childish tree. Cherokee put down his pack and looked wonderingly about
the room. Perhaps he fancied that a bevy of eager children were being
herded somewhere, to be loosed upon his entrance. He went up to Bobby
and extended his red-mittened hand.
“Merry Christmas, little boy,” said Cherokee. “Anything on the tree you
want they’ll get it down for you. Won’t you shake hands with Santa
Claus?”
“There ain’t any Santa Claus,” whined the boy. “You’ve got old false
billy goat’s whiskers on your face. I ain’t no kid. What do I want with
dolls and tin horses? The driver said you’d have a rifle, and you
haven’t. I want to go home.”
Trinidad stepped into the breach. He shook Cherokee’s hand in warm
greeting.
“I’m sorry, Cherokee,” he explained. “There never was a kid in
Yellowhammer. We tried to rustle a bunch of ’em for your swaree, but
this sardine was all we could catch. He’s a atheist, and he don’t
believe in Santa Claus. It’s a shame for you to be out all this truck.
But me and the Judge was sure we could round up a wagonful of
candidates for your gimcracks.”
“That’s all right,” said Cherokee gravely. “The expense don’t amount to
nothin’ worth mentionin’. We can dump the stuff down a shaft or throw
it away. I don’t know what I was thinkin’ about; but it never occurred
to my cogitations that there wasn’t any kids in Yellowhammer.”
Meanwhile the company had relaxed into a hollow but praiseworthy
imitation of a pleasure gathering.
Bobby had retreated to a distant chair, and was coldly regarding the
scene with ennui plastered thick upon him. Cherokee, lingering with his
original idea, went over and sat beside him.
“Where do you live, little boy?” he asked respectfully.
“Granite Junction,” said Bobby without emphasis.
The room was warm. Cherokee took off his cap, and then removed his
beard and wig.
“Say!” exclaimed Bobby, with a show of interest, “I know your mug, all
right.”
“Did you ever see me before?” asked Cherokee.
“I don’t know; but I’ve seen your picture lots of times.”
“Where?”
The boy hesitated. “On the bureau at home,” he answered.
“Let’s have your name, if you please, buddy.”
“Robert Lumsden. The picture belongs to my mother. She puts it under
her pillow of nights. And once I saw her kiss it. I wouldn’t. But women
are that way.”
Cherokee rose and beckoned to Trinidad.
“Keep this boy by you till I come back,” he said. “I’m goin’ to shed
these Christmas duds, and hitch up my sleigh. I’m goin’ to take this
kid home.”
“Well, infidel,” said Trinidad, taking Cherokee’s vacant chair, “and so
you are too superannuated and effete to yearn for such mockeries as
candy and toys, it seems.”
“I don’t like you,” said Bobby, with acrimony. “You said there would be
a rifle. A fellow can’t even smoke. I wish I was at home.”
Cherokee drove his sleigh to the door, and they lifted Bobby in beside
him. The team of fine horses sprang away prancingly over the hard snow.
Cherokee had on his $500 overcoat of baby sealskin. The laprobe that he
drew about them was as warm as velvet.
Bobby slipped a cigarette from his pocket and was trying to snap a
match.
“Throw that cigarette away,” said Cherokee, in a quiet but new voice.
Bobby hesitated, and then dropped the cylinder overboard.
“Throw the box, too,” commanded the new voice.
More reluctantly the boy obeyed.
“Say,” said Bobby, presently, “I like you. I don’t know why. Nobody
never made me do anything I didn’t want to do before.”
“Tell me, kid,” said Cherokee, not using his new voice, “are you sure
your mother kissed that picture that looks like me?”
“Dead sure. I seen her do it.”
“Didn’t you remark somethin’ a while ago about wanting a rifle?”
“You bet I did. Will you get me one?”
“To-morrow—silver-mounted.”
Cherokee took out his watch.
“Half-past nine. We’ll hit the Junction plumb on time with Christmas
Day. Are you cold? Sit closer, son.”
XVIII
A CHAPARRAL PRINCE
Nine o’clock at last, and the drudging toil of the day was ended. Lena
climbed to her room in the third half-story of the Quarrymen’s Hotel.
Since daylight she had slaved, doing the work of a full-grown woman,
scrubbing the floors, washing the heavy ironstone plates and cups,
making the beds, and supplying the insatiate demands for wood and water
in that turbulent and depressing hostelry.
The din of the day’s quarrying was over—the blasting and drilling, the
creaking of the great cranes, the shouts of the foremen, the backing
and shifting of the flat-cars hauling the heavy blocks of limestone.
Down in the hotel office three or four of the labourers were growling
and swearing over a belated game of checkers. Heavy odours of stewed
meat, hot grease, and cheap coffee hung like a depressing fog about the
house.
Lena lit the stump of a candle and sat limply upon her wooden chair.
She was eleven years old, thin and ill-nourished. Her back and limbs
were sore and aching. But the ache in her heart made the biggest
trouble. The last straw had been added to the burden upon her small
shoulders. They had taken away Grimm. Always at night, however tired
she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time
had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and
deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken
fresh courage and strength from Grimm.
To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition.
The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted
stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut—all these
were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in
the Quarrymen’s Hotel. And always when the extremity was direst came
the good fairy or the gallant prince to the rescue.
So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had
leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to
prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her
room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do
for servants to read at night; they lost sleep and did not work briskly
the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s
mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of
Grimm? Just try it once and you will see what a difficult thing it is.
Lena’s home was in Texas, away up among the little mountains on the
Pedernales River, in a little town called Fredericksburg. They are all
German people who live in Fredericksburg. Of evenings they sit at
little tables along the sidewalk and drink beer and play pinochle and
scat. They are very thrifty people.
Thriftiest among them was Peter Hildesmuller, Lena’s father. And that
is why Lena was sent to work in the hotel at the quarries, thirty miles
away. She earned three dollars every week there, and Peter added her
wages to his well-guarded store. Peter had an ambition to become as
rich as his neighbour, Hugo Heffelbauer, who smoked a meerschaum pipe
three feet long and had wiener schnitzel and hassenpfeffer for dinner
every day in the week. And now Lena was quite old enough to work and
assist in the accumulation of riches. But conjecture, if you can, what
it means to be sentenced at eleven years of age from a home in the
pleasant little Rhine village to hard labour in the ogre’s castle,
where you must fly to serve the ogres, while they devour cattle and
sheep, growling fiercely as they stamp white limestone dust from their
great shoes for you to sweep and scour with your weak, aching fingers.
And then—to have Grimm taken away from you!
Lena raised the lid of an old empty case that had once contained canned
corn and got out a sheet of paper and a piece of pencil. She was going
to write a letter to her mamma. Tommy Ryan was going to post it for her
at Ballinger’s. Tommy was seventeen, worked in the quarries, went home
to Ballinger’s every night, and was now waiting in the shadows under
Lena’s window for her to throw the letter out to him. That was the only
way she could send a letter to Fredericksburg. Mrs. Maloney did not
like for her to write letters.
The stump of the candle was burning low, so Lena hastily bit the wood
from around the lead of her pencil and began. This is the letter she
wrote:
DEAREST MAMMA:—I want so much to see you. And Gretel and Claus and
Heinrich and little Adolf. I am so tired. I want to see you. To-day I
was slapped by Mrs. Maloney and had no supper. I could not bring in
enough wood, for my hand hurt. She took my book yesterday. I mean
“Grimm’s Fairy Tales,” which Uncle Leo gave me. It did not hurt any one
for me to read the book. I try to work as well as I can, but there is
so much to do. I read only a little bit every night. Dear mamma, I
shall tell you what I am going to do. Unless you send for me to-morrow
to bring me home I shall go to a deep place I know in the river and
drown. It is wicked to drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and
there is no one else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the
letter. You will excuse me, mamma, if I do it.
Your respectful and loving daughter,
LENA.
Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded, and
when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the steep
hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled herself
upon the mattress on the floor.
At 10:30 o’clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his
stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked
down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with
the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to
come pattering up the road.
Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the
lively hoofbeats of Fritz’s team of little black mules, and very soon
afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz’s
big spectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice
shouted a greeting to the postmaster of Ballinger’s. The mail-carrier
jumped out and took the bridles from the mules, for he always fed them
oats at Ballinger’s.
While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger
brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon.
Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments—or to be more accurate—
four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually. Those
mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came the
Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.
“Tell me,” said Fritz, when he was ready to start, “contains the sack a
letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries? One
came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already. Her
mamma is very anxious to hear again.”
“Yes,” said old man Ballinger, “thar’s a letter for Mrs. Helterskelter,
or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he come. Her little
gal workin’ over thar, you say?”
“In the hotel,” shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; “eleven
years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter
Hildesmuller!—some day I shall with a big club pound that man’s
dummkopf—all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will say
that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma will be glad. _Auf
wiedersehen_, Herr Ballinger—your feets will take cold out in the night
air.”
“So long, Fritzy,” said old man Ballinger. “You got a nice cool night
for your drive.”
Up the road went the little black mules at their steady trot, while
Fritz thundered at them occasional words of endearment and cheer.
These fancies occupied the mind of the mail-carrier until he reached
the big post oak forest, eight miles from Ballinger’s. Here his
ruminations were scattered by the sudden flash and report of pistols
and a whooping as if from a whole tribe of Indians. A band of galloping
centaurs closed in around the mail wagon. One of them leaned over the
front wheel, covered the driver with his revolver, and ordered him to
stop. Others caught at the bridles of Donder and Blitzen.
“Donnerwetter!” shouted Fritz, with all his tremendous voice—“wass ist?
Release your hands from dose mules. Ve vas der United States mail!”
“Hurry up, Dutch!” drawled a melancholy voice. “Don’t you know when
you’re in a stick-up? Reverse your mules and climb out of the cart.”
It is due to the breadth of Hondo Bill’s demerit and the largeness of
his achievements to state that the holding up of the Fredericksburg
mail was not perpetrated by way of an exploit. As the lion while in the
pursuit of prey commensurate to his prowess might set a frivolous foot
upon a casual rabbit in his path, so Hondo Bill and his gang had
swooped sportively upon the pacific transport of Meinherr Fritz.
The real work of their sinister night ride was over. Fritz and his mail
bag and his mules came as gentle relaxation, grateful after the arduous
duties of their profession. Twenty miles to the southeast stood a train
with a killed engine, hysterical passengers and a looted express and
mail car. That represented the serious occupation of Hondo Bill and his
gang. With a fairly rich prize of currency and silver the robbers were
making a wide detour to the west through the less populous country,
intending to seek safety in Mexico by means of some fordable spot on
the Rio Grande. The booty from the train had melted the desperate
bushrangers to jovial and happy skylarkers.
Trembling with outraged dignity and no little personal apprehension,
Fritz climbed out to the road after replacing his suddenly removed
spectacles. The band had dismounted and were singing, capering, and
whooping, thus expressing their satisfied delight in the life of a
jolly outlaw. Rattlesnake Rogers, who stood at the heads of the mules,
jerked a little too vigorously at the rein of the tender-mouthed
Donder, who reared and emitted a loud, protesting snort of pain.
Instantly Fritz, with a scream of anger, flew at the bulky Rogers and
began to assiduously pummel that surprised freebooter with his fists.
“Villain!” shouted Fritz, “dog, bigstiff! Dot mule he has a soreness by
his mouth. I vill knock off your shoulders mit your head— robbermans!”
“Yi-yi!” howled Rattlesnake, roaring with laughter and ducking his
head, “somebody git this here sour-krout off’n me!”
One of the band yanked Fritz back by the coat-tail, and the woods rang
with Rattlesnake’s vociferous comments.
“The dog-goned little wienerwurst,” he yelled, amiably. “He’s not so
much of a skunk, for a Dutchman. Took up for his animile plum quick,
didn’t he? I like to see a man like his hoss, even if it is a mule. The
dad-blamed little Limburger he went for me, didn’t he! Whoa, now,
muley—I ain’t a-goin’ to hurt your mouth agin any more.”
Perhaps the mail would not have been tampered with had not Ben Moody,
the lieutenant, possessed certain wisdom that seemed to promise more
spoils.
“Say, Cap,” he said, addressing Hondo Bill, “there’s likely to be good
pickings in these mail sacks. I’ve done some hoss tradin’ with these
Dutchmen around Fredericksburg, and I know the style of the varmints.
There’s big money goes through the mails to that town. Them Dutch risk
a thousand dollars sent wrapped in a piece of paper before they’d pay
the banks to handle the money.”
Hondo Bill, six feet two, gentle of voice and impulsive in action, was
dragging the sacks from the rear of the wagon before Moody had finished
his speech. A knife shone in his hand, and they heard the ripping sound
as it bit through the tough canvas. The outlaws crowded around and
began tearing open letters and packages, enlivening their labours by
swearing affably at the writers, who seemed to have conspired to
confute the prediction of Ben Moody. Not a dollar was found in the
Fredericksburg mail.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Hondo Bill to the
mail-carrier in solemn tones, “to be packing around such a lot of old,
trashy paper as this. What d’you mean by it, anyhow? Where do you
Dutchers keep your money at?”
The Ballinger mail sack opened like a cocoon under Hondo’s knife. It
contained but a handful of mail. Fritz had been fuming with terror and
excitement until this sack was reached. He now remembered Lena’s
letter. He addressed the leader of the band, asking that that
particular missive be spared.
“Much obliged, Dutch,” he said to the disturbed carrier. “I guess
that’s the letter we want. Got spondulicks in it, ain’t it? Here she
is. Make a light, boys.”
Hondo found and tore open the letter to Mrs. Hildesmuller. The others
stood about, lighting twisted up letters one from another. Hondo gazed
with mute disapproval at the single sheet of paper covered with the
angular German script.
“Whatever is this you’ve humbugged us with, Dutchy? You call this here
a valuable letter? That’s a mighty low-down trick to play on your
friends what come along to help you distribute your mail.”
“That’s Chiny writin’,” said Sandy Grundy, peering over Hondo’s
shoulder.
“You’re off your kazip,” declared another of the gang, an effective
youth, covered with silk handkerchiefs and nickel plating. “That’s
shorthand. I see ’em do it once in court.”
“Ach, no, no, no—dot is German,” said Fritz. “It is no more as a little
girl writing a letter to her mamma. One poor little girl, sick and
vorking hard avay from home. Ach! it is a shame. Good Mr. Robberman,
you vill please let me have dot letter?”
“What the devil do you take us for, old Pretzels?” said Hondo with
sudden and surprising severity. “You ain’t presumin’ to insinuate that
we gents ain’t possessed of sufficient politeness for to take an
interest in the miss’s health, are you? Now, you go on, and you read
that scratchin’ out loud and in plain United States language to this
here company of educated society.”
Hondo twirled his six-shooter by its trigger guard and stood towering
above the little German, who at once began to read the letter,
translating the simple words into English. The gang of rovers stood in
absolute silence, listening intently.
“How old is that kid?” asked Hondo when the letter was done.
“Eleven,” said Fritz.
“And where is she at?”
“At dose rock quarries—working. Ach, mein Gott—little Lena, she speak
of drowning. I do not know if she vill do it, but if she shall I
schwear I vill dot Peter Hildesmuller shoot mit a gun.”
“You Dutchers,” said Hondo Bill, his voice swelling with fine contempt,
“make me plenty tired. Hirin’ out your kids to work when they ought to
be playin’ dolls in the sand. You’re a hell of a sect of people. I
reckon we’ll fix your clock for a while just to show what we think of
your old cheesy nation. Here, boys!”
Hondo Bill parleyed aside briefly with his band, and then they seized
Fritz and conveyed him off the road to one side. Here they bound him
fast to a tree with a couple of lariats. His team they tied to another
tree near by.
“We ain’t going to hurt you bad,” said Hondo reassuringly. “’Twon’t
hurt you to be tied up for a while. We will now pass you the time of
day, as it is up to us to depart. Ausgespielt—nixcumrous, Dutchy. Don’t
get any more impatience.”
Fritz heard a great squeaking of saddles as the men mounted their
horses. Then a loud yell and a great clatter of hoofs as they galloped
pell-mell back along the Fredericksburg road.
For more than two hours Fritz sat against his tree, tightly but not
painfully bound. Then from the reaction after his exciting adventure he
sank into slumber. How long he slept he knew not, but he was at last
awakened by a rough shake. Hands were untying his ropes. He was lifted
to his feet, dazed, confused in mind, and weary of body. Rubbing his
eyes, he looked and saw that he was again in the midst of the same band
of terrible bandits. They shoved him up to the seat of his wagon and
placed the lines in his hands.
“Hit it out for home, Dutch,” said Hondo Bill’s voice commandingly.
“You’ve given us lots of trouble and we’re pleased to see the back of
your neck. Spiel! Zwei bier! Vamoose!”
Hondo reached out and gave Blitzen a smart cut with his quirt.
The little mules sprang ahead, glad to be moving again. Fritz urged
them along, himself dizzy and muddled over his fearful adventure.
According to schedule time, he should have reached Fredericksburg at
daylight. As it was, he drove down the long street of the town at
eleven o’clock A.M. He had to pass Peter Hildesmuller’s house on his
way to the post-office. He stopped his team at the gate and called. But
Frau Hildesmuller was watching for him. Out rushed the whole family of
Hildesmullers.
Frau Hildesmuller, fat and flushed, inquired if he had a letter from
Lena, and then Fritz raised his voice and told the tale of his
adventure. He told the contents of that letter that the robber had made
him read, and then Frau Hildesmuller broke into wild weeping. Her
little Lena drown herself! Why had they sent her from home? What could
be done? Perhaps it would be too late by the time they could send for
her now. Peter Hildesmuller dropped his meerschaum on the walk and it
shivered into pieces.
“Woman!” he roared at his wife, “why did you let that child go away? It
is your fault if she comes home to us no more.”
Every one knew that it was Peter Hildesmuller’s fault, so they paid no
attention to his words.
A moment afterward a strange, faint voice was heard to call: “Mamma!”
Frau Hildesmuller at first thought it was Lena’s spirit calling, and
then she rushed to the rear of Fritz’s covered wagon, and, with a loud
shriek of joy, caught up Lena herself, covering her pale little face
with kisses and smothering her with hugs. Lena’s eyes were heavy with
the deep slumber of exhaustion, but she smiled and lay close to the one
she had longed to see. There among the mail sacks, covered in a nest of
strange blankets and comforters, she had lain asleep until wakened by
the voices around her.
Fritz stared at her with eyes that bulged behind his spectacles.
“Gott in Himmel!” he shouted. “How did you get in that wagon? Am I
going crazy as well as to be murdered and hanged by robbers this day?”
“You brought her to us, Fritz,” cried Frau Hildesmuller. “How can we
ever thank you enough?”
“Tell mamma how you came in Fritz’s wagon,” said Frau Hildesmuller.
“I don’t know,” said Lena. “But I know how I got away from the hotel.
The Prince brought me.”
“By the Emperor’s crown!” shouted Fritz, “we are all going crazy.”
“I always knew he would come,” said Lena, sitting down on her bundle of
bedclothes on the sidewalk. “Last night he came with his armed knights
and captured the ogre’s castle. They broke the dishes and kicked down
the doors. They pitched Mr. Maloney into a barrel of rain water and
threw flour all over Mrs. Maloney. The workmen in the hotel jumped out
of the windows and ran into the woods when the knights began firing
their guns. They wakened me up and I peeped down the stair. And then
the Prince came up and wrapped me in the bedclothes and carried me out.
He was so tall and strong and fine. His face was as rough as a
scrubbing brush, and he talked soft and kind and smelled of schnapps.
He took me on his horse before him and we rode away among the knights.
He held me close and I went to sleep that way, and didn’t wake up till
I got home.”
“Rubbish!” cried Fritz Bergmann. “Fairy tales! How did you come from
the quarries to my wagon?”
“The Prince brought me,” said Lena, confidently.
And to this day the good people of Fredericksburg haven’t been able to
make her give any other explanation.
XIX
THE REFORMATION OF CALLIOPE
Calliope Catesby was in his humours again. Ennui was upon him. This
goodly promontory, the earth—particularly that portion of it known as
Quicksand—was to him no more than a pestilent congregation of vapours.
Overtaken by the megrims, the philosopher may seek relief in soliloquy;
my lady find solace in tears; the flaccid Easterner scold at the
millinery bills of his women folk. Such recourse was insufficient to
the denizens of Quicksand. Calliope, especially, was wont to express
his ennui according to his lights.
Over night Calliope had hung out signals of approaching low spirits. He
had kicked his own dog on the porch of the Occidental Hotel, and
refused to apologise. He had become capricious and fault-finding in
conversation. While strolling about he reached often for twigs of
mesquite and chewed the leaves fiercely. That was always an ominous
act. Another symptom alarming to those who were familiar with the
different stages of his doldrums was his increasing politeness and a
tendency to use formal phrases. A husky softness succeeded the usual
penetrating drawl in his tones. A dangerous courtesy marked his
manners. Later, his smile became crooked, the left side of his mouth
slanting upward, and Quicksand got ready to stand from under.
At this stage Calliope generally began to drink. Finally, about
midnight, he was seen going homeward, saluting those whom he met with
exaggerated but inoffensive courtesy. Not yet was Calliope’s melancholy
at the danger point. He would seat himself at the window of the room he
occupied over Silvester’s tonsorial parlours and there chant lugubrious
and tuneless ballads until morning, accompanying the noises by
appropriate maltreatment of a jangling guitar. More magnanimous than
Nero, he would thus give musical warning of the forthcoming municipal
upheaval that Quicksand was scheduled to endure.
A quiet, amiable man was Calliope Catesby at other times—quiet to
indolence, and amiable to worthlessness. At best he was a loafer and a
nuisance; at worst he was the Terror of Quicksand. His ostensible
occupation was something subordinate in the real estate line; he drove
the beguiled Easterner in buckboards out to look over lots and ranch
property. Originally he came from one of the Gulf States, his lank six
feet, slurring rhythm of speech, and sectional idioms giving evidence
of his birthplace.
And yet, after taking on Western adjustments, this languid pine-box
whittler, cracker barrel hugger, shady corner lounger of the cotton
fields and sumac hills of the South became famed as a bad man among men
who had made a life-long study of the art of truculence.
At nine the next morning Calliope was fit. Inspired by his own
barbarous melodies and the contents of his jug, he was ready primed to
gather fresh laurels from the diffident brow of Quicksand. Encircled
and criss-crossed with cartridge belts, abundantly garnished with
revolvers, and copiously drunk, he poured forth into Quicksand’s main
street. Too chivalrous to surprise and capture a town by silent sortie,
he paused at the nearest corner and emitted his slogan—that fearful,
brassy yell, so reminiscent of the steam piano, that had gained for him
the classic appellation that had superseded his own baptismal name.
Following close upon his vociferation came three shots from his
forty-five by way of limbering up the guns and testing his aim. A
yellow dog, the personal property of Colonel Swazey, the proprietor of
the Occidental, fell feet upward in the dust with one farewell yelp. A
Mexican who was crossing the street from the Blue Front grocery
carrying in his hand a bottle of kerosene, was stimulated to a sudden
and admirable burst of speed, still grasping the neck of the shattered
bottle. The new gilt weather-cock on Judge Riley’s lemon and
ultramarine two-story residence shivered, flapped, and hung by a
splinter, the sport of the wanton breezes.
The artillery was in trim. Calliope’s hand was steady. The high, calm
ecstasy of habitual battle was upon him, though slightly embittered by
the sadness of Alexander in that his conquests were limited to the
small world of Quicksand.
Down the street went Calliope, shooting right and left. Glass fell like
hail; dogs vamosed; chickens flew, squawking; feminine voices shrieked
concernedly to youngsters at large. The din was perforated at intervals
by the _staccato_ of the Terror’s guns, and was drowned periodically by
the brazen screech that Quicksand knew so well. The occasions of
Calliope’s low spirits were legal holidays in Quicksand. All along the
main street in advance of his coming clerks were putting up shutters
and closing doors. Business would languish for a space. The right of
way was Calliope’s, and as he advanced, observing the dearth of
opposition and the few opportunities for distraction, his ennui
perceptibly increased.
But some four squares farther down lively preparations were being made
to minister to Mr. Catesby’s love for interchange of compliments and
repartee. On the previous night numerous messengers had hastened to
advise Buck Patterson, the city marshal, of Calliope’s impending
eruption. The patience of that official, often strained in extending
leniency toward the disturber’s misdeeds, had been overtaxed. In
Quicksand some indulgence was accorded the natural ebullition of human
nature. Providing that the lives of the more useful citizens were not
recklessly squandered, or too much property needlessly laid waste, the
community sentiment was against a too strict enforcement of the law.
But Calliope had raised the limit. His outbursts had been too frequent
and too violent to come within the classification of a normal and
sanitary relaxation of spirit.
Buck Patterson had been expecting and awaiting in his little
ten-by-twelve frame office that preliminary yell announcing that
Calliope was feeling blue. When the signal came the city marshal rose
to his feet and buckled on his guns. Two deputy sheriffs and three
citizens who had proven the edible qualities of fire also stood up,
ready to bandy with Calliope’s leaden jocularities.
“Gather that fellow in,” said Buck Patterson, setting forth the lines
of the campaign. “Don’t have no talk, but shoot as soon as you can get
a show. Keep behind cover and bring him down. He’s a nogood ’un. It’s
up to Calliope to turn up his toes this time, I reckon. Go to him all
spraddled out, boys. And don’t git too reckless, for what Calliope
shoots at he hits.”
Buck Patterson, tall, muscular, and solemn-faced, with his bright “City
Marshal” badge shining on the breast of his blue flannel shirt, gave
his posse directions for the onslaught upon Calliope. The plan was to
accomplish the downfall of the Quicksand Terror without loss to the
attacking party, if possible.
The splenetic Calliope, unconscious of retributive plots, was steaming
down the channel, cannonading on either side, when he suddenly became
aware of breakers ahead. The city marshal and one of the deputies rose
up behind some dry-goods boxes half a square to the front and opened
fire. At the same time the rest of the posse, divided, shelled him from
two side streets up which they were cautiously manoeuvring from a
well-executed detour.
The first volley broke the lock of one of Calliope’s guns, cut a neat
underbit in his right ear, and exploded a cartridge in his crossbelt,
scorching his ribs as it burst. Feeling braced up by this unexpected
tonic to his spiritual depression, Calliope executed a fortissimo note
from his upper register, and returned the fire like an echo. The
upholders of the law dodged at his flash, but a trifle too late to save
one of the deputies a bullet just above the elbow, and the marshal a
bleeding cheek from a splinter that a ball tore from the box he had
ducked behind.
And now Calliope met the enemy’s tactics in kind. Choosing with a rapid
eye the street from which the weakest and least accurate fire had come,
he invaded it at a double-quick, abandoning the unprotected middle of
the street. With rare cunning the opposing force in that direction—one
of the deputies and two of the valorous volunteers— waited, concealed
by beer barrels, until Calliope had passed their retreat, and then
peppered him from the rear. In another moment they were reinforced by
the marshal and his other men, and then Calliope felt that in order to
successfully prolong the delights of the controversy he must find some
means of reducing the great odds against him. His eye fell upon a
structure that seemed to hold out this promise, providing he could
reach it.
Not far away was the little railroad station, its building a strong box
house, ten by twenty feet, resting upon a platform four feet above
ground. Windows were in each of its walls. Something like a fort it
might become to a man thus sorely pressed by superior numbers.
Calliope made a bold and rapid spurt for it, the marshal’s crowd
“smoking” him as he ran. He reached the haven in safety, the station
agent leaving the building by a window, like a flying squirrel, as the
garrison entered the door.
Patterson and his supporters halted under protection of a pile of
lumber and held consultations. In the station was an unterrified
desperado who was an excellent shot and carried an abundance of
ammunition. For thirty yards on either side of the besieged was a
stretch of bare, open ground. It was a sure thing that the man who
attempted to enter that unprotected area would be stopped by one of
Calliope’s bullets.
The city marshal was resolved. He had decided that Calliope Catesby
should no more wake the echoes of Quicksand with his strident whoop. He
had so announced. Officially and personally he felt imperatively bound
to put the soft pedal on that instrument of discord. It played bad
tunes.
Standing near was a hand truck used in the manipulation of small
freight. It stood by a shed full of sacked wool, a consignment from one
of the sheep ranches. On this truck the marshal and his men piled three
heavy sacks of wool. Stooping low, Buck Patterson started for
Calliope’s fort, slowly pushing this loaded truck before him for
protection. The posse, scattering broadly, stood ready to nip the
besieged in case he should show himself in an effort to repel the
juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him. Only once did
Calliope make demonstration. He fired from a window, and some tufts of
wool spurted from the marshal’s trustworthy bulwark. The return shots
from the posse pattered against the window frame of the fort. No loss
resulted on either side.
The marshal was too deeply engrossed in steering his protected
battleship to be aware of the approach of the morning train until he
was within a few feet of the platform. The train was coming up on the
other side of it. It stopped only one minute at Quicksand. What an
opportunity it would offer to Calliope! He had only to step out the
other door, mount the train, and away.
Abandoning his breastwork, Buck, with his gun ready, dashed up the
steps and into the room, driving upon the closed door with one heave of
his weighty shoulder. The members of the posse heard one shot fired
inside, and then there was silence.
At length the wounded man opened his eyes. After a blank space he again
could see and hear and feel and think. Turning his eyes about, he found
himself lying on a wooden bench. A tall man with a perplexed
countenance, wearing a big badge with “City Marshal” engraved upon it,
stood over him. A little old woman in black, with a wrinkled face and
sparkling black eyes, was holding a wet handkerchief against one of his
temples. He was trying to get these facts fixed in his mind and
connected with past events, when the old woman began to talk.
“There now, great, big, strong man! That bullet never tetched ye! Jest
skeeted along the side of your head and sort of paralysed ye for a
spell. I’ve heerd of sech things afore; cun-cussion is what they names
it. Abel Wadkins used to kill squirrels that way—barkin’ ’em, Abe
called it. You jest been barked, sir, and you’ll be all right in a
little bit. Feel lots better already, don’t ye! You just lay still a
while longer and let me bathe your head. You don’t know me, I reckon,
and ’tain’t surprisin’ that you shouldn’t. I come in on that train from
Alabama to see my son. Big son, ain’t he? Lands! you wouldn’t hardly
think he’d ever been a baby, would ye? This is my son, sir.”
Half turning, the old woman looked up at the standing man, her worn
face lighting with a proud and wonderful smile. She reached out one
veined and calloused hand and took one of her son’s. Then smiling
cheerily down at the prostrate man, she continued to dip the
handkerchief, in the waiting-room tin washbasin and gently apply it to
his temple. She had the benevolent garrulity of old age.
“I ain’t seen my son before,” she continued, “in eight years. One of my
nephews, Elkanah Price, he’s a conductor on one of them railroads and
he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it, and
then it’ll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy of mine
has got to be a officer—a city marshal of a whole town! That’s
somethin’ like a constable, ain’t it? I never knowed he was a officer;
he didn’t say nothin’ about it in his letters. I reckon he thought his
old mother’d be skeered about the danger he was in. But, laws! I never
was much of a hand to git skeered. ’Tain’t no use. I heard them guns
a-shootin’ while I was gettin’ off them cars, and I see smoke a-comin’
out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. Then I see son’s face
lookin’ out through the window. I knowed him at oncet. He met me at the
door, and squeezes me ’most to death. And there you was, sir, a-lyin’
there jest like you was dead, and I ’lowed we’d see what might be done
to help sot you up.”
“I think I’ll sit up now,” said the concussion patient. “I’m feeling
pretty fair by this time.”
He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged
man, big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to
linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him. His look
wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal’s badge upon the
other’s breast.
“Yes, yes, you’ll be all right,” said the old woman, patting his arm,
“if you don’t get to cuttin’ up agin, and havin’ folks shooting at you.
Son told me about you, sir, while you was layin’ senseless on the
floor. Don’t you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as
big as you to talk about it. And you mustn’t hold no grudge ag’in’ my
son for havin’ to shoot at ye. A officer has got to take up for the
law—it’s his duty—and them that acts bad and lives wrong has to suffer.
Don’t blame my son any, sir—’tain’t his fault. He’s always been a good
boy—good when he was growin’ up, and kind and ’bedient and
well-behaved. Won’t you let me advise you, sir, not to do so no more?
Be a good man, and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and goodly.
Keep away from bad company and work honest and sleep sweet.”
The black-mitted hand of the old pleader gently touched the breast of
the man she addressed. Very earnest and candid her old, worn face
looked. In her rusty black dress and antique bonnet she sat, near the
close of a long life, and epitomised the experience of the world. Still
the man to whom she spoke gazed above her head, contemplating the
silent son of the old mother.
“What does the marshal say?” he asked. “Does he believe the advice is
good? Suppose the marshal speaks up and says if the talk’s all right?”
The tall man moved uneasily. He fingered the badge on his breast for a
moment, and then he put an arm around the old woman and drew her close
to him. She smiled the unchanging mother smile of three-score years,
and patted his big brown hand with her crooked, mittened fingers while
her son spake.
“I says this,” he said, looking squarely into the eyes of the other
man, “that if I was in your place I’d follow it. If I was a drunken,
desp’rate character, without shame or hope, I’d follow it. If I was in
your place and you was in mine I’d say: ‘Marshal, I’m willin’ to swear
if you’ll give me the chance I’ll quit the racket. I’ll drop the
tanglefoot and the gun play, and won’t play hoss no more. I’ll be a
good citizen and go to work and quit my foolishness. So help me God!’
That’s what I’d say to you if you was marshal and I was in your place.”
“Hear my son talkin’,” said the old woman softly. “Hear him, sir. You
promise to be good and he won’t do you no harm. Forty-one year ago his
heart first beat ag’in’ mine, and it’s beat true ever since.”
The other man rose to his feet, trying his limbs and stretching his
muscles.
“Then,” said he, “if you was in my place and said that, and I was
marshal, I’d say: ‘Go free, and do your best to keep your promise.’”
“Lawsy!” exclaimed the old woman, in a sudden flutter, “ef I didn’t
clear forget that trunk of mine! I see a man settin’ it on the platform
jest as I seen son’s face in the window, and it went plum out of my
head. There’s eight jars of home-made quince jam in that trunk that I
made myself. I wouldn’t have nothin’ happen to them jars for a red
apple.”
Away to the door she trotted, spry and anxious, and then Calliope
Catesby spoke out to Buck Patterson:
“I just couldn’t help it, Buck. I seen her through the window a-comin’
in. She never had heard a word ’bout my tough ways. I didn’t have the
nerve to let her know I was a worthless cuss bein’ hunted down by the
community. There you was lyin’ where my shot laid you, like you was
dead. The idea struck me sudden, and I just took your badge off and
fastened it onto myself, and I fastened my reputation onto you. I told
her I was the marshal and you was a holy terror. You can take your
badge back now, Buck.”
With shaking fingers Calliope began to unfasten the disc of metal from
his shirt.
“Easy there!” said Buck Patterson. “You keep that badge right where it
is, Calliope Catesby. Don’t you dare to take it off till the day your
mother leaves this town. You’ll be city marshal of Quicksand as long as
she’s here to know it. After I stir around town a bit and put ’em on
I’ll guarantee that nobody won’t give the thing away to her. And say,
you leather-headed, rip-roarin’, low-down son of a locoed cyclone, you
follow that advice she give me! I’m goin’ to take some of it myself,
too.”
“Buck,” said Calliope feelingly, “ef I don’t I hope I may—”
“Shut up,” said Buck. “She’s a-comin’ back.”