CHAPTER I

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A MAN

IN THE OPEN

_By_

ROGER POCOCK

Illustrated by

M. LEONE BRACKER

SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY

NEW YORK LONDON

COPYRIGHT 1912 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

[Illustration: Kate]

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I ON THE LABRADOR 1

II THE HAPPY SHIP 18

III YOUTH 36

IV THE ORDEAL BY TORTURE 47

V THE BURNING BUSH 67

PART II

I TWO SHIPS AT ANCHOR 75

II THE TREVOR ACCIDENT 90

III LOVE 107

IV THE LANDLORD 118

V THE ILLUSTRIOUS SALVATOR 130

VI ROBBERY-UNDER-ARMS 144

VII THE ROUND-UP 155

VIII THE STAMPEDE 165

IX THE UNTRUTHFUL PRISONER 178

X BREAKING THE STATUTES 190

XI BILLY O'FLYNN 203

XII EXPOUNDING THE SCRIPTURES 210

XIII NATIVITY 225

XIV THE LOCKED HOUSE 236

PART III

I SPITE HOUSE 253

II THE IMPATIENT CHAPTER 277

III RESCUE 290

IV AT HUNDRED MILE HOUSE 298

V THE CARGADOR 316

VI THE BLACK NIGHT 334

EPILOGUE 349

TO PERSONS WHO HAVE NAMESAKES IN THIS BOOK

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

Except the Bear, who is no more, the characters appearing in this volume

wish me to say that their breaches of etiquette, homicides, etc., are

all original sins. Their infirmities of body, soul, and spirit are their

own, not mimicry of yours, not a caricature of your friend, your

acquaintance, of your second-hand acquaintance, or anybody you have

heard about, or even of some mere celebrity. If we hold up a mirror, it

is to human nature, not to you.

The characters wish me to tell you that they are all Imaginary Persons,

and therefore very sensitive. The persons of a drama are protected by

footlights, by the stage doorkeeper, not to mention grease paint and

scalps by an eminent artiste; but the characters in a novel are thrust

defenseless into a rude world, with many reporters about. In a page

fright, worse even than stage fright, their only comfort is that absence

of body which is their alternative to your great gift,--presence of

mind.

So they make their bow under assumed names. There we come to the point.

The proper names were all dealt out to worldly grasping persons, and not

one was left unclaimed. The name department is like a cloak-room when

the guests have departed, a train from which all passengers have

alighted, an office on Christmas day. Can you blame the characters in

fiction who come after you, if they assume the noblest names, such as

Smith, and try to be worthy of their borrowed plumes? Surely you would

not have them wear a numeral such as the number of your house, or

telephone.

The chances are that they give you no offense. Suppose that gentlemen

named Jesse Smith number one in each million of English-speaking people,

there would be one hundred in North America, half of them adults, with a

moiety in wedlock, and, of these twenty-five, a hundredth part may be

stockmen, of whom say one per cent. have a flaw in their claim to

wedlock. To this residuum, the .0025 part of a perfect gentleman, whom

he has not the honor to know personally, our Mr. Smith tenders profound

apologies.

But the Persons of the book, dear friends, who have filled two years of

my life with happiness, are not only Imaginary People with assumed

names, but they inhabit a district at variance with the maps, at a

period not shown in earthly calendars. So far aloof from the world where

they might give offense to earthly readers, they are outside the bounds

of space and time, and belong to that realm of Art where there is but

one law, whereby they stand or fall, must live or die--fidelity to Life.

Your obedient servant,

THE AUTHOR.

A MAN IN THE OPEN

PART I

CHAPTER I

ON THE LABRADOR

_Dictated by Mr. Jesse Smith_

Don't you write anything down yet, 'cause I ain't ready.

If I wrote this yarn myself, I'd make it good and red from tip to tip,

claws out, teeth bare, fur crawling with emotions. It wouldn't be dull,

no, or evidence.

But then it's to please you, and that's what I'm for.

So I proceeds to stroke the fur smooth, lay the paws down soft, fold up

the smile, and purr. A sort of truthfulness steals over me. Goin' to be

dull, too.

No, I dunno how to begin. If this yarn was a rope, I'd coil it down

before I begun to pay out. You lays the end, so, and flemish down, ring

by ring until the bight's coiled, smooth, ready to flake off as it runs.

I delayed a lynching once to do just that, and relieve the patient's

mind. It all went off so well!

* * * * *

When we kids were good, mother she used to own we came of pedigree

stock; but when we're bad, seems we took after father. You see mother's

folk was the elect, sort of born saved. They allowed there'd be room in

Heaven for one hundred and forty-four thousand just persons, mostly from

Nova Scotia, but when they took to sorting the neighbors, they'd get

exclusive. The McGees were all right until Aunt Jane McGee up and

married a venerable archdeacon, due to burn sure as a bishop. The Todds

were through to glory, with doubts on Uncle Simon, who'd been a whaler

captain until he found grace and opened a dry-goods store. Seeing he

died in grace, worth all of ten thousand dollars, the heirs concluded

the Lord should act reasonable, until they found uncle had left his

wealth to charities. Then they put a text on his tomb--"For he had great

possessions."

The McAndrewses has corner lots in the New Jerusalem, and is surely the

standard of morals until Cousin Abner went shiftless and wrote poems.

They'd allus been so durned respectable, too.

Anyway, mother's folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty

well fixed in Nova Scotia. She'd talk like a book, too. You'd never

suspect mother, playing the harmonium in church, with a tuning-fork to

sharpen the preacher's voice, black boots, white socks, box-plaited

crinoline, touch-me-not frills, poke bonnet, served all round with

scratch-the-kisser roses. Yes, I seen the daguerreotype, work of a

converted photographer--nothing to pay. Thar's mother--full suit of

sail, rated a hundred A-one at Lloyd's, the most important sheep in the

Lord's flock. Then she's found out, secretly married among the goats.

Her name's scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the

Lord to scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She's married a

sailorman before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a

dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. Why, she'd been engaged to the

leading grocery in Pugwash. Oh, great is the fall thereof, and her name

ain't alluded to no more. "The ways of the Lord," says she, "is surely

wonderful."

In them days the Labrador ain't laid out exactly to suit mother. She's

used to luxury--coal in the lean-to, taties in the cellar, cows in the

barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail

right handy, so she can enjoy the ungodly getting their just deserts.

But in our time the Labrador was just God's country, all rocks, ice, and

sea, to put the fear into proud hearts--no need of teachers. It kills

off the weaklings--no need of doctors. A school to raise men--no need of

preachers. The law was "work or starve"--no place for lawyers. It's

police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and

vapors, wind and storm fulfilling His word. Nowadays I reckon there'd be

a cinematograph theater down street to distract your attention from

facts, and you'd order molasses by wireless, invoiced C. O. D. to

Torngak, Lab. Can't I hear mother's voice acrost the years, and the

continents, as she reads the lesson: "'He casteth forth His ice like

morsels: who can stand before His cold?'"

Father's home was an overturned schooner, turfed in, and he was surely

proud of having a bigger place than any other Liveyere on the coast.

There was the hold overhead for stowing winter fish, and room

down-stairs for the family, the team of seven husky dogs, and even a

cord or two of fire-wood. We kids used to play at Newf'nlanders up in

the hold, when the winter storms were tearing the tops off the hills,

and the Eskimo devil howled blue shrieks outside. The huskies makes wolf

songs all about the fewness of fish, and we'd hear mother give father a

piece of her mind. That's about the first I remember, but all what

mother thought about poor father took years and years to say.

I used to be kind of sorry for father. You see he worked the bones

through his hide, furring all winter and fishing summers, and what he

earned he'd get in truck from the company; All us Liveyeres owed to the

Hudson Bay, but father worked hardest, and he owed most, hundreds and

hundreds of skins. The company trusted him. There wasn't a man on the

coast more trusted than he was, with mother to feed, and six kids,

besides seven huskies, and father's aunt, Thessalonika, a widow with

four children and a tumor, living down to Last Hope beyond the Rocks.

Father's always in the wrong, and chews black plug baccy to keep his

mouth from defending his errors. "B'y," he said once, when mother went

out to say a few words to the huskies; "I'd a kettle once as couldn't

let out steam--went off and broke my arm. If yore mother ever gets

silent, run, b'y, run!"

I whispered to him, "You don't mind?"

He grinned. "It's sort of comforting outside. We don't know what the

winds and the waves is saying. If they talked English, I'd--I'd turn

pitman and hew coal, b'y, as they does down Nova Scotia way--where yore

mother come from."

There was secrets about father, and if she ever found out! You see, he

looked like a white man, curly yaller hair same as me, and he was

fearful strong. But in his inside--don't ever tell!--he was partly small

boy same's me, and the other half of him--don't ever let on!--was

mountaineer injun. I seen his three brothers, the finest fellers you

ever--yes, Scotch half-breeds--and mother never knew. "Jesse," he'd

whisper, "swear you'll never tell?"

"S'elp me Bob."

"It would be hell, b'y."

"What's hell like?"

"Prayers and bein' scrubbed, forever an' ever."

"But mother won't be there?"

"Why, no. It hain't so bad as all that. She'll be in Heaven, making them

angels respectable, and cleaning apostles. They was fishermen, too.

They'll catch it!"

Thar's me on father's knee, with my nose in his buckskin shirt, and

even to this day the wood smoke in camp brings back that wuff, whereas

summers his boots smelt fishy. What happened first or afterwards is all

mixed up, but there's the smoke smell and sister Maggie lying in the

bunk, all white and froze.

There's fish smell, and Polly who used to wallop me with a slipper,

lying white and froze. And yet I knew she couldn't get froze in summer.

Then there's smoke smell, and big Tommy, bigger nor father, throwing up

blood. I said he'd catch it from mother for messing the floor, but

father just hugged me, telling me to shut up. I axed him if Tommy was

going to get froze, too. Then father told me that Tommy was going away

to where the milk came out of a cow. You just shove the can opener into

the cow so--and the milk pours out, whole candy pails of milk. Then

there's great big bird rocks where the hens come to breed, and they lays

fresh eggs, real fresh hen's eggs--rocks all white with eggs. And

there's vegi tables, which is green things to eat. First time you swell

up and pretty nigh bust, but you soon get used to greens. Tommy is going

to Civili Zation. It's months and months off, and when you get there,

the people is so awful mean they'd let a stranger starve to death

without so much as "Come in." The men wear pants right down to their

heels, and as to the women--

Mother comes in and looks at father, so he forgets to say about the

women at Civili Zation, but other times he'd tell, oh, lots of stories.

He said it was worse for the likes of us than New Jerusalem.

I reckon Tommy died, and Joan, too, and mother would get gaunt and dry,

rocking herself. "'The Lord gave,'" she'd say, "'and the Lord hath taken

away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

There was only Pete and me left, and father wagging his pipe acrost the

stove at mother. "They'll die, ma'am," I heard him say, and she just

sniffed. "If I hadn't taken 'em out doors they'd be dead now, ma'am."

She called him an injun. She called him--I dunno what she didn't call

him. I'd been asleep, and when I woke up she was cooking breakfast while

she called him a lot more things she must have forgot to say. But he

carried me in his arms out through the little low door, and it was

stabbing cold with a blaze of northern lights.

He tucked me up warm on the komatik, he hitched up the huskies, and

mushed, way up the tickle, and through the soft bush snow, and at sunup

we made his winter tilt on Torngak Creek. We put in the winter there,

furring, and every time he came home from the round of traps, he'd sell

me all the pelts. I was the company, so he ran up a heap of debt. Then

he made me little small snow-shoes and skin clothes like his, and a real

beaver cap with a tail. I was surely proud when he took me hunting fur

and partridges. I was with him to the fishing, in the fall we'd hunt,

all winter we'd trap till it was time for the sealing, and only two or

three times in a year we'd be back to mother. We'd build her a stand-up

wigwam of fire-wood, so it wouldn't be lost in the snow, we'd tote her

grub from the fort, the loads of fish, and the fall salmon.

Then I'd see Pete, too, who'd got pink, with a spitting cough. He wanted

to play with me, but I wouldn't. I just couldn't. I hated to be

anywheres near him.

"Didn't I tell yez?" father would point at Pete coughing. "Didn't I warn

yez?"

But mother set her mouth in a thin line.

"Pete," said she, "is saved."

Next time we come mother was all alone.

"'The Lord gave,'" she says, "'and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be

the name of the Lord,' but it's getting kind of monotonous."

She hadn't much to say then, she didn't seem to care, but was just numb.

He wrapped her up warm on the komatik, with just a sack of clothes, her

Bible, and the album of photos from Nova Scotia, yes, and the china dogs

she carried in her arms. Father broke the trail ahead, I took the gee

pole, and when day came, we made the winter tilt. There mother kep'

house just as she would at home, so clean we was almost scared to step

indoors. We never had such grub, but she wouldn't put us in the wrong or

set up nights confessing father's sins. She didn't care any more.

It was along in March or maybe April that father was away in coarse

weather, making the round of his traps. He didn't come back. There'd

been a blizzard, a wolf-howling hurricane, blowing out a lane of bare

ground round the back of the cabin, while the big drift piled higher and

packed harder, until the comb of it grew out above our roof like a sea

breaker, froze so you could walk on the overhang. And just between dark

and duckish father's husky team came back without him.

I don't reckon I was more'n ten or eleven years old, but you see, this

Labrador is kind of serious with us, and makes even kids act

responsible. Go easy, and there's famine, freezing, blackleg, all sorts

of reasons against laziness. It sort of educates.

Mother was worse than silent. There was something about her that scared

me more than anything outdoors. In the morning her eye kep' following me

as if to say, "Go find your father." Surely it was up to me, and if I

wasn't big enough to drive the huskies or pack father's gun, I thought I

could manage afoot to tote his four-pound ax. She beckoned me to her and

kissed me--just that once in ten years, and I was quick through the

door, out of reach, lest she should see me mighty near to cryin'.

It was all very well showing off brave before mother, but when I got

outside, any excuse would have been enough for going back. I wished I'd

left the matches behind, but I hadn't. I wished the snow would be too

soft, but it was hard as sand. I wished I wasn't a coward, and the bush

didn't look so wolfy, and what if I met up with the Eskimo devil! Oh, I

was surely the scaredest lil' boy, and dead certain I'd get lost. There

was nobody to see if I sat down and cried under father's lob-stick, but

I was too durned frightened, because the upper branches looked like

arms with claws. Then I went on because I was going, and there was

father's trail blazed on past Bake-apple Marsh. The little trees, a cut

here, a slash there, the top of a tree lopped and hanging, then Big

Boulder, Johnny Boulder, Small Boulder, cross the crick, first deadfall,

more lops, a number-one trap empty--how well I remember even now. The

way was as plain as streets, and the sun shining warm as he looked over

into the valley.

Then I saw a man's mitt, an old buckskin mitt sticking up out of the

snow. Father had dropped his mitt, and without that his hand would be

froze. When I found him, how glad he'd be to get it!

But when I tried to pick it up, it was heavy. Then it came away, and

there was father's hand sticking up. It was dead.

Of course I know I'd ought to have dug down through the snow, but I

didn't. I ran for all I was worth. Then I got out of breath and come

back shamed.

It wasn't for love of father. No. I hated to touch that hand, and when I

did I was sick. Still that was better than being scared to touch. It's

not so bad when you dare.

I dug, with a snow-shoe for a shovel. There was the buckskin shirt

smelling good, and the long fringes I'd used to tickle his nose

with--then I found his face. I just couldn't bear that, but turned my

back and dug until I came to the great, big, number-four trap he used

for wolf and beaver. He must have stepped without seeing it under the

snow, and it broke his leg. Then he'd tried to drag himself back home.

It was when I stood up to get breath and cool off that I first seen the

wolf, setting peaceful, waggin' his tail. First I thought he was one of

our own huskies, but when he didn't know his name I saw for sure he must

be the wolf who lived up Two Mile Crick. Wolves know they're scarce,

with expensive pelts, so neither father nor me had seen more'n this

person's tracks. He'd got poor inspecting father's business instead of

minding his own. That's why he was called the Inspector. It was March,

too, the moon of famine. Of course I threw my ax and missed. His hungry

smile's still thar behind a bush, and me wondering whether his business

is with me or father. That's why I stepped on the snow-shoes, and went

right past where he was, not daring to get my ax. Yes, it was me he

wanted to see--first, but of course I wasn't going to encourage any

animal into thinking he'd scared a man. Why, he'd scarce have let father

even see his tracks for fear they'd be trapped or shot. So I walked slow

and proud, leadin' him off from father--at least I played that, wishing

all the time that mother's lil' boy was to home. After a while I grabbed

down a lopped stick where father'd blazed, not as fierce as an ax, but

enough to make me more or less respected.

Sometimes the Inspector was down wind 'specting my smell, times he was

up wind for a bird's-eye view, or again on my tracks to see how small

they looked--and oh, they did feel small!

From what I've learned among these people, wolves is kind to man cubs,

gentle and friendly even when pinched with hunger, just loving to watch

a child and its queer ways. They're shy of man because his will is

strong compelling them, and his weapons magic. So they respects his

traps, his kids, an' all belonging to him. Only dying of hunger, they'll

snatch his dogs and cats, and little pigs, but they ain't known to hurt

man or his young.

The Inspector was bigger than me, stronger'n any man, swifter'n any

horse. I tell yer the maned white wolf is wiser'n most people, and but

for eating his cubs, he's nature's gentleman.

The trouble was not him hunting, but me scared. Why, if he'd wanted me,

one flash, one bite, and I'm breakfast. It was just curiosity made him

so close behind like a stealthy ghost. When I'd turn to show fight, he'd

seem to apologize, and then I'd go on whistling a hymn.

Thar he was cached right ahead in the deadfall, for a front view, if I'd

known. But I thrashed with my stick in a panic, hitting his snout, so he

yelped. Then he lost his temper. He'd a "sorry, but-business-is-business"

expression on him. I ran at him, tripped on a stump, let out a yell, and

he lep' straight at my throat.

And in the middle of that came a gunshot, a bullet grazed my arm, and

went on whining. Another shot, and the Inspector ran. Then I was rubbing

whar the bullet hurt, sort of sulky, too, with a grievance, when I was

suddenly grabbed and nigh smothered in mother's arms. She'd come with

the team of huskies followin' me; she'd been gunning, too, and I sure

had a mighty close call.

She'd no tears left for father, so when I got through sobbin' we went to

the body, and loaded it in the komatik for home. Thar's things I don't

like to tell you.

It wasn't a nice trip exactly, with the Inspector superintending around.

When we got back to the tilt, we daresn't take out the huskies, or

unload, or even stop for grub. We had to drive straight on, mother and

me, down the tickle, past our old empty home, then up the Baccalieu all

night.

The sun was just clear of the ice when we made the Post, and we saw a

little ball jerk up the flag halyards, then break to a great red flag

with the letters H. B. C. It means Here Before Christ.

The air was full of a big noise, like the skirl of sea-gulls screaming

in a gale, and there was Mr. McTavish on the sidewalk, marching with his

bagpipes to wake the folk out of their Sunday beds. He'd pants down to

his heels, just as father said, and fat bacon to eat every day of his

life. He was strong as a team of bullocks, a big, bonny, red man, with

white teeth when he turned, smiling, in a sudden silence of the pipes.

Then he saw father's body, with legs and arms stiffened all ways, and

the number-four trap still gripped on broken bones. Off came his fur

cap.

Mother stood, iron-hard, beside the komatik.

"Factor," says she, "I've come to pay his debt."

"Nay, it's the Sabbath, ma'am. Ye'll pay no debts till Monday. Come in

and have some tea--ye puir thing."

"You starved his soul to death, and now I've brought his body to square

his debts. Will you leave _that_ here till Monday?"

Mr. McTavish looked at her, then whispered to me. "B'y," said he, "we

must make her cry or she'll be raving mad. Greet, woman, greet. By God,

I'll make ye greet!"

He marched up and down the sidewalk, and through the skirl of gulls in a

storm, swept a tune that made the meat shake on my bones.

Once mother shrieked out, trying to make him stop, but he went on pacing

in front of her, to and fro, with his eyes on her all the time, peering

straight through her, and all the grief of all the world in the skirl

and the wail, and that hopeless awful tune. She covered her face with

her hands, trying to hold while the great sobs shook her, and she reeled

like a tree in a gale, until she fell on her knees, until she threw

herself on the corpse, and cried, and cried.

CHAPTER II

THE HAPPY SHIP

Cap'n Mose of the _Zedekiah W. Baggs_ 'e was a Sunday Christian. All up

along 'e'd wear a silk hat, the only one on the Labrador. Yes. Sundays

'e'd be ashore talkin' predestination an' grace out of a book 'e kep' in

'is berth, but never a word about fish or the state of the ice. Mother'd

been raised to a belief in Christians, so when Mose dropped in at her

shack, admirin' how she cooked, she'd be pleased all up the back, and

have him right in to dinner. He'd kiss me, talkin' soft about little

children. Yes. That's how 'e got me away to sea as boy on a sealin'

voyage, without paying me any wages.

Mother never knew what Cap'n Mose was like on week-days, and Sunday

didn't happen aboard of the _Zedekiah_. I remember hidin' away at the

back of Ole Oleson's bunk, axing God please to turn me into an animal.

Any sort would do, because I seen men kind to animals. You know an

animal mostly consists of a pure heart, and four legs, which is a great

advantage. Queer world though, if all our prayers was granted.

Belay thar. A man sets out to tell adventures, and if his victims don't

find some excuse for getting absent, he owes them all the happiness he's

got. It's mean to hand out sorrow to persons bearing their full share

already. So we proceeds to the night when I ran from the _Zedekiah_, and

joined the _Happy Ship_.

We lay in the big ice pack off Cape Breton, getting a load of seal

pelts. All hands was out on the ice while daylight lasted, clubbing

seals, gathering the carcasses into pans, sculping, then towing the

hides aboard to salt 'em down.

We got our supper, then turned in, bone-weary, but the ship groaned so

that I daresn't sleep. A ship ain't got no mouth to give her age away,

and yet with ships and women it's pretty much the same, for the younger

they are the less they need to be painted. The _Zedekiah_ was old, just

paint an' punk, and she did surely groan to the thrust of the pack. I

was too scared to sleep, so I went up on deck.

I'd allus watched for a chance to run away, and thar was Jim, the

anchor-watch, squatting on the bitts dead asleep. He used to be that

way when nobody chased him.

I daresn't make for the coast. You see I'd heard tell of niggers ashore

which eat boys who run away. But I seen the lights of the three-masted

schooner a couple of miles to windward. I grabbed a sealing gaff and

slid down on to the ice.

First, as the pans rocked under me, I was scary, next I warmed up,

gettin' venturesome, until I came near sliding into the wet, and after

that I'd look before I lep'. There'd been a tops'l breeze from the

norrard, blowin' up since nightfall to a hurricane, and then it blew

some more, until I couldn't pole-jump for fear of being blowed away.

With any other ship, I'd have wished myself back on board.

You know how the grinding piles an edge around each pan, of broken

splinters? That edge shone white agin the black of the water, all the

guide I had. But times the squalls of wind was like scythes edged with

sleet, so I was blinded, waiting, freezing until a lull came, and I'd

get on. It was broad day, and I reckon each step weighed a ton before I

made that schooner.

A gray man, fat, with a chin whisker, lifted me in overside. "Come far?"

says he, and I turned round to show him the _Zedekiah_. She wasn't

there. She was gone--foundered.

So that's how I came aboard of the _Happy Ship_, just like a lil' lost

dog, with no room in my skin for more'n bones and famine. Captain Smith

used to say he'd signed me on as family ghost; but he paid me honest

wages, fed me honest grub, while as to clothes and bed, I was snug as a

little rabbit. He taught me reading and writing, and punctuation with

his belt, sums, hand, reef, and steer, catechism, knots and splices,

sewing, squeegee, rule of the road, soojie moojie, psalms of David,

constitution of the United States, and playing the trombone, with three

pills and a good licking regular Saturday nights. Mother's little boy

began to set up and take notice.

Then five years in the _Pawtucket_ all along, from Montreal to Colon,

from banjos plunking in them _portales_ of Vera Cruz, to bugles crying

revally in Quebec, and the oyster boats asleep by old Point Comfort, and

the Gloucester fleet a-storming home past Sable, and dagos basking on

Havana quays. Suck oranges in the dinghy under the moonlight, waiting to

help the old man aboard when he's drunk; watch the niggers humping

cotton into a tramp at Norfolk; feel the tide-rip snoring up past

Tantramar; reef home trys'ls when she's coming on to blow, with the

Keys to lee'ard; can't I just _feel_ the old _Pawnticket_ romping home

to be in time for Christmas!

Did you hear tell that the sea has feelings--the cryin', the laugh, dumb

sorrow, blazin' wrath, the peace, the weariness, the mother-kindness,

the hush like prayers of something which ain't brute, or human, but

more'n human, so grand and awful you hardly dare to breathe?

Words, only words which don't fit, the misfits which make fun of serious

thoughts. We men is dumb beasts which can't say what we mean, whereas

I've allus reckoned persons like cats and wolves don't feel so much

emotions as they exudes in song.

Seafaring men is sea-wise, sea-kind, only land-foolish, for there's

things no sailorman knows how to say, things even landsmen can't figure

out in dollars and cents.

Seems I'm a point off my course? I'm only saying things the captain

said, times on a serious night when we'd be up some creek for fish, or

layin' low for ducks. If ever he went ashore without me, I'd be like a

lost dog, and he drunk before the sun was over the yard-arm. But away

together it wasn't master and boy, but just father and son. He'd even

named me after himself, and that's why my name's Smith.

I disremember which port--somewheres up the St. Lawrence where we loaded

lumber for the Gulf o' Mexico, but the captain and me was away fishing.

Mother had come from the Labrador to find me, old gray mother. They

dumped her seal-hide trunk on our wharf, so one of the china dogs inside

got split from nose to tail; but mother just sat on a bollard, and

didn't give a damn. She put on her round horn spectacles to smile at the

mate aft, and the second mate forward, the or'nary seaman painting in

the name board, and Bill in his bos'n's chair a-tarring down the

rigging, and the bumboat laundress who'd been tearing the old man's

shirt-fronts. Yes, she'd a smile for every man jack that seemed to warm

their hearts, but nary a word to interfere with work, for she just sat

happy at the sight of the _Pawnticket_, and she surely admired

everything, from Old Glory to Blue Peter--until our nigger cook came and

spilled slops overside. Seems he'd had news of the lady, and came to

grin, but he was back in his galley, like a rabbit to his burrow, while

she marched up the gangway. "Can't abide dirt," says mother, and even

the new boy heard not a word else 'cept the splash. For mother just

escorted that nigger right through the galley, out at the other end,

over the port rail, and boosted him into the blue harbor, for the first

and only bath he'd ever had. Then she took off her horn spectacles, her

old buckskin gloves, and her bonnet, and sot to cleaning a galley which

hadn't been washed since the days of President Lincoln. Floor, range,

walls, beams, pots, kettles, plates and dishes, she washed and scrubbed

and polished. She hadn't time to listen to the wet nigger or the mate,

and narry a man on board could get more than yea or nay out of mother.

She cooked them a supper too good to be eaten and spoilt, then set the

dishes to rights, got the lamp a-shining, and axed to be shown round the

ship. You should have seen the idlers aft and the boys forrard, redding

up as if all their mothers was expected. As to the nigger, the fellers

made a habit of pitching him overboard until he got tired of coming.

The cap'n and me comes back along with the dinghy, makes fast, and

climbs aboard. There's old gray mother, with the horn specs, calm in her

own kitchen, just tellin' us to set right down to supper. Cap'n lives

aft, and I belongs up forrard, being ordinary seaman, and less important

aboard than the old man's pig. Yet somehow mother knew, feeding us both

in the galley, and standing by while we fed. Never a word, but mother

had a light for Captain Smith's cigar, and her eyes looking hungry at me

for fear she'd be sent ashore.

"Well, ma'am," says the captain, "sent your baggage aft? Oh, we'll soon

get your baggage aboard."

Then I heard him on deck seeing mother's dunnage into the spare berth

aft, and the nigger's turkey thrown out on the wharf.

Sort of strange to me remembering mother, gaunt, bitter-hard, always in

the right, with lots to say. And here was little mother sobbing her

heart out on the breast of my jersey. Just the same mother changed. Said

she was fed up with the Labrador, coming away to see the world, meet

folks, and have a good time; but would I be ashamed of having her with

me at sea? Surely that had been old mother back there in the long ago

time, and now it was young mother laughing just because she'd cried.

Shamed? All the ways down from Joe Beef's clear to Rimouski you'll hear

that yarn to-day, of how the old sea custom of winning a berth in fair

fight was practised by a lady, aboard of the _Pawnticket_.

You've heard of ship's husbands, but we'd the first ship's mother. And

the way she crep' in was surely insidious. Good word that. Let her draw

stores, you find she's steward and purser, just surely poison to the

chandlers. Oh, she'll see to the washing, and before you can turn

around, she's nurse and doctor. She's got to be queen, and the

schooner's a sea palace, when we suddenly discovered she only signed as

cook.

Now we're asleep at eleven knots on a beam wind, and Key West wide on

the starboard bow, the same being in the second dog-watch when I'm

invited aft. There's the old man setting in the captain's place, there's

mother at the head of the table sewing, and she asks me to sit in the

mate's seat as if I was chief officer instead of master's dog.

"Son," says she--queer, little, soft chuckle, "son. You'll never guess."

I'm sort of sulky at having riddles put.

Then the old man gets red to the gills, giggling. He slaps hisself on

his fat knee and wriggles. Then he up and kisses mother with a big smack

right on the lips.

"Can't guess?" says mother.

"I'm the old man," he giggles, "she's the old woman." Then he reached

out his paw. "Put her there, son!" says he; "what's yer name, boy?"

He'd a hand like a bear trap. "Smith!" I squealed. "Smith!"

"Fact," says he. "Fill yourself a goblet of that 'ere sherry wine, with

some sugar. Drink, you cub, to Captain and Mrs. Smith. Now off with ye,

and pass the bottle forrard."

There's me chuck-a-block with shyness, spluttering wine, dumb as a fish

'cause I've only one mouth to my face; then I'm to the foc'sle, tellin'

the boys there's mutiny on the high seas with the cook commanding, and

we're flying the aurora borealis for a flag, till we load a cargo of

stars, and clears for paradise.

Next day, or next week, or maybe the Monday following, the ship's got a

headache, with the sky sitting down on the mastheads, the sea like oil,

the sheets slapping the shadows on the deck, where the tar boils, and

our feet is like overdone toast.

We sailors is off our feed, and Pierre Legrandeur telling his beads till

they get pitched overboard for luck. Old man's in a stinking temper,

mother abed with sick headache, first mate like a wounded seal, the

second has a touch of the sun, and bo's'n got a water-pup on his neck.

We stows every stitch of canvas, sets a storm stays'l reefed to the size

of a towel, everything on deck's lashed solid, and the glass is lookin'

sicker'n ever. Then dad says we'd best take precautions, so he tries to

house the top-masts, and sends down for a drum of oil.

The sky's like copper edged with sheet lightning, then there's scud in a

hurry overhead, the horizon folding in, and a funnel-shaped cloud to the

southard wrapping up the sky. There's no air, and I noticed the binnacle

alight, so it must have been nigh dark under that funnel cloud. Just as

it struck, some one called out "All aboard!" and I heard the mate yell,

"You mean, all overboard!"

Couldn't see much at first, as I was busy getting mother out of the

drowned cabin. When I'd passed a halyard round her and the stump of the

mizzen, I'd just breathing time. The sea was flattened, white under

black sky, and what was left of us was mostly blowing about. I felt

sorry for Pierre--gone after his rosary beads, and Mick, too--he'd owed

me a dollar. I missed the masts some, and the bowsprit. Galley gone,

too, and the good old dinghy staved to kindlings. The ship's cat was

mewing around with no curling-up corner left.

Dad was just taking command again of what remained. No use shouting

either, so he hung on and beckoned. The masts overside were battering

holes in us, until we cut adrift. Then to the pumps, but that was sort

of _ex officio_ just to keep us warm. Working's warmer than waiting.

Being timber-laden we couldn't sink, which was convenient. But, as

mother said, there wasn't any grub on the roof, and we couldn't go

down-stairs. For instance, we wanted a drink of water.

Well, now, we been three days refreshing our parched mouths with beer

stories, when a fishing vessel comes along smelling salvage. Happens

he's one of them felucca-rigged dago swine out of Invicta, Texas.

Daresn't tow a hair-brush across a wash pail for fear of getting fouled

in his own hawser. But he's a champion artist at gesticulations, so he'd

like to get his picture in the papers for rescuing shipwrecked mariners.

His charges was quite moderate, too, for a breaker of water and some

fancy grub--until we seen the bill.

I never knew till then that our old man was owner. Of course that's all

right, only he'd run astern with his insurance. That's why he'd stay

with the ship, so it's no good talking. As to mother, she come aboard

the feluccy, ship's cat in her arms, and a sort of cold, dumb,

going-to-be-good-and-it's-killin'-me sort of smile. She bore up brave

until she struck the number-one smell in the dago's cabin. "It's too

much," she says, handing me the cat, "too much. I'm goin' back to drown

clean."

She kissed me, and went back aboard the wreck.

But I was to stay with our sailors aboard the dago, to fetch Invicta

quick, and bring a tug. Dad trusted me, even to play the coward and quit

him. I dread to think back on that passage of four days to the port of

Invicta.

Now in them days I was fifteen, and considered homely. The mouth I got

would be large for a dog, smile--six and three-quarters. Thar ashore at

Invicta, I'd still look sort of cheerful, so all them tug skippers took

me for a joke. It was four days and three nights since I'd slept, so I

suppose I'd look funny wanting to hire a tug.

I showed power of attorney, wrote in indelible pencil on dad's old dicky

cravat, but the tugs expected cash, and the agents went back on me.

There was our sailors playing shipwrecked heroes, which is invited to

take refreshments, and tell how brave they'd been, raising the

quotations on tugs up to ten thousand dollars. Better have a whisky to

lessen that smile before it takes cramp, they'd say. And mother's voice

seems to call out of the air.

Nothin' doing Saturday nights at the office, tug crews all ashore, but

the port will get a move on Monday. Trust grown men to know more'n a

mere boy. Keep a stiff upper lip, cheer up and have a drink. The glass

is down, the gulls is flying inland, thar's weather brewing. I seen in

my mind the sprays lash over the wreck.

It was dark when I went to the wharves with Captain McGaw to see the

_Pluribus Unum_. He'd show me a tug cheap at ten thousand cash--stores

all complete, steam up, engineer on the premises, though he'd stepped

ashore for a drink. Cute cabin he'd got on the bridge, cunning little

glory-hole forrard. Why, everything was real handy, so that I only had

to bat him behind the ear with a belaying-pin, and he dropped right down

the fore hatch. All I wanted now was a navigating officer I could trust.

Which brings me to Mr. McMillan, our own second mate, buying a dozen

fried oysters in a card box with a wire handle, all for twenty-five

cents, though the girl seemed expecting a kiss.

"Hello, Frankie," says I, slapping him on the back. A foremast hand can

make his officer act real dignified with less. "Say, Mac! D'ye know what

Greed done?" I grabbed his oysters. "Greed, he choke puppy," says I, and

in my mind I seen the gulls wheel round the wreck, where something's

lying huddled. "Come on, puppy!" says I, waving Frankie down street with

them oysters, so all the traffic pauses to admire, and our second

officer is running good. More things I said, escorting him maybe a mile

aboard of the _Pluribus Unum_. And there I ate them oysters while he was

being coarse and rude, but all the time I seen the wreck heave sick and

sodden on the swell of the gulf, the circling gulls, and how they dove

down, pecking at a huddle of torn clothes beside the wheel.

Up thar on the tug's masthead I was owning to being in the wrong, while

Frankie Mac was promising faithful to tear my hide off over my ears when

I'm caught.

"Please, sir," says I, "it ain't so much the oysters worries me. It's

this yer Cap'n McGaw I done embezzled. Cayn't call it kidnaped 'cause

he's over sixty, but I stunned him illegal with a belaying-pin, and I

hears him groaning--times when you stops to pant."

But Frankie Mac wouldn't believe one word until he went down in the fore

peak to inquire, while I applied the hatch, and battened down.

So you see I'd got a tug, and the crew aboard, so the next thing was to

take in the hawsers, shove off, and let her drift on the ebb.

It's a caution to see how many taps and things besets an engine-room,

all of 'em heaps efficient. The first thing I handled proved up plenty

steam, for my left arm was pink and blisters for a week. Next I found a

tap called bilge-valve injection, which lets in the sea when you wants

to sink the ship. I turned him full, and went to sit on the fore hatch

while I sucked my arm, and had a chat with the crew.

They was talkative, and battering at the hatch with an ax, so I'd hardly

a word in edgeways. Then they got scared we'd blow up before we drowned.

Allus in my mind I'd see them gulls squawkin' around the wreck, and

mother fighting them. That heaped thing by the wheel was dad, for I seen

the whites of his eyes as the ship lurched him. An' the gulls--

Cap'n McGaw was pleadin' with me, then Mr. McMillan. They swore they'd

take me to the wreck for nothin', they'd give their Bible oath, they'd

sign agreements. McGaw had a wife and family ashore. McMillan was in

love.

I turned off the bilge-valve injection, opened the fore hatch, and set

them two to work. They was quite tame, and that night I slept--only to

wake up screechin' at the things I seen in dreams.

Seven days we searched for the wreck before we gave up and quit, at

least the captains did. Then night come down black overhead, with the

swell all phosphorescent. I allus think of mother in a light sea under a

black sky, like it was that night, when our tug run into the wreck by

accident.

I jumped first on board. The poor hulk lay flush with the swell, lifting

and falling just enough to roll the thin green water, all bright specks,

across and across the deck. Mother was there, her bare arm reaching out,

her left hand lifting her skirt, her face looking up, dreaming as she

turned, and turned, and swayed, in a slow dance. It's what they calls a

waltz, and seems, as I stood watching, I'd almost see the music swaying

her as she wove circles, water of stars pouring over her bare feet.

Seems though the music stopped, and she came straight to me. Speaks like

a lil' small girl. "Oh, mummy," she says, "look," and draws her hands

apart so, just as if she was showing a long ribbon, "watered silk," she

mutters, "only nine cents a yard. Oh, mayn't I, mayn't I, mummy?"

And there was dad, with all that water of stars washing across and

across him.

CHAPTER III

YOUTH

A dog sets down in his skin, tail handy for wagging--all his possessions

right thar.

Same with me, setting on the beach, with a cap, jersey, overalls, sea

boots, paper bag of peanuts, beached wreck of the old _Pawnticket_ in

front, and them two graves astern. Got more'n a dog has to think about,

more to remember, nothin' to wag. Two days I been there, and the peanuts

is getting few. Little gray mother, dad, the _Happy Ship_, just dead,

that's all, dead. The tide makes and ebbs, the wind comes and goes,

there's days, nights and the little waves beating time--time--time, just

as if they cared, which they don't.

I didn't hear the two horses come, but there's a young person behind me

sort of attracting attention. When he moves there's a tinkle of iron,

creaking leather, horsy smell, too, and presently he sets down along of

me, cross-legged. I shoved him the peanuts, but he lit a cigarette,

offering me one. Though he wasn't, he just felt same as a seafaring man,

so I didn't mind him being there.

"The ocean," says he, "is it allus like that?"

"'Cept when there's weather."

"That's a ship?"

"Was."

"Dead?"

"Dead."

He wanted to look at my sheath knife, and when I handed it he seen the

lettering "Green River" on the blade. He'd been along Green River and

there's no knives like that.

Then I'd got to know about them iron things on his heels--spurs. We

threw peanuts, my knife agin his spurs, and he won easy. Queer how all

the time he's wanting to show himself off. He'd never seen salt water

before. The shipping, making the port, or clearing, foreign or

coastwise, the Hellafloat Yank, the Skowogian Coffin, the family packet,

liner, tramp, fisher, lumberman, geordie and greaser was all the same to

him. "Sounds like injun languages," says he, "can't you talk white?" So

we went in swimming, and afterward there's a lunch he'd got with

him--quart of pickled onions, and cigarettes. Seems it's the vacuum in

under which makes hearts feel so heavy.

This stranger begins to throw me horse talk and cow stories. It seems

cow-punchers is sort of sailors of the plains, only it's different.

Seafaring men gets wet and cold, and wrecked, but cow-boys has

adventures instead, excitement, red streaks of life. Following the sea,

I been missing life. Why, this guy ain't more'n two years older'n

me--say, seventeen, but he's had five years ridin' for one man, four

years for another, six years in Arizona, then three in Oregon, until

he's added up about half a century. He's more worldly, too, than

me--been in a train on the railroad. I'm surely humbled by four P. M.,

and if he keeps goin', by four bells I'll be young enough to set in

mother's lap.

Says his name's Bull Durham. Surely I seen that name on lil' sacks of

tobacco. Bull owns up this baccy's named after his father. And surely

his old man must be pretty well fixed. "That's so," says Bull, blushing

to show he's modest "Ye see, kid, the old man's a bishop. Yes, Bishop of

Durham, of course. Lives over to London, England. Got a palace thar, and

a pew in the House of Lords. I'll be a lord when he quits. I'm the

Honorable Bull by rights, although I hate to have the boys in camp know

that--make 'em feel real mean when all of 'em rides as well as me, or

almost, and some can rope even better."

"And you is the young of a real lord!"

"Sure. I'll have to be a bishop, too, when I comes into the property.

I'm a sort of vice-bishop, sonny. D'ye see these yere gloves? They got a

string to tie 'em at the back, 'cause I been inducted. I got an entail

I'll show you in camp, and a pair of hereditaments."

"Vice-bishop," says I, "is that like bo's'n's mate? I never hear tell of

a bishop's mate."

"He mates in two moves," says Bull, "baptism and conflamation."

"But," says I, so he just shuts me up, saying I may be ignorant, but

that ain't no excuse for being untruthful.

Well, his talk made me small and mean as a starved cat, but that was

nothing to the emotions at the other end of me when he got me on one of

them horses. I wanted to walk. Walk! The most shameful things he knew

was walking and telling lies. If I walked he'd have nothing more to do

with me. I rode till we got to the ferry.

You know in books how there's a line of stars acrost the page to show

the author's grief. I got 'em bad by the time we rode into Invicta City.

Draw the line right thar:

* * * * *

We're having supper at the Palladium, and I'm pretty nigh scared. The

goblets is all full of pink and white serviettes, folded up into fancy

designs, which come undone if you touched. There's a menu to say what's

coming, in French so you don't know what you're eating, and durned if I

can find out whether to tackle an a la mode with fingers or a spoon.

Bull says it's only French for puckeroo, a sort of four-legged burrowing

bird which inhabits silver mines, but if I don't like that, the lady

will fetch me a _foe par_. Well, I orders one, and by the lady's face I

see I done wrong, even before she complains to the manager. I'm surely

miserable to think I've insulted a lady.

The manager's suspicious of me, but Bull talks French so rapid that even

froggy can't keep up, although he smiles and shrugs, and gives us

sang-fraws to drink.

This sort of cocktail I had, was the first liquor I'd tasted. It's

powerful as a harbor tug, dropping me out of the conversation, while

the restaurant turns slowly round with a list to starboard, and Bull

deals for a basket in the front window full of decorated eggs. Says

they're vintage eggs, all verd-antique and bookay. For years the

millionaires of Invicta has shrunk from the expense. My job when we

leaves is to carry the basket, 'cause Bull's toting a second-handed

saddle.

Bull lets me have cocktails to keep me from getting confused on the

night of my day boo. I know I behaves with 'strordinary dignity, and

wants more cocktails.

I dunno why Bull has to introduce me to the gentleman who keeps the

peanut store down street--seeing I'd dealt there before. Anyway, I'm

introduced to Affable Jones, and I'm the Markis of Worms--the same being

a nom de plume. We proceeds to the opery-house, climbs in through a

little hind window, and finds a dressing-room. Affable Jones dresses up

as a monk, Bull Durham claims he's rigged out already as a vice-bishop,

and I'm to be a chicken, 'cause I'm dealing vintage eggs in the

cotillon. All the same, I'm left there alone for hours, and it's only

when they comes back with a cocktail that I'll consent to dressing up as

a chicken--which in passing out through that lil' window is some

crowded. We proceeds up street, me toting eggs, and practising

chicken-talk, and it seems the general public is surprised.

So we comes to the Masonic Hall, which is all lights, and band, and

fashionable persons rigged out in fancy dress, dancing the _horse

doover_. I got the name from Bull, who says that the next turn is my day

boo in the omlet cotillion. Seems it's all arranged, too. Affable Jones

lines up the ladies on the left, the dudes on the right, all the length

of the hall. Bull marches up the middle, spurs trailin' behind him, and

there's me dressed as a chicken, with a basket of eggs, wondering

whether this here cow-boy is the two persons I see, or only the one I

can hear. Band's playing soft, Affable serves out tin spoons to the

dudes, and I deals each a decorated egg, laying it careful in the bowl

of the spoon, till there's only a few left over, and I'm safe along with

Bull.

So far everybody seems pleased. Bull whispers in my ear, "Make for the

back door, you son of a sea cook," which offends one, being true; waves

an egg at the band for silence, and calls out, "Ladies and gents." From

the back door I seen how all the dudes has to stand dead still for fear

of dropping an egg.

"Ladies," says Bull, "has any of you seen a live mouse? On the way up

among you, seems I've dropped my mouse, and it's climbing skirts for

solitude."

Then there's shrieks, screams, ladies throwing themselves into the arms

of them dudes, eggs dropping squash, eggs going bang, Bull throwing eggs

at every man not otherwise engaged, and such a stink that all the lights

goes out. I'm grabbed by the scruff of the chicken, run out through the

back door, and slung on the back of a horse. Bull's yelling "Ride! Ride!

Git a move on!" He's flogging the horses with his quirt, he's yelling at

me: "Ride, or we'll be lynched!"

My mouth's full of feathers, chicken's coming all to pieces--can't

ride--daresn't fall off. So on the whole I dug the chicken's spurs into

Mr. Horse, and rode like a hurricane in a panic. All of which reminds me

that the hinder parts of an imitation bird is comforting whar she bumps.

Still, draw them stars across.

* * * * *

I'm feeling better with twenty miles between me and Invicta City. The

sun transpires over the eastern sky-line, the horses is taking a roll,

I'm seated on the remnants of the chicken, and Bull Durham says I'm his

adopted orphan. "You rode," says he, "like a pudding on a skewer, you've

jolted yo' tail through yo' hat, you looks like a half-skinned fool hen,

and you've torn that poor mare's mouth till she smiles from ear to ear.

Yet on the whole them proceedings is cheering you up, _and thar's more

coming_."

Looking back it seems to me that the first night's proceedings was calm.

Thar was the fat German fire brigade pursuing an annual banquet across

lots by moonlight, all on our way north, too, till the wagon capsized in

a river.

Thar was the funeral obsequies of a pig, late deceased, with municipal

honors, until we got found out.

Then we was an apparition of angels at a revival camp, only Bull's wings

caught fire, and spoiled the whole allusion.

Yes, when I looks back on them radium nights entertainments along with

Bull Durham, I see now what a success they was in learning me to ride.

"What you need," says he, "is confidence. Got to forget mere matters of

habeas corpus, and how your toes point, and whether you're looking

pretty. Just trust yo' horse to pull through, so that you ain't caught

in the flower of youthful innocence, and hung on the nearest telegraph

pole. You still needs eclair as the French say, and you got no _ung bong

point_, but your _horse de combat_ is feeling encouraged to pack you

seventy miles last night, and we'll be in camp by sundown."

Once I been to a theater, and seen a play. Thar's act one, with fifteen

minutes hoping for act two. Thar's act after act till you just has to

fill up the times between with injun war-whoops, until act five, when

all the ladies and gents is shot or married. It just cayn't go on. So

the aujience says "Let's go'n have a drink," and the band goes off for a

drink, and the lady with the programs tells you to get to hell out of

that.

It's all over. The millionaire Lord Bishop of Durham is only Bull's

father-in-law. Bull's not exactly a cow-boy yet--but assists his mother,

Mrs. Brooke, who is chef at a ranch. It's not exactly a stock ranch, but

they raise fine pedigree hogs. Bull won't be quite popular with his

mother for having gorgeous celebrations with the hundred dollars she'd

give him to pay off a little debt. I'd better not come to the ranch

after leading mummie's boy astray from the paths of virtue.

No, I cayn't set a saddle without giving the horse hysterics, and as for

turning cow-boy, what's the matter with my taking a job as a colonel?

I'd best climb off that mare, and hunt a job afoot. So long, Jesse.

There's the dust of Bull's horses way off along the road, and me settin'

down by the wayside. A dog sets down in his skin, tail handy for

wagging, all his possessions around him. I ain't even got no tail.

CHAPTER IV

THE ORDEAL BY TORTURE

The Labrador was good to me, the sea was better, the stock range--wall,

I'd four years punching cows, and I'm most surely grateful. Thar's

plenty trades outside my scope of life, and thar's ages and ages past

which must have been plenty enjoyable for a working-man. Thar's ages to

come I'd like to sample, too. But so far as I seen, up to whar grass

meets sky, this trade of punching cows appeals to me most plentiful. In

every other vocation the job's just work, but all a cow-boy's paid for

is forms of joy--to ride, to rope, to cut out, to shoot, to study tracks

an' sign, read brands, learn cow. A bucking horse, a range fire, a gun

fight, a stampede, is maybe acquired tastes, for I've known good men act

bashful.

There's drawbacks also--I'd never set up thirst or sand-storms as being

arranged to please, or claim to cheerfulness with a lame horse, or in a

sheep range, no. But then you don't know you're happy till you been

miserable, and you'd hate the sun himself if he never set.

I ain't proposin' to unfold a lot of adventures, the same being mostly

things I'd rather'd happened to some one else. An adventure comes along,

an' it's "How d'ye do?" It's done gone, and "_Adios!_"

I was nigh killed in all the usual ways.

The sun would find us mounted, scattering for cattle; he'd set, leaving

us in the saddle with a night herd still to ride. Hard fed, worked

plenty, all outdoors to live in, and bone-weary don't ax, "Whar's my

pillow?" No. The sun shines through us, and if it's cold we'll shiver

till we sweat. The rains, the northers--oh, it was all so natural!

Living with nature makes men natural.

We didn't speak much--pride ain't talkative. Riding or fighting we gave

the foreman every ounce we'd got, and more when needed. Persons would

come among us, mean, dirty, tough, or scared, sized-up before they

dismounted, apt to move on, too. Them that stayed was brothers, and all

our possessions usually belonged to the guy who kep' the woodenest face

at poker.

The world in them days was peopled with only two species, puncher an'

tenderfoot, the last bein' made by mistake. Moreover, we cow-boys

belonged to two sects, our outfit, and others of no account. And in our

outfit, this Jesse person which is me, laid claims on being best man,

having a pair of gold mounted spurs won at cyards from Pieface, our old

foreman. I'd a rolled cantle, double-rig Cheyenne of carved leather, and

silver horn--a dandy saddle that, first prize for "rope and tie down"

agin all comers.

Gun, belt, quirt, bridle, hat, gloves, everything, my whole kit was

silver mounted and everything in it a trophy of trading, poker, or

fighting. Besides my string of ponies I'd Tiger, an entire black colt

I'd broke--though I own he was far from convinced. Add a good pay-day in

my off hind pocket, and d'ye think I'd own up to them twelve apostles

for uncles? D'ye know what glory is? Wall, I suppose it mostly consists

of being young.

In these days now, I've no youth left to boast of, but it's sweet to

look back, to remember Sailor Jesse at nineteen, six foot one and

filling out, full of original sin, and nothin' copied, feelin' small,

too, for so much cubic contents of health, of growin' power, and

bubbling fun. Solemn as a prairie injun, too, knowing I was all comic

inside, and mighty shy of being found out for the three-year kid I was.

Lookin' back it seems to me that all them vanities was only part of

living natural, being natural. I seen cock birds playing up much the

same to the hen birds--which made believe most solemn they wasn't

pleased.

Time I speak of, our outfit had turned over three thousand head of

long-horns to the Circle S and rode right into Abilene. Thar we was to

take the train for our home ranch down south, and I hoped to get back to

my dog pup Rockyfeller. In my bunk at the ram pasture, too, there was a

china dog, split from nose to tip, but repaired. Yes, I keened for home.

And yet I'd never before been on a railroad, and dreaded the boys would

find out how scared I was of trains.

A sailorman feels queer, steppin' ashore on to streets which seem to

heave although you know they don't--yes, that's what a puncher feels,

too, alighting in a town. Gives you a sort of bow-legged waddle, and

spurs on a sidewalk trail a lot too loud. I lit in Abilene with a blush,

and just stood rooted while a guy selling gold watches reads my name

graved on the saddle, and then addresses me as _Mister_ Smith. Old

Pieface, scared for my morals, did kick this person sudden and severe,

but all the same that _Mister_ went to my head.

The smell of indoors made my stomach flop right over while we ranged up

brave at the bar for a first drink. The raw rye felt like flames, though

the preserved cherry afloat in it tasted familiar, like soap. At the

same time the sight of a gambling lay-out made my pocket twitch, and I'd

an inward conviction telling me this place ain't good for kids. It's the

foreman sent me off with a message.

I rolled my tail, and curved off with Tiger to take in the sights of the

town. He shied heaps, and it's curious to think why he objected to

sign-boards, awnings, lamp-posts, even to a harmless person lying drunk.

Then a railroad engine snorted in our face, so Tiger and me was plumb

stampeded up a little side street. It's thar that he bucks for all he's

worth, because of a kneeling man with a straw hat and a punctured soul,

praying abundant. Of course this penitent turned round to enjoy the

bucking match--and sure reveals the face of my ole friend, Bull Durham.

We hadn't met for years, so as soon as Tiger was tired, Bull owned to

finding the Lord, and being stony busted, ask if I was saved. I seen

he'd got 'em bad, and shared my wad of money level with him. So we had

cigars, a pound of chocolate creams, an oyster stew, and he bought a

bottle of patent medicine for his liver. We shared that, and went on, he

walking by my stirrup to the revival meeting.

This revival was happening at a barn, so I rode in. Tiger you see,

needed religion bad, and when people tried to turn him out, he kicked

them. You should just have heard what the preacher told the Lord about

me, and all the congregation groaned at me being so young and fair, with

silver harness, and the hottest prospects--just as Pieface always said

when I was late for breakfast.

They had a great big wooden cross upon the dais, and somehow, I dunno

why, that made me feel ashamed. A girl in a white dress was singing

_Rock of Ages_--oh, most beautiful, her arms thrown round the cross, the

sun-bright hair about her like a glory.

I could a' cried. Yes. For her great cat eyes were set on me, while her

voice went through an' through me, an'--sudden a dumb yearning happened

inside my belt. Seems that half-bottle of liver dope had scouted round,

found all them chocolate creams, and rared up for battle. But no, the

whisky was still calm, though I felt pale.

Something was goin' wrong, for a most frightsome panic clutched my

throat. Suppose I'd caught religion! Oh, it couldn't be so bad as all

that. Fancy being saved like them wormy railroad men, and town scouts,

took abject because the sky pilot was explaining hell. Made in God's

image? No. That don't apply to cowards.

An' yet it's cows to sheep thar's something wrong when tears runs down

my face, because a girl--why since fifteen I'd been in love with every

girl I seen. As a species they was scarce, some good, some even better.

The sight of girls went to my head like liquor, and this one was surely

good with her sunbright hair, her cheeks flushed 'cause I stared, her

sulky lips rebuking when I throw'd a kiss, her yellow-brown eyes--.

Oh, had I really washed behind my ears? Suppose I'd got high-water

marks! Was my hands--I whipped off my gloves to inquire. That's what's

the matter, sure. Got to make good before bein' introduced. Got to get a

move on Tiger. I swung, spurred with one spring through the doors,

yelled "Injuns" and stampeded, scatterin' gravel and panic through

Abilene. I just went like one man for our cook wagon down by the

railroad corrals.

Now, for all the shaving-glass could see, I was nice an' clean, but then

that mirror has small views, and I'm not taking risks, but stripped and

scrubbed all over. The place was so durned public I blushed from nose to

heels till I was dressed again, shining my hair and boots. Then I

procured an extra special, cherry-red, silk scarf out of the wrangler's

kit.

Some of our boys made friendly signs as I passed on my way back, and

fired a few shots after me for luck, but I'd no time to play. I joined

the revival meeting just as the hat came round, so penitent sinners

making for the door, came back to stay and pay because of Tiger. I give

Bull ten dollars to hand to the hat, only he passed it into his own

pocket. He seemed annoyed, too, saying, "Waste not, want not." Then he

explained how the fire-escape only paid Miss Ellis fifty dollars a day,

whereas he was making hundreds.

Just then she passed, and I got introduced. "Say, Polly," says Bull,

"here's Sailor Jesse wants to get acquainted."

She stopped, sort of impatient for supper, and velvet-soft her voice,

full of contempt.

"Oh, pshaw!"

Hard gold-brown eyes all scorn, soft gold-brown hair, an' freckled

neck, red lips, fierce, tiger fierce--

"Another damned suppliant?" she asked, and Bull was holding a light for

her cigarette. "Is it saved?" she added.

I couldn't speak. I wanted to tell her how I despised all the religion

I'd seen, the bigots it made, an' the cowards. I'd rather burn with the

goats than bleat among sheep even now.

"Oh, that's all right, then," she said as though she answered me, and

frank as a man she gave her hand to shake. "Good stunt of mine, eh?

Although I own I'd like to have that cross stage-managed."

She passed the weather, admired Tiger, talked Browns and Joneses with

Bull, turning her back on me, asked him to supper, walked off with him,

an' that's all. Egg-shells throw'd in the ash-heap may feel like I did

then.

Nobody loved me, 'cept our pony herd, inquirin' piteous for food an'

water. A widow O'Flynn fed me supper, her grub bein' so scarce and bad,

poor soul, she had to charge a dollar to make it pay. She kep' a wooden

leg, and a small son. Our boys, of course, was drunk by then, just

sleepin' whar they'd fell, so I was desolate as a moonlit dog-howl,

ridin' herd with my night horse whar Polly's little home glowed lights

across the prairie. I seen Bull and the preacher leave there on toward

midnight, walkin' sort of extravagant into town. The lights went out.

Then times I'd take some sleep, or times ride herd guarding her little

house, till the cold came, till the dawn broke, till the sun came up.

It was half past breakfast when I seen Bull again, on his knees like

yesterday, a-puttin' up loud prayers, which made me sick. "Rehearsin',"

says he, "'cause Polly's struck, and I'm to be chief mourner."

He was my only chance of meetin' Miss Polly agen, so I was leadin' the

talk around, when a guy comes butting into our conversation. He'd puffed

sleeves to his pants, and was all dressed saucy, standing straddle,

aiming to impress. "Oh, whar's my gun?" says Bull.

This person owned to being a gentleman, with a strong English accent.

He'd 'undreds of 'orses at 'ome in 'Ammersmith, but wanted to own an

'ack 'ere, don'tcherknow.

So Bull lefts up his eyes to Heaven, praying, "Oh, don't deliver us from

temptation yet!" Whereas I confided with this person about Bull being

far gone in religious mania. I owned Bull right though, about my bein' a

sailor, timid with 'orses; and he seen for hisself the way I was riding

my Sam 'orse somethin' dreadful. Told me I'd ought to 'old my 'ed 'igh

instead of 'umping. It's in toes, down 'eels, young feller, an' don't be

'ard on the bally hanimal. He'd gimme lessons only I was frightened, but

out aways from town the ground was softer for falling, an' I gained

courage. Happens Miss Polly's house was opposite. I scrambled down

ungainly, shoved a pebble in along Sam's withers, and let this gent

explain just how to set an 'ard-mouthed 'unter. You 'olds 'is 'ed,

placin' the 'and on the 'orn of the saddle, so. Then hup! That pebble

done the rest.

They claim these flying men is safe while they stays in the air, herding

with cherubs. That's what's the matter. It's only when this early

aviator came down--bang--that he lit on his temper, and sat denouncing

me. Yes, I'd been misunderstood, and when I told him it was all for the

best he got usin' adjectives. He bet me his diamond ring to a dollar

he'd ride Sam, and I must own the little man had grit. He'd have won,

too--but for Sam.

Now, it's partly due to this 'ere entertainment, and the diamond ring I

gave her, that Miss Polly began to perceive me with the naked eye, and

said I might come to supper.

And that evening was most surely wonderful, in a parlor all

antimacassars and rocker chairs with pink bows. She showed me plush

photo albums, and hand-painted pictures of ladies with no clothes on.

She played _Abide with Me_ on the harmonium; she made me write poetry in

her birthday book. There was champagne wine, the little cigarettes with

dreams inside, and a bottle no bigger'n my thumb smellin' so fierce it

well-nigh blew my head off. Oh, it was all so elegant and high-toned

that I got proud of being allowed indoors.

Her people was real society, her poppa an army general, ruined by the

war, her mother prime Virginian. But then she'd gone on the stage, so

there was mean suspicions.

I hold suspicion to be a form of meanness when it touches women. My

mother would have shied at naked ladies, and dad was powerful agin

cigarettes. As for the smell, so fierce it had to be bottled, I'll own

up I was shocked. But then you see mother, and dad, an' me being working

people, was not supposed to feel the high-toned senses which belongs

with wealth. It's not for grade stock like me to set up as judge on

thoroughbreds, or call a lady immoral for using a spoon whar I should

need a shovel.

No, I was playing worldliness for fear this lady'd think me ignorant. I

was no more'n a little child strayed among civilization, scared of being

found out childish. And I was surely panicky in a house--belonged

outdoors among horses.

So it happened that in them days, while I rode guard upon Miss Polly, no

man in Abilene could speak to her, or mention her name to me until I

give him leave. She got to be known as Sailor Jesse's kill, and any

person touching on my kill was apt to require a funeral.

It was the seventh day she married me. I know, because Bull, acting as

best man, claimed a kiss, which she gave him. "Bull," says she, "didn't

I bet you I'd marry Sailor Jesse within a week? You owe me twenty

dollars." I saw the joke was on me.

I'd been in a dream. Love had made the yellow prairie shine like gold,

that little prairie home a holy place, the woman in it something I'd

kneel and pray to. There'd be lil' small children soon for me to play

with, pride in earning food, the great big honor of guarding all of that

from harm.

I came to marriage pure as any bear, or wolf, or fox, expecting to find

my mate the same as me, getter and giver of life, true to the earth,

and fearless in doin' right.

Folks said I was young to marry at nineteen, but full nine years I'd

earned my living, fought my way, and done my share of making happiness.

I'd been served with a mouth full wide enough for laughin', a face which

made folks smile when I was sad, eyes to see fun, the heart to take a

joke if any offered, and when things hurt, I wasn't first to squeal. No:

as long as the joke was on me I done my best to take it like a man.

But suppose-- Well, I'd best explain that the English tenderfoot was at

our wedding breakfast, and gettin' encouraged, he put up his best prize

joke. He was all hoo, hoo, hoo at first, so funny he couldn't speak, the

fellows waitin' each with his grin gettin' stale, and Polly laughing

just to encourage him on. Then words got out which made the boys uneasy.

Jake Haffering the Bar T foreman, told the hog to shut up, while others

moved to get clear. I was sort of stupid, wanting the point explained,

couldn't believe it possible the joke was on my wife, although I'd rose

by then, with gun hand free. Then I saw, but the room seemed dark, and

the tenderfoot all indistinct, backing away, and reaching slovenly for

weapons, while my bullet smashed in his shoulder. It slued him around as

he dropped.

I could hear the flies in the window buzzing as I came to myself, seeing

the hot street outside, the yellow plains beyond.

It was old Jake of the Bar T who spoke out then, and spoke straight.

"My boy," says he, "put up your gun. That's right. This here tenderfoot

is bleedin' by spurts, arterial. Bull, see if Doc Stuart is sober." Bull

ran for the doctor. "Only a tenderfoot," says Jake, "insults a cow-boy's

wife--which is death from natural causes. Ma'am," he wagged his finger

at Polly, "'tain't long since you come among us. 'Tain't more'n a day

since you told me and others present that you was marryin' for fun. You

laughed at warnings, and this here Jesse would have shot the man who

warned him. You are a lady, and this boy you married for fun, is goin'

to see you treated as a lady. I own he got rattled first shot, missing

this tenderfoot's heart, which ain't up to average practise; but it's

time you began to see the point of the joke."

They took the tenderfoot away, and we were alone, me watching the pool

of red blood turning brown. Polly sat drumming tunes on the table, her

face turned white, staring out through the window at the noon heat of

the plains. I remember I took a bottle of champagne wine, filled a big

goblet, and drank it off. The flies were buzzing still agin the window.

It made me laugh to think she'd taught me drinking, so I had another,

watching the flies hold congress on the floor. "I see," says Polly, "I

understand now." At that she began to scream.

I should have told you, that after our boys of the Flying Zee quit

Abilene, I pitched a little A tent on the prairie back of Polly's house.

Thar I could see my ponies at grass, and snuff the air clear of that

stinking town.

But from the time I moved into the house, thar was something disturbing

my nose--something uneasy--oh, I don't know what it was, back of all

house smells, which give me a sense of evil, so I could hardly bear to

stay indoors.

And there were signs. I'd come back from some errand into town, to find

a man's track leading into the door, when Polly claimed she had no

visitors. Why should she say she'd been alone all morning, when there's

pipe ashes on the parlor table, or I'd catch the wet smell from a

chewed cigar? She only laughed.

Comin' from town one night--she'd sent me there--I seen a man's shadow

cross the parlor blind. I fired, missing, a fool's act, for it warned

him, and gave him time. The lamp was out before I reached the house, and

Polly with some hysterics getting in my way.

It wouldn't be sense to show a match guiding the stranger's aim, or to

stand against a window, or make sounds. Rather I stood right still, and

after a while Polly surprised herself into dead silence. I couldn't hear

that man, or feel, or see him. I could smell him, but that don't supply

his bearings. I could taste the air from him, but that flickered. I

sensed him. Can't explain that--no. You just feel if a man stares hard.

I fired at that. Then Polly, of course, went off into all sorts of fits.

Next morning I tracked blood sign to the hospital. Seems a young person

from the bank had took to conjuring and swallowed lead.

It was still before breakfast that I told Polly to pack her dunnage,

'cause we was moving out from Abilene. I claimed I could earn enough to

keep my wife without her needing to go out into society.

"On cow-boy pay?" she said laughing. "On forty dollars a month? I spend

more'n that on champagne. Here you _Miss_ Jesse, who's payin' for

this--you? Who keeps you, eh, Miss Prunes--and--prisms? Shamed of my

bein' a lady, eh? I am a lady, too, and don't you forget it. And now,

git out of my home."

I struck a match to the bo-kay of paper flowers, heaped on the

hand-painted pictures, the paper fans, the rocker chairs, and slung the

coal-oil lamp into the flames; then while she tore my shoulder with her

teeth, I carried her to my tent "That's your home now," I said, "the

home of an honest working-man," I said, "and if another tough defiles my

home, I'll kill you."

The house-warming gathered the neighbors, but she had no use for

neighbors. Only they seen the line I drew in the dust around that tent,

the dead line. Afterward if any man came near that line, she'd scream.

But she'd taught me to drink, an' I drank, day after day, night after

night, while she sat frightened in the tent, moaning when I came. Only

when she was cured could I get work, not while I had to watch all day,

all night. Only when she was cured could I get work, make good, an'

keep my wife as women should be kept. And I--and I--why if I let myself

get sober once I'd remember, and remember, and go mad.

She swore she loved me, she vowed that she'd repented, and I believed

until she claimed religion. I'd seen her breed of religion. I'd rather

have her atheist than shamming. She would keep straight, and be my

faithful wife if I'd quit drinking, if I'd only take her away. But she'd

married me for a joke, and false as a cracked bell she'd chime out lies

and lies, knowing as I knew that if she'd ever been the thing she

claimed, I'd come into her life too late. How could she be the mother of

my children, when--I drank, and sold my ponies to buy liquor, for there

was no way out.

And by the time I'd only Tiger left, one night came Bull to find me just

as dusk was falling. He'd been away, I hadn't seen him for weeks, and

when he came to me in the Roundup saloon, I seen how frightened he was

of speaking to me. I was drunk, too, scarce knowing what he said, just

telling him to shut up and have a drink. Polly's bin hurt? Well, that's

all right--have rye--Polly's been shot? That's good, we'd all have

drinks. Was she dead?

She was dead.

And I was sober then as I am now.

"Murdered?" I asked.

"Jesse, she shot herself."

"Is that so?"

"Through the brow--above the eyes. Come, Jesse."

Next thing I was standing in the tent door, and it was so dark inside I

had to strike a match. The sulphur tip burned blue, the wood flared, and

for that moment, bending down, I seen the black dark hole between the

eyes, the smear of drying blood. Then the match went out, and I--that

was enough.

I gave Bull what I'd left, to pay for burial.

Then I was riding Tiger all alone, with my shadow drawin' slowly out

ahead as the moon waned.

CHAPTER V

THE BURNING BUSH

Among the Indians, before a boy gets rated warrior, he goes alone afoot,

naked, starvin', thirsty, way off to the back side of the desert. Thar

he just waits, suns, weeks, maybe a whole moon, till the Big Spirit

happens to catch his eye. Then the Big Spirit shows him a stick, or a

stone, or any sort of triflin' common thing, which is to be his

medicine, his wampum, the charm which guards him, hunting, or in war.

There's the ordeal, too, by torture, done in the medicine lodge, so all

the chiefs can see he's fit for bearin' arms. He's given the war-path

secret, taking his rank as a man.

Among them Bible Indians you'll remember a feller called Moses, out at

the back side of the desert, seen the Big Spirit in a burning bush.

Later his tribe set up a medicine lodge, and the hull story's mighty

natural.

This Indian life explains a lot to men like me, raised ignorant, never

grown-up--or at least not to hurt. I had the ordeal by torture, which

done me good, and I been whar Moses went, and the Lord Christ too,

seeking the medicine of the Almighty Father.

For as I'd broken ponies for their good till they got peaceful, so I was

broke myself. Bein' full of pride an' sin as a young horse, so I was

tamed until He reckoned me worth pasturage. Before then I'd work

hard--yes, for pride. A bucking horse throws miles, sheer waste into the

air, miles better pulled out straight the way you're goin'. I work for

service, now.

You know when you've been in trouble, how you swing back thinking of

edged words which would have cut, and dirty actions that you wish you'd

done. These devils has got to go if you'd keep your manhood, harder to

beat out than a talky woman, and even the littlest of them puts up a

heap big fight. But when the last is killed, there's room for peace.

Sloth walks in front of trouble, peace follows after. Water is nothing

till you thirst, rest nothing till you're weary, calm nothing till

you've faced the storm, peace nothing until after war. But peace is like

the water after thirst, rest when you're weary, calm after storm,

earnings of warriors only. Many find peace in death, only a few in life,

and I found peace thar in the wilderness, the very medicine of torn

souls, fresh from the hand of the Almighty Father.

And I found wealth. Seems there's many persons mistaking dollars for

some sort of wealth. I've had a few at times by way of samples, the

things which you're apt to be selfish with, or give away to buy

self-righteousness. Reckoning with them projuces the feeling called

poverty. They're the very stuff and substance of meanness, and no man

walks straight-loaded. Dollars gets lost, or throwed away, or left to

your next of kin, but they're not a good and lasting possession. I like

'em, too.

What's the good and lasting possession, the real wealth? Times I've been

down in civilization, meeting folks who'd been rusting and rotting on

one spot, from a while or so to a long lifetime, aye, and proud to boast

in long decaying. They'd good memory, but nothing to remember. They're

handy enough as purses if they were filled with coin. But where they're

poor I'm rich, with wealth of memories, some good, some bad, all real.

In coin like "seen" and "known" and "done" I'm millionaire. Ah, yes,

but times I wisht that I could part with things I've "lived" to help

beginners, and keep moths out of candles. Things lived ain't current

coin to be given, sold, lost, thrown, aye, or bequeathed. My body's meat

and bones, my soul's the life I've lived, and mine until I square

accounts with God. Queer reckoning that last. I guess He'll have to

laugh, and He who made all life plumb full of humor, is due to enjoy

some things He'll have to punish.

I found peace, I found wealth, yes, and found something more thar in the

wilderness. Sweet as the cactus forest in blossom down Salt River is

that big memory.

It was after I'd found the things of happy solitude. I'd gone to work

then for the Bar Y outfit, breaking the Lightning colts. We was out a

few weeks from home, taking an outfit of ponies as far as the Mesa

Abaho, and one night camped at the very rim-rock of the Grand Canyon. The

Navajo Indians was peevish, the camp dry, grass scant, herd in a raffish

mood, and night come sudden.

I'd just relieved a man to get his supper, and rode herd wide alert. I

scented the camp smoke, saw the spark of fire glow on the boys at rest,

and heard their peaceful talk hushed in the big night. They seemed such

triflin' critters full of fuss since dawn, so small as insects at the

edge of nothin', while for miles beneath us that old, old wolfy Colorado

River was playing the Grand Canyon like a fiddler plays a fiddle. But the

river in the canyon seemed no more than a trickle in a crack, hushed by

the night, while overheard the mighty blazing stars--point, swing, and

drive, rode herd on the milky way. And that seemed no more than cow-boys

driving stock. Would God turn His head to see His star herds pass, or

notice our earth like some lame calf halting in the rear?

And what am I, then?

That was my great lesson, more gain to me than peace and wealth of mind,

for I was humbled to the dust of earth, below that dust of stars. So as

a very humble thing, not worth praying for, at least I could be master

of myself. I rode no more for wages, but cut out my ponies from the

Lightning herd, mounted my stud horse William, told the boys good-by at

Montecello, and then rode slowly north into the British possessions. So

I come at last to this place, an old abandoned ranch. There's none so

poor in dollars as to envy ragged Jesse, or rich enough to want to rob

my home. They say there's hidden wealth whar the rainbow goes to

earth--that's whar I live.

PART II

CHAPTER I

TWO SHIPS AT ANCHOR

_Kate's Narrative_

My horse was hungry, and wanted to get back to the ranch. I was hungry

too, but dared not go. I had left my husband lying drunk on the kitchen

floor, and when he woke up it would be worse than that.

For miles I had followed the edge of the bench lands, searching for the

place, for the right place, some point where the rocks went sheer,

twelve hundred feet into the river. There must be nothing to break the

fall, no risk of being alive, of being taken back there, of seeing him

again. But the edge was never sheer, and perhaps after all, the place by

the Soda Spring was best. There the trail from the ranch goes at a sharp

turn, over the edge of the cliffs and down to the ferry. Beyond there

are three great bull pines on a headland, and the cliff is sheer for at

least five hundred feet. That should be far enough.

I let my horse have a drink at the spring, then we went slowly on over

the soundless carpet of pine needles. I would leave my horse at the

pines.

Somebody was there. Four laden pack-ponies stood in the shade of the

trees, switching their tails to drive away the flies. A fifth, a

buckskin mare, unloaded, with a bandaged leg, stood in the sunlight.

Behind the nearest tree a man was speaking. I reined my horse. "Now you,

Jones," he was saying to the injured beast, "you take yo'self too

serious. You ain't goin' to Heaven? No! Then why pack yo' bag? Why

fuss?"

I had some silly idea that the man, if he discovered me, would know what

business brought me to this headland. I held my breath.

"And since you left yo' parasol to home, Jones, come in under out of the

sun. Come on, you sun-struck orphan."

His slow, delicious, Texan drawl made me smile. I did not want to smile.

The mare, a very picture of misery, lifted her bandaged, frightfully

swollen leg, and hobbled into the shade. I did not want to laugh, but

why was she called Jones? She looked just like a Jones.

"The inquirin' mind," said the man behind the tree, "has gawn surely

astray from business, or you'd have know'd that rattlers smells of

snake. Then I asks--why paw?"

His voice had so curious a timbre of aching sympathy. He actually began

to argue with the mare. "I've sucked out the pizen, Jones, hacked it out

with my jack-knife, blowed it out with powder, packed yo' pastern with

clay--best kind of clay--millionaires cayn't buy it. And I've took off

your cargo. Now what more kin I do? Feedin' bottle's to home, and we're

out of cough mixture. Why, what on airth--"

The mare, with her legs all astraddle, snorted in his face.

"Sugar is it? Why didn't ye say so befo'?"

Jones turned her good eye on the man as though she had just discovered

his existence, hobbled briskly after him while he dug in his kitchen

boxes, made first grab at the sugar bag, and got her face slapped. The

man, always with his eye upon the mare, returned to his place, and sat

on his heel as before. "Three lumps," he said, holding them one by one

to be snatched. "You're acting sort of convalescent, Jones. No more

sugar. And don't be a hawg!"

The mare was kissing his face.

"Back of all! Back water! Thar now, thank the lady behind me!"

And I had imagined my presence still unknown.

"How on earth," I gasped, "did you know I was here?"

The man's eyes were still intent upon the wounded mare. "Wall, Mrs.

Trevor," he drawled.

"You know my name? Your back has been turned the whole time! You've

never seen me in your life--at least I've never seen you!"

"That's so," he answered thoughtfully. "I don't need tellin' the sound

of that colt yo' husband bought from me. As to the squeak of a lady's

pigskin saddle, thar ain't no other lady rider short of a hundred and

eighty-three and a half miles."

What manner of man could this be? My colt was drawing toward him all the

time as though a magnet pulled.

"This Jones," the man went on, "bin bit by a snake, is afraid she'll be

wafted on high, so my eyes is sort of engaged in holding her down while

she swells. She kicked me hearty, though, and loading sugar's no symptom

of passing away, so on the whole I hope she'll worry along while I cook

dinner."

He stood facing me, the bag still in his hand, and my colt asking

pointedly for sugar. Very tall, gaunt, deeply tanned, perhaps

twenty-five years of age, he seemed to me immeasurably old, so deeply

lined was his face. And yet it was the face of one at peace. Purity of

life, quaint humor, instant sympathy, may perhaps have given him that

wonderful charm of manner which visibly attracted animals, which

certainly compelled me as I accepted his invitation to dinner. I had

been away since daybreak, and now the sun was entering the west. As to

my purpose, that I felt could wait.

So I sat under the pines, pretending to nurse Jones while the shadows

lengthened over the tawny grass, and orange needles flecked fields of

rock, out to the edge of the headland.

The man unsaddled my horse, unloaded his ponies, fetched water from the

spring of natural Apollinaris, but when, coming back, he found me

lighting a fire, he begged me to desist, to rest while he made dinner.

And I was glad to rest, thinking about the peace beyond the edge of the

headland. Yet it was interesting to see how a man keeps house in the

wilderness, and how different are his ways from those of a woman. No

housewife could have been more daintily clean, or shown a swifter

skill, or half the silent ease with which this woodsman made the

table-ware for one, enough to serve two people. But a woman would not

clean a frying-pan by burning it and throwing on cold water. He

sprinkled flour on a ground sheet, and made dough without wetting the

canvas. Would I like bread, or slapjacks, or a pie? He made a loaf of

bread, in a frying pan set on edge among glowing coals, and, wondering

how a pie could possibly happen without the assistance of an oven, I

forgot all about that cliff.

He parboiled the bacon, then peppered it while it was frying. When the

coffee boiled, he thrust in a red coal to throw the grounds to the

bottom. If I thought of English picnics, that was by way of contrast. My

host had never known, I had almost forgotten, the shabby barriers,

restraints, and traditions of that world where there are picnics.

Frontiersmen are, I think, really spirits strayed out of chivalric ages

into our century of all vulgarities. They are not abased, but only

amused by our world's condescensions. Uneducated? They are better

trained for their world than we are for ours. Their facts are at

first-hand from life, ours only at second-hand from books. Illiterate? I

should like to see one of our professors read the tracks on a frontier

trail. What was the good of the education which had led me to the brink

of this cliff? My host, who lived always at the edge of death, had eyes

which seemed to see my very thoughts. How else could he know that

silence was so kind? To the snake-bitten mare he gave outspoken

sympathy, to me his silence. Jones and I were his patients, and both of

us trusted him.

He had found me out. The thing I had intended was a crime, and

conscience-stricken, I dreaded lest he should speak. I could not bear

that. Already his camp was cleaned and in order, his pipe filled and

alight, at any moment he might break the restful silence. That's why I

spoke, and at random, asking if he were not from the United States.

His eyes said plainly, "So that's the game, eh?" His broad smile said,

"Well, we'll play." He sat down, cross-legged. "Yes," he answered, "I'm

an American citizen, except," he added softly, "on election days, and

then," he cocked up one shrewd eye, "I'm sort of British. Canadian? No,

I cayn't claim that either, coming from the Labrador, for that's

Newf'nland, a day's march nearer home.

"Say, Mrs. Trevor, you don't know my name yet. It's Smith, and with my

friends I'm mostly Jesse."

"If you please, may I be one of your friends?"

"If I behave good, you may. No harm in my trying."

From behind us the sun flung beams of golden splendor and blue tree

shadows, which went over the rim-rock into the misty depths of the

abyss. Down there the Fraser roared. Beyond on the eastern side soared a

vast precipice of gold and mauve which at an infinite height above our

heads was crested with black pines. Level with our bench land that

amazing cliff was cut transversely by a shelf of delicate verdure, with

here and there black groves of majestic pines. Nearly opposite, half

hidden by the trees, perched a log cabin, in form and in its exquisite

proportion like some old Greek temple.

"And that is where you live?"

The moment Jesse Smith had given me his name, I knew him well by

reputation. Comments by Surly Brown, the ferryman, and my husband's

bitter hatred had outlined a dangerous character. Nobody else lived

within a day's journey.

"That's my home," said Jesse. "D'ye see a dim trail jags down that upper

cliff? That's whar I drifted my ponies down when I came in from the

States. I didn't know of the wagon road from Hundred Mile House to the

ferry, which runs by the north end of my ranch."

"Your house," I said, "always reminds me of an eagle's aerie."

"Wall, it's better'n that. Feed, water, shelter, timber, and squatter's

rights is good enough to make a poor man's ranch."

"And the tremendous grandeur of the place?"

"Hum. I don't claim to have been knocked all in a heap with the scenery.

A thousand-foot wall and a hundred-foot gulch is big enough for dimples,

and saves fencing. But if you left this district in one of them Arizona

canyons over night, it would get mislaid.

"No. What took holt of me good and hard was the company,--a silver-tip

b'ar and his missus, both thousand pounders, with their three young

ladies, now mar'ied and settled beyond the sky-line. There's two couples

of prime eagles still camps along thar by South Cave. The timber wolf I

trimmed out because he wasted around like a remittance man. Thar was a

stallion and his harem, this yere fool Jones bein' one of his young

mares. El Senor Don Cougar and his senora lived here, too, until they

went into the sheep business with Surly Brown's new flock. Besides

that, there was heaps of lil' friendly folks in fur, hair, and feathers.

Yes, I have been right to home since I located."

"But grizzly bears? How frightful!"

"Yes. They was frightened at first. The coarse treatment they gets from

hunters, makes them sort of bashful with any stranger. Ye see, b'ars

yearns to man, same as the heathen does to their fool gods, whereas

bullets, pizen, and deadfalls is sort of discouraging. Their sentiments

get mixed, they acts confused, and naturally if they're shot at, they'll

get hostile same as you and me. They is misunderstood, and that's how

nobody has a kind word for grizzlies."

"But the greatest hunters are afraid of them."

"The biggest criminals has got most scare at police. B'ars has no use

for sportsmen, nor me neither. My rifle's heaps fiercer than any b'ar,

and I've chased more sportsmen than I has grizzlies."

"Wasn't Mr. Trevor one of them?"

Jesse grinned.

"Tell me," I said, for the other side of the story must be worth

hearing.

"Wall, Mr. Trevor took out a summins agin me for chasing him off my

ranch. He got fined for having no gun license, and no dawg license, and

not paying his poll-tax, and Cap Taylor bound him over to keep the

peace. I ain't popular now with Mr. Trevor, whereas he got off cheap.

Now, if them b'ars could shoot--"

I hadn't thought of that. "Can they be tamed?" I asked.

"Men can be gentled, and they needs taming most. Thar was three

grizzlies sort of adopted a party by the name of Capen Adams, and camped

and traveled with him most familiar. Once them four vagrants promenaded

on Market Street in 'Frisco. Not that I holds with this Adams in

misleading his b'ars among man-smell so strong and distrackful to their

peace of mind. But still I reckon Capen Adams and me sort of takes after

each other. I'm only attractive to animals."

"Oh, surely!" I laughed.

But Jesse became quite dismal. "I'm not reckoned," he bemoaned himself,

"among the popular attractions. The neighbors shies at coming near my

ranch."

"Well, if you protect grizzlies and hunt sportsmen, surely it's not

surprising."

"Can't please all parties, eh? Wall, perhaps that's how the herd is

grazing. Yes. Come to think of it, I remember oncet a Smithsonian grave

robber comes to inspect South Cave. He said I'd got a boneyard of some

ancient people, and he'd rob graves to find out all about them olden

times. He wanted to catch the atmosphere of them days, so I sort of

helped. Robbing graves ain't exactly a holy vocation, the party had a

mean eye, a German name, and a sort of patronizing manner, but still I

helped around to get him atmosphere, me and Eph."

"Who's Eph?"

"Oh, he's just a silver-tip, what scientific parties calls _ursus

horribilis ord_. You just cast your eye where the trickle stream falls

below my cabin. D'ye see them sarvis berry bushes down below the spray?"

"Where the bushes are waving? Oh, look, there's a gigantic grizzly

standing up, and pulling the branches!"

"Yes, that's Eph.

"Wall, as I was telling you, Eph and me is helping this scientific

person to get the atmosphere of them ancient times."

"But the poor man would die of fright!"

"Too busy running. When he reached Vancouver, he was surely a cripple

though, and no more use to science."

"Crippled?"

"Yes, lost his truthfulness, and a professor without truth is like a

woman with no tongue, plumb disabled. His talk in the Vancouver papers

beat Ananias, besides exciting a sort of prejudice. The neighbors shies

at me, and I'm no more popular. Shall I call Eph?"

"I think not to-day," said I, hurriedly rising, "for indeed I should be

getting home at once."

Without ever touching the wound, he had given me the courage to live,

had made my behavior of the morning seem that of a silly schoolgirl; but

still I did not feel quite up to a social introduction. I said I was

sure that Eph and I would have no interests in common.

"So you'll go home and face the music?" said Jesse's wise old eyes.

"My husband," said I, "will be getting quite anxious about me."

Without a word he brought my horse and saddled him.

And I, with a sinking heart, contrasted the loneliness and the horror

which was called my "home" with all the glamour of this man's happy

solitude.

While Jesse buckled on the head-stall, some evil spirit prompted me to

use the word "romantic." In swift resentment he seized and rent the

word.

"Romantic? Snakes! Thar's nothen romantic about me. What I can't earn

ain't worth stealing, and I most surely despise all shiftless people."

"Forgive me. I did not mean romantic in that sense."

"Lady, what did you mean?"

"May I say picturesque?"

He spat. "Thank Gawd I ain't that, either. I'd shoot myself if I thought

I was showing off, or dressing operatic, or playing at bein' more than I

am."

Seeing him really hurt, I made one last wriggle.

"May I say what I mean by romance?"

He held the stirrup for me to mount, offered his hand.

"Do you never get hungry," I asked, "for what's beyond the horizon?"

He sighed with sheer relief, then turned, his eyes seeing infinite

distances. "Why, yes! That country beyond the sky-line's always calling.

Thar's something I want away off, and I don't know what I want."

"That land beyond the sky-line's called romance."

He clenched his teeth. "What does a ship want when she strains at

anchor? What she wants is drift. And I'm at anchor because I've sworn

off drift."

At that we parted, and I went slowly homeward, up to my anchor. Dear

God! If I might drift!