relevance.
“Yes,” said Mary Ellen.
“What did you tell him?”
“I--I--I told him ‘No.’”
Fireman Carter passed his hand over his forehead, then drew out a
newspaper, saying: “You’ve read this, ain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“More especially this?” reading aloud the most laudatory paragraph.
Mary Ellen was not feazed by such flagrant egotism.
“Beautiful!” she said dreamily. “Just beautiful!”
“Beautiful!” yelled Fireman Carter, leaping to his feet. The scorn in
his voice could not be rendered by a phonograph. Poor man! He was about
to knock the light out of those gray eyes, to spoil his own image, and
nothing is so trying to a man’s temper.
“Hunh!” he continued. “Shows just about how much intelligence you
got--beautiful! It’s a--lie--it’s fuzzy-water gas--there ain’t nothing
to it at all--d’ye understand that?”
This last came out so fiercely that Mary Ellen faltered as she said she
did.
“All right,” said Fireman Carter. “Now, I want to tell you just one
thing: I ain’t the man to back-cap no man, when I come to get cooled
down--not with a girl nor nothing else.” He tapped his knee with a
perpendicular forefinger. “Not with a girl nor nothing!” he repeated.
“Understand that?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Now I’m going to tell you the God’s truth. Holtzer’d been
making his cracks about how he only had to speak and you’d fall on
his neck, until he had me so sore I ached wherever m’ clothes touched
me. So, when I see him coasting down the roof, the one thing in my
mind was that he’d go feeling sure that he was the star with you. I
couldn’t stand that. No, sir! I couldn’t; so down I goes after him.
When I snaked him up on the roof I tells him, ‘Cuss your thanks! I want
this much out of you, you flappy-footed slob--you go to Mary Ellen
to-day and see whether she’ll take you or not--I’ll bet you three
months’ pay agin a cigaroot you get turned down.’ Now, I was within
my rights there--but”--Fireman Carter stopped, wiped his hands on his
handkerchief, wiped his forehead, blew his nose and swallowed hard.
“But,” he continued bravely, “if all the yawp that pup of a newspaper
kid got rid of has had anything to do with changing results, I don’t
care for any of the pie. There wasn’t no ‘laying down his life for
another’ nor anything of the kind in the whole play. It was just like
I’m telling you. Well, that’s all. I--I thought you might like to hear
about it.”
There was a lamentable change in the strong voice at the last words.
The speaker stared at the door and drummed on his cap until the silence
became unendurable, then he raised his eyes slowly, as a condemned man
might to the gallows.
There sat Mary Ellen, drinking him in, still beatified. The meekest
man who ever esteemed himself poor relation to the worm that squirmeth
could not have mistaken the meaning of that glance. It was simply
adoration.
He straightened up and stared at her open-mouthed.
“I’ll be durned if I believe she’s heard one word I said!” thought
Fireman Carter.
VI
TEN MINUTES OF ETERNITY
A REVOLVER, A RATTLER AND THE BOWL OF A PIPE
The warm June sunshine flooded the prairie with light. A little frisky
breeze made silky noises in the grasses. From the other end of the
plowed ground came the clank of harness and the thud of hoof-beats, as
the four-horse team drew the sulky-plow, squeaking and complaining.
The monotonous work and soft air acted on the driver like a sleeping
potion, and he nodded and drowsed on the seat, with the stem of a pipe
clenched between his teeth.
This man, Tommy, was for ever losing the bowl of his pipe, and it was
a great treat for me, a boy of fourteen, to tell him of the loss and
hear him inveigh against the offending member with all the wealth of
his Irish-Western vocabulary. Tommy was full of strange oaths and more
bearded than any of his pards.
I giggled in anticipation as the plow drew near--sure enough! The bowl
was gone.
“Tommy!” I hailed.
“Hay-oh! lad!” said he, snapping his eyes open. “Whoa, there!--have yer
come out with ther grub call?”
“No, Tommy--but the bowl of your pipe is gone.”
“What, again?” and he removed the stem, regarding it sideways. “Now,
ther curses of the Mormon gods be on that bowl!” and from that
beginning followed an oration, lurid and marvelous.
When he had eased his mind he said: “We went down a hole over thayre,
an’ I’ll bet it was thin it jounced out. Let’s go and take a bit of a
look.”
We were both busily turning over the sod and searching, with our faces
bent toward the ground, when a voice said:
“Well, Murphy?”
No sound had heralded any one’s approach. The question came so entirely
unexpected we both started and looked up.
There, seated in graceful ease upon a mound of grass, was a lean, dark
man, with a revolver in his hand.
At this sight Tommy stopped rigid, still half stooped. His broad,
good-natured face went gray in an instant. His eyes glittered with
fear. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, and twice no sound came; but
the next time the words poured out in a torrent of frantic haste.
“Stephens! I didn’t mane it! Lord God, man! I take it back! Sure yer
wouldn’t hold it aginst me! I was wild drunk at th’ time--Fur the love
of Heaven, don’t shoot me! I’ve got a wife an’ two childer.”
The stranger’s mouth went sideways in an evil smile.
“You should have thought of that before, Murphy,” he said slowly.
“Yer wouldn’t kill me before the lad, would yer?” the other went on,
his lips so dry now that the words were no more than a whisper.
Stephens bent toward him with savage quietness, and with the same set,
twisted smile.
“I told you that I would kill you on sight,” he said, “wherever and
whenever that might be, and I am here to do it.”
He raised the revolver as he spoke. A great sob stuck in my throat.
Through my head went a roaring noise.
I looked from the one man to the other in such a sickening ague of
fear, that I could not have uttered a sound to save my life. I waited
in this suspense for the report that would shut out the cheerful quiet
of the day, like a black blot. In that second of deathly silence
between the men, the whispering of the breeze and the clanking of the
harness of the distant horses seemed loud sounds.
Already I saw poor, honest, drunken Tommy lying still upon the ground,
looking with dead eyes at the blue above.
But I saw a change come over his face, and before I had time to wonder
at it he spoke:
“Stephens!” he said, “don’t move fur yer life! There’s a rattler widin’
a foot of yer lift elbow!”
A contemptuous smile parted Stephens’ lips at what he considered a
silly ruse, and then it stopped frozen, leaving him with a face like a
mask, and sitting as rigidly motionless as Tommy had stood but a moment
ago, for at that instant the devil of the prairie sounded his whirring
warning of sudden death at hand.
For a while all three of us were paralyzed--then,
“Oh, thayre he comes! He’s comin’ in front of yer! Oh Lordy! Lordy!
what’ll I do!” shrieked Tommy.
“Keep perfectly still,” said Stephens, scarcely moving a muscle of his
face. “Where is he now?”
“Howly Mary! His head’s a’most touchin’ yer hand!”
Stephens’ face turned to a green pallor as the blood forsook the tan,
but his expression of calm self-possession never changed a jot. There
was a certain similarity that struck me even at that instant between
the finely modeled evil head of the serpent and the man’s clean-cut
features.
They might have been a group in bronze, those two, for the rattlesnake
had stopped, motionless, with his head raised in poise; and not the
tremor of a muscle showed the man was living.
“Oh damn! damn this country!” whispered Tommy in an agony, “with never
a stick nor stone in it! What’ll I do, Stephens? What’ll I do?”
“There’s a whip on your plow; send the boy for it,” breathed he.
I backed carefully away from the horrible spot, fearful the least
sudden movement would bring the man’s fate upon him.
Then I flew for the whip.
Returning, I placed it in Tommy’s hands.
“Now, kid,” whispered Stephens, “step back and wave your coat. Hit,
Murphy, at your first chance.”
I did as directed, and the little fiery eyes turned toward me. Tommy
brought down the whip-stock with such fury it shivered into splinters.
At the same moment Stephens made a cat-like jump to the side.
The rattler lay coiling and writhing in his death agony.
We three humans stood staring at each other without speaking. A
great deal had happened within ten minutes, and speech is for
commonplaces--not for crises.
At last Stephens broke the silence. He stretched his long arms, and
yawned.
“I feel stiff--sitting still so long,” he said.
Without warning, my nerves gave way; I burst into a strangled sobbing.
Immediately the two men began to pat and comfort me.
“Why, kid,” said Stephens, “you stood the rest of it like a
thoroughbred; you mustn’t cry now--there--there, brace up, old man!”
Between them they managed to quiet me, and then Tommy turned timidly
to Stephens.
“How about the trouble between us?” he asked.
“Don’t mention it,” said the other, with a wave of his hand. “I don’t
feel just as I did a few minutes ago.” He glanced down at the still
squirming snake. “If there is a God,” he began, then stopped and
shrugged his shoulders.--“Well, so long. I must be going. See you
later.”
Tommy and I watched the slim, athletic figure until it had swung down
on to the coulée out of sight.
“He’s a turrible man,” said Tommy, “but not a bad one after all. Well,
look! will ye? I’ll be damned if thayre ain’t the bowl of that pipe!”
And picking it up we returned to the plow team.
VII
THE PUNISHMENT AND THE CRIME
THE TOO HUMOROUS PROPENSITIES OF BURT MOSSMAN AND OTHERS
When he gets a tenderfoot he ain’t afraid to rig,
Stand him on a chuck-box and make him dance a jig;
With his re-a-loading cutter he’ll make ’em sing and shout.
He’s a regular Ben Thompson--when the boss ain’t about!
--The Expert Cow-man (expurgated).
Ten thousand head of steers were waiting for cars at Dundee. There was
the Bar Cross, the VV, the California outfit, the Double Ess Bar, the
7 T X, the Bar A Bar, the Sacramento Pool outfit and the Tinnin-Slaughter
wagon, all the way from Toyah. This last named had bought six hundred
steers on Crow Flat, road branded with two big Y’s, and drove. When
they got to Dundee they were just a few shy of nine hundred head. This
is by the way, and inserted only as a tribute to New Mexico’s unequaled
climate.
The herds were camped in a circle around the lake, keeping an interval
of about two miles from each other. Each herd had three watches of
three to five men each for night-guard. But four or five men were
ample for day herding; so the men took turns at that, day about, the
unoccupied riding to Dundee in search of diversions. Forty or more
saddle-ponies stood patiently unhitched, with dangling reins, in the
plaza.
The hotel did a rushing business, Mrs. Stanley’s output making a
pleasant contrast to camp-cooking. Norah, the bright-eyed, was besieged
in form by relays of admirers, the more favored ones being allowed
to help cook or wash dishes. Perhaps it should be stated in this
connection that Norah was the only girl in a section fifty miles
square. All the same, she was a jolly, pretty girl.
Now, when steer-shipping time comes the season’s hard work is over, and
all except the “old hands” get their time. And while most men of the
cow countries drink colored fluids on occasion, the superfluent ones,
who consider the putting down of liquor the first duty of man, are not
the stuff of which old hands are made, the law of survival obtaining on
the free range as elsewhere.
So, after the first few days, drinking at Jim Gale’s place became
perfunctory, though, as Dundee consisted of one hotel, one saloon, one
depot, one store, the section house and two other buildings, the saloon
was necessarily the prime center. The boys would not be paid until
the cattle were sold, so gambling was barred by etiquette, “jaw-bone”
games being viewed with disfavor as tending to unseemly contention.
Similarly the code forbade more than two or three persecuting Miss
Norah at once, and time ticked slowly.
Sun in the east at morning--
Sun in the west at night,
a cloudless sky, and a daily statement by a badgered agent that the
cars would be in at once.
Given seventy-five full-blooded, vigorous, healthy cow-boys,
twenty-four hours in a day, seven days in a week, and no work, and the
Purveyor of Mischief may be depended upon to uphold their idle hands.
Inhospitality is mortal sin in all thinly-settled countries, but all
things have their limit. For ten days a plague of tramps had overrun
the chuck-wagons, feasting on steaks, hot biscuits and the like,
getting a meal at one wagon and on to the next. And when one left he
spread the glad tidings up and down, sending back seven others worse
than the first, making hospitality act like a camel.
It was Johnny Patton, cook for the Pool wagon, that spoke unto
Cornelius Brown and Tinnin, of the Toyah crowd, suggesting the
advisability of slaying a tramp or so.
“Too harsh,” remarked Burt Mossman. “I speak for a Kangaroo Court.”
“A word to the Y’s is sufficient,” said Tinnin. Thus the pit was digged
and thus the net contrived, the three collaborators appropriating the
leading parts unto themselves. A particularly “gall-y” and tenacious
tramp, who had adopted the V V wagon, was cast for the star. He was
to be “It.” Minor places were filled and drilled; the rest of us were
Roman populace. The curtain rose promptly after dinner. Brown and
Tinnin began to bicker.
Tinnin alleged that Brown had ridden to the wagon for water and stayed
for the whole forenoon. Furthermore, he sang a few stanzas from his
favorite ditty, _The Expert Cow-man_, as bearing on the subject in hand:
“Put him on day herd, he’s sleepin’ all day,
First thing that starts out is sure to get away;
Comes home in the evenin’, he’ll blame it on the screws,
And swear the lazy devils were trying to take a snooze.”
Brown, highly indignant, demanded his time. To this Tinnin demurred,
saying that Brown knew very well that he, Tinnin, would have no money
till the steers were sold. They squabbled, L. C., until the others
pacified them and proposed town and a drink to drown unkindness, which
they did, inviting the tramp to go with them. To this he acceded
joyously, not having learned to dread the gifts of the Greeks.
They took several sniffs at the peace-pipeline. Then Brown launched
into an interminable yarn of hairbreadth ’scapes and ventures dire.
Every time he named a new man he gave that man’s ancestry, biography,
acts and connections, with any collateral information at hand. And the
more he talked the further he got from the latter end of his tale.
Tinnin got unsteadily to his feet. “Hol’ on!” he said. “Hol’ on! That
’minds me of a song--
“He’ll tell you of a certain trip he made up the trail;
Taking half of Kansas to finish up his tale;
He’s handled lots of cattle, and this is what he says:
He’s getting sixty dollars the balance of his days.”
At this insult Brown stood on his tiptoes. “What!” says he, and jumped
forward. Ward and John Henry Boucher caught him. There was a terrific
scuffle, yells, howls: “Leggo, there!” “Look out! He’s goin’ to
shoot!” etc. Same business for Tinnin, worked up most spiritedly. Those
who had to giggle left the room.
We got Brown out and hustled him to camp, calling on the tramp (his
name was Harris) to assist.
Brown raged: “I’ve had good and plenty of that song the last month!
I’ve got a plumb full of his slurs! If that (past-participled) old
blowhard throws any more of that (modified) song my way, he’ll get it,
and get it hard! He’s been picking at me long enough.”
After the cattle were bedded down and the first guard put on, there
were four at the Toyah wagon besides the tramp. Brown had finished
supper and was standing with his back to the fire, smoking, when Tinnin
rode up. He dismounted and came staggering out of the dark into the
firelight. Pausing a moment, he began hilariously:
“To show you that he’s blooded and doesn’t mind expense,
He stands around a-scorchin’ of his eight-dollar pants!”
Brown whirled. “Have ye got a gun?” he snarled savagely.
“Betcher. Always!” said Tinnin; “and I know how to use it.”
Crack! Bang! Bang! Bang!
They emptied their guns over the fire. Harris was sitting directly
between them. They were using blank cartridges, but of course Harris
didn’t know that, so he went right away.
When he came back Tinnin was stretched out, all bloody (beef’s blood)
over his breast and face; the conspirators were huddled, whispering.
Harris came up scared, white and shaking. Ward and Brown grabbed him.
Says Ward, gritting his teeth:
“My bucko, you’ll swing for this!”
It flashed on the tramp that they meant to lay the “murder” on him. He
begged awful as they took him in, leaving the corpse and the cook to
watch the wagon. It was great sport from our point of view--and in that
light.
In town Brown told the boys the tramp had killed poor Jeff; and turned
him over to Mossman, the “appointed” sheriff.
“Judge” Charlie Slaughter called court in Gale’s saloon. All the boys
were there, and most of the tramps--(they were _not_ in on the joke).
The station-agent was made counsel for the defense, and the trial
began, with all the formalities that anybody could remember or invent.
A weird vision blew over from the hotel--a frock-coated, high-hatted,
gold-eye-glassed, bold-faced man with an elbow crooked in latest
fashion. He would have been a spectacle, ordinarily, but now we
accepted him as a man and brother. We explained the situation to him,
and that all the boys had blank cartridges.
McClusky and Jones testified to the killing. They made it wanton and
deliberate murder. Ominous growls arose from Roman populace. Prisoner’s
counsel cross-examined unmercifully, but they stuck.
The prisoner told his side--told it straight, too. He broke down,
cried, and begged for mercy, said his life was sworn away, that Brown
was the guilty man. Some of the fun departed.
The judge said witnesses for the prosecution were trustworthy men of
high standing, and committed the prisoner to jail at Hillsboro to await
action of the grand jury.
“Lynch him! Lynch him!” shouted Boucher, jumping up. The judge promptly
fined him fifty dollars for contempt of court, which was as promptly
paid, Boucher borrowing the money of Gale. Every one was as solemn as
an owl.
“Any further advocacy of lynchin’ in this court,” said Slaughter
sternly, “will get the offending man or men three months in jail. There
is no doubt in my mind as to the prisoner’s guilt, but if he’s executed
it will be by due process of law. Mr. Sheriff, swear in deputies to
guard this prisoner. Take him to Hillsboro on the midnight train.”
So Mossman appointed his brother Dana, Kim Ki Rogers, Pink Murray,
Frank Calhoun and Henry Street. Then Slaughter adjourned.
Mossman and his posse were about half-way to the depot when the whole
crowd overtook him.
“Now, Burt,” said Boucher, “we don’t want any trouble with you--but we
want that man, and we’re going to have him.”
“Hang him! Hang him!” howled the mob, the guns click-clicking through
the little stillnesses. If there’s a worse sound than a mob’s howl,
Hell’s kept it for a surprise. I don’t wonder the hobo turned into a
bag of skin, even at the imitation.
“You can’t have him!” Burt’s voice sounded dead earnest. He was a good
actor. He handed the prisoner a gun. “Here--defend yourself. Get out of
the way, you bums, or take what’s coming!”
That was our cue. A fusillade of blank cartridges covered our rush. The
officers made a game fight.
Curses and screams showed where their unerring aim mowed down the
Romans, but they were outnumbered. One by one they bit the dust.
Mossman, the last one down, gallantly raised himself on elbow, fired
a last defiant shot, groaned and died. Then all was still; a ghastly
silence which Boucher broke. “This is bad business--but they would have
it. Is the killer hurt?”
He had miraculously escaped. So we took him to a telegraph pole and put
a rope around his neck.
“Let me say a word,” he gasped.
I like to remember that even a tramp can stand up and look at the Big
Dark. He didn’t cry now; he’d lost sight of himself.
“Boys,” he said, quiet, “I ain’t begging. If I’d ’a’ done what they
said it would put you straight. I’m only sorry so many better men was
killed over me. You are doin’ what you think is right. But that man
yonder--that Brown--killed Mr. Tinnin. Him and them three men lied.
Tinnin’s blood and my blood and all the other boys’ blood is on their
souls. I wouldn’t swap with them. I wouldn’t want to live and be them.
But you’ll find out some day I told the truth. That’s about all.”
“Any word to your folks?” asked Boucher. “Want to pray?”
“I ain’t got no folks--and no notion how to pray,” he answered,
catching at the nearest man to keep from falling. Then he steadied
himself and looked up and around as if searching among the reeling
stars for the Heavenly Help of whom he’d heard so much.
It was as ghastly as those waxwork figure murders. I sweat plenty. It
was worse than if we’d been in earnest, by the whole dum multiplication
table.
I reckon Brown and the rest got worrying, too, for Brown forced his
part. “Let me speak to him for a minute,” says he. Under pretense of
talk he unlocked the handcuffs.
“I can’t stand this,” he whispered. “Horses is all over yonder, and
guns mostly empty--cut. Quit the railroad and slide across the Jornada.
If you make the bushes maybe you can break clean.”
People are curious. Harris had been braced to die, but the minute he
saw a chance he flew. I think I’d acted in that curious way myself,
maybe.
We took after him, yelling “Catch him!” and “Get your horses!” and
firing scattering shots. We run him a half-mile, then we came back,
laughing and screeching.
But when we got together--a houseful of us--and begun to talk about
that poor cuss hiding and trembling in the dark, Neighbor Jones blew
a smoke-ring in the air and stuck his finger through it. The ring
disappeared. “Where’s _that_ joke gone?” says he. And we all looked
cross-eyed at our drinks.
But there wasn’t a hobo on the Jornada the next morning.
A lot of us felt mean next day. But a good half was too young to have
sense; the men that had been on guard hadn’t seen it, and a lot more
were used to being part of a crowd; otherwise the first night of the
Dundee comedy would have ended its run.
Probably it would have been that way, anyhow, if “Aforesaid” Smith
hadn’t got too many aboard. For a week after our hanging-bee tramps
passed Dundee--probably warned by their underground telegraph. Then
hobos straggled in. The young--and therefore hard-hearted--wanted
another court at once. Wiser counsel prevailed, however, until the
tenth day.
The sidings were full of cars, the buyers had cut the herds, and a few
train-loads had pulled out. All the “culls” were thrown together, to be
cut again when shipping was done, and driven back to their respective
ranches. And--all of the boys had been paid.
At this juncture “Aforesaid” fell by the wayside, and went to sleep
under a spreading soapwood tree. That was an old chestnut of his.
Now, Will Borland, suffering from remorse, had protected and kindly
entreated a new tramp at the 7 T X wagon. Will was afflicted with a
nasty conscience that never got to working in time to keep him out of
meanness, and then dealt him misery after it was everlastingly too late.
Well, this hobo of Borland’s came along and went right through
“Aforesaid’s” clothes to the tune of ninety dollars. But Neighbor Jones
saw him.
They rounded up the hobo when he got to town, found the money on him,
woke “Aforesaid,” and compared profit and loss. So, after supper, they
desired to give another reading of the “Kangaroo Court.” There was
considerable opposition to this, and several stayed away, to their
everlasting joy. But most of the remonstrants joined the majority, as
this lad needed punishment.
The cast was different this trip, Kim Ki being sheriff and Hopewell
judge. All went merry as a marriage bell--with a few variations--until
just after the holler of “Lynch him!” smote the air. Then that
frock-coated, weird and unknowable stranger, who had boarded at the
hotel all this while, addressed the court with diffidence and timidity.
“Your Honor, may I have permission to say a few words?” he asked.
“Oh--I suppose so,” said his Honor. “Only be short.”