matutinally thrashed the city to a foam of interest, place Mr. Augustus
Binns, no less, young (not over twenty-two), tall, college-y, rather
graceful as young college men go, literary of course, highly ambitious,
with gold eye-glasses, a wrist watch, a cane--in short, one of those
ambitious young gentlemen of this rather un-happy go un-lucky
scribbling world who has distinct ideals, to say nothing of dreams,
as to what the newspaper and literary professions combined should
bring him, and who, in addition, inherently despised all creatures of
the “Red” Collins, or race-track, gambler, amateur detective, police
and political, type. Well may you ask, what was Mr. Collins, with
his peculiar characteristics, doing on a paper of the importance and
distinction of the _News_. A long story, my dears. Newspapers are
peculiar institutions.
For this same paper not long since had harbored the truly elegant
presence of Mr. Binns himself, and so excellent a writer and news
gatherer was he that on more than one occasion he had been set to
revise or rewrite the tales which Mr. “Red” Collins, who was then but
tentatively connected with the paper as a “tipster,” brought in. This
in itself was a crime against art and literature, as Mr. Binns saw it,
for, when you come right down to it, and in the strict meaning of the
word, Mr. Collins was not a writer at all, could not write, in fact,
could only “bring in” his stories, and most interesting ones they were,
nearly all of them, whereas about the paper at all times were men who
could--Mr. Binns, for instance. It insulted if not outraged Mr. Binns’s
sense of the fitness of things, for the _News_ to hire such a person
and let him flaunt the title of “reporter” or “representative,” for he
admired the _News_ very much and was glad to be of it. But Collins!
“Red” Collins!
The latter was one of those “hard life,” but by no means hard luck,
Jews who by reason of indomitable ambition and will had raised himself
out of practically frightful conditions. He had never even seen a
bath-tub until he was fifteen or sixteen. By turns he had been a
bootblack, newsboy, race-track tout, stable boy, helper around a
saloon, and what not. Of late years, and now, because he was reaching
a true wisdom (he was between twenty-five and six), he had developed a
sort of taste for gambling as well as politics of a low order, and was
in addition a police hanger-on. He was really a sort of pariah in his
way, only the sporting and political editors found him useful. They
tolerated him, and paid him well for his tips because, forsooth, his
tips were always good.
Batsford, the capable city editor of the _News_, a round, forceful,
gross person who was more allied to Collins than to Binns in spirit,
although he was like neither, was Binns’s first superior in the
newspaper world. He did not like Binns because, for one thing, of his
wrist watch, secondly, his large gold glasses--much larger than they
need have been--and thirdly, because of his cane, which he carried with
considerable of an air. The truth is, Binns was Eastern and the city
editor was Western, and besides, Binns had been more or less thrust
upon him by his managing editor as a favor to some one else. But Binns
could write, never doubt it, and proved it. He was a vigorous reporter
with a fine feeling for words and, above all, a power to visualize
and emotionalize whatever he saw, a thing which was of the utmost
importance in this rather loose Western emotional atmosphere. He could
handle any story which came to him with ease and distinction, and
seemed usually to get all or nearly all the facts.
On the other hand, Collins, for all his garishness, and one might
almost say, brutality of spirit, was what Batsford would have called a
practical man. He knew life. He was by no means as artistic as Binns,
but still-- Batsford liked to know what was going on politically and
criminally, and Collins could always tell him, whereas Binns never
could. Also, by making Binns rewrite Collins’s stories, he knew he
could offend him horribly. The two were like oil and water, Mussulman
and Christian.
When Batsford first told Collins to relate the facts of a certain tale
to Binns and let him work it out, the former strolled over to the
collegian, his lip curled up at one corner, his eye cynically fixed on
him, and said, “The Chief says to give youse this dope and let youse
work it out.”
Youse!
Oh, for a large, bright broad ax!
Binns, however, always your stickler for duty and order, bent on him
an equally cynical and yet enigmatic eye, hitched up his trousers
slightly, adjusted his wrist watch and glasses, and began to take down
the details of the story, worming them out of his rival with a delicacy
and _savoir faire_ worthy of a better cause.
Not long after, however, it was brought to the horrified ears of
Mr. Binns that Mr. Collins had said he was a “stiff” and a “cheap
ink-slinger,” a la-de-da no less, that writers, one and all, college
and otherwise, didn’t count for much, anyhow, that they were all
starving to death, and that they “grew on trees”--a phrase which
particularly enraged Mr. Binns, for he interpreted it to mean that they
were as numerous as the sands of the sea, as plentiful as mud.
By Allah! That such dogs should be allowed to take the beards of great
writers into their hands thus!
Nevertheless and in spite of all this, the fortunes of Mr. Collins went
forward apace, and that chiefly, as Mr. Binns frequently groaned, at
his expense. Collins would come in, and after a long series of “I sez
to him-s” and “He sez to me-s,” which Mr. Binns (per the orders of Mr.
Batsford) translated into the King’s best Britannica, he having in the
meanwhile to neglect some excellent tale of his own, would go forth
again, free to point the next day to a column or column-and-a-half or a
half-column story, and declare proudly, “My story.”
Think of it! That swine!
There is an end to all things, however, even life and crime. In due
time, as per a series of accidents and the groundless ill-will of
Mr. Batsford, Mr. Binns was perforce, in self-respect, compelled
to transfer his energies to the _Star_, a paper he had previously
contemned as being not so good, but where he was now made very welcome
because of his ability. Then, to his astonishment and disgust, one
day while covering a police station known as the South Ninth, from
which emanated many amazing police tales, whom should he encounter but
“Red” Collins, no less, now a full-fledged reporter on the _News_, if
you please, and “doing police.” He had a grand and even contemptuous
manner, barely deigning to notice Binns. Binns raged.
But he noticed at once that Collins was far more _en rapport_ with
the various sergeants and the captain, as well as all that was going
on in this station, than ever he had dreamed of being. It was “Hello,
Red,” here and “Hi, sport,” there, while Collins replied with various
“Caps” and “Charlies.” He gave himself all the airs of a newspaper man
proper, swaggering about and talking of this, that, and the other
story which he had written, some of them having been done by Binns
himself. And what was more, Collins was soon closeted intimately with
the captain in his room, strolling in and out of that sanctum as if
it were his private demesne, and somehow giving Binns the impression
of being in touch with realms and deeds of which he had never heard,
and never would. It made Binns doubly apprehensive lest in these
secret intimacies tales and mysteries should be unfolded which should
have their first light in the pages of the _News_, and so leave him
to be laughed at as one who could not get the news. In consequence,
he watched the _News_ more closely than ever for any evidence of
such treachery on the part of the police, while at the same time he
redoubled his interest in any such items as came to his attention. By
reason of this, as well as by his greater skill in writing and his
undeniable imagination, on more than one occasion he gave Mr. Collins
a good drubbing, chancing to make good stories out of things which Mr.
Collins had evidently dismissed as worthless. _Au contraire_, now and
then a case appeared in the columns of the _News_ with details which
he had not been able to obtain, and concerning which the police had
insisted that they knew nothing. It was thus that Mr. Collins secured
his revenge--and very good revenge too, it was at times.
But Mr. Binns managed to hold his own, as, for instance, late one
August afternoon when a negro girl in one of those crowded alleys
which made up an interesting and even amazing portion of O---- was cut
almost to shreds by an ex-lover who, following her from river-city to
river-city and town to town, had finally come up with her here and had
taken his revenge.
It was a glistering tale this. It appeared (but only after the greatest
industry on the part of Mr. Binns) that some seven or eight months
before [the O---- papers curiously were always interested in a tale
of this kind] this same girl and the negro who had cut her had been
living together as man and wife in Cairo, Illinois, and that later the
lover (a coal passer or stevedore, working now on one boat and now on
another plying the Mississippi between New Orleans and O----), who was
plainly wildly fond of her, became suspicious and finally satisfying
himself that his mistress, who was a real beauty after her kind, was
faithless to him, set a trap to catch her. Returning suddenly one
day when she imagined him to be away for a week or two of labor, and
bursting in upon her, he found her with another man. Death would have
been her portion as well as that of her lover had it not been for the
interference of friends, which had permitted the pair to escape.
Lacerated by the double offenses of betrayal and desertion, he now set
out to follow her, as the cutting on this occasion proved. Returning
to his task as stevedore and working his way thus from one river-city
to another, he arrived by turns in Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and
New Orleans, in each case making it a point to disguise himself as
a peddler selling trinkets and charms, and in this capacity walking
the crowded negro sections of all these cities calling his wares.
Ambling up one of these stuffy, stifling alleys, finally, in O----
which bordered on this same police station and where so many negroes
lived, he encountered this late August afternoon his quondam but
now faithless love. In answer to his cry of “Rings! Pins! Buckles!
Trinkets!” his false love, apparently not recognizing his voice, put
her head out of a doorway. On the instant the damage was done. Dropping
his tray, he was upon her in a flash with his razor, cris-crossing and
slashing her until she was marred beyond recognition. With fiendish
cruelty he cut her cheeks, lips, arms, legs, back, and sides, so much
so that when Binns arrived at the City Hospital where she had been
taken, he found her unconscious and her life despaired of. On the other
hand, the lover had made good his escape, as had her paramour.
Curiously, this story captured the fancy of Mr. Binns as it did that
of his city editor later, completely. It was such a thing as he could
do, and do well. With almost deft literary art he turned it into a
rather striking black tragedy. Into it, after convincing his rather
fussy city editor that it was worth the telling, he had crowded a
bit of the flavor of the hot waterfronts of Cairo, Memphis, Natchez,
and New Orleans, the sing-song sleepiness of the stevedores at their
lazy labors, the idle, dreamy character of the slow-moving boats,
this rickety alley, with its semi-barbaric curtain-hung shacks and
its swarming, idle, crooning, shuffling negro life. Even an old negro
refrain appropriate to a trinket peddler, and the low, bold negro life
two such truants might enjoy, were pictured. An old negro mammy with a
yellow-dotted kerchief over her head who kept talking of “disha Gawge”
and “disha Sam” and “disha Marquatta” (the girl), had moved him to a
poetic frenzy. Naturally it made a colorful tale, and his city editor
felt called upon to compliment him on it.
But in the _News_, owing possibly to Collins’s inability to grasp the
full significance, the romance, of such a story as this, it received
but a scant stick--a low dive cutting affray. His was not the type of
mind that could see the color here, but once seen he could realize
wherein he had been beaten, and it infuriated him.
“You think you’re a helluva feller, dontcha?” he snarled the next day
on sight, his lip a-curl with scorn and rage. “You think you’ve pulled
off sompin swell. Say, I’ve been up against you wordy boys before, and
I can work all around you. All you guys can do is get a few facts and
then pad ’em up. You never get the real stuff, never,” and he even
snapped his fingers under the nose of the surprised Mr. Binns. “Wait’ll
we get a real case some time, you and me, and then I’ll show you
sompin. Wait and see.”
“My good fellow,” Mr. Binns was about to begin, but the cold, hard,
revengeful glare in the eyes of Mr. Collins quite took his breath away.
Then and there Mr. Collins put a strange haunting fear of himself into
Mr. Binns’s mind. There was something so savage about him, so like that
of an angry hornet or snake that it left him all but speechless. “Is
that so?” he managed to say after a time. “You think you will, do you?
That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re beaten, but I guess I’ll be
right there when the time comes.”
“Aw, go to hell!” growled Collins savagely, and he walked off, leaving
Mr. Binns smiling pleasantly, albeit vacantly, and at the same time
wondering just what it was Mr. Collins was going to do to him, and
when.
The sequel to this was somewhat more interesting.
As Mr. Binns came in one morning fresh from his bath and breakfast,
his new city editor called him into his office. Mr. Waxby, in contrast
with Mr. Batsford, was a small, waspish, and yet affable and capable
man whom Binns could not say he admired as a man or a gentleman, but
who, he was sure, was a much better city editor than Batsford, and who
appreciated him, Binns, as Batsford never had, i.e., at his true worth.
Batsford had annoyed him with such a dog as Collins, whereas Waxby had
almost coddled him. And what a nose for news!
Mr. Waxby eyed him rather solemnly and enigmatically on this occasion,
and then observed: “Do you remember, Binns, that big M.P. train robbery
that took place out here near Dolesville about six months ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you remember that the Governor of this state and his military
staff, all in uniform, as well as a half dozen other big-wigs, were
on board, and that they all reported that there had been seven lusty
bandits, all heavily armed, some of whom went through the train and
robbed the passengers while others compelled the engineer and fireman
to get down, uncouple the engine, and then blow open the express car
door and safe for them and carry out the money, about twenty or thirty
thousand dollars all told?”
Binns remembered it well. He had been on the _News_ at the time, and
the full-page spread had attracted his keenest attention. It was
illustrative, as he thought, of the character of this region--raw and
still daring. It smacked so much of the lawlessness of the forties,
when pack-train and stage-coach robberies were the rule and not the
exception. It had caused his hair to tingle at the roots at times so
real was it. Never had he been so close, as it were, to anything so
dramatic.
“Yes, sir, I remember it very well,” he replied.
“And do you remember how the newspapers laughed over the fact that
the Governor and his military staff had crawled into their berths and
didn’t come out again until the train had started?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well now, Binns, just read this,” and here Mr. Waxby handed him a
telegram, the while his eyes gleamed with a keen humorous light, and
Mr. Binns read:
“Medicine Flats, M. K.
“Lem Rollins arrested here to-day confesses to single-handed robbery
of M. P. express west of Dolesville February 2d last. Money recovered.
Rollins being brought to O---- via C.T.&A. this p.m. Should arrive
six-thirty.”
“Apparently,” cackled Mr. Waxby, “there was nothing to that
seven-bandit story at all, Binns. There weren’t any seven robbers, but
just one, and they’ve caught him, and he’s confessed,” and here he
burst into more laughter.
“No, Binns,” went on Waxby, “if this is really true, it is a wonderful
story. You don’t often find one man holding up a whole train anywhere
and getting away with twenty or thirty thousand dollars. It’s amazing.
I’ve decided that we won’t wait for him to arrive, but that you’re to
go out and meet him. According to this time-table you can take a local
that leaves here at two-fifteen and get to Pacific fifteen minutes
ahead of the express on which he is coming in, and you’ve just about
time to make it. That will give you all of an hour and a half in which
to interview him. It’s just possible that the _News_ and the other
papers won’t get wind of this in time to send a man. Think of the
opportunity it gives you to study him! No seven robbers, remember, but
just one! And the Governor and his whole staff on board! Make him tell
what he thinks of the Governor and his staff. Make him talk. Ha! ha!
You’ll have him all to yourself. Think of that! And they crawled into
their berths! Ha! ha! Gee whiz, you’ve got the chance of a lifetime!”
Mr. Binns stared at the telegram. He recalled the detailed descriptions
of the actions of the seven robbers, how some of them had prowled
up and down outside the train, while others went through it rifling
the passengers, and still others, forward, overawed the engineer and
fireman, broke open and robbed the express car safe in the face of an
armed messenger as well as mailman and trainmen, and how they had then
decamped into the dark. How could one man have done it? It couldn’t be
true!
Nevertheless he arose, duly impressed. It would be no easy task to get
just the right touch, but he felt that he might. If only the train
weren’t over-run with other reporters! He stuffed some notepaper into
his pocket and bustled down to the Union Station--if Mr. Binns could be
said to _bustle_. Here he encountered his first hitch.
On inquiring for a ticket to Pacific, the slightly disturbing response
of “Which road?” was made.
“Are there two?” asked Mr. Binns.
“Yes--M.P. and C.T.&A.”
“They both go to Pacific, do they?”
“Yes.”
“Which train leaves first?”
“C.T.&A. It’s waiting now.”
Mr. Binns hesitated, but there was no time to lose. It didn’t make any
difference, so long as he connected with the incoming express, as the
time-table showed that this did. He paid for his ticket and got aboard,
but now an irritating thought came to him. Supposing other reporters
from either the _News_ or one of the three afternoon papers were
aboard, especially the _News_! If there were not he would have this
fine task all to himself, and what a beat! But if there were others?
He walked forward to the smoker, which was the next car in front, and
there, to his intense disgust and nervous dissatisfaction, he spied,
of all people, the one man he would least have expected to find on
an assignment of this kind, the one man he least wanted to see--Mr.
Collins, no less, red-headed, serene, determined, a cigar between his
teeth, crouched low in his seat smoking and reading a paper as calmly
as though he were not bent upon the most important task of the year.
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Binns irritably and even bitterly.
He returned to his seat nervous and ill composed, all the more so
because he now recalled Collins’s venomous threat, “Wait’ll we get a
real case some time, you and me.” The low creature! Why, he couldn’t
even write a decent sentence. Why should he fear him so? But just the
same he did fear him--why, he could scarcely say. Collins was so raw,
savage, brutal, in his mood and plans.
But why, in heaven’s name, he now asked himself as he meditated in
his seat as to ways and means, should a man like Batsford send a man
like Collins, who couldn’t even write, to interpret a story and a
character of this kind? How could he hope to dig out the odd psychology
of this very queer case? Plainly he was too crude, too unintellectual
to get it straight. Nevertheless, here he was, and now, plainly, he
would have this awful creature to contend with. And Collins was so
bitter toward him. He would leave no trick unturned to beat him! These
country detectives and sheriff and railroad men, whoever they were or
wherever they came from, would be sure, on the instant, to make friends
with Collins, as they always did, and do their best to serve him.
They seemed to like that sort of man, worse luck. They might even, at
Collins’s instigation, refuse to let him interview the bandit at all!
If so, then what? But Collins would get something somehow, you might
be sure, secret details which they might not relate to him. It made
him nervous. Even if he got a chance he would have to interview this
wonderful bandit in front of this awful creature, this one man whom he
most despised, and who would deprive him of most of the benefit of all
his questions by writing as though he had thought of and asked all of
them himself. Think of it!
The dreary local sped on, and as it drew nearer and nearer to Pacific,
Binns became more and more nervous. For him the whole charm of this
beautiful September landscape through which he was speeding now was
all spoiled. When the train finally drew up at Pacific he jumped down,
all alive with the determination not to be outdone in any way, and yet
nervous and worried to a degree. Let Collins do his worst, he thought.
He would show him. Still--just then he saw the latter jumping down. At
the same time, Collins spied him, and on the instant his face clouded
over. He seemed fairly to bristle with an angry animal rage, and he
glared as though he would like to kill Binns, at the same time looking
around to see who else might get off. “My enemy!” was written all over
him. Seeing no one, he ran up to the station-agent and apparently
asked when the train from the West was due. Binns decided at once not
to trail, but instead sought information from his own conductor, who
assured him that the East-bound express would probably be on time five
minutes later, and would certainly stop here.
“We take the siding here,” he said. “You’ll hear the whistle in a few
minutes.”
“It always stops here, does it?” asked Binns anxiously.
“Always.”
As they talked, Collins came back to the platform’s edge and stood
looking up the track. At the same time this train pulled out, and a
few minutes later the whistle of the express was heard. Now for a real
contest, thought Binns. Somewhere in one of those cars would be this
astounding bandit surrounded by detectives, and his duty, in spite of
the indignity of it, would be to clamber aboard and get there first,
explain who he was, ingratiate himself into the good graces of the
captors and the prisoner, and begin his questioning, vanquishing
Collins as best he might--perhaps by the ease with which he should take
charge. In a few moments the express was rolling into the station, and
then Binns saw his enemy leap aboard and, with that iron effrontery
and savageness which always irritated Binns so much, race through the
forward cars to find the prisoner. Binns was about to essay the rear
cars, but just then the conductor, a portly, genial-looking soul,
stepped down beside him.
“Is Lem Rollins, the train robber they are bringing in from Bald Knob,
on here?” he inquired. “I’m from the _Star_, and I’ve been sent out to
interview him.”
“You’re on the wrong road, brother,” smiled the conductor. “He’s not
on this train. Those detective fellows have fooled you newspaper men,
I’m afraid. They’re bringing him in over the M.P., as I understand it.
They took him across from Bald Knob to Wahaba and caught the train
there--but I’ll tell you,” and here he took out a large open-face
silver watch and consulted it, “you might be able to catch him yet if
you run for it. It’s only across the field there. You see that little
yellow station over there? Well, that’s the depot. It’s due now, but
sometimes it’s a little late. You’ll have to run for it, though. You
haven’t a minute to spare.”