ALMOST A RIOT.
No, it was not an earthquake that happened in the city of Los Angeles,
California, on that beautiful sun-shiny morning. It was just a
tow-headed, cross-eyed youth shaking things up at the corner of Sixth
and Main in an attempt to find his father.
And not one corner of the cross streets was involved, but all four
corners. The upheaval that followed this search for a missing relative,
extended in several directions, so that a very small cause led up to
remarkably large results.
It was nine o'clock of a Saturday morning. That Saturday was some sort
of a festal day for the Chinese, and at the hour mentioned, a dragon a
block long, consisting of a hundred Celestials covered with
papier-mache, was twisting and writhing along Sixth Street.
On one corner, leaning against the side of a building, was a tall man in
seedy clothes. A card on his breast bore the sad legend, "Help the
Blind." The man's eyes were covered with large blue goggles, and in one
hand he held his hat, and in the other a couple of dozen cheap lead
pencils.
Across the street, on corner number two, was an Italian with a hand
organ. The Italian's assistant was a monkey in a red cap.
Corner number three, among others, held a grocer's boy, carrying a
basket with six dozens of eggs. He was very much absorbed in watching
the Chinese dragon wriggle along the thoroughfare.
The fourth corner was reserved for Hiram Hill, the tow-headed,
cross-eyed chap who was destined to cause all the commotion. While Hill
stood on the walk, telling himself that the gaudily painted dragon
looked very much like an overgrown centipede, he suddenly caught sight
of a man in an automobile.
The auto was headed along Main Street, and was waiting for the dragon to
clear the way so it could proceed. Hill looked at the machine across the
papier-mache spine of the chink monster, and he gave a yell of surprise
when his gaze took account of the one man in the tonneau of the car.
Undoubtedly that man was Hiram Hill's father--the parent who had been
mysteriously missing ever since the first Klondike gold rush! Hiram's
eyes were sharp, and to them the beetling brow, the one "squint eye,"
the very pronounced Roman nose, and the retreating chin which made the
face resemble a bird's beak, were all very plain.
After that first yell of surprise, Hiram's astonishing good luck held
him speechless. Following a year of a trying town-to-town canvas of the
whole Southwest, he had at last come within hailing distance of his
long-lost parent.
Only one point remained to make assurance doubly sure. Had the "suspect"
a brown mole on the back of his neck? Sharp as Hill's eyes were, they
could not determine that.
"Who wants a pencil?" came feebly from the hapless person on the first
corner. "Help the blind."
"Jocko," said the son of sunny Italy, on corner two, "maka da bow, taka
da mon!"
The monkey lifted his hat and went through motions that passed for a
bow. He also looked at his master and showed his teeth, not relishing
the way his chain had been pulled.
"Pipe de chink wid de pigeon toes and de bow legs!" yelped the grocer's
boy. "If he's goin' de way dem feet are pointed, foist t'ing yous know
he'll be runnin' into himself."
The boy with the basket of eggs was very observing. As he shouted his
remarks he leveled a finger at a pair of coolie legs supporting one of
the vertebra of the passing dragon. The legs were badly sprung at the
knees, but they ended in feet which the Chinaman had to step over as he
walked.
"Dad!" whooped Hiram Hill; "I say, dad!"
Hiram recovered his speech, and all at once became as active as a swarm
of bees after some one has kicked over the hive. He wanted to get to
that automobile and give his father a filial embrace--and he was in a
hurry. The Chinese dragon was in the way, but Hiram didn't mind a little
thing like that.
He jumped at the papier-mache thing and hit it in the vicinity of the
bow-legged Chinaman. That particular chink went down, and the dragon was
broken squarely in two, midway of its length.
Now, a papier-mache dragon is a sort of a blind-follow-my-leader affair.
The Chinaman at the head is the only one in the procession who can see
where he is going, and the remaining sections of the monster hang onto
him and follow his lead.
The rear half of the dragon got lost, and went groping wildly for the
front half. Somehow or other, it ran into the crowd on the corner, and
there was a mix-up in which three dollars worth of eggs were badly
scrambled.
The last section of the front half, missing the part behind, began
swinging back and forth across the street in an attempt to find the lost
tail. It carromed into corner number two, smashing one perfectly good
hand organ, freeing an excited monkey, and drawing forth a volley of
lurid words from the Italian.
Jocko ran across the street, and began climbing the tall man who was
selling lead pencils. With a roar of consternation, the tall man rushed
into the street, flourishing his arms, and begging some one--any one--to
"Take it away! Take it away!" He finally collided with the head end of
the dragon, demoralizing that half of the chink procession as completely
as the latter half had been.
By that time; Sixth and Main was in a turmoil. The dragon had broken up
in a hundred parts, like a jointed snake, and each part was thrashing
around blindly, trying to get rid of its papier-mache so it could see
where it was and what it was doing.
From the four corners the crowd flowed into the street. Eggs, entirely
whole or only slightly cracked, flew from mischievous hands over heaving
heads, only to smash against some particularly inviting mark.
The monkey leaped from one pair of shoulders to another, chattering
wildly. In course of time, he reached the automobile, landed in a heap
on the bosom of the beetle-browed, Roman-nosed passenger in the tonneau,
and encircling him with his hairy arms. The beetle-browed man got up and
fought for his freedom, clamoring furiously for "Police! Police!"
Just at that moment, the only policeman in that vicinity was at the
patrol box, sending in a riot call. Meanwhile, Hiram Hill was having his
own share of troubles.
The bow-legged Chinaman had slipped out of his papier-mache shell. He
did not know, of course, that Hill was the one who had knocked his
section of the dragon out of line, but the instant he was able to look
around, he saw Hill, and immediately selected him as a suitable object
for hostility.
The chink did not step on himself, nor in any way interfere with his
progress in going for Hiram. He hit Hiram so hard over the head with the
piece of dragon that he knocked a hole in the papier-mache, and, just as
Hiram freed himself of the encumbrance, and straightened up to get his
bearings and swoop down on his assailant, an egg smashed in his face and
effectually blinded him.
A hollow murmur sounded in Hiram's ears, like the roar of the sea. He
was picked up on the troubled waters of the melee, and borne back and
forth in the surging tide. At last he slammed into something and fell,
limp and dazed, to the ground.
He drew his sleeve across his eyes, thus freeing them for clearer
vision. To his joy and wonder, he found that destiny had hurled him
against the side of the automobile he had been trying to reach.
Jocko had jumped from the shoulders of the passenger in the tonneau, and
the passenger was still on his feet and had his back toward Hiram. The
latter, boiling over with filial sentiments, climbed up on the running
board and encircled the beetle-browed man in a fond embrace.
"Dad!" clamored Hiram excitedly; "don't you know me?"
"Get off! get off!" roared the man, going at once into a flurry. "Whose
monkey is this, anyway? Police! Police!"
The man, naturally, was in a highly excited state of mind and thought
the simian was upon him again. Just then, the driver of the machine
found a cleared space ahead and started for it. He started so quickly
that Hiram was thrown from the running board, dropped to the hard
pavement, and there stumbled against and fallen over by the jostling
mob.
This rough usage was more than Hiram could stand. The senses were being
knocked out of him by swift degrees. He felt his wits going, and he made
a frantic attempt to stay them as they drifted away. The attempt was
useless, however, and a great darkness suddenly descended upon Hiram and
closed him in.
When he regained his senses, he was lying on a bench in a drug store. A
clerk was holding a handkerchief, saturated with a drug of some kind, to
his nostrils, and a bluecoat was standing near, twirling his club and
looking down at Hiram speculatively.
"Question is," said the policeman, "what is he doing with two hats?"
"That's more than I can tell you, officer," answered the clerk. "Ah,
he's coming to!"
Hiram sat up on the bench and pushed aside the drug-soaked handkerchief.
"Dad!" he murmured confusedly.
"I'm not your dad," said the officer. "I'm just the fellow who pulled
you out of the crowd. Where'd you get that hat?"
Hiram looked down. His own hat was on his head and had, in some manner,
remained with him throughout all the excitement, but in his hand he was
clutching, like grim death, a battered black Stetson.
Turning the hat over, Hiram looked into the crown. The gilt letters, "U.
H." met his eyes.
"It's dad's hat," he gurgled. "Upton Hill, that's his name! I knew I had
a bean on the right number! I--I---"
A bit of white showed under the sweatband. Westerners, of a certain
type, sometimes carry important documents under the sweatband of their
hats. Hiram pulled his object out of the Stetson, examined it, and then
inquired his way to the nearest telegraph office. Five minutes later he
had sent the following telegram:
"OWEN CLANCY, the Motor Wizard, Phoenix, Arizona: Hot on the trail. You
said you would help me find dad. Come to Los Angeles at once and get
busy. Meet me Renfrew House.
HIRAM."
"This here's a great day for me," murmured Hiram, rubbing his bruises as
he turned away from the operator's window. "I reckon that'll fetch
Clancy, if he's well enough to come. Him and me can run out this happy
trail together, with ground to spare. That red-headed wizard has got
more sense in a minute than I have in a year, and I reckon we'll get
along. He's a good feller to tie to, in a time like this."