_The River Gives up its Prey_
Because Zephyr saw a school of fishes disporting themselves in the
water, this never diverted his attention from the landing of the fish he
had hooked.
This principle of his life he was applying to a particular event. The
river had been closely watched; now, at last, his fish was hooked. The
landing it was another matter. He needed help. He went for it.
Zephyr found Bennie taking his usual after-dinner nap.
"Julius Benjamin, it's the eleventh hour," he began, indifferently.
Bennie interrupted:
"The eleventh hour! It's two o'clock, and the time you mention was born
three hours ago. What new kind of bug is biting you?"
Zephyr studiously rolled a cigarette.
"Your education is deficient, Julius. You don't know your Bible, and you
don't know the special force of figurative language. I'm sorry for you,
Julius, but having begun I'll see it through. Having put my hand to the
plough, which is also figuratively speaking, it's the eleventh hour, but
if you'll get into your working clothes and whirl in, I'll give you full
time and better wages."
Bennie sat upright.
"What?" he began.
Zephyr's cigarette was smoking.
"There's no time to waste drilling ideas through a thick head. The wagon
is ready and so is the block and ropes. Come on, and while we're on the
way, I'll tackle your wits where the Almighty left off."
Bennie's wits were not so muddy as Zephyr's words indicated. He sprang
from his bed and into his shoes, and before the stub of Zephyr's
cigarette had struck the ground outside the open window Bennie was
pushing Zephyr through the door.
"Figures be hanged, and you, too. If my wits were as thick as your
tongue, they'd be guessing at the clack of it, instead of getting a
wiggle on the both of us."
The stableman had the wagon hooked up and ready. Zephyr and Bennie
clambered in. Bennie caught the lines from the driver and cracking the
whip about the ears of the horses, they clattered down the trail to the
Devil's Elbow.
Zephyr protested mildly at Bennie's haste.
"Hold your hush," growled Bennie. "There's a hell of a fight on at the
office this day. If you want to see a good man win the sooner we're back
with the safe the better."
There were no lost motions on their arrival at the Devil's Elbow. The
actual facts that had hastened Zephyr's location of the safe were
simple. He had studied the position which the stage must have occupied
before the bridge fell, its line of probable descent. From these assumed
data he inferred the approximate position of the safe in the river and
began prodding in the muddy water. At last he was tolerably sure that he
had located it. By building a sort of wing dam with loose rock, filling
the interstices with fine material, the water of the pool was cut off
from the main stream and began to quiet down and grow comparatively
clear. Then Zephyr's heart almost stood still. By careful looking he
could distinguish one corner of the safe. Without more ado he started
for Bennie.
The tackle was soon rigged. Taking a hook and chain, Zephyr waded out
into the icy water, and after a few minutes he gave the signal to hoist.
It was the safe, sure enough. Another lift with the tackle in a new
position and the safe was in the wagon and headed for its
starting-point.
Bennie was rigid with important dignity on the way to the office and was
consequently silent save as to his breath, which whistled through his
nostrils. As for Zephyr, Bennie's silence only allowed him to whistle or
go through the noiseless motions as seemed to suit his mood. The driver
was alive with curiosity and spoiling to talk, but his voluble efforts
at conversation only confirmed his knowledge of what to expect. When
later interrogated as to the remarks of Zephyr and Bennie upon this
particular occasion he cut loose the pent-up torrent within him.
"You fellows may have heard," he concluded, "that clams is hell on
keeping quiet; but they're a flock of blue jays cussin' fer a prize
compared with them two fellers."
As Firmstone turned to leave the office the door was thrust open and the
two men entered. Bennie led, aggressive defiance radiating from every
swing and pose. Zephyr, calm, imperturbable, confident, glanced at the
red-faced Hartwell and at the set face of Firmstone. He knew the game,
he knew his own hand. He intended to play it for its full value. He had
an interested partner. He trusted in his skill, but if he made breaks it
was no concern of his.
"Assuming," he began; "that there's an interesting discussion going on,
I beg leave to submit some important data bearing on the same."
"Trim your switches," burst out Bennie. "They'll sting harder."
The unruffled Zephyr bent a soothing eye on Bennie, moved his hat a
little farther back from his forehead, placed his arms leisurely akimbo,
and eased one foot by gradually resting his weight on the other. It was
not affectation. It was the physical expression of a mental habit.
"Still farther assuming," here his eyes slowly revolved and rested on
Hartwell, "that truth crushed to earth sometimes welcomes a friendly
boost, uninvited, I am here to tender the aforesaid assistance." He
turned to Bennie. "Now, Julius, it's up to you. If you'll open the
throttle, you can close your blow-off with no danger of bursting your
boiler." He nodded his head toward the door.
Hartwell's manner was that of a baited bull who, in the multiplicity of
his assailants, knew not whom to select for first attack. For days and
weeks he had been marshalling his forces for an overwhelming assault on
Firmstone. He had ignored the fact that his adversary might have been
preparing an able defence in spite of secrecy on his part. It is a wise
man who, when contemplating the spoliation of his neighbour, first takes
careful account of defensive as well as of offensive means. His personal
assault on Firmstone had met with defeat. In the mental rout that
followed he was casting about to find means of concealing from others
that which he could not hide from himself. The irruption of Bennie and
Zephyr threatened disaster even to this forlorn hope. Firmstone knew
what was coming. Hartwell could not even guess. As he had seen Firmstone
as his first object, so now he saw Zephyr. Blindly as he had attacked
Firmstone, so now he lowered his head for an equally blind charge on the
placid Zephyr.
"Who are you, anyway?" he burst out, with indignant rage.
"Me?" Zephyr turned to Hartwell, releasing his lips from their habitual
pucker, his eyes resting for a moment on Hartwell. "Oh, I ain't much. I
ain't a sack of fertilizer on a thousand-acre ranch." His eyes drooped
indifferently. "But at the same time, you ain't no thousand-acre ranch."
"That may be," retorted Hartwell; "but I'm too large to make it safe for
you to prance around on alone."
Zephyr turned languidly to Hartwell.
"That's so," he assented. "I discovered a similar truth several decades
ago and laid it up for future use. Even in my limited experience you
ain't the first thorn-apple that I've seen pears grafted on to. In
recognition of your friendly warning, allow me to say that I'm only one
in a bunch."
A further exchange of courtesies was prevented by the entrance of four
men, of whom Bennie was one. Their entrance was heralded by a series of
bumps and grunts. There was a final bump, a final grunt, and the four
men straightened simultaneously; four bended arms swept the moisture
from four perspiring faces.
"That's all." Bennie dismissed his helpers with a wave of his hand, then
stood grimly repressed, waiting for the next move.
The scene was mildly theatrical; unintentionally so, so far as Zephyr
was concerned, designedly so on the part of Bennie, who longed to push
it to a most thrilling climax. It was not pleasant to Firmstone; but the
cause was none of his creating, he was of no mind to interfere with the
event. He was only human after all, and that it annoyed and irritated
Hartwell afforded him a modicum of legitimate solace. Besides, Zephyr
and Bennie were his stanch friends; the recovery of the safe and the
putting it in evidence at the most effective moment was their work. The
manner of bringing it into play, though distasteful to him, suited their
ideas of propriety, and Firmstone felt that they had earned the right to
an exhibition of their personalities with no interference on his part.
He preserved a passive, dignified silence.
As for Hartwell, openly attacked from without, within a no less violent
conflict of invisible forces was crowding him to self-humiliation. To
retreat from the scene meant either an open confession of wrong-doing,
or a refusal on his part to do justice to the man whom he had wronged.
To remain was to subject himself to the open triumph of Zephyr and
Bennie, and the no less assured though silent triumph of Firmstone.
Hartwell's reflections were interrupted by Zephyr's request for the keys
to the safe. There was a clatter as Firmstone dropped them into his open
hand. Hartwell straightened up with flushed cheeks. Pierre's words again
came to him. The whole thing might be a bluff, after all. The safe might
be empty. Here was a possible avenue of escape. With the same blind
energy with which he had entered other paths, he entered this. He leaned
back in his chair with tolerant resignation.
"If it amuses you people to make a mountain out of a molehill I can
afford to stand it."
Bennie looked pityingly at Hartwell. "God Almighty must have it in for
you bad, or he'd let you open your eyes t'other end to, once in a
while."
As the safe was finally opened and one by one the dull yellow bars were
piled on the scales, there was too much tenseness to allow of even a
show of levity. Zephyr had no doubts. No one could have got at the safe
while in the river; he could swear to that. From its delivery to the
driver by Firmstone there had been no time nor opportunity to tamper
with its contents. As for Firmstone, he had too much at stake to be
entirely free from anxiety, though neither voice nor manner betrayed it.
He had had experience enough to teach him that it was not sufficient to
be honest--one must at all times be prepared to prove it.
The last ingot was checked off. Firmstone silently handed Hartwell the
copy of his original letter of advice and the totalled figures of the
recent weighing. Hartwell accepted them with a cynical smile and laid
them indifferently aside.
"Well," he remarked; "all I can say is, the company recovered the safe
in the nick of time, from whom I don't pretend to say. We've got it, and
that's enough." There was a grin of cunning defiance on his face. He had
entered a covert where further pursuit was impossible.
For once Bennie felt unequal to the emergency. He turned silently, but
appealingly, to Zephyr.
It was a new experience for Zephyr as well. For the first time in his
life he felt himself jarred to the point of quick retort, wholly
unconsonant with his habitual serenity. His face flushed. His hand moved
jerkily to the bosom of his shirt, only to be as jerkily removed empty.
The harmonica was decidedly unequal to the task. His lips puckered and
straightened. His final resort was more satisfying. He deliberately
seated himself on the safe and began rolling a cigarette. Placing it to
his lips, he drew a match along the leg of his trousers. The shielded
flame was applied to the cigarette. There came a few deliberate puffs,
the cigarette was removed. His crossed leg was thrust through his
clasped hands at he leaned backward. Through a cloud of soothing smoke
his answer was meditatively voiced.
"When the Almighty made man, he must have had a pot of sense on one hand
and foolishness on the other, and he put some of each inside every empty
skull. He got mighty interested in his work and so absent-minded he used
up the sense first. Leastways, some skulls got an unrighteous dose of
fool that I can't explain no other way. I ain't blaming the Almighty;
he'd got the stuff on his hands and he'd got to get rid of it somehow.
It's like rat poison--mighty good in its place, but dangerous to have
lying around loose. He just forgot to mix it in, that's all, and we've
got to do it for him. It's a heap of trouble and it's a nasty job, and I
ain't blaming him for jumping it."