would have left you if I could have helped it! They closed the hatch--"
"Come along," I said. "She's joking."
He turned and looked at me. "_Is_ she?" he asked, as earnest as if his
life hung on it. Not the least strange memory of that night is when
Arthur Saxton turned and said, "Is she?"
"Sure!" I replied. "Come--some of the boys may be badly hurt."
We pulled through that uproar surprisingly good. Of course, every
man-jack of us had lumps and welts and cuts, and there were some bones
broken. Saxton was slapped down with such force that the flat of his
hand was one big blister where it hit the deck, and the whole line of
his forearm was a bruise--but that saved his face. One passenger drew a
bad ankle, jammed in the wreckage. The worst hurt was Jimmy Hixley, a
sailor; a block hit him in the ribs--probably when the mainmast
went--and caved him for six inches.
The actual twister had only hit one third of us, from where the mainmast
stood, aft. That stick was pulled out by the roots--clean. Standing
rigging and all. Good new stuff at that. Some of the stays came out at
the eyes and some of 'em snapped. One sailor picked a nasty hurt out of
it. The stays were steel cable, and when one parted it curled back
quick, the sharp ends of the broken wires clawing his leg.
Nobody knows the force of the wind in that part of the boat. Had there
been a man there, no rope could hold him from being blown overboard;
but, luckily, we were all forward.
The rails were cut clean as an ax stroke. Nothing was left but the
wheel, and the deck was lifted in places as if there'd been an explosion
below.
However, we weren't in the humor to kick over trifles. We shook hands
all around and took a man's-sized swig of whisky apiece, then started to
put things shipshape.
Jesse had an extra spar and a bit of sail that we rigged as a jigger,
and though the _Matilda_ didn't foot it as pretty as before, we had a
fair wind nearly all the rest of the trip, making Panama in two weeks,
without another accident.
VIII
ARCHIE OUT OF ASPINWALL
The thing I recall clearest, when we dropped anchor at Aspinwall, was a
small boat putting off to us, and a curly yellow head suddenly popping
up over the rail, followed by the rest of a six-foot whole man. That was
Jimmy Holton, my future boss.
Him and Jesse swore how glad they was to see each other, and
pump-handled and pounded each other on the back, whilst I sized the
newcomer up. He was my first specimen of real West-Missouri-country man;
I liked the breed from that minute. He was a cuss, that Jimmy. When he
looked at you with the twinkle in them blue eyes of his, you couldn't
help but laugh. And if there wasn't a twinkle in those eyes, and you
laughed, you made a mistake. Thunder! but he was a sight to take your
eye--the reckless, handsome, long-legged scamp! With his yellow silk
handkerchief around his neck, and his curls of yellow hair--pretty as a
woman's--and his sombrero canted back--he looked as if he was made of
mountain-top fresh air.
"Well, Jesse!" says he; "well, Jess, you durned old porpoise! You look
as hearty as usual, and still wearing your legs cut short, I see; but
what the devil have you been doing to your boat?"
[Illustration: "'Still wearing your legs cut short, I see'"]
So then Jesse told him about the tornado.
Jimmy's eyes were taking the whole place in, although he listened with
care.
"Well, what brings you aboard, Jim!" says Jesse.
"I'm looking for a man," says Jimmy. "I want a white man; a good, kind,
orderly sort of white man that'll do what he's told without a word,
and'll bust my head for me if I dast curse him the way I do the pups
working for me now."
"H'm!" says Jesse, sliding me a kind of underneath-the-table glance.
"What's the line of work?"
"Why, the main job is to be around and look and act white. I got too
durned much to see to--there's the ranch and the mine and the
store--that drunken ex-college professor I hired did me to the tune of
fifteen hundred cold yellow disks and skipped. You see, I want somebody
to tell, 'Here, you look after this,' and he won't tell me that ain't in
the lesson. Ain't you got a young feller that'll grow to my ways? I'll
pay him according to his size."
"H'm!" says Jesse again, jerking a thumb toward me. "There's a boy you
might do business with."
Jim's head come around with the quickness that marked him. Looking into
that blue eye of his was like looking into a mirror--you guessed all
there was to you appeared in it. He had me estimated in three fifths of
a second.
"Howdy, boy!" says he, coming toward me with his hand out. "My name's
Jim Holton. You heard the talk--what do you think?"
I looked at him for a minute, embarrassed. "I don't seem to be able to
think," says I. "Lay it out again, will you? I reckon the answer is
yes."
"It sure is," says he. "It's got to be. What's your name?" He showed he
liked me--he wasn't afraid to show anybody that he liked 'em--or didn't.
"Bill," says I--"Bill Saunders."
"Now Heaven is kind!" says he. "I hadn't raised my hopes above a Sam or
a Tommy, but to think of a strapping, blue-eyed, brick-topped, bully-boy
Bill! Bill!" he says, "can you guess Old Man Noah's feelings when the
little bird flew up to him with the tree in his teeth? Well, he'll seem
sad alongside of me when I catch sight of that sunrise head of yours
above my gang of mud-colored greasers and Chinamen. You owe it to
charity to give me that pleasure. By the way, William, if you should see
a greaser flatten his ears back and lay a hand on his knife, what would
you do--read him a chapter of the Bible, or kick him in the belt?"
I thought this over. "I don't know," says I. "I never saw anybody do
that."
"Bill," says he, "I'm getting more and more contented with you. I
thought at first you might be quarrelsome. You don't fight, do you?"
"Well," I says, flustered, "not to any great extent--not unless I get
mad, or the other feller does something, or I feel I ought to, or--"
"'Nough said," says he. "There's reasons enough to keep the peace of
Europe. I have observed, Bill, in this and many other countries, that
dove-winged peace builds her little nest when I hit first and hardest. I
tell you, on the square, I'll use you right as long as you seem to
appreciate it. That's my line of action, and I can prove it by Jesse--I
can prove anything by Jesse. No; but, honest, boy, if you come with me,
there's little chance for us to bunk as long as you do your share. And,"
he says, sizing me up, "if an accident should happen, when you've got
more meat on that frame of yours, be durned if I don't believe it would
be worth the trouble."
"Explain to him," says Jesse; "the boy's just away from his ma--he don't
know nothing about working out."
Jim turned to me, perfectly serious--he was like Sax--joke as long as it
was joking-time, then drop it and talk as straight as a rifle-barrel.
"I want a right-hand man of my own country," he says. "You'll have to
watch gangs of men to see they work up; keep an eye on what goes out
from the stores; beat the head off the first beggar you see abusing a
horse; and do what I tell you, generally. For that, I'll put one hundred
United States dollars in your jeans each and every month we're together,
unless you prove to be worth more--or nothing. I won't pay less, for the
man in the job that ain't worth a hundred ain't worth a cent--how's it
hit you!"
A hundred dollars a month! It hit me so hard my teeth rattled.
"Well," I stammers, "a hundred dollars is an awful lot of money--you
ain't going to find the worth of it in my hide--I don't know about
bossing men and things like that--why, I don't know _anything_--"
He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me. He had a smile as sweet
as a woman's. He was as nice as a woman, on his good side--and you'd
better keep that side toward you. Him and Sax was of a breed there, too.
I understood him better from knowing Sax.
"Billy boy," he says, "that's my funeral. I've dealt with men some
years. I don't ask you for experience: I ask you for intentions. I get
sick, living with a lot of men that don't care any more about me than I
do about them--that _ain't_ living. You can clear your mind. I like your
looks. If I've made a mistake, why, it's a mistake, and we'll part still
good friends. If I haven't made a mistake, it won't take you long to
learn what I want you to know, and I'll get the worth of my time
training a good pup--is it a go, son?"
I was so delighted I took right hold of his hand. "I begin to hope you
and me will never come to words," said he as he straightened his fingers
out.
I blundered out an apology. He reached up and rubbed my hair around.
"There was heart in that grip, son," he said. "You needn't excuse that."
Just then Mary came on deck and he saw her. He whistled under his
breath. "That the kind of cargo you carry now, Jess?" he asked. "I'll
take all you got off your hands at your own price."
"Like to know her?" says Jesse. "She's going to teach in one of them
mission schools at Panama. You'll see her again, likely."
"I suppose she ought to be consulted," says Jim; "but I'll waive
ceremony with you, Jesse."
So they went aft to where Mary stood, a little look of expectancy on her
face. She'd been about to join Sax, but seeing the two come, didn't like
to move, as it was evident they had something to say to her.
Jesse and Jim made a curious team. Jesse flew along on his little
trotters, whilst Jim swung in a long, easy cat-stride, three foot and a
half to the pace. Jesse always looked kind of tied together loose. Jim
was trim as a race-horse--yet not finicky. His spurs rattled on the
deck. Take him from boots to scalp-lock, he was a pretty picture of a
man.
"Miss Smith," says Jesse, with a bob, "this feller's Jim Holton."
"And very glad that he is, for once in his life," says Jim, sweeping the
deck with his hat, and looking compliments.
Mary smiled just enough to make the dimples count. They were best of the
dimple family--not fat dimples, but little spots you'd like to own.
She wasn't the girl to take gaiety from a stranger; but, somehow, Jim
showed for what he was--a clean heart, if frolicsome.
Mary was a match for him, all right. She made him as deep a bow, gave
him a look, and in a mock-earnest way, with her hand on her heart, said:
"Am I to suppose myself the cause of so much joy?"
"You're not to suppose--you're to know," says Jim.
"Well," says Mary, with another flying look at him, "it doesn't seem
possible; but the evidence of such very truthful and very blue, blue
eyes"--she stopped and looked at the eyes--"is, of course, beyond
questioning."
That knocked Jimmy. Underneath his dash, he was a modest fellow, and to
have his personal appearance remarked openly rattled him. Mary'd got the
war on his territory in two seconds. He looked at her, dumb; until,
seeing her holding back her laughter by means of a row of the whitest of
teeth set into the most interesting of under lips, he laughed right out
and offered his hand.
"I'll simply state in plain English," he says, not wanting to quit
whipped, "that you are the best use those eyes have ever been put to."
"That's entirely satisfactory," says Mary. "I'd have a bad disposition
not to be contented with that--and, Mr. Holton, here's a friend of
mine--Mr. Saxton."
Saxton was the only one who hadn't drawn entertainment out of the
previous performance. He and Holton shook hands without smiles. It was
more like the hand-shake before "time" is called. But they looked each
other square in the eye--honest enemies, at least--not like the durned
brute--well, he comes later.
There they stood; fine, graceful, upstanding huskies, both; each as
handsome as the other, in his own way; each as able as the other, in his
own way; one black and poetic-looking; the other fair and
romantic-looking. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Sax
knew more of books; Jim knew more of men. Sax knew the wild lands of
music and such; Jim had slept with an Injun or two watching out to be
sure he wasn't late for the office the next morning. Either one was
plenty durn good enough to make a girl fix her hair straight.
And there stood Mary, the cause of the look each man put upon the other.
She'd brought down Jim in one stroke--he was a sudden sort of jigger.
Well, there she stood; and if there's anything in having a subject worth
fighting for, those two fellers ought to have been the happiest of men.
I'm glad I can add this: Mary didn't _want_ any man to fight about
her--not much! She was the real, true woman; the kind that brings hope
in her hand. Of course she had some vanity, and if two fellows got a
little cross when she was around, that wouldn't break her heart; but to
arouse any deep feeling of anger between two men--why, I honestly
believe she'd rather they'd strike her than each other. Oh, no! She
stood for nothing of that kind. She stood heart and soul for light and
fun and kindness. If she made mistakes, it was from a natural
underrating of how the other party felt, or, like her worst mistake,
through some twisted idea of duty. There's a saying that a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that's particularly true of women.
When a good woman gets hold of half a fact, she can raise the very devil
with it.
That two felt disposed to glare put restraint on conversation, and after
some talk, in which Jim fished for an invitation to call on Mary in
Panama, and got what you might call a limited order--"I shall be very
glad to see you, sometime, Mr. Holton"--he turned and treated me to a
view of Western methods.
"Pack your turkey and come with me, Bill," he says.
"What--_now_?" says I.
"Well, I'll wait, if you want me to," he says. "But what's your reason?"
"Not any," says I, and skipped for my truck. Isn't it surprising how
people, even boys, that ain't much troubled about fixed rules, will keep
on going the same old way; not because there's sense, comfort, nor
profit in it, but simply because it is the same old way? I've known
folks to live in places and keep at jobs, hating both, could quit
easily, yet staying on and on, simply because they were there yesterday.
I've got so that if people start talking over an act, I feel like
saying, "For Heaven's sake! Let's try it and then we'll _know_," while
at the same time it happens that their talk is so good, I feel bashful
about cutting in. Give me the Western idea. People that get an action
on, instead of an oration. That is, if they're the right kind of people.
Yet I dearly love to talk. It's a strange world!
Jimmy was the Western idea on two legs. The moment he thought of a
thing, he grew busy. And when work was over, I'd talk him against any
man I ever met. Perhaps the chief difference between the Western man's
way and the Eastern man's way is that the Westerner says it's fun and
believes it, whilst the Easterner says it's a great and holy undertaking
he's employed in, and wastes lots of time trying to believe it. We all
do the things we like to do, and we might as well admit it, cheerful.
I hadn't much more than time to say good-by all around, and find out
where Sax and Mary were going to stay, before I was off on the new deal.
"Have you ever ridden a horse?" Jim asks me, when we hit shore.
"Never," says I.
"Well," says he, rubbing his head, "we _can_ go across on the railroad,
but I'd like to stop here and there. It wouldn't be so bad if the good
critters hadn't been all hired out or bought this last rush. As it is,
you stand to get on to something that don't want you. My Pedro'd eat you
alive if you laid a hand on him, or I'd trade with you--you got to learn
sometime, Bill, but you'll get a tough first lesson here--suppose we
take the train, eh?"
Now, I hadn't come to the Isthmus of Panama to exhibit all the things I
was afraid of. I didn't like the thought of playing puss-in-the-corner
with a horse I'd never met before, a little bit, and I liked the idea of
backing out still less.
"Trot your animal out," I says. "I guess, if I get a hold on him, we
won't separate for a while."
Jim rubbed his head again.
"I don't want to lose you right in the start," he says. "These mustangs
are the most reliable hunks of wickedness on earth--"
"All I need to try and ride is a horse," I says. He laughed and shrugged
his shoulders. "I won't quarrel with that spirit," he says. He spoke to
a native in Spanish. The feller looked at me and spread both hands. I
scarcely knew there was such a thing as a Spanish language, but I knew
that those hands said, "This is the impossible you have shoved down my
chimney."
Jim translated. "He says he can't think of but one brute, and he can't
imagine you and that one making any kind of combination."
"If you're keeping me here to see my sand run out, you'll make it, all
right," I says--"otherwise, get that horse."
Jim spoke to the native and the native looked at me again, shaking his
head sorrowful. At last he discarded all responsibility and ambled off.
Here come my gallant steed. His neck had a haughty in-curve; he was
bow-legged forrud, and knock-kneed aft. His hips stuck out so far the
hair couldn't get the nourishment it needed, and fell out. He had a nose
like Julius Caesar, an under lip that hung down three inches, and the eye
of a dying codfish. I lost all fear of him at once. Ignorance is the
papa of courage. According to instructions, I put my left foot in the
stirrup and made ready to board. At that instant my trusty steed whipped
his head around like a rattlesnake, gathered a strip of flesh about six
inches long, shut his eyes, and made his teeth to approach each other.
I've been hurt several times in my life, but for straight agony give me
a horse-bite.
With a yell that brought out every revolutionist in Aspinwall,--which
means the town was there,--I grabbed that cussed brute by the windpipe
and stopped his draft. Jim and the native made some motions.
"Keep out of this!" I hollered. "This is my fight!"
So then me and my faithful horse began to see who could stand it the
longest. There was nothing soul-stirring and uplifting about the
contest. He pinched my leg, and I pinched his throat. He kicked me, and
I kicked him. We wrastled all over the place, playing plain
stick-to-him-Pete. The worst of having a hand-to-hand with an animal is
that he don't tire. You get weaker and weaker; they get stronger and
stronger. Besides, the pain in my leg almost seemed to stop my heart.
Murder! how it hurt!
At the same time, a horse doesn't do as well without an occasional
breath of fresh air, and I had this feller's supply cut off short.
Pretty soon he got frantic, and the way he tore and r'ared around there
was a treat. It didn't occur to either one of us to let go. Finally,
when I'd ceased to think entirely, there came a staggering sort of fall;
hands took hold of me and dragged me away.
Jim lifted my head and gave me a drink of water. He swore at himself
ferocious, and by all that was great and powerful, lie was going to
shoot that horse.
By this time I was interested in the art of riding. I told him he wasn't
going to kill my horse; that I intended to ride that same mustang out of
the town of Aspinwall if it took some time and all of my left leg.
"What's the good of being a fool?" says he. "Now, Bill, you be
sensible."
"Where's the horse?" says I.
He had to laugh. "United you fell," says he. "I honest think he hadn't a
cent the best of it."
I got on my feet and made for Mr. Mustang. As the critter stood there,
with his sad lower lip hanging slack, thinking what a wicked world it
was, I recalled who he looked like. He was the dead ringer for Archibald
Blavelt, back home. Archie was such a mean old cuss that the
neighborhood was proud of him--he carried it 'way beyond the point where
it was a disgrace. I should have known better than to tackle anything
that resembled Archie, but I didn't. Instead, I walked up, club in hand,
waiting for the mustang to make a crooked move. He paid no attention,
let me put my foot in the stirrup, swing aboard and settle down. Not
till then did he toss his head gaily in the air and holler for joy. You
see, he'd made out that we were likely to break even, both on the
ground, so he tried getting under me. I refuse to say what happened
next. I thought I was aboard the _Matilda_ with the tornado on. I saw,
in jerks, pale-faced men scrambling right up the sides of houses; women
shrieking and dusting away from there, and between thirty and forty
thousand dogs, barking and snapping and tumbling out of the way.
I laid two strong hands on Archie's (I called him Archie) mane and
wrapped my legs around his barrel and gave myself up for lost. We spent
years tearing that section of Aspinwall to pieces, till, all of a
sudden, Archie give a jump that landed me on his rump and pulled out for
more room. And didn't he go! It was scandalous, the way he flapped them
bony legs of his. Once in a while he kicked up behind, and I made a fine
bow. Every time that happened some polite Spaniard took off his hat to
me, thinking I was a friend he hadn't time to recognize.
[Illustration: "I laid two strong hands on Archie's mane"]
I stayed with that mustang, somehow, until we come to a narrow alley. At
the end of it a fearful fat Spaniard, with a Panama hat and a green
umbrella, was crossing. I hollered to him to get out of the way, but the
sight of me and Archie streaming in the breeze surprised him so he stood
paralyzed. He made a fat man's hop for safety, too late. When we were
fifteen feet from him, Archie threw a hand-spring, and I put my head,
like a red buttonhole bouquet, plumb in the gentleman's vest.
"Assassin!" he cries, and fetches me a wipe with the green umbrella
before he expires temporarily on the street.
Of course, there's lots of things will damage you worse than butting a
stout gentleman; at the same time I went at him quick, and stopped
quicker. This world was all a dizzy show, till the crowd came up, Jim,
on his Pedro, leading. They were all there: all the revolutionists, all
the women with babies, and all the dogs, down to the last pup. I
couldn't have had a bigger audience if I'd done something to be proud
of.
Some of 'em held on to the fat gentleman, who was yearning to draw my
heart's blood with the green umbrella. Some of 'em stood and admired
Archie, who was smacking his lips over some grass that grew on the side,
and looked about as vicious as Mary and her little lamb; some of 'em
come to help me--all conversed freely.
"Now, darn your buttons!" says Jim, "you might have been killed! Hadn't
been for Senor Martinez there, you would 'a' been. Didn't I tell you not
to try it again--didn't I?"
It was quite true he had told me that very thing. At the same time, one
of the least consoling things in this world, when a man's made a fool of
himself, is to have somebody come up and tell him he prophesied it.
You'd like to think it just happened that way. It breaks your heart to
feel it's like twice two.
I sat up and looked at Jim. "You told me all that," says I, "but what's
the matter with letting virtue be its own reward?"
Jim laughed and said he guessed I was not quite done yet. Then he
introduced me to Mr. Martinez as the grateful result of a well-lined
stomach applied at the proper time.
Martinez sheathed the green umbrella and extended the hand of
friendship, like the Spanish gentleman he was.
"Ah me!" says he, "but you ride with furiosity! And," he adds
thoughtfully, "your head is of a firmness." He waved his hand so the
diamonds glittered like a shower. "A treefle--a leetle, leetle treeful,"
by which he meant trifle. "Now," says he, as if we'd finished some
important business, "shall we resuscitate?"
Jim said we would, so the whole crowd moved to where Santiago Christobal
Colon O'Sullivan gave you things that lightened the shadows for the time
being, and proceeded to resuscitate.
Inside, Mr. Martinez the Stout told the whole story between drinks. He
was the horse, or me, or himself, or the consequences, as occasion
required. I'd have gone through more than that to see Mr. Martinez
gallop the length of the saloon, making it clear to us how Archie acted.
And when he was me, darned if he didn't manage to look like me, and when
he was Archie he seemed to thin out and grow bony hip-joints
immediately; Archie'd nickered at sight of him. How in blazes a
three-hundred-pound Spanish gentleman contrived to resemble a thin,
red-headed six-foot-two New England kid and a bow-necked, cat-hammed
mustang is an art beyond me. He did it; let it go at that.