unconvinced, muttering that “tenderfeet shouldn’t monkey with this
country by themselves;” and in this sentiment I heartily concurred.
We spent the day and night at Still Hunt Spring. There was nothing to
call us away, and I found my physical powers more inclined to rest than
to a long ride. Scipio dried out his clothes beside the spring, and
refreshed his lank body from the perspiration and dust which had covered
it. He narrated how it had been whispered that the cattlemen were on the
eve of “demonstrating”; how McDonough’s practices and associates had
been gradually ascertained; how it was known that Still Hunt Spring had
become a hiding-place for stolen stock. Therefore my bragging letter,
written in a spirit so light, had given him what he described as
“considerable of a jolt.” He had not found it until evening, and had
instantly galloped forth into the dark, not knowing what he might find
at Still Hunt Spring.
“Then McDonough is a thief,” I sighed.
“Oh, he’s a thief all right,” said Scipio, easily.
But it made me very sad. I closed my eyes and could see McDonough as he
stood by my horse, embarrassed, reaching out his hand for that envelope
with my verses on it.
I slept more soundly and longer even than on the preceding night.
Scipio, after his hard ride, slept like me; we did not wake until the
sun was high and warm. After breakfast--it was the last morsel we had
between us--I took a final drink at the gentle and lovely pool where I
had undergone such terrible emotions, and we rode slowly and silently
down the long line of trees toward the exit of the valley. Suddenly the
sorrel jerked his head up, stopped stiff with a snort, and began to
tremble. Ahead of us there, from the branch destined for me, hung a dead
man, McDonough. This they had done while we over-slept by the spring at
the upper end of the valley. They had surprised him coming to his
_cache_.
Scipio and I sat still for a while. A wind in the branches now set the
body slightly swaying; it seemed worse when it moved; it turned halfway
round, and I saw its eyes. “I think--couldn’t we bury it?” I said.
Scipio shook his head. “It’s left there for some of his partners to
see.”
“Well--I think we might close the eyes.”
“That’s no harm,” said Scipio, “if you want.”
“Yes; I do want.”
So we dismounted. Yes; cards were all McDonough knew how to read; no one
had ever taught him anything; this was his first lesson.
“There,” said Scipio, “that does look better.” Then we rode away from
Still Hunt Spring.
VI
EXTRA DRY
Mile-high in space circled a dark speck, a Mexican eagle, alone in the
empty sky. He was looking down upon four hundred square miles of Arizona
sand, called Repose Valley. He saw clots of cactus, thickets of
mesquite, stunt oak bush, and white skeletons of cattle, but not a thing
to eat. He also saw Aaron Tace, the shell-game man, in a Mexican hat. He
saw also a man who, drifting lately to Tucson, had said his name was
Belleville; but somebody in Tucson had pronounced this “Bellyful”; it
was then vain to insist upon any other pronunciation.
Up in the sky sailed the eagle; along the desert road Aaron Tace was
slowly riding; and on the ground lay Bellyful, near where the road
forked to the mines. Aaron was going to Push Root. In that town a
_fiesta_ was being held; horses raced, liquors drunk, ladies courted,
cards dealt, silver and gold lost by many and won by few, all to music.
Bellyful was bound presently for Push Root, too. Now he lay off the
road under some mesquite, thinking, while Aaron approached. Made of
thorns, slender rods, and gauze foliage, Bellyful’s bushes cast little
more shade than mosquito nets, but they cast all the shade there was. He
was resting his starved, weak horse, whose legs must somehow walk the
five more miles to Push Root. He, himself, with scant breakfast inside,
had led the horse to the thin shade. The poor beast stood over him; now
and then Bellyful reached up and stroked its nose. At sunrise the
softened mountains had glowed like jewels, or ripe nectarines, or wine;
cooling shadows had flowed from them upon the valley. Later morning had
changed these peaks to gray, hot teeth, and the sand to a gray, hot
floor. The horse rested, Aaron Tace was half a mile nearer, the eagle
sailed, and Bellyful lay thinking of his luck.
He had known none in fifteen months. Misfortune bulged from the seams of
his shirt and trousers and boots. Of his gold watch, his two pins, his
ring, his sundry small possessions, only his gun remained: he could not
pawn the seat of life. He had been earning and spending easily, when the
first illness that he had ever known put him to bed, and almost in his
grave. Coming back to strength, he found hard times. No one, no
railroad, ranch, restaurant, saloon, stage company--nothing--had
employment for him. He had sought it from San Marcial, over in New
Mexico, westward to Yuma, hundreds of miles. He had parted early with
his real name. On a freight train at Bowie the conductor found him
stealing a ride, and kicked him off, calling him a hobo. The epithet
hurt worse than the kick. In fact, hiding on the brake-beam under
another car (for in spite of the conductor he carried out his plan of
riding free to Willcox) he shed tears, the bitter tears of pride
departing; he _was_ a hobo. By the time he reached Willcox, Belleville
was his name. No tramp should be called what his mother had named him.
Such his life had been; dust, thirst, hunger, repulse--and onward to
more. Existence shook her head at him with a changeless “No.” Latterly,
in Tucson, a pretty woman had shown him kindness which she should not,
since he was not her husband and she had one. She fell in love with the
April bloom of his years and with his hard luck--and this was the single
instance of human interest in him which had touched his life in fifteen
months. It lay light upon his roving conscience, was nothing but joy
and pride to him; but his code forbade continued acceptance of her money
that there seemed no chance to repay. Quitting Tucson, he took from her,
as a final loan, enough to buy a wretched horse, with a trifle over. If
none in Push Root would employ him, the mines were left; if these should
fail, then he would have knocked at the door of every trade in Arizona,
except robbery, which was undoubtedly the territory’s chief industry.
Bellyful slid down a hand to his pocket’s bottom. One by one he fingered
seven coins therein, his whole fortune, in fractional currency--it
summed up to a dollar and four bits. He drew out the coins and
attentively read their dates. These he already knew. He was not thinking
of the coins, but of the Universe, and how successfully it resisted
explanation. A voice stopped him; Aaron Tace was nearly opposite his
clump of mesquite. The shell-game man was talking to himself.
“Remember, gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye.” This he said
over and over, while his hands were ceaselessly moving. Bellyful rose
with astonishment, and stared. Aaron Tace could easily have seen him,
but was too busy. He was making quick turns and passes, and talking the
while.
“Remember, gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye.” Nothing but
that, while his hands paused, shuffled, and paused again.
“Remember, gentlemen--” It was like a player polishing his lines. Aaron
rehearsed all the tones that express complete candor and friendly
warning, with a touch of “dare you to try it!” thrown in. The reins hung
on the horse’s neck. Fitted to the saddle-horn (a very neat piece of
work) was a smooth, wooden tray, and upon this three walnut shells in a
line. These Aaron Tace would shift from right to left and back, or half
back, exchanging their positions, sliding them among each other, lifting
them up and setting them down--a pretty thing to see. Only one slip he
made, due to a stumble of his horse. The little pebble, or pea, which
the shifted shells concealed by turns to allure the bets of onlookers,
rolled to the ground. Aaron sprang off limberly, found it, and was on
again, busily rehearsing while his horse walked onward. He had now
passed by, and a rock hid him from view; but for a long time still
Bellyful could hear the rising and falling cadence of his “Remember,
gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye,” even after the syllables
ceased to be distinguishable. Thus Aaron proceeded toward the Push Root
_fiesta_, happy and busy, until his distant cadences died away.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Bellyful.
For perhaps an hour he lay, looking upward through the filmy mesquite,
himself a piece of the vast silence. But this new light on the shell
game helped little to render the Universe more susceptible of
explanation. By and by he took his slow way along the road, and nothing
living was left at the Forks. Far in the huge, blue, hot sky the eagle
sailed, hunting his prey.
* * * * *
Bellyful found the town of Push Root full of good nature. Indeed, there
was more good nature than town; it spilled over the edges in strains of
music, strains of language, and gentlemen overcome in the brush. But it
was beyond the livery stable’s good nature to trust any such looking
owner of any such looking horse; Bellyful paid in advance. He inquired
for employment at the stage office, the hardware store, the other store,
the Palace Hotel, the other hotel, the Can-Can Restaurant, the Fashion
Saloon, the four other saloons, and the three private houses. These
were locked because their owners were out, practising good nature. That
finished it; there was no employment here. The horse could never make
the mines without two meals and a night’s rest--paid for already. No
duty now hindered Bellyful from being good-natured himself. He still had
three coins of slight importance to do it with, and his absent-minded
fingers rubbed them over in his pocket.
Push Root teemed with strangers from ranch and mine, wandering joyously
between drinks in search of new games. Through the many sounds Aaron’s
voice held its own, and, reaching Bellyful, waked his brooding mind,
which had long forgotten Aaron. Some games he knew about, but this one
had hitherto not been closely studied by him. Was the eye always slower
than the hand? Practice makes perfect, but--? With this dawn of
scientific doubt Bellyful stood looking at the cluster of patrons which
screened Aaron where he shuffled his three walnut shells and chanted his
“Remember, gentlemen.” A disordered-looking patron now emerged from the
group, perceived Bellyful, lurched toward him, leaned against him
confidingly, and remarked with tears:--
“Say, are you married? I am. Some people are fools all the time. I am.
All people are fools some of the time. I am. And when I get home I’ll
get hell.” He untied an old horse and rode desolately out of town.
Through the air, like a call, came Aaron’s jaunty voice. Bellyful joined
the patrons at once. Aaron shot over him a travelled, measuring eye, of
which the not untravelled Bellyful took prompt note. He stood in the
front row, staring with as simple an expression as he could command,
slowly fumbling the poor little coins in his pocket. Soon the man next
him won three dollars on a dime. Bellyful came near whistling, but
repressed it in order to maintain his simple expression. Thirty to one!
This game paid thirty to one! And the dawn of scientific doubt grew
lighter.
“Try yourn.” This suggestion somebody made to a youth of prosperous
appearance, with an English neatness, and a cap and waistcoat of the
horse-stable variety.
“Thanks, no, ye know. Seen it with thimbles at home, ye know.”
None present was aware that this accent had been heard in no part of the
British Isles at any time. Yet, after a look at him, Bellyful’s
scientific doubt dawned a trifle clearer.
“Win three dollars?” cried an astonished freighter.
“Remember, gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye,” said Aaron,
instantly.
He shuffled his shells. The freighter’s hairy fist made a “jeans dive.”
This well-known reach for money in the “pants” is composed of two
gestures: the hand shoots down into the pocket, while the head tilts
skyward. It is common where hay grows, and often foretells that the
owner and his money will soon be parted. Bellyful now forgot all about
his empty stomach. The freighter touched a shell, put down five cents,
and won a dollar and a half.
“Megod!” exclaimed British Isles. He risked a quarter, and lost.
“Aw, now!” he lamented. “Good-by, all.”
They rallied him, chaffed him, told him to come back and be a man; so,
not to shame old England in a foreign country (as he explained), he
doubled his quarter, and lost again.
“Remember, gentlemen,” chanted Aaron, “the hand is quicker than the
eye.”
He shuffled the shells straight at the freighter, as if he were making
love to him. The freighter’s eyes bulged; he dredged from his pocket a
sort of bun of bills, greasy old rags pressed to a lump, gazed at them,
touched them, smoothed them, and at last, amid general laughter, shoved
them lingeringly back into his jeans. But his eyes seemed unrestful, and
he mopped his brow.
“She’s there!” bet British Isles, touching a shell.
“Take you,” said Aaron.
British Isles put a dollar down. The pea was under the shell. Everybody
saw the thirty dollars paid to British Isles. Aaron shuffled his shells
anew.
“She’s there!” thundered the freighter. His hand shot down, his head
tilted up, and out came the bun again. A neighbor moved a gentle elbow
against the freighter’s ribs, and silently indicated another shell. In
his excitement Bellyful now nearly forgot to keep looking innocent. The
dawn of scientific doubt showed signs of sunrise; if this freighter
should _lose_, all would be known to Bellyful but one last detail. If
the freighter should _win_--why, then, a splendid theory went up in
smoke.
The neighbor pushed a little harder with his
[Illustration: He shuffled the shells straight at the freighter as if he
were making love to him]
elbow. This time the freighter felt it. He backed away from the neighbor
with glaring indignation.
“Ho, no, young man!” he exclaimed loudly. “Keep your tips for greenhorns
that ain’t on to this game.” He flayed twenty dollars off his bun.
“She’s under there,” he declared, tapping his own shell again.
“Take you,” said Aaron. He lifted the shell. No pea was there!
“Aw!” commented British Isles sympathetically. “Come again, sir. You’ll
be apt to swat him next time.”
But the unhappy freighter stood still in an ox-like bewilderment,
turning large, rueful eyes now upon the shuffling shells and now upon
the neighbor, whose lip curled with a cold, wise smile.
Scientific doubt was rosy everywhere; full knowledge might break at any
minute. Bellyful knew now that the freighter was too innocent to be
true, that he was in it with Aaron, in it with British Isles, that the
three of them had a united eye upon some fat quarry, and were playing a
game to bag him. Who was it? Bellyful looked at every man.
“Are you on yet?” whispered the neighbor, edging up. While the bets and
shuffling went on, he whispered wisdom behind his hand to Bellyful.
Aaron won steadily in a small way till a lull in business came; this he
cured by losing sixty well-timed dollars to British Isles. Small
business picked up at once. Some people are fools all the time, all
people are fools some of the time--but when was the fat quarry coming?
Every little while the neighbor dropped more expert wisdom into
Bellyful’s ear. “A bad thing,” he whispered, “ever to take your eye off
the shells. While that hayseed freighter was looking at the sky, just
now, the shells had been changed round. Hard to prove it, too, even if
you thought you saw it. Best way of all was, keep your hand on the shell
you bet on. Don’t let him move it and talk, for even if the pea was
under it he could get it away. He’d never let you win if he didn’t want
you to. Keep your hand on your shell.”
“H’m,” answered Bellyful.
“Here’s the real trick,” continued the expert neighbor. “He shuffles
till he sees by your eye you’ve spotted a shell. Maybe he leads you on
to spot a shell by playing awkward. And he claps down the shell.”
“H’m,” responded Bellyful again.
“No. I hadn’t finished,” explained the expert. “Of course the pea is not
under that shell. Where is it? Nestling in his little right finger. Some
of ’em is both-handed and can work two peas. So, when you bet, no pea is
under any shell. You’re bound to lose, see? And see how he holds his
shells with them two end fingers crooked in and how he stoops over ’em
close to the edge of the table now and then.”
“H’m,” unchangeably remarked Bellyful.
“Yes, but you ain’t watching,” complained the expert. “When he scrapes a
shell close to the edge, that’s when the pea’s liable to tumble into his
little finger. I’m going after him in a minute.”
A flash came into Bellyful’s eye. He turned his head for one look at the
expert. It satisfied him.
“I guess you’re catching on now,” said the expert. “There! The pea’s in
his finger. Watch me.”
Bellyful watched.
The expert had gold pieces, plenty of them, all sizes. He put down five
dollars. “I’ll pick up,” he said, “the two shells the pea’s not under.”
“Take you,” said Aaron.
The expert quickly picked up two shells. But the pea was under one of
them.
“You win,” said Aaron instantly, and instantly caught up all three
shells and shuffled them. One hundred and fifty dollars to the expert,
though he had really lost! “See what that means?” he whispered to
Bellyful. “He paid me not to expose him.”
“H’m,” replied Bellyful.
“Watch me again,” urged the expert.
Indeed, Bellyful did. Scientific doubt was over; the full sun had risen.
Once more the shuffled shells came to rest, enticing bets, when violent
voices arose off to the left. Aaron quite--oh, quite!--forgot, and
looked away to see what the noise was. The freighter quickly lifted a
shell. The pea was there. He clapped the shell down.
“Put your hand on that, young man,” he commanded. “She’s there,” he
shouted to Aaron, whose eye had now come back. The disturbance had been
some brief trouble between British Isles and a man near him; it was
quieted. The freighter bet the rest of his money--that large bun. The
expert, with his hand on the shell, bet all his gold--it made several
stacks.
“Take you,” said Aaron.
The pea wasn’t beneath the shell!
“Too bad, gentlemen,” said Aaron, gathering promptly all the money and
the shells, and shoving everything into his pockets. “Well, I told you
the hand was quicker than the eye. Good-by! Better luck next time!” He
nodded kindly, and was gone.
The game was done, the patrons dispersed. British Isles and the
freighter no longer to be seen, everybody melted away among the wagons,
the horses, the people, the sounds, the shows, the music of the general
_fiesta_. On the deserted spot stood the expert and Bellyful, looking at
each other.
“What are you trembling about?” demanded the expert, sharply.
“I don’t know,” said Bellyful. He didn’t know.
“Five hundred and thirty-five dollars,” muttered the expert, hoarsely.
“That freighter got the pea out when he scraped that shell down.”
“They were, all three, laying for you from the start,” said Bellyful. He
couldn’t stop trembling. Perhaps it was want of food.
“Five hundred and thirty-five dollars,” wailed the expert.
After that, he, too, melted away.
* * * * *
Five miles out of Push Root, where the road forks to the mines, nothing
had changed, except the name of the day. Repose Valley had not aged in
twenty-four hours; it may be doubted if Repose Valley could have looked
older in twenty-four million hours. Its sand was hot and gray, its
mountains were hot and gray, its sunlight glared like a curse. No
breeze, no water, no shade; gauze mesquite, stiff cactus, white cattle
bones--four hundred square miles of this, quite as usual. It might just
as well have been yesterday, but for its name. All the days of the week
here might have sat for each other’s photographs. Only the Creator could
have told them apart. Up in the blue air sailed the eagle. Evidently he
must find meals in Repose Valley, else he wouldn’t be here, sailing and
watching. He saw the same horse and the same Bellyful resting beneath
the same mesquite. He saw also, away off, the same Aaron riding slowly
along the road toward the Forks--only, this morning, Aaron was coming
from Push Root instead of going to it. This proved it wasn’t yesterday.
Aaron had out his practice-table, and his hands were industrious.
Again Bellyful lay thinking. His horse was better for the hay and corn
and eighteen hours of rest; but the mines were further than Push Root,
and he must get there, there was nowhere else left to get--except _out_!
As he lay under the mesquite, Bellyful made one gesture--he shook his
fist at the sky. They might put him out, but he wouldn’t get out.
It might be said that the only difference between the Bellyful of
yesterday and him of to-day was the difference of one dollar and four
bits. He had nothing now in his pocket; those last coins had paid for
what food they could buy him. But there was another difference. It had
been wrought during the night hours, wrought while he lay in the stable,
unable to sleep, possibly wrought also, even in the sleep he at length
fell into just before daylight; for, while he slept, his heart went on
beating, of course, and what was his soul doing?
After his single gesture he lay under the mesquite motionless, gazing up
through the filmy branches, quiet as a stone, deep sunk in the heart of
Repose Valley silence. Stretched so, still beneath the same mesquite, he
looked as if he had been there since yesterday, as if in all the
to-morrows he might be there, keeping the cattle bones company. But the
whole boy--every inch of flesh and spirit--was alive, very much alive,
not at all in a moderate, everyday fashion; in fact, Bellyful was a
powder magazine, needing nothing but a match. Existence had shaken her
head at him once too often.
He didn’t suspect his own state until the match was applied. Aaron’s
approaching voice reached him. Even the eagle, a mile up in the air,
stopped hunting to witness the sudden proceedings. Bellyful leaped to
his feet, looked at the rock which blocked him and his horse from
Aaron’s view, moved the passive beast a few paces back, looked at the
rock again, was satisfied, ran like wild game behind the rock, and
waited. His pistol was always in excellent order, a clean-polished,
incongruous gleam to flash forth from such a rusty scarecrow.
The talking Aaron came along, happy and busy. His head bent over his
shuffled shells; the rise and fall of his cadences grew clearer, the
sounds began to take to themselves syllables; first “hand” and “eye”
came out distinct, then the links between filled in, and the whole
sentence rang perfect through the unstirred air.
“Remember, gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye.”
Such rehearsals as this must have helped many a monotonous journey to
pass pleasantly for Aaron--not to speak of placing him in the foremost
ranks of Art.
“Remember, gentlemen, the hand is quicker than the eye.”
“Not this morning.”
The shells smashed in Aaron’s horrified grasp. The little pea rolled to
the ground.
“Going to the mines?” pursued Bellyful. All his words were sweet and
dreadful.
Then Aaron saw behind the pistol who it was.
“That kid a road-agent!” he thought. “Why didn’t I spot him yesterday?”
And he blamed his own blindness, miserably and quite unjustly, because
how could he know that Bellyful had only become a road-agent in the last
ten minutes?
“Strip,” said Bellyful.
Aaron was slow about it.
A flash, a smoke, and a hole through Aaron’s Mexican hat cleared every
doubt.
“You’re mature, I see,” remarked Aaron, and offered his unbuckled
pistol.
“The other one now,” commanded Bellyful. This was a guess, but a
correct one. “Leave ’em both drop down.”
Both dropped down.
“Go on strippin’.”
The money followed, a good deal of it, and Aaron made a gesture of
emptiness.
“That all?”
“Yes, indeed, young man.”
“Then I want the rest of it.”
“You’ve got the rest. You’ve got the whole. The game ain’t what it used
to be, and I have partners; they--”
“I’ll partner you. Get down. Get down quick.”
Evidently a compromise was the very most a poor shell-game man in this
hapless crisis could hope for. Aaron got down and addressed the
road-agent.