Wild Man Hanson Goes Wild
Jim Langford was waiting for Phil at Mrs. Clunie's.
"Where the Sam Hill have you been, Phil? I've been looking for you
everywhere. Got a job yet?"
"No,--not even the scent of one!"
"Want one?"
"You bet!"
"Hard work and start to-morrow?"
"Sure thing! Where is it? what is it? who is it? Tell me quick! I'm
aching to work for real money, for more reasons than one."
"Royce Pederstone, the blacksmith, is quitting being an active
blacksmith any more. He is putting Wildman Hanson in charge, and
Hanson's job is going a-begging."
"Wildman Hanson! That sounds good for a start, Jim."
"And it's as good as it sounds, too, young fellow, my lad. I'm not
going to tell you anything about his 'wildman' tricks. You'll find
that out for yourself in good time. But he's a crackerjack blacksmith
and can show you all of the trade that is worth showing."
"I haven't the strength to be a smith."
"Not now;--but you have the frame and you've got to build on it.
"The job's worth twenty dollars a week to start, and it's yours for
the taking. I did the asking from Hanson this morning. Are you on?"
"Of course I'm on."
"All right!--six o'clock to-morrow morning at Pederstone's shop, one
block down the hill and two blocks to the left."
Langford chuckled.
"What are you grinning at?" asked Phil.
"Oh,--just thinking what you'll be able to do with that rusty-headed,
son-of-a-gun McGregor after a month or two under Hanson."
"Thanks! I've had some McGregor, and I'm not greedy. I'm not at all
anxious for more."
"What? See here, Phil,--you've got to beat that lobster stiff if it
takes you a year. It took me all I knew to turn the trick, and I had
to keep off drink for six months to do it, but there was something
inside of me that just wouldn't stay quiet till I licked the stuffing
out of him. He's a bully. He's the craftiest, sneakiest, most
underhand skunk in the Valley. He's at the bottom of most of the
trouble with cattle and feed hereabout, but he's too damned wary to be
caught.
"I'm surprised at the Mayor having anything to do with him. But, of
course, the Mayor's a cattleman himself, and, give Rob Roy McGregor
his due, there isn't a better man on stock this side of Calgary."
"And I've to go blacksmithing with the set purpose of eating this
fellow up?"
"No, you're going blacksmithing for the purpose of setting yourself
up, you rickle of bones! Licking McGregor can be your side line. When
you beat him, you'll know you are in pretty good shape."
"All right,--I'm on!" agreed Phil. "But who is this Royce Pederstone?
Why is he giving up his work?"
"Who? why? and wherefore? At times you're a regular bairn for asking
questions, but when you're wanted to talk you're as silent as the
tomb.
"Royce Pederstone has been here since the flood. He's a good
blacksmith, only he never finishes a job. If he is making a gate, he
stops at the last rivet and Hanson has to drive it home. If he is
shoeing a horse, he forgets a nail. If he is making a fish hook, he
omits the barb. It is the same with his land deals; he buys land and,
for the time being, forgets he owns it so far as selling again is
concerned. Then he buys some more whenever he has the ready cash. It
is all working for him,--so he says. He owns more earth than he has
any idea of. He doesn't know how much stock he has; doesn't even knows
what happens to his farm implements once he pays for them; in some
cases doesn't know if they have been delivered to him. Often he finds
some of them when the snow goes away in the spring time. There are
many things he doesn't know; all the same it isn't safe to take too
many chances on what he passes up."
"Then he has got too rich for blacksmithing?"
"Not he! Royce Pederstone is not that kind of a man, Phil. He is just
too busy. He is going to be the next member of parliament from the
Valley. Watch and see!
"The new election comes off in three months' time. Last week the
Association met to elect their representative. Some were for
Barrington of Armstrong, others for Brenchfield the Mayor. They
couldn't agree. Royce Pederstone was chairman of the meeting. At
midnight they were as far off a decision as ever. Someone proposed
John Royce Pederstone, and it carried without a dissenting voice.
"He's a cracking good man, is Pederstone, on the platform. He is
straight, honest and more or less of a farmer. Ben Todd, the editor,
is hand and glove with him, so he will have _The Vernock and District
Advertiser_ at his back.
"The old government is sure to be kicked out of office, if only to
give the people a change; so, who is going to keep Royce Pederstone
from being the Valley's representative at Victoria, I should like to
know?"
"And that's why he's stepping out of the blacksmith's shop?" put in
Phil.
"Yes!--that's the why, boy."
Next morning at six o'clock Phil, in the company of Jim Langford,
presented himself at Pederstone's forge.
"Hullo!" cried Jim, "that's funny. Not open yet!"
The front door was heavily barred across. They went to the back
entrance. It also was firmly secured.
Langford shielded his face with his hand and peered through the
narrow, barred windows.
"Well, I'll be darned!" he exclaimed. "And on your first morning, too!
Hard luck, Phil!"
"Why,--what is it?"
"Oh, nothing much! Only I fancy you're going to see why your new boss
is called Wildman Hanson.
"Look in there."
Phil did so.
"What did you see?"
Phil puckered his face in disgust.
"Not much wildman there," he remarked. "As far as I can see Hanson is
sound asleep on a pile of coke. There are two empty bottles at his
side. Seems to me he might be dead drunk."
"That's what he is, too."
"Then let's go in and throw a bucket of water over him and wake him
up."
"Not on your life! Then there _would_ be a funeral. I guess you had
better postpone your start till to-morrow. Only one man in Vernock can
handle Hanson after he's had a night of it, and that man's the Mayor.
Man to man, Hanson has him shaded. With a rope in his hand, the Mayor
is the best man."
Voices behind them made them turn round.
Royce Pederstone and Mayor Brenchfield were riding down the side road
as if on some definite bent. They were equipped as for a round-up.
"How do, Jim! Is this Hanson's new apprentice?" asked Pederstone,
bending over his horse and shaking hands genially with Phil.
"Glad to meet you, young man, and sorry this has happened on your
first day. Hanson only goes on the toot once in a long while. You must
just forget what you are going to see in a few minutes and think later
only of what he shows you of blacksmithing."
Brenchfield completely ignored Phil's presence.
The two men got off their horses.
Royce Pederstone turned the water on at the tap at the trough, to
which a hose was already attached. He directed the nozzle through a
broken window pane, squirting a thin, strong stream directly on the
upturned face of the open-mouthed and heavily-breathing Swede.
With a grunt the huge fellow spread himself.
The Mayor jerked off the water, then he and Royce Pederstone sprang on
their horses and took up positions at different sides of the yard.
Jim and Phil in curiosity kept their eyes glued to the dirty window.
Growling fiercely, Hanson scrambled to his feet. His usually handsome
and childlike face was contorted with rage and horrible to see. His
eyes, bloodshot and bleared, stood out wildly in his head, his teeth
showed like the teeth of a snarling puma and a foamy lather slithered
from his mouth down on to his huge, hairy, muscle-heaving chest. He
stood over six feet--a man of gigantic proportions, with every inch
of him tuned and in perfect symmetry.
But he seemed madness incarnate.
With a fierce oath, he wiped the water from his face. He staggered and
bumped into an anvil, striking his knee against the metal. He swore
again and, in his mounting anger, he seized the anvil in his great
hands, lifted it bodily from its stand and heaved it into a corner--a
feat which four strong men, at any time, would have experienced
difficulty in performing.
"Great Caesar!" whispered Phil in awe.
"After a booze, he's as strong as a railway engine," returned Jim,
"and he goes plumb daffy. Murder or anything else doesn't matter a
hill of beans to him at a time like this."
"That sounds exceedingly pleasant."
"Pshaw!--you needn't mind. You'll know in lots of time, for he's happy
and gentle as a lark when he's really boozing. It is only when he
wakes up the morning after--after a ten hours' sleep--that the fun
begins.
"He killed a horse once with his bare hands. Got on its back and
strangled it somehow. He half-killed the old Police Chief. He got a
year in jail for that. They were going to send him to an asylum
afterwards, but he was such a fine workman and so decent at an
ordinary time, that Royce Pederstone and the Mayor gave their
guarantees and promised to attend to him any time he tried his
monkey-doodle business again."
Meantime, Hanson walked over to the front door and tested it. Then he
came toward the back one.
"Run!" shouted Langford, suiting prompt action to his word.
Phil remained a moment or two longer, trusting to his nimbleness of
foot for emergency.
He saw Hanson stoop and pick up a great, heavy, sledge, then spring
madly to the back door, swinging the big hammer above his head. With a
shivering crash the woodwork splintered.
Phil turned to run.
Another great crash and the whole door and its fastenings tumbled
outward, and that giant piece of infuriated humanity stood looking
about him, framed in the broken woodwork.
Phil heard a warning shout, as he rushed headlong.
But his toe caught on an iron girder and he came down heavily on his
face. As he sprang to his feet again he heard further shouting all
about him. He turned his head. Hanson was springing toward him and
making on him with a speed Phil could not realise in a man so weighty;
a speed he could not begin to emulate.
The great hairy hands were almost on his coat, when something
happened.
He staggered, balanced himself and stood up sheepishly.
Hanson was on the ground, struggling, cursing and kicking viciously at
a rope which Royce Pederstone had cast smartly round his left foot.
Pederstone tugged with all his strength, and his horse lent her
weight, but together they could do no more than hold their own with
the fallen Vulcan. Hanson brought out a clasp-knife from his clothes,
opened it and slashed at the rope. He had it almost cut through, when
Brenchfield, who had been sitting on his horse an inactive and silent
spectator--in response to Pederstone's urgent call, whirled his rope
around his head several times and dropped it deftly over Hanson's
shoulders, pinning his arms helplessly to his side.
Brenchfield then tugged in one direction and Royce Pederstone in the
other, each tying the end of his rope tightly to a stake at his side
of the yard, with the result that the madman was half hamstrung and
reduced to impotence.
Langford came round the side of the building with fresh ropes. These
were quickly bound round Hanson, until he was unable to move hand or
foot, although he still struggled violently, the veins in his neck and
head standing out in blue knots, the perspiration running over his
shapely forehead and the frothy slither again oozing from his lips.
"Say, Graham!--what went wrong? Why didn't you rope him? Thought you
said you would take first throw."
"Did I?" asked Brenchfield calmly.
"Sure you did! It might have been a serious accident. It isn't often
you make a forget like that, old man."
"Oh, pshaw!--what's the odds anyway? Everything was all right."
"Was--yes! But it might have been all day with the new man."
"No chance! I had that cinched. Anyway, he had no right dawdling at
the window as long as he did."
"Here, you two scrapping schoolboys--forget it!" interposed Langford.
"I fancy Phil knows how to look after himself without either of you."
On the instructions of Pederstone, the four men carried the trussed
Hanson into a nearby stable, where they made him fast with fresh ropes
to some heavy stanchions.
When all was secure, Hanson was left to regain his normal, Pederstone
turning the key in the lock for further security.
"Guess that's all this time, Ped," said Brenchfield.
"All through--thanks, Graham!" returned Pederstone, and Brenchfield
rode off in deep thought. As a blacksmith, the Mayor felt that Phil
was easy and safe for him, although he did not like the intimacy that
seemed to have sprung up so soon between Phil and Jim Langford, for
Langford was a strange composite, capable of anything or nothing;
clever; altogether an unknown quantity, but one well worth the
watching closely.
"Do you want Phil to-day now this has happened?" asked Jim of Royce
Pederstone.
"Sure thing!--if he hasn't changed his mind about working?"
"Not me!" answered Phil.
"All right!" said Jim. "Me for the Court House. I'm only a couple of
hours late now. See you later, Phil!"
Royce Pederstone went into the forge, doffed his coat, rolled up his
sleeves and put on his leather apron.
Phil followed suit with an apron of Hanson's, and soon the doors were
wide open, the fires blowing and the anvil ringing, drowning the
groans and shouts that came from Hanson as he lay like a trussed fowl
in the adjoining stable.
"I'm sorry this has taken place on the first day of your apprenticeship,
young man, but it has been pending for some time. After this is over,
you won't be afraid to be left with Hanson, I hope. He'll be all
right in a few hours, and very much ashamed of himself you will find
him."
"I'm not afraid," said Phil. "I am just beginning to discover that
fear is the greatest devil we have to contend with and that the less
we worry about it the less real and the more a mere bogey it
becomes."
"True for you, Phil. And the older you grow the more you'll realise
the wisdom of what you say.
"Well, it is just a year since Hanson had his last drinking bout. I
was beginning to think he had got completely over it. He is not likely
to break out again for ever so long."
"What is it exactly that gets him?" asked Phil.
"Oh,--likes drink once in a while, but drink doesn't like him;--that's
all. It goes to his brain somehow. Do you think you could manage him
if he took you unawares?"
"I could try," answered Phil.
"That's the way to talk. And you've got the frame to work on, too. Can
you throw a rope?"
"I used to when I was a kid. I guess, with a little practice, I still
could do it pretty well."
"Well,--practise in your spare time. It is handy to be able to throw a
rope in this Valley. And it doesn't cost anything carrying the ability
about with you. Can you use your fists?"
"Yes!--tolerably well."
"Good for you! Now all you need is to be able to use your head and
everything will be O. K."
All that day, Royce Pederstone worked like the real village blacksmith
he was; shoeing horses, repairing farm implements, bolting, riveting
and welding; showing Phil all he could in the short time he had with
him, telling him--because it was uppermost in his mind--just a little
of his electioneering plans and what he intended doing for the
Okanagan Valley in the way of irrigation, railroads and public
buildings; instilling in his apprentice an enthusiasm for his new work
and making for himself at the same time another friend and political
booster; for Phil was quick to appreciate the kindliness of this
sturdy, pioneering type of man and he felt drawn to him by that
strange, attractive sub-conscious essence which flows from all who are
born to lead, an hypnotic current which is one of the first essentials
of all men who can ever hope successfully to carry out any good or big
undertaking for, or with, their fellow men; the ability with the
triple qualities--to interest, to attract, to hold,--making one feel
that it is good to be within the dominant influence, if only for a
time.
And all day long, in the barn at the rear of the smithy, Wildman
Hanson kept up his groaning, and moaning, and cursing; shouting at the
top of his voice that he was being murdered, and threatening a
separate strangling to half a dozen men whom he called by name,
talking to them as if they were by his side.
Towards closing time, a brilliant burst of evening sunshine flooded
the smithy, and with it came one whose radiating charm made the sun
for a moment slide back to second place.
"Hullo, dad!" she cried. "I thought you weren't going to work here any
more?"
"Hullo, Eilie! I thought so, too, but----Oh, Eileen, this is Phil."
Eileen Pederstone looked in admonishing surprise at her father.
"I beg pardon! Mr. Ralston, our new man,--my daughter, Miss Eileen!"
The young lady bowed sedately to Phil, who was standing a mere dark
silhouette against the glare of the furnace fire. But Eileen was in
the full glow of the flames and, as Phil looked into her face, he
gasped for breath and his heart commenced to thump under his open
shirt.
It was the face of the good samaritan, the good fairy that had of late
so often been pictured in his mind in the day-time, the face that
smiled to him at night through his dreams.
In a flash, he saw himself again; bearded, unkempt, ragged, faint and
hunted, groping for support against the wall of the little kitchen in
the bungalow up on the hill; the sweet vision of the fearless maid
whose heart had opened in practical sympathy to his broken appeal for
succour, her ready response and----
But he pushed his crowding thoughts away, for he was standing before
her--pale, mute and almost foolish.
He bowed, not daring to raise his eyes to hers lest she should
recognise him. But he need not have feared on that score, for to her
he was merely the clean-cut outline of a shadow;--but even had it not
been so, the difference between the young, beardless man before her
and the haggard, broken convict whom she had befriended that night was
greater by far than Phil even could have imagined.
Fortunately for his peace of mind, a sudden cry from the stable burst
in on the momentary quietness.
Eileen turned her head quickly, then she ran over to her father
anxiously and held his arms.
"Dad,--what is that?"
"Hush, dearie!--it's Hanson."
"But--but where is he?" she asked.
"In the barn, tied up good and tight,--quite safe."
"But it isn't right, daddy, to tie a man up like that. He's not a
beast, and he's a kind-hearted decent fellow when he is well."
"When he is well, Eilie,--yes! But he isn't well. Better for him that
we tie him up for a day every once in a while, than confine him in a
lunatic asylum for the term of his natural life. That is what would
have to be otherwise."
"Don't you think he might be better now, daddie?" she pleaded.
"Yes!--I guess he is getting pretty nearly wised up now. He has
stopped his swearing and yelling. That's a good sign. That last cry of
his was the first for half an hour. You run along home, girlie, and
Phil and I will go in and see how he is."
"You won't keep him tied up there all night, dad?"
"Not unless I can't help it, Eilie."
She pouted and stamped her foot impatiently.
"I just won't go home till you tell me for sure. I couldn't sleep if
I thought a man was roped up all night like he is now."
Her father smiled indulgently.
"Foolish little woman! You sleep other nights, yet every minute of the
days and nights you live there are men all over the world who, both
literally and metaphorically, are chained, and roped, and lashed, and
dungeoned; men whose lives are a racking agony, to whom day and night
are alike--all night--men who have no prospect of relief to-morrow,
whose only release is death, and the release they long and pray for
seems never to come. And many of them are men who have done no wrong,
unless it be wrong to offend a potentate, to have an opinion of your
own, to have the courage to express it; to object to laws and customs
which should have been scrapped a thousand years ago.
"Hanson there knows his weakness. He has asked and begged us, in his
sober moments, to be sure to do this very thing to him as a personal
kindness. To-morrow his heart will be flooding with gratitude to know
that he has got through with it without doing anyone any harm."
"Yes, daddie, yes! But won't you go to see if he cannot be released
to-night?" she pleaded.
"Sure, girlie, if it will please you. Wait here!"
The sturdy smith took down the key from a nail in the wall and went
out.
Eileen switched her attention to Phil.
"Have you been long in the Valley, Mr. Ralston?"
Phil was afraid of his voice, so he answered in a deeper intonation
than was his usual.
"Just a few days, miss."
"And you're a blacksmith?"
"Not yet, Miss Pederstone!" Phil grinned to himself and felt slightly
more confident. "I hope to be, some day."
Eileen seemed surprised.
"Haven't you been blacksmithing before? Why, my father started to
learn his trade when he was fourteen years old."
"Do I seem so terribly old then?" asked Phil.
"Oh, no!--not that exactly, but old to be starting in to learn a
trade. Sol Hanson isn't so very much older than you can be, but he has
been a journeyman smith ever since I have known him." She stopped.
"Oh, I don't know----You mustn't mind what I say, Mr. Ralston. I guess
I am a bit of a silly. I let my foolish tongue run away with me at
times. I just say what I feel; just what comes to my mind."
"If everyone did that," remarked Phil, "we should have less dissension
in the world."
"And we would make lots of enemies," she put in.
"We might offend those we think are our friends, and we might alarm
each other by mirroring our tremendous deficiencies, but, in the
finish, it would make for sincerity and truthfulness--two qualities of
nature sadly in the background nowadays. Don't you agree with me?"
"Of course you are right!" said Eileen, "but you talk so earnestly one
would almost imagine that you had suffered at some time through the
insincerity and untruthfulness of one you had trusted."
This was getting too near home for Phil.
"None of us have to live very long to do that. I have often thought,
though, that if, when we looked into the mirror, we could see our
natures as well as our reflected features, our conceit would suffer a
severe shock."
"A woman, maybe!" said Eileen, "but nothing can ever cure mortal man
of his conceit."
"You think a man more conceited than a woman?"
"Assuredly!"
Phil laughed, and the laugh rang in his own natural tone.
Eileen Pederstone stopped. Her brows wrinkled as if some little chord
of memory had suddenly been struck.
Phil also dropped back into an awkward silence.
A noise outside roused both of them, and Royce Pederstone crossed the
yard, followed by Hanson. The latter refused to come inside when he
knew Miss Pederstone was there.
"Better run home, Eilie,--out the front way!"
"Is he all right, daddy?"
"Yes,--back to normal."
"Oh, I'm so glad. You won't be long?"
"Fifteen minutes!"
"Good night, Mr. Ralston!" she said, scrutinizing him in slight
perplexity.
"Good night!" returned Phil, still keeping to the shadows.