Wayward Langford's Grand Highland Fling
Jim Langford did not make an appearance until breakfast time that
morning, and then there was dirt on his clothes, fire in his eyes and
venom on his tongue.
"What do you know?" asked Phil as soon as they were alone.
"Know? What did I tell you, man? Darn them for the four-flushing
hypocrites that they are. An hour ago Palmer came trotting back quite
calmly with his crew.
"'The bunch got away on us, across the Line,' he whimpered.
"A put-up game from start to finish! Oh, don't let me talk about it,
Phil. It makes me positively crazy. For ten cents I'd go and shoot up
the town."
Phil tried to get Jim to sit down and eat, but it was useless, for Jim
kept walking Mrs. Clunie's dining-room like something in a cage.
Knowing the danger of the mood, Phil kept a wise silence and, much as
he disliked it, he had to leave his angry chum and get along to his
work.
At the smithy, things were little better. Sol Hanson had, in a
roundabout way, gathered that Smiler had been abused, and, in some
inexplicable manner, had arrived at the truth, that Brenchfield was
responsible for it. Sol was vowing vengeance in no uncertain tones.
"What you know about it, Phil?"
"Guess he's just been in a scrap with some other kids," answered Phil
in an off-hand way.
"Scrap nothing! You just about as dumb as Smiler. All the same, some
day I kill that big blow-hard Brenchfield. Maybe he Mayor; maybe he
got all kinds of money. Dirty son-of-a-gun, that's all! I know
him,--see! Next time he tie Sol Hanson up, by gar!--I finish him. He
what you call,--all cackle, no egg."
Phil laughed.
"All right!--you laugh away. Some day I get drunk--good and
drunk--just for fun to break his big fat neck. You watch me,--see!"
"Forget it, Sol! You can't afford to do that kind of thing now. You're
a married man, you know."
"Sure I am," he answered proudly. "And my Betty, she says, 'Go to
it!' Anybody hurt Smiler, hurt Betty,--see! Anybody hurt my
Betty,--well,--by gar!--he only hurt her one time,--that's all."
Truly Phil had his hands full, and when he got back home he met with
further disquieting news, Jim Langford, with his horse, and a cheque
he had just received that day in payment for some of his dime novels,
was off on the rampage.
For the three days following, Phil tried hard, but could find no trace
of his chum.
On the fourth day news reached him that Jim was out on the race-track,
a mile from town, racing a band of Indians for their horses. He
hurried over, and got there just in time to see the last horse added
to the lot, tethered to a fence, that Jim had already won. The moment
Jim set eyes on Phil, he put spurs to his mare, vaulted the fence
right on to the highway, and set off full tear for Vernock, leaving
his live winnings behind him without a thought.
This foolish act was characteristic of Jim, and it suited the Indians
splendidly. The losers at once started out to claim their horses. But
Phil got there first, strung the animals together, pushed his way
boldly through the protesting crowd and trotted nine horses back with
him to town. He stabled the lot in Mrs. Clunie's spacious barn, then
set out on foot to search for Jim once more.
He did not have far to go, for on passing through the Recreation Park
he came on a scene that he positively refused to disturb. Instead, he
dropped on his hands and knees, and stalked stealthily behind the
trees and among the bushes until he could both see and hear all that
was going on.
Jim's horse, with its reins trailing, was cropping grass close by.
Jim was seated on the grassy bank near the creek, where the clear
water wimpled and gurgled over the white, rounded stones. Around Jim,
in easy attitudes but with eyes wide and gaping mouths, squatted some
twenty-five or thirty boys of varying ages and of varying colours and
nationalities, but all of a kin when it came to appreciation of the
universal language--the language of an exciting story.
Jim was reading to them from one of his most bloody dime novels, and
the wonderful elocution he possessed never displayed itself with
greater zest. His wavy, reddish-brown hair swept his forehead
becomingly; his face, thin, keen and full of cultured intelligence,
betrayed every emotion as he declaimed; and his long arms and tapering
fingers moved in a ceaseless rhythm of gesticulation.
It was the same old stuff:--
"'Hal, the boy rider of the Western plains, stood on the brink of the
chasm: behind him, three thousand feet of sheer precipice to the
seething, boiling waters and jagged rocks below;--before him, the
onrushing bandits.
"'Black Dan, outstripping the others, sprang on Hal, mouthing fearful
oaths. With astounding agility, Hal stepped aside, caught Dan by the
middle, and, swinging him high over his head, sent him hurtling, with
ear-splitting shrieks, down, sheer down to his doom.
"'This staggered Dan's followers for a second, until Cross-eyed Dick,
jibing his comrades for their cowardice, next rushed in upon our
dauntless hero. Hal drew his dagger from his belt and bravely awaited
the onslaught. When Cross-eyed Dick was within a few yards of him, he
raised his arm and threw his dagger deftly and with terrific force,
burying it to the hilt in the train-robber's windpipe. With a clotted
gurgle--blood spurting from his mortal wound--Hal's assailant still
came rushing on. He staggered on the brink for a moment, then--without
another sound--he toppled over and joined his dead leader who was
lying, a beaten pulp, among the boulders, far below.'"
On and on Jim went, making the hackneyed, original; the ridiculous,
feasible; the impossible, real; until even Phil hated to pull himself
away from the scene, to await a more convenient season for his
endeavours to bring Jim back to himself.
If ever there was poetry in a "Deadwood Dick," thought Phil, surely it
was then.
Feeling that Jim was in harmless company for the time being, Phil left
him, intending to round him up later.
An hour afterwards he returned to Mrs. Clunie's to have a look at the
horses he had stabled. To his great surprise and annoyance he found
the place empty of all but his own and Mrs. Clunie's animals.
Surmising that the half-breeds had "put one over on him" he started
down town, hot foot and hot of head. He took the back way through
Chinatown, as he knew Jim had a habit of frequenting the most unusual
places when on the rampage.
His journey, for a time, proved without adventure.
Had he taken the way of Main Street, or further over still, toward
the poorer class of shacks and dwellings, it might have been more
interesting for him, for Jim's insatiable love of a change was being
indulged to its full and he was busy making quite a good fellow of
himself with all the orphans and poverty-stricken widows he could
find.
It was he, and not the half-breeds, who had taken his horses from Mrs.
Clunie's barn. What he did with them after he took them was not clear
to himself then, for his memory merely served him in flashes. But all
of it returned to him later, in startling realism.
He found himself on top of a wagon-load of sacked potatoes, driving a
good team of heavy horses townward, with his own mare leisurely
ambling behind, unhitched--following him as a dog would.
He had no use for sacked potatoes at that particular moment, so he
bethought himself how best to get rid of them. As usual, he set about
to do a good turn where it was most needed.
From one end of the little country town to the other he went, stopping
at the door of every family he knew of where the produce would prove
of value, and off he unloaded one, or two, or three sacks, as he
thought they might be required; refusing to betray the source of
supply further than that they were a gift which the Lord was
providing.
It was thus that Phil finally found him, and quite unabashed was that
lanky, dust-browned individual.
"Can you no' let a man be?" he remonstrated. "When I'm playin' the
deevil, you admonish me, and when I'm tryin' to do a good turn, you're
beside me, silent and stern as a marble monument.
"Man, Phil, ye mak' me feel like the immortal Robert Louis Stevenson
must have felt when he wrote 'My Shadow.'"
"I never heard of it," said Phil.
"What? Never heard of it! May the Lord in his bounteous mercy forgive
ye for your astounding ignorance. No time like the present, Philly,
laddie;--no time like the present. Listen!--and never dare ye tell me
again that ye never heard it,--for it's your twin brother."
And there, in that back street, beside the potato wagon, he burst into
melody in as clear and rich a baritone voice as Phil had ever heard.
Jim was a born minstrel.
From beginning to end, he sang that never-dying, baby melody of the
master-craftsman, Robert Louis Stevenson, with a feeling true to every
word of it and emphasising particularly the parts which he fancied
applied especially to Phil.
"_I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,_
_And what can be the use of it is more than I can see._
He's very, very like me from the heels up to the head,
And I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow,
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow,
For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an India rubber ball,
_And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all_.
"He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
_And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way_.
_He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see,_
_I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me._
One morning, bright and early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every butter-cup
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."
There were few people about when Jim began his singing, but a
considerable crowd was gathered long before he finished.
Suddenly a little fair-haired girl came up to him with a show of
bashfulness. He put his hand on her curls.
"What is't?" he asked. "Tell me;--ye need never be feart for me."
"Please--please, sir,--that was a nice song and mother says would you
sing it to us at our social to--to-night?"
"Sing it,--of course I'll sing it. Just you tell your Uncle Jim where
to come, and I'll be there. What social is it, bairnie?"
"Please--it's the Salvation Army."
"Oh-h!" groaned Jim, clutching at his forelock. But he held manfully
to his contract. "What time would ye like me to be there, lassie?"
"Mother says, please nine o'clock."
"Nine o'clock at the barracks! Right you are! I'll be there, and I'll
sing 'My Shadow.'"
"Please--and what is your name?" she inquired, in a business-like
way.
"My name!--let me see,--oh, ay! Uncle Jim,--just plain Uncle Jim!"
"And you'll come sure?" she asked.
"Yes, bairnie!--I'll come sure."
The little girl ran off, evidently highly pleased at the addition she
had made to the programme for their social meeting.
Phil gripped Jim by the arm.
"Yes, shadow dearie!" said the big fellow whimsically, "what is't?"
"Aren't you going to cut this stuff out, Jim?"
"What? Man alive, do ye want to make a mock o' me? Me!--cut it out and
this just the first week. You managed that once, Phil, to my eternal
disgrace. Don't ye know that when I start, it means a month on the
calendar--and has always meant that and always will mean----"
"No, it won't," put in Phil. "Not if I know it!"
"But, Phil, the folks expect it. Ye could never disappoint the
people."
"Disappoint be-damned! Are you going to quit this right now, or not?"
"Man, ye shouldna put it like that to me," expostulated Jim, swaying
slightly as he threw his arm round by way of emphasis.
Phil held out his hand to him.
"All right, Jim! I'm sorry. Good-bye! Good-bye for good!"
Almost a haunted look came into the bloodshot eyes of the big fellow.
"Phil,--Phil,--ye don't mean that? Ye wouldna throw me doon?"
"But I do mean it. I thought you and I were going to make a good
partnership some day."
"And aren't we?"
"Not this way! Good heavens, Jim!--what's the matter with you, anyway?
Haven't you got the courage to stand a little disappointment now and
again without flying to this? You can't go on being a fool all your
life.
"I tell you, I came here to make good. I am making good and I'm going
to make better. So can you, if you get down to it. We can turn this
town round our thumbs, if we go to it together. If you haven't the
grit to quit this damnable foolishness--then I'm through with you for
keeps and I'm going to find somebody with sense to go at it with me.
If I can't, then I'm going to go at it alone."
With bent head, Jim stood in silence under the tirade.
"Where did you get this rig?" asked Phil, referring to the team and
wagon.
Jim shook his head.
"What did you do with the horses you took from Mrs. Clunie's barn?"
Jim shook his head again.
"They were your own horses;--where did you get them?"
Jim's shock of auburn hair waggled a negative.
"And that's what the booze is doing for you, old man. You won't know
your own name pretty soon."
Suddenly Phil's voice changed and he slipped his arm across his
friend's shoulder.
"Jim,--Jim,--we've been good pals. Won't you quit this crazy
behaviour, and we'll stay good pals right to the finish?"
"When do you want me to start?" asked Jim quietly.
Phil's face lit up.
"Right now!"
"Give me to-night;--two or three hours more, and don't interfere with
me between this and then,--and I'll take you on."
"It's a go!" exclaimed Phil, holding out his hand.
Jim gripped it, and Phil knew that Jim would keep his word, for he was
the kind of man whose word, drunk or sober, was as good as the deed
accomplished.
"Mind you, Phil,--I don't say I'll never drink again."
"I'm not asking you to promise that," answered Phil.
"Right! At nine o'clock to-night I'm through with the long-term
Highland Fling for keeps."
Phil assented to the proposal and left Jim to complete his potato
distribution.
But Jim could not have remained very long with the job, for, by the
time Phil had taken a leisurely stroll round to the forge to have a
few words with Sol Hanson, and had partaken of a bit of supper with
Betty and the big, genial Swede, Jim had succeeded in putting up his
delivery-outfit, had dressed himself out in his cowboy trappings;
chaps, Stetson, khaki shirt, red tie, belts, spurs and all complete,
and was creating a furore among the law-abiding citizens down town.
Phil came upon the scene--or rather, the scene came upon Phil--like a
flash of lightning out of the heavens.
He was making down town, intent on spending half an hour with his pipe
and the evening paper in a secluded corner of the Kenora Hotel, when
he heard a shout and witnessed a scurrying of people into the middle
of the road. Phil himself had hardly time to get out of the way of a
mad horseman who was urging his horse and yelling like an Indian on
the war-path; tearing along the sidewalk in a headlong gallop,
striking at every overhanging signboard with the handle of his quirt
and sending these swinging and creaking precariously--oblivious of
everybody and everything but the crazy intent in speed and noise that
seemed to possess him so fully.
"How long has he been at this?" Phil asked of an old, toothless
bystander.
"Oh,--'bout half an hour, maybe more, maybe not quite so much," came
the reply.
"Nobody been hurt?" he inquired further.
"Guess nit! That Langford faller's all right. On the loose again, and
just a-lettin' off steam. A good holler and a good tear on a cayuse
ain't goin' to hurt nobody nohow, 'cept them what ain't got no call to
go and be interferin'."
With difficulty Phil extricated himself from the man's superfluity of
negatives and continued on his way.
He passed through the saloon of the Kenora, which was already
overflowing with the usual mob such places attract in any Western
country town; ranchers, cowpunchers, real-estate touts, railway
construction men, horse dealers, teamsters and several of Vernock's
sporty storekeepers and clerks.
He seated himself in a lounge chair in one of the side rooms, lit his
pipe and pulled out the previous day's Coast newspaper. He was tired
from his all day's running around after Jim. It was a raw evening
out-of-doors, but it was cosy in there. The popping of corks, the
clinking of glasses, the hum of voices and the occasional burst of
ribald laughter, even the quarrelsome argument; all had more or less a
soothing effect, which began to make Phil feel at harmony with the
world at large. He looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. He
stretched his legs, unfolded the large sheet and settled down
comfortably.
He did not get very far. He had only scanned the headlines and had
read the chief editorial, when the sound of an old, familiar voice in
the saloon attracted his attention. He looked up.
It was DeRue Hannington, immaculate as usual, but terribly excited and
mentally worked-up.
This same Percival DeRue Hannington had now become an established fact
in Vernock. While he was looked upon as more or less of a fool in
regard to money matters--with more money than brains--he had that
trait about him which many well-bred Englishmen possess; he always
commanded a certain amount of respect, and he declined to tolerate
anything verging on loose familiarity.
"Say!" he was drawling, as he strode the saw-dusted floor, whacking
his leggings with his riding crop, "what would you Johnnies do with a
rotter that grossly maltreated your horse?"
"Stand him a drink," came a voice.
"Lynch him," suggested another.
"Push his daylights in!"
"Dip him in the lake!"
"Invite him up home and treat him to a boiled egg!"
"Forget it!"
Various were the suggestions thrown out, gratis, to DeRue Hannington's
query, for all of them knew that he was crazy over horseflesh in
general and particularly over the pure white thoroughbred he had got
from Rattlesnake Dalton the day he closed the deal and became owner of
the good-for-nothing Lost Durkin Gold Mine.
Whether or not DeRue Hannington considered that he had been defrauded
in the matter of the mine still remained for him to test out, but the
white horse was certainly a beauty, and her owner was never so happy
as when careering down Main Street or over the ranges astride of her.
"By gad!--lynching is not half severe enough," fumed the Englishman.
"You chaps are all jolly fond of horses. That is why I dropped in. It
is an out and out beastly shame. The scoundrel should be horse-whipped
and run out of town."
"Say, sonny!--why don't you tell us what'n-the-hell's the matter with
your blinkin' hoss, 'stead o' jumpin' up and down like a chimpanzee,
and makin' us dizzy watchin' yer?" asked a hardened old bar-lounger.
"Stand still and let me lean my eyes up against somethin' steady for a
minute."
This brought DeRue Hannington to himself.
"Come out here, gentlemen, and see for yourselves!" he invited.
"Everybody come and have a look. I have her outside. A beastly, dirty,
rotten shame;--that's what I call it, and if there is any bally
justice in this Valley, I am going to see it jolly-well performed; by
George, I am!"
The idly curious crowd gathered to the doorway after Hannington. In a
few seconds thereafter, the wildest shouts of laughter and a medley of
caustic remarks caused Phil to get up to see what it all was about.
At the door, he looked over the heads of those on the lower steps of
the veranda, and there on the sidewalk stood the dejected Hannington
holding the bridle of what might have been a huge zebra gone wild on
the colour scheme, or an advertisement for a barber's shop.
It was evidently DeRue Hannington's white thoroughbred, but white no
longer. Phil went out to make a closer inspection.
What a sight she presented! She had been painted from head to hoofs in
broad stripes of red, white and blue. The white was her own natural
colour, but the red and blue were a gaudy, cheap paint still partly
wet. Nevertheless, the work was the work of an artist. The body was
done in graceful, sweeping lines, while the legs were circled red,
white and blue alternately down to each hoof. Even the animal's head
was emblazoned in the most fantastic manner.
Phil laughed uproariously. He could not help it. None could--excepting
possibly the man who owned the horse. To look at the animal gave one a
sensation of dizziness.
The old bar-lounger, who had been so anxious to know what the trouble
was about, was the first to give way under it.
"Holy mackinaw! I've got them again. Talk about seein' snakes," he
cried, turning toward the saloon door and putting his hands over his
eyes as if to shut out the sight, "hydrophobey, or delirious
tremblin's ain't got nothin' on that. Say, Heck!--mix me up a drink o'
gasoline and Condy's Fluid, so's I kin forgit it."
"Only wan thing wrong wid her," exclaimed an Irish pig-breeder from
Tipperary; "she should 'a' been painted Emerild Green."
"Yes,--or maybe Orange," commented his friend who hailed from Ulster.
But with Percival DeRue Hannington it was a serious crime and he was
in no mood to see any humour in the situation.
"Gentlemen," he cried, as the crowd began to dwindle back, "I'll give
one hundred dollars cash to any one of you who can tell me who did
this. My offer holds good for a week."
At that particular moment, the offer of a bribe did not bring to the
fore any informers, so DeRue Hannington, riding a spare horse and
leading his favourite by a halter rope, jogged his way homeward.
He had hardly gone the length of a block, when the comparative quiet
of a respectable western saloon was again broken in upon. There was a
clatter of hoofs outside which came to an abrupt stoppage; a heavy
scrambling on the wooden steps leading to the veranda which ran round
the hotel, an encouraging shout from a familiar voice, a clearing of
passageway;--and Jim Langford, in all his gay trappings, still astride
his well-trained horse, was occupying the middle of the bar-room
floor, bowing profusely right and left to the astonished onlookers,
making elaborate sweeps with his hat.
Everyone stopped, open-mouthed.
"What's this now!" shouted the long-suffering Charlie Mackenzie, the
husky proprietor of the Kenora, as he came in from the dining-room.
"Good evening, good sir! It is Jim Langford, and very much at your
service," came the gracious reply.
"Most of the time Jim Langford is welcome--but not when he don't know
the dif' between a bar and a stable. Hop it now, and tie your little
bull outside," was Mackenzie's ready retort.
"Boys!" cried Jim with a laugh, "we all know Charlie. He's a jolly
good fellow, which nobody can deny;--and all that sort of thing;--but
we're thirsty.
"Hands up--both hands--who wants a drink?"
Half a hundred hands shot in the air.
Jim's mood changed like a summer's day before a thunder plump. He
pulled a gun. "Keep them there or I'll blow your heads off," he
shouted dramatically.
And every hand stayed decorously and obediently above its owner's
head.
Suddenly Jim laughed and threw his gun on the floor.
"Scared you all stiff that time! The gun's empty--not a cartridge in
it.
"Come on, fellows! This is on me. Line up and get it over.
"Buck up, Charlie! Get your gang busy. I'm paying the piper."
Phil kept fairly well in the background, but drew closer to the lea of
the others. He caught Jim's eye once, and he fancied he detected the
faintest flicker of a wink; but, otherwise, Jim's face remained
inscrutable.
Sitting easily on his horse, he pulled out a roll of bills and tossed
over the cost of the treat to Mackenzie.
"Listen, fellows!" said he, leaning over in his saddle, "this is my
last long bat. Next time you see me on the tear, shoot me on sight."
He pulled out his watch.
"Five minutes to nine! Say,--you'll have to excuse me; I've an
appointment with a lady friend for nine o'clock."
Someone laughed.
"What the devil are you laughing at? I said a _lady_; and I meant it.
Now, darn you,--laugh!" he taunted.
The laugh didn't come.
"Ho, Charlie! What do your windows cost?" he asked, pointing to those
fronting the main street.
"Want to buy a window?" grinned the fleshy hotel-keeper.
"Sure!"
"One--or the whole frame?"
"The entire works, the nine windows, frame and all!"
"Oh well!--to you, Jim, that would be fifty bucks, less ten percent
for cash," replied Mackenzie, going over to the cash register.
"Fifty dollars, less ten percent," repeated Jim; "that's forty-five
dollars." His voice rose gaily. "There she goes, Charlie!"
He threw forty-five dollars from his roll over the counter.
"The window's mine! Good-bye, boys! My little lady is waiting for
me."
He swung his mare round, set his heels into her sides and, before
anyone could move, the horse and its rider sprang for the window,
dashed clear through it on to the roadway and away at a gallop,
without so much as a stop or a stumble; leaving a shower of broken
glass and splintered wood in their train.