BACK TO NATURE
As to what the revolution is or is to be there are no two authorities
who agree. It is not a thing, to be measured and defined; nay, it is
a dream which, like our ideas of heaven, varies with individuals.
To the philosopher it is an earthly realization of all our heavenly
aspirations; to the low-browed man-of-hands something less, since his
aspirations are less, but still good to cure all social ills. When
Pecos Dalhart entered the Geronimo County jail he turned it into his
own idea of the revolution—a fighting man's paradise, like the Valhalla
of the ancients, where the heroes fought all day and were made good as
new over night; but when he woke up from his long sleep, behold, Angy
had established a philosophical revolution in its stead! At first he
was so glad to wake up at all that he did not inspect the new social
structure too closely—it had saved him from a terrible beating, that
was sure—but as the day wore on and a gang of yeggs began to ramp about
he shook his head and frowned.
"Say, Angy," he said, "what did you tell them fellers last night to
make 'em take on like this?"
"Told 'em the same old story, Cumrad—how the monopolistic classes has
combined with the hell hounds of the law to grind us pore men down.
Ain't it glorious how the glad news has touched their hearts? Even
within the walls of our prison they are happy!"
"Umph!" grunted Pecos, and scowled up at a tall Mexican who had
ventured to call him _compadre_. "What's all this _compañero_ talk
that's goin' on amongst the Mexicans—are they in on the deal, too?"
"Surest thing!" responded Angy warmly.
"Huh!" said Pecos, "I hope they don't try no _buen' amigo_ racket on
me—I was raised to regard Mexicans like horny toads."
"All men is brothers—that's my motto. And they's good Mexicans, too,
remember that. Just think of Joe Garcia!"
"Yes!" rejoined Pecos, with heat, "_think_ of 'im! If it wasn't for
that saddle-colored dastard I'd be free, 'stead of rottin' in this
hole. I says to the judge: 'I bought that cow and calf off of Joe
Garcia—there he is, standin' over there—I summon him for a witness.'
'Is that your calf?' says the judge. 'Kin savvy,' he says, humpin' up
his back. 'Did you sell him to this man?' '_Yo no se!_' says Joe, and
he kept it up with his 'No savvys' and his 'I don't knows' until the
dam' judge throwed me into jail. Sure! I'm stuck on Mexicans! I'll
brother 'em, all right, if they come around me—I'll brother 'em over
the head with a club!"
"Jest the same, it was Mexicans that saved your bacon last night,"
retorted Angy, with spirit. "Some of these white men that you had beat
up were for pushin' your face in while you was asleep, but when I made
a little talk in Spanish, touchin' on your friendly relations with the
Garcia family, the Mexicans came over in a body and took your part.
That was pretty good, hey?"
"Um," responded Pecos, but he assented without enthusiasm. Barring
the one exception which went to prove the rule, he had never had much
use for Mexicans—and Marcelina was a happy accident, not to be looked
for elsewhere in the Spanish-American world. Still, a man had to have
_some_ friends; and a Mex was better than a yegg, anyhow. He looked
around until he found the tall man who had called him _compadre_ and
beckoned him with an imperious jerk of the head. The Mexican came over
doubtfully.
"You speak English?" inquired Pecos. "That's good—I want to tell you
something. My friend here says you and your _compadres_ stood up for me
last night when I was down and out—hey? Well, that's all right—I'm a
Texano and I ain't got much use for Mexicanos in general, but any time
you boys git into trouble with them yeggs, jest call on me! Savvy?"
The tall man savvied and though Pecos still regarded them with disfavor
the Mexican contingency persisted in doing him homage—only now they
referred to him as _El Patrón_. _Patrón_ he was, and Boss, though he
never raised a hand. Interpreting aright his censorious glances the
sons of Mexico confined their celebration of the Dawn of Freedom to
a carnival of neglect, lying in their bunks and smoking _cigarritos_
while the filth accumulated in the slop cans. Under the iron rule of
Pete Monat they had been required to do all the cleaning up—for in
Arizona a Mexican gets the dirty end of everything—but no sooner had
Babe sung his clarion call for freedom than they joined him, heart and
hand. If the Society of the Revolution was at all related to the Sons
of Rest they wanted to go down as charter members—and they did.
The time may come when cleanliness will be an inherited instinct
but at present most of the cleaning up in the world is done under
compulsion. Parents compel their children to wash and change their
clothes; employers compel their wage-slaves to scrub and clean and
empty; cities compel their householders to dispose of sewage and
garbage; but not even among members of the capitalistic classes is
there shown any clean-cut desire to do the work themselves. The Arizona
Indians escape their obligations by moving camp at intervals, and God's
sunshine helps out the settlers; but in the Geronimo jail there was no
sunshine, nor could any Indian break camp. They were shut in, and there
they had to lie, three deep, until the judge should decide their fate.
For two days they had luxuriated in anarchy, philosophical and real,
but neither kind emptied any garbage. The jail was the dwelling place
of Freedom, but it smelled bad. That was a fact. Even the Mexicans
noticed it, but they did not take it to heart. It was only when Boone
Morgan came down for a batch of prisoners that the community got its
orders to clean up.
These were busy days with Boone—opening court, arraigning prisoners,
summoning witnesses, roping in jurymen, speaking a good word for some
poor devil in the tanks—and it kept him on the run from sun-up to dark.
He knew that Pecos Dalhart had broken up his Kangaroo Court and that
Angevine Thorne had pulled off some kind of a tin-horn revolution on
him, but he didn't mind a little thing like that. Jail life had its
ups and downs, but so long as the cage was tight the birds could do as
they pleased—short of raising a riot. At least, that was Boone Morgan's
theory, based on the general proposition that he could stand it as
long as they could—but when at the end of the second day he caught a
whiff of the sublimated jail-smell that rose from the abiding place of
liberty he let out a "whoosh" like a bear.
"Holy Moses, Bill," he cried, "make these rascals clean up! M-mmm!
That would drive a dog out of a tan-yard! What's the matter—is somebody
dead?"
"Not yet," responded Bill Todhunter, "but they will be, if we don't git
some trusty in there. Them fellers won't do _nuthin'_—an' I can't go in
there and make 'em! You better appoint another alcalde."
"What's the matter with Pete?"
"His head is too sore—he won't be able to put up a fight for a month."
"Umm, and Mike is fixed worse yet—where's that crazy cowman, Pecos
Dalhart?"
They found Pecos comfortably bestowed in the bunk of the end cell,
philosophically smoking jail tobacco as a deodorizer.
"Say," said the sheriff, brusquely addressing him through the bars,
"things are gittin' pretty rotten around here—somebody ought to make
them Mexicans clean up. You put my Kangaroo Court out of business—how'd
you like the job yourself?"
Pecos grunted contemptuously.
"Don't want it, hey? Well, you don't have to have it—I can get that big
sheep-man down from the upper tanks."
A cold glint came into Pecos Dalhart's eyes, but he made no remarks—a
big sheep-man would just about fall in with his mood.
"I got to have some kind of a trusty," observed Morgan, but as Pecos
did not rise to the bait, he passed down the run-around grumbling.
"He's a sulky brute," said Bill Todhunter, as they retreated from the
stench, "better leave him alone a while and see if we can't stink him
out."
"Well, you order them Mexicans to clean up," rumbled the sheriff, "and
if this here Pecos Dalhart makes any more trouble I'll see that he gits
roped and hog-tied. And say, throw old Babe out of there as soon as he
gits his supper. Them two fellers are side-kickers in this business
and we got to bust 'em up. It's a good thing the grand jury ain't in
session now—I'd git hell for the condition of that jail."
There never was a jail so clean it didn't smell bad, but that night
the Geronimo jail broke into the same class with the Black Hole
of Calcutta, yet the inmates seemed to enjoy it. The yegg gang in
particular—a choice assortment of Chi Kids, Denver Slims, and Philly
Blacks who had fled from the Eastern winter—were having the time of
their lives, rampaging up and down the corridor, upsetting cuspidors,
throwing water from the wash-room, and making themselves strictly at
home. When the sturdy form of Pecos Dalhart appeared in the door of
Cell One they slackened their pace a little, but now that the moral
restraint of Babe was gone they felt free as the prairie wind. Only in
their avoidance of Mexicans did they show a certain consciousness of
authority, for the word had passed that Pecos was _buen' amigo_ with
the _umbres_ and no one was looking for a rough-house. As for Pecos,
he put in his time thinking, standing aloof from friends and enemies
alike—and his thoughts were of the revolution. When he had been off
by himself reading the _Voice of Reason_ he had been astounded at the
blank stupidity of the common people, which alone was holding mankind
back from its obvious destiny. "Think, Slave, think!" it used to say;
and thinking was so easy for him. But the blind and brutish wage slaves
who were dragged at the chariot wheels of capitalism—well, perhaps they
had not yet learned how. Anyway, he had seen how inevitable was the
revolution, and whichever way he turned he saw new evidences of that
base conspiracy between wealth and government which keeps the poor man
down. Nay, he had not only seen it—he had suffered at its hand. Yet
there was one thing which he had never realized before, though the
_Voice of Reason_ was full of it—the low and churlish spirit of the
masses which incapacitated them for freedom. Take those yeggs, now.
They had been freed from the hard and oppressive hand of tyranny and
yet as soon as the Kangaroo Court was abolished they began to raise
particular hell. It was discouraging. There was only one way to beat
sense into some people, and that was with a club. A cuspidor came the
length of the corridor and Pecos rose slowly from his couch. What was
the use of trying the revolution on a gang of narrow-headed yeggs!
"Hey," he challenged, "you yaps want to key down a little or I'll
rattle your heads together. Go on into your cells now, and shut up."
He fixed the yegg-men sternly with his eye, but the blood had gone to
their heads from gambolling about and they still had their dreams of
heaven.
"Aw, gwan," said Philly Black, "we ain't doin' nawthin'—give a feller a
show, can't ye?"
"W'y, sure, I'll give you a show!" thundered Pecos wrathfully. "You
yeggs think because I licked Pete Monat I give you license to prize up
hell. You got this jail like a hog-waller already in two days. Now,
clean up, you dastards, and the first man that opens his face to me
will go to the doctor!"
There was no easy answer to an argument like that and the gang slouched
sullenly to their task, making all the motions of a superficial
cleaning up but leaving the jail dirtier than ever. With his strap
poised Pecos stood over them, reading well the insubordination in
their black hearts and waiting only for some one to start the fray. At
every move the yeggs became viler and more slipshod in their methods,
spilling half the contents of every can upon the floor, and still Pecos
Dalhart eyed them grimly, while the awe-stricken Mexicans huddled
together in their cells waiting for the catastrophe. At last Philly
Black, emboldened by his immunity, was moved to take a chance. Seizing
recklessly upon the nearest can he made a rush for the wash-room,
slopping filth and corruption as he went. As he passed Pecos his hold
slipped, accidentally, of course, and the can fell to the floor with
a final overflowing of uncleanness.
"Clean that up," Pecos said, as Philly Black came to a crouch, but
Philly only looked over his shoulder. "Clean that up!" commanded Pecos,
drawing nearer. "_Clean_—" but Philly was cleaning up. His gang had not
rallied to his aid. Slowly and slovenly, and making ugly faces, he bent
to his unwilling task, scowling beneath his black mop of hair at Denver
and Chi and the gang.
"I said _clean up_!" rumbled Pecos, as Philly grabbed his can to go.
"_Clean up!_ You don't call that clean, do you?"
"Aw, go t'hell!" bellowed Philly Black, hurling his slop-can once more
upon the floor. "Let the dam' Mexicans clean up!"
He dodged the swift swing of the strap and leapt in, calling on his
fellows for aid. For a moment they wrestled furiously, and as the yeggs
rushed in to help, the Mexicans swarmed out to meet them; but before
either side could lend a hand Philly Black slipped on his own dirty
floor and went down with a deadly thud. Pecos rode him to the floor,
clutching fiercely at his throat; for an instant he waited for him to
fight back, then he sprang up and waded into the yeggs. Philly was
where he would make no trouble for quite a while.
Once more at the clamor of battle the jail deputies came rushing to the
rescue, bending their futile pistols upon the yelling prisoners.
"It's that blankety-blank, Pecos Dalhart!" shouted Bill Todhunter as he
goggled through the bars. "Well, the son of a goat, ain't he a fightin'
fool!" There was a note almost of admiration in his voice, for Pecos
was punching heads and belting yeggs with the calculating rage of a
conqueror.
"Git out of my way, _umbres_!" he yelled to his Mexican retainers.
"_Vaya se—vamos_—I can fix 'em!" And he surely did. In his strong
hands the alcalde's strap was a deadly weapon; he swung it with a
puncher's skill and laid it on like a horse-wrangler. Shrieks for
mercy were mingled with howls of pain and every time a man stood up to
him he slugged him with all his strength. The floor was strewn with
yeggs and when he had beaten down all opposition he flogged them into
their cells.
[Illustration: "You _will_ turn this jail into a hog-waller, will you?"
he demanded]
"You _will_ turn this jail into a hog-waller, will you?" he demanded,
when the corridor was cleared of men. "You _will_ throw slops on the
floor and not half clean 'em up! Well, come outer there, you low-browed
hobos—_I'll_ show you how it's done! Now take them swabs and fill your
cans with water and wash this floor up right. No, you stay where you
are, _umbres_; I want to show these brake-beam tourists who's the boss.
_Jump_ now, you panhandlers, or I'll burn you up with this!" He swung
his wet strap and popped it behind the Chi Kid, and Chi went on his
way. Bill Todhunter and the jail deputy looked curiously on through
the bars; the reporter for the morning _Blade_ showed up suddenly
from nowhere and began to ask leading questions, but Pecos did not
unbend. In vain the reporter tried to beckon him up to the bars—Pecos
remembered him too well as the fresh young man who had made a jest
of his breaking into jail; also he hoped he could do a little job of
house-cleaning without going on record as the friend of old Boone
Morgan. He might be a little weak on the revolution but he knew his
natural enemies. These were the men who had thrown him into jail for
branding his own cow's calf; they were the hirelings of the System,
friends to the rich and enemies to the poor; to them the agony of his
soul was no more than a passing jest. He turned on the reporter and
scowled.
"Go take a run and jump at yourself!" he said.