A NIGHT IN LEAPING HORSE
Leaping Horse was a beacon which reflected its ruddy light upon the
night sky, a sign, a lure to the yearning hearts at distant points,
toiling for the wage with which to pay for sharing in its wild
excesses. It was the Gorgon of the northland, alluring, destructive,
irresistible. It was a temple dedicated to the worship of the Gods of
the Wilderness. Light, luxury and vice. Such was the summing up of
Dr. Bill, and the few who paused in the mad riot for a moment's sober
thought. Furthermore Dr. Bill's estimate of the blatant gold city was
by no means a self-righteous belief. He had known the place from its
birth. He had treated its every ailment at the height of its burning
youth. Now, in its maturity, it fell to him to learn much of the inner
secrets of its accruing mental disease. He hated it and loved it,
almost one and the same emotion. He cried aloud its shame to listening
ears. In secret he wept over its iniquities, with all the pity of a
warm-hearted man gazing upon a wanton.
But Leaping Horse was indifferent. It spread its shabby tendrils over
hundreds of acres of territory, feeding its wanton heart upon the
squalor which gathered about its fringe as well as upon the substance
of those upon whom it had showered its fortune.
At night its one main street radiated a light and life such as could be
found in no city in the world. The wide, unpaved thoroughfare, with
its shabby sidewalks buried to a depth of many feet of snow in winter,
and mud in the early open season, gave no indication of the tide of
wealth which flowed in this main artery. Only at night, when a
merciful dark strove to conceal, did the glittering tide light up.
Then indeed the hideous blatancy of the city's life flared out in all
its painful vulgarity.
In the heart of the Main Street the Elysian Fields Hotel, and theatre,
and dance hall stood out a glittering star of the first magnitude,
dimming the lesser constellations with which it was surrounded. A
hundred arc lamps flung out their challenge to all roysterers and
vice-seeking souls. Thousands of small globular lights, like ropes of
luminous pearls, outlined its angles, its windows, its cornices, its
copings. All its white and gold shoddy was rendered almost magnificent
in the night. Only in the light of day was its true worth made
apparent. But who, in Leaping Horse, wanted the day? No one. Leaping
Horse was the northern Mecca of the night pleasure seeker.
The buildings adjacent basked in its radiance. Their own eyes were
almost blinded. Their mixed forms were painfully revealed. Frame
hutches, split log cabins rubbed shoulders with buildings of steel
frame and stone fronts. Thousand dollar apartments gazed disdainfully
down upon hovels scarcely fit to shelter swine. Their noses were
proudly lifted high above the fetid atmosphere which rose from the
offal-laden causeway below. They had no heed for that breeding ground
of the germs of every disease known to the human body.
Then the roystering throng. The Elysian Fields. It was the beach
about which the tide ebbed and flowed. It was a rough rock-bound beach
upon which the waters of life beat themselves into a fury of excess.
Its lights were the beacons of the wreckers set up for the destruction
of the human soul.
Chief amongst the wreckers was Pap Shaunbaum, a Hebrew of doubtful
nationality, and without scruple. He prided himself that he was a
caterer for the needs of the people. His thesis was that the northland
battle needed alleviation in the narrow lap of luxury where vice ruled
supreme. He had spent his life in searching the best means of personal
profit out of the broad field of human weakness, and discovered the
Elysian Fields.
He had labored with care and infinite thought. He had built on a
credit from the vast bank of experience, and owned in the Elysian
Fields the finest machine in the world for wrecking the soul and pocket
of the human race.
Every attraction lay to hand. The dance hall was aglitter, the floor
perfect, and the stage equipped to foster all that appealed to the
senses. The hotel with its splendid accommodation, its bars, its
gaming rooms, its dining hall, its supper rooms, its bustle of
elaborate service. There was nothing forgotten that ingenuity could
devise to loosen the bank rolls of its clientele, and direct the flow
of gold into the proprietor's coffers--not even women. As Dr. Bill
declared in one of his infrequent outbursts of passionate protest: "The
place is one darnation public brothel; a scandal to the northland, a
shame on humanity."
It was here, gazing down on the crowded dance hall, from one of the
curtained boxes adjacent to the stage, on which a vaudeville programme
was being performed, that two men sat screened from the chance glance
of the throng below them.
A table stood between them, and an uncorked bottle of wine and two
glasses were placed to their hand. But the wine stood untouched, and
was rapidly becoming flat. It had been ordered as a custom of the
place. But neither had the least desire for its artificial stimulation.
They had been talking in a desultory fashion. Talking in the pleasant
intimate fashion of men who know each other through and through. Of
men who look upon life with a vision adjusted to a single focus.
They were watching the comings and goings of familiar faces in the
glittering overdressed throng below. The women, splendid creatures in
gowns whose cost ran into hundreds of dollars, and bejeweled almost at
any price. Beautiful faces, many of them already displaying the
ravages of a life that moved at the swiftest gait. Others again
bloated and aging long before the years asserted their claims, and
still others, fresh with all the beauty of extreme youth and a life
only at the beginning of the downward course.
The men, too, were no less interesting to the student of psychology.
Here was every type from the illiterate human mechanism whose muscles
dominated his whole process of life, to the cultured son of
civilization who had never known before the meaning of life beyond the
portals of the temples of refinement. Here they were all on the same
highway of pleasure. Here they were all full to the brim of a
wonderful joy of life. Care was for the daylight, when the secrets of
their bank roll would be revealed, and the draft on the exchequer of
health would have to be met.
There was displayed no element of the soil from which these people drew
their wealth, except for the talk. They had long since risen from the
moleskin and top-boot stage in Leaping Horse. The Elysian Fields
demanded outward signs of respectability in the habiliments of its
customers, and the garish display of the women was there to enforce it.
Broadcloth alone was the mode, and conformity with this rule drew forth
many delights for the observing eye.
But the people thus disguised remained the same. Every type was
gathered, from the sound, reasonable accumulator of wealth to the
"hold-up," the gambler, the fugitive from the law. It was said of
Leaping Horse that it only required the "dust" to buy any crime known
to the penal code. And here, here at the Elysian Fields, on any night
in the week, could be found the man or woman to perpetrate it at a
moment's notice.
Dr. Bill laughed without mirth.
"Gee, it leaves the Bell River outfit saints beside them," he said.
Kars' contemplative eyes were following the movements of a handsome
blond woman with red-gold hair, which was aglitter with a half circle
band of jewels supporting an aigrette, which must have cost five
thousand dollars. She was obviously young, extremely young. To his
mind she could not have been more than twenty--if that. Her eyes were
deep blue, with unusually large pupils. Her lips were ripe with a
freshness which owed nothing to any salve. Her nose was almost
patrician, and her cheeks were tinted with the bloom of exquisite
fruit. Her gown was extremely décolleté, revealing shoulders and arms
of perfect ivory beauty. She was dancing a waltz with a man in
elaborate evening dress, who had discarded orthodox sobriety for crude
embellishments. The string band in the orchestra was playing with
seductive skill.
"Who's that dame with the guy who guesses he's a parakeet?" he
demanded, without reply to the other's statement.
"You mean the feller with the sky blue lapels to his swallow-tails?"
"Sure. That's the guy."
"Maude. Chesapeake Maude. She's Pap Shaunbaum's piece. Quite a girl.
She's only been along since we quit here last spring. Pap's crazy on
her. Folks say he dopes out thousands a week on her. He brought her
from the East on a specially chartered vessel he had fitted up to suit
her fancy. They figger he's raised his pool here by fifty per cent
since she came."
"She plays the old game for him right here?"
"Sure."
Both men were absorbed in the girl's perfect grace of movement, as she
and her partner glided in and out through the dancing crowd. Her
attraction was immense even to these men, who were only onlookers of
the Leaping Horse riot.
Bill touched his friend's arm. He indicated the bar at the far end of
the hall.
"There's Pap. He's watching her. Gee, he's watching her."
A slim iron gray man, with a dark, keen face was standing beside one of
the pillars which supported the gallery above. He was dressed in
evening clothes of perfect cut, which displayed a clean-cut figure. He
was a handsome man of perhaps forty, without a sign of the dissipation
about his dark face that was to be seen in dozens of younger men about
him. As Dr. Bill once said of him, "One of hell's gentle-folk."
A better description of him could not have been found. Under a
well-nigh perfect exterior he concealed a depth of infamy beyond
description. A confidential police report to the authorities in the
East once contained this paragraph:
"Pap Shaunbaum has set up a big hotel in Leaping Horse. It will be
necessary to keep a 'special' at work watching him. We should like
authority to develop this further from time to time. His record both
here, and confidential from the States, leaves him more than
undesirable. Half the toughs in Leaping Horse are in his pay."
That was written five years before. Since then the "special" had been
developed till a large staff was employed in the observation of the
Elysian Fields. And still under all this espionage "Pap," as he was
familiarly dubbed, moved about without any apparent concern, carrying
on his underground schemes with every outward aspect of inoffensive
honesty. All Leaping Horse knew him as a crook, but accepted him as he
posed. He was on intimate terms with all the gold magnates, and never
failed to keep on good terms with the struggling element of the
community. But he was a "gunman." He had been a "gunman" all his
life, and made small secret of it. The only change in him now was that
his gun was loaded with a different charge.
"You figger he's dopey on her?"
"Crazy. God help the feller that monkeys around that hen roost."
"Yet he uses her for this play?"
"With reserve."
"How?"
Dr. Bill again gave a short hard laugh.
"You won't see her around with folk, except on that floor. Say, get a
peek at the boxes across the way, with the curtains half drawn.
They're all--occupied. You won't see Maude in those boxes, unless it's
with Pap. She's down on that floor because she loves dancing, and for
Pap's business. She's there for loot, sure, and she gets it plenty.
She's there with her dandy smile to see the rest of the women get busy.
Playing that feller's dirty game for all it's worth. And she's just a
gal full to the brim of life. He's bought her body and soul, and I
guess it's just for folks like us to sit around and watch for what's
coming. If I've got horse sense there's coming a big shriek one day,
and you'll see Pap clear through to his soul--if he's got one. He's
fallen for that dame bad. But I guess he's done the falling. I don't
guess any feller can gamble on a woman till she's in love, then I'd say
the gamble is she'll act foolish."
Kars had no comment to offer. He was no longer watching Maude. The
dancing had ceased, and the floor had cleared. The orchestra had
already commenced the prelude to a vaudeville turn, and the drop
curtain had revealed the stage.
His interest was centred on Pap Shaunbaum. The man was moving about
amongst his customers, exchanging a word here and there, his dark,
saturnine face smiling his carefully amiable business smile. To the
elemental man of the trail there was something very fascinating in the
way this one brain was pitting itself to plunder through the senses of
the rest of his world.
But Dr. Bill knew it all with an intimacy that robbed it of any charm.
He had only repulsion, but repulsion that failed to deny a certain
attraction. His hot words broke through the noisy strumming of
vaudeville accompaniment.
"For God's sake," he said, "why do we stop around this sink? You! Why
do you? The long trail? And at the end of it you got to come back to
this--every trip. I hate the place, I loathe it like a hobo hates
water. But I'm bound to it. It's up to me to help mend the poor darn
fools who haven't sense but to squander the good life Providence handed
them. But you--you with your great pile, Pap, here, would love to dip
his claws into, there's no call for you acting like some gold-crazed
lunatic. Get out, man. Get right out and breathe the wholesome air
Providence meant for you. Oh, I guess you'll say it's all on the long
trail in the northland. There isn't a thing to keep you here."
"Isn't there?"
Kars leaned back in his chair. He stretched his great arms above his
head, and clasped his hands behind his muscular neck.
"There's so much to keep me here that life's not long enough to see it
through. Time was, Bill, when I guessed it was the north that had got
into my bones. But I didn't know. The long trail. The search. It
was gold--gold--gold. Same as it is with any of the other fools that
get around here. But I didn't just understand. That gold. No. I've
been searching, and the search for new ground has been one long dream
of life. But the gold I've been chasing wasn't the gold I thought it.
It wasn't the yellow stuff these folks here are ready to sell their
souls--and bodies--for. It was different. You guessed I had all the
gold I needed. But I hadn't, not of the gold I've been chasing. I
hadn't any of it. I--didn't even know its color when I saw it. I do
now. And it's the color I've seen looking out of a pair of
wonderful--wonderful gray eyes. Say, I don't quit the northland till I
can take it all with me. All there is of that gold I've found on the
long trail."
"Jessie?"
"Sure."
"Then why not take her?"
The vaudeville turn was in full swing and the folks below were standing
around talking and drinking, and gazing with only partial interest at
the feats of a woman acrobatic dancer. Bill was looking at her, too.
But his thoughts were on the girl at Fort Mowbray and this man who was
his friend.
"Why not take her?" he urged. "Take her away from this storm-haunted
land, and set her on the golden throne you'd set up for her, where
there's warmth and beauty. Where there's no other care for her than to
yield you the wifely companionship you're yearning for. I guess she's
the one gal can hand you those things. If you don't do it, and do it
quick, you'll find the fruit in the pouch of another. Say, the harvest
comes along in its season, and it's got to be reaped. If the right
feller don't get busy--well, I guess some other feller will. There's
not a thing waits around in this world."
The braying of the band deadened the sound of laughter, and the rattle
of glasses, and the talk going on below. Kars was still gazing down
upon the throng of pleasure seekers, basking in the brilliant glare of
light which searched the pallid and unhealthy, and enhanced the beauty
where artificiality concealed the real. His mood was intense. His
thoughts were hundreds of miles away. Quite suddenly he turned his
strong face to his friend. There was a deep light in his steady eyes,
and a grim setting to his lips.
"I'm going to collect that harvest," he said, with a deliberate
emphasis. "If you don't know it you should. But I'm collecting it my
way. I'm going to marry Jessie, if your old friend Prov don't butt in.
But I'm going to cut the ground under the feet of the other feller my
own way, first. I've got to do that. I've a notion. It's come to me
slow. Not the way notions come to you, Bill. I'm different. I can
act like lightning when it's up to me, but I can't see into a brick
wall half as far as you--nor so quick. I've bin looking into a brick
wall ever since we hit Bell River, and I've seen quite a piece into it.
I'm not going to hand you what I've seen--yet. I've got to see more.
I won't see the real till I make Bell River again. If what I guess I'm
going to see is right, after that I'm going to marry Jessie right away,
and she, and her _mother_, and me--well, we're going to quit the north.
There won't be a long trail in this country can drag me an inch from
the terminals of civilization after that."
A deep satisfaction shone in the doctor's smiling eyes as he gazed at
the serious face of his friend. But there was question, too.
"You've laid a plain case but I don't see the whole drift," he said.
"Still you've fixed to marry Jessie, and quit this darnation country.
For me it goes at that--till you fancy opening out. But you're still
bent on the Bell River play. I've got all you said to me on the trail
down. You figger those folks are to be robbed by--some one. Do you
need to wait for that? Why not marry that gal and get right out taking
her folks with her? Let all the pirates do as they darn please with
Bell River. I don't get any other view of this thing right."
"No. But I do." There was a curious, obstinate thrust to this big
man's jaw. "By heaven, Bill! The feller responsible for the murder of
my little gal's father, a father she just loved to death, don't git
away with his play if I know it. The feller that hands her an hour's
suffering needs to answer to me for it, and I'm ready to hand over my
life in seeing he gets his physic. There's no one going to get away
with the boodle Allan gave his life for--not if I can hold him up.
That's just as fixed in my mind as I'm going to marry Jessie. Get that
good. And I hold you to your word on the trail. You're with me in it.
I've got things fixed, and I've set 'em working. I'm quitting for
Seattle in the morning. You'll just sit around lying low, and doping
out your physic to every blamed sinner who needs it. Then, with the
spring, you'll stand by ready to quit for the last long trail with me.
Maybe, come that time, I'll hand you a big talk of all the fool things
I've got in my head. How?"
The other drew a deep sigh. But he nodded.
"Sure. If you're set that way--why, count me in."
"The man that can 'ante' blind maybe is a fool. But he's good grit
anyway. Thanks, Bill. I--what's doing?"
The sharpness of Kars' inquiry was the result of a startled movement in
his companion. Dr. Bill was leaning forward. But he was leaning so
that he was screened by the heavy curtain of the box. He was craning.
In his eyes was a profound look of wonder, almost of incredulity.
The vaudeville act had come to an end with a brazen flourish from the
orchestra, and a waltz had been started on the instant. The eyes of
the man were staring down at the floor below, where, already, several
couples were gliding over its polished surface.
"Look," he said, in a suppressed tone of voice. "Keep back so he don't
see you. Get a look at Chesapeake Maude."
Kars searched the room for the beautiful red-gold head. He looked
amongst the crowd. Then his gaze came to the few dancers, their
numbers already augmenting. The flash of jewels caught his gaze. The
wonderful smiling face with its halo of red-gold. An exclamation broke
from him.
"Alec Mowbray!"
But it was left to Bill to find expression for the realization that was
borne in on them both.
"And he's half soused. The crazy kid!"
Maude seemed to float over the gleaming floor. Alec Mowbray, for all
the signs of drink he displayed, was no mean partner. His handsome
face, head and shoulders above the tall woman he was dancing with,
gazed out over the sea of dancers in all the freshness of his youthful
joy, and triumph. He danced well, something he had contrived to learn
in the joyless country from which he hailed. But there was no
reflection of his joy in the faces of the two men gazing down from the
shelter of the curtained box. There were only concern and a grievous
regret.
Bill rose with a sigh.
"I quit," he said.
Kars rose, too.
"Yes."
The two men stood for a moment before passing out of the box.
"It looks like that shriek's coming," Bill said. "God help that poor
darn fool if Pap and Maude get a hold on him."
"He came down with Murray," Kars said pondering.
"Yes. He ought to have come around with his mam."
Kars nodded.
"Get a hold on him, Bill, when I'm gone. For God's sake get a hold on
him. It's up to you."