Interrogatory argument had forced most answers in Pape's career. Now two
of a pertinent order forced an italicized third which, under limitations
of the moment, was unanswerable.
Why delay a reappearance before his self-selected lady?
By way of excuse, why not realize on that well-bred dare of Aunt
Helene--why not make good on his agreement to match the Sturgis
coat-of-arms with that of the house of Pape?
_After which, what?_
Even more alive than was he must his escutcheon be. Just how dynamically
alive, he'd be able soon to demonstrate, unless the West Shore
Railroad's fast freight from Chicago had met with delay. He'd ask no
recourse to the weighty tomes of ancient history or the public library's
genealogical records. His showing must be more representative of the
last of the line than that and up to the second.
The flags of all the taxis he sighted were furled for earlier fares, but
a flat-wheeled Fifty-ninth Street surface car bore him cross-town. The
checker at the door of Polkadot's palatial boarding-house further taxed
his time.
"Gent here asking for you, Mr. Pape, not more than half hour ago.... No,
he wasn't small or sharp-faced--not partic'aler so. No, he didn't have
no cauliflower ear. What I did notice was his wat'ry voice and what
might pass for a mustache if you had magnifying eyes.... Said he'd just
stick around."
So! His trailer of the moment was neither Welch nor Duffy, but the youth
of the slightly adorned lip. The nature of that small matter of business
which had brought him to the Astor last evening might better remain a
mystery since mysteries were the order of the day and attempted
solutions were likely to land one before a magistrate.
Pape hurried into the stable and the whinnied greeting of his three-hued
best friend. His change into riding clothes took no more time than was
needed by the groom to put Polkadot into his leather. He was riding out
the main "gate," his mind upon the plan that had come with the speed of
inspiration, when----
"Pardon my persistence, Mr. Pape, but that's what I'm hired for."
He had "stuck around," the thin-voiced, thin-mustached, thin-visaged
weakling; was blocking the exit; now incensed Dot by a curbing hand on
the bridle rein.
Hurriedly Pape considered whether to jump the horse past the human
barrier or to temporize. Fearing delay from more entanglement in the
city's red tape, he made an overture.
"If persistence is what you're hired for, how much to give up?"
"To give up--just what?"
"Whatever you're hired to run me down for. At that it looks to me as if
you were working on the wrong job."
The youth straightened with some show of self-respect. "Right or wrong
it's regular--a steady job for life if I do my part."
"For life?" Pape snorted. "You don't mean to say you're going to persist
after me _for life?"_
"Until you come across, sir----"
"You trying to pull a polite hold-up? I'll ride over your remains, son,
if you don't drop that bridle and let me----"
"Until you pay what you owe, I mean."
Pape tweaked a sunburned ear in puzzling the thickened plot. "Haven't I
said I was more than willing to pay you----"
"Pay the company, not me, Mr. Pape."
"The com----What company?"
"The New York Edison Company."
Indignantly the Westerner stared down into the vacuous face of this
latest impediment to progress.
"You're an agent for--for phonographs?" he guessed. "Sorry, but I've got
more of those sing-tanks around home than I can spare ears to hear 'em.
Lay off my horse! You can't sell me anything this afternoon."
"B-but, wait a minute!" The Edison emissary continued to earn his salary
by the way he hung on. "You've already bought all I'm asking you to pay
for. Unless it's inconvenient--if you'd only take a minute off and
settle----"
"Inconvenient--_unless?_" Pape was beginning to fear a loss of
self-control.
Polkadot was equally vociferous, if less intelligible, for he detested
alien hands upon his harness.
Pushing back his stirrups, Pape leaned over the horn of his saddle to
demand: "Say, do I look like a dodo that was just loafing around for a
chance chat with a persistency specialist like you? Now you tell me in
not more than one short word what you want me to settle for or I'll----"
"Juice," interrupted the mild-mannered youth, obedient to the syllable.
"Juice?" As though a button had been pushed, light flooded Pape's mind.
He straightened, began to laugh, then stopped again to query the
collector. "So you're from-- So they sent you to-- So _that's_ why----"
His pause was to tickle Polkadot's back-waggling ears--to share that
responsive pal's quiver of mirth. When again able to articulate----
"How much? Let's see your persistency passport, if you brought one.
Humph! Not much to waste all this two-man time for. Say, you go back and
tell your skimpy electro-factory that you persisted just long enough to
prevent my making an attack in force upon their main office."
"An attack--why?" the youth asked gently.
"_Why not?_" demanded Pape. "Maybe you can tell me why all the current
is running to Goldfish Movie and Yutu Corset signs--why last night at
7:15 they were blazing and not a letter of Welcome-To-Our-City was lit,
nor a rose of my wreath blooming for me! If they call that service----"
"You can't have service without paying the bills, Mr. Pape. Just what I
was trying to tell you at your hotel last evening. Your sign burns up
credit, I tell you. It won't light up another night until----"
"Until I fuel up, eh?" Already Pape had pulled from pocket a wallet fat
with bills freshly parked for ransom against any possible expense of New
York justice. "This will cover the bill with a couple of centuries in
advance for a few days future service. Express my apologies to Mr.
Edison. Explain that the reason you couldn't make me dig up last night
was because I had an engagement to dig down. You might add that it was
with some one to whom the welcome sign had made me welcome. You can say
for me that my career since he howdy-dooed me in watts and kilowatts
would make a live-wire ad. for the concern. The facts ain't ready for
rose-wreathed publicity yet--not yet awhile--but they would turn the
president of a gas company into an enthusiastic rooter for electric
signs."
Pape chuckled from more than appreciation of his own pithy remarks--with
more than satisfaction at overly paying an over-due bill, as he waved a
hand in cordial _au revoir_ and started out the stable. He considered
this elimination of his eye-brow mustached caller--the out-speeding of
his third shadow, so to say--a good omen. With like conclusiveness would
he in time dispose of the tack-faced Welch and Duffy of the vegetable
ear, not to mention any foes unidentified as yet, such as the
ring-leader of the plot against the Lauderdales and his own quarry in
Gotham's underbrush, that promoter of Montana Gusher oil stock.
He felt convinced that luck again was with him when, at the end of his
ride to the wharf-studded bank of the Hudson River, he found that for
once the West Shore Road had not disappointed a consignee. In one of the
high-fenced, unroofed pens of a wholesale butcher stood twenty-five or
thirty sleek steers, red splotched with white, upon the rump of each the
interrogation brand of the Queer Question Ranch.
The range smell of the beasts caused Dot's nostrils to quiver from
delight over the reminder of home; caused his hind-hoofs to polka about
the yard and his fore to lift in a proffered horseshoe shake to the beef
handlers, one and all. And Pape himself felt hugely pleased over the
showing of his product in this "foreign" market, for which they had been
bred and fed.
Dissatisfied with the returns from shipments to the established
stock-yards of the Middle West--those of Chicago, Kansas City and Omaha
having proved in turn equally deficient--he had conceived a plan of
shipping direct by fast freight to the seaboard Metropolis. His hopes
were based upon New York's reputation of paying for its luxuries and the
fact that absolutely fresh beef was a luxury. He soon had found an eager
distributor and there promised to be no lack of consumers who were able
and willing to pay. In time he hoped to gain for "Montana beef" as
ambitious a place on high-class menus as that so long and honorably held
by "Virginia ham," "Vermont maple syrup," "Philadelphia squab" or "Long
Island duckling."
At the moment, however, his interest was not centered in the commercial
origin of the project; rather, in "showing" the town, inclusive of one
particularly jealous gentleman snob. From the foreman of the yard he
borrowed the services of a couple of transplanted punchers who looked
efficient and to whom he confided the nature of an impromptu act.
Personally he selected and cut-out of the bunch its finest specimen--a
huge red steer with wide-flung horns, whose Queer Question brand was
distinctly burned.
Polkadot, a-quiver from the exercise so remindful of home, was all
capers, grins and hee-haws by the end of the task. The yard employees,
turned rail-birds for the nonce, were vociferous in their applause over
the skill of man and mount. Only the steer showed irritation.
"Not a bad idea," observed the foreman to Pape. "Bold, but not bad at
all--this eat-ad. of beef on the hoof."
The Westerner stared at him a moment, then decided to let the surmise
stand. These metropolitan cowboys scarcely would appreciate the
importance of the purpose to which he meant to put the brute, even did
he care to explain. Under his direction the two punchers "hung their
strings" about the horns of the elect, one on either side. His own rope
he neatly attached to the left hind hoof, to act as a brake in case of
an attempted stampede. The small procession got under way.
Although at the start their pace was no more than that of a reasonably
brisk funeral procession, they attracted the attention of the West Side
youngsters, to whom they appeared to have much of the interest of a
circus parade. At once, as if a growth sprung from asphalt and
cobblestone fields, a veritable swarm of under-fifteens surrounded the
outfit. Well it was for these embryonic rooters of the ward that
Polkadot disdained to use his dancing feet for anything so _gauche_ as
kicks, for they banked about his rear-guard position, in order the more
intimately to admire his color splotches and prancy step, and even took
drag-holds upon his silken tail, as well as Pape's stirrups, that they
might not fall behind.
"Taking him to a bull fight, mister?"
The question was variously couched, but unanimously excited.
Except for this darting, swooping, whooping escort, the early advance of
Pape's escutcheon toward Fifth Avenue was accomplished without undue
excitement. At Columbus Circle, however, the roving "wall" eyes of the
beef-brute sighted the green of South Meadow. Doubtless its appetite was
hurting for fresh grass after the long journey on cured food, his brain
confused by the blur of strange sights and sounds, his muscles aching
for the Montana-wide freedom so suddenly curtailed at the gate of a
cow-town shipping pen.
Whether actuated by one or all of these impulses, or merely moved by
inherent wildness, the red executed a flank movement that had nothing to
do with steak. In terms of action he showed a desperate desire to throw
off his rope shackles and bolt into Central Park. The press of vehicular
traffic aided him by hampering his guard. Could they have spread out
triangularly, they might have held him helpless. An attempted swerve
tangled the puncher on the left in his own rope and forced him to
dismount to save himself a spill. He on the right was prevented from
closing in by regard for the young lives and limbs of their admirers.
Relieved of the three-ply pressure, the steer essayed a headdown rush to
accept the gift of the grass. This soon was tautened into a three-legged
run, through Pape's hoof-hold from behind. At that, the captive had the
over-plus of power and might easily have controlled their course except
for ramming into a street car which had slowed down that the motor man
might enjoy the show. In the moment in which he stood stunned, the
unhorsed puncher regained his rope and saddle, his fellow cleared a way
and Pape quit his drag from the rear. The steer stampede in Manhattan's
heart was under control. The lively Pape escutcheon again was headed
toward its destination.
In front of the Sturgis house a groom was holding three saddlers. Pape's
wonder as to who might be riding with whom was answered. Scarcely had he
and his aides stopped his hoofed exhibit when Jane Lauderdale, in a
crisp gray riding suit, appeared from the vestibule. She was followed by
Irene and Mills Harford. The trio stood at the top of the stone flight
and gaped with sheer amazement at the unexpected delegation.
Irene was first to recover her sangfroid, probably because endowed with
an excess of that quality.
"Only look who's here!" was her lilt of greeting as she clattered down
the steps. "The possible person back again and---- _How_ in the world
did you suspect, Why-Not, that I am keen about cows? This specimen is a
perfect dar-rling. I could just hug her to death."
"You could that--to your own death. Look out. Don't come closer than the
curb."
With the warning, Pape threw a snake-like wriggle into his rope which
loosened its noose-hold upon the hoof of the seemingly subdued steer.
Coiling it upon his saddle horn, he swung to the asphalt and saluted
her, army fashion.
Jane, from a stand halfway down the steps, added only the inquiry of her
eyes.
Harford it was who strode forward with demand. "What's the big idea,
Pape? You trying to make a spectacle of us for the benefit of the
neighbors?"
Pape answered them inclusively. "No pet cow knocks at your gates, but a
steer rounded up and cut-out at Mrs. Sturgis' request. Is the lady in?"
"Aunt Helene? Impossible!"--Jane, with a gasp for exclamation point.
"Ignore the practical joker," urged Harford. "Let's leave him to do his
ridiculous worst and go on with our ride."
Ignore him, eh? The word interested the Westerner. That was what he had
decided to do to the claims of Irene. But one attempt promised to be
about as successful as the other to judge by the clutch of resentment
within him and the clutch of that young woman's fingers upon his arm. He
faced another moment when heart's ease and fate hung upon a thread of
most uncertain feminine spin.