“Vell,” sighed the shoemaker, taking up the heavily-spiked shoes, and
preparing to mend them, “now, vouldn’t dem shoes pe awful to stamp on
anoder feller’s corns? It’s going to pe awful lonesome, but I pe glat
dot Dora vill haf a goot husband, like de Bennie. I guess ve fix it mit
a pigger place. I’ll vistle or sing till dey comes pack.”
Saying those philosophical words, Morris began to whistle, but the
effort brought tears to his eyes. Then he tried to sing, but the words
became a husky rattle, and, with a rueful face, he said:
“Vell, ve haf vork und dot is petter as medicine for a sick heart.”
Scarcely had he uttered these words when the doorway was darkened by
a form, and a big man, who looked still larger in his full cowboy
costume, came clattering down the steps to the little shop. The
shoemaker looked at him in dumb wonder. The cowboy costume was one he
had never seen before, and he looked at it, from the wide, flapping
sombrero to the spurred boots, not missing the hairy “chaps,” or
leggins, and belt which, to Morris’ excited eyes, seemed stuck full of
pistols and knives, although, really, the only two pistols were carried
in the man’s hands. Plainly, the man was intoxicated and at a dangerous
stage. He fired a shot into one corner and then another in rapid
succession, while he shouted:
“Ee--you--Ee--you! I’m a wild and woolly catamount. Ee--you! I’m a bald
eagle and I’m flying high. Ee--you! Hip! Hip! I’m lookin’ for blood,
and I’m thirsty. Whoop-ee, whoop-ee!”
The frightened shoemaker, if he thought anything, imagined that this
was some new kind of Cossack sent to massacre, as in Russia, and he
fell backward over his bench, nearly fainting, yet managed to say:
“De slaughter-house, dot’s ofer in Jersey, de odder site of de river.”
The man, who would have been handsome had it not been for the marks of
dissipation on his face, came on, saying loudly:
“I’m the hungry wolf of the plains, and this is my night to
howl--ee--you! I’m the rip-snortin’ sure-shot from Dead Man’s Gulch!”
“I gif you my vort, you got in de wrong place. Dere’s a
shootin’-gallery on de corner. Two shoots for a cent.”
“Ee--zip! Ee--zip! You’re a shoemaker, ain’t you?”
“I am if I live. Vat you vant, Mister? Dake de place. I don’t vant it.
De rent is too high, anyvay, und I look for anoder place--you can haf
it.”
“I don’t want your place. I’m lookin’ for the coyote who deserted my
sister.”
“Coyotes? I don’t keep ’em. Go down to Somolus Levinsky’s. He’s got his
life insured.”
“My name is ‘Cactus Bill,’ and I’m all over ‘stickers,’ and I want a
shoemaker to peg ’em in.”
“Dot’s a good fellow,” pleaded Morris; “go on to de next place. I got
de locomotor-attacks me, und I can’t use de hammer.”
“Well, we’ll let it go at that. This Bowery booze is chain-lightning.
I can drink a gallon of our Western booze, but this Bowery fire is
burnin’ me up. I’m a stranger in a strange land. I’m a poor lost
yearlin’ and I haven’t got a brand. I’m a ring-tailed broncho an’ I’m
runnin’ away. Clear the range, pardner, for it’s my time to buck.”
As he said this, the wild-looking cowboy fired another shot, which
was harmless, save for a small piece of plaster knocked from the wall.
The shoemaker began to tremble again, and begged him not to be so free
with his shooting or the police would be down on them. Indeed, it was
strange that the officers had not already made their appearance. So he
begged the stranger not to be so free.
“I’m not free. I’m tough, I am. You’ve got to be tough in the West. If
ever you go there, trim yourself up with a beltful of guns and be as
tough as the next one, or they’ll eat you alive. Whoop-ee! I’m goin’
out to find a graveyard. I’ve got to have a place to bury my dead.”
Then the man turned and staggered toward the steps, firing two shots as
he went. The shoemaker at first thought he would run and hide, but he
ducked down behind his bench.
“Nein, nein,” he muttered, “but I am tired.”
The shoemaker still cowered behind the protecting bench when Dora and
Loney returned, laughing happily. Dora saw her father’s pale face and
asked:
“Hello, papa. Was anyone here?”
“Vas anyone here? You ought to haf seen that crowd. You’d t’ink it vos
an auction sale and dey vant to buy out my place. Vy you ask me such
foolish questions, Dora?”
“Why, I did not know that was a foolish question. Was it foolish?”
“No, mein chilt. It vos idiotics.”
“Why, what is the matter, papa?”
“I got it, vot you call dot tired feelings.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes, mein chilt. Go by de top of de steps und see if dere is a Vild
Vest parade comin’ down de street.”
“Why, papa, what is wrong? Are you out of your head?”
“Out of mine headt! Come und touch it, dat I shall pe sure I haf von
yet.”
“Papa, papa!” said Dora, really alarmed. “What is the matter? Oh, are
you sick?”
“I t’ink I am deat, put I don’t know.”
“What _is_ the matter? What is wrong?”
“Nodings wrong. He vas all right.”
Here the shoemaker jumped to his feet, shouting in a wavering voice:
“Ee--you! I’m de ring-tailed broncho and it’s my time to buck. Ee--you!”
“Run, Loney,” said the distracted Dora, “run and get the doctor. Papa
has gone crazy.”
“Neffer mind, Loney. I’m all right now. Dere vos a feller here py de
name of ‘Cactus,’ and he haf stickers on, and he vanted me to peg dem
in.”
“Worse and worse! Run, Loney, for the doctor. Run quick!”
“No, no, Dora. It is all right now. I vos nervous, dot’s all. Vere is
de Bennie?”
“Waiting at Lyons’ for you. He insists that you shall come there and
have supper with him.”
“All right, Dora, I vill go. I need a little air, und I vill drink von
or a couple of glasses of beer. Keep de shop. Good-bye. I vill soon
come back. Good-bye, childrens.”
Saying this, the nerve-shaken shoemaker put on his hat, and left his
apron, and went up the steps to the street.
Dora was so happy that it seemed as though she could not contain her
joy. To her simple heart, marriage and motherhood were the sum and
substance of a woman’s earthly joy. No longings after a “career”
troubled her heart. She had her dear father, her little Loney, and,
above all, her Bennie. Was ever a girl so blessed before? Could human
heart ask more? Her cup was full to overflowing. Dora seized Loney and
began to dance about the dark, little shop.
“Oh, Loney! what a happy world this is, after all! This is only an old
cellar, but I am just as happy as if it were a palace of gold.”
“I knew the happy days would come to the cellar,” said Loney, with
a vague, far-away look in his blue eyes, “because I have prayed and
prayed, because you and your father were so good to me.”
While these words were still on the lips of the child, the doorway was
again darkened and the burly form of “Cactus Bill” appeared. He shouted:
“Ee--you! Where is he? I’m loaded for bear. I want a pipeful of his
whiskers.”
Dora slipped her arm around Loney and drew him into the shadow, just as
John Pierson and Dopey Mack came softly down the steps. “Cactus Bill”
was so unsteady on his feet and so overcome by the vile liquor he had
been drinking that he neither heard nor saw the two men. Scarcely had
they reached the level of the floor than Pierson leveled his pistol
at “Bill,” who stood with his back to the door, and fired, the ball
striking the drunken man in the back.
With the instinct of self-defence, “Bill” drew his pistol and tried to
aim at his adversary, but fell nerveless to the floor, where he lay
inert.
Pierson, with his pistol still in his hand, stepped forward, saying:
“It was your life or mine! You have searched the Bowery from end to end
for me to-night, to kill me--and I drew first; that’s all.”
The prostrate giant gave no sign of life, and after a moment Pierson
said:
“He is dead!”
“Yes,” said Dopey, in an ugly whisper, “and dese kids is witness to de
deed.”
Loney tried to slip out unobserved, to find Mr. Goldberg, but Dopey,
saying “Naw, you don’t,” struck the child a heavy blow on the head with
a murderous “billy.” The child gave a gasp and fell into Dopey’s arms.
Dopey dragged him to the inner door and out of sight.
Dora stood white and speechless with terror until John Pierson turned
to her, saying:
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you. You are too young and beautiful to
die just yet.”
Dopey returned alone and whispered to Pierson:
“I didn’t mean to do it, but de crack on de nut croaked de kid!”
“I’m glad of it. His lips are sealed forever.”
Dopey went to Dora and, with an evil look on his opium-defaced visage,
said hoarsely:
“Now den, my pretty bird, it’s your turn. You’ll never live to tell of
dis!”
“Let her alone!” said John, angrily. “I’m not going to harm her. We’ve
got to get away from New York as quick as the devil will let us--and
I’m going to take her with me.”
With a gasp of horror and a futile effort to call her father and
Bennie, Dora fainted and would have fallen, had not John caught her.
“Come on; help me get her away. Some one may come,” whispered Pierson
to Dopey.
While they stood over Dora, Loney came creeping softly from the hallway
where Dopey had left him, supposing him to be dead; and, unnoticed,
he crept to the bench and crouched behind it unobserved, and silently
wiped the blood that flowed from the wound in his head.
Pierson started with Dora toward the cellar-steps, but Dopey checked
him, saying:
“Not that way, cull. De street is full of people. I know dis place like
a book. Go out that door”--pointing to the door leading into the little
stairway and hall. “You’ll find a gratin’ openin’ into an alley-way.
I’ll go ’round and meet you dere wid Red Mike and his cab. Mike’s me
pal, he is. Dere’s only one way to do a t’ing, an’ dat’s de right way.
See?”
“Then, hurry! hurry!”
John then staggered out the way Dopey had indicated, with the
insensible Dora in his arms, while Dopey sneaked cautiously up the
cellar-steps to the street.
A few moments of silence passed in that little shop, then Loney sobbed
once with the pain in his head and the knowledge that Dora had been
carried off by that bad man, and he was powerless to save her. Then his
senses left him and he sank back unconscious.
With a glad and resonant voice the happy shoemaker shouted down the
steps as he made his appearance then:
“Dora, Dora, I have de nice present for you--from de Bennie. Your ring
of betrothal. I tellet him I wouldn’t let you vear it now, and it is
all fixet. Now, you get merrit on your eighteenth birthday, eh? Vot you
say! Vy, vot is dot? De man mit de ‘stickers’! Yust deat drunk! Dot
Bowery booze vos too much for him--efen him. Vake up, Mister; vake up!
You can’t sleep here. Vat’s dot--ploot! Mein Gott! he is hurted!”
While the shoemaker was shaking and talking to “Bill,” the latter
raised on his elbow, saying:
“My friend, I’m hurt to the death. Shot in the back by the Mexican who
wronged my sister. I played fox until he had gone. I’m going over the
range fast--fast, pardner, and the night is coming on. I can hardly
see.”
“Poor man! kan I do anydings for you?”
“Nothin’, pardner; only look in my side-pocket--there’s an old paper
there. Can you find it?”
Morris put his hand into the pocket designated, and drew therefrom a
folded paper, saying:
“Is it here? Is dis it?”
“That’s yours, pardner. If it ever amounts to anything, it proves the
ownership to a claim out West in the gold fields. Keep it. I haven’t a
relative on earth but a sister, maybe, if she isn’t dead. But if she is
living, and you can find her, and the claim pans out, give her half,
will you?”
“I vill--yust de same as if it vos mein own sister.”
“That’s bully, pard! Gimme your hand. So long. The sun has set, and I
can see my mother up there, with a big gold nugget around her head. So
long.”
These last words ended in a rattling gasp, and a sudden straightening
of the limbs, and then a relaxation of the whole, strong body. “Cactus
Bill” was dead “with his boots on.”
The dazed shoemaker stood up and looked wonderingly about him. So many
things had happened in this one day that it is no wonder he was dazed
by it all. Suddenly the weak voice of Loney called:
“Dora! Dora!”
“No, no; don’t call her. I don’t vant her to see dot,” said Morris,
pointing to “Bill.” Loney staggered from behind the bench, sobbing:
“Oh, Mr. Goldberg! Dora’s stolen! She’s gone!”
“Gone! Gone! Mein Dora gone! Vere?”
“Yes; two men shot _him_, and took Dora!”
The bereaved father sank down to the bench, sobbing: “Mein Gott! Mein
Gott!”
“What are you going to do?” asked Loney, after a while. “Mr. Goldberg,
Mr. Goldberg! What are we going to do?”
“I vill search de vorld ofer to find mein chilt.”
Then, as he tried to take his handkerchief from his pocket, the tiny
baby-shoe fell from it. This brought a flood of tears and, as he kissed
the little shoe over and over again, he sobbed:
“Mein little Dora! Mein little Dora!”
Loney crept to the heartbroken man and passed his thin little arm
around the shoemaker’s neck while they mingled their tears.