IT was on the second evening after he had walked up-town with Harry
Bromley that Reddick, the railroad passenger agent, squared himself at
his desk in the Union Depot office to scowl discontentedly at a basket
of freshly opened mail. Though the redheaded young man boasted that he
was case-hardened and had no nerves, he had the quick sympathies of
his temperament, and he had lately figured in a business episode the
effect of which had been to leave him chafing and ashamed and ready to
quarrel with his job. While he was absently fingering the letters in
the “Unanswered” basket, the door was opened and Philip drifted in.
“Loafing around down below, I saw your office lighted and thought I’d
climb up and smoke a pipe,” was his greeting to Reddick. “If you are
busy, go on with your job and don’t mind me. I shan’t talk.”
The redheaded one tilted back in his pivot chair and frowned.
“I can’t seem to get down to the job to-night, Phil. I’ve just been a
party to something that makes me sick and disgusted with the railroad
business and everything connected with it in this blasted, rotten-egg
town!”
“Turn it loose if you feel like it,” said the smoker. “I’m a good
listener.”
“It isn’t fit to talk about, but I’ll tell you and get it off my chest.
You may not know it, but women--of a certain sort--are shipped into
this over-manned town like so much freight--prepaid freight, at that.
The landlady deposits the passage money with me, and has me wire our
agent in New York, or wherever it happens to be, to deliver the ticket,
check the woman’s trunk, and send the check to me by mail. In that way
the woman lands in Denver in debt for her railroad fare, and with her
clothes in hock to secure the debt. You can see how it works. It is
slavery, pure and simple. Once in the toils, the poor girl never has a
chance to get out, no matter how badly she may want to. She is shipped
from place to place, and always in debt; is kept that way purposely.”
Philip swore softly. “You’re telling me that the railroad companies
accept that sort of blood money?”
Reddick shrugged.
“If you had worked in the traffic department instead of the accounting,
you’d know that the railroad, like most corporations, doesn’t look
for the finger-prints on the money it takes in. My orders are to get
business. I got into this at first through playing square--through the
boss-women finding out that I didn’t graft on them by overcharging--as
nearly everybody else does; and now the dirty business chases me--hunts
me up.”
“You have had that kind of a job to-day?” Philip asked.
“To-day it was a straight-out, bloody crime, Phil; I’m confident of it.
When I get to thinking about my part in it, I want to go hang myself.
Of course, this traffic, most of it, is in women who know perfectly
well what they are doing; but now and then there are exceptions--some
careless or ignorant girl who is tolled along by rosy promises of an
easy job in the wild West. I had such a case as that this evening, and
it made me want to throw the whole cursed business of railroading into
the discard and go buy me a pick and shovel.”
“Let’s have it,” said Philip shortly.
“The girl who came in this evening was ticketed from Des Moines, but
her folks--so she told me--live on a farm somewhere north of the Iowa
capital. I had the check for her trunk, and I took her and her baggage
out to Madam Goguette’s, the place she was booked for. Philip, as
long as I live I shall never forget the look in that girl’s eyes when
she found out what she was in for; the look and the way she burst
out crying and flung herself on the floor when she was told that she
couldn’t run away--that she’d have to stay and work out her debt.”
“Pretty tough,” said the pipe smoker evenly. “But, as you say, business
is business.”
“I didn’t say any such damned thing!” Reddick broke out hotly. Then:
“You’ve come to be a devilish cold sort of fish since you struck it
rich, Phil. A year ago a story like this I’ve just told you would have
made you rush off and get a lawyer to swear out a writ of _habeas
corpus_, or something of that sort. But now you merely say, ‘Pretty
tough,’ and go on smoking your rotten pipe!”
Philip smiled. “You get hot under the collar rather easily, don’t you,
Reddick? It is a good fault, and sometimes I wish my own hair were a
little nearer the color of yours. I’ll quit you and let you get down
to work. You won’t get anything done so long as you have somebody
around to beef at. Good-night.”
He was about to let himself out when Reddick halted him.
“Hold up a minute, Phil. I’m no spoil-sport, or I don’t mean to be,
but while we’re talking about the things that are and ought not to be,
I want to make a little roar for the underdog. You’ve been up here
evenings playing poker in the car-record office with Middleton and some
more of the clerks, off and on, haven’t you?”
“Now and again, yes. What about it?”
“Two things. While pretty nearly everything goes in this wild and
woolly neck of woods, it is still barely possible that the Old Man
might object to having the car-record, or any other of his offices,
turned into a gambling shop. I have a horrible suspicion that he’ll
make it hot for somebody, when he finds out. That is one thing, and the
other is this: you oughtn’t to gamble with those boys, Phil. They’re
not in your class. You carry too long a purse; you know you do. They
have nothing but their salaries.”
Philip’s smile was grim.
“I didn’t ask to be let in. I guess some of them thought, because I
happen to own a share in a gold mine, I might be good picking. But you
are right. I shan’t rob them any more. Anything else on your mind?”
“No. You are a pretty reasonable sort of devil, after all, Phil. Are
you going? Well, so long.”
Gaining the street level, the reasonable devil refilled his pipe,
lighted it, and set off briskly townward. A square short of Larimer
Street he turned to the left past the house where he had once spent
a drunkenly unconscious night and went on to another of the same
character in the square beyond. The woman who admitted him in answer
to his double knock was of the type of her class: large, shapeless,
hard-eyed, painted and garishly bejeweled. “Mother Goguette” was the
name she went by, but there was little that was motherly about her.
Philip slipped out of his light overcoat and hung it and his hat upon
the hall rack as one who knew what was expected of him.
“Reddick, the railroad man, tells me you took in a new girl this
evening,” he announced brusquely. “She is the one I want to see.”
“And a lotta good it’ll do you!” was the snapped out reply. “The little
fool’s up in her room, cryin’ her eyes out and tryin’ to make me
believe she didn’t know where she was comin’ to! She’s no fit comp’ny
for a gentleman like you. What she needs is somebody that’ll knock a
little sense into her.”
Philip felt in his pocket and put a gold coin into the bejeweled hands.
“I’ll take a chance,” he said. “Which is her room?”
“First one to the right at the head o’ the stairs. You’ll hear her
snifflin’, most likely. Sure you wouldn’t rather see one of the other
girls?”
“Quite sure,” said Philip, and he ran up the carpeted stair.
On the upper landing he had no difficulty in finding the right door.
It opened into a room lighted by a single singing gas jet. Lying face
downward on the bed was a girl, “little” only by comparison with the
gross-bodied woman down-stairs who had used the word. He had a glimpse
of a swollen, tear-stained face, the face of a frightened animal,
lifted at the moment of his entrance, only to be buried in the pillows
again when she saw him. He closed the door noiselessly and drew up a
chair.
“You needn’t be afraid of me,” he began. “I haven’t come here to make
things worse for you. I’m here to help you, if you want to be helped.”
The girl turned her face to the wall and sobbed afresh.
“You’re lying to me--everybody’s lied to me. _She_ sent you up--I know
she did!”
“No,” he denied gently; “I came because I knew you were needing a
friend--a real friend, I mean. Don’t be afraid of me. Sit up here and
tell me about it.”
She obeyed the quiet authority in his voice, sitting dishevelled on the
bed’s edge and wiping her swollen eyes with a balled and tear-dampened
handkerchief. It was the commonplace story too often repeated, of a
country girl dissatisfied with the round of farm life; of the lure
of the city; and, finally, of the persuasion of the tempter who had
started her on the downward road and finished by pretending to find her
employment in Denver.
Philip heard the story through to its pathetic end. There was the stamp
of truth on every part of the ill-worded confession. It was plainly
evident that the girl was not yet old enough in guile to fabricate such
a tale on the spur of the moment.
“What may I call you?” he asked.
“Sadie Hansen’s my name.”
“All right, Sadie; let me ask you just one question: would the old
folks take you back if you should go home now?”
“They--they’ve never quit writin’ me and beggin’ me to come. If they
knew where I am now.... My God--it would kill ’em!”
“Don’t cry any more; it’s all right. You are not going to stay here.”
“But I’ve got to stay. That woman down-stairs says she paid my fare out
here, and she’ll make me stay till I can pay her back!”
“Never mind about that. Have you unpacked your trunk?”
“No.”
“That’s good.” He rose and looked at his watch. “Wash your face and
comb your hair as quickly as you can. Have you had any supper?”
“No; I couldn’t eat anything if I’d die for it.”
“We’ll see about that later. Straighten yourself up and get ready to
go. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She caught at him as he was turning away.
“Tell me what you’re goin’ to do to me! I’ll kill myself if you----”
“Don’t worry; I’m going to send you home--back to your people.”
Before he could stop her she had gone on her knees to him in a frenzy
of gratitude.
“Don’t do that!” he protested sharply, lifting her to her feet.
“There’s nothing to thank me for, and you haven’t any time to lose. Get
busy with the wash-basin.”
In the lower hall he found the hard-faced woman with the bejeweled
ears, neck and hands. She was evidently waiting to find out what would
befall. Philip was bluntly direct.
“That girl up there will never be any good to you,” he asserted
crisply. “If you will tell me how much she owes you, I’ll pay her out
and send her home.”
The woman saw her chance and grasped it avidly.
“Yes, you will!” she jeered. “I know your la-de-dah kind. You want her
for yourself. I’m short o’ girls, and I ain’t goin’ to let her go!”
“Oh, yes; I think you will,” he countered evenly. “It is only a
question of money, isn’t it? How much?” and he drew out a handful of
the gold coins.
The woman laughed, a hoarse chuckle with a choking noise to punctuate
it.
“Oh, well; if you’re so dead set on it, I’ll sell her to you. How much
will you give for her?”
Philip’s eyes burned and his reply was shot-like.
“I’ll pay the price of a human soul. It’s for you to name it, if you
haven’t forgotten that you have a soul of your own.”
The woman shrank back as if he had struck her in the face, and in a
flash she became a snuffling suppliant.
“There, there, dearie--don’t you look at me that way!” she whimpered.
“Of course I ain’t sellin’ nobody’s soul. You pay me what it cost to
fetch her here and take her along.” And she named the amount.
He counted the money out and gave it to her; after which he stepped
to the hall telephone and twisted the crank until he got a connection
with a near-by hack stand. By the time he had brought the girl down, a
hack was at the curb. Sending the driver up for the trunk, Philip led
the girl to the door. As he did so, the Goguette had recovered herself
sufficiently to give a parting flick of the whip.
“Good-by, girlie,” she said. “When he gets through with you, you know
where to come.”
“Don’t answer her,” said Philip in low tones; and when the man came
with the trunk he got a curt order: “To the Union Depot, and be swift
about it.”
At the station Philip again glanced at his watch. There was still time
enough, and he took the girl to the depot restaurant, tipped a waiter
for a rush order, and told her she must eat. While she was at supper
he bought a ticket and a sleeping-car berth and checked the shabby
little trunk. Afterward, he went to sit with her until she finished
eating, telling her to take her time; that he would see to it that she
did not miss her train. Now that she had bathed her face and eyes and
made herself presentable, he saw that she was, not pretty, perhaps, but
wholesomely comely; and though she did not talk, the look in the big
blue eyes that were evidently an inheritance from her Swedish or Danish
ancestry was almost dog-like in its affection and gratitude.
When he took her out to the waiting eastbound train, the Denver & Rio
Grande express from Pueblo and Colorado Springs had just pulled in, and
if he had looked aside he would have seen Bromley welcoming a group of
debarking travellers, with Stephen Drew carrying a hand-bag for one of
them--a very beautiful and statuesque young woman with a peach-blow
complexion and hair like spun gold. Also, he might have seen that, in
the procession of the group toward the station egress, Bromley lagged
behind, with an eye for himself and the girl standing at the steps of
the eastbound sleeper.
“You will find some money in this envelope with the tickets,” he was
saying to the girl, “and there is no string tied to it. Just go back to
your people and thank God you’ve got the best part of your life before
you yet.”
It was then that Harry Bromley, glancing back over his shoulder, saw a
thing that he immediately wished he had not seen. The girl had tucked
the ticket envelope into her bosom and put up her arms. “I wish you’d
let me kiss you, just once,” she said chokingly. “I never knew there
was ever such a man as you on top of God’s green earth!”
“There isn’t--not the way you mean it,” Philip denied quickly. “You
mustn’t trust any of us--not even me.” Then he took her round face
between his hands and kissed her and put her aboard her train; and
Bromley, having witnessed the parting, plodded on after the Follansbee
group, shaking his head and muttering to himself. He had been hoping
that Philip’s plunge into the depths had stopped with the whiskey
bottle and the gaming tables, but here was proof positive that it
hadn’t. It was a man-killing world, this world of the unfettered West,
and the trail of the serpent was over it all.
It was perhaps five minutes after the eastbound train had clanked out
over the station switches when Philip lounged into Reddick’s office to
lean upon the counter rail and watch the passenger agent as he fingered
the keys of one of the lately introduced writing machines. Reddick
stopped his two-finger performance and looked up to say, “Back again,
are you?”
“Yes,” said the lounger, “but not to stay; just to ease your mind. The
girl you were telling me about: she is on her way back to her folks in
Iowa, on the train that has just pulled out. I don’t believe you will
have to check her trunk again.”
“You went up to the Goguette’s and got her out?”
“Yes.”
Reddick thrust a hand over the railing. “Shake!” he said. “I wish there
were more good devils like you in this rotten world--good devils with
money to burn. I’d have done it myself, if I’d had the wherewithal. But
it was too near pay-day for me.”
“I know you would,” said Philip soberly; and as he turned to go: “When
you hear of any more jams like that, just give me a tip, Reddick. As
you say, I have money to burn, and I haven’t much else. ’Night.”