Lamplight and daylight blent in the waterfront streets, and as the
little crowd of men left the more open wharf front, where there was
also some reflected last daylight from the docks and the river, a
looker-on might have been touched deeply, seeing the quick-going day,
the gathering shadows in the gulches of the streets, the lighting up of
the saloons, and that knot of men, more homeless than sparrows,
drifting across the twilight. And they were not of the bottom rung, at
least not in their own estimation. A man in the uniform of the
Salvation Army passed by, and that member of the "Push" who looked like
a squat Mike, and whose name, it transpired, was Michael, turned to
Scholar and commented: "I suppose the Salvation Army does some good in
its own way--among the lowest classes." And again a few paces on, when
one of the men in the rear broke out: "Here, where are you fellows
going? What's the matter with this?" Michael looked over his shoulder
and shook his head in dissent; and a little further still, as the man
behind was still wanting to know what was the matter with the saloon in
question: "We don't want to go in there," Michael said. "There ain't
enough of us. That's a bad, low-down joint."
"Scared, are you?" jeered the other.
"There's a bad push goes in there," said Michael, "and you don't stand
a show if you're not in the swing."
"Go on! What could they do?"
It would appear that Michael felt his powers of explaining inadequate.
"Mike," he said, "here's a fellow wants to know what they would do with
him back there."
"What they would do to him, is it?" asked Mike. "It all depinds
whether he feels in his pockuts and fetches out the nate money as if it
was his last nickel."
The man behind seemed interested.
"Supposing I put down fifty cents?" he said.
Mike looked at him witheringly.
"You'd have to spind the change on thim," he said.
"Oh!"
"But if ye want to see the whole thing for yoursilf, my device to you,
me lad, is to plant down a dollar--if ye have it. If ye hadn't plenty
of fighting friends with ye, ye might just as well hand it to them. If
it's a rough house ye're wantin', we might all go in and oblige ye, but
spakin' for mesilf, I'm wantin' a quiet drink."
"That's right," Michael commented quietly, with a nod to Scholar, by
whose side he marched. "Partner of mine once went in there. I think
meself that some fellow slipt up and drugged his beer, for when he
comes near the tail of the glass he feels kind of funny, ye know, and
he came outside. He was for walking out into the main streets, and
then he thinks some bull would arrest him for drunk and incapable, for
he could hardly stand; so he turns the other way and two fellows came
up to him and began talking to him, and asks him what's the matter, and
he tumbles to it and tries to walk back the other way again. One of
them fellows comes the one side of him and the other the other side,
and they says: 'You come along with us, where the bulls won't get you.'
And while he's puzzling out which is better, the bulls or them, ye
see--well, he doesn't know any more, ye see. And the next he does
know, he's wondering where he is anyhow, for the things he's after
seeing. It's the backs of the wharfs all upside down, ye see. He's
lying there with nothing on him but his pants. The hat on his head,
his shirt and his coat, with his discharge papers in it, they've
skinned off him; and his boots; and him after having a dollar stowed
away in each boot."
"Here you are, Scholar, then," said Mike, in advance, and swung into a
saloon, a ramshackle sawdusted place, where, behind a short counter, a
lean, sharp-faced man in shirt sleeves looked at them in a way
reminiscent of a weasel. All entered with a swagger, each man with
whatever change of face was his change of face before possible trouble.
Mike jerked up his right shoulder, jerked up his left, hitched his
belt, seemed to heave his chest up, and broaden his whole torso.
Cockney curved his back, curved also his arms, making the swing of
them, instead of by his side, left and right, in front of him, and
thrust his face forward, craning his neck. Michael put one hand in his
pocket, half-closed his eyes, and slowly, and without expression, his
guarded gaze roved from occupant to occupant of the place. The man
with the dangerously mad eyes, who it appeared was called Harry, but
was referred to simply as Queer, merely sneered slightly, an unpleasant
sneer, a one-sided sneer that showed a tooth. The Inquisitive One
danced into the place; his name had not yet transpired, but it seemed
to be "him," with an indicatory jerk of the thumb, at which he did not
take open umbrage, only now and then giving his roving glance from foot
to head of whoever thus referred to him. But if he danced in gaily he
was none the less alert.
Somebody spoke, and Mike interrupted with: "Where's your manners?
Can't you let the man that's going to stand treat ask you what you're
going to be after having, without shouting your order like that?" And
they lined up against the bar, on which the barman put the palms of his
hands, standing before them.
"Well, what will you have, Mike?" asked Scholar. It was the first time
he had given him his name, and Mike acknowledged it with a nod. He
turned to the bar-keeper.
"I'll have a schooner of beer," he said.
Michael, catching Scholar's eye, nodded to him, and then to the
bar-keeper. "The same for me," he said.
The barman looked along the row and received a series of nods. He
glanced at Scholar, elevating his brows, and Scholar inclined his head,
and the monster nominal glasses, but really glass jugs with handles,
came swift almost as conjuring, one after the other, on to the counter.
"Well, here's looking at ye," said Mike, "and good luck."
"Well, here's good luck," said Michael.
The phrase passed along, and the great jugs were held up and the
quaffing began. Mike drank a quarter of his, and then turned his back
to the bar, and surveyed the room. Over in a corner a faint
disturbance arose, sounds of altercation, somebody telling someone else
that he would push his face in. Mike looked into the corner,
impassive. He leant forward and dragged a high stool over to the
counter.
"Come and sit here beside me, Scholar," he said.
The narrow swing doors opened; a slight draught of air, cooler than the
air within, caused them to glance round. A furtive and evil face
showed for a moment in the middle of the strip of dark, blue night, and
then was withdrawn. Michael looked at Mike to see if he had noticed
that observer who came and went. Scholar sat up on the high stool.
"I don't know if you're fond of entering into scraps," said Mike
quietly. "But don't you do it. It's a way some of these fellows have.
Hearken to 'em now!"
This half-dozen or so of the "Push" of the _S.S. Glory_ applied itself
to its beer, and to talk, two by two. It had the air of partitioning
itself off from the rest of the house; it was a private party.
"Order!" cried the bar-keeper, shoving his chin at those in the noisy
corner. "Order, please!"
A man danced from the corner, beseeching another to "stand out."
Scholar glanced in the direction of the group from which he had come,
and it struck him that one or two faces there were turned more toward
the men of the _Glory_ than toward the combative person. At one small
table, that stood all by itself, there had been, so far, a newspaper
and two red fists; the newspaper came down now a little way and a face
looked over the top, a face as red as the fists that had shown on each
side. The bar-keeper's hands were flat on the counter again; he was
looking (almost stupidly it seemed) at the man who desired trouble, but
now his eye roved toward the face that appeared over the newspaper's
top.
"Order, sir!" he said again, looking once more at the man who had stood
up and forth to demand war.
Mike drained his glass; his eyes were very bright. He turned, and
leaning against the counter, looked at the belligerent one, met his
eye, cleared his throat oddly, and heaved up his chest. It struck
Scholar that the beer acted quickly upon Mike.
"Well, will _you_ fight me then?" said the man, catching Mike's eye.
Mike took a fierce step forward--he who had but a moment ago advised
Scholar to keep out of such trouble. The eyes of the bar-keeper and of
the man behind the newspaper again met. Down went the newspaper, up
came the man. He walked over to the blusterer and addressed a knothole
in the planks before his feet.
"I'll have to ask you to get out," he said, speaking to the knot-hole,
and then glanced at the man.
"I don't have to!"
The actions were then as quick as when two cats, the preamble over,
decide to come to grips. A whirl of arms and legs went down the middle
of the saloon, the swing doors swept left and right and closed again,
and the big man was alone now, his eye upon the doors as they wavered
to a standstill.
"There you are!" said Michael to Scholar. "That's what I told
you--this is a good class house."
"Drink up! Drink up!" ordered Mike, "and we'll have some more."
But four rational glasses of beer in one seemed sufficient for Scholar.
"We'd better get back I think," he said. "The rest of the cattle will
be coming on board."
"Oh, but indade I must stand treat now!" answered Mike.
"Can't you get a glass of beer here?" asked Scholar, accentuating the
"glass."
"Them is the glasses of beer here," said Mike. "Come along boys, drink
up!" he repeated; and he glanced at the door with a kind of hilarity in
his eye.
"When will she sail, do you think?" said the Inquisitive One.
"She can't go out before four or five in the morning," said Mike.
"Give us all the same again, Mr. Bar-keeper."
Those who had not finished made haste to do so, and the glasses were
replenished. The man who had thrown out the belligerent one had not
again taken his seat. He was looking sadly, moodily, at the swing
doors. He might have been brooding over some domestic trouble by the
look of him. Then he turned about, still looking heavily at the floor,
walked rearwards, hands behind back, and took up a position towards the
end of the saloon, legs spraddled, swaying up on his toes and coming
down on his heels again gently.
"He's after freezing them out," said Michael, seeing Scholar glance at
the man of moody weight. The noisy group had probably a like opinion
of his brooding proximity, drained its glasses, rose and passed to the
door. The heavy man walked slowly in the rear. It was composed of
some tough-looking units; but Scholar, who had come down from the
lumber camps of Michigan, was not intimidated by their scowling faces.
One of them jostled Cockney's elbow, and he turned round, lean and
humped like a weasel; but the big man, following just a step behind,
thrust his big hand between Cockney and the jostler, and admonished:
"Now then, now then. Move on, please!"
Michael nodded his head again to Scholar, jogged him with an elbow.
"See?" said he. "See? There's nothing on here between the people
behind the bar and the people in front, same as in some of them."
"I see," said Scholar.
Hardly had the last of these ugly fellows departed than the Inquisitive
One plucked his elbow and drew him aside, and Scholar was amazed to
notice that his utterance was thick as he whispered, a blend of
ingratiation and intimidation in his face: "How much are you getting
for the trip over?"
"Look here--none of that whispering!" said Mike, the heavy,
ready-to-smite look, with which he had watched the departure of the
dubious throng, still on his face. "If you fellows have anything to
say, say it. Here's a schooner of beer untouched, too!"
Scholar turned about.
"My inside isn't big enough to take another glass of that size," he
declared.
"Here's looking at you, then!" said Michael, and, lifting the glass
jug, he opened his throat, and holding it rigid as if it were a filler,
poured the contents down.
"There y'are!" said Mike. "There y'are! That's a gintleman! That's a
gintleman!" And there was a faint thickness in his speech too, as
though his tongue was spongy. "I was niver mixed up with such a push
in me life--what with whisperin' together and drinking another man's
beer."
Cockney broke out, in a jeering voice, eyeing the Inquisitive One and
Scholar: "How much are you getting for the trip? Tell me, and see if
yer getting something mor'n me."
"Oh, is that what he's after whispering?" said Mike.
The stubby Michael caught Scholar by the elbow and drew him away from
the inquisitor, who went back to his place at the bar to drain his
glass in an offended manner.
"You see, it's like this," began Michael, swaying ever so little
towards Scholar. "What these fellows do is this: one of them gets up a
row with you, and one of the others comes in as if he was separatin'
you. 'Pay no attention to him,' he says. 'Pay no attention to him.
You come along of me. You're a good man wantin' to fight when you're
insulted, but he's drunk. Pay no attention to him. Come along of me.'
And the other fellows say: 'Come along of us!' But they're all of the
one push, see? And when you go off with them to talk about the things
you would be doin' if they hadn't separated you, ye never know when
it's goin' to end. The way that them landsharks goes around looking
for honest seamen----"
A roaring bellow from Mike interrupted this. Evidently he had spoken
before.
"I'm askin' ye--I'm askin' ye--I'm askin' yez--are ye goin' to have
another drink?" he demanded. "Whisperin' like a lot of girls!"
While he was roaring thus, entered two men, blue-capped and shabbily
attired, clean as to face and half the neck, but showing tide marks of
scanty washings.
"Hallo, Mike!" one of them said.
"Well, bejabbers, and how's yourself?" answered Mike. Here was clearly
not a case of new and fraudulent friends, for Mike evidently knew them
both; having shaken hands with the first he required no introduction to
the second, extended his great hand, shook warmly, and cried: "How are
you? Have a drink with me!"
"Have a drink with _me_," said the man who had first hailed Mike, and
he ordered and paid for three glasses of beer. Suddenly he glanced
over his shoulder at the other men.
"Are these fellows----" he began.
"Oh, indade!" said Mike. "Thim fellers is aither too short in the neck
to take more, or they have saycrets to whisper."
Some of the men near the door had gone out, and now the door swung open
again, and one shouted: "Shake a leg, push of the _S.S. Glory_! Crew
of the _S.S. Glory_, shake a leg!"
"What's the time?" said Scholar, astonished. "It can't be late yet.
This place is still open."
"'E thinks 'e's in England," said Cockney, but joyful, not malevolent.
"The first thing yer notice in this 'ere country is them bills--'Open
day hand night'--and the next thing is the size of them glasses. They
look long at first, but you get used to everythink. I could do wiv 'em
longer." He drained his glass. "Longer fer me! Longer fer me!" he
began to sing, making for the door. Evidently the strains of a
Salvation Army song outside had come to his ears through the voices and
clatter of the place, for as the doors swung now with the men tumbling
out, Scholar heard the beat of a drum and voices singing: "That will be
glory, glory for me!" Cockney danced along the street, his wide
trousers flapping about his lean shanks, laughing and singing: "Longer
fer me! Longer fer me!"
"Come on, Mike!" shouted the last of them.
"Tell them to cast off if I don't come!" he replied. "I've met ould
friends--and I'm drinkin'."
"Come along, Mike," Michael hailed.
"Come along, Mike," implored Scholar. There was something like pity in
his eye for the great empty-stomached man. They were all
empty-stomached--that is so far as to food; and that beer had drugged
and stupefied them.
"To hell wid yez all!" cried Mike; and then through the haze in his
eyes he peered along the saloon at Scholar. "Stay wid me, Scholar,
stay wid me. Let the other fellows go."
"I want to cross over," said Scholar.
"Well, well--God bless you then. Don't let them fellers run it on ye,"
and Mike waved his hand and turned his back. Outside Michael held the
door open with a foot, and when Scholar came out, Michael, withdrawing
the foot, seemed to have some difficulty in balancing. Scholar caught
his arm.
"What are you holdin' me for?" said Michael. "There's nothing the
matter with me!"
He persisted with this remark all the way to the corner in the rear of
the others, varying it now and then with: "I'm all right." At the
corner were two men that Scholar recognized; one of them was the man
with whom Mike had had half a mind to grapple, the thrower-down of the
gauntlet; the other one was of the ejected gang. The former caught
Scholar's eye in the lamplight.
"Is the big fellow there still?" he asked.
Cockney, looking over his shoulder a few paces ahead, turned about,
pausing in his singing of "Longer fer me!" and came back, craning like
a thin duck.
"Wot does 'e say? Wot does 'e say?"
The two men eyed him coldly.
"Wot does 'e say?" repeated Cockney.
"He wants to know if Mike's in there still," said Michael.
"Wot does 'e want Mike for? Wot do you want Mike for?"
"We were speaking to this gentleman," said one of the men, but not the
one who had spoken to Scholar.
"O, you were, were you. Why can't yer speak for yerself?" and Cockney
turned to the other, he who had tried to lure Mike into combat. "Wot
do you want him for?"
"It's none of your business!" replied the man.
"Yus it is! We're shipmites! I'll give yer a bash in the ear-'ole for
tuppence! I'll put yer nose up among yer 'air for ten cents! Won't hi
do instead? We're shipmites, 'im and me."
The man lunged at Cockney to deliver a blow; and Cockney, with a
wriggle and a snarl, smashed a blow in his assailant's wind, and, next
moment, when they grappled, set his teeth in the man's wrist.
"Bull!" somebody shouted, so the farther combat of weasel and boar was
not to be seen, for the call of "bull!" was genuine. There he was,
there was the policeman pacing slowly towards them like a fate, broad,
determined, left hand at side nonchalant, right hand slightly raised,
nonchalant too, twirling his club gently at the end of its short
leather wristlet--like a stout Georgian dandy, swinging a cane.
None of the "Push" of the _S.S. Glory_ had any desire to see the inside
of a lock-up, and evidently the two men who had been curious regarding
Mike's whereabouts, were not in league with the police. By the time
that his slow patrol brought him to the end of the block, that bull had
the pavement to himself; the two "toughs" had disappeared in one of the
narrow streets, in one of its narrow entrances; the "Push" was
stumbling about over hawsers and round bales on the dark wharf-side.
The policeman, turning gently about, gave ear. He heard a thin sound
of fiddles, a sound of clapping and table-thumping behind closed
windows over at Dutch Ann's dance house; the quick, coughing sound of a
donkey-engine somewhere along the docks, and a voice chanting: "Up
again!"--pause--"All right! Up again!" Slow puffs of a locomotive
drew near, sepulchral cling-clang of the bell; there came a shout of
voices: "Yo-ho! Let her go!" a rattle of iron, a rattle of wheels over
cobbles; and all through this was a querulous lowing of cattle,
puzzled, despondent, irritable, after their week's journey from the
long green rolls of Alberta, from lush bottoms of the Milk River.
The Salvation Army people had gone; but away along towards where the
masts and the smoke-stack top of the _S.S. Glory_ showed over the
wharf, Cockney's voice sang high and piping and exulting: "Longer fer
me! Longer fer me!"