THE CITY BOILING OVER
Once I remember seeing an old bear roped in the desert by cowboys, and
dragged by the scruff of his neck into the fierce electric glare of a
Western city. Some female tourists said he looked dreadful rough, a
school ma'am squealed out he was dangerous, a preacher allowed he was
savage, but nobody made excuses for that old bear. Now I reckon that I'm
just like Mr. Bear, dragged sudden off the range into the indecent light
of civilization. Nobody is going to make allowances for me if I look
dreadful rough, and savage, and dangerous. I own up I've no excuse. Bear
and I were raised outside the prickly fences of your laws, beyond the
shelter of your respectable customs, exposed to all the heat and cold,
the light and darkness, the good and the bad of life. Bear, he has teeth
and claws, as I have horse and gun; but both of us fight or go dead, for
that is our business. If you're shocked, quit reading; but if you want
more, read on.
When I knew that Balshannon was due to be shot I set a trap, and all the
desperadoes at Grave City walked right into it. I had the men picked out
who would make a good loss, sent out the invitations to them in Ryan's
name, and had a hand-bell clanged to call them in for the ceremonies. If
Ryan only played fair there would be no killing, but if he acted foul
there was going to be a sure enough massacre. Why, it was only right
that on the death of a great chief like Balshannon servants should go
with him to the other world. That was all known to my three masked men
in ambush, and when Ryan acted foul he was sent with Louisiana, Beef
Jones, and four others, all desperadoes, to wait upon Balshannon--beyond
the flames and smoke of his funeral honours.
For a naturally cautious and timid man I took fool risks in exposing
Curly to that danger; but honest range-raised fighters are more than a
match for the drunken town swabs who had to be dispersed. Besides, my
youngsters were not the kind to stay put in a place of safety. After the
fight, if there was one, I knew that the fire-bell would call up the
whole of the citizens, and the news would spread swifter than flames, of
masked robbers attacking a saloon right in the middle of their peaceful
town. They would be displeased, and rather apt to send in their little
account to me, which made me blush to think of, because I lay myself out
to be a modest man.
When I got through with shooting out all the lights my men quit firing
to haul me through the window. Now all four of us were in the
alley-way, between the saloon and the post office, barred off from the
main street by a high gate, while our line of escape was open to the
rear. Being shy of recognition, I tied on a mask, and reloaded my gun,
planning the next move rapid in my head. Then I called off my men to the
tail end of the house, posting one to kill anybody who tried to get out
by my window. I was scheming a raid into the house to rescue Curly and
Jim, but just for a moment my riders hung back scared.
"Come along, you tigers!" says I. There was no need to risk our lives,
for through the black silence of the house came a sudden blaze of guns
and rush of men. Curly and Jim had broken cover at last, so we had only
to let them come, rolling out head over heels in no end of a hurry. As
soon as they were clear we handed in lead to the crowd, stampeded them,
and sprinkled their tails. They were surely discouraged.
The next thing was to mount our horses and reload guns while we rode off
slow. Jim was shaking all over, Curly was sobbing aloud, Monte, one of
my boys, was groaning because a bullet had burned his cheek, Ute
breathing like a gone horse, and Custer making little yelps of joy--all
of us scary as cats with our nerves on the jump, the same being natural
after a red-hot fight. We pulled out by the south end of the city.
"Now," said I, "you, Curly, and you, Jim, light out ahead and keep
a-flying for old Mexico."
Curly howled, "We ain't goin' to leave you!"
I had to make my meaning quick and plain before he knew I was earnest.
As to Jim, I cut his words dead short--and so they quit me streaking off
to the south.
"Now, you-all!" I turned to my tigers.
Custer let out his yelp, and Ute grinned ugly, and both of them thought
all the world of me for getting them into trouble.
"Monte," says I, "go home and fix that wound."
He circled off.
"Well," says I, "if you other two play any more tiger to-night, I'll rip
your lives out. You got to be plumb good citizens, 'cause them people in
the 'Sepulchre' have seen about ten masked robbers, which they'll surely
hunt. So off with them masks quick," and I threw mine in the road.
"Now," says I, "we'll see if the general public is going to help us to
get them robbers and kill them."
So we three trotted grave and innocent up Main Street, where scores of
citizens were saddling, mounting, and gathering, the swift men calling
the laggards. In the lead rode Deputy-Marshal Pedersen, coming on rapid.
"Hello," he called, "you, Chalkeye!"
I swung in beside him. "What's the delay?" says I.
"How many robbers?"
"Ten masked men, come on! They're McCalmont's gang."
Custer and Ute were calling the rest to hustle. "Ten masked robbers,"
they shouted, "heading down for Naco!"
"Thought you was in the 'Sepulchre'!" says Pedersen.
"I was till I'd shot out the lights," says I; "them crazy idiots there
were handing out lead at me."
"Where did you see them robbers?"
"In the back street. They wounded my boy Monte, so I had to send him
home. Say, look at that!"
Ahead on the white road, plain in the moonlight, lay something black, so
I swung down my arm in passing, and took a grab. "What d'ye make of
this, eh, Pedersen?"
"A silk mask," says he. "Thanks, Chalkeye--you've got us on the right
trail, anyways."
"But watch these tracks," say I; "look there--they're quitting the main
road--swing out!"
Curly and Jim had struck straight south down the road, so I pointed the
whole pursuit well off to the right, south-west for Naco, and made
believe I saw another mask among the stones. If dangerous robbers were
hard to see through the moonshine, that was no fault of mine. If the
citizens wanted to go riding out by moonlight, I surely gave them heaps
good exercise.
Meanwhile that Curly was herding Jim down towards the Mexican boundary;
but both the lads were rattled, and their nerves had gone all to smash.
Jim had dumb yearnings to go back and eat up citizens, Curly was trying
to cry with one lip while he laughed with the other. Then Jim told Curly
not to be a coward, and Curly laughed with the tears rolling down his
face.
"I wisht I was daid," he howled, "I wisht I was daid. I done murdered
Beef Jones, and there's his ole hawss a-waiting to take him home. He
loved that hawss."
"And you a robber!" says Jim, mighty scornful. Jim had only courage, a
thing which is usual to all sorts of men and beasts, but Curly had
something bigger--brains, judgment, the lion heart, the eagle sight, the
woman gentleness, a child's own innocence, and heaven's unselfishness.
"I'm a sure coward," he sobbed.
"Brace up, youngster. I saw you kill both Beef and Louisiana, but now
you're gone all rotten."
"Between the eyes, I got Pete between the eyes! I seen his eyes goin' up
all white--the hole between--oh, how I wisht I was daid!"
"Poor little beggar! And one would think this was the first time you'd
ever seen a gun-fight."
"I never seen one, never until now."
"And you McCalmont's son!"
"You needn't let on to him that y'u seen me--human. Wall," he braced
himself up, "I'm only a range wolf, so what's the odds, Jim?"
"Well, what's wrong now?"
"Do you know you're outlawed too? Old Chalkeye masked his riders, he
played robbers, I showed wolf, and you're done branded with the range
wolves now."
Jim swung round in the saddle, looking back at Grave City, a bad sample
surely among cities, but still entitled to wave Old Glory high, the flag
of honest men, of civilisation.
He set his teeth and swung to his trail again.
"If honesty is _that_," says he determinedly, "I'll herd with thieves."
"I don't like the smell of this trail," says Curly, "none. The City
Marshal is riding up from Bisley with his posse. Let's strike west, then
circle the town, then north, to father's camp."
"Come on," says Jim, and swung his horse to the west along a small dead
trail.
"We got to change ourselves," says McCalmont's son, and began to loose
some parcels tied by the strings to his saddle. "I got some clothes for
we-all. Here," he passed over an old leather jacket, a straw sombrero,
and a bottle. "That's cawffee extract," says he, "mixed with a black
drug. I boiled it strong. You rub it over yo' face and neck and paws,
then rig yo'self."
Our people, at any gait in the saddle, are broke to eat dinner, drink
from a bottle, roll a cigarette, or sing a song without being jarred up
like a tenderfoot. So while they trotted slow Jim stained his hide all
black like a greaser _vaquero_, then slung on the _charro_ clothes of a
poor Mexican cowboy.
"Now," says Curly, "you take this moustache and lick the gummy side,
stick it on yo' lip, and remember yo're a Dago. Say, pull up, they'll
know that buckskin mare of mine for sure. There ain't another in the
United States I reckon with white points like her'n. You empty that
bottle, and black her white stockings, quick."
Curly was changing too, for he pulled up the legs of his overalls, then
wriggled them down over his long boots. Then he took Jim's cowboy hat,
and slouched the brim down front like a hayseed boy. He put on a raggy
old jacket, and bulged his lean cheeks out with pads of wool. He looked
a farm boy, and when they rode on, sat like a sack of oats.
"It won't work," says Jim, "here's a big outfit of people sweeping right
down from the north. Our horses are blown, and their snorting will give
us away."
"Dot vash all righd," says Curly.
"That wouldn't pass for German," says Jim, "not even in a fog."
"Shure," says Curly, "is it me forgettin' me nativity? Amn't I Oirish?"
They had entered the Naco trail by this, and were walking their horses
up the hill for Grave City. If the silly kids had obeyed my orders we
should never have seen a hair of them that night. As it was,
Deputy-Marshal Pedersen and I came with full thirty men on top of them.
I don't profess I knew either the Irish hayseed boy or the _vaquero_,
until the black horse, a melancholy plug called Jones which I'd lent
Curly, began to whicker to the grey mare I rode. Pedersen, too, was
mortal suspicious of that buckskin mare with Jim.
"Black points," says he. "That's so--Crook's had white laigs."
"Shure," says Curly, prompt, "an' is it thim robbers ye'd be afther
hunting?"
Pedersen reined up.
"They've passed you, eh?" he called.
"Didn't they shoot me," says Curly, "till I'm kilt entoirely? There was
elivan av thim agin' me and the young feller that was along with me, the
rapscallions, and thim with black masks on their dirthy faces!"
"How long since?"
"Three minutes gone, yer 'anner; and can any of yez tell me if this is
the road to Misther Chalkeye Davies?"
Pedersen had spurred on, and we swept after him, leaving Mr. Curly
McCalmont howling Irish curses because we hadn't pointed him on his
trail to Las Salinas.
We were scarcely gone when a second outfit of five stragglers came
rolling down the trail, headed by Shorty Broach, one of the men who had
been hurt that night in the gun-fight. He always hated Balshannon's
folks worse than snakes; he was heaps eager now for Curly McCalmont's
blood; and the two thousand dollars which went along with it. But worse
than that, this Shorty was a sure plainsman, who never forgot a horse.
Still he went past with his crowd before he saw anything wrong with that
black horse I'd lent, or the buckskin mare Jim was riding. Then he
swung.
"Hold on, boys! Say, I knows that buckskin. That's Crook's buckskin mare
at the livery--here's Curly McCalmont's mare!"
The riders tried to call Shorty off, told him to soak his head,
remembered that Crook's buckskin had white stockings, whereas this
mare's points were black, which made all the difference.
"Them horses is blown, they're run full hard," says Broach; "they've
been surely chased, and I'm due to inquire more."
On that the riders began to circle around, while Curly slung out Irish
by the yard about running away from the robbers.
"Shure," says he, "and it's the Chief of the Police no less we're
talkin' wid."
"Throw up your hands!" says Broach, pointing his gun on Jim, but the
youngster was busy rolling a cigarette.
"Why is that gringo showing off with a gun?" he asked in Spanish. "He
looks so foolish, too!"
"You got to account for that buckskin mare," says Broach, but Jim set in
the cool moonlight and lit his cigarette, taking no notice.
"This greaser is lately an orphan, sorr," says Curly, "an' he's only
goin' innocent for a dhrunk in Grave City--maning no harr-m at all."
"Where did he get that buckskin?"
"It's the 'pitchfork' mare ye'll be maning, sorr?"
At last Jim knew the brand on the mare he was riding.
"Indade," says Curly, "hasn't she got an Holy Crawss brand on the
shoulder as well, sorr? Maybe he stole her there."
"If you want to live, Mr. Greaser, you'll account for that buckskin
mare," Broach threatened again with his gun.
"I understand," says Jim in Spanish, puffing his cigarette at Shorty's
face. "I took this mare in trade at la Morita Custom House on the Line.
A Vaquero Americano could not pay the hundred per cent. duty on his
horse, so I traded with him my Mexican-branded mustang to oblige,
taking this mare. She's branded 'Holy Cross,' rebranded 'pitchfork.'
Perhaps the gentlemen will stand aside--I have explained."
"All very well," said Broach in Spanish, which sounded rough like a
railroad accident, "how do you account for that saddle, Jim du Chesnay's
silver-mounted saddle?"
"Si Señor, the saddle of my young lord el Señor Don Sant Iago, of Holy
Cross. The caballero ordered me to bring these, that he might play bear
before the house of a beautiful lady in Grave City."
"And your own saddle?"
"Alas! I played poker with the Americanos. They have skinned me." Jim
made a little flourish, twisted the moustache. It came off in his
fingers!
And with a howl the whole crowd closed in. They had captured Jim du
Chesnay and Curly McCalmont!