secondary cause was, of course, a love affair. These two things did not
connect themselves consciously in Tom's mind, but they blended subtly to
produce a ruminative dissatisfaction.
When Tom was quite young he had fallen in love with a girl back in the
Dakota country. Shortly after a military-post had been established near
by, and Anne Bingham had ceased to be spoken of by mayors' daughters and
officers' wives. Tom, being young, had never quite gotten over it. It
was still part of his nature, and went with a certain sort of sunset, or
that kind of star-lit evening in which an imperceptible haze dims the
brightness of the heavens.
The open-air preacher had chosen as his text the words, "passing the
love of woman," and Tom, wandering idly by, had caught the text. Somehow
ever since the words had run in his mind. They did not mean anything to
him, but merely repeated themselves over and over, just as so many
delicious syllables which tickled the ear and rolled succulently under
the tongue. For, you see, Tom was only an ordinary battered Arizona
cow-puncher, and so, of course, according to the fireside moralists,
quite incapable of the higher feelings. But the words reacted to arouse
memories of black-eyed Anne, and the memories in turn brought one of his
moods.
Tom, and Alfred, and the ponies, and the cook-wagon, and the cook, and
the Mexican vaqueros had done the alkali for three days. Underfoot had
been an exceedingly irregular plain; overhead an exceedingly bright and
trying polished sky; around about an exceedingly monotonous horizon-line
and dense clouds of white dust. At the end of the third day everybody
was feeling just a bit choked up and tired, and, to crown a series of
petty misfortunes, the fire failed to respond to Black Sam's endeavours.
This made supper late.
Now at one time in this particular locality Arizona had not been dry and
full of alkali. A mighty river, so mighty that in its rolling flood no
animal that lives to-day would have had the slightest chance, surged
down from the sharp-pointed mountains on the north, pushed fiercely its
way through the southern plains, and finally seethed and boiled in
eddies of foam out into a southern sea which has long since disappeared.
On its banks grew strange, bulbous plants. Across its waters swam
uncouth monsters with snake-like necks. Over it alternated storms so
savage that they seemed to rend the world, and sunshine so hot that it
seemed that were it not for the bulbous plants all living things would
perish as in an oven.
In the course of time conditions changed, and the change brought the
Arizona of to-day. There are now no turbid waters, no bulbous plants, no
uncouth beasts, and, above all, no storms. Only the sun and one other
thing remain: that other thing is the bed of the ancient stream.
On one side--the concave of the curve--is a long easy slope, so gradual
that one hardly realises where it shades into the river-bottom itself.
On the other--the convex of the curve--where the swift waters were
turned aside to a new direction, is a high, perpendicular cliff running
in an almost unbroken breastwork for a great many miles, and baked as
hard as iron in this sunny and almost rainless climate. Occasional
showers have here and there started to eat out little transverse
gullies, but with a few exceptions have only gone so far as slightly to
nick the crest. The exceptions, reaching to the plain, afford steep and
perilous ascents to the level above. Anyone who wishes to pass the
barrier made by the primeval river must hunt out for himself one of
these narrow passages.
On the evening in question the cowmen had made camp in the hollow beyond
the easy slope. On the rise, sharply silhouetted against the west,
Alfred rode wrangler to the little herd of ponies. Still farther
westward across the plain was the clay-cliff barrier, looking under the
sunset like a narrow black ribbon. In the hollow itself was the camp,
giving impression in the background of a scattering of ghostly mules, a
half-circle of wagons, ill-defined forms of recumbent vaqueros, and then
in the foreground of Sam with his gleaming semicircle of utensils, and
his pathetic little pile of fuel which would not be induced to gleam at
all.
For, as has been said, Black Sam was having great trouble with his fire.
It went out at least six times, and yet each time it hung on in a
flickering fashion so long that he had felt encouraged to arrange his
utensils and distribute his provisions. Then it had expired, and poor
Sam had to begin all over again. The Mexicans smoked yellow-paper
cigarettes and watched his off-and-on movements with sullen distrust;
they were firmly convinced that he was indulging in some sort of a
practical joke. So they hated him fervently and wrapped themselves in
their serapes. Tom sat on a wagon-tongue swinging a foot and repeating
vaguely to himself in a singsong inner voice, "passing the love of
woman, passing the love of woman," over and over again. His mind was a
dull blank of grayness. From time to time he glanced at Sam, but with no
impatience: he was used to going without. Sam was to him a matter of
utter indifference.
As to the cook himself, he had a perplexed droop in every curve of his
rounded shoulders. His kinky gray wool was tousled from perpetual
undecided scratching, and his eyes had something of the dumb sadness of
the dog as he rolled them up in despair. Life was not a matter of
indifference to him. Quite the contrary. The problem of _damp wood_ +
_matches_ = _cooking-fire_ was the whole tangle of existence. There was
something pitiable in it. Perhaps this was because there is something
more pathetic in a comical face grown solemn than in the most melancholy
countenance in the world.
At last the moon rose and the fire decided to burn. With the seventh
attempt it flared energetically; then settled to a steady glow of
possible flap-jacks.
But its smoke was bitter, and the evening wind fitful. Bitter smoke on
an empty stomach might be appropriately substituted for the last straw
of the proverb--when the proverb has to do with hungry Mexicans. Most of
the recumbent vaqueros merely cursed a little deeper and drew their
serapes closer, but Jose Guiterrez grunted, threw off his blanket, and
approached the fire.
Sam rolled the whites of his eyes up at him for a moment, grinned in a
half-perplexed fashion, and turned again to his pots and pans. Jose,
being sulky and childish, wanted to do something to somebody, so he
insolently flicked the end of his long quirt through a mess of choice
but still chaotic flap-jacks. The quirt left a narrow streak across the
batter. Sam looked up quickly.
"Doan you done do dat!" he said, with indignation.
He looked upon the turkey-like Jose for a heavy moment, and then turned
back to the cooking. In rescuing an unstable coffee-pot a moment later,
he accidentally jostled against Jose's leg. Jose promptly and fiercely
kicked the whole outfit into space. The frying-pan crowned a sage-brush;
the coffee-pot rolled into a hollow, where it spouted coffee-grounds and
water in a diminishing stream; the kettle rolled gently on its side;
flap-jacks distributed themselves impartially and moistly; and, worst of
all, the fire was drowned out altogether.
Black Sam began stiffly to arise. The next instant he sank back with a
gurgle in his throat and a knife thrust in his side.
The murderer stood looking down at his victim. The other Mexicans
stared. The cowboy jumped up from the tongue of the wagon, drew his
weapon from the holster at his side, took deliberate aim, and fired
twice. Then he turned and began to run toward Alfred on the hill.
A cowboy cannot run so very rapidly. He carries such a quantity of
dunnage below in the shape of high boots, spurs, chaps, and
cartridge-belts that his gait is a waddling single-foot. Still, Tom
managed to get across the little stony ravine before the Mexicans
recovered from their surprise and became disentangled from their
ponchos. Then he glanced over his shoulder. He saw that some of the
vaqueros were running toward the arroya, that some were busily
unhobbling the mules, and that one or two had kneeled and were preparing
to shoot. At the sight of these last, he began to jump from side to side
as he ran. This decreased his speed. Half-way up the hill he was met by
Alfred on his way to get in the game, whatever it might prove to be. The
little man reached over and grasped Tom's hand. Tom braced his foot
against the stirrup, and in an instant was astride behind the saddle.
Alfred turned up the hill again, and without a word began applying his
quirt vigorously to the wiry shoulders of his horse. At the top of the
hill, as they passed the grazing ponies, Tom turned and emptied the
remaining four chambers of his revolver into the herd. Two ponies fell
kicking; the rest scattered in every direction. Alfred grunted
approvingly, for this made pursuit more difficult, and so gained them a
little more time.
Now both Alfred and Tom knew well enough that a horse carrying two men
cannot run away from a horse carrying one man, but they also knew the
country, and this knowledge taught them that if they could reach the
narrow passage through the old clay bluff, they might be able to escape
to Peterson's, which was situated a number of miles beyond. This would
be possible, because men climb faster when danger is behind them than
when it is in front. Besides, a brisk defence could render even an angry
Mexican a little doubtful as to just when he should begin to climb.
Accordingly, Alfred urged the pony across the flat plain of the ancient
riverbed toward the nearest and only break in the cliff. Fifteen miles
below was the regular passage. Otherwise the upper mesa was as
impregnable as an ancient fortress. The Mexicans had by this time
succeeded in roping some of the scattered animals, and were streaming
over the brow of the hill, shouting wildly. Alfred looked back and
grinned. Tom waved his wide sombrero mockingly.
When they approached the ravine, they found the sides almost
perpendicular and nearly bare. Its bed was V-shaped, and so cut up with
miniature gullies, fantastic turrets and spires, and so undermined by
former rains as to be almost impassable. It sloped gently at first, but
afterward more rapidly, and near the top was straight up and down for
two feet or more. As the men reached it, they threw themselves from the
horse and commenced to scramble up, leading the animal by the
bridle-rein. From riding against the sunset their eyes were dazzled, so
this was not easy. The horse followed gingerly, his nose close to the
ground.
It is well known that quick, short rains followed by a burning sun tend
to undermine the clay surface of the ground and to leave it with a hard
upper shell, beneath which are cavities of various depths. Alfred and
Tom, as experienced men, should have foreseen this, but they did not.
Soon after entering the ravine the horse broke through into one of the
underground cavities and fell heavily on his side. When he had scrambled
somehow to his feet, he stood feebly panting, his nostrils expanded.
"How is it, Tom?" called Alfred, who was ahead.
"Shoulder out," said Tom, briefly.
Alfred turned back without another word, and putting the muzzle of his
pistol against the pony's forehead just above the line of the eyes he
pulled the trigger. With the body the two men improvised a breastwork
across a little hummock. Just as they dropped behind it the Mexicans
clattered up, riding bareback. Tom coolly reloaded his pistol.
The Mexicans, too, were dazzled from riding against the glow in the
west, and halted a moment in a confused mass at the mouth of the ravine.
The two cowboys within rose and shot rapidly. Three Mexicans and two
ponies fell. The rest in wild confusion slipped rapidly to the right and
left beyond the Americans' line of sight. Three armed with Winchesters
made a long detour and dropped quietly into the sage-brush just beyond
accurate pistol-range. There they lay concealed, watching. Then utter
silence fell.
The rising moon shone full and square into the ravine, illuminating
every inch of the ascent. A very poor shot could hardly miss in such a
light and with such a background. The two cowmen realised this and
settled down more comfortably behind their breastwork. Tom cautiously
raised the pony's head with a little chunk of rock, thus making a
loophole through which to keep tab on the enemy, after which he rolled
on his belly and began whittling in the hard clay, for Tom had the
carving habit--like many a younger boy. Alfred carefully extracted a
short pipe from beneath his chaparajos, pushed down with his blunt
forefinger the charge with which it was already loaded, and struck a
match. He poised this for a moment above the bowl of the pipe.
"What's the row anyway?" he inquired, with pardonable curiosity.
"Now, it's jest fifteen mile to th' cut," said Tom, disregarding
Alfred's question entirely, "an' of co'se they's goin' to send a posse
down thar on th' keen jump. That'll take clost onto three hours in this
light. Then they'll jest pot us a lot from on top."
Alfred puffed three times toward the moonlight, and looked as though the
thing were sufficiently obvious without wasting so much breath over it.
"We've jest _got_ to git out!" concluded Tom, earnestly.
Alfred grunted.
"An' how are we goin' to do it?"
Alfred paused in the act of blowing a cloud.
"Because, if we makes a break, those Greasers jest nat'rally plugs us
from behind th' minute we begins to climb."
Alfred condescended to nod. Tom suspended his whittling for a reply.
"Well," said Alfred, taking his pipe from his mouth--Tom contentedly
took up whittling again--"there's only one way to do it, and that's to
keep them so damn busy in front that they _can't_ plug us."
Tom looked perplexed.
"We just _got_ to take our chances on the climbing. Of course, there's
bound to be th' risk of accident. But when I give th' word, _you mosey_,
and if one of them pots you, it'll be because my six-shooter's empty."
"But you can't expec' t' shoot _an'_ climb!" objected Tom.
"Course not," replied Alfred, calmly. "Division of labour: you climb; I
shoot."
A light dawned in Tom's eyes, and he shut his jaws with a snap.
"I guess not!" said he, quietly.
"Yo' laigs is longer," Alfred urged, in his gentle voice, "and yo'll get
to Peterson's quicker;" and then he looked in Tom's eyes and changed his
tone. "All right!" he said, in a business-like manner. "I'll toss you
for it."
For reply, Tom fished out an old pack of cards.
"I tell you," he proposed, triumphantly, "I'll turn you fer it. First
man that gits a jack in th' hand-out stays."
He began to manipulate the cards, lying cramped on his side, and in
doing so dropped two or three. Alfred turned to pick them up. Tom deftly
slipped the jack of diamonds to the bottom of the pack. He inserted in
the centre those Alfred handed him, and began at once to deal.
"Thar's yore's," he said, laying out the four of clubs, "an' yere's
mine," he concluded, producing the jack of diamonds. "Luck's ag'in me
early in th' game," was his cheerful comment.
For a minute Alfred was silent, and a decided objection appeared in his
eyes. Then his instinct of fair play in the game took the ascendant. He
kicked off his chaps in the most business-like manner, unbuckled his
six-shooter and gave it to Tom, and perched his hat on the end of his
quirt, which he then raised slowly above the pony's side for the purpose
of drawing the enemy's fire. He did these things quickly and without
heroics, because he was a plainsman. Hardly had the bullets from three
Winchesters spatted against the clay before he was up and climbing for
dear life.
The Mexicans rushed to the opening from either side, fully expecting to
be able either to take wing-shots at close range, or to climb so fast as
to close in before the cowboys would have time to make a stand at the
top. In this they shut off their most effective fire--that of the three
men with the Winchesters--and, instead of getting wing-shots themselves,
they received an enthusiastic battering from Tom at the range of six
yards. Even a tenderfoot cannot over-shoot at six yards. What was left
of the Mexicans disappeared quicker than they had come, and the three of
the Winchesters scuttled back to cover like a spent covey of quail.
Tom then lit Alfred's pipe, and continued his excellent sculpture in the
bed of hard clay. He knew nothing more would happen until the posse
came. The game had passed out of his hands. It had become a race between
a short-legged man on foot and a band of hard riders on the backs of
very good horses. Viewing the matter dispassionately, Tom would not have
cared to bet on the chances.
As has been stated, Alfred was a small man and his legs were short--and
not only short, but unused to exertion of any kind, for Alfred's
daylight hours were spent on a horse. At the end of said legs were tight
boots with high French heels, which most Easterners would have
considered a silly affectation, but which all Westerners knew to be
purposeful in the extreme--they kept his feet from slipping forward
through the wide stirrups. In other respects, too, Alfred was
handicapped. His shoulders were narrow and sloping and his chest was
flat. Indoors and back East he would probably have been a consumptive;
out here, he was merely short-winded.
So it happened that Alfred lost the race.
The wonder was not that he lost, but that he succeeded in finishing at
Peterson's at all. He did it somehow, and even made a good effort to
ride back with the rescuing party, but fell like a log when he tried to
pick up his hat. So someone took off his boots, also, and put him to
bed.
As to the rescuing party, it disbanded less than an hour later.
Immediately afterward it reorganized into a hunting party--and its game
was men. The hunt was a long one, and the game was bagged even unto the
last, but that is neither here nor there.
Poor Tom was found stripped to the hide, and hacked to pieces. Mexicans
are impulsive, especially after a few of them have been killed. His
equipment had been stolen. The naked horse and the naked man, bathed in
the light of a gray dawn, that was all--except that here and there
fluttered bits of paper that had once been a pack of cards. The clay
slab was carved deeply--a man can do much of that sort of thing with two
hours to waste. Most of the decorative effects were arrows, or hearts,
or brands, but in one corner were the words, "passing the love of
woman," which was a little impressive after all, even though Tom had
not meant them, being, as I said, only an ordinary battered Arizona
cow-puncher incapable of the higher feelings.
How do I know he played the jack of diamonds on purpose? Why, I knew
Tom, and that's enough.
V
THE SAVING GRACE
Once upon a time there was an editor of a magazine who had certain ideas
concerning short stories. This is not wonderful, for editors have such
ideas; and when they find a short story which corresponds, they accept
it with joy and pay good sums for it. This particular editor believed
that a short story should be realistic. "Let us have things as they
_are_!" he was accustomed to cry to his best friend, or the printer's
devil, or the office cat, whichever happened to be the handiest. "Life
is great enough to say things for itself, without having to be helped
out by the mawkish sentimentality of an idiot! Permit us to see actual
people, living actual lives, in actual houses, and I should hope we have
common-sense enough to draw our own morals!" He usually made these
chaotic exclamations after reading through several pages of very neat
manuscript in which the sentences were long and involved, and in which
were employed polysyllabic adjectives of a poetic connotation. This
editor liked short, crisp sentences. He wanted his adjectives served
hot. He despised poetic connotation. Being only an editor, his name was
Brown. If he had been a writer, he would have had three names, beginning
with successive letters of the alphabet.
Now, one day, it happened that there appeared before this editor, Brown,
a young man bearing a roll of manuscript. How he had gotten by the
office boy Brown could not conceive, and rolled manuscript usually gave
him spasms. The youth, however, presented a letter of introduction from
Brown's best friend. He said he had a story to submit, and he said it
with a certain appearance of breathlessness at the end of the sentence,
which showed Brown that it was his first story. Brown frowned inwardly,
and smiled outwardly. He begged the youth to take a seat. As all the
seats were filled with unopened papers and unbound books, the youth said
he preferred to stand.
Brown asked the youth questions, in a perfunctory manner, not because he
cared to know anything about him, but because he liked the man who had
written the letter. The youth's name proved to be Severne, and he was
the most serious-minded youth who had ever stepped from college into
writing. He spoke of ideals. Brown concluded that the youth's story
probably dealt with the time of the Chaldaean astronomers, and contained
a deep symbolical truth, couched in language of the school of Bulwer
Lytton or Marie Corelli. So, after the youth had gone, he seized the
roll of manuscript, for the purpose of glancing through it. If he had
imagined the story of any merit, he would not have been in such haste;
but as his best friend had introduced the writer, he thought he would
like to get a disagreeable task over at once.
He glanced the story through. Then he read it carefully. Then he slammed
it down hard on his desk--to the vast confusion of some hundreds of
loose memoranda, which didn't matter much, anyway--and uttered a big,
bad word. The sentences in the story were short and crisp. The
adjectives were served very hot indeed. There was not a single bit of
poetic connotation. It described life as it really was.
Brown, the editor, published the story, and paid a good price for it.
Severne, the author, wrote more stories, and sold them to Brown. The two
men got to be very good friends, and Severne heard exactly how Brown
liked short stories and why, and how his, Severne's, stories were just
that kind.
All this would have been quite an ideal condition of affairs, and an
object-lesson to a harsh world and other editors, were it not that
Severne was serious-minded. He had absolutely no sense of humour.
Perspectives there were none for him, and due proportions did not exist.
He took life hard. He looked upon himself gravely as a serious
proposition, like the Nebular Hypothesis or Phonetic Reform. The
immediate consequence was that, having achieved his success through
realism, he placed realism on a pedestal and worshipped it as the only
true (literary) god. Severne became a realist of realists. He ran it
into the ground. He would not describe a single incident that he had not
viewed from start to finish with his own eyes. He did not have much to
do with feelings _direct_, but such as were necessary to his story he
insisted on experiencing in his own person; otherwise the story remained
unwritten. And as for emotions--such as anger, or religion, or fear--he
would attempt none whose savour he had not tasted for himself. Unkind
and envious rivals--not realists--insisted that once Severne had
deliberately gotten very drunk on Bowery whiskey in order that he might
describe the sensations of one of his minor characters in such a
condition. Certain it is, he soon gained the reputation among the
unintelligent of being a crazy individual, who paid people remarkably
well to do strange and meaningless things for him. He was always
experimenting on himself and others.
This was ridiculous enough, but it would hardly have affected anyone but
crusty old cranks who delight in talking about "young fools," were it
not for the fact that Severne was in love. And that brings us to the
point of our story.