CHAPTER XXI
JUSTICE AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Story of a Sheriff and Some Bad Men; showing also a Day's Work, and a Man's Medicine
"Dad, you've been drinking!" burst out Constance as her father met her at the door of Curly's house. She had heard footsteps, and hastened to meet the visitor. Perhaps it was disappointment, perhaps indignation with herself that she had listened, that she had waited, which caused her to greet her parent with such asperity.
"You wrong me, daughter!" protested Mr. Ellsworth, solemnly; "only took one or two little ones, to celebrate the saving of the twin. You've made a great hit with those people over there. They'd all celebrate, if there was anything to drink. I had to stock the Lone Star myself out of my valise. They won't have anything in till Tom Osby comes.
"I say," he resumed, taking his daughter's arm with genial gallantry as they stepped out into the sunlight together, "these people are not so bad. They're warming up right along now. If you and I could stay here awhile, we'd get along with 'em all right—better understanding all around."
Her face brightened. "Then you don't give up the railroad?"
"No; by no means. I never give up a thing I want. Besides, I wouldn't mind coming here to live for a while. The climate's glorious."
"You live here? You'd look well in a wide hat and a blue shirt, wouldn't you, dad?"
"More irreverence! Of course I'd look well. And it's worth something to eat the way I do here. I'm getting better every day. Why, they tell me no one has died out here in a hundred years. A man can eat anything from cactus to sole leather, and keep hearty. I saw a lot of fellows over there just now, sitting flat on the ground in the sun out in the middle of the street, eating dried beef and canned tomatoes, and they looked so happy that I sat down and took a bite with them. They are just travelling through,—sheriff's party from somewhere, going somewhere after somebody."
"What's that, Mr. Ellsworth?" the woman from Kansas came out and inquired; for she knew better than he what that meant. "Sheriff? Was he a tall, slim man, longish mustache, sorter thin?"
Ellsworth nodded; the woman wiped her hands on her blue-checked apron. Constance glanced at her serious face, and wondered.
"Then it's Ben Stillson," the woman from Kansas said, "the sheriff of Blanco. He's after somebody. Did he summons any of our men along?"
"I don't know, madam," answered Ellsworth. The woman said no more; she only watched and listened.
It was this posse, headed by the sheriff of Blanco, that Dan Anderson and the Littlest Girl saw when they reached a point midway between Uncle Jim Brothers's hotel and the post-office. The little group of riders, dusty and travel-stained, had come at a steady trot down the street. Stillson, tall, grim-featured, and bronzed, looked neither to the right nor to the left. He stopped, and ordered his men to dismount and eat. They swung out of their saddles without a word, loosening the cinches to breathe their horses. The men of Heart's Desire began to gather around them.
"What's up, Ben?" asked McKinney, the one most apt to be concerned; for cow men had borne the brunt of outlawry in that land for more than a generation. "Has Chacon come across from Arizona, or has the Kid broke out again?"
The sheriff looked at him gravely. "The Kid's out," said he. "We had him and two others at Seven Rivers, but he broke out four days ago. He killed the jailer and a couple of Mexicans farther up the river. There's four in his bunch now, and we've trailed them this far. They're likely headed for Sumner. We dropped in here, across the Patos, to get a couple of men or so. How are you fixed here?"
"Wait till I get a Winchester," said McKinney, briefly, and started down the street.
"Whiteman," Doc Tomlinson volunteered, "you 'tend to my drug store while I'm away, and if anybody wants any drugs, you go get 'em."
"You all hold on a minute," said Curly, hurrying forward, "while I run over home and git saddled up." He did not see the Littlest Girl approaching, but the sheriff did.
"Never mind, Curly," said the sheriff, quietly, pointing to her. "I want one more man, a single man."
"You, Curly!" interrupted his spouse, "you stay right where you are. You get some one else, Mr. Stillson. He's got a family, and besides, he's such a fool."
Curly flushed. "Was it my fault I got married?" he began hotly. "And them twins, was they mine, real? Now look here—" But the sheriff shook his head. He looked at Dan Anderson inquiringly.
"Certainly I'll go," said he. "Wait till I get fixed."
"That's as many as I'll need," said Stillson. "Hurry up, all of you."
Dan Anderson hastened across the arroyo to his house, first asking Curly to get him a horse. Curly departed to his own home with the Littlest Girl; so that Constance presently got fuller news of the arrival of the sheriff's party, and learned also that Dan Anderson was to join them.
"But, Curly," cried Constance, "isn't it dangerous? Won't some one get hurt?" She winced. The steady flame of her own brave heart flickered at this new terror.
"Kin savvy?" grinned Curly. "The Kid's gang shore'll fight. A good many fellers has got hurt goin' after him. But what you goin' to do? Let 'em steal all the cows they want, and kill everybody they feel like?"
"That's work for the officers," insisted Constance.
"There ain't no police out here," Curly replied, "and not sherfs enough to go around; so a feller sorter has to go when he's asked. They won't let me, because I got twins—though they ain't mine. But, now, I've got to take this here horse over to Dan Anderson." He mounted and rode away.
It was Dan Anderson himself who presently came at a gallop across the arroyo. A heavy revolver swung at his hip, a rifle rested in the scabbard under his leg, and a coat was rolled behind his saddle, plainsman fashion. Constance noted these details, but passed them in her eagerness and pleasure that he should come at least to say good-by. Something of the joy faded from her eyes as he approached. She had seen his face wear this same expression before,—fierce, eager, forgetful of all but a purpose.
He did not smile. He stooped from his saddle and grasped her hand. He looked squarely into her eyes, but said no word of salutation or farewell. He did not look back, as upon the instant, he whirled and galloped away! For her there were to be yet more days of waiting; for him the relief of action and of danger.
That afternoon Tom Osby drove into town from the northern trail. Mr. Ellsworth welcomed him and his rude vehicle as the first feasible means of getting back to Sky Top. By noon of the following day they were well upon their way, leaving behind them problems enough unsolved, and breaking touch with pending events which might cut short all problems for at least one loyal heart. It was a sad and silent Constance who looked back and said good-by to the rambling street of Heart's Desire, lying in the sun empty, empty!
As for the sheriff of Blanco and his men, they trotted on steadily toward the northeast, hour after hour. They crossed the Patos divide, and a few miles beyond took up the trail of their quarry, at the point where Stillson had earlier left it. This they followed rapidly, crossing wide plains of sage brush and cactus throughout the day. They slept in their saddle-blankets that night, and were up and off again by dawn for the second day of steady travel. There were seven men in the posse, three besides Stillson from the Seven Rivers country, employees of the cow men on the Pecos,—slim, brown, thin-featured fellows, who talked little either in the saddle or at the bivouac fire by night.
The second night out they spent by a water hole in the desert; and on the morning of the third day they ran into their game, earlier than they had expected. The sheriff, riding in advance, suddenly pulled up at the crest of a low ridge which they were ascending, and came back motioning to his men to remain under cover.
"That's the Piños Altos ranch house just ahead," he explained, "and there's smoke coming out of it. Old Frazee's friendly enough with the Kid, and more'n likely the bunch has stopped in there to get something to eat. Hold on a little till I have a look." He took a pair of field-glasses from his saddle, and crawling to the top of the ridge lay examining the situation.
"It's them, all right," he said when he returned. "I know some of the horses. It's the Kid and about three others. They are all saddled up—probably stopped in to cook a meal. We'll get 'em sure. Now, all of you hitch back here, and crawl around to the arroyo below, there. That'll put us within a hundred yards or so of the house."
Each man, dismounting, hitched his horse, then quietly ran over the cylinder of his revolver, blew the dust out of the rear sight of his Winchester, tested the magazine, and cleared the breech action. This done, each crept to the place assigned to him. Dan Anderson found himself moving mechanically, dully, with a strange absence of excitement. He almost felt himself looker-on at what other men were doing.
For some time Stillson lay behind a little bush at the edge of the gully, peering critically at the house, from which came nothing to indicate that their approach had been discovered. At length, without a word, he slowly raised his short-barrelled rifle and fired. One of the horses hitched to the beam above the door stumbled forward and sank across the opening, blocking it. The bullet had caught it at the butt of the ear, and it fell stone dead, its neck bent up by the shortened rein.
In response, without a word of parley, a thin cloud of smoke gushed out of the only window facing the attack. Puffs of sand arose along the front of the arroyo, searching out each little bush top which might possibly offer cover. Stillson heard a smothered spat and a short sound, and turned his head quickly. He saw Jim Harbin, one of the boys from the lower range, turn over with a sigh, and lie with arms spread out. He had been shot straight through the neck. Dan Anderson, the man nearest to him, drew him back. He would have raised the head of the wounded man, but the choking warned him. Harbin lay out on his back, looking up, his breath gurgling in his throat. "No use," he whispered thickly. "Leave me alone. I've got to take my medicine." In ten minutes he was dead.
The day's work went on. The sheriff fired three or four more deliberate shots, but finally turned around. At each shot, the other horse tied to the beam sprang back.
"Can't you hit it?" grinned McKinney.
"I don't want to kill the horse," said Stillson; "I know that horse, and it's a good one. I want to turn it loose. Here you, Anderson, can you see that rope from where you are? Shoot it off, if you can, close up to the beam."
Dan Anderson, in spite of Stillson's hasty warning to keep down, rose at full height at the edge of the cover, and took a deliberate off-hand shot. They saw him whirl half around, and look down at his left arm; but as he dropped lower, he rested his rifle on a bit of sage brush, and fired once more. With a snort the horse, which had been pulling back wildly on its lariat, now broke free and went off, saddled as it was.
"Good shot!" commented the sheriff. "That'll about put 'em on foot. What, did they get you?"
Dan Anderson drew back from the crest and rolled up his shirt-sleeve above an arm now wet with blood. A bullet had cut through the upper arm above the elbow.
"Serves you mighty near right," called McKinney to him, "standing up, like a blamed fool! You suppose them fellers can't shoot, same as us?"
Doc Tomlinson crawled over to him and examined the hurt. "It's all right," said he. "Bone ain't touched. Let me tie her up."
A half hour passed without further firing. Stillson edged around to the point nearest the house. "Here you, Kid," he called out. "Come on out. We've got you on foot, and you might as well give up."
A dirty rag was thrust out of a window at the end of a rifle-barrel. "That you, Ben?" called a muffled voice from the adobe.
"You know it is, Kid. Drop it, and come on out. We've got you sure."
The day's work was over. Dan Anderson remembered afterward how matter of fact and methodical it all had seemed. A few moments later a short, dirty young man appeared at the door, crawling over the prostrate horse. He held up his hands, grinning. He was followed by two others, both chewing tobacco calmly. The sheriff ordered down his men to meet them. McKinney unbuckled the belts. The captives seated themselves a few feet apart on the ground.
"This all the men you've got?" asked the Kid.
The sheriff nodded. "You've killed Jim Harbin," he added, jerking a thumb toward the arroyo.
"Why didn't he stay home, then?" said the Kid, peevishly. No one seemed disposed again to mention an unpleasant subject.
"Where you goin' to take us?" the Kid inquired.
"Vegas. It's a United States warrant, and you go dead or alive, either way you want."
"Oh, that's all right, Ben. We'll take the chance of stayin' alive a while."
Stillson now appeared to experience his first concern in regard to his casualties. "Doc," said he, "you take the ranch wagon here and carry Jim back to the settlements. You go along, Anderson. Doc, you drive."
"You busted up our breakfast," said the Kid, in an aggrieved tone. "Don't we eat?" He spoke complainingly. The day's work was thus concluded.
It was a long ride back for Dan Anderson, lying part of the time himself prone at the bottom of the wagon, too faint to sit with comfort on the narrow, jolting seat. The long, muffled body of the dead man, wrapped tightly in its blankets, at times rolled against him as the wagon tilted, and he pushed it back gently. The day's work had been savage, stern, and simple. The lesson of the landscape, the lesson of life, came to him as he had never felt it before. He saw now how little a thing is life, how easy to lay down—gayly, bitterly, lightly, or quietly perhaps; but not cheaply. He remembered the last words of the boy who now lay there, shrouded and silent,—"I've got to take my medicine."
"It's not a question of being happy," thought Dan Anderson, "but of doing your work, and taking your medicine."
CHAPTER XXII
ADVENTURE AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Strange Story of the King of Gee-Whiz, and his Unusual Experience in Foreign Parts
In the absence of McKinney with the sheriff's posse, Curly became, by virtue of seniority, acting foreman on the Carrizoso ranch. Grieving over the edict which held him home from sheriffing, and disconsolate now that Ellsworth and Constance had departed, he sought an outlet for his feelings. "I'll show folks what a real cow foreman is like," he asserted, and forthwith began plans which, in his opinion, had been too long deferred by the more conservative McKinney.
The wagons of the Carrizoso cow outfit came into town one morning, with a requisition for all the loose .44-caliber ammunition that could be bought, begged, or commandeered under the plea of urgent necessity. Whiteman burrowed through his stock from top to bottom, but still the new foreman growled at the insufficiency. "There's more'n five thousand sheep in that bunch that has just crossed the Nogales," said he, "and we've got to kill 'em, every one. Do you suppose my men is goin' to take to clubs, like Digger Injuns?"
Whiteman could only shrug. There had always been ammunition in Heart's Desire sufficient for all benevolent and social purposes. No one had suspected sheep. The Carrizoso plateau had been sacred ground, and it was unsupposable that it could ever be desecrated by the trampling hoofs and scissor noses of these woolly abominations. Grumbling, Curly rode away with his wagons, surrounded by a group of be-Winchestered cow punchers, not unlike that which had accompanied Stillson out at the other end of the town.
It was two days before they returned. When they did so, two of the men were not in their saddles, but at the bottom of a wagon. Beside them, bucked up and bound, lay a strange and long-haired figure, at which the new foreman occasionally looked back with a gaze of mingled curiosity and respect.
It appeared that Carrizoso cow honor had been maintained. The five thousand sheep had been rounded up in a box cañon, and scrupulously killed to the last item, while two herders went flying westward in fright such as might have warranted euchre upon their stiffly extended coat-tails.
Willie, the half-wit, one of the sheep outfit, had readily taken the oath of allegiance; beyond that, however, there had been a hitch in the proceedings. The man causing this hitch—the long-haired figure at the bottom of the wagon—had been presumptuous enough to make a stand against the lords of the earth! The men of Heart's Desire, confident that the new foreman understood his business, asked few questions as they gathered about the wagon and gazed at the silent captive.
He was a singular-looking man, tall, lean, sinewy, with a high, thin nose and a square chin which seemed not in keeping with his calling. His left nostril was indented by a scar which ran across his cheek, and one ear was notched well-nigh as deeply as that of a calf at a spring branding.
"This feller," said Uncle Jim Brothers, "looks like he come from Arkansaw."
"Maybe so," answered Curly. "Anyhow, he shot up two of the boys and killed a horse for us before we got at him. We was out of ammunition—I told you we didn't have enough. After we killed the woollies, and run off them two herders, we rid up the cañon. There was him, a-settin' in the door of his ole Kentucky home, with a Winchester that'd go off—which it stands to reason couldn't have happened if he was a real sheepherder. I can't figure that out." Curly scratched his head dubiously, and looked again at his prisoner.
"He ain't saying a vort alretty," said Whiteman.
"He's happy enough without. He was livin' like a lord there, in his shack—four hundred paper-back novels, a keg of whiskey and a tin cup, and some kind of 'hop' that we brung along, and which was the only thing he hollered over."
The prisoner sat up in the wagon. "If you'd be so good as to give me the packet you've in your pocket," said he to Curly, "I'd be awfully obliged to you, old fellow, I would indeed." Curly drew a paper package from his pocket and passed it to the speaker, who opened it with eager fingers.
"Thanks, my good man," he remarked, "thank you awfully." They led him into the deserted Lone Star for further deliberations.
"That's the snuff he's been takin'," Curly explained aside. "I know. It's 'hop.' Sheep, 'hop,' and whiskey! With that for a life and them for a steady diet, I don't believe our friend here'd last more'n about thirty years more." He turned to the captive, who by this time was leaning back against the wall in his chair, the central figure of present affairs, but apparently quite unconcerned.
"How you feelin' now?" Curly asked.
"Much better," replied the prisoner. "Thank you awfully. I was beginning to feel deucedly seedy, you know."
"I'd like to know," inquired Curly, bluntly, "what in merry-hell you're doing down in here, anyhow. Where'd you come from? Where've you been?"
A half-humorous smile came to the face of the captive. "You seem not to know a Sandhurst man, gentlemen, when you see one," said he.
"I said he was from Arkansaw," remarked Uncle Jim.
"No foolin' now, young feller," said Curly, frowning. "You may have more trouble than you're lookin' for. What's your name?"
"I really forget my first name," replied the prisoner, blandly, but not discourteously. "Of late I have been customarily addressed as the King of Gee-Whiz."
"Well, King," suggested the acting foreman, grimly, "you'd better turn loose and tell us your story, about as soon as you know how."
"Very gladly," responded the other, "very gladly. You seem a good sort, and you fought fair. I'll tell you the absolute truth.
"I came from England originally, and not from Arkansaw, as my friend supposes, although I don't know where Arkansaw is, I'm sure. I was long in the British Army, or Navy, I cawn't remember which. I'm quite sure it was one or the other, possibly both."
"I wouldn't kid too much, friend," said Curly, warningly.
"I beg pardon?"
"Drop the foolishness!"
"You misunderstand me, I'm sure," said the King of Gee-Whiz. "At that time it was quite customary, indeed very fashionable, for young gentlemen to belong both to the Army and the Navy. Now, I remember with perfect distinctness that I shipped before the mast on her Majesty's submarine, the Equator."
Uncle Jim drew a long breath. "A submarine ain't got no mast," said he. "It crawls, on the bottom of the ocean."
"Don't mind him, friend," interrupted Curly. "He come from the short-grass country of Kansas, and he don't know a submarine from a muley cow. Go on, King."
"As I was saying," continued the latter, somewhat annoyed, "I shipped before the mast on her Majesty's submarine, the Equator, Captain Harry Oglethorpe commanding,—a great friend of mine, and a very brave and clever fellow. I knew him well before I got so deucedly down on my luck. But what was I saying?"
"About submarines—"
"Ah, yes, I remember; we left Portsmouth Harbor the 12th of August, 1357. It seemed a gruelling hard thing to us to sail just on the opening of the shooting season, but the wuzzies were troubling a bit.
"One day, as Sir Harry and I were sitting on deck before the mast, having a cigarette—"
"At the bottom of the sea—on deck!" gasped Uncle Jim Brothers.
"Pray don't interrupt me, or I'll never get on," chided the King of Gee-Whiz, politely. "We were smoking, as I said, awfter dinner. I was remarking to Sir Harry that we were having a very good voyage over, when, as he turned to reply, an orderly rode up to us and saluted."
"Rode—rode—rode up!" murmured Curly. "How could he?"
"Let him alone," said Uncle Jim. "Didn't he say he couldn't remember whether he was in the Army or the Navy? The horse goes."
"The orderly saluted," resumed the King of Gee-Whiz, "and said he, 'I beg pardon, but the officer of the day presents his compliments, and begs to report that the ship's a-fire, and upon the point of exploding.'
"Sir Harry looked at his watch. 'Thanks,' said he. 'Present my compliments to the officer of the day, and ask how long it will be before the explosion occurs.'
"'I beg pardon,' replied the orderly, 'but the officer of the day presents his compliments, and begs to say that the explosion will occur in about three minutes.'
"'Very well,' said Sir Harry, 'you may go.'—'That will give us time to finish our cigarettes,' said he to me. The orderly saluted and rode away. We never saw him again.
"The officer of the day was a very accurate man, very accurate indeed. In three minutes to the dot the explosion did occur. We never knew what caused it. No doubt the Admiralty Board determined that, but we were not present at the session.
"The explosion was most violent, and no doubt the submarine was quite destroyed by it. Sir Harry and I were blown to an extraordinary distance from the spot. I remember saying to him, as we reached the surface and started upward, that it seemed quite too bad that we'd not had time to get together our personal kit for the journey.
"It's no use my mentioning how long we travelled thus, for I'm not in the least clear about it myself. All I can say is that in course of time we descended, and that we found ourselves on solid ground, on the island of Gee-Whiz. That, you will understand, was an uncharted and hitherto undiscovered land, lying near the 400th parallel west of London and somewhere below Sumatra—several weeks' march from Calcutta, I should say. We'd never seen the place nor heard of it, but were jolly well pleased to alight upon it, under the circumstances. Of the rest of the ship's company we never heard.
"It was a baddish fix, I must say, for to be marooned on a desert island is serious; and it's still more serious to lose one's ship in the British Army. Presently, however, we composed ourselves. 'I say,' said Sir Harry, 'this is a great go, isn't it? Here I am with no luggage whatever except one bar of soap!'
"Presently I saw approaching a band of natives, headed by a large person, who was apparently their leader or king."
"Then that was the real King of Gee-Whiz?" asked Doc Tomlinson.
"At that time, but not permanently, as I shall presently show you."
"I explained the situation to the King, who turned out to be a very good sort. 'God bless my soul!' said he. 'My dear sir, there's not the slightest occasion for uneasiness, there really isn't, indeed.'
"You may fawncy the situation! As it was, Sir Harry and I were obliged to make the best of it. We concluded to remain and to take possession of the region in the name of her Britennic Majesty."
"That's the most natural part of your story!" affirmed Uncle Jim, with conviction.
"Thank you. But I must tell you of the complications which now arose. You will see that all these people were sun-worshippers, or something of the sort, and they'd a beastly unpleasant habit, you know, of offering up a sacrifice now and again to appease the spirits, or the like. We learned they'd a valley of gold hidden away somewhere back in the island, and from this the King got all his gold, though even under these circumstances not so much as he wanted at all times. He'd the trouble of most royal families.
"The ruler of this golden valley was some sort of a princess, and she was downright niggardly with her money, as some of these heiresses are, you know. She'd promise the King to bring him an apronful of gold if he'd give her a sacrifice to offer up, but he had no way of providing an offering. No one had come for years in the line of a sacrifice, excepting ourselves. You can imagine the awkwardness this created. The King wanted to sacrifice us, one or both, directly. The princess, who by the by was a regular ripper in her way, was quite gone on Sir Harry, and he on her as well. At this point my own personal fortunes were much involved, as you may understand.
"Sir Harry explained that while he wished to be quite the gentleman about it, and accord me every courtesy, he'd be obliged if I'd be the sacrifice, and leave him to represent her Majesty in the new territory. We talked it over a bit, but came to no conclusion about the matter. It was at this time that one of the most remarkable portions of our experience occurred.
"One morning Sir Harry and I were standing in front of our residence, in our part of the island, talking over matters. Sir Harry was taking a bawth in a wash-hand basin—"
"What's that?" asked Uncle Jim.
"I reckon he means a wash-pan," explained Billy Hudgens.
"At least, Sir Harry was making a deuce of a row with the soap, and he'd the wash-hand basin quite full of bubbles. Just then the King of Gee-Whiz came by, and chawnced to notice the bubbles. You should have seen his expression!
"You must remember he'd never seen a bit of soap in all his life; and no one who has been without it—like the King and myself—can tell what that means. He was deucedly infatuated with the bubbles. In short, he valued them at once far more than all the gold in the valley; and he wound up by telling us flat, that so long as we could make bubbles for him, there would be no sacrifice. He commanded us to appear before him every day and make these bubbles—Sir Harry showed him how to do it with his pipe—every morning and awfternoon.
"Awfter he'd gone, Sir Harry and I looked at each other. 'It's death or bubbles,' said he to me. I pointed out to him that it was either death or no bawth. He was much shocked. Evidently the thing could not go on, for our soap was already very near exhausted. Sir Harry was a sad dog. Said he to me, 'While there is soap there is life,' meaning to say, you see, that while there was life there was hope. Ha, ha!"
"Leave that out," admonished Curly. "Go on."
"About now there went ashore on the island the private yacht of a gentleman whom we found to be Sir Isaac Morgenstern. He was a retired soap-maker, of wealth and station, and was on a voyage to Samoa with his daughter, his household servants, and the like. He'd with him, as chaplain, a missionary, William Cook, a person of very fat habit of body.
"When the boat went ashore, Sir Isaac, his daughter, Lady Sophie, her maid, a Miss Eckerstrom, Mr. Cook, and one or two others were saved, together with certain of their effects—an auto car or so, a piano, a harp, some books, pictures, and a number of other items which made our life much pleasanter. We all settled down together in a bit of colony, and we got on well enough.
"The King by this time was becoming most unpleasant again about his sacrifice. Sir Harry was a sad dog. 'Sacrifice Morgenstern,' suggested he, 'he's used to sacrifice.' You see, in the retail business—"
"Never mind dot," said Whiteman. "Tell vot happenet!"
"A great many things happened. For one thing, the death of Sir Isaac."
"How come that?" asked Billy Hudgens. "One day Sir Harry met Sir Isaac in the woods, and they'd a bit of talk. Without thinking much about it, Sir Harry explained that he was called on to blow soap bubbles for the King, and that he was in great need of soap, which at that time was worth far more than gold."
"Unt Morgenstern a retiret soap-mager" exclaimed Whiteman, involuntarily.
"Now that was shore hard luck for him," added Uncle Jim.
"You may quite believe so," said the teller of the story, gently. "And the saddest part of it, he'd nearly solved our problem before he left us. At once Sir Harry began talking of soap, Sir Isaac began wondering how he could make soap. Ere long he thought of Mr. Cook, the missionary. 'Soap making is simple,' said he, 'if one has fat and a bit of alkali.' The water there was most alkaline, I may add. 'Now there is Mr. Cook?'
"'You cawn't have the missionary,' interrupted Sir Harry, 'until after he has married me and the princess. Then I don't mind.'
"I've every reason to believe that Mr. Cook was made over into soap. But for once Sir Isaac was wrong. He oversold the market, and that was his mistake. As soon as the King of Gee-Whiz found that there was abundance of soap he lost his fawncy for bubbles. The shock of this lost opportunity prostrated Sir Isaac, and he presently passed away. We mourned him for a time, but presently other events occurred which deadened the loss.
"You will understand that the King of Gee-Whiz was a deucedly good sort. He'd take a nip now and again, of course. The only thing he had to drink was palm wine, which he got by chopping a notch in a tree and catching the juice in a cup."
"That sounds like wood alcohol," said Billy Hudgens, in a professional tone of voice. "It ain't safe."
"Quite right. It wasn't safe. The palm wine itself caused the King to cut a pretty caper now and then; but awfter his mistake, he was far worse—far, far worse. He never got over that, never."
"What happened to him?"
"A most extraordinary thing. I never knew of anything like it in all the world.
"You see, there were two trees which grew close together near the royal palace. One of these was his Majesty's private drinking tree. The other, as it chawnced, was a rubber tree."
Curly deliberately removed his hat and placed it on his knee, wiping, as he did so, a brow dotted thick with moisture. No one broke the silence.
"You will easily understand," resumed the speaker, "that when the King of Gee-Whiz had chopped into the rubber tree with his little gold axe, drinking awfterwards a cupful of pure caoutchouc, it did not take him long to repent of his inadvertence. The results were what I may call most extraordinary. I should judge the rubber juice to have been of very high proof indeed.
"To be brief, I give you my word of honor, the King was turned into an absolutely elastic person on the spot! When he stamped his foot he bounded into the air. 'He's a regular bounder, anyway,' said Sir Harry, who would always have his joke. 'And,' said he to me, as I remember distinctly, 'if his conscience becomes elastic, we're gone, the same as Cook and Morgenstern.' Sir Harry was a great wit.
"Now, the more furious the King became, the more helpless he became as well. He simply bounced up and down and around and about. Reigning monarch, too—lack of dignity—all that sort of thing—must have been most annoying to him. We could do nothing to calm him. In all my travels, I have never seen such a state of affairs; I haven't, really."
"Nor me neither," said Billy Hudgens, sighing, "and I've kept bar from Butte to El Paso."
"Then what happened?" demanded Curly.
"Everything that could happen," said the other, bitterly. "Lady Sophie and her maid, Sir Harry and the princess—the entire household suite of the King of Gee-Whiz—were mad enough to taste also of the juice of this rubber tree. It had the same effect upon them! I say to you, positively and truthfully, that then and there the island of Gee-Whiz was inhabited by the maddest population ever known in any possession of her Britannic Majesty."
"Reckon they was a pretty lively bunch to hold," suggested Curly; "but what happened next?"
"I am not quite clear as to all that transpired awfter that. I know that I was the only sane man left on the island."
"Then," remarked Curly, with conviction, taking a huge chew off his plug, "then that must shore have been one hell of a island!"
But the narrator went on unmoved: "I reproved the others, and they resented it. There was a great battle with the natives one day, of which I remember but little. I seem to have been left insensible on the field. When I recovered, I saw dawncing off across the sea the figures of all these different persons except Sir Harry—who, of course, was with me in the battle. Sir Harry was still with me, quite sober at lawst, and quite dead, I do not know from what cause. I was left alone.
"It was thus, gentlemen, that I acquired, by right, as I think, my title which I assumed—awfter acting for a time as Viceroy for her Britannic Majesty—as the King of Gee-Whiz. For a while I lived there alone. Awfterwards, in some way, which I do not quite call to mind at present, I appear to have been discovered. It was shortly awfter that I received my decoration—I beg your pardon." He flushed a dull red. "It was nothing, of course," said he. "As to saving Sir Harry, it was only what any other fellow would have done in the Army or the Navy—I don't remember which.
"So, gentlemen, I've told you my story as a gentleman should. I've been deucedly down on my luck ever since then, and I cawn't tell you, really I cawn't, how I happened to be here and in this business as you found me. There's many a younger son, in the Army or the Navy, who knocks about and gets a bit to the bad. I hope you'll not lay it up against me, I do indeed!" His head dropped forward on his chest. "I was stone broke," he whispered, "and I'd not a friend on earth."
"And so you drifted here," said Curly. "Well, it's about the right place. Heart's Desire's wide open."
"It wasn't so bad," resumed the stranger, wearily, passing his hand across his forehead; "it wasn't so bad down here for a time. I didn't mind it, being alone, that sort of thing, for you see I was alone on the island for so long. But the trouble was that I was followed all the time—have been for more than a year now—by that cursed King—that damned fiend that I thought I'd left long ago! I'd go out into the sunshine, and there he'd be, walking, and bounding, and jumping along, anyway I'd look! He'd follow me like a—look! look! there he is now. See!"
He raised a trembling finger and pointed to a spot in front of the open door. A black shadow was cast upon the floor by the strong sunlight which shone upon the figure of a leaning spectator.
"Look!" cried the King of Gee-Whiz. "He's there! He's there!" He slipped and sank to the floor, rolling over into an utter insensibility. Curly put on his hat and stood looking down at him.
"Sand, sunshine, and sheep herdin'," said he, "will do up any man in time. I'd 'a' made a good cow puncher out of this fellow, too, if I'd got him in time. By Golly! I'll do it anyhow. I'll have Mac get him a horse and saddle and put him to work. Any feller that kin shoot and lie as good as him has got the makin' of a good cow puncher in him."
They turned over the King of Gee-Whiz gently, that he might rest more easily, where he lay. His coat and waistcoat fell open. Underneath them, upon the left side of his chest, appeared a small, dull-colored cross of metal.
"For Valor"; Curly read the inscription with difficulty. "I knowed it; I knowed he'd been a cow puncher sometime, and just went wrong."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Uncle Jim Brothers, "that's the Victoria Cross! This here's a V. C. man!"
"I don't know that brand. It ain't registered for this range," said Curly.
"Well," said Billy Hudgens, philosophically gazing at the sleeper, "I reckon 'D. T.' would be easier to understand, all things considered."
"If he ever comes to," said Curly, as he cast away through the open door the contents of the pockets of the King of Gee-Whiz, "we'll try to get him through the D. T. stage as well as the V. C., whatever that is, and I reckon he's good for a job on the Carrizoso range. This country can't afford to be too damned particular about a feller's past."
CHAPTER XXIII
PHILOSOPHY AT HEART'S DESIRE
Showing further the Uncertainty of Human Events, and the Exceeding Resourcefulness of Mr. Thomas Osby
Tom Osby's freight wagon made not so bad a conveyance after all. The first fifty miles of the journey were passed in comparative silence, Constance and her father for the most part keeping to the shelter of the wagon tilt. Tom Osby grew restless under solitude ere long, and made friendly advances.
"You come up here and set by me on the seat," said he to Constance, "and let the sun shine on you. The old man can stay back there on the blankets with my kerosene can of whiskey if he still thinks his health ain't good. Like enough he'll learn to get the potato off'n the snoot of the can before long.
"You see," he went on, "I don't make no extry charge for whiskey or conversation to my patients. Far's I know, I'm the only railroad that don't. I got a box of aigs back there in the wagon, too. Ever see ary railroad back in the States that throwed in ham and aigs? I reckon not."
"Twenty dollars extra!" remarked Ellsworth, "You've made the girl laugh."
"Man, hush!" said Tom Osby. "Go on to sleep, and don't offer me money, or I'll make you get out and walk." This with a twinkle which robbed his threat of terror, though Ellsworth took the advice presently and lay down under the wagon cover.
"Don't mind him, Miss Constance," apologized Tom Osby. "He's only your father, anyhow, if it comes to the worst. But now tell me, what ails you? Say, now, you ain't sick, are you?" He caught the plaintive droop of the girl's mouth; but, receiving no answer, he himself evaded the question, and began to point out antelope and wolves, difficult for the uneducated eye to distinguish upon the gray plains that now swept about them. It was an hour before he returned to the subject really upon his mind.
"I was hearin' a little about Ben Stillson, the sherf, goin' out with a feller or so of ours after a boy that's broke jail down below," he began tentatively. "You folks hustled me out of town so soon, I didn't have more'n half time enough to git the news." From the corner of his eye he watched the face of his passenger.
"A great way to do, wasn't it!" exclaimed Constance, in sudden indignation. "I asked them why they didn't hire men to do such work."
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby; "I used to think you had some sense. You ain't."
"Why?"
"You can't think of no way but States ways, can you? I s'pose you think the police ought to catch a bad man, don't you?"
"Well, it's officer's work, going after a dangerous man. Wasn't this man dangerous?"
He noted her eagerness, and hastened to qualify. "Him? The Kid? No, I don't mean him. He's plumb gentle. I mean a real bad man—if there was any out here, you know. Now, not havin' any police, out here, the fellers that believes in law and order, why, onct in a while, they kind of help go after the fellers that don't. It works out all right. Now I don't seem to just remember which ones it was of our fellers that Stillson took with him the other day, along of your hurrying me out of town so soon after I got in."
"It was Mr. Tomlinson, and Mr. McKinney from the ranch, you know; and Curly wanted to go, but they wouldn't let him."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"Because he was a married man, they said. And yet you say this criminal is not dangerous?"
"He'd ought to been glad to go, him a married man. I've been married a good deal myself. But was them two the only ones that went?"
"They two—and Mr. Anderson."
Tom smoked on quietly. "Well, I don't see why they'd take a tenderfoot like him," he remarked at length, "while there was men like Curly standin' around."
"I thought you were his friend!" blazed the girl, her cheeks reddening.
Tom Osby grinned at the success of his subterfuge.
"If he wasn't a good man, Ben Stillson wouldn't 'a' took him along," admitted he.
"Then it is dangerous?"
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby, tapping his pipe against the side of the wagon seat, "they're about even, a half dozen good ones against about that many bad ones. They're game on both sides, and got to be. And we all know well enough that Dan Anderson's game as the next one. The boys figured that out the other night. Why, he'll come back all right in a few days; don't worry none about that." He looked straight ahead of him, pretending not to notice the little gloved hand that stole toward his sleeve. In her own way, Constance had discovered that she might depend upon this rough man of the plains.
"Ma'am," he went on after a while, "not apropy of nothing, as they say in the novels, I wish you and your dad would hurry and get your old railroad through here. Us folks may some of us want to go back to the States sometime, and it's a long way to ride from Heart's Desire to any railroad the way it is, unless you've got mighty good company, like I have, this trip. I get awful lonesome sometimes, drivin' between here and Vegas. I had a parrot onct, and a phonygraph, as you may remember, but the fellers took 'em both away from me, you know. I'm thinkin' of makin' up to that oldest girl from Kansas and settlin' down. She makes fine pies. I've knew one of her pies to last two hundred miles—all the way up to Vegas—they're that permernent. She reminds me a heap of my third wife. Now, allowin' I did take one more chanct, and make up to that oldest girl, we'd look fine, wouldn't we, takin' a weddin' trip in this here wagon, and not on no railroad!"
Constance was smiling now. "I've got her gentled and comin' along right easy now," thought Tom Osby to himself.
"I knowed a feller up in Vegas onct," he went on, "got married and went plumb to New York, towering around. He got lost on a ferry-boat down there somewhere, and rode back and forrard all day; and says he to me, 'Blamed if every man in that town didn't get his boots blacked every day.' That's foolish."
The girl laughed outright, rolling the veil back from her face now, and taking a full look up at the sky, with more enjoyment in life than she had felt for days. Further conversation, however, was interrupted by a deep snore from the rear of the wagon.
"That," said Tom Osby, "sounds like the old man had got the potato loose."
"I'm ashamed of him," declared Constance.
"Natural," said Tom; "but why special?"
"He oughtn't to touch that whiskey. I hate it."
"So do I, when it ain't good. That in the can is good. It's only fair your dad should break even for some of the whiskey he give the Lone Star. They didn't have a drop when I got in. Now, that's another reason why we ought to have a railroad at Heart's Desire. It might prevent a awful stringency, sometime. There's Dick McGinnis, why, he nearly—"
"But it's not coming. It will not be built. They wouldn't let us in. We couldn't get the right of way."
"Now listen at you! You mean your daddy couldn't, nor his lawyer couldn't. Of course not. But you haven't tried it your own self yet."
"How could I?"
"Well, you'd a heap more sense than to size up things the way your pa did. The boys told me all about what happened. A man out here don't holler if you beat him fair, but if you stack the cards on him, that's different. Dan Anderson done just right."
"He broke up all our plans," Constance retorted hotly; and at once flushed at her own speech.
"What was he to do? Sell out? Turn the whole town over to you folks? Soon as he knows what's up, he throws back the money and tells the road to go to hell. He kept his promise to me, and to all the other fellers that had spoke to him about lookin' after their places. He done right."
Constance looked for a moment at the far shimmering horizon. At length she faced about and bravely met Tom Osby's eyes. "Yes, he was right," she said. "He did what was right." But she drew a long breath as she spoke.
"Ma'am," said Tom Osby, regarding her keenly, "not referrin' to the fact that you're squarer than your men folks, I want to say that, speakin' of game folks, you're just as game as any man I ever saw. Lots of women is. Seems like they have to be game by just not lettin' on, sometimes."
She felt his eyes upon her, and this time turned away her own. For a time they were silent, as the well-worn wagon rolled along behind the long-stepping grays; but Tom Osby was patient.
"A while ago," he resumed after a time, "you said 'we,' and 'our railroad.' That's mighty near right. You two folks right here in this wagon, yourself particular, can save that there railroad, and save Heart's Desire, both at the same time. And that's something, even if them was all that was saved."
"I don't quite see what you mean," answered Constance.
"Oh, now, look here," said Tom, filling another pipe, "I ain't so foolish. I ain't goin' to say that the old days'll last forever. We all know better'n that when it comes right down to straight reasonin'. A country'll sleep about so long, same as a man; and then it'll wake up. I've seen the States come West for forty years. They're comin' swifter'n ever now."
"When we first came here," said Constance, "I thought this was the very end of all the world."
"It has been. And the finest place in all the world, ma'am, is right at the end of the world. That's where a man can feel right independent. A woman can't understand that, no way on earth. A man's a right funny thing, ma'am. He's all the time hankerin' to git into some country out at the end of the world, where there ain't a woman within a thousand miles; and then as quick as he gets there, he begins to holler for some woman to come out and save his life!"
She turned upon him again, smiling in spite of herself.
"The boys have been mighty slow to let go of the old days," he went on. "In some ways there won't never be no better days. We never had a thief in our valley, until your pa come in here last summer. There ain't been a lock on a door in four hundred miles of this country in the last twenty years. When the railroad comes the first thing it'll bring will be locks and bolts. At the same time, it's got to come—I know that. We've about had our sleep and our dream out, ma'am."
"It was beautiful," Constance murmured vaguely; and he caught her meaning.
"Yes, plumb beautiful. Folks that hasn't tried it don't know. A man that's lived the old life here, with a real gun on him as regular as pants, why, in about three years he gets what we call galvanized. He'll never be the same after that. He'll never go back to the States no more. That's hard for you to understand, ain't it? And yet that sort of feelin' catches almost any man out here, sooner or later, if he's any good. It's the country, ma'am."
A strange spell seemed now to fall upon Constance herself, as she sat gazing out in the sunlight. She felt the fatalism, the unconcern of a child, of a young creature. She understood perfectly all that she had heard, and was ready to listen further.
"Of course," continued Tom, "this, bein' South, and bein' West, it ain't really a part of the United States; so I can't save the whole country. But, such as this part of the country is, I reckon I'll have to save it. You'll see my name wrote on tablets in marble halls some day; because I've got a hard job. I've got to reconcile these folks to your dad! And yet I'm going to make 'em say, 'Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son-of-a-gun from New York.' You didn't know I read Shakespeare? Why, I read him constant, even if I do have to wear specs now for fine print."
Constance, in spite of herself, laughed outright with so merry a peal that she wakened her father from his slumber. "What's that? What's that?" broke in Mr. Ellsworth, suddenly sitting up on his blankets.
"Never mind, friend," said Tom Osby, "you go back to sleep again; me and Miss Constance is savin' things. I was just talkin' to her about her railroad."
Ellsworth rubbed his eyes. "By Jove!" he exclaimed suddenly, "that's a good idea. It shall be hers if she says so. I'll give her every share I own if that road ever runs into the valley."
"Now you are beginnin' to talk," said Tom Osby, calmly. "Not that you'd be givin' her much; for you and your lawyer wouldn't be able to get the railroad in there in a thousand years. The girl can play a heap stronger game than both of you."
"Well, if she can," responded Ellsworth, "she's going to have a good chance to do it. We're going to build the railroad on north, and we don't feel like hauling coal down that cañon by wagon."
Tom Osby seemed to have pursued his game as far as he cared to do at this time. "S'pose we stop along somewhere in here," he suggested, "and eat a little lunch? My horses gets hungry, and thirsty, the same as you, Mr. Ellsworth. Whoa, boys!"
Descending from his high seat, he now unhitched his team and strapped on their heads the nose-bags with the precious oats, after a pail of not less precious water from the cask at the wagon's side. Methodically he kicked together a little pile of greasewood roots.
"We're to have some tea, you know," he remarked. "I don't charge nothin' extry for tea, whiskey, or advice on this railroad of mine. Get down now, ma'am," he added, reaching up his arms to assist Constance from her place. "Come along, set right down here on the ground in the sun. It's good for you. Ain't it nice?
"There's the back of old Carrizy just beginnin' to show," he explained; "and there's the Bonitos comin' up below. That's Blanco Peak beyond, the tallest in the Territory; and them mountings close in is the Nogales. There ain't a soul within many and many a mile of here. And now, with them old mountings a-lookin' down at us on the strict cuidado, not botherin' us if we don't bother them, why, ain't it comfortable? This country'll take hold of you after a while, ma'am. It's the oldest in the world; but somehow it seems to me onct in a while as if it was about the youngest, too."
Constance took the counsel offered her, and seated herself in full glare of the Southwestern sun. She looked about her and felt an unwonted sense of peace, as though she were rocked in some great cradle and under some watchful eye. "Dad," said she, quietly, "I'm not going home. I'm going to spend a month at Sky Top."
"Has it caught you, ma'am?" asked Tom Osby, simply.
"She talks as though there were no business interests anywhere to be taken care of," grumbled her father.
"Oh, now, interests ain't exclusive for the States," said Tom Osby. "You come all the way out here to steal a town, and you couldn't do it. Give the girl a month, an' she'll just about have the town—or her and me together will. You settin' there talkin' about goin' home! Go on home if you feel like it. Me and Miss Constance will stay out here, and take care of the business interests ourselves."
"We're personally conducted, dad," laughed Constance.
"Listen," said their personal conductor, balancing a cup of tea upon his knee. "Now, you folks has got money behind you that's painful. You don't have to steal, Mr. Ellsworth. It's only a habit with you. Now s'pose Miss Constance comes along, allowin' that God can plat a town as well as a surveyor, and allowin' that the first fellers that finds it has as good a right to it as the last ones—which she does allow, and know. Now, here's what she says. Says she, 'We'll go in with this outfit, and we won't try to steal the landscape. We'll pay for every foot of ground that's claimed by anybody that seen it first. We won't try to move no ancient landmarks, like log houses that dates back to Jack Wilson. We'll put in the yard at the lower end of the town, provided that Mr. Thomas Osby, Esquire, gives his permission—always admittin' there may be just as good places for Mr. Thomas Osby, Esquire, a little farther back in the foot-hills, if he feels like goin' there. Now I reckon Miss Constance makes Mr. Thomas Osby, Esquire, yardmaster at the new deepot."
"Of course," assented Constance; and her father nodded.
"That'd be fair, and it'd be easy," went on Tom. "We'll fix it up that-a-way, me and Miss Constance—not you. And as soon as we get to a telegraft office, we fire the general counsel, Mr. Barkley; don't we, Miss Constance?" The girl nodded grimly.
"He's fired," said Tom. "You can take care of that the first thing you do, Mr. Ellsworth. Then you can make out my papers as yardmaster and general boss of the deepot. You can be clerk.
"Now here we go, the railroad cars a choo-chooin' up our cañon, same as down here at Sky Top. In the front car is the president, which is Miss Constance, with me clost along, the new yardmaster. Your pa is somewhere back on the train, Miss Constance, with the money to pay off the hands. He's useful, but not inderspensible."
"Go on!" applauded Constance. "Who besides us and poor old dad?"
Tom Osby turned and looked at her gravely.
"And there comes down to meet us at the station," he concluded, "the only man we needed to help us put this thing through." Tom Osby finished his tea in silence. Constance herself made no comment. Her gaze was on the far-off mountains.
"That there man," he resumed, shaking out the grounds from his tea-cup, "is the new division counsel for the road, the first mayor of Heart's Desire,—after Miss Constance,—and mighty likely the next Congressional delergate from this Territory. Now can you both guess who that man is?"
"I'll admit he's a bigger man than Barkley," said Ellsworth, slowly. "That boy would make a grand trial lawyer. They couldn't beat him."
"No," said Tom Osby, "they'd think he was square, and that means a lot. They do think he's square; and the boys are goin' to do something for him if they can. Now if he gets back—"
Constance turned upon him with a glance of swift appeal.
"As I was sayin', when he gets back," resumed Tom, "some of us fellers may perhaps take it up with him, and tell him what Miss Constance wants to have done."
This was too much. The girl sprang to her feet. "You'll tell him nothing!" she cried.
Ellsworth turned to Tom Osby with a sober face. "Young Anderson rode away from us the other morning," said he, "and he hardly troubled himself to say good-by. We used to know him back East; and he needn't have taken that affair of the railroad meeting so much to heart."
"Come!" called Constance, "get ready and let's be going. I'm sick of this country!" She walked rapidly away from the others.
"A woman can change some sudden, can't she, Mr. Ellsworth?" remarked Tom Osby, slowly.
"Look here, Miss Constance," said he, presently, when he came nearer to her, standing apart from the wagon, "there's been mistakes and busted plans enough in here already. Now don't get on no high horse and break up my scheme."
"Don't talk to me!" She stamped her foot.
"Ma'am! ain't you ashamed to say them words?" She did not answer, and Tom Osby took the step for which he had been preparing throughout the entire morning.
"Ma'am," said he, "one word from you would bring that feller to you on the keen lope. He'd fix the railroad all right mighty soon. Then besides—"
She turned away. "The question of the railroad is a business one, and nothing else; talk to my father about it."
Tom went silently about his preparations for resuming the journey. When he came to put the horses to the wagon tongue, he found Constance sitting there, staring with misty eyes at the distant hills beyond which lay Heart's Desire. Tom Osby paused at the shelter of the wagon cover and backed away.
"Something has got to be did," he muttered to himself, "and did mighty blame quick. If we don't get some kind of hobbles on that girl, she's goin' to jump the fence and go back home."