CHAPTER III
TRANSGRESSION AT HEART'S DESIRE
Beginning the Cause Celebre which arose from Curly's killing the Pig of the Man from Kansas
A great many abdomens have been injured in the pastime known as the "double roll." Especially has this been the case with persons not native to the land of Heart's Desire or the equivalent thereof. Even those born to the manner, and possessed of the freedom of a vast landscape whose every particular was devoted to the behoof of any man seized with a purpose of attaining speed and efficiency with firearms, did not always reach that smoothness and precision in the execution of this personal manoeuvre which alone could render it safe to themselves or impressive to the beholder. The owner of this accomplishment was never apt to find himself much crowded with company, in the way either of participants or spectators. Yet the art was a simple and harmless one, pertaining more especially to youth, enthusiasm, and the fresh air of high altitudes, which did ever evoke saltpetreish manifestations.
The evolution of the "double roll" is executed by taking a six-shooter—let us hope not one of those pitiful toys of the East—upon each forefinger, each weapon so hanging balanced on the trigger-guard and the trigger itself that it shall be ready to turn about the finger as upon a pivot, and shall be ready for instant discharge, the thumb cocking the weapon as it turns; yet so that it shall none the less be discharged only when the muzzle of the weapon is pointed away from the operator's person and not toward it.
It is best for the ambitious to begin this little sport with an empty weapon. Thus one will readily observe that the click of the hammer is all too often heard before the whirl of the gun is fairly under way, and while the muzzle is pointed midway of the operator's person; the weight of the heavy gun being commonly sufficient to pull back the trigger and so discharge the piece. When the ambitious soul has learned to do this "roll" with one empty gun, he may try it with two empty guns. If he finds it possible thus to content himself, it will perhaps be all the better for him. To stand upright, with a gun in each hand, even an empty gun, and so revolve the same while its own cylinder is revolving, is not wholly easy, though when one has finally gotten both hemispheres of his brain into accord with his forefingers, he will ever thereafter be able to understand fully the double revolution of the earth upon its axis and around the sun; provided always that he is able to perform the "double roll" without hitch or break, pulling right and left forefinger alternately and rapidly until he has heard what in his tentative case must be a series of six double clicks.
This performance with an empty six-shooter is but a pale and spiritless form of the sport of high altitudes. Instead there should be twelve reports, so closely sequent as to sound as one string of explosion. Thus executed the game is a fine one, the finer for being risky. So to stand erect, with an eight-inch Colt in either hand, each arm at full length, one gun shooting joyously down the centre of the street of your chosen town, the other shooting as cheerfully up the same street—to do this actually, with bark of powder and attending puffs of dust cut—this is indeed delightsome when the heart is full of red blood, and the chest swells with charged wine o' life, and the eyes gleam and the muscles harden for very search of some endeavor immediate and difficult! It is the more delightsome when this moment of man-frenzy finds one in such a town as was this of Heart's Desire; where, indeed, a man could do precisely as he pleased; where it was not accounted wrong or ill-balanced to claim the whole street for a half moment or so of a cloudless morning, and so to ease one's self of the pressure of the joy of living. To own this little world, to live free of touch or taint of control or guidance, to be brother to the mountains, cousin of the free sky—to live in Heart's Desire and be a man—ah! would that were possible for all of us to-day! Were it so, then assuredly we should exult and take unto ourselves all the privileges of the domain, perhaps even to the extent of attempting the "double roll."
Curly's wooing of the Littlest Girl, sped apace by his unrighteous appropriation of our can of oysters, in which he had held no fee simple, but only an individual and indeterminate interest, had prospered beyond all just deserts of a red-headed cow puncher with a salary of forty-five dollars a month. He had already, less than two months after the installation of the new postmaster, announced to his friends his forthcoming nuptials, and ever since the setting of the happy date had comported himself with an air of ownership of the town and a mere tolerance of its inhabitants.
Perhaps, if we were each and every one of us a prospective bridegroom, as was Curly upon this morning in question, we should be all the more persuaded to execute the "double roll" in mid-street, as proof to the public that all was well. Perhaps, also, if there should thus appear to any of us, adown street upon either hand, an object moving slowly, pausing, resuming again across the line of gun-vision its slow advance—ah! tell me, if that slow-moving object crossing the bridegroom's joyous aim were a pig,—a grunting, fat, conceited pig,—arrogating to itself much of that street wherefrom one's fellow-citizens had for a moment of grave courtesy withdrawn—tell me, if you were a bridegroom, soon to be happy, and if you could do the "double roll" with loaded guns and no danger to your bowels, and if while so engaged you should see within easy range this black, sleek pig, with its tail curled tightly, egotistically, contemptuously, over its back, what, as a man, would you do? What, as a man, could you do in a case like that, in a land where there was no law, where never a court had sat, where never such a thing as a case at law had been known? Consider, what would be the abstract right and justice of this matter, repeating that you were a bridegroom and twenty-three, and that the air was molten wine and honey mingled, and that this pig—but then, the matter is absurd! There is but one answer. It was right—indeed, it was inevitable—that Curly should shoot the pig; because in the first place it had intruded upon his pastime, and because in the second place he felt like it.
And yet over this act, this simple, inevitable act of justice, arose the first law case ever known in Heart's Desire, a cause which shook that community to the centre of its being, and for a time threatened its very continuance. Ah, well! perhaps the time had come. Perhaps the sun was now to set over all the valleys of Heart's Desire. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end. The law, they say, must have its course. It had its course in Heart's Desire.
But not without protest, not without struggle. There were two factions from the start. Strange to say, that most bitterly opposed to Curly was headed by no less a person than his own intended father-in-law, the man from Leavenworth. It was his pig. The rest of us had lived at Heart's Desire for a considerable time, but there had hitherto seemed no need for law. Order we already had in so far as order is really needed; though the importance of order, or indeed the importance of law, is a matter very much overrated. No man at Heart's Desire ever dreamed of locking his door. His horse might doze saddled in the street if he liked. No man spoke in rudeness or coarseness to his neighbor, as do men in the cities where they have law. No man did injustice to his neighbor, for fair play and an even chance were gods in the eyes of all, eikons above each pinon-burning hearth in all that valley of content. The speech of man was grave and gentle, the movements of man were easy and unhurried; neither did any man work by rule, or by clock, or by order. There was no such thing as want or hunger; for did temporary poverty encompass one, was there not always the house of Uncle Jim Brothers, and could not one there hang up his gun behind the door and so obtain credit for an indefinite length of time, entitling him to eat at table with his peers? Had there been such a thing as families in Heart's Desire, be sure such a thing as a woman or child engaged in any work had been utterly unknown. It was a land of men, big, grave, sufficient men, each with a gun upon his hip, and sometimes two, guaranty of peace and calm and content. And any man who has ever lived in a Land Before the Law knows that this is the only fit way of life. Alas! that this scheme, this great, happy simple, perfect scheme of society should be subverted. And, be it remembered, this was by reason of nothing more than a pig, an artless, lissom pig, it is true; an infrequent, somewhat prized, a little petted and perhaps spoiled pig, it is true; yet, after all, no fit cause of elemental strife.
But now came this man from Leavenworth, fresh from litigious soil, bearing with him in his faded blue army overcoat germs of civilization, seeds of discontent. He wailed aloud that the pride of the community, meaning this pig, which he had brought solitary in a box at the tail of the wagon when he moved in, was now departed; that there was naught left to distinguish this community from any other camp in the mountains; that the pig had been the light of his home, the apple of his eye, the pride of the community; that he had entertained large designs in connection with this pig the following fall; that its taking off was a shame, an outrage, a disgrace, an act utterly illegal, and one for which any man in Kansas would promptly have had the law of his neighbor.
Hitherto the "double roll," even in connection with a curly-tailed black pig, had not been considered actionable in Heart's Desire; but the outcry made by this man from Leavenworth, now the postmaster of the town and in some measure a leader in the meetings of the population, began to attract attention. It began to play upon the nicely attuned instrument of Public Spirit. What, indeed, asked the community gravely, was to separate Heart's Desire in the eye of Eastern Capital, from any other camp in the far Southwest? Once the town could claim a pig, which no other camp of that district could do. Now it could do so no more forever. This began to put a different look upon the face of things.
"It seems like the ole man took it some hard," said Curly, lighting a cigarrillo. "He don't seem to remember that I was due to be a member of the family right soon, same as the pig. I don't like to think I'm shy when it comes to comparison with a shoat. Gimme time, and I reckon I could take the place of the pig in my new dad's affections. But I say deliberate that pigs has got no call to be in a cow country, not none, unless salted. Say, can't we salt this one? Then, who's the worse off for it? What's all this furse about, anyway?"
"That's right, Curly," said Dan Anderson, who stood with hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, leaning against the door-jamb in front of his "law office." "You have enunciated a great principle of law in that statement. They have got to prove damages. Moreover, you have got a counter-claim. It's laceratin' to be compared to a shoat."
"And me just goin' to be married," said Curly.
"Sure, it ain't right."
"Andersen," said I, moving up to the group, "did you ever hear of such things as champerty and maintenance? The first thing you know, you'll get disbarred for stirring up litigation."
"Keep away from my client," said Dan Anderson, grinning. "You're jealous of my professional success, that's all. Neither of us has had a case yet, and now that it looks like I was going to get one, you're jealous. Do you want to pass up the first lawsuit ever held in the county? Come now, I'm bored to death. Let's have some fun."
Curly began to shift uneasily on his feet. His hat went still farther back on his red, kinky curls.
"Law!" said he. "Law! You don't mean—" For the first time in his life Curly grew pale. "Why, I'll clean out the hull bunch!" he said, the red surging back in his face and his hand instinctively going to his gun.
"No, you won't," said Dan Anderson. "Do you want to bust up your marriage with the girl from Kansas?"
"Sho'!" said Curly, and fell thoughtful. "This looks bad," said he; "mighty bad." He sat down and began to think. I do not doubt that Dan Anderson at that moment was a disgrace to his profession, though later he honored it. He winked at me.
"Don't you tamper with my client," said he; and then resumed to Curly; "What you need is a lawyer. You've got to have legal advice. It happens that the full bar of Heart's Desire is now present talking to you. Take your pick. I've got a mighty good idea which is the best lawyer of this bar, but I wouldn't tell you for the world that I'm the one. Take your pick. Here's the whole legal works of the town, us two. Try the Learned Counsel on my right."
"Law!" said Curly. "Why—law—lawyers! Then who—say, now, I'll pay for the pig. I didn't mean nothing, no way." Then Dan Anderson rose to certain heights. "You can't settle it that way," said he. "That's too easy. Oh, you can pay for the pig easy enough; but how about the majesty of the law? Where is the peace and dignity of the commonwealth to come in? This is criminal. Nope, you choose. You need a lawyer."
"You—you-all got me locoed," said Curly, nervously. "Law! Why, I don't want no law. There ain't never been no co'te set here. Down to the county-seat, over to Lincoln, that's all right; but here—why, they don't want no law here. Besides, I can't choose between you two fellers. I like you both. You're both white men. Ef you could rope and shoot better, I could git either one of you a job cowpunchin' any day, and that's a heap better'n practisin' law. I couldn't make no choice between you fellers. Say, I'll have you both." This with a sudden illumination of countenance.
"That would be unconstitutional," said Dan Anderson, solemnly, "and against public policy as well. That would be cornering the whole legal supply of the community, Curly, and it wouldn't leave anybody for the prosecution."
"Sho'!" said Curly. Then suddenly he added: "There's the old man. Don't you never doubt he'd prosecute joyful. And there never was a man from Kansas didn't know some law. Why, onct, down on the Brazos—"
"He can't act as attorney-at-law," said Anderson. "He's never been admitted to the bar. Say, you flip a dollar."
The thought of chance-taking appealed to Curly. He flipped the dollar.
"Heads, me," said Dan Anderson; and so it fell. That young man smiled blithely. "We'll skin 'em, Curly," said he. "You'll be as free as air in less'n a week."
"Now," said Dan Anderson to me, "it's all right thus far. Next we have got to get a Justice of the Peace, and then we've got to get the prisoner arrested."
"'Rested!" said Curly. "Who? Me?"
"Of course," drawled his newly constituted attorney. "Didn't you kill the pig? You just hang around for a little, for when we need you, we don't want to have to hunt all over the country."
"All right," said Curly, dubiously.
"Where's Blackman?" said Dan Anderson, again addressing me. "We have got to have a judge, or we can't have any trial. Come on and let's hunt him up. Curly, don't you run away, mind. You trust to me, and I'll get you clear, and get you married, both."
"All right," said Curly again, "I'll just sornter down to the Lone Star, and when you-all want me I'll be in there, either takin' a drink or playin' a few kyards."
"Let's get Blackman now," said Curly's lawyer. Blackman was the duly constituted Justice of the Peace in and for Heart's Desire. Nobody knew precisely when or how he had been elected, and perhaps indeed he never was elected at all. There must be a beginning for all things. The one thing certain as to Blackman was that he had once been a Justice of the Peace back in Kansas, which fact he had not been slow to announce upon his arrival in Heart's Desire. Perhaps from this arose the local custom of calling him Judge, and perhaps from his wearing the latter title arose the supposition that he really was a judge. The records are quite silent as to the origin of his tenure of office. The office itself, as has been intimated, had hitherto been one purely without care. At every little shooting scrape or other playfulness of the male population Blackman, Justice of the Peace, became inflated with importance and looked monstrous grave. But nothing ever came of these little alarms, so that gradually the inflations grew less and less extensive. They might perhaps have ceased altogether had it not been for this malignant zeal of Dan Anderson, formerly of Princeton, and now come, hit or miss, to grow up with the country.
Blackman was ever ready enough for a lawsuit, forsooth pined for one. Yet what could he do? He could not go forth and with his own hands arrest chance persons and hale them before his own court for trial. The sheriff, when he was in town, simply laughed at him, and told his deputies not to mix up with anything except circuit-court matters, murders, and more especially horse stealings. Constable there was none; and policeman—it is to wonder just a trifle what would have happened to any such thing as a policeman or town marshal in the valley of Heart's Desire! In short, there was neither judicial nor executive arm of the law in action. One may, therefore, realize the hindrances which Dan Anderson met in getting up his lawsuit. Yet he went forward in the attempt patiently, driven simply by ennui. He did not dream that he was doing something epochal.
Blackman, Justice of the Peace, was sitting in the office of the Golden Age when we found him, reading the exchanges and offering gratuitous advice to the editor. He was a shortish man, thick in body, with sparse hair and hay-colored, ragged mustache. His face was florid, his pale eyes protruded. He was a wise-looking man, excellently well suited in appearance for the office which he filled. We explained to him our errand. Gradually, as the sense of his own new importance dawned upon him, he began to swell, apparently until he assumed a bulk thrice that which he formerly possessed. His spine straightened rigidly; a solemn light came into his eye; a cough that fairly choked with wisdom echoed from his throat. It was a great day for Blackman, J. P.
"Do I know this man, this cow puncher?" said he. "Of course I know him, damn him, and I know what he done, too. Such a high-handed act never ought to be tolerated, sir! Destroyin' property—why, a-destroyin' of life and property, for he killed the pig—and this new family of citizens dependin' in part on the pig fer their sustenances this comin' season; to say nothin' of his nigh shootin' me up as I was crossin' the street from the post-office! Try him! Why, of course we ought to try him. What show have we got if we go on this lawless way? What injucement can we offer Eastern Capital to settle in our midst if, instead of bein' quiet and law-abidin', we go on a-rarin' and a-pitchin' and a-runnin' wide open, every man for hisself? What are we here for, you, and you, and me, if it ain't to set in trile over such britches of the peace?"
"You're in," said Dan Anderson, succinctly. "Get over to your 'dobe. We'll hold this trial right away. I reckon all the boys'll know about it by this time. I'll go over and get the prisoner. But, hold on! He ain't arrested yet. Who'll serve the warrant? Ben Stillson (the sheriff) is down on the Hondo, and his deputy, Poe, is out of town. There ain't a soul here to serve a paper. Looks like the court was some rusty, don't it?"
"Warrant!" said the Justice, "warrant! You don't need no warrant. Wasn't he seen a-doin' the act?"
"Oh, but it wasn't a real first-class felony," demurred Dan, with some shade of conscience left.
"Well, I'll arrest him myself," said the Justice. "He's got to be brought to trile."
"Well, now," I ventured to suggest, "that doesn't look exactly right, either, since you are to try the case, Judge. It's legal, but it isn't etiquette."
Blackman scratched his head. "Maybe that's so," said he. Then turning to me, "S'pose you arrest him."
"He can't," said Dan Anderson. "He's the prosecuting attorney—only other lawyer in town. It wouldn't look right for either the judge or prosecutor to make the arrest. Curly might not like it." This all seemed true enough, and we fell into a quandary.
"I'll tell you," said Dan Anderson at length. "I'd better arrest him myself. I'm going to defend him, so it would look more regular for me to bring him in. Looks like he wasn't afraid of the verdict. We ain't, either. I want you to remember, Judge, if you don't clear him—"
Here counsel for the Territory interrupted, feeling that the majesty of the law was not fully observed by threatening the trial judge in advance.
"Well, come along, then," said Anderson. "Let that part of it go. Come over and let's get out the warrant."
I was not with them when the warrant was issued, though that part of the proceeding might naturally have seemed rather the duty of the prosecution than of the defence. Dan Anderson afterward told me that Blackman could not find his law book (he had only one, a copy of the statutes of Kansas) for a long time, and then couldn't find the proper place in it. Legal blanks did not exist in Heart's Desire, and all legal forms had departed from Blackman's mind in this time of excitement. Dan Anderson himself drew the warrant. As it was read later by himself to Curly at the Lone Star, it did not lack a certain charm. It began with "Greeting," and ended with, "Now, therefore, in the name of God and the Continental Congress." Anderson did not crack a smile in reading it, and so far as that is concerned, the warrant worked as well as any and better than some. Curly, because he felt that he was in the hands of his friends, made no special demurrer to the terms of the "writ," and in a few moments the Lone Star was empty and Blackman's adobe was packed.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAW AT HEART'S DESIRE
Continuing the Story of the Pig from Kansas, and the Deep Damnation of his Taking Off
"Order! order! gentlemen!" called Blackman, Justice of the Peace, clearing his throat. "This honorable justice court is now in session. Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?"
He was a little confused, but he meant well. It seemed incumbent upon the prosecutor to make some sort of a statement, but the attorney for the defence interposed. He moved for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground that there was no Territorial law and no city ordinance violated; he pointed out that Heart's Desire was not a city, neither a town, but had never been organized, established, or begun, even to the extent of the filing of a town site plat; he therefore denied the existence of any municipal law, since there had never been any municipality; he intimated that the pig had perhaps been killed accidentally, or perhaps in self-defence; it was plain that the prisoner was wrongfully restrained of his liberty, etc.
The ire of Blackman, J. P., at all this was something to behold. He to be deprived of his opportunity thus lightly? Hardly! He overruled the objections at once, and rapped loudly for order.
"The trile will go on," said he.
"Then, your Honor," cried Dan Andersen, springing to his feet, "then I shall resort to the ancient bulwark of our personal liberties. I shall sue out a writ of habeas corpus, and take this prisoner out of custody. I'll sue this court on its bond! I'll take a change of venue! We'll leave no stone unturned to set this innocent man free and restore him to the bosom of his family!"
This speech produced a great effect on the audience, as murmurs of approbation testified, but the doughty Justice of the Peace was not so easily to be reckoned with. He pointed out that there was no officer to serve a writ of habeas corpus; that the court had given no bond to anybody and did not propose to do so; that there was no other court to which to apply for a change of "vendew," as he termed it; and reiterated once more that the "trile must go on." The prosecution was, therefore, once more called upon to state the case. Again the attorney for the defence protested, a foreshadowing of his fighting blood reddening his face.
"I call for a jury," said he. "Does this court suppose we are going to leave the liberty of this prisoner in the hands of a judge openly and notoriously prejudiced as to the facts of this case? I demand a trial by a jury of the defendant's peers."
Blackman reddened, but was game. "Jury goes," said he. "Count out twelve fellers there, beginnin' next the door."
"Twelve!" said Dan Andersen, for the moment almost losing his gravity. "I thought this court might be content with six for a justice's jury; but realizing the importance of this court, we are willing to agree on twelve."
It was so agreed. The jury took in every man in the little room but three. "They'll do for a veniry," said Blackman, J. P., learnedly. Under the circumstances, one can perhaps forgive him for becoming at times a trifle mixed as to the legal proceedings.
At least, it was easy to agree as to the jury; for obviously the population of the place was fully acquainted with all the facts in the case, and each one had freely expressed his opinion upon the one side or the other. There seemed to be no reason for excusing any juror for cause; and upon the other hand, there are often very good reasons in a Land Before the Law for not bringing up personal matters of this kind. Indeed, the trial judge settled all that. He looked over the twelve good men and true thus segregated, and remarked briefly: "They're his peers, all right. The trile will now proceed."
Whereupon he swore them solemnly and made a record in his fee book, to the later consternation of his jurors. "Ain't this court a notary, too?" said Blackman later. "And ain't a notary entitled to so much fee for administerin' a oath? And didn't I administer twelve oaths?" There was small answer to this, after all. The laborer is worthy of his hire; and Blackman really labored in this case as in all likelihood few justices have before or since.
The prosecuting attorney, who, it may be seen, held his office much as did the justice of the peace, by the doctrine of nemine contradicente, now arose and made the opening statement. There, was some doubt as to whether this was a civil or criminal trial, but there was no doubt whatever of the existence of a trial of some kind; neither did there exist any doubt as to the importance of this, the first case the prosecuting attorney had ever tried, outside of moot courts. It was the first speech he had ever made in public, barring college "orations," carefully memorized, and an occasional Fourth of July speech, which might have been better for more memorizing. The attorney for the prosecution, however, arose to the occasion—at least to a certain extent. He spoke in low and feeling tones of the struggling little community of hardy souls thus set down apart in the far-off mountain country of the West; of its trials, its hopes, its ambitions, of its expectations of becoming a mountain emporium which should be the pride of the entire Territory; he went on to mention the necessity for law and order, pointing out the danger to the public interests of the community which must lie in a general reputation for ruffianism and lawlessness, showing how Eastern Capital must ever be timid in visiting a town of such reputation, apart from investing any money therein; then, changing to the personal phases of the case, he spoke of the absolute disregard of law shown in the act charged, mentioned the red-handed deed of this lawless and dangerous person who had thus slain a pig, no less the pride of the community than the idol of the family now bereft.
At this point the jury began to look much perturbed and solemn, and the prisoner very red and uneasy. Prosecution closed by offering to prove all charges by competent testimony. This latter was a dangerous proposition to advance. We could not well ask the jurymen to testify, and of the "veniry," more than half had now slipped out for a hurried and excited visit to the Lone Star, there to advise any possible new arrivals of what was going on at Blackman's adobe.
Counsel for the defence arose calmly to make his opening statement. The man was a natural trial lawyer. It was simply destiny which had driven him into this comedy, as destiny had driven him to Heart's Desire. It was not comedy now, when Dan Anderson faced judge and jury here in Blackman's adobe. There came a swift, sudden chill, a gripping as of iron, a darkening, a shrinking of the heart of each man in that little room. It was the coming of the Law! Ah! Dan Anderson, you ruined our little paradise; and now its walls are down forever, even the walls of our city of content.
Dan Anderson stood, young, tall and grave, one hand in the bosom of his shirt, for hardly one present wore a coat. He had his audience with him before he spoke. When he began he caught them tighter to his cause, using not merely flowing rhetoric of speech, but the close-knit, advancing, upbuilding argument of a man able to "think on his feet,"—that higher sort of oratory which is most convincing with an American audience or an American jury.
The statement of the prosecution, said Dan Anderson, was on the whole a fair one, and no discredit to the learned brother making it. None would more readily than himself yield acquiescence to the statement that law and order must prevail. Without law there could be nothing but anarchy. Under anarchy progress was at an end. The individual must give up something of his rights to the state and the community. He gave up a certain amount of liberty, but received therefor an equivalent in protection. The law was, therefore, no oppressor, no monster, no usurer, no austere being, reaping where it had not sown. The law was nothing to be dreaded, nothing to be feared; and, upon the other hand, it was nothing to be scorned.
There must be a beginning, continued Dan Anderson. There must be something established. The pound measure was one pound, the same all over the country; a yard measure was a yard, and there was no guesswork about it. It was the same. It was a unit. So with the law. It must be the same, a unit, soulless, unfeeling, just, unchangeable. There was nothing indeterminate in it. The attitude of the law was thus or so, and not otherwise. It was not for the individual to pass upon any of these questions. It was for the courts to do so, the approved machinery set aside, under the social compact, for reducing the friction of the wheels of society, for securing the permanency of things beneficial to that society, and for removing things injurious thereto. The Law itself was immutable. The courts must administer that Law without malice, without feeling, impersonally, justly.
In so far as there had hitherto been no Law in Heart's Desire, went on the speaker, thus far had our citizens dwelt in barbarism, had indeed been unfit, under the very definition of things, to bear the proud title of citizens of America, the justest, the most order-loving, as well as the bravest and the most aggressive nation of the world. The time had now come for the establishment in this community of the Law, that beneficent agency of progress, that indispensable factor, that inseparable attendant upon civilization. Upon the sky should blaze no more the red riot of anarchy and barbarism. Upon the summit of the noble mountain overtopping this happy valley there should sit no more the grinning figure of malevolent and unrestrained vice, but the pure form of the blind Goddess of Justice, holding ever aloft over this happy land the unfaltering sword and the unwavering scales, so that all might look thereon, the rightdoers in smiling security, the wrong-doing in terror of their deeds. This was the Law!
"And now, gentlemen of this jury," said Dan Anderson, "I stand here before you to make no excuses for this Law, to palliate nothing in the way of its workings, to set no tentative or temporizing date for the time of the arrival at this place of the image of the Law. I say to you here to-day, at this hour, that image now sits there enthroned above us. The Law is not to come—it has come, it is here!"
The old days were, therefore, done, he went on. Henceforth we must observe the Law. We were here now with the intention of observing that Law. Should we therefore fear it? Should we dread the decision of this distinguished servant of the Law? By no means. To show that the Law was no dragon, no demon, he would now, in the very face of that Law, proceed to clear this innocent man of that cloud of doubt and suspicion which for a brief moment the social body had cast upon him. He would show to the gentlemen of this jury and to this honorable court that there had been no violation of the Law through any act of this honest, open-faced, intelligent young gentleman, long known among them as an upright and fair-dealing man. The Law, just and exact, would now protect this prisoner. The Law was no matter of haphazard. The prosecution must show that some specific article of the Law had been violated.
"Now," continued Dan Anderson, casting an eye about him as calmly as could have done any old trial lawyer examining the condition of his jury, "what are the charges made by the Territory? The prosecution specifies no section or paragraph of the statutes of this Territory holding it unlawful to shoot any dangerous wild beast at large in this community. But we do not admit that this prisoner shot anything, or shot at anything whatever. We shall prove that at the time mentioned he was engaged in a simple, harmless, and useful pastime, a pastime laudable of itself, since it tends to make the participant therein a better and more useful citizen. There is no Territorial law forbidding any act which he is here charged with committing. Neither has the body social in this thriving community placed upon its records any local law, any indication that a man may not, without let or hindrance, do any act such as those charged vaguely against this good young man, who has only availed himself of his right under the Constitution to bear arms, to assemble in public, and to engage in the pursuit of happiness."
The prosecution, he said, had introduced reference to a certain pig, alleging that it was slain by the act of the prisoner. He would not admit that there had been any pig, since no corpus delicti was shown; but in any event this was no civil suit now in progress. We were not here to assess value upon a supposititious pig, injured in a supposititious manner, and not represented here of counsel. No law had been violated. Why, then, his client had been thus ruthlessly dragged into court, to his great personal chagrin, his loss of time, his mental suffering, the attorney for defence could not say. It was injustice of a monstrous sort! Prosecution might well feel relieved if no retaliatory action were later taken against them for false imprisonment. This innocent young man must at once be discharged from custody.
When Dan Anderson sat down there was not a man in the jury who was not bathed in perspiration. Abstruse thought was hard at work. Blackman, J. P., perspiring no less than any member of the jury, drew himself up, but he was troubled.
"Evidence f'r the State," the Judge finally managed to stammer, turning to the attorney for the prosecution.
But it never came so far along as that. There was a sound of many footsteps; voices came murmuring, growing louder. The door was pushed open from without, and in came much of the remaining population of Heart's Desire, so far as it could gain room. The man from Leavenworth was there, his whiskers wagging unintelligibly. McKinney was there, and Doc Tomlinson and Tom Osby, and everybody else; and, pushing through the crowd, there came the Littlest Girl from Kansas, her apron awry, her hair blown, her face flushed, her eyes moist with tears.
"Curly!" cried she as at last her eyes caught sight of him. "Come right on out of here, this minute! Come along!"
What would you have? The Law is the Law; but there are such things as supreme courts. It was useless for Blackman, J. P., to rap and call for order. It had probably been useless for any man to undertake to stop the prisoner at the bar, thus adjured. At any rate he arose and said politely to the jurors, "Fellers, I got to go"—and so went, no man raising hand to restrain him.
As to Dan Anderson, he himself admitted his wish that the case had gone on. "I wanted to cross-examine," said he.
That night, over by the arroyo, we met Curly and the Littlest Girl walking in the moonlight. Curly was quiet. The Littlest Girl was tremulous, content. Curly, pausing as we approached, mumbled some shamefaced thanks.
"Curly," said Dan Anderson, his voice queer, "I didn't do it for pay. I did it—I don't know why—"
A new mood was upon him. A lassitude as of remorse appeared to relax him, body and mind. An hour later he and I sat in the glorious flood of the light of the moon of Heart's Desire, and we fell silent, as was the way of men in that place. At length Dan Anderson turned his face to the top of old Carrizo, the restful, the impassive. He gazed long without speaking, as though he plainly saw something there at the mountain top.
"Listen," he whispered to me, a moment later, and his eyes did not quite keep back the tears. "She's there—the Goddess. The Law has come to Heart's Desire. May God forgive me! Why could we not have stayed content?"
But little did Dan Anderson foresee that day how swiftly was to come further ruin for the kingdom of oblivion which we thought that we had found.
"There'll be women next!" I said to him bitterly; though this was a vague threat of a thing impossible.
His reply was a look more than half frightened.
"Don't!" he said.
CHAPTER V
EDEN AT HEART'S DESIRE
This being the Story of a Paradise; also showing the Exceeding Loneliness of Adam
Two months had passed since the wedding of Curly and the Littlest Girl, and nothing further had happened in the way of change. The man from Philadelphia had not come, and, to the majority of the population of Heart's Desire at least, the railroad to the camp remained a thing as far distant as ever in the future. Life went on, spent in the open for the most part, and in silent thoughtfulness by choice. Blackman, J. P., now languished in desuetude among the fallen remnants of an erstwhile promising structure of the law; and there being no further occupation for the members of the bar, the latter customarily spent much of the day sitting in the sun.
"You might look several times at me," said Dan Andersen one day, without preface or provocation, "and yet not read all my past in these fair lineaments."
This seemed unworthy of notice. A man's past was a subject tabooed in Heart's Desire. Besides, the morning was already so warm that we were glad to seek the shade of an adobe wall. Conversation languished. Dan Anderson absent-mindedly rolled a cigarrillo with one hand, his gaze the while fixed on the horizon, on which we could see the faint loom of the Bonitos, toothed upon the blue sky, fifty miles away. His mind might also have been fifty miles away, as he gazed vaguely. There was nothing to do. There was only the sun, and as against it the shade. That made up life at Heart's Desire. It was a million miles away to any other sort of world; and that world, in so far as it had reference to a past, was a subject not mentioned among the men of Heart's Desire. Yet this morning there seemed to be something upon Dan Andersen's mind, as he edged a little farther along into the shade, and felt in his pocket for a match.
"No, you wouldn't think; just to look at me, my friend," said he, "you wouldn't think, without runnin' side lines, and takin' elevations for dips, spurs, and angles, that I had ever been anything but a barrister; now, would you? Attorney and Counsellor-at-law, all hours of the day and night: that bill of specifications is engraved on my brow, ain't it? You like enough couldn't believe that I was ever anything else—several things else, could you?"
His speech still failed of interest, except as it afforded additional proof of the manner in which Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and the like disappeared from the speech of all men at Heart's Desire. Dan Anderson sat down in the shade, his long legs stretched out in front of him. "My boy," said he, "you can gaze at me if you ain't too tired. As a matter of fact, in this pernicious age of specialization I stand out as the one glitterin' example of success in more than one line. Why, once I was a success as a journalist—for a few moments."
There was now a certain softness and innocence in his voice, which had portent, although I did not at that time suspect that he really had anything of consequence upon his soul. Without more encouragement he went on.
"My brother," said he, "when I first came out of Princeton I was burnin' up with zeal. There was the world, the whole wide world, plunged into an abyss of error and wrongdoin'. I was the sole and remainin' hope. Like all great men, I naturally wanted to begin the savin' as early as possible; and like everybody else who comes out of Princeton, I thought the best medium for immediate salvation was journalism. I wasn't a newspaper man. I never said that at all. I was a journalist.
"Well, dad got me a place on a paper in New York, and I worked on the dog-fight department for a time, it havin' been discovered that I was noted along certain lines of research in Princeton. I knew the pedigree and fightin' weight of every white, black, or brindle pup in four States. Now, a whole lot of fellows come out of college who don't know that much; or if they do, they don't know how to apply their knowledge. Now dogs, that's plumb useful.
"I was still doin' dogs when the presidential campaign came along, or rather, that feature of our national customs which precedes the selection of the People's Choice. First thing, of course, the People's Choice had to take a run over the country—which was a good thing, too, because he didn't know much about it—and let the people in general know that he was their choice. I went along to tell the other people how he broke it to them."
I confess I sat up at this, for there was now so supreme an innocence in Dan Anderson's eye that one might have been morally certain that something was coming. "From dogs to politics—wasn't that a little singular?" I asked.
"Yes," said he; "but you have to be versatile in journalism. The regular man who was to have gone on that special presidential car got slugged at an art gatherin'. I didn't ask for the place. I just went and told the managin' editor I was ready if he would give me an order for expense money. It wouldn't have been good form for him to look up and pay any attention to me, so I got the job. I needed to see the country just as much as the People's Choice did.
"Three other fellows went along,—newspaper men. I was the only real journalist. We did the presidential tour for ten towns a day. I watched what the other fellows did, and in about two hours it was easy. Everything's easy if you think so. Folks made a lot of fuss about gettin' along in the world. That's all a mistake.
"People's Choice tore it off in fine shape. Comin' into Basswood Junction he turns to his Honorable Secretary, and says he, 'Jimmy, what's this?' Jimmy turns to his card cabinet, and says he: 'Prexie, this is Basswood Junction. Three railroads come in here—and get away as soon as they can. Four overall factories and a reaper plant. Population six thousand, and increasin' satisfactory. Hon. Charles D. Bastrop, M.C., from this district, on the straight Republican ticket for the last three hundred years; world without end.'
"Then the train would pull into this station to the sad sweet notes of the oompah horn, and the delegation of leadin' citizens would file in behind the car, and the first leadin' citizen would get red in the face with his Welcome talk, while we four slaves of the people were hustling the President's speech to the depot telegraph wire before he said it. People's Choice, he stands on the back platform with one hand in his bosom, and says he: 'Fellow-citizens of Basswood Junction, I am proud to see before me this large and distinguished gatherin' of our noble North American fauna. My visit to your pleasant valley is wholly without political significance. These noble et cetera; these smilin' et cetera; these beautiful et cetera, fill me with the proudest emotions of et cetera. This, our great and glorious et cetera; Basswood Junction has four magnificent factories, and is the centre of three great trunk lines of railroad which radiate et cetera; it is destined to be a great commercial et cetera. And what could be more confirmatory of the sober, practical judgment of the citizens of this flourishing community than the fact that they have produced and given to the world that distinguished statesman and gentleman, the Hon. Charles D. Bastrop, who is your representative in the Congress of the United States and who has always et cetera, et cetera? 'Fellow-citizens, the issue before this country to-day—' and that was where he would hit his gait.
"He had three of these, and on the schedule laid out by the chairman of the Central Committee he couldn't spring any two alike closer together than a hundred miles. The whole business would take about five minutes to a station. We would put number Two, or number Three, or whichever it was, on the wire, while the People's Choice was talkin', provided we could catch the station agent, who on such occasions was bigger than the President. Then, toot! toot! and we were off for the next Basswood Junction, to show 'em who was their spontaneous choice.
"Well, that was all right, and it was easy work to report. The only thing was not to get number One speech mixed up with number Two or number Three at any given point. The Honorable Secretary had to attend to that. So all the time we were bored for something to do. What we was hopin' and longin' for all the time was that some one in the opposition at some station would haul off and throw a brick at the car. Then we would have had some News."
"Oh," said I, "you got to wanting news! You had a narrow escape."
"Maybe," said Dan Anderson. "I admit I got to likin' the game. I think, too, I did get to understandin' what news was. So one day, when I was mighty tired of the four-factory, railroad-centre, leadin'-citizen business, I mixed up the speeches on the Honorable Secretary between stations." Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of blue smoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time.
"The next particular Basswood Junction happened to be a Democratic minin' town, instead of a Republican agricultural community. It didn't have any overall factories at all. They didn't relish bein' told that they had voted the straight Republican ticket ever since Alexander Hamilton, and that they had given to the public that distinguished citizen, James K. Blinkensop, when the man they had really given to the public was Dan G. Healy. Oh, the whole thing got all mixed up! Now, that was News! And they fired me by wire that night! The People's Choice was awful hostile. And me raised tender, too!"
"Well, then, what did you do?" asked I, getting interested in spite of myself.
"I was far, far from home. But not thus easily could I be shaken out of my chosen profession. In thirty-eight minutes I was at work as managin' editor of a mornin' paper. That particular Basswood Junction was just startin' a daily, the kind the real-estate men and the local congressman have to support or go out of the business. Their editor had been raised on a weekly, and had been used to goin' to sleep at eight o'clock in the evening. The rumor spread that a metropolitan journalist had fallen out of a balloon into their midst. That morning's paper was two days late. So I just went in and went to work. I sent every one else home to bed, and sat down to write the paper.
"Of course, I began with dogs, for on account of my early trainin' I knew more about that. Two columns of dogs as a Local Industry. Then I took up Mineral Resources, about half a column. Might have played that up a little stronger, but I was shy on facts. Then I did the Literary and Dramatic. I shuddered when I struck that, because when a man on a paper gets put on Literary and Dramatic, it usually isn't far to his finish. He don't have to send out after trouble—it comes to him spontaneous. Next, I had to do Society. Didn't know anybody there, so that was a little hard. Had to content myself with the Beautiful-and-Accomplished-Who-Shall-be-Nameless,—that sort of thing. Why," said Dan Anderson, plaintively, "it's awful hard to write society and local news in a town when you've only been there fifteen minutes. But a real metropolitan journalist ought to be able to, and I did.
"By this time the office force was standin' around some awed. I sent the foreman of the pressroom out for a bottle of fizz. Sarsaparilla was the nearest he could come to it, but it went. Then I turned my hot young blood loose on the editorial page. 'This,' said I, 'is my opportunity to save the country, and I'm goin' to save it, right here.' It was then eleven hours, forty-five minutes, and eight seconds by the grandpa clock which adorned the newly furnished sanctum." Dan Anderson again sat silent a few moments, the stub of his cigarrillo between his fingers.
"Oh, well," said he, "it might, perhaps, have been worse, although I admit that was unlikely. I couldn't prove an alibi, but there were extenuatin' circumstances. The fact was, I got the politics of the place mixed up almost as bad as the People's Choice. That community woke up as one man at six-thirty the next morning, and turned out to see the evidence of their progress. I never did see so many Democrats in my life. Or was it Republicans? I forget. I had given 'em a good, hot, mixed Princeton paper,—dog, international law, society, industrial progress, footlight favorites, and the whole business; had Sermons from Many Lands, and a Conundrum Department, as well as a Household Corner—How to get Beautiful for the ladies, How to get Rich for the men, How to get Strong for the advertisers—why, if I do say it, I don't believe any one fellow was ever much more cosmopolitan in all his life, inside the space of one night's writin'. But they didn't like me. I was too good for them. Ah, well!"
Dan Anderson sighed softly. The lazy sun crawled on. Nobody came into the street. There was nothing to happen. It might have been an hour before Dan Anderson leaned over, picked up a splinter to whittle, and went on with his story, back of which I was long before this well convinced there remained some topic concealed, albeit beneath inconsequent and picturesque details.
"At that state of my entwickelung, as the French say, I still wore my trousers with a strong crimp at the bottom and cut pear-shaped at the hips. That pair was. The next one wasn't. It was a long, long way to that next pair. I forgot how many years.
"You see, by that time—although I did still say 'rully,' account of having roomed with a man who had been in Harvard for a while—I was really beginning to wake up just a little bit. My dad still supposed I was doing dog on the dramatic page in New York, whereas the facts were I had been fired twice. But that did me good. I sort of woke up about then, and realized there were such things in the world as folks. I wasn't the People's Choice,—not yet,—but I was learnin' a heap more about the Basswood Junctions of this world. And I want to say to you that after all's said and done, Princeton hasn't got Basswood Junction skinned no ways permanent. There's several kinds of things in life, when you come to find it out. It ain't all in the gay metropolis.
"At half-past four one afternoon I turned the roll down out of my trousers and took account of the world. Says I to myself: 'Journalism is not a science. It ain't exact enough.' Then I thought of studyin' medicine. Bah! That's not a science. It's a survival. I clerked for a while, but I couldn't stand it. What I was lookin' for was a science. At last I concluded to take up law, because I thought it was more of a science than any of these other things. I wanted some place where I could sort of reason things out, and have them fit and hang together. Well, the law—well, you know the law isn't just exactly that way. But it's a beautiful thing if you just hang to the principles, and don't believe too much of the practice. The law is disgraced—but at bottom what the law meant to do was to give humanity some sort of a square deal; which, of course, it doesn't. It ain't a science; but I love it, because it might have been."
He fell silent once again for a time, after his fashion, but now his gaze was softened, although he went on with his light speech. "I rather thought I would take up the science of the law as the most possible line of activity for a man of my attainments. I began to read a little on the side. Then I didn't know whether to have contempt for us fools who live and endure the eternal folly, or whether I ought to pity Basswood Junction and Princeton, because life is all so awfully hard and hopeless. Meantime, Old Mr. World went right on—didn't stop to ask me anything.
"You can understand these things took a little time. Meantime, my dad had sized me up as one more young man ruined by college life. The old man had a heap of sense in him, and he did the right thing. He told me to go to the devil."
"So you came West?"
"So I came West. Same pants."
"But you haven't told me about the girl," said I, quietly.
Ah, that was it, then! I could see his eyelids twitch. A moisture broke out on his lower lip, in that country where perspiration was so little known. "And you!" he said. "But then, it didn't take much brains to guess that. It was the same way with you. We all of us came here to Heart's Desire because some time, some where, there was a Girl."
So now we both were silent. Indeed, all the world was silent. The calm valley lay unwinking in the sun. The grave mountains stood about unperturbed, unagitated, calm. The blue sky swept above, peaceful, unflecked by any moving cloud. There was not a leaf in all that land to give a rustle, nor any water which might afford a ripple. It was a world silent, finished, past and beyond life and its frettings, with nothing to trouble, and with nothing which bade one think of any world gone by. Here was no place for memories or dreams. The rush of another world might go on. Folk might live and love, grieve and joy, and sorrow and die, and it mattered nothing. These things came not to Heart's Desire.
Presently Dan Anderson was guilty of a thing revolutionary, horrible! He sat silent as long as he could, but at length there broke from him a groan that was half a sob. He rose and flung out an arm at the great blue heaven. "Girl!" he cried. "Girl!" Then he sank down, burying his face in his hands. One might have heard falling, faint and far off, the shattered crystals of the walls that had long hedged sacredly about the valley of Heart's Desire. One might have heard, sweeping the soft and silken curtains of its oblivion, the rough rush of a disturbing wind!
Dan Anderson's back was in shame turned to me as he gazed down the valley. "Friend," said he, "I swore never to think of her once more. Of course, the old ways had to end. Her people wouldn't have it. She told me she could not be happy with a dreamer; that it was no time for dreamers; that the world was run by workers. She told me—well, I came West, and after a while a little farther West.
"I hadn't begun, I know that. It was fair enough to suppose I never would begin. But at least I didn't holler. I sat down to read law. Ah, don't let's talk of it. Her face was on the pages. I would brush it off, and read over a page a dozen times. I had to force it into my mind. I worked so hard—but maybe it was all the better for me. I not only learned my law, but I remember to this minute every misplaced comma and every broken type on every page I read; and I know how type looks, irregularly set around a roll of brown hair and a pair of gray eyes that look straight at you. My boy, when the principles of law are back and under that kind of a page illustration, they are hard to get, and you don't forget them when they're yours. It wasn't hard to learn things in Princeton. It's the things out of college that are hard to learn.
"Well, you know how that is. A fellow lives because this physical machine of ours is wound up for threescore years and ten, and unless the powers of evil get their fingers in the works, it runs. Well, one time, after I was admitted to the bar back there, I was sitting one night reading Chitty on Pleading. That was the worst of all the books. Contracts, notes and bills, torts, replevin, and ejectment—all those things were easy. But when I got to Chitty, the girl's face would always get on the page and stick there. So one night, seeing that I was gone, I took Chitty on Pleading, girl's face and all, and screwed it shut, tight and fast in the letter-press. I allowed she couldn't get out of there! Then I pulled my freight. I punched a burro into Heart's Desire, two hundred miles, just as you did. I have lived here, just as you have. No life, no trouble, no woman—why, you know, this is Heart's Desire!"
"It was," said I; "God bless it."
"And amen! We'd all have been in the Army, or burglary, or outlawry, if it hadn't been for Heart's Desire. God bless it."
"But she got out," said I. "Some one unscrewed the press?"
"Yes," said Dan Anderson. "She's out. They're out. I tell you, they're out, all over the world!
"We were three hundred men here, and it was Heaven. One vast commune, and yet no commune. Everything there was if you asked for it, and nothing you could take if you didn't ask. Not a church, because there wasn't a woman. Not a courthouse, because there wasn't any crime, and that because there wasn't a woman. Not a society—not a home—and I thank God for it. I knew what it was back there—every man suspicious, every man scared, every man afraid of his own shadow—not a clean, true note in all the world; and incidentally a woman behind every tree, in every corner, whichever way you turned. Life in the States was being a peon with a halter around your neck. But it was never that way here. There never was any crime in Heart's Desire. It's no crime to shoot a man when he's tired of living and wants you to kill him. Why, this was Heart's Desire until—"
"Until the press got loose?"
"It's loose all over the world!" cried Dan Anderson. "They've got out. You can't keep them in. How did Charlie Allen get killed over at Sumner? Woman in it. When the boys arrested this fellow Garcia over at the Nogales, what was it all about? A woman. What set the desperado Arragon on the warpath so the boys had to kill him? That was a woman, too. What made Bill Hilliard kill Pete Anderson? Woman moved in within fifty miles of them on the Nogales. Here's Curly; good man in his profession. Night-wrangler, day-herder, bog-rider, buster, top-waddy—why, he'd be the old man on the range for his company if that Kansas family hadn't moved down in here and married him. It's Paradise Lost, that's what it is. Arizona next, and it's full of copper mines and railroads. Where shall we go?" The sweat stood full on his lip now, and a deep line ran across his forehead. "Where shall we go?" he repeated insistently. "Come!"
In my own bitterness at all this I grew sarcastic with him. "Sit down," said I. "Why all this foolishness about a college girl with a shirtwaist and a straw hat?"
"Oh, now," and his forehead puckered up, "don't you be deceived for one minute, my friend. This wasn't ordinary. No plain woman; no common or crimping variety. Just a specimen of the great 'North American Girl!" He took off his hat. "And may God bless her, goin' or comin'!" said he.
This was the most untoward situation ever yet known in the valley of Heart's Desire. Dan Andersen was proving recreant to our creed. And yet, what could be done?
Dan Anderson presently made the situation more specific. "May old Jack Wilson just be damned!" said he. "If he hadn't found that gold prospect up on the Homestake, we might have lived here forever. Besides, there's the coal fields yonder on the Patos, no one knows how big."
Coal! That meant Eastern Capital. I could have guessed the rest before he told it.
"Oh, of course, we've got to sell our coal mines, and get a lot of States men in here monkeyin' around. And, of course, it couldn't have been anybody else but the particular daddy of this particular girl who had to come pokin' in here to look at the country! He's got money literally sinful."
"But, man," I cried, "you don't mean to say that the girl's coming, too?"
He nodded mutely. "They're out," said he, at last. "You can't get away from 'em. They're all over the world."
Here, indeed, was trouble, and no opportunity for speech offered for a long time, as we sat moodily in the sun. At about this time, Tom Osby drove his freight wagon down the street and outspanned at the corral of Whiteman the Jew, just across the street. Tom tore open a bale of hay, and threw down a handful of precious oats to each of his hump-backed grays, and then sat down on the wagon-tongue, where, as he filled a pipe, he began to sing his favorite song.
"I never loved a fond gazel-l-l-e,"
he drawled out. Dan Andersen drew his revolver and fired a swift shot through the top of Tom Osby's wagon. Tom came up, rifle in hand, like a jack-in-the-box, and bent on bloodshed.
"Shut up," said Dan Anderson.
"Well, I ain't so sure," said Tom, judicially rubbing his chin. "It's a new wagon-bow for you fellers; and next time just you don't get quite so funny, by a leetle shade."
I interfered at this point, for trouble had begun in Heart's Desire over smaller things than this. "Don't you know it's Sunday?" I asked Tom Osby.
"I hadn't noticed it," said he.
"Well, it is," said Dan Anderson. "You come here, and tell me what time the stage gets in from Socorro."
"I ain't no alminack," said Tom Osby, "and I ain't no astrollyger."
"He's loco, Tom," said I.
"Well, I reckon so. When a man begins to worry about what time the Stage'll come in, he's gettin' too blamed particular for this country."
"This," said I, "is a case of Eastern Capital—Eastern Capital, Eve and the Serpent, all on one stage. The only comfort is that no Eastern Capital has ever been able to stay here more than one day. She'll go back, shirtwaist and all, and you can begin over again." But the dumb supplication in Dan Anderson's eye caused me swift regret.
There was no telegraph at Heart's Desire. It was ninety miles to the nearest wire. The stage came in but occasionally from the distant railroad. Yet—and this was one of the strange things of that strange country, which we accepted without curiosity and without argument—there was, in that far-away region, a mysterious fashion by which news got about over great distances. Perhaps it was a rider in by the short trail over Lone Mountain who brought the word that he had seen, thirty miles away by the longer road up the cañon, the white smoke of the desert dust that said the stage was coming. This news brought little but a present terror to Dan Anderson, as I looked at him in query.
"Man," said he, as he gripped my arm, "you see, up there on Carrizo, the big cañon where we hunt bear. You know, up there at the end, there's a big pine tree. Well, now, if you or any of the citizens of this commercial emporium should require the legal services of the late Daniel Anderson, you go up the cañon and look up the tree. I'll be there. I'm scared."
By this I knew that he would, in all likelihood, meet the stage and help Eve to alight at Heart's Desire. Moreover, I reproached him as having been deliberately a party to this invasion. "You've been writing back home to the girl," I said. "That is not playing the game. That's violation of the creed. You're renegade. Then go back home. You don't belong here!"
"I'm not! I won't! I didn't!" he retorted. "I didn't write—at least only a few times. I tried not to—but I couldn't help it. Man, I tell you I couldn't help it."