Chapter XXVI
Idle Noon
The occasional raw winds of spring softened to the warm calm of summer. The horses had shed their winter coats, and grew sleek and fat on the lush grasses of the mesa. The mesa stream cleared from a ropy red to a sparkling thread of silver banked with vivid green. If infrequent thunderstorms left a haze in the cañons, it soon vanished in the light air.
Bronson found it difficult to keep Dorothy from over-exerting herself. They arose at daybreak and went to bed at dusk, save when Lorry came for an after-dinner chat or when he prevailed upon Dorothy to play for them in his cabin. On such occasions she would entertain them with old melodies played softly as they smoked and listened, the lamp unlighted and the door wide open to the stars.
One evening, when Dorothy had ceased to play for them, Lorry mentioned that he was to leave on the following day for an indefinite time. There had been some trouble about a new outfit that was grazing cattle far to the south. Shoop had already sent word to the foreman, who had ignored the message. Lorry had been deputized to see the man and have an understanding with him. The complaint had been brought to Shoop by one of the Apache police that some cowboys had been grazing stock and killing game on the Indian reservation.
Dorothy realized that Lorry might be away for some time. She would miss him. And that night she asked her father if she might not invite a girl friend up for the summer. They were established. And Dorothy was much stronger and able to attend to the housekeeping. Bronson was quite willing. He realized that he was busy most of the time, writing. He was not much of a companion except at the table. So Dorothy wrote to her friend, who was in Los Angeles and had already planned to drive East when the roads became passable.
Lorry was roping the packs next morning when Dorothy appeared in her new silver-gray corduroy riding-habit—a surprise that she had kept for an occasion. She was proud of the well-tailored coat and breeches, the snug-fitting black boots, and the small, new Stetson. Her gray silk waist was brightened by a narrow four-in-hand of rich blue, and her tiny gauntlets of soft gray buckskin were stitched with blue silk.
She looked like some slender, young exquisite who had stepped from the stage of an old play as she stood smoothing the fingers of her gloves and smiling across at Lorry. He said nothing, but stared at her. She was disappointed. She wanted him to tell her that he liked her new things, she had spent so much time and thought on them. But there he stood, the pack-rope slack in his hand, staring stupidly.
She nodded, and waved her hand.
"It's me," she called. "Good-morning!"
Lorry managed to stammer a greeting. He felt as though she were some strange person that looked like Dorothy, but like a new Dorothy of such exquisite attitude and grace and so altogether charming that he could do nothing but wonder how the transformation had come about. He had always thought her pretty. But now she was more than that. She was alluring; she was the girl he loved from the brim of her gray Stetson to the toe of her tiny boot.
"Would you catch my pony for me?"
Lorry flushed. Of course she wanted Chinook. He swung up on Gray Leg and spurred across the mesa. His heart was pounding hard. He rode with a dash and a swing as he rounded up the ponies. As he caught up her horse he happened to think of his own faded shirt and overalls. He was wearing the essentially proper clothing for his work. For the first time he realized the potency of carefully chosen attire. As he rode back with the pastured pony trailing behind him, he felt peculiarly ashamed of himself for feeling ashamed of his clothing. Silently he saddled Chinook, accepted her thanks silently, and strode to his cabin. When he reappeared he was wearing a new shirt, his blue silk bandanna, and his silver-studded chaps. He would cache those chaps at his first camp out, and get them when he returned.
Bronson came to the doorway.
Dorothy put her finger to her lips. "Lorry is stunned, I think. Do I look as spiff as all that?"
"Like a slim young cavalier; very dashing and wonderful, Peter Pan."
"Not a bit like Dorothy?"
"Well, the least bit; but more like Peter Pan."
"I was getting tired of being just Dorothy. That was all very well when
I wasn't able to ride and camp and do all sorts of adventures.
"And that isn't all," she continued. "I weigh twelve pounds more than I did last summer. Mr. Shoop weighed me on the store scales. I wanted to weigh him. He made an awful pun, but he wouldn't budge."
Bronson nodded. "I wouldn't ride farther than the Big Spring, Peter.
It's getting hot now."
"All right, daddy. I wish that horrid old story was finished. You never ride with me."
"You'll have some one to ride with you when Alice comes."
"Yes; but Alice is only a girl."
Bronson laughed, and she scolded him with her eyes. Just then Lorry appeared.
Bronson stooped and kissed her. "And don't ride too far," he cautioned.
Lorry drove the pack-animals toward Bronson's cabin. He dismounted to tighten the cinch on Chinook's saddle.
The little cavalcade moved out across the mesa. Dorothy rode behind the pack-animals, who knew their work too well to need a lead-rope. It was her adventure. At the Big Spring, she would graciously allow Lorry to take charge of the expedition.
Lorry, riding behind her, turned as they entered the forest, and waved farewell to Bronson.
To ride the high trails of the Arizona hills is in itself an unadulterated joy. To ride these wooded uplands, eight thousand feet above the world, with a sprightly Peter Pan clad in silver-gray corduroys and chatting happily, is an enchantment. In such companionship, when the morning sunlight dapples the dun forest carpet with pools of gold, when vista after vista unfolds beneath the high arches of the rusty-brown giants of the woodlands; when somewhere above there is the open sky and the marching sun, the twilight underworld of the green-roofed caverns is a magic land.
The ponies plodded slowly upward, to turn and plod up the next angle of the trail, without loitering and without haste. When Dorothy checked her pony to gaze at some new vista, the pack-animals rested, waiting for the word to go on again. Lorry, awakened to a new charm in Dorothy, rode in a silence that needed no interpreter.
At a bend in the trail, Dorothy reined up. "Oh, I just noticed! You are wearing your chaps this morning."
Lorry flushed, and turned to tie a saddle-string that was already quite secure.
Dorothy nodded to herself and spoke to the horses. They strained on up a steeper pitch, pausing occasionally to rest.
Lorry seemed to have regained his old manner. Her mention of the chaps had wakened him to everyday affairs. After all, she was only a girl; not yet eighteen, her father had said. "Just a kid," Lorry had thought; "but mighty pretty in those city clothes." He imagined that some women he had seen would look like heck in such a riding-coat and breeches. But Dorothy looked like a kind of stylish boy-girl, slim and yet not quite as slender as she had appeared in her ordinary clothes. Lorry could not help associating her appearance with a thoroughbred he had once seen; a dark-bay colt, satin smooth and as graceful as a flame. He had all but worshiped that horse. Even as he knew horses, through that colt he had seen perfection; his ideal of something beautiful beyond words.
From his pondering, Lorry arrived at a conclusion having nothing to do with ideals. He would buy a new suit of clothes the first time he went to Phoenix. It would be a trim suit of corduroy and a dark-green flannel shirt, like the suit and shirt worn by Lundy, the forestry expert.
At the base of a great gray shoulder of granite, the Big Spring spread in its natural rocky bowl which grew shallower toward the edges. Below the spring in the black mud softened by the overflow were the tracks of wild turkey and the occasional print of a lynx pad. The bush had been cleared from around the spring, and the ashes of an old camp-fire marked the spot where Lorry had often "bushed over-night" on his way to the cabin.
Lorry dismounted and tied the pack-horses. He explained that they were still a little too close to home to be trusted untied.
Dorothy decided that she was hungry, although they had been but two hours on the trail. Could they have a real camp-fire and make coffee?
"Yes, ma'am; right quick."
"Lorry, don't say 'yes, ma'am.' I—it's nice of you, but just say
'Dorothy.'"
"Yes, ma'am."
Dorothy's brown eyes twinkled.
Lorry gazed at her, wondering why she smiled.
"Yes, ma'am," she said stiffly, as though to a superior whom she feared.
Lorry grinned. She was always doing something sprightly, either making him laugh or laughing at him, talking to the horses, planning some little surprise for their occasional dinners in the Bronson cabin, quoting some fragment of poetry from an outland song,—she called these songs "outlandish," and had explained her delight in teasing her father with "outlandish" adjectives; whistling in answer to the birds, and amusing herself and her "men-folks" in a thousand ways as spontaneous as they were delightful.
With an armful of firewood, Lorry returned to the spring. The ponies nodded in the heat of noon. Dorothy, spreading their modest luncheon on a bright new Navajo blanket, seemed daintier than ever against the background of the forest. They made coffee and ate the sandwiches she had prepared. After luncheon Lorry smoked, leaning back against the granite rock, his hat off, and his legs crossed in lazy content.
"If it could only be like this forever," sighed Dorothy.
Lorry promptly shook his head. "We'd get hungry after a spell."
"Men are always hungry. And you've just eaten."
"But I could listen to a poem," he said, and he winked at a tree-trunk.
"It's really too warm even to speak of 'The Little Fires,' isn't it? Oh,
I know! Do you remember the camp we made?"
"Where?"
"Oh, silly!"
"Well, I ain't had time to remember this one yet—and this is the first for us."
"Lorry, you're awfully practical."
"I got to be."
"And I don't believe you know a poem when you see one."
"I reckon you're right. But I can tell one when I hear it."
"Very well, then. Shut your eyes tight and listen:—
"'Do you remember the camp we made as we nooned on the mesa
floor,
Where the grass rolled down like a running sea in the wind—
and the world our own?
You laughed as you sat in the cedar shade and said 't was the
ocean shore
Of an island lost in a wizardry of dreams, for ourselves alone.
"'Our ponies grazed in the idle noon, unsaddled, at ease, and
slow;
The ranges dim were a faëryland; blue hills in a haze of gray.
Hands clasped on knee, you hummed a tune, a melody light and
low;
And do you remember the venture planned in jest—for your
heart was gay?'"
Dorothy paused. "You may open your eyes. That's all."
"Well, it's noon," said Lorry, "and there are the ponies, and the hills are over there. Won't you say the rest of it?"
"Oh, the rest of it is about a venture planned that never came true. It couldn't, even in a poem. But I'll tell you about it some day."
"I could listen right now."
Dorothy shook her head. "I am afraid it would spoil our real adventure. But if I were a boy—wouldn't it be fun! We would ride and camp in the hills at night and find all the little fires along the trail—"
"We'd make our own," said Lorry.
"Of course, Mr. Practical Man."
"Well, I can't help bein' like I am. But sometimes I get lazy and sit and look at the hills and the cañons and mesas down below, and wonder what's the good of hustlin'. But somehow I got to quit loafin' after a spell—and go right to hustlin' again. It's a sure good way to get rested up; just to sit down and forget everything but the big world rollin' down to the edge of nothin'. It makes a fella's kickin' and complainin' look kind of small and ornery."
"I never heard you complain, Lorry."
"Huh! You ain't been along with me when I been right up against it and mebby had to sweat my way out of some darned box cañon or make a ride through some down timber at night. I've said some lovely things them times."
"Oh, I get cross. But, then, I'm a girl. Men shouldn't get cross."
"I reckon you're right. The sun's comin' through that pine there.
Gettin' too hot?"
"No, I love it. But I must go. I'll just ride down to the cabin and unsaddle Chinook and say 'Hello' to father—and that's the end of our adventure."
"Won't those city folks be comin' in soon?"
"Yes. And Alice Weston is lovely. I know you'll like her."
"Alice who, did you say?"
"Weston. Alice and her mother are touring overland from Los Angeles. I know you will admire Alice."
"Mebby. If she's as pretty as you."
"Oh, fudge! You like my new suit. And Alice isn't like me at all. She is nearly as tall as you, and big and strong and really pretty. Bud Shoop told me I wasn't bigger than a minute."
"A minute is a whole lot sometimes," said Lorry.
"You're not so practical as you were, are you?"
"More. I meant that."
Dorothy rose and began to roll the Navajo blanket.
Lorry stepped up and took it from her. "Roll it long and let it hang down. Then it won't bother you gettin' on or off your horse. That's the way the Indians roll 'em."
He jerked the tie-strings tight. "Well, I reckon I'll be goin'," he said, holding out his hand.
"Good-bye, ranger man."
"Good-bye, Dorothy."
Her slender hand was warm in his. She looked up at him, smiling. He had never looked at her that way before. She hoped so much that he would say nothing to spoil the happiness of their idle noon.
"Lorry, we're great friends, aren't we?"
"You bet. And I'd do most anything to make you happy."
"But you don't have to do anything to make me happy. I am happy.
Aren't you?"
"I aim to be. But what makes you ask?"
"Oh, you looked so solemn a minute ago. We'll be just friends always, won't we?"
"Just friends," he echoed, "always."
Her brown eyes grew big as he stooped and kissed her. She had not expected that he would do that.
"Oh, I thought you liked me!" she said, clasping her hands.
Lorry bit his lips, and the hot flush died from his face.
"But I didn't know that you cared—like that! I really don't mind because you kissed me good-bye—if it was just good-bye and nothing else." And she smiled a little timidly.
"I—I reckon I was wrong," he said, "for I was tryin' not to kiss you. If you say the word, I'll ride back with you and tell your father. I ain't ashamed of it—only if you say it was wrong."
Dorothy had recovered herself. A twinkle of fun danced in her eyes. "I can't scold you now. You're going away. But when you get back—" And she shook her finger at him and tried to look very grave, which made him smile.
"Then I'll keep right on ridin' south," he said.
"But you'd get lonesome and come back to your hills. I know! And it's awfully hot in the desert."
"Would you be wantin' me to come back?"
"Of course. Father would miss you."
[Illustration: They made coffee and ate the sandwiches she had prepared] "And that would make you unhappy—him bein' lonesome, so I reckon I'll come back."
"I shall be very busy entertaining my guests," she told him with a charming tilt of her chin. And she straightway swung to the saddle.
Lorry started the pack-horses up the hill and mounted Gray Leg. She sat watching him as he rode sideways gazing back at her.
As he turned to follow the pack-horses up the next ascent she called to him:—
"Perhaps I won't scold you when you come back."
He laughed, and flung up his arm in farewell. Dorothy reined Chinook round, and rode slowly down through the silent woodlands.
Her father came out and took her horse. She told him of their most wonderful camp at the Big Spring. Bronson smiled.
"And Lorry kissed me good-bye," she concluded. "Wasn't it silly of him?"
Bronson glanced at her quickly. "Do you really care for Lorry, Peter
Pan?"
"Heaps! He's the nicest boy I ever met. Why shouldn't I?"
"There's no reason in the world why you shouldn't. But I thought you two were just friends."
"Why, that's what I said to Lorry. Don't look so mournful, daddy. You didn't think for a minute that I'd marry him, did you?"
"Of course not. What would I do without you?"
Chapter XXVII
Waco
The tramp Waco, drifting south through Prescott, fell in with a quartet of his kind camped along the railroad track. He stumbled down the embankment and "sat in" beside their night fire. He was hungry. He had no money, and he had tramped all that day. They were eating bread and canned peaches, and had coffee simmering in a pail. They asked no questions until he had eaten. Then the usual talk began.
The hobos cursed the country, its people, the railroad, work and the lack of it, the administration, and themselves. Waco did not agree with everything they said, but he wished to tramp with them until something better offered. So he fell in with their humor, but made the mistake of cursing the trainmen's union. A brakeman had kicked him off a freight car just outside of Prescott.
One of the hobos checked Waco sharply.
"We ain't here to listen to your cussin' any union," he said. "And seem' you're so mouthy, just show your card."
"Left it over to the White House," said Waco.
"That don't go. You got your three letters?"
"Sure! W.B.Y. Catch onto that?"
"No. And this ain't no josh."
"Why, W.B.Y. is for 'What's bitin' you?' Know the answer?"
"If you can't show your I.W.W., you can beat it," said the tramp.
"Tryin' to kid me?"
"Not so as your mother would notice. Got your card?"
Waco finally realized that they meant business. "No, I ain't got no
I.W.W. card. I'm a bo, same as you fellas. What's bitin' you, anyway?"
"Let's give him the third, fellas."
Waco jumped to his feet and backed away. The leader of the group hesitated wisely, because Waco had a gun in his hand.
"So that's your game, eh? Collectin' internal revenue. Well, we're union men. You better sift along." And the leader sat down.
"I've a dam' good mind to sift you," said Waco, backing toward the embankment. "Got to have a card to travel with a lousy bunch like you, eh?"
He climbed to the top of the embankment, and, turning, ran down the track. Things were in a fine state when a guy couldn't roll in with a bunch of willies without showing a card. Workmen often tramped the country looking for work. But hobos forming a union and calling themselves workmen! Even Waco could not digest that.
But he had learned a lesson, and the next group that he overtook treading the cinders were more genial. One of them gave him some bread and cold meat. They tramped until nightfall. That evening Waco industriously "lifted" a chicken from a convenient hencoop. The hen was old and tough and most probably a grandmother of many years' setting, but she was a welcome contribution to their evening meal. While they ate Waco asked them if they belonged to the I.W.W. They did to a man. He had lost his card. Where could he get a renewal? From headquarters, of course. But he had been given his card up in Portland; he had cooked in a lumber camp. In that case he would have to see the "boss" at Phoenix.
There were three men in the party besides Waco. One of them claimed to be a carpenter, another an ex-railroad man, and the third an iron moulder. Waco, to keep up appearances, said that he was a cook; that he had lost his job in the Northern camps on account of trouble between the independent lumbermen and the I.W.W. It happened that there had been some trouble of that kind recently, so his word was taken at its face value.
In Phoenix, he was directed to the "headquarters," a disreputable lounging-room in an abandoned store on the outskirts of the town. There were papers and magazines scattered about; socialistic journals and many newspapers printed in German, Russian, and Italian. The place smelled of stale tobacco smoke and unwashed clothing. But the organization evidently had money. No one seemed to want for food, tobacco, or whiskey.
The "boss," a sharp-featured young man, aggressive and apparently educated, asked Waco some questions which the tramp answered lamely. The boss, eager for recruits of Waco's stamp, nevertheless demurred until Waco reiterated the statement that he could cook, was a good cook and had earned good money.
"I'll give you a renewal of your card. What was the number?" queried the boss.
"Thirteen," said Waco, grinning.
"Well, we may be able to use you. We want cooks at Sterling."
"All right. Nothin' doin' here, anyway."
The boss smiled to himself. He knew that Waco had never belonged to the I.W.W., but if the impending strike at the Sterling smelter became a reality a good cook would do much to hold the I.W.W. camp together. Any tool that could be used was not overlooked by the boss. He was paid to hire men for a purpose.
In groups of from ten to thirty the scattered aggregation made its way to Sterling and mingled with the workmen after hours. A sinister restlessness grew and spread insidiously among the smelter hands. Men laid off before pay-day and were seen drunk in the streets. Others appeared at the smelter in a like condition. They seemed to have money with which to pay for drinks and cigars. The heads of the different departments of the smelter became worried. Local papers began to make mention of an impending strike when no such word had as yet come to the smelter operators. Outside papers took it up. Surmises were many and various. Few of the papers dared charge the origin of the disturbances to the I.W.W. The law had not been infringed upon, yet lawlessness was everywhere, conniving in dark corners, boasting openly on the street, setting men's brains afire with whiskey, playing upon the ignorance of the foreign element, and defying the intelligence of Americans who strove to forfend the threatened calamity.
The straight union workmen were divided in sentiment. Some of them voted to work; others voted loudly to throw in with the I.W.W., and among these were many foreigners—Swedes, Hungarians, Germans, Poles, Italians; the usual and undesirable agglomeration to be found in a smelter town.
Left to themselves, they would have continued to work. They were in reality the cheaper tools of the trouble-makers. There were fewer and keener tools to be used, and these were selected and turned against their employers by that irresistible potency, gold; gold that came from no one knew where, and came in abundance. Finally open threats of a strike were made. Circulars were distributed throughout town over-night, cleverly misstating conditions. A grain of truth was dissolved in the slaver of anarchy into a hundred lies.
Waco, installed in the main I.W.W. camp just outside the town, cooked early and late, and received a good wage for his services. More men appeared, coming casually from nowhere and taking up their abode with the disturbers.
A week before the strike began, a committee from the union met with a committee of townsmen and representatives of the smelter interests. The argument was long and inconclusive. Aside from this, a special committee of townsmen, headed by the mayor, interviewed the I.W.W. leaders.
Arriving at no definite understanding, the citizens finally threatened to deport the trouble-makers in a body. The I.W.W. members laughed at them. Socialism, in which many of the better class of workmen believed sincerely, began to take on the red tinge of anarchy. A notable advocate of arbitration, a foreman in the smelter, was found one morning beaten into unconsciousness. And no union man had done this thing, for the foreman was popular with the union, to a man. The mayor received an anonymous letter threatening his life. A similar letter was received by the chief of police. And some few politicians who had won to prominence through questionable methods were threatened with exposure if they did not side with the strikers.
Conditions became deplorable. The papers dared not print everything they knew for fear of political enmity. And they were not able to print many things transpiring in that festering underworld for lack of definite knowledge, even had they dared.
Noon of an August day the strikers walked out. Mob rule threatened Sterling. Women dared no longer send their children to school or to the grocery stores for food. They hardly dared go themselves. A striker was shot by a companion in a saloon brawl. The killing was immediately charged to a corporation detective, and our noble press made much of the incident before it found out the truth.
Shortly after this a number of citizens representing the business backbone of the town met quietly and drafted a letter to a score of citizens whom they thought might be trusted. That was Saturday evening. On Sunday night there were nearly a hundred men in town who had been reached by the citizens' committee. They elected a sub-committee of twelve, with the sheriff as chairman. Driven to desperation by intolerable conditions, they decided to administer swift and conclusive justice themselves. To send for troops would be an admission that the town of Sterling could not handle her own community.
It became whispered among the I.W.W. that "The Hundred" had organized. Leaders of the strikers laughed at these rumors, telling the men that the day of the vigilante was past.
On the following Wednesday a rabid leader of the disturbers, not a union man, but a man who had never done a day's work in his life, mounted a table on a street corner and addressed the crowd which quickly swelled to a mob. Members of "The Hundred," sprinkled thinly throughout the mob, listened until the speaker had finished. Among other things, he had made a statement about the National Government which should have turned the mob to a tribunal of prompt justice and hanged him. But many of the men were drunk, and all were inflamed with the poison of the hour. When the man on the table continued to slander the Government, and finally named a name, there was silence. A few of the better class of workmen edged out of the crowd. The scattered members of "The Hundred" stayed on to the last word.
Next morning this speaker was found dead, hanging from a bridge a little way out of town. Not a few of the strikers were startled to a sense of broad justice in his death, and yet such a hanging was an outrage to any community. One sin did not blot out another. And the loyal "Hundred" realized too late that they had put a potent weapon in the hands of their enemies.
A secret meeting was called by "The Hundred." Wires were commandeered and messages sent to several towns in the northern part of the State to men known personally by members of "The Hundred" as fearless and loyal to American institutions. Already the mob had begun rioting, but, meeting with no resistance, it contented itself with insulting those whom they knew were not sympathizers. Stores were closed, and were straightway broken into and looted. Drunkenness and street fights were so common as to evoke no comment.
Two days later a small band of cowboys rode into town. They were followed throughout the day by other riders, singly and in small groups. It became noised about the I.W.W. camp that professional gunmen were being hired by the authorities; were coming in on horseback and on the trains. That night the roadbed of the railroad was dynamited on both sides of town. "The Hundred" immediately dispatched automobiles with armed guards to meet the trains.
Later, strangers were seen in town; quiet men who carried themselves coolly, said nothing, and paid no attention to catcalls and insults. It was rumored that troops had been sent for. Meanwhile, the town seethed with anarchy and drunkenness. But, as must ever be the case, anarchy was slowly weaving a rope with which to hang itself.
Up in the second story of the court-house a broad-shouldered, heavy-jawed man sat at a flat-topped desk with a clerk beside him. The clerk wrote names in a book. In front of the clerk was a cigar-box filled with numbered brass checks. The rows of chairs from the desk to the front windows were pretty well filled with men, lean, hard-muscled men of the ranges in the majority. The room was quiet save for an occasional word from the big man at the desk. The clerk drew a check from the cigar-box. A man stepped up to the desk, gave his name, age, occupation, and address, received the numbered check, and went to his seat. The clerk drew another check.
A fat, broad-shouldered man waddled up, smiling.
"Why, hello, Bud!" said the heavy-jawed man, rising and shaking hands. "I didn't expect to see you. Wired you thinking you might send one or two men from your county."
"I got 'em with me," said Bud.
"Number thirty-seven," said the clerk.
Bud stuffed the check in his vest pocket. He would receive ten dollars a day while in the employ of "The Hundred." He would be known and addressed while on duty as number thirty-seven. "The Hundred" were not advertising the names of their supporters for future use by the I.W.W.
Bud's name and address were entered in a notebook. He waddled back to his seat.
"Cow-punch," said someone behind him.
Bud turned and grinned. "You seen my laigs," he retorted.
"Number thirty-eight."
Lorry came forward and received his check.
"You're pretty young," said the man at the desk. Lorry flushed, but made no answer.
"Number thirty-nine."
The giant sheepman of the high country strode up, nodded, and took his check.
"Stacey County is well represented," said the man at the desk.
When the clerk had finished entering the names, there were forty-eight numbers in his book. The man at the desk rose.
"Men," he said grimly, "you know what you are here for. If you haven't got guns, you will be outfitted downstairs. Some folks think that this trouble is only local. It isn't. It is national. Providence seems to have passed the buck to us to stop it. We are here to prove that we can. Last night our flag—our country's flag—was torn from the halyards above this building and trampled in the dust of the street. Sit still and don't make a noise. We're not doing business that way. If there are any married men here, they had better take their horses and ride home. This community does not assume responsibility for any man's life. You are volunteers. There are four ex-Rangers among you. They will tell you what to do. But I'm going to tell you one thing first; don't shoot high or low when you have to shoot. Draw plumb center, and don't quit as long as you can feel to pull a trigger. For any man that isn't outfitted there's a rifle and fifty rounds of soft-nosed ammunition downstairs."
The heavy-shouldered man sat down and pulled the notebook toward him.
The men rose and filed quietly downstairs.
As they gathered in the street and gazed up at the naked halyards, a shot dropped one of them in his tracks. An eagle-faced cowman whipped out his gun. With the report came the tinkle of breaking glass from a window diagonally opposite. Feet clattered down the stairs of the building, and a woman ran into the street, screaming and calling out that a man had been murdered.
"Reckon I got him," said the cowman. "Boys, I guess she's started."
The men ran for their horses. As they mounted and assembled, the heavy-shouldered man appeared astride a big bay horse.
"We're going to clean house," he stated. "And we start right here."
Chapter XXVIII
A Squared Account
The housecleaning began at the building diagonally opposite the assembled posse. In a squalid room upstairs they found the man who had fired upon them. He was dead. Papers found upon him disclosed his identity as an I.W.W. leader. He had evidently rented the room across from the court-house that he might watch the movements of "The Hundred." A cheap, inaccurate revolver was found beside him. Possibly he had fired, thinking to momentarily disorganize the posse; that they would not know from where the shot had come until he had had time to make his escape and warn his fellows.
The posse moved from building to building. Each tenement, private rooming-house, and shack was entered and searched. Union men who chanced to be at home were warned that any man seen on the street that day was in danger of being killed. Several members of the I.W.W. were routed out in different parts of the town and taken to the jail.
Saloons were ordered to close. Saloon-keepers who argued their right to keep open were promptly arrested. An I.W.W. agitator, defying the posse, was handcuffed, loaded into a machine, and taken out of town. Groups of strikers gathered at the street corners and jeered the armed posse. One group, cornered in a side street, showed fight.
"We'll burn your dam' town!" cried a voice.
The sheriff swung from his horse and shouldered through the crowd. As he did so, a light-haired, weasel-faced youth, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his loose mouth, backed away. The sheriff followed and pressed him against a building.
"I know you!" said the sheriff. "You never made or spent an honest dollar in this town. Boys," he continued, turning to the strikers, "are you proud of this skunk who wants to burn your town?"
A workman laughed.
"You said it!" asserted the sheriff. "When somebody tells you what he is, you laugh. Why don't you laugh at him when he's telling you of the buildings he has dynamited and how many deaths he is responsible for? Did he ever sweat alongside of any of you doing a day's work? Do you know him? Does he know anything about your work or conditions? Not a damned thing! Just think it over. And, boys, remember he is paid easy money to get you into trouble. Who pays him? Is there any decent American paying him to do that sort of thing? Stop and think about it."
The weasel-faced youth raised his arm and pointed at the sheriff. "Who pays you to shoot down women and kids?" he snarled.
"I'm taking orders from the Governor of this State."
"To hell with the Governor! And there's where he'll wake up one of these fine days."
"Because he's enforcing the law and trying to keep the flag from being insulted by whelps like you, eh?"
"We'll show you what's law! And we'll show you the right kind of a flag—"
"Boys, are you going to stand for this kind of talk?" And the sheriff's heavy face quivered with anger. "I'd admire to kill you!" he said, turning on the youth. "But that wouldn't do any good."
The agitator was taken to the jail. Later it was rumored that a machine had left the jail that night with three men in it. Two of them were armed guards. The third was a weasel-faced youth. He was never heard of again.
As the cavalcade moved on down the street, workmen gathered on street corners and in upper rooms and discussed the situation. The strike had got beyond their control. Many of them were for sending a delegation to the I.W.W. camp demanding that they disband and leave. Others were silent, and still others voted loudly to "fight to a finish."
Out beyond the edge of town lay the I.W.W. camp, a conglomeration of board shacks hastily erected, brush-covered hovels, and tents. Not counting the scattered members in town, there were at least two hundred of the malcontents loafing in camp. When the sheriff's posse appeared it was met by a deputation. But there was no parley.
"We'll give you till sundown to clear out," said the sheriff and, turning, he and his men rode back to the court-house.
That evening sentinels were posted at the street corners within hail of each other. In a vacant lot back of the court-house the horses of the posse were corralled under guard. The town was quiet. Occasionally a figure crossed the street; some shawl-hooded striker's wife or some workman heedless of the sheriff's warning.
Lorry happened to be posted on a corner of the court-house square. Across the street another sentinel paced back and forth, occasionally pausing to talk with Lorry.
This sentinel was halfway up the block when a figure appeared from the shadow between two buildings. The sentinel challenged.
"A friend," said the figure. "I was lookin' for young Adams."
"What do you want with him?"
"It's private. Know where I can find him?"
"He's across the street there. Who are you, anyway?"
"That's my business. He knows me."
"This guy wants to talk to you," called the sentinel.
Lorry stepped across the street. He stopped suddenly as he discovered the man to be Waco, the tramp.
"Is it all right?" asked the sentinel, addressing Lorry.
"I guess so. What do you want?"
"It's about Jim Waring," said Waco. "I seen you when the sheriff rode up to our camp. I seen by the papers that Jim Waring was your father. I wanted to tell you that it was High-Chin Bob what killed Pat. I was in the buckboard with Pat when he done it. The horses went crazy at the shootin' and ditched me. When I come to I was in Grant."
"Why didn't you stay and tell what you knew? Nobody would 'a' hurt you."
"I was takin' no chance of the third, and twenty years."
"What you doin' in this town?"
"Cookin' for the camp. But I can't hold that job long. My whole left side is goin' flooey. The boss give me hallelujah to-day for bein' slow. I'm sick of the job."
"Well, you ought to be. Suppose you come over to the sheriff and tell him what you know about the killin' of Pat."
"Nope; I was scared you would say that. I'm tellin' you because you done me a good turn onct. I guess that lets me out."
"Not if I make you sit in."
"You can make me sit in all right. But you can't make me talk. Show me a cop and I freeze. I ain't takin' no chances."
"You're takin' bigger chances right now."
"Bigger'n you know, kid. Listen! You and Jim Waring and Pat used me white. I'm sore at that I.W.W. bunch, but I dassent make a break. They'd get me. But listen! If the boys knowed I was tellin' you this they'd cut me in two. Two trucks just came into camp from up north. Them trucks was loaded to the guards. Every man in camp's got a automatic and fifty rounds. And they was settin' up a machine gun when I slipped through and beat it, lookin' for you. You better fan it out of this while you got the chanct."
"Did they send you over to push that bluff—or are you talkin' straight?"
"S' help me! It's the bleedin' truth!"
"Well, I'm thankin' you. But get goin' afore I change my mind."
"Would you shake with a bum?" queried Waco.
"Why—all right. You're tryin' to play square, I reckon. Wait a minute!
Are you willin' to put in writin' that you seen High-Chin Bob kill Pat?
I got a pencil and a envelope on me. Will you put it down right here,
and me to call my friend and witness your name?"
"You tryin' to pinch me?"
"That ain't my style."
"All right. I'll put it down."
And in the flickering rays of the arc light Waco scribbled on the back of the envelope and signed his name. Lorry's companion read the scrawl and handed it back to Lorry. Waco humped his shoulders and shuffled away.
"Why didn't you nail him?" queried the other.
"I don't know. Mebby because he was trustin' me."
Shortly afterward Lorry and his companion were relieved from duty. Lorry immediately reported to the sheriff, who heard him without interrupting, dismissed him, and turned to the committee, who held night session discussing the situation.
"They've called our bluff," he said, twisting his cigar round in his lips.
A ballot was taken. The vote was eleven to one for immediate action. The ballot was secret, but the member who had voted against action rose and tendered his resignation.
"It would be plain murder if we were to shoot up their camp. It would place us on their level."
Just before daybreak a guard stationed two blocks west of the court-house noticed a flare of light in the windows of a building opposite. He glanced toward the east. The dim, ruddy glow in the windows was not that of dawn. He ran to the building and tried to open the door to the stairway. As he wrenched at the door a subdued soft roar swelled and grew louder. Turning, he ran to the next corner, calling to the guard. The alarm of fire was relayed to the court-house.
Meanwhile the two cowboys ran back to the building and hammered on the door. Some one in an upstairs room screamed. Suddenly the door gave inward. A woman carrying a cheap gilt clock pushed past them and sank in a heap on the sidewalk. The guards heard some one running down the street. One of them tied a handkerchief over his face and groped his way up the narrow stairs. The hall above was thick with smoke. A door sprang open, and a man carrying a baby and dragging a woman by the hand bumped into the guard, cursed, and stumbled toward the stairway.
The cowboy ran from door to door down the long, narrow hall, calling to the inmates. In one room he found a lamp burning on a dresser and two children asleep. He dragged them from bed and carried them to the stairway. From below came the surge and snap of flames. He held his breath and descended the stairs. A crowd of half-clothed workmen had gathered. Among them he saw several of the guards.
"Who belongs to these kids?" he cried.
A woman ran up. "She's here," she said, pointing to the woman with the gilt clock, who still lay on the sidewalk. A man was trying to revive her. The cowboy noticed that the unconscious woman still gripped the gilt clock.
He called to a guard. Together they dashed up the stairs and ran from room to room. Toward the back of the building they found a woman insanely gathering together a few cheap trinkets and stuffing them into a pillow-case. She was trying to work a gilt-framed lithograph into the pillow-case when they seized her and led her toward the stairway. She fought and cursed and begged them to let her go back and get her things. A burst of flame swept up the stairway. The cowboys turned and ran back along the hall. One of them kicked a window out. The other tied a sheet under the woman's arms and together they lowered her to the ground.
Suddenly the floor midway down the hall sank softly in a fountain of flame and sparks.
"Reckon we jump," said one of the cowboys.
Lowering himself from the rear window, he dropped. His companion followed. They limped to the front of the building. A crowd massed in the street, heedless of the danger that threatened as a section of roof curled like a piece of paper, writhed, and dropped to the sidewalk.
A group of guards appeared with a hose-reel. They coupled to a hydrant. A thin stream gurgled from the hose and subsided. The sheriff ran to the steps of a building and called to the crowd.
"Your friends," he cried, "have cut the water-main. There is no water."
The mass groaned and swayed back and forth.
From up the street came a cry—the call of a range rider. A score of cowboys tried to force the crowd back from the burning building.
"Look out for the front!" cried the guards. "She's coming!"
The crowd surged back. The front of that flaming shell quivered, curved, and crashed to the street.
The sheriff called to his men. An old Texas Ranger touched his arm.
"There's somethin' doin' up yonder, Cap."
"Keep the boys together," ordered the sheriff; "This fire was started to draw us out. Tell the boys to get their horses."
Dawn was breaking when the cowboys gathered in the vacant lot and mounted their horses. In the clear light they could see a mob in the distance; a mob that moved from the east toward the court-house. The sheriff dispatched a man to wire for troops, divided his force in halves, and, leading one contingent, he rode toward the oncoming mob. The other half of the posse, led by an old Ranger, swung round to a back street and halted.
The shadows of the buildings grew shorter. A cowboy on a restive pony asked what they were waiting for. Some one laughed.
The old Ranger turned in his saddle. "It's a right lovely mornin'," he remarked impersonally, tugging at his silver-gray mustache.
Suddenly the waiting riders stiffened in their saddles. A ripple of shots sounded, followed by the shrill cowboy yell. Still the old Ranger sat his horse, coolly surveying his men.
"Don't we get a look-in?" queried a cowboy.
"Poco tiempo," said the Ranger softly.
The sheriff bunched his men as he approached the invaders. Within fifty yards of their front he halted and held up his hand. Massed in a solid wall from curb to curb, the I.W.W. jeered and shouted as he tried to speak. A parley was impossible. The vagrants were most of them drunk.
The sheriff turned to the man nearest him.
"Tell the boys that we'll go through, turn, and ride back. Tell them not to fire a shot until we turn."
As he gathered his horse under him, the sheriff's arm dropped. The shrill "Yip! Yip!" of the range rose above the thunder of hoofs as twenty ponies jumped to a run. The living thunder-bolt tore through the mass. The staccato crack of guns sounded sharply above the deeper roar of the mob. The ragged pathway closed again as the riders swung round, bunched, and launched at the mass from the rear. Those who had turned to face the second charge were crowded back as the cowboys, with guns going, ate into the yelling crowd. The mob turned, and like a great, black wave swept down the street and into the court-house square.
The cowboys raced past, and reined in a block below the court-house. As they paused to reload, a riderless horse, badly wounded, plunged among them. A cowboy caught the horse and shot it. Another rider, gripping his shirt above his abdomen, writhed and groaned, begging piteously for some one to kill him. Before they could get him off his horse he spurred out, and, pulling his carbine from the scabbard, charged into the mob, in the square. With the lever going like lightning, he bored into the mob, fired his last shot in the face of a man that had caught his horse's bridle, and sank to the ground. Shattered and torn he lay, a red pulp that the mob trampled into the dust.
The upper windows of the court-house filled with figures. An irregular fire drove the cowboys to the shelter of a side street. In the wide doorway of the court-house several men crouched behind a blue-steel tripod. Those still in the square crowded past and into the building. Behind the stone pillars of the entrance, guarded by a machine gun, the crazy mob cheered drunkenly and defied the guards to dislodge them.
From a building opposite came a single shot, and the group round the machine gun lifted one of their fellows and carried him back into the building. Again came the peremptory snarl of a carbine, and another figure sank in the doorway. The machine gun was dragged back. Its muzzle still commanded the square, but its operators were now shielded by an angle of the entrance.
Back on the side street, the old ex-Ranger had difficulty in restraining his men. They knew by the number of shots fired that some of their companions had gone down.
The sheriff was about to call for volunteers to capture the machine gun when a white handkerchief fluttered from an upper window of the court-house. Almost immediately a man appeared on the court-house steps, alone and indicating by his gestures that he wished to parley with the guard. The sheriff dismounted and stepped forward.
One of his men checked him. "That's a trap, John. They want to get you, special. Don't you try it."
"It's up to me," said the sheriff, and shaking off the other's hand he strode across the square.
At the foot of the steps he met the man. The guard saw them converse for a brief minute; saw the sheriff shake his fist in the other's face and turn to walk back. As he turned, a shot from an upper window dropped him in his stride.
The cowboys yelled and charged across the square. The machine gun stuttered and sprayed a fury of slugs that cut down horses and riders. A cowboy, his horse shot from under him, sprang up the steps and dragged the machine gun into the open. A rain of slugs from the upper windows struck him down. His companions carried him back to cover. The machine gun stood in the square, no longer a menace, yet no one dared approach it from either side.
When the old Ranger, who had orders to hold his men in reserve, heard that the sheriff had been shot down under a flag of truce, he shook his head.
"Three men could 'a' stopped that gun as easy as twenty, and saved more hosses. Who wants to take a little pasear after that gun?"
Several of his men volunteered.
"I only need two," he said, smiling. "I call by guess. Number twenty-six, number thirty-eight, and number three."
The last was his own number.
In the wide hallway and massed on the court-house stairs the mob was calling out to recover the gun. Beyond control of their leaders, crazed with drink and killing, they surged forward, quarreling, and shoved from behind by those above.
"We're ridin'," said the old Ranger.
With a man on each side of him he charged across the square.
Waco, peering from behind a stone column in the entrance, saw that Lorry was one of the riders. Lorry's lips were drawn tight. His face was pale, but his gun arm swung up and down with the regularity of a machine as he threw shot after shot into the black tide that welled from the court-house doorway. A man near Waco pulled an automatic and leveled it. Waco swung his arm and brained the man with an empty whiskey bottle. He threw the bottle at another of his fellows, and, stumbling down the steps, called to Lorry. The three riders paused for an instant as Waco ran forward. The riders had won almost to the gun when Waco stooped and jerked it round and poured a withering volley into the close-packed doorway.
Back in the side street the leader of the cowboys addressed his men.
"We'll leave the horses here," he said. "Tex went after that gun, and I reckon he's got it. We'll clean up afoot."
But the I.W.W. had had enough. Their leaders had told them that with the machine gun they could clean up the town, capture the court-house, and make their own terms. They had captured the court-house, but they were themselves trapped. One of their own number had planned that treachery. And they knew that those lean, bronzed men out there would shoot them down from room to room as mercilessly as they would kill coyotes.
They surrendered, shuffling out and down the slippery stone steps. Each man dropped his gun in the little pile that grew and grew until the old Ranger shook his head, pondering. That men of this kind should have access to arms and ammunition of the latest military type—and a machine gun. What was behind it all? He tried to reason it out in his old-fashioned way even as the trembling horde filed past, cordoned by grim, silent cowboys.
The vagrants were escorted out of town in a body. Fearful of the hate of the guard, of treachery among themselves and of the townsfolk in other places, they tramped across the hills, followed closely by the stern-visaged riders. Several miles north of Sterling they disbanded.
When a company of infantrymen arrived in Sterling they found several cowboys sluicing down the court-house steps with water hauled laboriously from the river.
The captain stated that he would take charge of things, and suggested that the cowboys take a rest.
"That's all right, Cap," said a puncher, pointing toward the naked flagstaff. "But we-all would admire to see the Stars and Stripes floatin' up there afore we drift."
"I'll have the flag run up," said the captain.
"That's all right, Cap. But you don't sabe the idee. These here steps got to be clean afore that flag goes up."
* * * * *
"And they's some good in bein' fat," said Bud Shoop as he met Lorry next morning. "The army doc just put a plaster on my arm where one of them automatic pills nicked me. Now, if I'd been lean like you—"
"Did you see Waco?" queried Lorry.
"Waco? What's ailin' you, son?"
"Nothin'. It was Waco went down, workin' that machine gun against his own crowd. I didn't sabe that at first."
"Him? Didn't know he was in town."
"I didn't, either, till last night. He sneaked in to tell me about the killin' of Pat. Next I seen him was when he brained a fella that was shootin' at me. Then somehow he got to the gun—and you know the rest."
"Looks like he was crazy," suggested Shoop.
"I don' know about that. I got to him before he cashed in. He pawed around like he couldn't see. I asked what I could do. He kind of braced up then. 'That you, kid?' he says. 'They didn't get you?' I told him no. 'Then I reckon we're square,' he says. I thought he was gone, but he reached out his hand. Seems he couldn't see. 'Would you mind shakin' hands with a bum?' he says. I did. And then he let go my hand. He was done."
"H'm! And him! But you can't always tell. Sometimes it takes a bullet placed just right, and sometimes religion, and sometimes a woman to make a man show what's in him. I reckon Waco done you a good turn that journey. But ain't it hard luck when a fella waits till he's got to cross over afore he shows white?"
"He must 'a' had a hunch he was goin' to get his," said Lorry. "Or he wouldn't chanced sneakin' into town last night. When do we go north?"
"To-morrow. The doc says the sheriff will pull through. He sure ought to get the benefit of the big doubt. There's a man that God A'mighty took some trouble in makin'."
"Well, I'm mighty glad it's over. I don't want any more like this. I come through all right, but this ain't fightin'; it's plumb killin' and murder."
"And both sides thinks so," said Bud. "And lemme tell you; you can read your eyes out about peace and equality and fraternity, but they's goin' to be killin' in this here world just as long as they's fools willin' to listen to other fools talk. And they's always goin' to be some fools."
"You ain't strong on socialism, eh, Bud?"
"Socialism? You mean when all men is born fools and equal? Not this mawnin', son. I got all I can do figurin' out my own trail."