As I’ve said, folks in Palomitas mostly got for names what happened to come handiest and fitted. Likely that dude’s cuffs was marked with something he was knowed by; but as most of us wasn’t particular what his cuffs was marked, or him either, we just called him Boston––after the town he made out he belonged to––and let it go at that. Big game was what he said he was looking for: and Santa Fé Charley, with Shorty Smith and others helping, saw to it he got all he wanted and some over––but I reckon the exercises would a-been less spirited if the Sage-Brush Hen hadn’t chipped in and played a full hand.
He was one of the sporting kind, Boston 128 was, that turned up frequent in the Territory in them days. Most of ’em was friends of officers at some of the posts, with a sprinkling throwed in of sons and nephews of directors of the road. Big game was what they all made out they come for; and they was apt to have about as much use for big game––when they happened to find any––as a cat has for two tails. But they seemed to enjoy letting off ca’tridges––and used to buy what skins was in the market to take home.
Boston turned out to be a nephew––nephews was apt to be worse’n sons for stuck-upness––and he come in one morning in a private car hitched onto the Denver train. He had a colored man along to cook and clean his guns for him––he had more things to shoot with, and of more shapes and sizes, than you ever seen in one place outside of a gun-store––and he was dressed that nice in green corduroys, with new-fangled knives and hunting fixings hanging all over him like he was a Christmas-tree, he might have hired out for a show. He wasn’t a bad set-up 129 young feller; but with them green clothes on, and being clean shaved and wearing eye-glasses, he did look just about what he truly was.
Wood had a wire a director’s nephew was coming––he was the agent, Wood was––and orders to side-track his car and see he was took care of; and of course Wood passed the word along to the rest of us what sort of a game was on. But he begged so hard, Wood did, the town would hold itself in––saying if rigs was put up on a director’s nephew he was dead sure to lose his job––we all allowed we’d give the young feller a day or two to turn round in, anyway; and we promised Wood––who was liked––we’d let the critter get through his hunting picnic without putting up no rigs on him if he made any sort of a show of knowing how to behave. Howsomedever, he didn’t––and things started up, and nobody but Boston himself to blame for it, that very first night over in the bar-room at the Forest Queen.
He had Wood in to supper with him in his car, Boston did, the darky cooking it; and 130 Wood said––except it begun with their having pickled green plums, and some sort of messed-up stuff that tasted like spoilt salt fish and made him feel sickish––it was the best supper he ever eat. Each of ’em had a bottle of iced wine, he said; and he said they topped off with coffee that only wanted milk to make it a real wonder, and a drink like rock-and-rye, but chalks better, and such seegars as he’d never smoked in his born days.
All the time they was hashing––and Wood said he reckoned they was at it a’most a full hour––Boston kept a-telling what a hell of a one (that was the sort of careless way Wood put it) he was at big-game hunting; but Wood judged––taking all his talk together––the only thing he’d ever really shot bigger’n a duck or a pa’tridge was a deer the dogs had chased into a pond for him so it hadn’t no chance. But it wasn’t none of Wood’s business to stop a director’s nephew from blowing if he felt like it, and so he just let him fan away. Bears wasn’t bad sport, he said, and he didn’t mind filling in time 131 with ’em if he couldn’t get nothing better; but what he’d come to Palomitas for ’special, he said, was mountain-lions––he seemed to have it in his head he’d find ’em walking all over the place, same as cats––and he wanted to know if any’d lately been seen.
Wood told him them animals wasn’t met with frequent in them parts (and they wasn’t, for a fact, and hadn’t been for about a hunderd years, likely) and maybe he’d do better to set his mind on jack-rabbits––which there was enough of out in the sage-brush, Wood told him, to load his car. And then he looked so real down disappointed, seeming to think jack-rabbits wasn’t anyways satisfactory, Wood said he told him there was chances some of the boys over at the Forest Queen––they being all the time out in the mountains looking for prospects––might put him on to finding a bear, anyway; and it wouldn’t do no harm to go across to the Queen and ask. And so over the both of ’em come.
It was Wood’s mistake bringing that green-corduroyed pill right in among the boys without 132 giving notice, and Wood owned up it was later––allowing he’d a-been more careful if the rock-and-rye stuff on top of the wine, not being used to either of ’em, hadn’t loaded him more’n he knowed about at the time. Boston didn’t seem to be much loaded, likely having the habit of taking such drinks and so being able to carry ’em; but he was that high-horsey––putting on his eye-glasses and staring ’round the place same as if he’d struck a menagerie and the boys was beasts in cages––all hands was set spiteful to him right off.
Things was running about as usual at the Queen: most of the boys setting around the table and Santa Fé dealing; a few of ’em standing back of the others looking on; two or three getting drinks at the bar and talking to Blister; and the girls kicking their heels on the benches, waiting till it come time to start up dancing in the other room. The only touch out of the common was the way the Sage-Brush Hen had fixed herself––she being rigged up in the same white duds she’d wore when Hart’s aunt come to town, and looking so real cute and pretty in ’em, and acting demure to suit, nobody’d ever a-sized her for the gay old licketty-split Hen she was.
“STARING ’ROUND THE PLACE SAME AS IF HE’D STRUCK A MENAGERIE”
It was between deals when Wood and Boston come in, and Santa Fé got up from the table and crossed over to ’em––Charley always was that polite you’d a-thought he was a fish-hook with pants on––and told Boston he hoped he seen him well, and was glad he’d come along. Then Wood told how he was after mountain-lions, and wasn’t likely to get none; and Charley owned up they was few, and what there was of ’em was so sort of scattered the chances for finding ’em was poor.
Boston didn’t say much of nothing at first, seeming to be took up with trying to make out where Santa Fé belonged to––hitching on his eye-glasses and looking him over careful, but only getting puzzleder the more he stared. You see, Charley––in them black clothes and a white tie on––looked for certain sure like he was a minister; and there he was getting up red-hot from dealing faro, and having on 134 each side of where he set at the table a forty-five gun. It was more of a mix-up than Boston could manage, and you could see he didn’t know where he was at. Howsomedever, Wood had told him he’d better make out to be friendly, and take just what happened to come along without asking no questions; and I reckon the shoat really meant, as well as he knowed how to, to do what he was told. So he give up trying to size Santa Fé, and said back to him he was obliged and was feeling hearty; and then he took to grinning, like as if he wanted to make things pleasant, and says: “Really, I am very much interested in my surroundings. This place has quite the air of being a barbarian Monte Carlo. It really has, you know.”
That was a non-plusser for Charley––and Santa Fé wasn’t non-plustered often, and didn’t like it when he was––but he pulled himself together and put down what cards he had: telling Boston monte was a game he sometimes played with friends for amusement––which was the everlasting truth, only 135 the friends mostly was less amused than he was––and he’d had a dog named Carlo, he said, when he was a boy.
Boston seemed to think that was funny, and took to snickering sort of superior. He was about a full dose for uppishness, that young feller was: going on as if he’d bought the Territory, and as if the folks in it was the peones he’d took over––Mexican fashion––along with the land. Then he said he guessed Santa Fé did not ketch his meaning, and Monte Carlo was the biggest gambling hell there was.
Being in the business, Santa Fé was apt to get peevish when anybody took to talking about gambling; and Boston’s throwing in hell on top of it that way was more’n he cared to stand. He didn’t let on––at least not so the fool could see it––his dander was started, setting on himself being one of the things his work trained him to; but the boys noticed he begun to get palish up at the top of his forehead––where there was a white streak between his hair and where his hat come––and all hands knowed that for a bad 136 sign. Boston, of course––being strangers with him––didn’t know what Charley’s signs was; and he just kept on a-talking as fresh as his green clothes.
“Not less psychologically than sociologically,” says he, “is it interesting to find in this slum of the wilderness the degenerate Old-World vices in crude New-World garb. Here,” says he, jerking his head across to the table, “is a coarse reproduction of Monaco’s essence; and there, I observe, are other repulsive features equally coarse”––and he jerked his head over to where Shorty Smith was setting up drinks for Carrots at the bar.
“If you dare to say one word more about my features, young man,” says Carrots––having a pug-nose, Carrots was techy about her features; and she had a temper the same color as her hair––“I’ll smack you in the mouth!”
“And Oi’ll smack your whole domn head off!” put in Blister Mike. “D’you think Oi’m going to have ladies drinking at my bar insulted by slush like you?” And Blister 137 reached down to where he kept it among the tumblers to get his gun.
It looked as if there was going to be a ruction right off. There was Carrots red-hotter than her hair; and Blister, who was special friends with Carrots, shooting mad at having anybody sassing her; and Santa Fé’s forehead getting whiter and whiter; and all hands on their hind legs at having Palomitas called a slum of the wilderness––and likely worse things said about the place in words nobody’d ever heard tell of longer’n your arm. The only one keeping quiet was Wood. He was sure, Wood was, trouble was coming beyond his stopping; and as he knowed which side his bread was buttered, and how he’d be fired from his job if things happened to go serious, he just went and sat down in a corner and swore to himself sorrowful, and was about the miserablest-looking man you ever seen alive. I guess it was more’n anything else being pitiful for Wood made things take the turn they did when the Sage-Brush Hen come into the game.
“Now you all hear me!” the Hen sung out sudden––and as the Hen wasn’t much given to no such public speaking, and the boys was used to doing quick what she wanted when she asked for it, everybody stopped talking and Blister put his gun down on the bar. Most of us, I reckon, had a feeling the Hen was going to let things out in some queer way she’d thought of in that funny head of hers––same as she’d done other times when matters was getting serious––and we all was ready to help her with any skylarking she was up to that would put a stop to the rumpus and so get Wood out of his hole. As for Boston––being too much of a fool to know what he’d done to start such a racket––he was all mazed-up by it: staring straight ahead of him like a horse with staggers, and looking like he wished he’d never been born.
“You all hear me, I tell you!” says the Hen, taking a-hold of Boston’s arm sort of motherly. “While I am the school-teacher in Palomitas I shall not permit you boys to play your pranks on strangers; and ’specially 139 not on this gentleman––whom I claim as a friend of mine because we both come from the same dear old town.”
That was the first time anybody’d ever heard the Hen wasn’t hatched-out in Kansas City. But it didn’t seem as if calling her hand would be gentlemanly, so nobody said nothing; and off she went again––talking this time to Boston, but winking the eye away from him at the boys.
“It is merely a joke, sir,” says the Hen, “that these young men are playing on you––and as silly a joke as silly can be. Sometimes, in spite of my most earnest efforts to stop them, they will go on in this foolish way: pretending to be wild and wicked and murderous and all such nonsense, when in reality there is not a single one among them who willingly would hurt a fly. What Miss Mortimer said about smacking you, as I hardly need to explain, was a joke too. Dear Miss Mortimer! She is as full of fun as a kitten, and as sweet and gentle”––Carrots, not seeing what the Hen was driving at, all the time was looking like a red-headed 140 thunder-storm––“as the kindest-hearted kitten that ever was!
“And now, I assure you, sir, this reprehensible practical joking––for which I beg your indulgence––definitely is ended; and I am glad to promise that you will find in evidence, during the remainder of your stay in Palomitas, only the friendliness and the courtesy which truly are the essential characteristics of our seemingly turbulent little town.”
The Hen stopped for a minute to get her wind back––which give the boys a chance to study over what they was told they was, and what kind of a town it turned out to be they was living in––and then off she went again, saying: “I beg that you will pardon me, sir, for addressing you so informally, without waiting for an introduction. We do not always stand strictly on etiquette here in Palomitas; and I saw that I had to put my cards down quick––I mean that I had to intervene hurriedly––to save you from being really annoyed. Now that I have cleared up the trifling misunderstanding, I 141 trust satisfactorily, we will go back to where we ought to have started and I will ask Mr. Charles to introduce us.” And round she cracked to Santa Fé and says: “Will you be so kind as to introduce my fellow-townsman to me, Mr. Charles?”
Santa Fé had begun to get a little cooled off by that time; and, like as not––it was a wonder the way them two passed cards to each other––the Hen give him some sort of a look that made him suspicion what her game was. Anyway, into it he come––saying to Boston, talking high-toned and polite like he knowed how to: “I have much pleasure, sir, in presenting you to Miss Sage, who is Palomitas’s idol––and a near relative, as you may be interested in knowing, of the eminent Eastern capitalist of the same name. As she herself has mentioned, Miss Sage is our school-teacher; but her modest cheek would be suffused with blushes were I to tell you how much more she is to us––how broadly her generous nature prompts her to construe her duties as the instructress of innocent youth. Only a moment ago you had an 142 opportunity for observing that her word is our law paramount. I am within bounds in saying, sir, that in Palomitas she is universally adored.”
“Oh, Mr. Charles! How can you!” says the Hen, kind of turning away and looking as if what Charley’d said really had made her feel like blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with Boston––who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done it like a pump––and says to him: “Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents itself”––she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and ketchy––“to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston social standards––the standards that you and I, sir, recognize––to the sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do like me––of course Mr. 143 Charles’s talk about my being an idol and adored is only his nonsense; and it is true that they always are nice about doing what I ask them to do––as they were just now, when they were naughty and I had to make them behave.
“And now, since the formalities have been attended to and we have been introduced properly, and since you and I are fellow-Bostonians and ought to be friendly”––the Hen give him one of them fetching looks of hers––“you must come over to the bar and have a drink on me. And while we are performing this rite of hospitality,” says the Hen––pretending not to see the jump he give––“we can discuss your projected lion-hunt: in which, with your permission, I shall take part.” Boston give a bigger jump at that; and the Hen says on to him, sort of explaining matters: “You need not fear that I shall not sustain my end of the adventure. As any of the boys here will tell you, I can handle a forty-five or a Winchester about as well as anybody––and big-game hunting really is my forte. Indeed, I may say––using one of our 144 homely but expressive colloquialisms––that when it comes to lion-hunting I am simply hell!”
Boston seemed to be getting worse and worse mixed while the Hen was rattling her stuff off to him––and I reckon, all things considered, he wasn’t to be blamed. He’d got a jolt to start with, when he come in and found what he took to be a preacher dealing faro; and he was worse jolted when his fool-talk––and he not knowing how he’d done it––run him so close up against a shooting-scrape. But the Hen was the limit: she looking and acting like the school-ma’am she said she was, and yet tangled up in a bar-room with a lot of gamblers and such as Kerosene Kate and old Tenderfoot Sal and Carrots––and then bringing the two ends together by talking one minute like he was used to East, and the next one wanting to set up drinks for him and telling him she knowed all there was to know about gun-handling and how at lion-hunting she was just hell! I guess he was more’n half excusable, that young feller was, for looking 145 like he couldn’t be counted on for telling for certain on which end of him was his heels!
What he did manage to work out clear in that fool head of his was he had the chance to get the drink he needed, and needed bad, to brace him; so over he come with the Hen to the bar and got it––and it seemed to do him some good. Then Carrots––who’d begun to ketch on a little to what the Hen was after––spoke up and told him it was true what Miss Sage had told him about her kittenishness, and she hadn’t meant nothing when she was talking about smacking him; and to show he had no hard feeling, she said, he must have one on her. Then Blister Mike, having sized matters up, chipped in too: saying it would make him feel comfortabler––having done some joking himself by talking the way he did and getting his gun out––if they’d all have one on the bar.
As drinks in Palomitas was sighted for a thousand yards, and carried to kill further, by the time Boston had three of ’em in him––on top of the ones he’d had with Wood at supper––he was loaded enough to be careless 146 about what was happening among the sunspots and ready to take things pretty much as they come along. The boys was ready for what might be coming too: allowing for sure the Hen was getting a circus started, and only waiting to follow suit to the cards she put down.
What was needed, it turned out, was stacked with Shorty Smith; and the Hen sort of picked up Shorty with her eyes and says to him: “Your little boy Gustavus––he is such a dear little fellow, and I do love him so!––was telling me at recess to-day, Mr. Smith, that you saw a lion when you were out in the mountains day before yesterday prospecting. I think that very likely you may have seen the fierce creature even more recently; and perhaps you will have the kindness to tell us”––the Hen winked her off eye at Shorty to show him what was wanted––“where he probably may be found at the present time?”
Some of the boys couldn’t help snickering right out when the Hen took to loading up Shorty with little Gustavuses; but Boston 147 didn’t notice nothing, and Shorty––who had wits as sharp as pin-points, and could be counted on for what cards was needed in the kind of game the Hen was playing––put down the ace she asked for and never turned a hair.
“Gustavus will be tickled out of his little boots, Miss,” says Shorty, “when I tell him how nice you’ve spoke about him; and I’m much obliged myself. He give it to you straight, the kid did, about that lion. I seen him, all right––and so close up it most scared the life out of me! And you’re right, Miss, in thinking I’ve ketched onto him since––seeing I was a blame sight nearer to him than I wanted to be less’n four hours ago. Yes, ma’am, as I was coming in home to-night from the Cañada I struck that animal’s tracks in the mud down by the ford back of the deepo––he’d been down to the river for a drink, I reckon––and they was so fresh he couldn’t a-been more’n five minutes gone. When I got to thinking what likely might a-happened if I’d come along them five minutes sooner, Miss, I had cold creeps crawling all up and down the spine of my back!”
Them statements of Shorty’s set the boys to snickering some more––there not being no ford on the Rio Grande this side of La Chamita, and the wagon-bridge being down back of the deepo where he said his ford was––but Shorty paid no attention, and went on as smooth as if he was speaking a piece he’d got by heart.
“As you know, Miss, being such a hunter,” says he––making up what happened to be wanted about lions, same as he’d done about fords––“them animals takes a drink every four hours in the night-time as regular as if they looked at their watches. Likely that feller’s bedded just a little way back in the chaparral so’s to be handy for his next one; and I reckon if this sport here feels he needs lions”––Shorty give his head a jerk over to Boston––“he’ll get one by looking for it right now. But for the Lord’s sake, Miss, don’t you think of taking a hand in tackling him! He’s a most a-terrible big one––the out and out biggest I ever seen. The first thing you knowed about it, he’d a-gulped you down whole!”
“How you do go on, Mr. Smith!” says the Hen, laughing pleasant. “Have you so soon forgotten our hunt together last winter––when I came up and shot the grizzly in the ear just as he had you down and was beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after that, to say that any lion is too big for me?”
Without stopping for Shorty to strain himself trying to remember that bear-hunt, round she cracked to Boston––giving Shorty and Santa Fé a chance to get in a corner and talk quick in a whisper––and says to him: “We just are in luck! These big old ones are the real fighters, you know. Only a year ago there was a gentleman from the East here on a lion-hunt––it was his first, and he did not seem to know quite how to manage matters––and one of these big fierce ones caught him and finished him. It was very horrible! The dreadful creature sprang on him in the dark and almost squeezed him to death, and then tore him to pieces while he still was alive enough to feel it, and ended by eating so much of him that only a few 150 scraps of him were left to send East to his friends. This one seems to be just that kind. Isn’t it splendid! What superb sport we shall have in getting him––you and I!”
What the Hen had to say about the way lions done business––’specially their eating hunters like they was sandwiches on a free-lunch counter––seemed to take some of the load off Boston, and as he got soberer he wasn’t so careless as he’d been. From his looks it was judged he was thinking a lion some sizes smaller would be a better fit for him; but he couldn’t well say so––with the Hen going on about wanting hers as big as they made ’em––so he took a brace, and sort of swelled himself out, and said the bigger this one was the better he’d be pleased.
“But I cannot permit you, my dear young lady,” he says, “to share with me the great danger incident to pursuing so ferocious a creature. I alone must deal with it. To-morrow I shall familiarize myself with the locality where Mr. Smith has found its tracks; and to-morrow night, or the night after––as the weather may determine. Of course nothing 151 can be done in case of rain––I will seek the savage brute in its lair. And then we shall find out”––Boston worked up as much as he could of a grin, but it seemed to come hard and didn’t fit well––“which of us shall have the other’s skin!”
“Danger for me!” says the Hen, giving him another of them looks of hers. “Just as though I would not be as safe, with a brave man like you to protect me, as I am teaching school! And to-morrow night, indeed! Do you think lions are like dentists––only the other way round about the teeth!” and the Hen laughed hearty––“and you can make appointments with them a week ahead! Why, we must be off, you and I, this very minute! I’ll run right round home and get my rifle––and meet you at your car as soon as you’ve got yours. To think of our having a lion this way almost sitting on the front-door step! It’s a chance that won’t come again in a thousand years!”
Away the Hen went a-kiting; and, there not being no hole he could see to crawl out of, away went Boston––only the schedule he 152 run on was some miles less to the hour. To make sure he didn’t try to side-track, Shorty went with him––leaving Santa Fé to fix matters with the Hen, and do what talking was needed to ring in the boys.
Shorty put through his part in good shape: helping Boston get as many of his guns as he thought was wanted to hunt lions with––which was as many as he could pack along with him––and managing sort of casual to slip out the ca’tridges, so he wouldn’t hurt nobody. It turned out Shorty needn’t a-been so extry-precautious––but of course he couldn’t tell. By the time Shorty had him ready, the Hen come a-hustling up––having finished settling things with Santa Fé––and sung out to him to get a move on, or likely the lion would a-had his drink and gone. The move he got wasn’t much of a one; but he did come a-creeping out of the car at last, and having such a load of weepons on him as give him some excuse for going slow.
“Good luck to you!” says Shorty, and off he skipped in a hurry to get at the rest of his 153 part of the ceremonies––not paying no attention to Boston’s most getting down on his knees to him begging him to come along. Then Boston wanted the colored man to come––who was scared out of his black skin at the notion, and wouldn’t; and if the Hen hadn’t ended up by grabbing a-hold of him––saying as it was dark, and she knowed the way and he didn’t, she’d better lead him––likely she wouldn’t a-got him started at all. Pulling him was more like what she did than leading him, the Hen said afterwards; but she didn’t kick about his going slow and wanting to stop every minute, she said, because it give Santa Fé and Shorty more time.
The night was the kind that’s usual in New Mexico, and just what was wanted. There was no moon, and the starshine––all the stars looked to be about the size of cheeses––give a hazy sort of light that made everything seem twice as big as it really was, and shadows so black and solid you’d think you could cut ’em in slices same as pies. And it was so still you could a-heard a mouse sneezing half a mile off. The rattling all 154 over him of Boston’s weepons sounded like there was boilers getting rivetted close by.
The Hen yanked him along easy, but kept him a-moving––and passed the time for him by telling all she could make up about what desprit critters lions was. Starting from where his car was side-tracked, they went round the deepo; and then down the wagon-road pretty near to the bridge, but not so near he could see it; and then across through the sage-brush and clumps of mesquite till they come to the river––where there was a break in the bluff, and a flat place going on down into the water that looked like it was the beginning of a ford. For a fact, it was where the Mexican women come to do their clothes-washing, and just back from the river was a little ’dobe house––flat-topped, and the size and shape of a twelve-foot-square dry-goods box––the women kept their washing things in. But them was particulars the Hen didn’t happen to mention to Boston at the time.
When they come to the ’dobe she give him a jerk, to show him he was to stand still there; 155 and then she grabbed him close up to her, so she could whisper, and says: “It was here that Mr. Smith saw the ferocious animal’s foot-marks almost precisely four hours ago. The habits of these creatures are so regular, as Mr. Smith mentioned, that this one certainly will return for his next drink when the four hours are ended––and so may be upon us at any moment. I hope that we may see him coming. If he saw us before we saw him––well, it wouldn’t be nice at all!”
The Hen let that soak in a little; and then she snuggled up to Boston, all sort of shivery, and says: “I wish that we had taken the precaution to ask Mr. Smith from which direction the tracks came. These lions, you know, have a dreadful way of stealing up close to you and then springing! That was what happened to that poor young man. So far as was known, his first notice of his peril was finding himself crushed to the ground beneath the creature’s weight––and the next instant it was tearing him with its teeth and claws. I––I begin to wish I 156 hadn’t come!” And the Hen snuggled up closer and shivered bad.
Boston seemed to be doing some shivers on his own account, judging from the way his guns rattled; and his teeth was so chattery his talking come queer. But he managed to get out that if they was inside the house they’d have more chances––and he went to work trying to open the door. When he found he couldn’t––it being locked so good there was no budging it––he got worse jolted, and his breath seemed to be coming hard.
The Hen got a-hold of him again and done some more shivers, and then she says: “It all will be over, one way or the other, in a very few moments now. And oh, how thankful I am––since so needlessly and so foolishly I have placed myself in this deadly peril––that I have for my protector a brave man! If salvation is possible, you will save me I am sure!”
Boston tried to say something, but he’d got so he was beyond talking and only gagged; and while he was a-gagging there come a queer noise––sounding like it was a critter 157 crawling around in among the bushes––that made him most jump out of his skin! Down went his guns on the ground all in a clatter; and he was scared so limp he’d a-gone down a-top of ’em if the Hen hadn’t got a good grip on him with both arms. They stood that way more’n a minute, with him a-shaking all over and the Hen doing some shaking for company––and then she hiked him round so he pointed right and says: “Look! Look! There by those little bushes! Oh how horrible!” And the Hen give a groan.
What was wanted to be looked at was on hand, right enough––and I reckon it showed to most advantage by about as much light as it got from the stars. All they could make sure of was something alive, moving sort of awkward and jumpy, coming out from a tangle of mesquite bushes not more’n three rods off and heading straight for ’em; and seeing it the way they did––just a black splotch all mixed in with the shadows of the bushes––it looked to be most as big as a cow! Limp as he was––so you’d a-thought there wasn’t any yell in him––Boston let off a yell 158 that likely was heard clear across the mesa at San Juan!
“Shoot!” says the Hen. “I can’t. I’m too frightened. Shoot quick––or we are lost!” She let go of him, so he could reach down to where he’d spilled his gun-shop and get a weepon; but Boston wasn’t on the shoot, and he hadn’t no use for weepons just then. All he wanted to do was to run; and if the Hen hadn’t got a fresh grip on him and held him––she was a strapping strong woman, the Hen was––he would a-made a bolt for it certain sure.
“No! No! Don’t attempt to run!” says the Hen, talking scared and desprit. “In an instant, should we turn our backs on him, the terrible creature would be upon us with one long cruel bound!”
From the way the terrible creature, as the Hen called him, was a-going on––sort of hopping up and down, and not making much headway––it didn’t look as if long cruel bounds was what he was most used to. But Boston wasn’t studying the matter extra careful, and as the Hen found he took pretty 159 much what she give him she just cracked along.
“To run, I tell you,” says the Hen, “is but to court the quicker coming of the torturing death to which we are doomed. It will come quick enough, anyway!”––and she handed out a fresh lot of shivers, and throwed in sobs. Then she give a jump, as if the notion’d just struck her, and says: “There is a chance for us! Up on the roof of this house we may be safe. Lions can spring enormous distances horizontally, you know; but, save in exceptional cases, their vertical jumping powers are restricted to a marked degree. Quick! Put your foot in my hand and let me start you. When you are up, you can pull me up after you. Now then!”––and the Hen reached her hand down so she could get a-hold of Boston’s foot and give him a send.
Her using them long words about the way lions did their jumping––being the kind of talk he was used to––seemed to sort of brace him. Anyways––the lion helping hurry things by just then giving another jump or two––he 160 managed to have sense enough to put his foot in the Hen’s hand, same as she told him; and then she let out her muscle and give him such an up-start he was landed on the roof of the ’dobe afore he fairly knowed he’d begun to go! Being landed, he just sprawled out flat––and getting the Hen up after him seemed to be about the last thing he had on his mind.
“Help! Help!” sung out the Hen. “The lion is almost on me! Give me your hand!” But Boston wasn’t in no shape to give hands to nobody. All he did was to kick his legs about and let off groans.
“Oh, I understand, now,” says the Hen in a minute. “You are crying out in the hope of luring the creature into trying to reach you––as he can, if he happens to be one of the exceptional jumpers––and so give me a chance to get away. How noble that is of you! I shall take the chance, my brave preserver, that your self-sacrifice gives me––and I shall collect, and bedew with tears of gratitude, all that the savage monster leaves me of your bones! Heaven bless you––and 161 good-bye!” And away the Hen cut––leaving Boston high and dry on the roof of the ’dobe, so scared he just lay there like a wet rag.
She didn’t cut far, the Hen didn’t. The rest of us was a-setting around under the mesquite bushes, and she joined the party and set down too––stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, and holding both hands jammed tight over it, to keep from yelling out with the laugh that was pretty near cracking her sides.
Then we all waited till daylight––with Shorty, who had charge of the lion, working that animal as seemed to be needed whenever Boston quieted down with his groans. All hands really enjoyed theirselves, and it was one of the shortest nights I think I ever knowed.
Daylight comes sudden in them parts. One minute it’s so darkish you can’t see nothing––and the next minute the sun comes up with a bounce from behind the mountains and things is all clear.
When the sun did his part of the work and 162 give all the light was needed, we done ours––which was coming out from among the mesquite bushes and saying good-morning polite to Boston, up on the roof of the ’dobe, and then taking the hobbles off old man Gutierrez’s jackass so it could walk away home.
The Hen felt she needed to have one more shot, and she took it. “My brave preserver!” says the Hen, speaking cheerful. “Come down to me––that I may bedew with tears of gratitude your bones!”
Some of them summer days in Palomitas was that hot they’d melt the stuffing out of a lightning-rod, and you could cook eggs in the pockets of your pants. When things was that way the town was apt to get quieted down––most being satisfied to take enough drinks early to make it pleasant spending the rest of the day sleeping ’em off somewheres in the shade. Along late in the afternoon, though, the wind always breezed down real cool and pleasant from the mountains––and then the boys would wake up and get a brace on, and whatever was going to happen would begin.
Being that sort of weather, nobody was paying no attention worth speaking of to 164 nothing: and when the Denver train come in––being about three hours late, like it had a way of being, after a wash-out––the place was in such a blister that pretty much all you could hear to show anybody was alive in Palomitas was snores. Besides Wood––who had to be awake to do his work when the train got there––and the clump of Mexicans that always hung around the deepo at train-time, there wasn’t half a dozen folks with their eyes open in the whole town.
Santa Fé Charley was one of the few that was awake and sober. He made a point, Santa Fé did, of being on hand when the train come in because there always was chances somebody might be aboard he could do business with; and he had to keep sober, mostly, same as I’ve said, or he couldn’t a-done his work so it would pay. He used to square things up––when he really couldn’t stand the strain no longer––by knocking off dealing and having a good one lasting about a week at a time. It was while he was on one of them tears of his, going it worse’n usual, he got cleaned out in Denver Jones’s 165 place––and him able, when he hadn’t a jag on, to wipe up the floor with Denver!––and then went ahead the next day, being still jagged, and shot poor old Bill Hart. But them is matters that happened a little later, and will be spoke of further on.
When the train pulled in alongside the deepo platform it didn’t seem at first there was nobody on it but the usual raft of Mexicans with bundles in the day-coach––who all come a-trooping out, cluttered up with their queer duds, and went to hugging their aunts and uncles who was waiting for ’em in real Mexican style. Charley looked the lot over and seen there was nothing in it worth taking time to; and then he got his Denver paper from the messenger in the express-car and started off to go on back to his room in the Forest Queen.
Down he come along the platform––he was a-looking at his Tribune, and not paying no attention––and just as he got alongside the Pullman a man stepped off it and most plumped into him; and would a-plumped if 166 he hadn’t been so beat out by the hot weather he was going slow. He was a little round friendly looking feller, with a red face and little gray side-whiskers; and he was dressed up in black same as Charley was––only he’d a shorter-tailed coat, and hadn’t a white tie on, and was wearing a shiny plug hat that looked most extra unsuitable in them parts on that sort of a day.
“I beg your pardon, sir!” says the little man, as he pulled himself up just in time to keep from bumping.
Charley bowed handsome––there was no ketching off Santa Fé when it come to slinging good manners, his being that gentlemanly he could a-give points to a New York bar-keep––and says back: “Sir, I beg yours! Heedlessness is my besetting sin. The fault is mine!” And then he said, keeping on talking the toney way he knowed how to: “I trust, sir, that you are not incommoded by the heat. Even for New Mexico in August, this is a phenomenally hot day.”
“‘IT’S HOTTER THAN SAHARA!’ SAID THE ENGLISHMAN”
“Incommoded is no name for it!” says the little man, taking off his shiny hat and mopping away at himself with his pocket-handkerchief. “I’ve never encountered such heat anywhere. It’s hotter than Sahara! In England we have nothing like it at all.” Then he mopped himself some more, and went ahead again––seeming glad to have somebody to let out to: “My whole life long I’ve been finding fault with our August weather in London. I’ll never find fault with it again. I’d give fifty pounds to be back there now, even in my office in the City––and I’d give a hundred willingly if I could walk out of this frying-pan into my own home in the Avenue Road! If you know London, sir, you know that St. John’s Wood is the coolest part of it, and that the coolest part of St. John’s Wood––up by the side of Primrose Hill––is the Avenue Road; and so you can understand why thinking about coming out from the Underground and walking homeward in the cool of the evening almost gives me a pain!”
Santa Fé allowed he wasn’t acquainted with that locality; but he said he hadn’t no doubt––since you couldn’t get a worse one––it 168 was a better place in summer than Palomitas. And then he kind of chucked it in casual that as the little man didn’t seem to take much stock in Palomitas maybe he’d a-done as well if he’d stuck at home.
Charley’s talking that way brought out he wasn’t there because he wanted to be, but because he was sent: coming to look things over for the English stockholders––who was about sick, he said, of dropping assessments in the slot and nothing coming out when they pushed the button––before they chipped in the fresh stake they was asked for to help along with the building of the road. He said he about allowed, though, the call was a square one, what he’d seen being in the road’s favor and as much as was claimed for it; but when it come to the country and the people, he said, there was no denying they both was as beastly as they could be. Then he turned round sudden on Santa Fé and says: “I infer from your dress, sir, that you are in Orders; and I therefore assume that you represent what little respectability this town has. Will you kindly tell me if it is possible in this 169 filthy place to procure a brandy-and-soda, and a bath, and any sort of decent food?”
It always sort of tickled Santa Fé, same as I’ve said, when a tenderfoot took him for a fire-escape; and when it happened that way he give it back to ’em in right-enough parson talk. So he says to the little man, speaking benevolent: “In our poor way, sir, we can satisfy your requirements. At the Forest Queen Hotel, over there, you can procure the liquid refreshment that you name; and also food as good as our little community affords. As for your bath, we can provide it on a scale of truly American magnificence. We can offer you a tub, sir, very nearly two thousand miles long!”
“A tub two thousand miles long?” says the little man. “Oh, come now, you’re chaffing me. There can’t be a tub like that, you know. There really can’t!”
“I refer, sir,” says Santa Fé, “to the Rio Grande.”
The little man took his time getting there, but when he did ketch up he laughed hearty. “How American that is!” says he. And 170 then he says over again: “How American that is!”––and he laughed some more. Then he said he’d start ’em to getting his grub ready while he was bathing in that two-thousand-mile bath-tub, and he’d have his brandy-and-soda right away; and he asked Charley––speaking doubtful, and looking at his white necktie––if he’d have one too?
Charley said he just would; and it was seeing how sort of surprised the little man looked, he told the boys afterwards, set him to thinking he might as well kill time that hot day trying how much stuffing that sort of a tenderfoot would hold. He said at first he only meant to play a short lone hand for the fun of the thing; and it was the way the little man swallowed whatever was give him, he said, that made the game keep on a-growing––till it ended up by roping in the whole town. So off he went, explaining fatherly how it come that preachers and brandys-and-sodas in Palomitas got along together first class.
“In this wildly lawless and sinful community, sir,” says he, “I find that my humble 171 efforts at moral improvement are best advanced by identifying my life as closely as may be with the lives of those whom I would lead to higher planes. At first, in my ignorance, I held aloof from participating in the customs––many of them, seemingly, objectionable––of my parishioners. Naturally, in turn, they held aloof from me. I made no impression upon them. The good seed that I scattered freely fell upon barren ground. Now, as the result of experience, and of much soulful thought, I am wiser. Over a friendly glass at the bar of the Forest Queen, or at other of the various bars in our little town, I can talk to a parishioner with a kindly familiarity that brings him close to me. By taking part in the games of chance which form the main amusement of my flock, I still more closely can identify their interests with my own––and even materially improve, by such winnings as come to me in our friendly encounters, our meagre parish finances. I have as yet taken no share in the gun-fights which too frequently occur in our somewhat tempestuous little community; but I am 172 seriously considering the advisability of still farther strengthening my hold upon the respect and the affection of my parishioners by now and then exchanging shots with them. I am confident that such energetic action on my part will tend still more to endear me to them––and, after all, I must not be too nicely fastidious as to means if I would compass my end of winning their trust and their esteem.”
While Santa Fé was talking along so slick about the way he managed his parsoning, the little man’s eyes was getting bulgier and bulgier; and when it come to his taking a hand in shooting-scrapes they looked like they was going to jump out of his head. All he could say was: “Good Lord!” Then he kind of gagged, and said he’d be obliged if he could get his brandy-and-soda right off.
Charley steered him across to the Forest Queen, and when he had his drink in him, and another on top of it, he seemed to get some of his grip back. But even after his drinks he seemed like he thought he must be asleep and dreaming; and he said twice over 173 he’d never heard tell of such doings in all his born days.
Santa Fé just give a wink across the bar to Blister Mike––who didn’t need much winking, being a wide-awake one––and then he went ahead with some more of the same kind. “No doubt, my dear sir, in the older civilization to which you are accustomed my methods would seem irregular––perhaps even reprehensible. In England, very likely, unfavorable comment would be made upon a pastor who cordially drank with members of his flock at public bars; who also––I do not hesitate, you see, to give our little games of chance their harshest name––in a friendly way gambled with them; and I can imagine that the spectacle of a parish priest engaging with his parishioners, up and down the street of a quiet village, in a fight with six-shooters and Winchesters would be very generally disapproved.”
“It is impossible, quite impossible,” says the little man, sort of gaspy, “to imagine such a horrible monstrosity!”
“Very likely for you, sir,” says Charley, 174 speaking affable, “it is. But you must remember that ours is a young and a vigorous community––too young, too vigorous, to be cramped and trammelled by obsolete conventions and narrow Old-World rules. Life with us, you see, has an uncertain suddenness––owing to our energetic habit of settling our little differences promptly, and in a decisive way. At the last meeting of our Sunshine Club, for instance––as the result of a short but heated argument––Brother Michael, here, felt called upon to shoot a fellow-member. While recognizing that the occurrence was unavoidable, we regretted it keenly––Brother Michael most of all.”
“Sure I did that,” said Blister, playing out quick to the lead Charley give him. “But your Reverence remembers he drew on me first––and if he’d been sober enough to shoot straight it’s meself, and not him, would be by now living out in the cemetery on the mesa; and another’d be serving your drinks to you across this bar. I had the rights on my side.”
“Precisely,” says Charley. “You see, sir, 175 it was a perfectly fair fight. Brother Michael and his fellow-member exchanged their shots in an honorable manner––and, while we mourn the sudden decease of our friend lost to us, our friend who survives has suffered no diminution of our affectionate regard. Had the shooting been unfair, then the case would have gone into another category––and our community promptly would have manifested the sturdy sense of justice that is inherent in it by hanging the man by whom the unfair shot had been fired. Believe me, sir”––and Santa Fé stood up straight and stuck his chest out––“Palomitas has its own high standards of morality: and it never fails to maintain those standards in its own stern way!”
The little man didn’t say nothing back. He looked like he was sort of mazed. All he did was to ask for another brandy-and-soda; and when he’d took it he allowed he’d skip having his bath and get at his eating right away––saying he was feeling faintish, and maybe what he needed was food. Of course that was no time of day to get victuals: but 176 Santa Fé was a good one at managing, and he fixed it up so he had some sort of a hash layout; and before he went at it he give him a wash-up in his own room.
It was while he was hashing, Charley said, the notion come to him how Palomitas might have some real sport with him––the same kind they had when Hart’s aunt come on her visit, only twisting things round so it would be the holy terror side of the town that had the show. And he said as he’d started in with the preacher racket, he thought they might keep that up too––and make such an out and out mix-up for the little man as would give cards to any tenderfoot game that ever was played. Santa Fé always was full of his pranks: and this one looked to pan out so well, and was so easy done, that he went right across to the deepo and had a talk with Wood about how things had better be managed; and Wood, who liked fun as much as anybody, caught on quick and agreed to take a hand.
The little man seemed to get a brace when he had his grub inside of him; and over he 177 went to the deepo and give Wood the order he had from the President to see the books––and was real intelligent, Wood said, in finding out how railroading in them parts was done. But when he’d cleaned up his railroad job, and took to asking questions about the Territory, and Palomitas, and things generally––and got the sort of answers Santa Fé had fixed should be give him, with some more throwed in––Wood said his feet showed to be that tender he allowed it would a-hurt him with thick boots on to walk on boiled beans.
Wood said he guessed he broke the lying record that afternoon; and he said he reckoned if the little man swallowed half of what was give him, and there wasn’t much of anything he gagged at, he must a-thought Palomitas––with its church twice Sundays and prayer-meetings regular three times a week, and its faro-bank with the preacher for dealer, and its Sunshine Club that was all mixed in with shooting-scrapes, and its Friendly Aid Society that attended mostly to what lynchings was needed––was something like a bit of heaven 178 that had broke out from the corral it belonged in and gone to grazing in hell’s front yard!
When he’d stuffed him as much as was needed, Wood told him––Santa Fé having fixed it that way––there was a Mexican church about a thousand years old over in the Cañada that was worth looking at; and he told him he’d take him across on his buck-board to see it if he cared to go. He bit at that, just as Santa Fé counted on; and about four o’clock off they went––it was only three mile or so down to the Cañada––in good time to get him back and give him what more was coming to him before he started off North again on the night train. Wood said the ride was real enjoyable––the little man showing up as sensible as anybody when he got to the church and struck things he knowed about; and it turned out he could talk French, and that pleased the padre––he was that French one I’ve spoke about, who was as white as they make ’em––and so things went along well.
The wind had set in to blow down the valley cool and pleasant as they was getting 179 along home; and coming down on it, when they got about half a mile from Palomitas, they begun to hear shooting––and it kept on, and more of it, the closer they come to town. Knowing what Santa Fé had set the boys up to, Wood said he pretty near laughed out when he heard it; but he held in, he said––and told the little man, when he asked what it meant, that it didn’t mean nothing in particular: being only some sort of a shooting-scrape, like enough––the same as often happened along about that time in the afternoon.
He said the little man looked queerish, and wanted to know if the men in the town was shooting at a target; and when Wood said he guessed they was targetting at each other, and likely there’d be some occurrences, he said he looked queerisher––and said such savagery was too horrible to be true. But he wasn’t worried a bit about himself, Wood said––he was as nervy a little man, Wood said, as he’d ever got up to––and all he wanted was to have Wood whip the mules up, so he’d get there quick and see what was going on. Wood whipped up, right enough, 180 and the mules took ’em a-kiting––going at a full run the last half-mile or so, and not coming down to a walk till they’d crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande and was most to the top of the hill. At the top of the hill they stopped––and that was a good place to stop at, for the circus was a-going on right there.
Things really did look serious; and Wood said––for all he’d been told what was coming––he more’n half thought the boys had got to rumpussing in dead earnest. Three or four was setting on the ground with their sleeves and pants rolled up tying up their arms and legs with their pocket-handkerchiefs; there was a feller––Nosey Green, it turned out to be––laying on one side in a sort of mixed-up heap like as if he’d dropped sudden; right in the middle of the road Blister Mike was sprawled out, with Santa Fé––his black clothes all over dust and his hat off––holding his head with one hand and feeling at his heart with the other; and just as the buck-board stopped, right in the thick of it, Kerosene Kate come a-tearing along, with the 181 Sage-Brush Hen close after her, and plumped down on Mike and yelled out: “Oh, my husband! My poor husband! He is foully slain!”
It was all so natural, Wood said, that seeing it sudden that way give him a first-class jolt. For a minute, he said, he couldn’t help thinking it was the real thing. As for the little man––and he likely would have took matters just the same, and no blame to him, if his feet had been as hard as anybody’s––he swallowed the show whole. “Good Heavens!” says he, getting real palish. “What a dreadful thing this is!”
Santa let go of Mike’s head and got up, brushing his pants off, and says solemn: “Our poor brother has passed from us. Palomitas has lost one of its most useful citizens––there was nobody who could mix drinks as he could––and the world has lost a noble man! Take away his stricken wife, my dear,” he says, speaking to the Sage-Brush Hen. “Take poor Sister Rebecca home with you to the parsonage––my duties lie elsewhere at present––and pour out to her 182 from your tender heart the balm of comfort that you so well know how to give.”
Then he come along to the buck-board, and says to the little man: “I greatly regret that this unfortunate incident should have occurred while you are with us. From every point of view the event is lamentable. Brother Green, known familiarly among us because of his facial peculiarity as Nosey Green––the gentleman piled up over there on the other side of the road––was as noble-hearted a man as ever lived; so was Brother Michael, whom you met in all the pride of his manly strength only this morning at the Forest Queen bar. Both were corner-stones of our Sunshine Club, and among the most faithful of my parishioners. In deep despondency we mourn their loss!”
“It is dreadful––dreadful!” says the little man. And then he wanted to know how the shooting begun.
“The dispute that has come to this doubly fatal ending,” says Santa Fé, shaking his head sorrowful, “related to cock-tails. In what I am persuaded was a purely jesting 183 spirit, Brother Green cast aspersions upon Brother Michael’s skill as a drink-mixer. The injustice of his remarks, even in jest, aroused Brother Michael’s hot Celtic nature and led to a retort, harshly personal, that excited Brother Green’s anger––and from words they passed quickly to a settlement of the matter with their guns. However, as the fight was conducted by both of them in an honorable manner, and was creditable equally to their courage and to their proficiency in the use of arms, it is now a back number and we may discharge it from our minds. Moreover, my dear sir, our little domestic difficulties must not be suffered to interfere with the duties of hospitality. It is high time that you should have your supper; and I even venture to ask that you will hurry your meal a little––to the end that you may have opportunity, before the departure of your train this evening, to see something of the brighter side of our little town. After this sombre scene, you will find, I trust, agreeable mental refreshment in witnessing––perhaps even in participating in––our friendly card-playing, 184 and in taking part with us in our usual cheerful evening dance. By your leave, Brother Wood, I will seat myself on the rear of your buck-board and drive along with you into town.”
The little man was too jolted to say anything––and up Charley hiked on the back of the buck-board, and away they went down the road. The rest followed on after: with the Hen holding fast to Kerosene, and Kerosene yelling for all she was worth; and behind come some of the boys toting Blister’s corpse––with Blister swearing at ’em for the way they had his legs twisted, and ending by kicking loose and making a break by the shortcut back of the freight-house for home. The other corpse––seeing the way Blister was monkeyed with––stood off the ones that wanted to carry him, allowing he’d be more comfortable if he walked.
When the buck-board got down to the deepo the little man said he felt sickish––not being used to such goings-on––and didn’t care much for eating his supper; and he 185 said he thought likely he’d be better if he had a brandy-and-soda to settle his insides. So him and Santa Fé went across to the Forest Queen to get it––and the first thing they struck was Blister, come to life again, behind the bar!
Santa Fé hadn’t counted on that card coming out––but he shook one to meet it down his sleeve, and played it as quick as he knowed how. “Ah, Patrick,” says he, “so you have taken your poor brother’s place.” And to the little man, who was staring at Blister like a stuck pig, he says: “They were twin brothers, sir, this gentleman and the deceased––and, as you see, so alike that few of their closest friends could tell them apart.”
“It was worse than that,” says Blister, following right along with the same suit. “Only when one of us was drunk and the other sober, and that way there being a difference betwane us, could we tell our own selves apart––and indade I’m half for thinking that maybe it’s meself, and not poor Mike, that’s been killed by Nosey Green this 186 day. But whichever of us it is that’s dead, it’s a domn good job––if your Reverence will excuse me saying so––the other one of us has made of Nosey: bad luck to the heart and lights of him, that are cooking this blessed minute in the hottest corner of hell!”
“Tut! Tut! Brother Patrick,” says Santa Fé, speaking friendly but serious. “You know how strongly I feel about profanity––even when, as in the present instance, justly aroused resentment lends to it a colorable excuse. And also, my dear brother, I beg you to temper with charity your views as to Brother Green’s present whereabouts. It is sufficient for all purposes of human justice that he has passed away. And now, if you please, you will supply our visitor, here––whose nerves not unnaturally are shaken by the tragic events of the past hour––with the brandy-and-soda that I am satisfied he really needs. In that need, my own nerves being badly disordered, I myself share; and as the agonizing loss that you have suffered has put a still more severe strain upon your nerves, 187 Brother Patrick, I beg that you will join us. The drinks are on me.”
“Sure your Reverence has a kind heart in you, and that’s the holy truth,” says Blister. “It’s to me poor dead brother’s health I’ll be drinking, and with all the good-will in the world!”
They had another after that; and then Blister said there was luck in odd numbers, and he wanted to show Palomitas knowed how to be hospitable to strangers, and they must have one on the bar. They had it all right, and by that time––having the three of ’em in him––the little man said he was feeling better; but, even with his drinks to help him, when he come to eating his supper he didn’t make out much of a meal. He seemed to be all sort of dreamy, and was like he didn’t know where he was.
Santa Fé kept a-talking away to him cheerful while they was hashing; and when they’d finished off he told him he hoped what he’d see of the bright side of Palomitas––before his train started––would make him forget the cruelly sorrowful shadows of that melancholy 188 afternoon. He was a daisy at word-slinging, Charley was––better’n most auctioneers. Then they come along together back to the bar-room––where the cloth was off the table, and the cards and chips out, ready for business to begin. All the boys was jammed in there––Nosey Green with his face tied up like he had a toothache, so it didn’t show who he was––waiting to see what more was coming; and they was about busting with the laughs they had inside ’em, and ready to play close up to Santa Fé’s hand.
Charley set down to deal, same as usual, and asked the little man to set down aside of him––telling him he’d likely be interested in knowing that what come to the bank that night would go to getting the melodeon the Sunday-school needed bad. And then he shoved the cards round the table, and things begun. The little man took it all dreamy––saying kind of to himself he’d never in all his born days expected to see a minister making money for Sunday-school melodeons by running a faro-bank. But he wasn’t so dreamy but he had sense enough to keep out 189 of the game. Santa Fé kept a-asking him polite to come in; but he kept answering back polite he wouldn’t––saying he was no sort of a hand at cards.
About the size of it was, in all the matters he could see his way to that little man had as good a load of sand as anybody––and more’n most. Like enough at home he’d read a lot of them fool Wild West stories––the kind young fellers from the East, who swallow all that’s told ’em, write up in books with scare pictures––and that was why in some ways he was so easy fooled. But I guess it would a-been a mistake to pick him up for a fool all round. Anyhow, Santa Fé got a set-back from him on his melodeon-faro racket––and set-backs didn’t often come Santa Fé’s way.
It wasn’t a real game the little man was up against, and like enough he had the savey to ketch on to what was being give him. For the look of the thing they’d fixed to start with a baby limit, and not raise it till he got warmed up and asked to; and it was fixed only what he dropped––the rest going back 190 to the boys––should stay with the bank. But as he didn’t warm up any worth speaking of, and wasn’t giving himself no chances at all to do any dropping, Santa Fé pretty soon found out they might as well hang up the melodeon fund and go on to the next turn.
The Sage-Brush Hen managed most of what come next, and she done it well. She’d dressed herself up in them white clothes of hers with a little blue bow tied on at the neck––looking that quiet and tidy and real lady-like you’d never a-notioned what a mixed lot she was truly––and she’d helped the other girls rig out as near the same way as they could come. Some of ’em didn’t come far; but they all done as well as they knowed how to, and so they wasn’t to be blamed. Old Tenderfoot Sal––she was the limit, Sal was––wasn’t to be managed no way; so they just kept her out of the show.
When Santa Fé come to see faro-banking for melodeons wasn’t money-making, he passed out word to the Hen to start up her 191 part of the circus––and in the Hen come, looking real pretty in her white frock, and put her hand on his shoulder married-like and says: “Now, my dear, it isn’t fair for you gentlemen to keep us ladies waiting another minute longer. We want our share in the evening’s amusement. Do put the cards away and let us have our dance.” And then she says to the little man, nice and friendly: “My husband is so eager to get our melodeon––and we really do need it badly, of course––that I have trouble with him every night to make him stop the game and give us ladies the dance that we do so enjoy.” And then she says on to Charley again: “How has the melodeon fund come out to-night, my dear?”
“Very well indeed. Very well indeed, my angel,” Charley says back to her. “Eleven dollars and a half have been added to that sacred deposit; and the contributions have been so equally distributed that no one of us will feel the trifling loss. But in interrupting our game, my dear, you are quite right––as you always are. Our guest is not taking 192 part in it; and––as he cannot be expected to feel, as we do, a pleasurable excitement in the augmentation of our cherished little hoard––we owe it to him to pass to a form of harmless diversion in which he can have a share.” And then he says to the little man: “I am sure, sir, that Mrs. Charles will be charmed to have you for her partner in the opening dance of what we playfully term our ball.”
“The pleasure will be mine,” says the little man––he was a real friendly polite little old feller––and up he gets and bows to the Hen handsome and gives her his arm: and then in he went with her to the dance-hall, with Santa Fé and the rest of us following on. It give us a first-class jolt to find all the girls so quiet-looking; and they being that way braced up the whole crowd to be like a dancing-party back East. To see the boys a-bowing away to their partners, while José––he was the fiddler, José was––was a tuning up, you wouldn’t a-knowed where you was!
It was a square dance to start in with: 193 with the little man and the Hen, and Charley and Kerosene Kate, a-facing each other; and Denver Jones with Carrots––that was the only name she ever had in Palomitas––and Shorty Smith and Juanita, at the sides. Them three was the girls the Hen had done best with; and she’d fixed ’em off so well they most might have passed for back-East school-ma’ams––at least, in a thickish crowd. Everybody else just stood around and looked on––and that time, with all the Forest Queen ways of managing dancing upset, it was the turn of the Palomitas folks to think they’d struck a dream! The little man, of course, didn’t know he’d struck anything but what went on always––and the way he kicked around spirited on them short little fat legs of his was just a sight to see!
Like as not he hadn’t got a good sight of Kerosene Kate while she was doing her killed husband act before supper; or, maybe, it was her being dressed up so tidy made a difference. Anyways, he didn’t at first ketch on to her being about the freshest-made widow he’d ever tumbled to in a 194 dancing-party. But he got there all right when the square dance was over, and José flourished his fiddle and sung out for the Señores and Señoritas to take partners for a valsa, and the Hen brought up Kerosene to foot it with him––telling him she was the organist who was going to play the melodeon when they got it, and he’d find her a nice partner as she was about the best dancer they had.
When he did size her up he was that took aback he couldn’t talk straight. “But––but,” says he, “isn’t this the lady whose husband was––was––” and he stuck fast.
“Whose husband met with an accident this afternoon,” says the Hen, helping him out with it. “Yes, this is our poor sister Rebecca––but the accident happened, you know, so many hours ago that the pang of it has passed; and––as Mr. Green, the gentleman who shot her husband, was shot right off himself––she feels, as we all do, that the incident is closed.”
And then Kerosene put in: “Great Scott, mister, you don’t know Palomitas! Widows 195 in these parts don’t set round moping their heads off all the rest of their lives. They wait long enough for politeness––same as I’ve done––and then they start in on a new deal.”
The little man likely was too mixed up to notice Kerosene didn’t talk pretty, like Santa Fé and the Hen knowed how to; and he was so all-round jolted that before he knew it––Kerosene getting a-hold of his hand with one of hers, and putting the other on his shoulder––he had his arm round her waist kind of by instinct and was footing it away with her the best he knowed how. But while he was a-circling about with her he was the dreamiest looking one you ever seen. Kerosene said afterwards she heard him saying to himself over and over: “This can’t be real! This can’t be real!”