"To be subject to the law, as you very well know, a man must be morally responsible. He must know right and wrong. Even the savage Indians admit this principle of justice. They say that the man of unsound mind is touched by the hand of the Great Spirit. Shall we be less merciful than they? Look at this smiling giant before you. He has been touched by the hand of the Almighty. God has punished him enough.
"I shall show to you that when this man was a child he was struck a severe blow upon the head, and that since that time he has never been of sound mind, his brain never recovering from that shock, a blow which actually broke in a portion of his skull. Since that time he has had recurrent times of violent insanity, with alternating spells of what seems a semi-idiocy. This man's mind never grew. In some ways his animal senses are keen to a remarkable degree, but of reason he has little or none. He can not tell you why he does a thing, or what will happen provided that he does thus or so. This I shall prove to you.
"I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of the crime has been produced. And alternatively we submit that the prisoner at the bar is a man of unsound mind and known to be such, not responsible for his acts, and not in any wise amenable to the capital features of the law. I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, you who hold this man's life in your hands, are you going to hang a man for murder when it is not shown a murder has been done? And would you hang a man who is more ignorant than a child of right and wrong? Is that fair play? Gentlemen, we are all here together, and one of us is as good as another. Our ambitions are the same. We stand here together for the best interests of this growing country—this country whose first word has always been fair play. Now, is it your already formed wish to punish this man? I say, no. I say, first give him his chance."
As Franklin ceased and seated himself the silence was again broken by a rising buzz of conversation. This was proving really a very interesting show, this trial. It must go on yet a little further.
"By jinks," said one cow-puncher, "that's right. That fellow Juan is loco, an' you all done knowed that, always."
"He ain't so d——n loco but what he could kill a man, all right," said another,
"Sure. Cal Greathouse was worth sever'l o' this Greaser," remarked another.
"I don't see how you c'n hang him legal," said a judicial voice.
"To h——l with this new-fangled law," growled a rough answer from near the door. "Are we dependin' on this here new way o' takin' care of fellers that kills too many folks? If the Greaser done it, he's guilty, an' that settles it. Hangin's too good for a feller that'll kill a man in camp, an' then try to burn him up."
"That's right!" "Sure!" "That's the talk!" were the many replies greeting this comment.
"Order, order, gentlemen!" called the judge from the bench, pounding on the box before him.
"Call William Haskins," said the prosecuting attorney, standing up, with his hands in his pockets.
"William Haskins, William Haskins, William Haskins! Come into Court!" cried out the clerk from his corner of the store box. No immediate response was made. Some one nudged Curly, who started up.
"Who—me?" he said.
"Is your name William Haskins?" asked the judge.
"Reckon so," said Curly. "My folks used to call me that. I usually go under the road brand o' Curly, though." He took his seat on a stool near the store box, was sworn, with his hat on, and the prosecuting attorney began the examination.
"What is your name?"
"Why, Curly."
"What is your occupation?"
"What?"
"How do you make your living?"
"Punchin' cows. Not that I 'low it's any o' yore d——d business."
"Where do you reside?"
"Where do I live?"
"Yes."
"Well, now, I don't know. My folks lives on the Brazos, an' I've been drivin' two years. Now I taken up a claim on the Smoky, out here. I 'low I'll go North right soon, to Wyoming maybe."
"How old are you?"
"Oh, I don't know; but I 'low about twenty-four or twenty-five, along in there."
"Where were you last Wednesday?"
"What?"
"Were you one of the posse sent out to search for Cal Greathouse?"
"Yep; me and Cap Franklin, there."
"Who else?"
"Why, Juan, there, him. He was trailin' the hoss for us."
"Where did you go?"
"About sixty miles southwest, into the breaks of the Smoky."
"What did you find?"
"We found a old camp. Hoss had been tied there, and broke its lariat.
Bushes was broke some, but we didn't see no blood, as I know of."
"Never mind what you didn't see."
"Well, now—"
"Answer my question."
"Now, say, friend, you don't want to get too gay."
"Answer the question, Mr. Haskins," said the Court.
"Well, all right, judge; I'll do it to oblige you. The most we saw was where a fire had been. Looked like a right smart fire. They was plenty o' ashes layin' there."
"Did you see anything in the ashes?"
"What business is it o' yourn?"
"Now, now," said the Court, "you must answer the questions, Mr.
Haskins."
"All right, judge," said Curly. "Well, I dunno hardly what we did see any mor'n what I tole all the boys when we first brought Juan in. I tole you all."
"Correct the witness, your Honour," said Franklin.
"Answer only the questions, Mr. Haskins," said the Judge.
"Very well," said the prosecutor; "what did you see? Anything like a man's figure?"
"We object!" said Franklin, but Curly answered: "Well, yes, it did look like a feller a-layin' there. But when we touched it—"
"Never mind. Did the prisoner see this figure?"
"Shore."
"What did he do?"
"Well, he acted plumb loco. He gets down an' hollers. 'Madre de
Dios!' he hollers. I 'low he wuz plenty scared."
"Did he look scared?"
"I object," cried Franklin.
"S'tained," said the judge.
"'Ception," said the prosecuting attorney.
"Well, what did the prisoner say or do?"
"Why, he crawls aroun' an' hollers. So we roped him, then. But say—"
"Never mind."
"Well, I was—"
"Never mind. Did you—"
"Shore! I foun' the end o' the lariat tied to a tree."
"But did you—"
"Yes, I tole you! I foun' it tied. End just fits the broke end o' the lariat onto the saddle, when the hoss come back. Them hide ropes ain't no good."
"Never mind—"
"If ever they onct got rotten—"
"Never mind. Was that Greathouse's rope?"
"Maybe so. Now, them hide ropes—"
"Never mind about the hide ropes. I want to know what the prisoner did."
"Well, when we roped him he didn't make no kick."
"Never mind. He saw the figure in the ashes?"
"What do you know about it?—you wasn't there."
"No, but I'm going to make you tell what was there."
"You are, huh? Well, you crack yer whip. I like to see any feller make me tell anything I don't want to tell."
"That's right, Curly," said some one back in the crowd. "No bluff goes."
"Not in a hundred!" said Curly.
"Now, now, now!" began the judge drowsily. The prosecuting attorney counselled of craftiness, at this juncture, foreseeing trouble if he insisted. "Take the witness," he said abruptly.
"Cross-'xamine, d'fence," said the judge, settling back.
"Now, Curly," said Franklin, as he took up the questioning again, "please tell us what Juan did after he saw this supposed figure in the ashes."
"Why, now, Cap, you know that just as well as I do."
"Yes, but I want you to tell these other folks about it."
"Well, of course, Juan acted plenty loco—you know that."
"Very well. Now what, if anything, did you do to this alleged body in the ashes?"
"'Bject! Not cross-examination," cried the State's attorney.
"M' answer," said the judge.
"What did I do to it?" said Curly. "Why, I poked it with a stick."
"What happened?"
"Why, it fell plumb to pieces."
"Did it disappear?"
"Shore it did. Wasn't a thing left."
"Did it look like a man's body, then?"
"No, it just looked like a pile o' ashes."
"Bore no trace or resemblance to a man, then?"
"None whatever."
"You wouldn't have taken it for a body, then?"
"Nope. Course not."
"Was any part of a body left?"
"Nary thing."
"Any boot, hat, or bit of clothing?"
"Not a single thing, fur's I c'd see."
"That's all," said Franklin.
"Re-direct, Mr. Prosecutor?" said the Court. This was Greek to the audience, but they were enjoying the entertainment.
"Pass the re-direct," said the State's attorney confidently.
"Do you wish to recall this witness, Mr. Franklin?" asked the Court.
"Yes, if your Honour please. I want to take up some facts in the earlier life of the prisoner, as bearing upon his present mental condition."
"Very well," said the judge, yawning. "You may wait a while, Mr.
Haskins."
"Well, then, Curly," said Franklin, again addressing himself to his witness, "please tell us how long you have known this prisoner."
"Ever since we was kids together. He used to be a mozo on my pap's ranch, over in San Saba County."
"Did you ever know him to receive any injury, any blow about the head?"
"Well, onct ole Hank Swartzman swatted him over the head with a swingletree. Sort o' laid him out, some."
"'Bject!" cried the State's attorney, but the judge yawned "M' go on."
"Did he act strangely after receiving that blow?"
"Why, yes; I reckon you would yerself. He hit him a good lick. It was fer ridin' Hank's favourite mare, an' from that time to now Juan ain't never been on horseback since. That shows he's loco. Any man what walks is loco. Part o' the time, Juan, he's bronco, but all the time he's loco."
"He has spells of violence?"
"Shore. You know that. You seen how he fit that Injun—"
"Oh, keep him to the line," protested the prosecutor.
"We won't take up that just now, Curly," said Franklin.
"Well, this here shorely is the funniest layout I ever did see," said Curly, somewhat injured. "A feller can't say a d——d thing but only jest what you all want him to say. Now, say—"
"Yes, but—" began Franklin, fearing that he might meet trouble with this witness even as the prosecutor had, and seeing the latter smiling behind his hand in recognition of this fact.
"Now, say," insisted Curly, "if you want something they ain't none o' you said a word about yet, I'll tell you something. You see, Juan, he had a sister, and this here Cal Greathouse, he—"
"I object, yo' Honah! I object!" cried the State's attorney, springing to his feet. "This is bringin' the dignity o' the law into ridicule, sah! into ridicule! I object!"
"Er, ah-h-h!" yawned the judge, suddenly sitting up, "'Journ court, Mr. Clerk! We will set to-morrow mornin' at the same place, at nine o'clock.—Mr. Sheriff, take charge of the prisoner.—Where is the sheriff, Mr. Clerk?"
"Please the Court," said the prosecuting attorney, "Sheriff Watson is not here to-day. He is lyin' sick out to his ranch. He was injured, yo' Honah, in arrestin' Ike Anderson, and he has not yet recovered."
"Well, who is in charge of this prisoner?" said the Court. "There ought to be some one to take care of him."
"I reckon I am, Judge," said Curly. "He is sort o' stayin' with me while Bill's under the weather."
"Well, take him in charge, some one, and have him here in the morning."
"All right, judge," said Curly quietly, "I'll take care of him."
He beckoned to Juan, and the giant rose and followed after him, still smiling and pleased at what to him also was a novel show.
It was three o'clock of the afternoon. The thirst of a district Judge had adjourned the district court. Franklin's heart sank. He dreaded the night. The real court, as he admitted to himself, would continue its session that night at the Cottage bar, and perhaps it might not adjourn until a verdict had been rendered.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE VERDICT
There came over the town of Ellisville that night an ominous quiet. But few men appeared on the streets. Nobody talked, or if any one did there was one subject to which no reference was made. A hush had fallen upon all. The sky, dotted with a million blazing stars, looked icy and apart. A glory of moonlight flooded the streets, yet never was moon more cold.
Franklin finished his dinner and sat down alone for a time in the great barren office of the depot hotel where he made his home. The excitement of the trial, suspended at its height, was now followed by reaction, a despondency which it was hard to shake off. Was this, then, the land of his choice? he thought. And what, then, was this human nature of which men sung and wrote? He shook himself together with difficulty.
He went to his room and buckled on his revolver, smiling grimly as he did so at the thought of how intimately all law is related to violence, and how relative to its environment is all law. He went to Battersleigh's room and knocked, entering at the loud invitation of that friend.
"Shure, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, "ye've yer side arms on this evenin'. Ye give up the profission of arms with reluctance. Tell me, Ned, what's the campaign fer the evenin'?"
"Well," said Franklin, "I thought I'd step over and sit awhile with
Curly this evening. He may be feeling a little lonesome."
"Quite right ye are, me boy," said Battersleigh cheerfully. "Quite right. An' if ye don't mind I'll just jine ye. It's lonesome I am meself the night."
Battersleigh busied himself about his room, and soon appeared arrayed, as was Franklin himself, with a revolver at his belt.
"Shure, Ned, me boy," he said, "an officer an' a gintleman should nivver appear abroad without his side arms. At laste, methinks, not on a night like this." He looked at Franklin calmly, and the latter rose and grasped the hand of the fearless old soldier without a word. The two strolled out together down the street in the direction of the shanty where Curly was keeping his "prisoner."
At this place they saw a few men sitting outside the door, calmly smoking—among these Sam, the liveryman, a merchant by name of Chapman, and a homesteader who was known as One-eyed Pennyman. Inside the house, playing cards with Curly, were four other men. Franklin noticed that they all were armed. They all appeared, from their story, to have just dropped in to pass a little time with Curly. From time to time others dropped in, most of them remaining outside in the moonlight, sitting on their heels along the porch, talking but little, and then mentioning anything but the one subject which was uppermost in every one's mind. Yet, though nothing was said, it might well be seen that this little body of men were of those who had taken the stand for law and order, and who were resolved upon a new day in the history of the town.
It was a battle of the two hotels and what they represented. Over at the great barroom of the Cottage there was at the same time assembled a much larger gathering, composed chiefly of those transient elements which at that time really made up the larger portion of the population of the place—wide-hatted men, with narrow boots and broad belts at which swung heavy, blued revolvers with broad wooden butts—a wild-looking, wild-living body of men, savage in some ways, gentle in others, but for the most part just, according to their creed. The long bar was crowded, and outside the door many men were standing along the wide gallery. They, too, were reticent. All drank whisky, and drank it regularly. Up to ten o'clock the whisky had produced no effect. The assembly was still engaged in deliberation, drinking and thinking, calmly, solemnly.
At ten o'clock a big Texan raised his glass high above his head and smashed it upon the bar.
"Law an' order be damned!" said he. "What kind o' law an' order is it to let a murderin' Greaser like that come clear? Which of us'll be the next he'd kill?"
There was no answer. A sigh, a shiver, a little rustling sound passed over the crowd.
"We always used ter run our business good enough," resumed the Texan.
"What need we got o' lawyers now? Didn't this Greaser kill Cal?
Crazy? He's just crazy enough to be mean. He's crazy so'st he ain't
safe, that's what."
The stir was louder. A cowman motioned, and the barkeeper lined the whole bar with glasses, setting out six bottles of conviction.
"Curly means all right," said one voice. "I know that boy, an' he's all right."
"Shore he's all right!" said the first voice, "an' so's Bill Watson all right. But what's the use?"
"Loco, of course the Greaser's loco," broke in another speaker. "So's a mad dog loco. But about the best thing's to kill it, so'st it's safer to be roun'."
Silence fell upon the crowd. The Texan continued. "We always did," he said.
"Yes," said another voice. "That's right. We always did."
"Curly'll never let him go," said one irrelevantly. "Seems to me we better sen' this Greaser off to the States, put him in a 'sylum, er somethin'."
"Yes," said the tall Texan; "and I like to know ef that ain't a blame sight worse'n hangin' a man?"
"That's so," assented several voices. And indeed to these men, born and bred in the free life of the range, the thought of captivity was more repugnant than the thought of death.
"The lawyer feller, he ain't to blame," said one apologetically. "He made things look right plain. He ain't no fool."
"Well, I don't know as he helt no aidge over ole Claib Benson," said another argumentatively. "Claib puts it mighty powerful."
"Yes, but," said the other eagerly, "Claib means fer hangin' by the
Co'te."
"Shore," said a voice. "Now, I'm one o' the jury, but I says in my own min', ef we convict this yer man, we got to hang him right away anyway, 'cause we ain't got no jail, an' we kain't afford no guard to watch him all the time. Now, he'd have to be hung right away, anyhow." This half apologetically.
"What do most o' you fellers on the jury think? Does this here crazy business go with you all?"
"Well, kin savvy," replied the juror judicially. "Some o' the boys think it a leetle tough to hang a feller fer a thing he kain't remember and that he didn't never think was no harm. It don't look like the Greaser'd take any one right to where he would shore be convicted, ef he had of made this here killin'."
"Well," said a conservative soothingly, "let's wait till to-morrer.
Let's let the Co'te set another day, anyhow."
"Yes, I reckon that's right; yes, that's so," said others; "we'd better wait till to-morrer."
A brief silence fell upon the gathering, a silence broken only by tinklings or shufflings along the bar. Then, all at once, the sound of an excited voice rose and fell, the cry of some one out upon the gallery in the open air. The silence deepened for one moment, and then there was a surge toward the door.
Far off, over the prairie, there came a little flat, recurrent sound, or series of sounds, as of one patting his fingers softly together. It fell and rose and grew, coming rapidly nearer, until at length there could be distinguished the cracking and popping of the hoofs of running horses. The sound broke into a rattling rumble. There came across the still, keen night a wild, thin, high, shrilling yell, product of many voices.
"It's the Bar O outfit, from the Brazos, coming in," said some one. The crowd pressed out into the air. It opened and melted slightly. The crowd at Curly's shanty increased slightly, silently. Inside, Curly and his friend still played cards. The giant prisoner lay asleep upon the floor, stretched out on his thin native wool mattress, his huge bulk filling half the floor.
The rattle of many hoofs swept up to the door of the Cottage, where the restive, nervous horses were left standing while the men went in, their leader, a stocky, red-mustached man, bearing with him the rope which he had loosened from his saddle. Having drunk, the leader smote upon the bar with a heavy hand.
"Come along, men," he called out, "The quicker we hang that d——d Greaser the better it will be. We done heard there was some sort o' trial goin' on here in town over this. We cowmen ain't goin' to stand no such foolishness. This Greaser killed Cal Greathouse, an' he's got to hang."
He moved toward the door, followed by many silently, by others with steps that lagged. "Well, you see—" began one man.
"To h——l with all that!" said the newcomer, turning upon him fiercely.
"We don't need no cowards!"
"No, that ain't it," resumed the first man, "but we got to respeck the Co'te—fust Co'te ever did set here, you see. The fellers, some of 'em, thinks—some o' the jury thinks—that the feller's too crazy fer to hang."
"Crazy be d——d! We're goin' to hang him, an' that settles it. Law an' order kin take care of it afterward."
All the time they were shifting toward the door. Outside the band of cattlemen who had just ridden in, fresh from the trail, and with but a partial knowledge of the arguments that had been advanced in this court, for which they had but small respect at best, settled the immediate question in an instant. As though by concert they swung into saddle and swept off up the street in a body, above the noise of their riding now breaking a careless laugh, now a shrill yell of sheer joyous excitement. They carried with them many waverers. More than a hundred men drew up in front of the frail shelter over which was spread the doubtful aegis of the law.
Fifty men met them. The lights went out in the house in an instant, and in front of the door there swept a dark and silent cordon. The leader of the invaders paused, but went straight forward.
"We want that man!" he said.
There was no answer. The line in front of the door darkened and thickened. Finally the figure of the young lawyer appeared, and he said calmly, sternly:
"You know very well you can't have him."
"We don't know nothin' o' the sort. We want him, an' we're goin' to have him. We don't want no one else, an' we won't make no trouble, but we're goin' to take the Mexican. Git out the road!"
A second figure stood by the side of Franklin, and this man was recognised by the leader. "Aw, now, Curly, what d——d foolishness is this here? Bring him out."
"You know I won't, Jim," said Curly, simply. "We're tryin' him on the square. You ain't the Co'te. I kain't give him to no one but the Co'te."
"We are the Co'te!" came the hot reply. "The Co'te that runs this range fer hoss-thieves an' murderers. Now, see here, Curly, we're all your friends, an' you know it, but that feller has got to hang, an' hang to-night. Git out the way. What's the matter with you?"
"They ain't nothin' the matter with me," said Curly slowly, "'ceptin' I done said I wouldn't give this man up to no man but the Co'te. A lot o' us fellers, here in the settlement, we 'lowed that the law goes here now."
Silence fell for an instant, then from the rear of the party there came pushing and crowding and cries of "Burn the house—drive him out!" There was a rush, but it was met by a silent thickening of the line at the point assailed. Men scuffled with men, swearing and grunting, panting hard. Here and there weapons flashed dully, though as yet no shot was fired. Time and again Franklin raised his voice. "Men, listen to me!" he cried. "We promise you a fair trial—we promise—"
"Shut up!" cried the leader, and cries of "No talking!" came from the crowd. "Give him up, or we'll clean you all out!" cried another voice, angrily. The rushers toward the house grew closer, so that assailants and besiegers were now mingled in a fighting, swearing mass.
"You're no cowman, Curly," cried one voice, bitterly, out of the black shifting sea in front of the house.
"You're a d——d liar!" cried Curly in reply, "whoever says that to me! I'm only a-keepin' of my word. You kain't clean us out. I'll shoot the livin' soul out o' any man that touches that door! This here is the jail, an' I'm the deppity, and, by ——! you'll not have my prisoner!"
"Quite right, me man," said a cool voice at Curly's side, and a hand fell on his shoulder as a tall form loomed up in the crowd. "There's good matayrial in you, me bully. Hould yer position, an' be sure that Batty's with you, at the laste. Fair play's a jule, an' it's fair play we're goin' to have here."
Backed by a crowd of men whose resolution was as firm as their own, these three fell back in front of the door. Franklin felt his heart going fast, and knew that more was asked of him here than had ever been upon the field of battle; yet he was exultant at the discovery that he had no thought of wavering. He knew then that he had been proved. With equal joy he looked upon the face of Curly, frowning underneath the pushed-back hat, and upon that of Battersleigh, keen-looking, eager, as though about to witness some pleasurable, exciting thing. Yet he knew the men in front were as brave as they, and as desperately resolved. In a moment, he reflected, the firing would begin. He saw Curly's hands lying lightly upon the butts of his revolvers. He saw Battersleigh draw his revolver and push with the side of the barrel against the nearest men as though to thrust them back. He himself crowded to the fore, eager, expectant, prepared. One shot, and a score of lives were done, and dark indeed would be this night in Ellisville.
Suddenly the climax came. The door was thrust irresistibly open, not from without, but from within. Stooping, so that his head might clear its top, the enormous figure of Juan, the Mexican, appeared in the opening. He looked out, ignorant of the real reason of this tumult, yet snuffing conflict as does the bear not yet assailed. His face, dull and impassive, was just beginning to light up with suspicion and slow rage.
A roar of anger and excitement rose as the prisoner was seen standing there before them, though outlined only by the dim light of the sky. Every man in the assailing party sprang toward the building. The cries became savage, beastlike. It was no longer human beings who contended over this poor, half-witted being, but brutes, less reasonable than he.
Juan left the door. He swept Franklin and Curly and Battersleigh aside as though they were but babes. It was his purpose to rush out, to strike, to kill. It was the moment of opportunity for the leader of the assailants. The whistle of a rope cut the air, and the noose tightened about the giant's neck with instant grip. There was a surge back upon the rope, a movement which would have been fatal for any other man, which would have been fatal to him, had the men got the rope to a horse as they wished, so that they might drag the victim by violence through the crowd.
But with Juan this act was not final. The noose enraged him, but did not frighten or disable him. As the great bear of the foothills, when roped by the horseman, scorns to attempt escape, but pulls man and horse toward him by main force, so the giant savage who was now thus assailed put forth his strength, and by sheer power of arm drew his would-be captors to him, hand over hand. The noose about his own neck he loosened with one hand. Then he raised his hand and let it fall. The caster of the rope, his collar bone broken and his shoulder blade cracked across, fell in a heap at his feet as the swaying crowd made way. Once again there was silence, one moment of confusion, hesitation. Then came the end.
There came, boring into the silence with horrible distinctness, the sound of one merciful, mysterious shot. The giant straightened up once, a vast black body towering above the black mass about him, and then sank gently, slowly down, as though to curl himself in sleep.
There was a groan, a roar, a swift surging of men, thick, black, like swarming bees. Some bent above the two prone figures. Others caught at the rope, grovelling, snarling.
They were saved the last stage of their disgrace. Into the crowd there pressed the figure of a new-comer, a hatless man, whose face was pale, whose feet were unshod, and who bore one arm helpless in a dirty sling which hung about his neck. Haggard and unkempt, barefooted, half-clad as he had stumbled out of bed at his ranch six miles away, Bill Watson, the sheriff, appeared a figure unheroic enough. With his broken arm hanging useless and jostled by the crowd, he raised his right hand above his head and called out, in a voice weak and halting, but determined:
"Men, go—go home! I command you—in the name—of the law!"
BOOK IV
THE DAY OF THE PLOUGH
CHAPTER XXX
THE END OF THE TRAIL
The Cottage Hotel of Ellisville was, singularly enough, in its palmy days conducted by a woman, and a very good woman she was. It was perhaps an error in judgment which led the husband of this woman to undertake the establishment of a hotel at such a place and such a time, but he hastened to repair his fault by amiably dying. The widow, a large woman, of great kindness of heart and a certain skill in the care of gunshot wounds, fell heiress to the business, carried it on and made a success of it. All these wild range men who came roistering up the Trail loved this large and kind old lady, and she called them all her "boys," watching over the wild brood as a hen does over her chickens. She fed them and comforted them, nursed them and buried them, always new ones coming to take the places of those who were gone. Chief mourner at over threescore funerals, nevertheless was Mother Daly's voice always for peace and decorum; and what good she did may one day be discovered when the spurred and booted dead shall rise.
The family of Mother Daly flourished and helped build the north-bound cattle trail, along which all the hoof marks ran to Ellisville. There was talk of other cow towns, east of Ellisville, west of it, but the clannish conservatism of the drovers held to the town they had chosen and baptized. Thus the family of Mother Daly kept up its numbers, and the Cottage knew no night, even at the time when the wars of the cowmen with the railroad men and the gamblers had somewhat worn away by reason of the advancing of the head of the rails still farther into the Great American Desert.
There was yet no key to the Cottage bar when there came the unbelievable word that there was no longer a buffalo to be found anywhere on the range, and that the Indians were gone, beaten, herded up forever. Far to the north, it was declared, there were men coming in on the cow range who had silver-mounted guns, who wore gold and jewels, and who brought with them saddles without horns! It was said, however, that these new men wanted to buy cows, so cows were taken to them. Many young men of Mother Daly's family went on up the Trail, never to come back to Ellisville, and it was said that they were paid much gold, and that they stole many cows from the men who had silver-mounted guns, and who wore strange, long knives, with which it was difficult to open a tin can.
Mother Daly looked upon this, and it was well. She understood her old boys and loved them. She was glad the world was full of them. It was a busy, happy, active world, full of bold deeds, full of wide plans, full of men. She looked out over the wide wind-swept plains, along the big chutes full of bellowing beeves, at the wide corral with its scores of saddled Nemeses, and she was calm and happy. It was a goodly world.
It was upon one day that Mother Daly looked out upon her world; upon the next day she looked again, and all the world was changed. Far as the eye could reach, the long and dusty roadway of the cows lay silent, with its dust unstirred. Far, very far off, there was approaching a little band of strange, small, bleating, woolly creatures, to whose driver Mother Daly refused bed and board. The cattle chutes were silent, the corral was empty. At the Cottage bar the keeper had at last found a key to the door. Up and down the Trail, east and west of the Trail, all was quiet, bare, and desolate. At some signal—some signal written on the sky—all the old life of Ellisville had taken up its journey into a farther land, into another day. The cowman, the railroad man, and the gambling man had gone, leaving behind them the wide and well-perforated Cottage, the graveyard with its double street, the cattle chutes with well-worn, hairy walls.
Now there came upon the face of the country faint scars where wheels had cut into the hard soil, these vagrant indices of travel not pointing all one way, and not cut deep, as was the royal highway of the cattle, but crossing, tangling, sometimes blending into main-travelled roads, though more often straying aimlessly off over the prairie to end at the homestead of some farmer. The smokes arose more numerously over the country, and the low houses of the settlers were seen here and there on either hand by those who drove out over the winding wagon ways in search of land. These new houses were dark and low and brown, with the exception that each few miles the traveller might see a small frame house painted white. Sometimes, in the early morning, there might be seen wandering toward these small white houses, no man knew whence, small groups of little beings never before seen upon the range. At nightfall they wandered back again. Sometimes, though rarely, they needed to turn aside from the straight line to go about the corner of a fence. Sometimes within such fences there might be seen others of these dirty, bleating creatures which Mother Daly hated. Here and there over the country were broken rows of little yellow, faded trees struggling up out of the hard earth. The untiring wheels of windmills could be seen everywhere at their work.
Here and there at the trodden, water holes of the broken creeks there lay carcasses of perished cattle, the skin dried and drawn tight over the bones; but on the hillsides near by grazed living cattle, fatter and more content to feed than the wild creatures that yesterday clacked and crowded up the Trail. Now, it is known of all men that cattle have wide horns, broad as the span of a man's arms; yet there were men here who said they had seen cattle whose horns were no longer than those of the buffalo, and later this thing was proved to be true.
Mother Daly knew, as all persons in the past knew, that by right the face of the plains was of one colour, unbroken; gray-brown in summer, white in winter, green in the spring. Yet now, as though giants would play here some game of draughts, there came a change upon the country, so that in squares it was gray, in squares green. This thing had never been before.
In the town of Ellisville the great heap of buffalo bones was gone from the side of the railroad track. There were many wagons now, but none brought in bones to pile up by the railway; for even the bones of the buffalo were now gone forever.
Mother Daly looked out upon the Cottage corral one day, and saw it sound and strong. Again she looked, and the bars were gone. Yet another day she looked, and there was no corral! Along the street, at the edge of the sidewalks of boards, there stood a long line of hitching rails. Back of these board sidewalks were merchants who lived in houses with green blinds, and they pronounced that word "korrawl!"
The livery barn of Samuel Poston grew a story in stature, and there was such a thing as hay—hay not imported in wired bales. In the little city there were three buildings with bells above them. There was a courthouse of many rooms; for Ellisville had stolen the county records from Strong City, and had held them through Armageddon. There were large chutes now at the railway, not for cattle, but for coal. Strange things appeared. There was a wide, low, round, red house, full of car tracks, and smoke, and hammer blows, and dirt, and confusion; and from these shops came and went men who did an unheard-of thing. They worked eight hours a day, no more, no less! Now, in the time of Man, men worked twenty-four hours a day, or not at all; and they did no man's bidding.
The streets of Ellisville were many. They doubled and crossed. There was a public square hedged about with trees artificially large. For each vanishing saloon there had come a store with its hitching rack for teams. The Land Office was yet at Ellisville, and the rush of settlers was continuous. The men who came out from the East wore wide hats and carried little guns; but when they found the men of Ellisville wearing small, dark hats and carrying no guns at all, they saw that which was not to be believed, and which was, therefore, not so written in the literary centres which told the world about the Ellisvilles. Strangers asked Ellisville about the days of the cattle drive, and Ellisville raised its eminently respectable eyebrows. There was a faint memory of such a time, but it was long, long ago. Two years ago! All the world had changed since then. There had perhaps been a Cottage Hotel. There was perhaps a Mrs. Daly, who conducted a boarding-house, on a back street. Our best people, however, lived at the Stone Hotel. There were twelve lawyers who resided at this hotel, likewise two ministers and their wives. Six of the lawyers would bring out their wives the following spring. Ministers, of course, usually took their wives with them.
Ellisville had thirty business houses and two thousand inhabitants. It had large railway shops and the division offices of the road. It had two schoolhouses (always the schoolhouse grew quickly on the Western soil), six buildings of two stories, two buildings of three stories and built of brick. Business lots were worth $1,800 to $2,500 each. The First National Bank paid $4,000 for its corner. The Kansas City and New England Loan, Trust, and Investment Company had expended $30,000 in cash on its lot, building, and office fixtures. It had loaned three quarters of a million of dollars in and about Ellisville.
Always the land offered something to the settler. The buffalo being gone, and their bones being also gone, some farmers fell to trapping and poisoning the great gray wolves, bringing in large bales of the hides. One farmer bought half a section of land with wolf skins. He had money enough left to buy a few head of cattle and to build a line of fence. This fence cut at right angles a strange, wide, dusty pathway. The farmer did not know what he had done. He had put restraint on that which in its day knew no pause and brooked no hindrance. He had set metes and bounds across the track where once rolled the wheels of destiny. He had set the first fence across the Trail!
The stranger who asked for the old, wild days of Ellisville the Red was told that no such days had ever been. Yet stay: perhaps there were half a dozen men who had lived at Ellisville from the first who could, perhaps, take one to the boarding-house of Mrs. Daly; who could, perhaps, tell something of the forgotten days of the past, the days of two years ago, before the present population of Ellisville came West. There was, perhaps, a graveyard, but the headstones had been so few that one could tell but little of it now. Much of this, no doubt, was exaggeration, this talk of a graveyard, of a doubled street, of murders, of the legal killings which served as arrests, of the lynchings which once passed as justice. There was a crude story of the first court ever held in Ellisville, but of course it was mere libel to say that it was held in the livery barn. Rumour said that the trial was over the case of a negro, or Mexican, or Indian, who had been charged with murder, and who was himself killed in an attempt at lynching, by whose hand it was never known. These things were remembered or talked about by but very few, these the old-timers, the settlers of two years ago. Somewhere to the north of the town, and in the centre of what was declared by some persons to be the old cattle trail, there was reputed to be visible a granite boulder, or perhaps it was a granite shaft, supposed to have been erected with money contributed by cattlemen at the request of Mrs. Daly, who kept the boarding-house on a back street. Some one had seen this monument, and brought back word that it had cut upon its face a singular inscription, namely:
JUAN THE LOCO,
THE END OF THE TRAIL.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SUCCESS OF BATTERSLEIGH
One morning when Franklin entered his office he found his friend Battersleigh there before him, in full possession, and apparently at peace with all the world. His tall figure was reclining in an office chair, and his feet were supported by the corner of the table, in an attitude which is called American, but which is really only masculine, and quite rational though unbeautiful. Battersleigh's cloak had a swagger in its very back, and his hat sat at a cocky angle not to be denied. He did not hear Franklin as he approached the door, and the latter stood looking in for a moment, amused at Battersleigh and his attitude and his song. When quite happy Battersleigh always sang, and very often his song was the one he was singing now, done in a low nasal, each verse ending, after the vocal fashion of his race, with a sudden uplift of a sheer octave, as thus:
"I-I-I-'d dance li-i-i-ke a fa-a-a-iree-ee-ee,
For to see ould Dunlear-e-e-e-e-e!
I-I-I-'d think twi-i-i-ice e-e-e-r-r I-I-I-'d lave it,
For to be-e-e-e-e a drag-o-o-n."
Franklin chuckled at the reminiscent music as he stepped in and said good morning. "You seem in fine fettle this morning, friend," said he. "Very fine, for an old man."
Battersleigh squared around and looked at him soberly. "Ned," said he, "ye're a dethractor of innycince. Batty ould! Listen to me, boy! It's fifty years younger I am to-day than when I saw ye last. I'm younger than ye ivver saw me in all your life before."
"And what and where was the fountain?" said Franklin, as he seated himself at his desk.
"The one fountain of all on earth, me boy—Succiss—succiss! The two dearest things of life are Succiss and Revinge. I've found thim both. Shure, pfwhat is that gives one man the lofty air an' the overlookin' eye, where another full his ekil in inches fears to draw the same breath o' life with him? Succiss, succiss, me boy! Some calls it luck, though most lays it to their own shupayrior merit. For Batty, he lays it to nothin' whativver, but takes it like a philosopher an' a gintleman."
"Well, I suppose you don't mind my congratulating you on your success, whatever it may be," said Franklin, as he began to busy himself about his work at the desk. "You're just a trifle mysterious, you know."
"There's none I'd liever have shake me by the hand than yoursilf, Ned," said Battersleigh, "the more especially by this rayson, that ye've nivver believed in ould Batty at all, but thought him a visionary schamer, an' no more. Didn't ye, now, Ned; on your honour?"
"No," said Franklin stoutly. "I've always known you to be the best fellow in the world."
"Tut, tut!" said Battersleigh. "Ye're dodgin' the issue, boy. But pfwhat wud ye say now, Ned, if I should till ye I'd made over tin thousand pounds of good English money since I came to this little town?"
"I should say," said Franklin calmly, as he opened an envelope, "that you had been dreaming again."
"That's it! That's it!" cried Battersleigh. "Shure ye wud, an' I knew it! But come with me to bank this mornin' an' I'll prove it all to ye."
Something in his voice made Franklin wheel around and look at him.
"Oh, do be serious, Battersleigh," said he.
"It's sayrious I am, Ned, I till ye. Luk at me, boy. Do ye not see the years droppin' from me? Succiss! Revinge! Cash! Earth holds no more for Batty. I've thim all, an' I'm contint. This night I retire dhrunk, as a gintleman should be. To-morrow I begin on me wardrobe. I'm goin' a longish journey, lad, back to ould England. I'm a long-lost son, an' thank God! I've not been discovered yit, an' hope I'll not be fer a time.
"I'll till ye a secret, which heretofore I've always neglicted to mintion to anybody. Here I'm Henry Battersleigh, agent of the British-American Colonization Society. On t'other side I might be Cuthbert Allen Wingate-Galt. An' Etcetera, man; etcetera, to God knows what. Don't mintion it, Ned, till I've gone away, fer I've loved the life here so—I've so enjoyed bein' just Batty, agent, and so forth! Belave me, Ned, it's much comfortabler to be merely a' And-so-forth thin it is to be an' Etcetera. An' I've loved ye so, Ned! Ye're the noblest nobleman I ivver knew or ivver expict to know."
Franklin sat gazing at him without speech, and presently Battersleigh went on.
"It's a bit of a story, lad," said he kindly. "Ye see, I've been a poor man all me life, ye may say, though the nephew of one of the richest women in the United Kingdom—an' the stingiest. Instid of doin' her obvayus juty an' supportin' her nephew in becomin' station, she marries a poor little lordlet boy, an' forsakes me entirely. Wasn't it hijjus of her? There may have been raysons satisfyin' to her own mind, but she nivver convinced me that it was Christian conduct on her part. So I wint with the Rile Irish, and fought fer the Widdy. So what with likin' the stir an' at the same time the safety an' comfort o' the wars, an' what with now an' thin a flirtashun in wan colour or another o' the human rainbow, with a bit of sport an' ridin' enough to kape me waist, I've been in the Rile Irish ivver since—whin not somewhere ilse; though mostly, Ned, me boy, stone broke, an' ownin' no more than me bed an' me arms. Ye know this, Ned."
"Yes," said Franklin, "I know, Battersleigh. You've been a proud one,"
"Tut, tut, me boy; nivver mind. Ye'll know I came out here to make me fortune, there bein' no more fightin' daycint enough to engage the attention of a gintleman annywhere upon the globe. I came to make me fortune. An' I've made it. An' I confiss to ye with contrition, Ned, me dear boy, I'm Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, Etcetera !"
After his fashion Franklin sat silent, waiting for the other's speech.
"Ned," said Battersleigh at length, "till me, who's the people of the intire worrld that has the most serane belief in their own shupayriority?"
"New-Yorkers," said Franklin calmly.
"Wrong. Ye mustn't joke, me boy. No. It's the English. Shure, they're the consatedest people in the whole worrld. An' now, thin, who's the wisest people in the worrld?"
"The Americans," said Franklin promptly again.
"Wrong agin. It's thim same d——d domineerin' idjits, the yally-headed subjecks o' the Widdy. An' pfwhy are they wise?"
"You'll have to tell," said Franklin.
"Then I'll till ye. It's because they have a sacra fames fer all the land on earth."
"They're no worse than we," said Franklin. "Look at our Land-Office records here for the past year."
"Yis, the Yankee is a land-lover, but he wants land so that he may live on it, an' he wants to see it before he gives his money for it. Now, ye go to an Englishman, an' till him ye've a bit of land in the cintre of a lost island in the middle of the Pacific say, an' pfwhat does he do? He'll first thry to stale ut, thin thry to bully ye out of ut; but he'll ind by buyin' ut, at anny price ye've conscience to ask, an' he'll thrust to Providence to be able to find the island some day. That's wisdom. I've seen the worrld, me boy, from Injy to the Great American Desert. The Rooshan an' the Frinchman want land, as much land as ye'll cover with a kerchief, but once they get it they're contint. The Haybrew cares for nothin' beyond the edge of his counter. Now, me Angly-Saxon, he's the prettiest fightin' man on earth, an' he's fightin' fer land, er buyin' land, er stalin' land, the livin' day an' cintury on ind. He'll own the earth!"
"No foreign Anglo-Saxon will ever own America," said Franklin grimly.
"Well, I'm tellin' ye he'll be ownin' some o' this land around here."
"I infer, Battersleigh," said Franklin, "that you have made a sale."
"Well, yis. A small matter."
"A quarter-section or so?"
"A quarter-township or so wud be much nearer," said Battersleigh dryly.
"You don't mean it?"
"Shure I do. It's a fool for luck; allowin' Batty's a fool, as ye've always thought, though I've denied it. Now ye know the railroad's crazy for poppylation, an' it can't wait. It fairly offers land free to thim that'll come live on it. It asks the suffrin' pore o' Yurrup to come an' honour us with their prisince. The railroad offers Batty the Fool fifteen hundred acres o' land at three dollars the acre, if Batty the Fool'll bring settlers to it. So I sinds over to me ould Aunt's country—not, ye may suppose, over the signayture o' Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, but as Henry Battersleigh, agent o' the British American Colonization Society—an' I says to the proper party there, says I, 'I've fifteen hundred acres o' the loveliest land that ivver lay out of dures, an' ye may have it for the trifle o' fifty dollars the acre. Offer it to the Leddy Wiggit,' says I to him; 'she's a philanthropist, an' is fer Bettherin' the Pore' ('savin' pore nephews,' says I to mesilf). 'The Lady Wiggit,' says I, ''ll be sendin' a ship load o' pore tinnints over here,' says I, 'an' she'll buy this land. Offer it to her,' says I. So he did. So she did. She tuk it. I'll be away before thim pisints o' hers comes over to settle here, glory be! Now, wasn't it aisy? There's no fools like the English over land, me boy. An' 'twas a simple judgment on me revered Aunt, the Leddy Wiggit."
"But, Battersleigh, look here," said Franklin, "you talk of fifty dollars an acre. That's all nonsense—why, that's robbery. Land is dear here at five dollars an acre."
"Shure it is, Ned," said Battersleigh calmly. "But it's chape in
England at fifty dollars."
"Well, but—"
"An' that's not all. I wrote to thim to send me a mere matter of tin dollars an acre, as ivvidence a' good faith. They did so, an' it was most convaynient for settlin' the little bill o' three dollars an acre which the railroad had against me, Batty the Fool."
"It's robbery!" reiterated Franklin.
"It wud 'av' been robbery," said Battersleigh, "had they sint no more than that, for I'd 'av' been defrauded of me just jues. But whut do you think? The murdherin' ould fool, me revered Aunt, the Leddy Wiggit, she grows 'feard there is some intint to rob her of her bargain, so what does she do but sind the entire amount at wance—not knowin', bless me heart an' soul, that she's thus doin' a distinguished kindness to the missin' relative she's long ago forgot! Man, would ye call that robbery? It's Divine Providince, no less! It's justice. I know of no one more deservin' o' such fortune than Battersleigh, late of the Rile Irish, an' now a Citizen o' the World. Gad, but I've a'most a mind to buy a bit of land me own silf, an' marry the Maid o' the Mill, fer the sake o' roundin' out the play. Man, man, it's happy I am to-day!"
"It looks a good deal like taking advantage of another's ignorance," said Franklin argumentatively.
"Sir," said Battersleigh, "it's takin' advantage o' their Wisdom. The land's worth it, as you'll see yoursilf in time. The price is naught. The great fact is that they who own the land own the earth and its people. 'Tis out of the land an' the sea an' the air that all the wilth must come. Thus saith Batty the Fool. Annyhow, the money's in the bank, an' it's proper dhrunk'll be Batty the Fool this night, an' likewise the Hon. Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, Etcetera. There's two of me now, an' it's twice the amount I must be dhrinkin'. I swear, I feel a thirst risin' that minds me o' Ingy in the hills, an' the mess o' the Rile Irish wance again."
"You'll be going away," said Franklin, sadly, as he rose and took Battersleigh by the hand. "You'll be going away and leaving me here alone—awfully alone."
"Ned," said the tall Irishman, rising and laying, a hand upon his shoulder, "don't ye belave I'll be lavin' ye. I've seen the worrld, an' I must see it again, but wance in a while I'll be comin' around here to see the best man's country on the globe, an' to meet agin the best man I ivver knew. I'll not till why I belave it, for that I can not do, but shure I do belave it, this is the land for you. There'll be workin' an' thinkin' here afther you an' Batty are gone, an' maybe they'll work out the joy an' sorrow of ut here. Don't be restless, but abide, an' take ye root here. For Batty, it's no odds. He's seen the worrld."
Battersleigh's words caused Franklin's face to grow still more grave, and his friend saw and suspected the real cause. "Tut, tut! me boy," he said, "I well know how your wishes lie. It's a noble gyurl ye've chosen, as a noble man should do. She may change her thought to-morrow. It's change is the wan thing shure about a woman."
Franklin shook his head mutely, but Battersleigh showed only impatience with him. "Go on with your plans, man," said he, "an' pay no attintion to the gyurl! Make ready the house and prepare the bridal gyarments. Talk with her raysonable, an' thin thry unraysonable, and if she won't love ye peaceful, thin thry force; an' she'll folly ye thin, to the ind of the earth, an' love ye like a lamb. It's Batty has studied the sex. Now, wance there was a gyurl—but no; I'll not yet thrust mesilf to spake o' that. God rist her asy ivermore!"
"Yes," said Franklin sadly, "that is it. That is what my own answer has been. She tells me that there was once another, who no longer lives—that no one else—"
Battersleigh's face grew grave in turn. "There's no style of assault more difficult than that same," said he. "Yet she's young; she must have been very young. With all respect, it's the nature o' the race o' women to yield to the livin', breathin' man above the dead an' honoured."
"I had my hopes," said Franklin, "but they're gone. They've been doing well at the Halfway House, and I've been doing well here. I've made more money than I ever thought I should, and I presume I may make still more. I presume that's all there is—just to make money, and then more, if you can. Let it go that way. I'll not wear my heart on my sleeve—not for any woman in the world."
Franklin's jaws set in fashion still more stern than their usual cast, yet there had come, as Battersleigh did not fail to notice, an older droop to the corners of his mouth, and a loss of the old brilliance of the eye.
"Spoken like a man," said Battersleigh, "an' if ye'll stick to that ye're the more like to win. Nivver chance follyin' too close in a campaign ag'inst a woman. Parallel an' mine, but don't uncover your forces. If ye advance, do so by rushes, an' not feelin' o' the way. But tin to wan, if ye lie still under cover, she'll be sendin' out skirmishers to see where ye are an' what ye are doin'. Now, ye love the gyurl, I know, an' so do I, an' so does ivery man that ivver saw her, for she's the sort min can't help adorin'. But, mind me, kape away. Don't write to her. Don't make poetry about her—God forbid! Don't do the act o' serrynadin' in anny way whativver. Make no complaint—if ye do she'll hate ye, like as not; for when a gyurl has wronged a man she hates him for it. Merely kape still. Ye've met your first reverse, an' ye've had your outposts cut up a bit, an' ye think the ind o' the worrld has come. Now, mind me, ould Batty, who's seen the lands; only do ye attind to dhrill an' sinthry-go an' commissariat, till in time ye find your forces in thrim again. By thin luk out fer heads stickin' up over the hills on the side o' the inimy, who'll be wonderin' what's goin' on. 'Go 'way,' she says to you, an' you go. 'Come back,' she whispers to herself, an' you don't hear it. Yet all the time she's wonderin' pfwhy you don't!"
Franklin smiled in spite of himself. "Battersleigh's Tactics and Manual of Strategy," he murmured. "All right, old man. I thank you just the same. I presume I'll live, at the worst. And there's a bit in life besides what we want for ourselves, you know."
"There's naught in life but what we're ready to take for oursilves!" cried Battersleigh. "I'll talk no fable of other fishes in the say for ye. Take what ye want, if ye'll have it. An' hearken; there's more to Ned Franklin than bein' a land agent and a petty lawyer. It's not for ye yersilf to sit an' mope, neyther to spind your life diggin' in a musty desk. Ye're to grow, man; ye're to grow! Do ye not feel the day an' hour? Man, did ye nivver think o' Destiny?"
"I've never been able not to believe in it," said Franklin. "To some men all things come easily, while others get on only by the hardest knocks; and some go always close to success, but die just short of the parapet. I haven't myself classified, just yet."
"Ye have your dreams, boy?"
"Yes; I have my dreams."
"All colours are alike," said Battersleigh. "Now, whut is my young Injun savage doin', when he goes out alone, on top of some high hill, an' builds him a little fire, an' talks with his familiar spirits, which he calls here his 'drame'? Isn't he searchin' an' feelin' o' himsilf, same as the haythin in far-away Ingy? Git your nose up, Ned, or you'll be unwittin' classifyin' yersilf with the great slave class which we lift behind not long ago, but which is follyin' us hard and far. Git your nose up, fer it's Batty has been thinkin' ye've Destiny inside your skin. Listen to Batty the Fool, and search your sowl. I'll tell ye this: I've the feelin' that I'll be hearin' of ye, in all the marrches o' the worrld. Don't disappoint me, Ned, for the ould man has belaved in ye—more than ye've belaved in yersilf. As to the gyurl—bah!—go marry her some day, av ye've nothin' more importhant on yer hands.
"But, me dear boy, spakin' o' importhant things, I ralely must be goin' now. I've certain importhant preparations that are essintial before I get dhrunk this avenin'—"
"O Battersleigh, do be sensible," said Franklin, "and do give up this talk of getting drunk. Come over here this evening and talk with me. It's much better than getting drunk."
Battersleigh's hand was on the door knob. "The consate o' you!" he said. "Thrue, ye're a fine boy, Ned, an' I know of no conversayshun more entertainin' than yer own, but I tale that if I didn't get dhrunk like a gintleman this avenin', I'd be violatin' me juty to me own conscience, as well as settin' at naught the thraditions o' the Rile Irish. An' so, if ye'll just excuse me, I'll say good-bye till, say, to-morrow noon."