Chapter IX: Part 9

So I wished him the best of luck with this lady child hater; not that I thought he'd really get what was coming to him. He was so crafty. He was one of them that love not well but too wisely, as the saying is. Still, there was a chance. He was scared to death of fire and yet he would keep on playing with it. Some day the merry old flames might lick him up. I hoped for the best.

A few days after that I went down to the foreman's house late in the afternoon to see him about a shipment we had to make. Scott was off somewhere, but his sister was in; so I set talking with her, and waiting. This here Minna Humphrey was a hectic, blighted girl of thirty, sandy-haired, green-eyed, and little--no bigger than a bar of soap after a day's washing. What had blighted the poor thing was having to teach public school for a dozen years. She'd been teaching down to Kulanche that year and had just closed up. We set out in front of the house and Minna told me she was all in; and how she'd ever got through the season she didn't know.

She went on to speak of little children. Fire in her voice? Murder! According to Minna, children had ought to be put in cages soon as they can walk and kept there till they are grown; fed through the bars and shot down if they break out. That's what twelve years' enforced contact with 'em had done to Minna's finer instincts. She said absolutely nothing in the world could be so repugnant to her as a roomful of the little animals writing on slates with squeaky pencils. She said other things about 'em that done her no credit.

And while I listened painfully who should be riding up but Homer Gale!

"Here," I says to Minna; "here's a man you'll be a joyous treat to; just let him come in and listen to your song a while. Begin at the beginning and say it all slow, and let Homer have some happy moments."

So I introduced the two, and after a few formalities was got over I had Minna telling in a heartfelt manner what teaching a public school was like, and what a tortured life she led among creatures that should never be treated as human. Homer listened with glistening eyes that got quite moist at the last. Minna went on to say that children's mothers was almost as bad, raging in to pick a fuss with her every time a child had been disciplined for some piece of deviltry. She said mothers give her pretty near as much trouble as the kids themselves.

It was a joyous and painful narrative to Homer. He said why didn't Minna take up something else? And Minna said she was going to. She'd been working two summers in Judge Ballard's office, down to Red Gap, and was going to again this summer, soon as she regained a little vitality; and she hoped now she'd have a steady job there and never have to go back to the old life of degradation. Homer sympathized warmly; his heart had really been touched. He hoped she'd rise out of the depths to something tolerable; and then he told her about Bert's five horrible children that drove him out into the brush--and so forth.

I listened in a while; and then I says to Homer ain't it nice for him to meet someone else that thinks as he does on this great vital topic, Minna seeming to find young ones as repulsive as Mrs. Judson Tolliver? And how about that lady anyway? And how is his affair coming on? I never dreamed of starting anything. I was being friendly.

Homer gets vivacious and smirks something horrible, and says, well, he don't see why people make a secret of such things; and the fact is that that lady and him have about decided that Fate has flung 'em together for a lofty purpose. Of course nothing was settled definite yet--no dates nor anything; but probably before long there'd be a nice little home adorning a certain place he'd kept his eye on, and someone there keeping a light in the window for him--and so on. It sounded almost too good to be true that this old shellback had been harpooned at last.

Then Minna spoke up, when Homer had babbled to a finish, and smirked and looked highly offensive. She says brightly:

"Oh, yes; Mrs. Judson Tolliver. I know her well; and I'm sure, Mr. Gale, I wish you all the happiness in the world with the woman of your choice. She's a very sterling character indeed--and such a good mother!"

"How's that?" says Homer. "I didn't hear you just right. Such a good what?"

"I said she's such a good mother," Minna answers him.

Homer's smirk kind of froze on his face.

"Mother to what?" he says in a low, passionate tone, like an actor.

"Mother to her three little ones," says Minna. Then she says again quick: "Why, what's the matter, Mr. Gale?" For Homer seemed to have been took bad.

"Great Godfrey!" he says, hardly able to get his voice.

"And, of course, you won't mind my saying it," Minna goes on, "because you seem so broad-minded about children, but when I taught primary in Red Gap last year those three little boys of hers gave me more trouble than any other two dozen of the pests in the whole room."

Homer couldn't say anything this time. He looked like a doctor was knifing him without anesthetics.

"And to make it worse," says Minna, "the mother is so crazy about them, and so sensitive about any little thing done to them in the way of discipline--really, she has very little control of her language where those children are concerned. Still, of course, that's how any good mother will act, to be sure; and especially when they have no father.

"I'm glad indeed the poor woman is to have someone like you that will take the responsibility off her shoulders, because those boys are now at an age where discipline counts. Of course she'll expect you to be gentle with them, even though firm. Oswald--he's eleven now, I believe--will soon be old enough to send to reform school; but the younger ones, seven and nine--My! such spirits as they have! They'll really need someone with strength."

Homer was looking as if this bright chatter would add twenty years to his age. He'd slumped down on the stoop, where he'd been setting, like he'd had a stroke.

"So she's that kind, is she?" he kind of mutters. "A good thing I found it out on her!"

"The children live with their grandmother in Red Gap while their mother is away," says Minna. "They really need a strong hand."

"Not mine!" says Homer. Then he got slowly up and staggered down a few steps toward the gate. "It's a good thing I found out this scandal on her in time," says he. "Talk about underhandedness! Talk about a woman hiding her guilty secret! Talk about infamy! I'll expose her, all right. I'm going straight to her and tell her I know all. I'll make her cower in shame!" He's out on his horse with his reckless threat.

"Now you've sunk the ship," I says to Minna. "I knew the woman was leading a double life as fur as Homer was concerned, but I wasn't going to let on to the poor zany. It's time he was speared, and this would of been a judgment on him that his best friends would of relished keenly. Lots of us was looking forward to the tragedy with great pleasure. You spoiled a lot of fun for the valley."

"But it would not have been right," says Minna. "It would truly have been the blackest of tragedies to a man of Mr. Gale's sensitive fibres. You can't enter into his feelings because you never taught primary. Also, I think he is very far from being a poor zany, as you have chosen to call him." The poor thing was warm and valiant when she finished this, looking like Joan of Arc or someone just before the battle.

And Homer never went back and made the lady cower like he said he meant to. Mebbe it occurred to him on the way that she was not one of them that cower easy. Mebbe he felt he was dealing with a desperate adventuress, as cunning as she was false-hearted. Anyway, he weakened like so many folks that start off brave to tell someone so-and-so right to their faces. He didn't go back at all till the middle of the night, when he pussyfooted in and got his things out, and disappeared like he had stumbled down a well.

Uncle Henry had to feed his own stock next morning, while Mrs. Tolliver took on in great alarm and wanted a posse formed to rescue Homer from wherever he was. Her first idea was that he had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom; but someway she couldn't get any one else very hearty about this notion. So then she said he had been murdered, or was lying off in the brush somewhere with a broken leg.

It was pointed out to her that Homer wouldn't be likely to come and collect all his things in the night in order to keep a date with an assassin, or even to have his leg broke. About the third day she guessed pretty close to the awful truth and spoke a few calm words about putting her case in the hands of some good lawyer.

The valley was interested. It looked like a chance for the laugh of the year. It looked like the lightnings of a just heaven had struck where they was long overdue. Then it was discovered that Homer was hiding out over in the hills with a man after coyotes with traps and poison. His job must of appealed to Homer's cynical nature at that moment--anything with traps and poison in it.

Dave Pickens was the man that found him, he not having much else to do. And he let Homer know the worst he could think of without mincing words. He said the deserted fiancée was going to bring suit against Homer for one hundred thousand dollars--that being the biggest sum Dave could think of--for breach of promise, and Homer might as well come out and face the music.

Homer did come out, bold as brass. He'd been afraid the lady might gun him or act violent with something; but if she wasn't threatening anything but legal violence he didn't care. He just couldn't conceive that a lady with three children could make a suit like that stick against any man--especially three children that was known to be hellions. He didn't even believe the lady would start a suit--not with the facts of her shame known far and wide. He was jaunty and defiant about this, and come right out of hiding and agreed to work for me again, Scott Humphrey having sent his wife and children on a visit to Grandma Humphrey.

But, lands. He didn't earn his salt. Friends and well-wishers took the jauntiness all out of him in no time. Parties rode from far and near to put him wise. Ranchers from ten miles up and down the creek would drop important work just to ride over and tell him harsh facts about the law, and how, as man to man, it looked dark indeed for him. These parties told him that the possession of three children by a lawful widow was not regarded as criminal by our best courts. It wasn't even considered shameful. And it was further pointed out by many of the same comforters that the children would really be a help to the lady in her suit, cinching the sympathy of a jury.

Also, they didn't neglect to tell him that probably half the jury would be women--wives and mothers. And what chance would he have with women when they was told how he regarded children? He spent a good half of the time I paid him for in listening to these friendly words. They give Homer an entirely new slant on our boasted civilization and lowered it a whole lot in his esteem.

About the only person in the whole valley that wasn't laughing at him and giving him false sympathy with a sting in its tail was Minna Humphrey. Homer told her all about the foul conspiracy against his fortune, and how his life would be blasted by marrying into a family with three outcasts like he'd been told these was. And what was our courts coming to if their records could be stained by blackmailers.

And Minna give him the honest sympathy of a woman who had taught school twelve years, loathed the sight of any human under twenty, and even considered that the institution of marriage had been greatly overpraised. Certainly she felt it was not for her; and she could understand Homer's wanting to escape. She and him would set out and discuss his chances long after he had ought to of been in bed if he was going to earn his pay.

Minna admitted that things looked dark for him on account of the insane prejudice that would be against him for his views on children. She said he couldn't expect anything like a fair trial where these was known even with a jury of his peers; and it was quite true that probably only five or six of the jury would be his peers, the rest being women.

Homer told me about these talks--out of working hours, you can bet! How Minna was the only person round that would stand by anyone in trouble; how she loathed kids, and even loathed the thought of human marriage.

"Minna is a nice girl," I told him; "but I should think you'd learn not to pay attention to a woman that talks about children that way. Remember this other lady talked the same way about 'em before the scandal come out."

But he was indignant that any one could suspect Minna's child hating wasn't honest.

"That little girl is pure as a prism!" he says. "When she says she hates 'em, she hates 'em. The other depraved creature was only working on my better nature."

"Well," I says, "the case does look black; but mebbe you could settle for a mere five thousand dollars."

"It wouldn't be a mere five thousand dollars," says Homer; "it would be the savings of a lifetime of honest toil and watching the pennies. That's all I got."

"Serves you right, then," I says, "for not having got married years ago and having little ones of your own about your knee!"

Homer shuddered painfully when I said this. He started to answer something back, but just choked up and couldn't.

The adventuress had, of course, sent letters and messages to Homer. The early ones had been pleading, but the last one wasn't. It was more in the nature of a base threat if closely analyzed. Then she finished up her sewing at the Mortimers' and departed for Red Gap, leaving a final announcement to anybody it concerned that she would now find out if there was any law in the land to protect a defenseless woman in her sacred right to motherhood.

Homer shivered when he heard it and begun to think of making another get-away, like he had done from Idaho. He thought more about it when someone come back from town and said she was really consulting a lawyer.

He'd of gone, I guess, if Minna hadn't kept cheering him up with sympathy and hating children with him. Homer was one desperate man, but still he couldn't tear himself away from Minna.

Then one morning he gets a letter from the Red Gap lawyer. It says his client, Mrs. Judson Tolliver, has directed him to bring suit against Homer for five thousand dollars; and would Homer mebbe like to save the additional cost--which would be heavy, of course--by settling the matter out of court and avoiding pain for all?

Homer was in a state where he almost fell for this offer. It was that or facing a jury that would have it in for him, anyway, or disappearing like he had done in Idaho; only this lady was highly determined, and reports had already come to him that he would be watched and nailed if he tried to leave. It would mean being hounded from pillar to post, even if he did get away. He went down and put it up to Minna, as I heard later.

"I'm a desperate man," he says, "being hounded by this here catamount; and mebbe it's best to give in."

"It's outrageous!" says Minna. "Of course you don't care about the money; but it's the principle of the thing."

"Well, yes and no," says Homer. "You might say I care some about the money. That's plain nature, and I never denied I was human."

So they went on to discuss it back and forth warmly, when a misunderstanding arose that I was very careful to get the rights of a couple of weeks later.

Minna went over the old ground that Homer could never get a fair trial; then she brightened up all at once and says:

"Don't you pay it. Don't you do it; because you won't have to if you do what I say."

Homer gets excited and says:

"Yes, yes; go on!"

And Minna goes on.

"When people can't get fair trials in a place," she says, "they always take change of venues."

"Change of venues?" says Homer, kind of uneasy, it seemed.

"Certainly," says Minna: "they take change of venues. I've worked in Judge Ballard's office long enough to know that much. Why didn't I think of it before? It's your one chance to escape this creature's snare."

"Change of venues?" says Homer again, kind of aghast.

"It's your only way out," says Minna; "and I'll do everything I can--"

"You will?" says Homer.

"Why, of course!" says Minna. "Any thing--"

"All right, then," says Homer. "You get your things on, and I'll saddle your horse and bring him round."

"What for?" demands Minna.

"I'm a desperate man!" says Homer. "You say it's the only way out, and you know the law; so come along to Kulanche with me." And he beat if off to the barn.

Well, Minna had said she'd do anything she could, thinking she'd write herself to Judge Ballard and find out all the details; but if Homer wanted her to go to Kulanche with him and try to start the thing there--why, all right. She was ready when Homer come with her horse and off they rode on the twelve-mile trip.

I gather that not much was said on the way by Homer who only muttered like a fever patient from time to time, with Minna saying once in a while how glad she was she had thought up this one sure way out of his trouble.

At Kulanche they rode up in front of Old Man Geiger's office, who is justice of the peace.

"Wait here a minute," says Homer, and went inside. Pretty soon he come out and got her. "Come on, now," he says, "I got it all fixed."

And Minna goes in, thinking mebbe she's got to swear to an affidavit or something that Homer couldn't get a fair trial among people knowing he regarded little ones as so many cockroaches or something to step on.

She got some shock when Homer took her inside and held her tight by the wrist while Old Man Geiger married 'em. That's about the way it was. She says she was so weak she could hardly stand up, and she hadn't hardly any voice at all left. But she kept on saying "Why, Homer!" and "Oh, Homer!" and "No, no, Homer!" as soon as she discovered that she had been dragged off to a fate she had always regarded as worse than death; but a lot of good it done her to say them things in a voice not much better than a whisper.

And the dreadful thing was over before she could get strength to say anything more powerful. There she was, married to a man she thought highly of, it's true, and had a great sympathy for in the foul wrong one of her sex had tried to slip over on him; but a man she had never thought of marrying. I'm telling you what she told me. And after sentence had been pronounced she kept on saying "Why, Homer!" and "Oh, Homer!" and "No, no, Homer!" till there was nothing to do but get some clothes out of her trunk that she'd left down there in time to take the narrow gauge for their wedding tour to Spokane.

The news spread over the valley next day like a brush fire in August. It was startling! Like the newspapers say of a suicide, "No cause could be assigned for the rash act." They was away ten days and come back to find the whole country was again giving Homer the laugh because Mrs. Tolliver had up and married a prosperous widower from over in Surprise Valley, and had never brought any suit against him. It was said that even the late Mrs. Tolliver was laughing heartily at him.

Homer didn't seem to care, and Minna certainly didn't. She was the old-fashioned kind of wife, a kind you don't hear much of nowadays; the kind that regards her husband as perfect, and looks up to him. She told me about the tumultuous wedding. Neither of 'em had had time for any talk till they got on the train. Then it come out. She says why ever did Homer do such a monstrous thing? And Homer says:

"Well, you told me a change of Venus was the only way out for me--"

"I said a change of venue," says Minna.

"It sounded like change of Venus," says Homer, "and I knew Venus was the god of love. And you said you was willing and I knew we was congenial, and I was a desperate man; and so here we are!"

So she cried on his shoulder for twenty miles while he ate a box of figs.

Homer is now a solid citizen, with his money put into a place down at the lower end of the valley, instead of lying in the bank at the mercy of some unscrupulous woman with little ones. And here this summer, with his own work light, he's been helping me out as riding boss; or, at least I been lavishing money on him for that.

A fine, dependable hand, too! Here was this bunch of stock to be got in from Madeline--them Bolshevik ain't gathered more'n two thirds of 'em; and there's more to come in from over Horse Fly Mountain way, and still another bunch from out of the Sheep Creek country--the busiest month in a bad year, when I needed every man, woman, and child to be had, and here comes Homer, the mush-head, taking two days off!

"Yes'm, Mis' Pettengill; I just got to take time off to go down to Red Gap. It's a matter of life and death. Yes'm; it is. No'm; I wouldn't dast send any one, and Minna agrees I'm the only one to go--" Shucks!

The lady built a cigarette and, after lighting it, turned back to scan the mesa we had descended. The cattle now crowded down the narrow way into the valley, their dust mounting in a high, slow cloud.

"Call yourself a cowman, do you?" she demanded of the absent Homer. "Huh!" Then we rode on.

"What was the matter of life and death?" I asked.

Ma Pettengill expelled cigarette smoke venomously from inflated nostrils like a tired dragon.

"The matter of life and death was that he had to get two teething rings for the twins."

"Twins!"

"Oh, the valley got it's final laugh at Homer! Twins, sure! Most of us laughed heartily, though there was mothers that said it was God's judgment on the couple. Of course Homer and Minna ain't took it that way. They took it more like they had been selected out of the whole world as a couple worthy to have a blessed miracle happen to 'em. There might of been single babies born now and then to common folks, but never a case of twins--and twins like these! Marvels of strength and beauty, having to be guarded day and night against colic and kidnappers.

"They had 'em down to the post office at Kulanche the other day showing 'em off, each one in a red shawl; and sneering at people with only one. And this imbecile Homer says to me:

"'Of course it can't be hoped,' he says, 'that this great world war will last that long; but if it could last till these boys was in shape to fight I bet it wouldn't last much after that. Yes, sir; little Roosevelt and Pershing would soon put an end to that scrap!'

"And now they're teething and got to have rubber rings. And no, he couldn't send any one down for 'em; and he couldn't order 'em by mail either, because they got to be just the right kind.

"'Poor little Pershing is right feverish with his gums,' says Homer, 'but little Roosevelt has got a front one through already. He bit my thumb yesterday with it--darned near to the bone. He did so!'

"Calls himself a cowman, does he? He might of been--once. Now he ain't no more than a woman's home companion!"

VIII

CAN HAPPEN!

Lew Wee, prized Chinese chef of the Arrowhead Ranch, had butchered, cooked, and served two young roosters for the evening meal with a finesse that cried for tribute. As he replaced the evening lamp on the cleared table in the big living room he listened to my fulsome praise of his artistry as Marshal Foch might hear me say that I considered him a rather good strategist. Lew Wee heard but gave no sign, as one set above the petty adulation of compelled worshipers. Yet I knew his secret soul made festival of my words and would have been hurt by their withholding. This is his way. Not the least furtive lightening of his subtle eyes hinted that I had pleased him.

He presently withdrew to his tiny room off the kitchen, where, as was his evening custom for half an hour, he coaxed an amazing number of squealing or whining notes from his two-stringed fiddle. I pictured him as he played. He would be seated in his wicker armchair beside a little table on which a lamp glowed, the room tightly closed, window down, door shut, a fast-burning brown-paper cigarette to make the atmosphere more noxious. After many more of the cigarettes had made it all but impossible, Lew Wee, with the lamp brightly burning, as it would burn the night through--for devils of an injurious sort and in great numbers will fearlessly enter a dark room--he would lie down to refreshing sleep. That fantasy of ventilation! Lew Wee always sleeps in an air-tight room packed with cigarette smoke, and a lamp turned high at his couchside; and Lew Wee is hardy.

He played over and over now a plaintive little air of minors that put a gentle appeal through two closed doors. It is one he plays a great deal. He has told me its meaning. He says--speaking with a not unpleasant condescension--that this little tune will mean: "Life comes like a bird-song through the open windows of the heart." It sounds quite like that and is a very satisfying little song, with no beginning or end.

He played it now, over and over, wanderingly and at leisure, and I pictured his rapt face above the whining fiddle; the face, say, of the Philosopher Mang, sage of the second degree and disciple of Confucius, who was lifted from earth by the gods in a time we call B.C. but which was then thought to be a fresh, new, late time; the face of subtle eyes and guarded dignity. And I wondered, as I had often wondered, whether Lew Wee, lone alien in the abiding place of mad folks, did not suffer a vast homesickness for his sane kith, who do not misspend their days building up certain grotesque animals to slaughter them for a dubious food. True, he had the compensation of believing invincibly that the Arrowhead Ranch and all its concerns lay upon his own slightly bowed shoulders; that the thing would fast crumble upon his severance from it. But I questioned whether this were adequate. I felt him to be a man of sorrow if not of tragedy. Vaguely he reached me as one who had survived some colossal buffeting.

As I mused upon this Ma Pettengill sorted the evening mail and to Lew Wee she now took his San Francisco newspaper, _Young China,_ and a letter. Half an hour later Lew Wee brought wood to replenish the fire. He disposed of this and absently brushed the hearth with a turkey wing. Then he straightened the rug, crossed the room, and straightened on the farther wall a framed portrait in colour of Majestic Folly, a prize bull of the Hereford strain. Then he drew a curtain, flicked dust from a corner of the table, and made a slow way to the kitchen door, pausing to alter slightly the angle of a chair against the wall.

Ma Pettengill, at the table, was far in the Red Gap _Recorder_ for the previous day. I was unoccupied and I watched Lew Wee. He was doing something human; he was lingering for a purpose. He straightened another chair and wiped dust from the gilt frame of another picture, Architect's Drawing of the Pettengill Block, Corner Fourth and Main streets, Red Gap, Washington. From this feat he went softly to the kitchen door, where he looked back; hung waiting in the silence. He had made no sound, yet he had conveyed to his employer a wish for speech. She looked up at him from the lamp's glow, chin down, brows raised, and eyes inquiring of him over shining nose glasses.

"My Uncle's store, Hankow, burn' down," said Lew Wee.

"Why, wasn't that too bad!" said Ma Pettengill.

"Can happen!" said Lew Wee positively.

"Too bad!" said Ma Pettengill again.

"I send him nine hundred dollars your money. Money burn, too," said Lew Wee.

"Now, now! Well, that certainly is too bad! What a shame!"

"Can happen!" affirmed Lew Wee.

It was colourless. He was not treating his loss lightly nor yet was he bewailing it.

"You put your money in the bank next time," warned his employer sharply, "instead of letting it lie round in some flimsy Chinee junk shop. They're always burning."

Lew Wee regarded her with a stilled face.

"Can happen!" he again murmured.

He was the least bit insistent, as if she could not yet have heard this utterly sufficing truth. Then he was out; and a moment later the two-stringed fiddle whined a little song through two closed doors.

I said something acute and original about the ingrained fatalism of the Oriental races.

Ma Pettengill laid down her paper, put aside her glasses, and said, yes, Chinee one fatal race; feeling fatal thataway was what made 'em such good help. Because why? Because, going to work at such-and-such a place, this here fatal feeling made 'em think one place was no worse than another; so why not stick here? If other races felt as fatal as the Chinee race it would make a grand difference in the help problem. She'd bet a million dollars right now that a lot of people wished the Swedes and Irish had fatal feelings like that.

I said Lew Wee had the look of one ever expecting the worst; even more than the average of his race.

"It ain't that," said my hostess. "He don't expect anything at all; or mebbe everything. He takes what comes. If it's good or bad, he says, 'Can happen!' in the same tone of voice; and that ends it. There he is now, knowing that all this good money he saved by hard labour has gone up in smoke, and paying the loss no more attention that if he'd merely broke a string on that squeaky long-necked contraption he saws."

"He seems careless enough with his money, certainly."

"Sure, because he don't believe it does the least good to be careful."

From a cloth sack the speaker poured tobacco into a longitudinally creased brown paper and adeptly fashioned something in the nature of a cigarette.

"Ain't I been telling him for a year to buy Liberty Bonds with his money? He did buy two, being very pro-American on account of once having a violent difference with a German; and he's impressed with the button the Government lets him wear for it. He feels like the President has made him a mandarin or something; but if the whole Government went flooey to-morrow he'd just say, 'Can happen!' and pick up his funny fiddle. Of course it ain't human, but it helps to keep help. I had him six years now, and the only thing that can't happen is his leaving. I don't say there wasn't reasons why he first took the place."

Reasons? So there had been reasons in the life of Lew Wee. I had suspected as much. I found something guarded and timid and long-suffering in his demeanour. He bore, I thought, the searing memory of an ordeal.

"Reasons!" I said, waiting.

"Reasons for coming this far in the first place. Wanted to save his life. I don't know why, with that fatal idea he sticks to. Habit, probably. Anyway, he had trouble saving it--kind of a feverish week."

She lighted the cigarette and chuckled hoarsely between the first relishing whiffs of it.

"Yes, sir; that poor boy believes the country between here and the coast is inhabited by savages; wild hill tribes that try to exterminate peaceful travellers; a low kind of outlaws that can't understand a word you tell 'em and act violent if you try to say it over. And having got here, past the demons, I figure he's afraid to go back. I don't blame him."

Ordinarily, this would have been enough. Now the lady merely smoked and chuckled. When I again uttered "Well?" with a tinge of rebuke, she came down from her musing, but into another and distant field. It was the field of natural history, of zoology, of vertebrates, mammals, furred quadrupeds--or, in short, skunks. One may as well be blunt in this matter.

Ma Pettengill said the skunk got too little credit for its lovely character, it being the friendliest wild animal known to man and never offensive except when put upon. Wasn't we all offensive at those times? And just because the skunk happened to be superbly gifted in this respect, was that any reason to ostracize him?

"I ain't sayin' I'd like to mix with one when he's vexed," continued the lady judicially; "but why vex 'em? They never look for trouble; then why force it on their notice? Take one summer, years ago, when Lysander John and I had a camp up above Dry Forks. My lands! Every night after supper the prettiest gang of skunks would frolic down off the hillside and romp round us. Here would come Pa and Ma in the lead, and mebbe a couple of aunts and uncles and four or five of the cunningest little ones, and they'd all snoop fearlessly round the cook fire and the grub boxes, picking up scraps of food--right round under my feet, mind you--and looking up now and then and saying, 'Thank you!' plain as anything, and what lovely weather we're having, and why don't you come up and see us some time?--and so on. They kept it up for a month while we was there; and I couldn't want neater, nicer neighbours.

"Lysander John, he used to get some nervous, especially after one chased him back into the tent late one night; but it was only wanting to play like a mere puppy, I tells him. He'd heard a noise and rushed out, and there the little thing was kind of waltzing in the moonlight, whirling round and round and having a splendid time. When it came bounding toward him--I guess that was the only time in his life Lysander John was scared helpless. He busted back into the tent a mere palsied wreck of his former self; but the cute little minx just come up and sniffed at the flap in a friendly way, like it wanted to reassure him. I wanted him to go out and play with it in the moonlight. He wouldn't. I liked 'em round the place, they was so neighbourly and calm. Of course if I'd ever stepped on one, or acted sudden--

"They also tame easy and make affectionate pets. Ralph Waldo Gusted, over on Elkhorn, that traps 'em in winter to make First-Quality Labrador Sealskin cloaks--his children got two in the house they play with like kittens; and he says himself the skunk has been talked about in a loose and unthinking way. He says a pet skunk is not only a fine mouser but leads a far more righteous life than a cat, which is given to debauchery and cursing in the night. Yes, sir; they're the most trusting and friendly critters in all the woods if not imposed upon--after that, to be sure!"

I said yes, yes, and undoubtedly, and all very interesting, and well and good in its place; but, really, was this its place? I wanted Lew Wee's reasons for believing in the existence of savage hill tribes between there and San Francisco.

"Yes; and San Francisco is worse," said the lady. "He believes that city to be ready for mob violence at any moment. Wild crowds get together and yell and surge round on the least provocation. He says it's different in China, the people there not being crazy."

"Well, then, we can get on with this mystery."

So Ma Pettengill said we could; and we did indeed.

This here chink seems to of been a carefree child up to the time the civilized world went crazy with a version for him. He was a good cook and had a good job at a swell country club down the peninsula from San Francisco. The hours was easy and he was close enough to the city to get in once or twice a week and mingle with his kind. He could pass an evening with the older set, playing fan-tan and electing a new president of the Chinee race, or go to the Chinee theatre and set in a box and chew sugar cane; or he could have a nice time at the clubrooms of the Young China Progressive Association, playing poker for money. Once in a while he'd mix in a tong war, he being well thought of as a hatchet man--only they don't use hatchets, but automatics; in fact, all Nature seemed to smile on him.

Well, right near this country club one of his six hundred thousand cousins worked as gardener for a man, and this man kept many beautiful chickens--so Lew Wee says. And he says a strange and wicked night animal crept into the home of these beautiful birds and slew about a dozen of 'em by biting 'em under their wings. The man told his cousin that the wicked night animal must be a skunk and that his cousin should catch him in a trap. So the cousin told Lew Wee that the wicked night animal was a skunk and that he was going to catch him in a trap. Lew Wee thought it was interesting.

He went up to the city and in the course of a pleasant evening at fan-tan he told about the slain chickens that were so beautiful, and how the night animal that done it would be caught in a trap. A great friend of Lew Wee's was present, a wonderful doctor. Lew Wee still says he is the most wonderful doctor in the world, knowing things about medicines that the white doctors can't ever find out, these being things that the Chinee doctors found out over fifteen thousand years ago, and therefore true. The doctor's name was Doctor Hong Foy, and he was a rich doctor. And he says to Lew Wee that he needs a skunk for medicine, and if any one will bring him a live skunk in good condition he will pay twenty-five dollars in American money for same.

Lew Wee says he won't be needing that skunk much longer--or words to that effect--because he will get this one from the trap. Doctor Hong Foy is much pleased and says the twenty-five American dollars is eager to become Lew Wee's for this animal, alive and in good condition.

Lew Wee goes back, and the next day his cousin says he set a trap and the night skunk entered it, but he was strong like a lion and had busted out and bit some more chickens under the wing, and then went away from there. He showed Lew Wee the trap and Lew Wee seen it wasn't the right kind, but he knows how to make the right kind and will do so if the skunk can become entirely his property when caught.

The cousin, without the least argument, agreed heartily to this. He was honest enough. He explained carefully that the skunk was wished to be caught to keep it from biting chickens under the wing, causing them to die, and not for any value whatever it might have to the person catching it. He says it will be beneficial to catch the skunk, but not to keep it; that a skunk is not nice after being caught, and Lew Wee is more than welcome to it if he will make a right trap. The cousin himself was probably one of these fatal "Can happen!" boys. When Lew Wee says he must have the skunk alive and in good condition he just looked at him in a distant manner that Lew Wee afterward remembered; but he only said: "Oh, very well!" in his native language.

Lew Wee then found a small peaked-roofed chicken coop, with stout slats on it, and made a figure-four trap, and put something for bait on the pointed stick and set the trap, and begun right off to squander twenty-five dollars that was to come as easy as picking it up in the road.

There wasn't any breakfast trade at the country club and Lew Wee was able to get over across the golf links to the chicken place early the next morning. The cousin was some distance from the chicken place, hoeing a bed of artichokes, but he told Lew Wee his trap had been a very wonderful trap and the night animal was safe caught. Lew Wee was surprised at his cousin's indifference and thought he should of been over there looking at the prize. But not so. The cousin was keeping some distance off. He just told Lew Wee that there was his animal and that he should take it away with as little disturbance as possible, which would be better far and near for all concerned. He was strangely cool about it.

But Lew Wee was full of pleasant excitement and run swiftly to his trap. Sure enough! There was a nice big beautiful skunk in his trap. Lew Wee had never seen one. He said it was more beautiful than a golden pheasant, with rich, shiny black fur and a lovely white stripe starting from its face and running straight down on each side of its back; and it had a wonderful waving tail, like a plume. He looked at it joyfully through the slats. It was setting down comfortably when he come up; so he spoke to it in a friendly way. Then it got up and yawned and stretched itself, looking entirely self-possessed, but kind of bored, I suppose, like this was a poor sort of practical joke to play on a gentleman; so now would someone kindly lift this box off him?

The proud owner danced about it in great glee and told it how the nice doctor wouldn't hurt it any, but would give it a good home, with chicken for supper, mebbe, and so on. Then he went back to his cousin and give him a pack of cigarettes, out of his overflowing heart, and asked where was something he could put his wild animal in and take it to town to his great friend Doctor Hong Foy, who had a desire for it.

The cousin took the cigarettes, but he looked at Lew Wee a long time, like he didn't understand Chinee at all. Lew Wee said it all over again. He wanted something to take the wild animal to town in, because the chicken coop it was now in hadn't any bottom; and was too big, anyway.

The cousin again looked at him a long time, like one in a trance. Then, without any silly talk, he went over to the barn and handed Lew Wee a bran sack.

Lew Wee said that was just the thing; and would the cousin come over and help him in case the animal would be timid and not want to go in the sack? The cousin said he would not. And he didn't go back to the artichokes. He went to a bed of cauliflower clear at the other end of the garden, after giving Lew Wee another of them long "Can happen!" looks, which signify that we live in a strange and terrible world.

Lew Wee went back alone to his prize, finding it still calm, like a gentleman in his club. He reassured it with some more cheerful words. He had a thought right then, he says; kind of a sudden fear. He had been told the first day by his cousin, and also by his great friend Doctor Hong Foy, that the skunk gave out a strong scent disagreeable to many people. But this one he'd caught didn't have any scent of any kind. So mebbe that meant it wasn't in good condition and Doctor Hong Foy wouldn't wish it for twenty-five dollars. However, it was sure a skunk, and looked strong and healthy and worth taking in to the doctor, who could then tell about its condition.

Lew Wee opened the neck of the bag, laid it on the ground close by him, got down on his knees, and carefully raised one side of the coop. The wild animal looked more beautiful than ever; and it didn't seem alarmed, but just the tiniest mite suspicious. It must of looked like it was saying it was entirely willing to be friendly, but you couldn't ever tell about these Chinamen. Lew Wee reached a hand slowly over toward it and it moved against the back of the coop, very watchful. Then Lew Wee made a quick grab and caught the back of its neck neatly.

Of course this showed at once that a Chinaman wasn't to be trusted, and Lew Wee says it put up a fierce fight, being so quick and muscular as to surprise him. He was fully engaged for at least thirty seconds; the animal clawed and squirmed and twisted, and it bit in the clinches and almost got away. He was breathing hard when he finally got his wild animal into the sack and the neck tied.

He says he didn't actually realize until then, what with all the excitement, that something had gone kind of wrong. He was not only breathing hard but it was hard breathing. He says he felt awful good at that moment. He had been afraid his animal might not be in good condition, but it undoubtedly was. He thought right off that if one in just ordinary good condition was worth twenty-five dollars to Doctor Hong Foy, then this one might be worth as much as thirty-five, or even forty. He thought it must be the best wild animal of that kind in the world.

So he picked up the sack, with his prize squirming and swearing inside, and threw it over his shoulder and started back to the country club. He stopped a minute to thank his cousin once more; but his cousin seen him coming and run swiftly off in a strange manner, as if not wishing to be thanked again. Then Lew Wee went on across a field and over the golf links. His idea was to take the little animal to his room in the clubhouse and keep it there until night, when he could take it into town and get all that money for it. He was quite happy and wished he hadn't scared the poor thing so.

He thought when he got to his room he might let it out of the sack to play round there in freedom during the day. He spent the twenty-five dollars for different things on the way over the golf links. He told me he knew perfectly well that his pet would be likely to attract notice; but he didn't realize how much. A Chinese is a wonder. He can very soon get used to anything.

But Lew Wee never did get to his room again. When he got up near the clubhouse some fine people were getting out of a shiny purple motor car as big as a palace, and they had golf sticks in bags. One of 'em was a big red-faced man with a fierce gray moustache, and this man begun to yell at Lew Wee in a remarkable manner. The words being in a foreign language, he couldn't make 'em out well, but the sense of it was that the big man wanted him to go away from there. Lew Wee knew he wasn't working for this man, who was only a club member; so he paid no attention to him beyond waving his hand friendly, and went on round toward the back entrance.

Then out of the side entrance come the chief steward, also yelling, and this was the man he was working for; so he stopped to listen. It wasn't for long. He lost a good job as cook in no time at all. Of course that never bothers a Chinee any; but when he started in to get his things from his room the steward picked up a golf club with an iron end and threatened to hurt him, and some of the kitchen help run round from the back with knives flashing, and the big red-faced man was yelling to the steward to send for a policeman, and some ladies that had got out of another big car had run halfway across the golf links, as if pursued by something, and more people from the inside come to the door and yelled at him and made motions he should go away; so he thought he better not try to get his things just then. He couldn't see why all the turmoil, even if he had got something in prime condition for his friend Doctor Hong Foy.

It was noticeable, he thought; but nothing to make all this fuss about, especially if the fools would just let him get it to his own room, where it could become quiet again, like when he had first seen it in the trap. But he saw they wasn't going to let him, and the big man had gone in the front way and was now shaking both fists at him through a side window that was closed; so he thought, all right, he'd leave 'em flat, without a cook--and a golf tournament was on that day, too! He was twenty-five dollars to the good and he could easy get another job.

So he waved good-bye to all of 'em and went down the road half a mile to the car line. He was building air castles by that time. He says it occurred to him that Doctor Hong Foy might like many of these wild animals, at twenty-five dollars each; and he might take up the work steady. It was exciting and sporty, and would make him suddenly rich. Mebbe it wasn't as pleasant work as his cousin did, spending his time round gardens and greenhouses; but it was more adventurous. He really liked it, and he would get even more used to it in time so he wouldn't hardly notice it at all. As he stood there waiting for a trolley car he must of thought up a whole headful of things he'd buy with all these sudden emoluments. Several motor cars passed while he waited and he noticed that folks in 'em all turned to look at him in an excited way. But he knew all Americans was crazy and liable to be mad about something.