Chapter XVI: Red Plays Trumps (4)

I had it hot on my tongue to tell her I was angry plenty, but it crossed my mind how that would play into Belknap's hand, whatever scheme he was working, for Mary wouldn't stand too much from anybody; so, with an unaccountable rush of sense to the brain, I said:

"Not angry, Mary, but jarred, to see you go back on a friend."

"Will, you don't understand! It is not I who have gone back--who have been unfriendly to Mr. Saxton, it is he who has put it out of my power to be his friend--I can't even tell you--you must believe me."

"Did _he_ tell _you_ this?" I asked her.

"No," she said.

"Well, until he does, I'd as soon believe Arthur as Mr. Belknap."

"Mr. Belknap! How did you know--why, what do you mean, Will?"

"I mean that I don't like Belknap a little bit," said I most unwisely. "And I do like you and Saxton."

"You don't know Mr. Belknap, and you are very unreasonable," she said, getting warm.

"Unreasonable enough to be afire all over at the thought of any one cheating you, Mary--will you excuse that?"

I held out my hand, but she gave me a hug. "I'm not going to pretend to be angry at you, for I can't," she said. "'You do not love me--no? So kiss me good-by, and go!' One minute, Will, may I speak to you as if you really were my brother?"

"I should say you could."

"Well, then, will you promise me that in this place you will do nothing, nor go anywhere with Arth--with any one that would make me ashamed to treat you as I do? Will you keep yourself the same sweet, true-hearted boy I have known, for your mother's sake, and for my sake?"

Her eyes had filled with tears. I'd have promised to sit quietly on a ton of dynamite until it went off--and kept my word at that.

"I promise, Mary," says I.

"Will, boy, I love you," she said, "and I love you because there's nothing silly in that honest red head of yours to misunderstand me. I want to be your dear sister--and to think that you might, too--" She broke off, and the tears overflowed.

Looking at her, a hard suspicion of Saxton jolted me. I didn't know a great deal of the crooked side, but, of course, I had a glimmer, and it struck me that if he had been cutting up bad, when he pretended to care for this girl, he needed killing.

"Tell me, Mary," I asked her, "has Arthur--"

"Hush, Will--I can tell you nothing. You must see with your own eyes. And here's a kiss for your promise--which will be kept! And to-morrow at three you're to be here again."

And off I goes up the road sitting very straight, and I tell you, if it hadn't been for the mean suspicion of Saxton, what with the mouse-colored horse waving his cream mane and tail, my new steeple hat, the sash with a gun and machete in it, the spurs jingling, the memory of having chased a fierce road-agent to a finish, and the kiss of the most beautiful woman in the world on my lips, I'd been a medium well-feeling sort of boy. I guess my anxiety about Saxton didn't quite succeed in drowning the other, neither. You can't expect too much of scant eighteen.

X

"YOUR LIFE, IF YOU HURT HIM!"

I hadn't thought to ask what Saxton was at in a business way. I didn't know where to find him; there was no use in going back, so I rode at random through the streets.

As I swung into a dark alley I came upon a fierce and quiet little fight. Two men set upon a third, who had his back against the wall. The knives flashed, they ducked, parried, got away, cut and come again with a quickness and a savageness that lifted my hair. Jeeminy! There was spirit in that row! And not a sound except the soft sliding of feet and the noise of blows. They'd all been touched, too; red showed here and there on them, as well as on the stones.

While I looked the one man slipped and came down on his back, striking his head and his right elbow, the knife flying out of his hand.

I breathed quicker--some fights make you feel warlike--and when I see the other two dive right at the man, down and helpless, I broke the silence and the peace at one and the same instant. The mouse-colored horse butted a lad sailing down the alley. I grabbed the other up on the saddle and cuffed him with all my heart.

"You dirty Mut!" says I. "Two of you on one man! Have something with me," and I slapped his black face to a blister. He tried to get at me with the knife, but a pinch on the neck loosened his grip.

The feller the little horse rammed got on his feet, looking like he was going to return for a minute; it was me against the two. I crowded my victim down against the saddle with my left hand--Lord! how he squawked!--and drew my gun with the right. "Take either way that suits you," says I. The bucko didn't sabe English, maybe, but a forty-four gun is easy translated in any language. He chose the other end of the alley.

The feller that fell got on his feet. He was a good-looking chap, in spite of a big scar across his face and the careless way his white clothes were daubed with red.

"_Mushisimas gracias_, Senor," says he, "_me alegro mucho de ver a usted_."

"Don't mention it," says I. "I understand a little Spanish, but I speak English. I wouldn't have cut in if they hadn't played it crooked on you--here's your boy, not damaged much, if you want to have it out."

"I spike Anglish veree splendidlee," says he, "I th-thank ju. Eef you weel so kindly han' me dthat man, I keel heem."

"Holy Christmas!" says I--he asked as cool as he would a light for his cigar--"What do you mean? Just _stick_ him?"

"_Certamente_," says he, "he ees no good."

I chucked my victim as far as I could throw him. "Run, you fool!" I says, and he scuttled out of that like a jack-rabbit.

He was gone before my friend could start after him. I got the full blast of the disappointment.

"I do not quite understand, Senor," says he, with his hand on his knife.

"Hold!" says I, "you've no call to jump me--I can't stand for a man being slit in cold blood--no offense meant."

"I forget your service," says he. "Pardon--here ees my han'." We shook hands. "But you have made the foolish thing," he says. "There ees a man who ees to be keeled dead, and you let heem go--that ees more foolish as to let the Fer-de-lance free."

"Well, I know," says I, "I suppose you're right, but my ideas ain't quite foreign enough yet."

He smiled. "Your largeness made me mistake," says he. "I see you are a gentleman not of so many years, but of the heart strong and the arm stronger--you play with that man--chuckee--chuckee--chuckee--like hees mother. Eet was lovelee. May I ask the name?"

"William De La Tour Saunders," says I, "commonly called Bill."

"Ah, Beel!" says he, "I r-r-remember. Here is Antonio Orinez--your frien' when you wish."

"Well, Mr. Orinez," says I, "hadn't we better be walking along? You're bleeding pretty free."

"_Ta!_" says he, shrugging his shoulders. "I am used to eet--still, I go. Thees ees not a healthy land for me."

"What was the row about?" I asked, my kid curiosity coming up.

"I cannot tell even my best frien'," he answers, smiling so pleasant there was no injury. "_Quiere poqnito de aguardiente?_"

"No," I says, "I'm not drinking at present--it's a promise I made." (Oh, the vanity of a boy!) "But I'll trot along with you."

He shook his head. "Do not," he says, "believe me, I have reason--can I do you any service, now?"

I was a little anxious to get on my own business. The lull from the fight had come in the shape of a seasick feeling.

"Do you know a man by the name of Saxton?" I inquired.

He gave me a quick look--a friendly look, "Arthur Saxton--tall--grande--play the violeen like the davil?"

"That's him."

"Around that corner, not far, on thees side," waving his left hand, "you see the name--eet ees a es-store for food."

I was surprised enough to find that Sax had opened a grocery store.

"Thanks," says I, and swung in the saddle.

Orinez raised a hand, playful.

"Geeve me some other ho-r-r-r-se!" says he. "Bin' opp my wounds!" he laughed. "By-by, Beel, r-remember me, as I shall remember ju!"

"Good-by, Mr. Orinez," says I. He called after me, "Eef you need a frien', there is Orinez!"

"Same to you, old man!" I says, and swings around the corner.

Saxton was working outside the store, overseeing the unloading of some wagons. It was a large store, with a big stock, and Sax was busy as a hound-pup at a rabbit-hole. I rubbed my eyes. Somehow the last thing I expected to see Sax was a storekeeper. I slipped up and put my hands on his shoulders to surprise him. It surprised him all right. I felt the muscles jump under the coat, although he stood still enough, and he whirled on me with an ugly look in his eye.

I think, perhaps, of all the unpleasant positions a man can get himself into, that of a playful friendly fit gone wrong will bring the sweat out the quickest--you do feel such a fool!

"Beg your pardon, Arthur," says I, fairly cool, as really I hadn't done anything for him to get so wrathy about.

But he got the best of himself at once, and the old, kind smile came, taking out the lines that changed his face so.

"What are you talking about?" says he, playful in his turn--forced playful, painful to see. He gave me a slap on the back and I let her flicker at that--always willing to take a friend's intentions rather than the results. I never went into friendship as a money-making business.

"I thought I startled you," I said. He laughed loud, so loud that I looked at him and backed away a little. "Startled me!" he says. "What nonsense! When did you come in? How do you like your job? Going to stay long?"

He fired these questions at me as fast as he could talk. I, dumb-struck, answered somehow, while I felt around for something to think with.

He was here and there and all over, doing everything with the same fever-hurry. Popping a string of questions at me and away before I could answer the half of them, as if he couldn't hold his mind to one thing more than a minute--and this was Arthur Saxton!

Part of my mind talked to him, part wrastled with Mary's hints and the other part kept up a wondering why and what, for I felt for that man a whole-hearted kid's worship.

A sack of flour fell from the wagon and split. Instantly Sax broke out into a fit of cursing. I never heard anything like it. He cursed the flour, the man that dropped it, Panama, the business, and everything above and below, his eyes two balls of wild-fire.

The man jumped back scared. Sax's jaws worked hard; he got back an outside appearance of humanity.

"This heat makes me irritable, Bill," he said. "Besides, there's lots of annoyance in a new business."

"Sure," says I. I saw the flour sack was only an excuse--a little hole to let out the strain. A person's wits will outfoot his judgment sometimes. I had no experience to guide me, yet I knew Saxton needed humoring.

I've heard people say that things--like liquor, for instance--couldn't get the best of such and such a man, because he was strong-willed. What kind of argument is that? Suppose he _wants_ to drink. Ain't his strong will going to make him drink just that much harder, and be that much harder to turn back, than a man with a putty spine? The only backbone some men has is what their neighbors think. Them you can handle. But the man that rules himself generally finds it quite different from being the lady boss of an old woman's home. Just because he's fit to rule, he'll rebel, and he'll scrap with himself till they put a stone up, marking the place of a drawn battle. But the neighbors won't know it. They'll envy him the dead easy time he had, or get mad when he does something foolish--loses one heat out of many that the neighbors didn't even dare to run--and gossip over him. "Who'd think a man that's lived as good a life as Mr. Smith would," and so forth. But you can't blame the neighbors neither. Most people reasonably prefer peace to war, and with a man like Sax it's war most of the time. You have to care a heap to stay with him.

Well, he was in a bad way for sure. He talked fast--often not finishing what he had to say. He laughed a great deal, too, and when the laugh passed and the dreary look came on his face again, it was enough to make you shiver.

Presently a nice little man came up--a Spaniard and a gentleman.

From the time I took hold of his hand I felt more cheerful. You knew by his eye he understood things.

Sax introduced him as an old friend and as his partner in the business. "Perez puts up the money and the experience," says he, "and I put up a bold front."

"After I've begged you not to speak in that way?" says Perez, smiling, but reproachful.

"I'm not sailing under false colors," says Sax, sharp. "You've made an asylum for an empty head--you'll have to listen to it."

Perez dropped the subject at once.

The Spaniard turned to me and asked me most courteously about my aims in the country. We were talking along when Saxton interrupted us. "We'll never get enough to drink this way," says he; "come into the office."

We went back into the little room where they entertained the big customers. Saxton called a boy and ordered brandy. When it came he grabbed the bottle feverishly. As he did so, Perez glanced at me. We understood each other.

Sax couldn't drink until we joined him--habit again--how she pulls! He wanted that drink. It was the one thing he did want in the world, yet there he waited while we fooled away as much time as we could.

"Well, here's regards!" he said at last, and his lower jaw trembled with eagerness. Perez drank and I made the motions.

"That's the stuff!" says Sax, with a cheap swagger that knocked me harder than anything I'd seen so far. "The good old truck that you Spaniards mollify under the name of aguardiente is the solution of all problems, Perez."

"_Si, si_, Senor?" says Perez. "It is a great solvent." He stirred the red sugar in the bottom of his glass. "I have seen it dissolve many a good manhood--like that."

"None of your friends, I hope?" sneers Sax.

"I hope not."

Saxton looked at him a minute; a hundred different fits showed in his eye, but the hurry of his mind let none stay long enough for action.

The shadow settled on him again. I never in my life saw more misery in a human face, and to save me I couldn't tell you where the expression came from, because the man kept his muscles in an iron grip. There wasn't a droop of the mouth, nor a line in the forehead, nor a twitch of the eye--it was just powerful enough to make itself felt, without signs.

He came back again with a snap.

"Why, you're not drinking, Bill!" says he, noticing my glass. It was not Arthur Saxton, to urge a boy to drink.

"No," I says, easy, "I'm not used to tropical beverages--I expect to find it full of red peppers. Lord, what a dose I got in my first _chile con carne_--"

He cut into my attempt at a diversion.

"Why don't you drink?" he asked.

"Because I promised Mary not to."

The mention of the name was too much. He took a quick breath.

"Oh, I wouldn't mind that," he says, light enough on the outside, but beginning to heat up inside again.

"I mind my word," I answered.

Perez looked quickly across at me and smiled.

"She makes mistakes like the rest of us," says Saxton.

"She makes mistakes," says I, "but _not_ like the rest of us."

Perez stretched out his hand. "I am again glad to have met Mr. Saunders," he said.

Sax looked from one to the other of us. Suddenly he sprang up, giving the table such a push it landed on its back against the wall. "I hate to be the _only_ blackguard in the party," he said, and stood furious, panting.

Perez slipped to me and whispered, "Mind him not--for two weeks, day and night, brandy, brandy, brandy--it has not drunken him--but the man is mad."

"What are you whispering about?" demanded Sax, so savagely I got ready for action. "If you've anything to say about me, let me hear it--I yearn for interesting news." He had his fist drawn back as he came up to Perez.

The little man's face went white. "Arthur," he said, "would you strike me?"

"I'd strike any one--any dirty sneak who'd talk about me behind my back."

"Arthur," said Perez, slowly, "when I was a poor, sickly, sad little boy at a Northern school I had a friend who protected me, who took many a blow for my sake; when I was a young man, sick with _la viruela_, I had a friend who risked his life to save mine; as an older man, I have a friend who can take my life if he wishes--strike."

And so help me! He would have struck! Never tell me a man is this and that. A man is everything. In his right mind, nothing an Apache invented would have forced Arthur Saxton to do such a thing--no fear on earth, nor no profit on earth would have tempted him for an instant. But now he would have struck.

I grabbed his wrist.

"You fool!" I cried, "what are you doing?" He clipped me bang in the eye. Saxton was a strong man, weakened by whisky. I was twice as strong and braced with rage.

I whirled him around and slammed him on the floor.

Something cold pressed against my temple. It was a revolver in the hands of Perez. "Your life for it, if you hurt him," said he.

For a second, I meant to quit that place in disgust. Then the size of it took hold of me. It doesn't matter whether a thing is wise or not--in fact, you never can tell whether a thing is wise or not--but if it has a size to it, it suits me.

I thought for a minute. There we stood, me holding Saxton, Perez holding me--just that little, cold touch, you'd think might be pleasant on a hot day.

"I hope you ain't nervous, Mr. Perez?" says I, to gain time.

"What?" says he, kind of befuzzled. "No, I am not nervous."

"That's right," says I, hearty. "Don't try to see how hard that trigger pulls, or you'll disturb my thoughts." Then I made up my mind.

"Saxton," says I, "if there's a remnant in you of the man you once was, get your friend to leave, and take the licking you deserve."

I looked down at him--the man was back again! Talk about your moral suasion, I tell you there's a time when only one thing counts. I'd done more for Arthur Saxton by slamming him down on the floor than the doctors and preachers could have brought about in ten years. He went down _hard_, mind you. Yes, sir, there was the old Saxton, with his forehead frowned up because his head hurt, but the old, kindly, funny little smile on his lips.

"Perez," he said, "run away and let the bad little boy get his spanking--although, Bill," he went on, "if it's reformation you're after, I don't need it." He laughed up at me. "You think I'm trying to dodge payment, but, so help me, I'm not, Billy boy."

To see him like that, his laughing self again, after the nightmare we'd just been through, set me to sniveling--darn it, I was excited and only a kid, but I cried--yes, I cried. And Perez, he cried.

"N-nice way for you to act," says I, "and s-spoil all a poor boy's got to respect."

The awful slush of that struck us all, and we broke out into a laugh together--a wibbly kind of laugh, but it served.

Arthur got up and dusted his clothes. He shook fearfully. I never saw a man in worse shape and still be able to stand. Two weeks of a steady diet of French brandy on top of trouble will put a man outside the ordinary run, or inside his long home.

It was fine, the way he gathered himself. He brought something like what he ought to be out of the wreck in two minutes.

"Now," he says steady, "I owe you fellows something--I owe you a great deal, Perez--I'd started to finish on the alcohol route. I don't like the company I keep. If I'm going to die I'll die with a better man than you stopped, Bill. In fact, I think my kid fit is over. I reckon I'll try to live like a man, and as a start I'm going to tell you both what ails me--to have it out for once. So help me, it isn't for myself--it's for you, Henry. You've invested time and money in me, and you sha'n't lose it. If you know what you're up against, you may be able to help me help myself. I'm sick of myself. All my life I have kept my mouth shut, out of a foolish pride. The little sacrifice will be something on the altar of friendship, Henry, old man. Come along to my room."

XI

SAXTON'S STORY

We seated ourselves around the table in Saxton's bedroom.

"Perez," said Saxton, "you know from the beginning the boy and girl love affair between me and Mary Smith. It was no small thing for me. I cared then and I care now. I think the one thing which stood between Mary and myself as the greatest point of difference was my trick of stripping things to the bare facts. She liked romance, whether fact or not; I liked the romance that lay in fact. She cared for me--that is certain, but some reports when I was about nineteen to the effect that I was raising the devil, and had led a weak-headed fellow astray with me, seemed to give the girl a permanent twist against me. Now here's the truth. In our little town we had a number of men who earned comfortable fortunes and then laid back. Their boys, with nothing to do and nothing in their heads, acted as one might suppose. They took to drinking and gambling, not because they were bad but simply to pass the time; the town was dull enough, God knows. Pretty soon the wilder crowd became an open scandal. Among them were some of my best friends, and I went with 'em, with as sincere a desire to line 'em up with decency again as any long-faced deacon in the town; but instead of spouting piety, I thought I would play their game until I could get 'em to play mine, that is, I took a drink with 'em, and I played some poker with 'em, all the while trying to show the strongest head and the most checks when it came to 'cash-up' in the poker game. I felt that if I could beat 'em, what I said would go.

"There was one mean scoundrel in the bunch--a hypocrite to the marrow. He really was to blame for the worst outbreaks, but he pulled the long face when among respectable people. I wanted to get the best of that lad. If you're going to lead drinking men and gamblers, you've got to be the best drinker and the best card player in the bunch. The rest were empty-headed boys, who'd have taken up religion as quickly as faro bank, if some one led 'em to it. Well, I think I'd won out, if my friend the hypocrite, who was foxy enough in his way, hadn't back-capped me, by telling the town the evil of my ways. The first break was with my father. The news came to him carefully prepared. When I tried to explain my side, the disgusted incredulity of his face stopped me almost before I began. Father gave me my choice: to leave his house or to leave the company I kept. I cannot bear to be doubted. I made a choice. I left both the house and the company I kept. Father had been good to me; knowing how he felt, I would not disgrace him. Then I made my living with my fiddle.

"Mary at first believed in me, but they talked her out of it. If she'd doubted of her own mind, I wouldn't have cared so much, but to know me as she did, and then prefer the word of outsiders--well, I roared at her like a maniac; it was much like now, as sweetly reasonable and all. No wonder the girl was frightened. I haven't a doubt she felt that entertaining an interest for me was little better than criminal. At the same time the interest was there, and, like myself, she took a middle course by plunging with what heart she could into a dreary and hide-bound church. I drove her to it, and I paid the bill. If I could bring one half the sense into my own affairs that I can into some outside thing, I suppose I should sometime succeed. A little coaxing, an appeal for sympathy,--any show of gentleness on my part might have brought her round.--As we are, we are. I demanded, and here am I.

"I made it up with father afterwards; he didn't understand, but he believed. You see I wouldn't take a cent from him. He offered me money, but I said flat that as I didn't please him, I wouldn't take it. Father had been a business man all his days, and money had become his measure. If I refused money I meant business. That's no sneer--a good old man was my father. But Mary stood me off. When I'm not despairing, I know she cares. I have learned how much conventions mean to a woman--well, I don't blame 'em. I wish I had a few conventions against which I could lean and rest this minute. Then comes a man named Belknap--"

"Why, I have just met him, Saxton," said I.

"Did you, Bill? I am thankful for it. I have gotten so my heart aches for facts to back me. What is your judgment on the gentleman?"

"Smooth as a sausage skin," says I.

"All of that," says Saxton; "he is one subtle scoundrel."

"But he isn't so hard to get on to, neither!"

"For a man, no," says Saxton; "but Belknap has information that you, nor Perez, nor I, nor any man who is a man has, and that is the difference between a woman's thinking and a man's thinking. We know a man will swallow all manner of guff in politics; he'll buy a gold brick from a cheap blatherskite. That sort of thing is man's folly. I don't pretend to understand women's follies, but Belknap does. He can talk such nonsense to a seemingly sensible woman that you fancy she's laughing at him, and behold! when you look to see the smile, you find the lady in tears.

"When he came into the game he was young. He took an instant interest in Mary, and at once used his smooth tongue, and his perfect knowledge of a woman's character, to win her. He worked through her vanity, through her virtues, and through all the avenues his peculiar intelligence opened to him. He gained her attention from the first, and now his power over her is something horrible to me. Again, had it not been my own affair, how easily I could have beaten him! If only my head and not my heart were in it--yet, I do not care for the game when my heart isn't in it, so where I don't care, I don't even try. This makes a jolly life.

"Our friend, Belknap, has a great work to do, converting these heathen Catholics to the Protestant faith, for which he has schools and missions, and for which also he needs teachers, and later, a wife, so Mary leaves home for here. Of course, he hasn't breathed a word of anything but the Great Work, and his lonely struggle, and queer as it is, and scoundrel that he is, I know he partly believes in himself. Sentimental advances would frighten her off. He bides his time, does Mr. Spider, and lets habit of mind crush out all the girl's natural instincts until she has no resource but him."

"I thought you said he was of a deep understanding in regard to the women?" said Perez.

"He is."

"And he will suppress the natural feelings?"

"Yes."

"Mine has been a lonely life, Arthur, of reality," said Perez; "_you_ are my affection--but when the Senor Belknap has suppressed the natural feelings of any woman, he has but to ask, and my store, and my ranches, and my cattle are his."

Saxton shook his head wearily. "You don't know him, Enrique."

"I have interrupt," said Perez; "pardon!"

"There is this much more," said Saxton. "On the trip across I saw I had regained some of my standing in Mary's eyes, enough, at least, to send me up into cloudland. My heart went out to every creature I saw, and I certainly was a fool not to know I'd do something idiotic. I did it. One night, walking from the store, a woman stopped and spoke to me. Ordinarily I would have pushed on as easily as might be, but in this woman a hint of delicacy still lingered. There was something in her face that shone like the last of day, in the way she carried herself, in the way she held her head, there was still womanly pride; in short, she was the one out of a thousand for whom there is hope. She came straight to me out of the crowd, with the same faith a dog has often shown me. That is the kind of thing against which I am defenseless, and I am glad of it. Her story was short, plain, honest. She excused nothing, she made no attempt to put herself in a better light. No man could have talked squarer or more to the point; she was tired of the life she led, she had an impulse to change, she did not know whether the impulse would last or not, she had not a cent, but if I would help her she would make an effort. No man with a heart in his body is going to refuse an appeal like that. You know I am not quite a boy to be fooled by whining. I realized the chances against her lasting out, and so did she. The thing was genuine, whatever the result. It appeared to me that to hand her money as you'd throw a plate of cold fodder to a tramp, was not just the proper course of a man who thought of himself as a gentleman. Also I admit that I fancied myself standing as somewhat of a hero in Mary's eyes. So I treated my poor new friend as though she were a decent woman. I never preached at her,--I had had enough of preaching,--but simply gave her a 'good day,' and if a kind word once in a while had any weight, she got it. There was nothing in all this I could not have explained to Mary to my own credit. I did not like the kind of thing that woman stood for. She had no attraction for me in any way, shape, or manner, but Mr. Belknap saw his opportunity. He has this town plastered with spies; your house is no safeguard against his meddling. When he found out, he gave Mary a revised edition of my conduct. I can imagine him doing it--his sorrowfully deploring my fall; the insinuations more damaging than any bald statement; the sighs and half-finished sentences. He had the start and he used it well. When I next went to see Mary I got a queer reception; among other pleasant things, she said my coming was an insult, and for the soft answer that turneth away wrath she replied that I had degraded myself beyond hope, when I asked her what in the world was the matter. Of course, I went crazy on the instant; the surprise of it took away what little sense I had. A minute's time and I might have gathered wits to present my case--"

Here old Sax got excited again. He looked at both of us, as if he thought that we doubted him.

"I tell you again," he said, "that that other woman was nothing to me at all, except a poor pitiful creature that I would have been a brute not to help. I am speaking honestly as a man to his two friends--"

"Arthur," said Perez, "to me you need never justify, need never explain; if you say so, that is all, the rest is wasted time."

"Here, too," says I.

It would stagger anybody to see how poor Saxton wanted us to believe him. I began to see how he had poisoned his life. He looked at us very thankfully, but tears came into his eyes. He tried to go on in the calm way, but his throat was husky. Then he swore out free and felt better.

"To save time, I believe you in turn," he said. "Another of my tricks is to wish to be believed in myself, and yet always doubt other people. Well, I lost my grip; I cannot remember all I said to Mary, but I can easily remember that it was all unpleasant. I simply improved on the Almighty's handiwork by making a longer-eared jackass of myself than I was intended to be, winding up as a masterstroke by attacking Belknap. It was only two days before, Perez, that Orinez had told me the other side of Belknap's Great Work; of how he was undoing all that you and Orinez had done for the salvation of this unlucky country, by starting up a revolution in order that a lot of poor devils might be killed for his private benefit. I laid it on hard in my fury, and Mary told me to leave. She said she didn't want to be a witness of my descending so low as to attack an honorable man behind his back,--and then I came away. The Lord knows I have no memory of that walk home; everything that was bad in my blood came out. Honest, I fought--that is to say, I had lucid intervals of an hour or so, but every day my sense wore blunt under the grind of despair. It was a disease; it would come on me in waves like an ague fit. I really suffered physically; I lost every bit of decency that ever was in me; I became a God-forsaken, devil-ridden brute; a quart of French brandy a day did me no especial good, and yet I loved the stuff for the time. Well, the disease, like any disease, had to reach its climax. It came when I started to strike you, Henry--that was the limit of meanness for any living man. Then old Bill here took hold of me, and squeezed what was left of the obsession out of me with the first hug of his arms. For the expulsion of devils, I recommend your long flippers, Bill, my boy....

"I am not going to apologize to you, Henry, nor to Bill. If I didn't feel something more than any apology could make good, I wouldn't be worth your trouble. But right here I shift."

We sat still. Seldom you see a man take out his soul: when that happens, it is usually a kind of indecent exposure. A man must shake every glimmer of vanity out.

Old Saxton stood out naked and unashamed like a statue. Nobody felt embarrassed. I was too young to appreciate it fully, although I did in a measure. I saw that all he wanted was to be honest. Not a word altered to win either sympathy or approval for himself. I suppose that is the way the woman he spoke of attracted him.

Perez spoke very gently and cautiously.

"This is all strange to me, Arthur," he said; "I am trying to understand. You seem so strong, of the head so remarkably clear and capable, that it is a difficulty to understand this trouble. I ask now, if you put a restraint upon yourself, will not--pardon, you know I only ask for good--"

Sax threw both arms in the air. "For God's sake, and for both our sakes, Henry, don't quiddle with courtesy--slam out with it! I've lost all right to consideration--you can only give me self-respect by showing you believe me man enough to hear what you have to say."

That slow smile lit up Perez's eyes. "Quite right, Arthur," he said. "'_Me he equivocado_'--this, then: If you restrain yourself, like the volcano, will you not break out somewhere new?"

"Not so long as I keep my grip on facts: I'm safe when I can say, 'I'm getting crazy again.' The saying restores my sanity. Having no one to say it to, I run amuck."

"You have that friend," said Perez. He stopped a minute. "I would not have you hold yourself, if that would do you harm, Arthur; but now I say, take yourself in the hand strong, for of my life the bitterest time was when you raised your arm at me."

Saxton's face jerked and then grew still. "Come, boys!" he said, rolling a handful of cigars on the table. "Smoke."

I never saw any one who could get himself and friends in and out of trouble like Saxton. In five minutes we were laughing and talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. That's what I call strength of mind. It wasn't that Sax couldn't feel if he let himself, Heaven knows. It was that he could shut down so tight, when roused to it, that he _wouldn't_ feel, nor you, neither.

At the same time there was a pity for him aching at the bottom of my heart, and when Perez and I left him to walk home together a remark Perez made started the Great Scheme into operation.

"The girl _must_ care for him," said Perez. "His erraticality! Bah! What woman cares for that, so long that the strangeness is in the way of feeling, and not in the way of non-feeling? Women desire that their admirer shall be of some romance. And with that beautiful poet face; the fine manner; the grace of body and of mind--that unusual beautiful which is he and no other--you tell me that any woman shall see that lay at her feet and not be moved? _Tonteria!_ I believe it not. When the story of that other woman arrived to Senorita Maria's ear what is it she feel? The religious abhorrence? The violation of taste? Perhaps, but much more a thing she does not know herself, that monster of the green eye, called Jealousy--believe me, Senor Saunders, the man who look sees more of the play. It is so. Mees Mary may feel bad in many way, but when she will listen to the explanation not at all, her worst feel bad is jealousy."

I don't want to lay claim for myself as a great student of mankind, yet ideas to that effect had begun to peek around the corner of my skull. It seemed to me that Mary felt altogether too _hot_ sorry and not enough resigned sorry for it to be a case of friendly interest.

"I guess you're right, Mr. Perez," said I, "and if we could only get Sax to bust through her ideas, as I busted through his to-day--"

"_Perfectamente!_" cried Perez, slapping me on the back. "It is the same; obsession, Arthur called it. It is that and no other. This Belknap has so played upon her mind that it is not her mind; it is a meexture of some ideas she has, and what he wishes her to be. If she could have an arm of that rude strength like your own--but," he shrugged his shoulders, "it is a lady, and there is nothing."

"I'm not so darned sure about that," says I, little particles of a plan slowly settling in the mud-puddle I call my mind. "I'm not so hunky-dory positive.... If I could get holt of something against that cussed Belknap,--something that would look bad to a woman,--I'd risk it."

Perez brightened right up. "You have something thought about?" he asked, eager. "Do not go to the hotel to-night. Let me be your host--we are right at the door--_Su casa_, Senor--let me offer my little entertainment, and we shall to talk further--will you not let it be so?"

I liked Perez and I wanted to talk as much as he did. "Much obliged," says I; "I hate a hotel, anyhow." So in we went.

XII

BILL MEETS A RELATIVE

Perez had a fine house, a revelation to me; big halls, big rooms, the walls covered with pictures, Injun relics, armor, swords, guns, and what not; many servants to fetch and carry, and an ease and comfort over it for which delicious is the only word.

We had a bully little dinner out in the cool garden, which I got through all right by playing second to Perez. The finger-bowls had me off the trail a little, but I waited and discovered their purpose. You can find out everything if you wait long enough.

Then with coffee and cigars we began to talk.

"Now for the plan of Senor Saunders," says Perez, opening the bottom of his well-supported vest. He looked so respectable and ordinary sitting there, that my plan lost its light. I forgot the other side of him.

"Well," I begun, lamely, "Saxton wants to marry Mary."

Perez politely acknowledged that such was the fact.

"Then," says I, "why don't he just do it?"

Perez looked his disappointment.

"That would be well, surely," says he in the tone one uses to a harmless fool.

"Here," says I. "First, I want to break into Mr. Belknap. You say he's got some kind of political game on?"

Perez renewed his interest. "_Si_," says he. "This is what he makes. He is now going to and fro, putting those that have come to his church against those of the old religion. Against the Catholic Church he lays the blame of everything wrong. It will be a revolution, he says, to annihilate that enemy of man, the old church, and in its place put that wonder of virtue, the church of Mr. Belknap. What _will_ happen is that many poor men shall be killed, and the wolf-rascals get fat, as usual. With Belknap are the few in earnest, who think; the many who neither care nor think, but are led; those that fight for love of it; those who are hypocrites, and those who look for profit. On our side, the same. There is no advantage to either by comparison in that. In here comes the difference. Such men as Orinez and myself know that this unhappy land must have peace, before any notion of right can grow. When it is all fight, fight, fight, one cannot think evenly--has your brother been killed? Your wife and sisters murdered? And then you will think calmly of the issue? Time is needed to heal these old wounds, that more can work together. So Orinez and I fight for time--I with my money and my counsel, he with the terror of his name. Once I did Orinez a favor; he never forgets. So when I called to help me in this, the tiger sheathed his claws; the man of blood turned shepherd; the robber, honest; but,"--and here Perez's voice took a bitterness worse than curses,--"but Mr. Belknap, that respected man of God, will have it that the need of the State is the drawing of blood--once more, fire, slaughter, rape, till the land stinks with corpses, lays black in the sunlight and rings with the cries of injured women--a great work...."

Perez stood up, gripping the table. "I am a little, peaceful man," he said, "but there are times when I could drive a knife through that man and shout with joy for every blow." He sat down quickly and smiled a faint smile. "_My_ obsession," said he, wiping his forehead; "I, too, preach peace through the letting of blood. Belknap may be as much in earnest as myself--Bah! This foolish pretense of candor! He is _not_; he is a scoundrel--whether he knows it or not, a scoundrel."

"Well, that's good news," said I. "It won't be hard for me to pick a quarrel with him, which is precisely what I intend to do. I'll meet his schemes with some of my own, Mary likes me, and it will be at least a stand-off in her mind if Brother Belknap and I fall out. Then the next thing is for Arthur to get a party of men, capture Mary, take her off and marry her."

Perez threw up his hands in horror. "Senor Saunders!" he cried; "for you to say this! I am astonished! Abstract the lady without her wish? Surely I have not heard you rightly--_chanzas aparte_, you play with me--you wish to see me look?"

"Not I," says I, stout; "I mean every word of it. As Sax said this afternoon, there's times when it's wicked to twiddle with courtesy. That girl will ruin her whole life if Belknap has the making of it. Her friends oughtn't to stand by and see it done--damn it, man! Suppose she dropped her handkerchief as she was falling over a cliff--what would you do first: save her life or pick up the handkerchief?"

Perez puffed and thought a moment. "_Tiene V. razon_," he says, "there is more here than a ball-room. I knew her as a girl, I know her now. Belknap I know too. My life I stake on it that for Belknap to win her, means her life wrecked, and yet I stop--from habit. I stake my life--I mean it--on my judgment, yet dare not stake an action to make that judgment good."

He waited again, while the minutes slipped by; drumming on the table; shifting things in his mind. The whole air of long, long use to the handsome, nice things I saw about me struck me strong in the man. He was born to it, and his forebears centuries before him. Yet instead of breeding out the man in him, it had only taken off the scum.

At last he spoke. "Give me more time, _campanero_. I shall consider this further. To meddle with other lives is always a dangerous business, just as not to meddle may be a shameful one. As it stands, if he gets not the lady for a wife, Saxton is a lost man--I know him. On his word, on your word and on my word, she is not indifferent to him. We know Belknap is a rascal, and for her unfit. And so, action--yet I am a man of peace."

He smiled at me. "Did you ever see a man of peace in more unpeaceful place? Well, Senor Saunders, your plan has that daring which often cows success. It remains to be seen whether Arthur can by any means be brought to think of it: his pride will be afire at the thought--yes, that is it. Listen. If you can gain his acceptance--and you have no plan without it--I am with you, heart and soul."

"Good!" says I. "Shake hands on it. I sha'n't strike Arthur at once. I mean to work up the disagreement with Brother Belknap first. 'T will do no harm in any case if his head is punched."

Perez laughed. "You are warrior, pure and not so simple," says he. "Heaven send strength to your arm when you meet."

"I ask no odds of top, bottom, nor middle," says I. "Give me a fair field."

"There spoke a better spirit than Achilles of old times," says Perez. "So should I be, if I had an arm like that."

"I'll bet there'd be some danger in you, my friend!" says I.

The light went out of his face. "Mention it not," he said sternly. "Once it was my misfortune to kill a man--you are not offended at my speech?"

"Not on your family portraits!--but, of course, I couldn't know--you ain't put out, for your part?"

"Only what is right I should be--what is it your great poet says--'bears yet a precious jewel in its head'? So with me. To walk with a ghost has done me no harm. In pity for myself, I pity others. But this is a melancholy talk--come, I shall show you my pictures. Some are wonderful, all are good."

So we went into the fine old house again and saw the paintings. They were beyond my calculations. Outside of the things Sax never finished and bar a chromo or two, I'd never seen a picture--I don't count the grandfathers' portraits at home--decent people enough, them and their wives, but not what you'd call beautiful except Great-Grandmother De La Tour--she was a corker.

Seeing that I enjoyed 'em, Perez explained the pictures to me, what were the good points. When I've told people the names on the pictures in Perez's gallery, I've simply been told I lied.

Next Perez said, "You like music, Senor Saunders?"

"You bet!" says I. So he led the way into a room off the gallery. It was a long, high room rounded at one end, with an arched ceiling. The least whisper in there rang clear. At the round end was an organ. Perez called; a little Injun boy came to pump the organ.

Perez seated himself on the bench. "Now," said he, "if only we had Arthur--foolish fellow! Here is this great house with only one small man in it! I beg him to live here, but he will not--he says he must live in a place rough, as you saw."

"I'm inclined to think Sax knows his pasture, Mr. Perez," I answered.

He nodded. "I only spoke as I often do," he said, "of what I wish, instead of what must be--so little a change would make this so much better a world." He thought for a second. "An easier world," he corrected; "really it is better as it is--well, I am more musician than philosopher,--what will you, _amigo mio_? Something grand? military? of sentiment, or peace?"

"I tell you, Mr. Perez," says I, "I don't know anything about music. Can't you play pieces not too high for me, yet good to listen to, so I feel it, and learn at the same time?"

He laughed as if I tickled him. "There speaks that so practical Northern head," says he, "that will have the heart lifted and also a dollar in the pocket."

"Am I foolish?" I asked. I never yet played being big before a man who knew something. When he _knows_ he sees your little play and despises you for it.

"Not foolish, _chico_," says Perez. "Only wise with a wisdom strange to me." He wheeled and looked at me. "A most strange young man you are; the strength of a giant, roaring health and no fool, and yet you will listen to an older man--you _wish_ to listen. Receive the thanks of an older man. The hope of such service is the one poor vanity remaining to him. May time so deal with you that you shall never know the compliment you pay--listen!"

The old organ burst into a pride of sound. Big and splendid--steel and fair ladies--roses and sudden death. Made my heart get big and want to do something. Perhaps talking with Perez, his air of decent sadness, and his old-time way of speaking, kind of lofty for this date, yet never slopping over; and perhaps the beautiful old house with its hangings, pictures, and armor helped the music, but anyhow, as I listened, I had visions. I felt like a lost calf that's got back to the herd and a sight of mama. I was still in my dream when I realized the music had stopped and that Perez was looking at me.

"May I take a liberty?" said he. "A resemblance has perplexed me since I met you."

"Sure," says I, waking up.