Chapter VI (1)

There's something I must tell you, love,” said Agnes Huntington; “you would know all in time, and it is better that you learn it now from the lips of your Agnes.”

“What is it, beautiful one?” said Slippery Elm Benton, languidly.

The Congressional day, with its labours, had wearied our hero, and, although with the woman he loved, he still felt fatigued.

“Read this,” said Agnes, as she pushed a paper into her lover's hand, and shrank back as if frightened.

The paper made over one-half of the phosphate bed to Agnes Huntington.

“And it was for this you sold my vote in the House!” and Slippery Elm Benton laughed mockingly.

“Oh, say not so, love!” said Agnes Huntington, piteously. “Rather would I hear you curse than laugh like that!”

“And so the vote and influence of Slippery Elm Benton are basely bargained by the woman he loved for a one-half interest in a phosphate bed!”

Slippery Elm Benton strode up and down the apartment, tossing his arms like a Dutch windmill.

Agnes Huntington cowered before the wrath of her lover.

“What would you have?” she cried.

“What would I have!” repeated Slippery Elm Benton, with a sneer, which all but withered the weeping girl; “what would I have! I would have all--all! My vote and influence were worth the entire phosphate bed, and you basely accepted a paltry moiety! Go from my side, false woman; you who would put so low an estimate upon me! The Witch of Waco was right. I leave you. I leave you as one unfit to be the wife of a Congressman!”

And Slippery Elm Benton, while Agnes Huntington swooned on the rug, rushed into the night and the snow.

HENRY SPENY'S BENEVOLENCE

SUMMER was here and the day was warm. Henry Speny had been walking, and now stood at-the corner of Tenth Avenue and Twenty-eighth street, mopping his brow. Henry Speny was a Conservative; and, although Mrs. Speny had that morning gone almost to the frontiers of a fist fight to make him change his underwear for the lighter and more gauzy apparel proper to jocund August, Henry Speny refused. He was now paying the piper, and thinking how much more Mrs. Speny knew than he did, when the Tramp came up.

“Podner!” said the Tramp in a low, guttural whine, intended to escape the ear of the police and touch Henry Speny's heart at one and the same time; “podner! couldn't you assist a pore man a little?”

“Assist a poor man to what?” asked Henry Speny, returning his handkerchief to his pocket and looking scornfully at the Tramp.

He was a fat, healthy Tramp, in good condition. Henry Speny hardened his heart.

“Dime!” replied the Tramp; “dime to get somethin' to eat.”

“No,” said Henry Speny shortly; “I'm a half dozen meals behind the game myself.”

This last was only Henry Speny's humour. Mrs. Speny fed him twice a day. But Henry Speny knew that the Tramp wanted the dime for whiskey.

“Well! if you don't think I want it to chew on,” said the Tramp, “jest' take me to a bakery and buy me a loaf of bread. I'll get away with it right before you.”

“Say!” remarked Henry Speny, in a spirit of sarcastic irritation, “what's the use of your talking to me? There's the Charity Woodyard in this town, where, if you were really hungry, you would go and saw wood for something to eat. You can get two meals and a bed for sawing one-sixteenth of a cord of wood.”

“You can't saw wood with no such fin as this, podner!” said the Tramp; and pulling up his coat sleeve he displayed to Henry Speny an arm as withered as a dead tree. “The other's all right,” he continued, restoring his coat sleeve; “but wot's one arm in a catch-as-catch-can racket with a bucksaw?”

Henry Speny was conscience-stricken, but he would defeat the Tramp in his efforts to buy whiskey.

“I'll go down to the woodyard and saw your wood myself,” said Henry Speny.

He told Mrs. Speny afterward that he could not account for the making of this offer, unless it was his anxiety to keep the Tramp sober. All the Tramp wanted was ten cents, and for Henry Speny to propose to saw one-sixteenth of a cord of hard wood on a hot day, when a dime would have made all things even, was a conundrum too deep for Henry Speny, as he looked back over the transaction. But he did make the proposal; and the Tramp accepted with a grin of gratitude.

There were twenty sticks in that one-sixteenth of a cord--hard, knotty sticks, too. And each one had to be sawed three times; sixty cuts in all. It was a poor bucksaw. Before he had finished the third stick, Henry Speny declared that it was the most beastly bucksaw he ever handled in his life. The buck itself was a wretched buck, and wouldn't stand still while Henry Speny sawed. It had a habit of tipping over; and when Henry Speny put his knee on the stick to steady the refractory buck, the knots tore his trousers and made his legs black and blue. Then the perspiration got in his eyes and made them smart. When he wiped it away he saw two of his friends looking at him in a shocked, sober way from across the street. They passed on, and told everybody that Henry Speny was down at the Charity Woodyard sawing wood for his food. They said, too, that they had reason to believe he did this every day; that business had gone to pieces with him, and an assignment couldn't be staved off much longer.

Henry Speny would have thrown up the job with the second stick, but the Tramp was already half through his meal; Henry Speny could see him bolting his food like a glutton through the window, from where he stood.

It took Henry Speny two hours to saw those twenty sticks sixty times. His hands were a fretwork of blisters; his back and shoulders ached like a galley-slave's. Henry Speny hired a carriage to take him home; he couldn't stand the slam and jolt of a street car. He was laid up three days with the blisters on his hands, while Mrs. Speny rubbed his back and shoulders with Pond's Extract.

On the fourth day, as Henry Speny was limping painfully toward his office, he heard a voice he knew.

“Podner! can't you assist a pore m--Oh! beg pardon; you looked so different I didn't know you!” It was the fat Tramp with the withered arm. Without a word Henry Speny gave him ten cents and hobbled on.

JANE DOUGHERTY

(Annals of the Bend)

What's d' flossiest good t'ing I'm ever guilty of?” said Chucky. There was a pause. Chucky let his eye--somewhat softened for him--rove a bit abstractedly about the sordid bar. At last it came back to repose on the beer mug before him, as the most satisfying sight at easy hand.

“Now,” retorted Chucky, as he wet his lip, “that question is a corker. 'What's d' star good deed you does?' is d' way you slings it.

“Will I name it? In a secont--in a hully secont! It's d' story of a little goil I steals, an' sticks in for ever since. This kid's two years comin' t'ree, when I pinched it, so to speak; an' youse can bet your boots! she was reg'larly up ag'inst it. A fly old sport like Chucky would never have mingled wit' her destinies otherwise; not on your life! Between youse, an' me, an' d' bar-keep over there, I ain't got no more natural use for kids than I have for a wet dog. But never mind! we'll pass up that kink in me make-up an' get down to this abduction I prides meself on.

“It's nine spaces ago, an 'd' kid in dispoote is now goin' on twelve. I've been, as I states, stickin' in for her ever since, an' intends to play me string to a finish. But to go on wit' me romance.

“As I relates, d' play I boasts of is nine spaces in d' rear, see! In that day I has a dandy graft. I've got me hooks on as big a bundle as a hundred plunks, many an' many is d' week. I'd be woikin' it now only I lushes too free.

“Here's how in that day I sep'rated suckers from their stuff. It was simply fakin', of d' smoot' an' woidy sort, see! I'd make up like a Zulu, wit' burnt cork, an' feathers, an' queer duds; an' then I'd climb into an open carriage, drive to a good corner, do a bit of chin music, pull a crowd an' sell 'em brass jewellery.

“Me patter would run something like this: D' waggon would stop an' I'd stand up. Raisin' me lamps to d' heavens above, I'd cut loose d' remark at d' top of me valves:

“'It looks like rain! It don't look like a t'ing but rain!'

“Wit' me foist yell d' pop'lace would flock 'round, an' in two minutes there would be a hundred people there. In ten, there'd be a t'ousand, if d' cops didn't get in their woik. I'll give youse a tip d' great American public is d' star gezebos to come to a dead halt, an' look an' listen to t'ings. More'n onct I've seen some stiff who's sprintin' for a doctor, make a runnin' switch at d' sound of me voice an' side-track himself for t'irty minutes to hear me. Dey's a dead curious lot, d' public is; buy a French pool on that!

“W'en d' crowd is jammed all about me carriage w'eels, I'd cut loose some more. I'd quit d' rain question cold, an' holdin' up an armful of jimcrow jewellery, I'd t'row meself like this:

“'Loidies an' gents,' I'd say, 'I'm d' only orig'nal Coal Oil Johnny. An' I'm a soon mug at that, see! I don't get d' woist of it; not on your neckties. I gives away two hundred an' I takes in four hundred toadskins (dollars) an' I don't let no mob of hayseeds do me, so youse farmers needn't try.

“'Look at me! Cast your lamps over me! I'm one of Cetewayo's Zulu body-guard, an' I'm here from Africa on a furlough to saw off on suckers a lot of bum jewellery, an' down youse for your dough, see! I'm goin' to offer for sale four t'ings: I'm goin' to sell youse foist ten rings, then ten brooches, then ten chains, and then ten watches. An' when I gets down to d' watches, watch me dost; because, when I gets nex' to d' tickers I've reached d' point where I'm goin' to t'run youse down. I'm here to skin youse out of your money, an' leave youse lookin' like d' last run of shad.

“'But there's this pecoolarity about me sellin 'd' rings. Each ring is a dollar apiece, an' when I've shoved ten of 'em onto youse, every galoot who's paid me a dollar for one, gets his dollar back an' a dollar wit' it for luck.

“'Now here's d' rings, good folks an' all!'--here I*d flash d' rings; gilt, an' wort' t'ree dollars a ton!--'here's d' little crinklets! Who's goin' to take one at a dollar, an' at d' finish, when d' ten is sold, get two dollars back? Who'll be d' foist? Now don't rush me! don't crush me! but come one at a time. D' rings ain't wort' a dollar a ton: I only makes d' play for fun, an' because d' doctors who looks after me healt' says I'll croak if I don't travel. Who'll be d' early boid to nip a ring?

“'There you be!' I goes on, as some rustic gets to d' front an' hands up d' bill. 'Sold ag'in an' got d' tin, another farmer just sucked in!'

“So I goes, on,” continued Chucky, after reviving his voice--which his exertions had made a trifle raucous--with a swig at the tankard; “so I'd go on until d' ten rings would be sold. Then I'd go over d' outfit ag'in, take back d' rings, an' give 'em each a two-dollar willyum.”

Now push back into d' mob, you lucky guys,' I'd say, 'an' give your maddened competitors to d' rear of youse a chanct to woik d' racket. I'm goin' to sell ten brooches now for two dollars each, an' give back four dollars wit' every brooch. Then I'm goin' to dazzle youse wit' ten chains, at five cases per chain. An' then I'll get down to d' watches, at which crisis, me guileless come-ons, youse must be sure to watch me, for it's then I'll make a monkey of youse.'

“An' so I chins on, offerin' d' brooches at two dollars a t'row, an' at d' wind-up, when d' ten is gone, I gives back to each mucker who's got in, d' sum of four plunks, see!

“Be that time it's a knock-down an' drag-out around me cabrioley, to see who's goin' to transact business wit' me, an', wit'out as much cacklin' as a hen makes over an egg, I goes to d' chains an' floats ten of 'em at five a chain. As I sells d' last, I toins sharp on some duck who's dost be me w'eel an' says:

“'What's that? I'm a crook, am I! an' this ain't on d' level! Loidies an' gents, just for d' disparagin' remark of this hobo, who is no doubt funny in his topknot from drink, I'll go on an' sell ten more chains. After which I'll come down to d' watches, which is d' great commercial point where youse had better watch me, for it's there I'm goin' to lose you in a lope! An' that's for fair, see!'

“Ten more chains, at five a trip, goes off like circus lem'nade, an' I stows d' long an' beauteous green away in me keck. As d' last one of d' secont ten fades into d' hooks of d' last sucker, I stows d' five he's coughed up for it in me raiment, an' says:

“'An' now, loidies an' gents, we gets down to d' watches!'

“Wit' which bluff I lugs me ticker out an' takes a squint at it.

“'What th' 'ell!' I shouts. 'Here it's half-past t'ree, an' I was to be married at t'ree-fifteen! Hully gee! Excuse me, people, but I must fly to d' side of me beloved, or I'll get d' dead face; also d' frozen mit. I'll see youse dubs next year, if woikin' overtime wit' youse to-day ain't ruined me career.'

“As I'm singin' out d' last, I'm givin' me driver d' office to beat his dogs an' chase, see! An', bein' as he's on, an' is paid extra as his part of d' graft, he soaks d' horses wit' d' whip an' in twenty seconts d' crowd is left behint, an' is busy givin' each other d' laugh. No, there never was no row; no mug was ever mobbed for guyin'. Nit! I always comes away all right, an' youse can figure it, I'm sixty good bones in on d' racket.

“Naturally, youse would like to hear where d' kid breaks into d' play an' how I wins it. I'd ought to have told youse sooner, but, on d' level! when me old patter begins to flow off me tongue, I can't shut down until I've spieled it all.

“But about d' kid. One afternoon I'm goin' on--it's in Joisey City--wit' me Zulu war-paint an' me open carriage, givin 'd' usual mob d' usual jolly. T'ings is runnin' off d' reel like a fish new hooked, an' I'm down to me fift' chain. Just then I hears a woman say:

“'Fly's d' woid, Sallie! Here's your old man, an' he's got his load! He won't do a t'ing to youse! Screw out, Sal! screw out!”

“But Sallie, who's a tattered lookin' soubrette, wit' a kid in her arms, an' who's been standin' dost be one of me hind w'eels, don't get no chanct to skin out, see! There's a drunken hobo--as big an' as strong as a horse--who's right up to her when d' foist skirt puts her on. As she toins, he cops her one in d' neck wit'-out a woid. Down she goes like ninepins! As she lands, d' back of her cocoa don't do a t'ing but t'ump a stone horse-block wit' a whack! As d' blood flies, I'm lookin' down at her. I sees her map fade to a grey w'ite under d' dirt; she bats her lamps onct or twict; an' d' nex' moment I'm on wit'out tellin' that her light is out for good.

“As Sallie does d' fall, d' kid which she's holdin' rolls in d' gutter under d' carriage.

“'T'run d' kid in here!' I says to d' mark who picks it up.

“Me only idee at d' time is to keep d' youngone from gettin 'd' boots from d mob that's surgin' round, an' tryin' to mix it up wit' d' drunken bum who's soaked Sal. D' guy who gets d' kid fires it up to me like it's a football. I'm handy wit' me hooks, so I cops it off in midair, an' stows it away on d' seat.

“Be that time d' p'lice has collared d' fightin' bum all right, an' some folks is draggin' Sal, who's limp an' dead enough, into a drug shop.

“It's all up wit' me graft for that day, so after lookin' at d' youngone a secont, I goes curvin' off to d' hotel where I hangs out. While I'm takin' me Zulu make-up off, d' chambermaid stands good for d' kid. When I sees it ag'in, it's all washed up an' got some decent duds on. Say! on d' dead! it was a wonder!

“Well, to cut it short,” said Chucky, giving the order for another mug of ale, “I loins that night that d' mother is dead, an' d' drunken hobo's in d' holdover. As it s a cinch he'll do time for life, even if he misses bein' stretched, I looks d' game all over, an' for a wind-up I freezes to d' kid. Naw; I couldn't tell why, at that, see! only d' youngone acts like it's stuck on me.

“Nixie; I never keeps it wit' me. I've got it up to d' Sisters' school. Say! them nuns is gone on it. I makes a front to 'em as d' kid's uncle; an' while I've been shy meself on grub more'n onct since I asted d' Sisters to keep it, I makes good d' money for d' kid right along, an' I always will. What name does I give it? Jane--Jane Dougherty; it's me mudder's name. Nit; I don t know what I'll do wit' Jane for a finish. I was talkin' to me Rag only d' other day about it, an' she told me, in a week or so, she'd go an' take a fall out of a fortune-teller, who, me Rag says, is d' swiftest of d' whole fortune-tellin' push. Mebby we'll get a steer from her.”

MISTRESS KILLIFER

(Wolfville)

This is of a day prior to Dave Tutt's taking a wife, and a year before the nuptials of Benson Annie, as planned and executed by Old Man Enright, with one, French.

Wolfville is dissatisfied; what one might call peevish. A man has been picked up shot to death, no one can tell by whom; no one has hung for it. Any one familiar with the Western spirit and the Western way would note the discontent by merely walking through the single, sun-burned street. When two citizens of the place make casual meeting in store or causeway, they confine their salutations to gruff “how'd!” and pass on. Men are even seen to drink alone in a sullen, morbid way.

Clearly something is wrong with Wolfville. The popular discontent is so sufficiently pronounced as to merit the notice of leading citizens. Therefore it is no marvel that when Old Man Enright, who, by right of years--and with a brain as clear and as bright as a day in June--is the head man of the hamlet, meets Doc Peets at the bar of the Red Light, the discussion falls on affairs of public concern.

“Whatever do you reckon is the matter with this camp, Enright?” asks Doc Peets, as they tip their liquor into their throats without missing a drop.

Doc Peets is the medical practitioner of Wolfville, but his grammar, like that of many another man, has lost ground before his environment.

“Can't tell!” replied Enright, with a mien dubious yet thoughtful. “Looks like the whole outfit is somehow on a dead kyard. Mebby it's that Denver party gettin' downed last week an' no one lynched. Some folks says the Stranglers oughter have swung that Greaser.”

“Well!” retorts Doc Peets, “you as chief of the Stranglers, an' I as a member in full standin', knows thar's no more evidence ag'in that Mexican than ag'in my _pinto_ hoss.”

“Of course, I knows that too!” replies Enright, “but still I sorter thinks general sentiment lotted on a hangin'. You know, Doc, it ain't so important from a public stand that you stretches the right gent, as that you stretches somebody when it's looked for. Nacherally it would have been mighty mortifyin' to the Mexican who's swung off at the loop-end of the lariat for a killin' he ain't in on; but still I holds the belief it would have calmed the sperit of the camp. However, I may be 'way off to one side on that; it's jest my view. Set up the nosepaint ag'in, barkeep!”

While Doc Peets is slowly freighting his glass with a fair allowance, he is deep in meditation.

“I've an idee, Enright,” says Doc Peets at last. “The thing for us to do is to give the public some new direction of thought that'll hold 'em quiet. The games is all dead at this hour, an' the boys ain't doin' nothin'; s'pose we makes a round-up to consider my scheme. The mere exercise will soothe 'em.”

“Shall we have Jack Moore post a notice?” asks

Enright. “He's Kettle Tender to the Stranglers, an' I reckons what he does that a-way makes it legal.”

“No,” says Peets, “let's rustle 'em in an' hold the meetin' right now an' yere in the Red Light. Some of the boys is feelin' that petulant they're likely to get to chewin' each other's manes any minute. I'm tellin' you, Enright, onless somethin' is done mighty _poce tiempo_ to cheer 'em, an' convince 'em that Wolfville is lookin' up an' gettin' ahead on the correct trail, this outfit's liable to have a killin' any time at all. The recent decease of that Denver person won't be a marker!”

“All right!” says Enright, “if thar ain't no time for Moore an' a notice, a good, handy, quick way to focus public interest would be to step to the back door, an' shake the loads outen my six-shooter. That'll excite cur'osity, an' over they'll come all spraddled out.”

Thus it comes to pass that the afternoon peace of Wolfville is suddenly disparaged and broken down by six pistol shots. They follow each other like the rapid striking of a Yankee clock.

“Any one creased?” asks Jack Moore, by general consent a fashion of marshal and executive officer for the place, and who, followed by the population of Wolfville, rushes up the moment following the shooting.

“None whatever!” replies Doc Peets, cheerfully. “The shootin' you-alls hears is purely bloodless; an' Enright an' me indulges tharin onder what they calls the 'public welfare clause of the constitootion.' The intent which urges us to shake up the sereenity of the hour is to convene the camp, which said rite bein' now accomplished, the barkeep asks your beverages, an' the business proceeds in reg'lar order.”

Enright, who has finished replenishing the pistol from which he evicted the loads, draws a chair to a monte table and drums gently with his fingers.

“The meetin' will please bed itse'f down!” says Enright, with a sage dignity which has generous reflection in the faces around him. “Doc Peets, gents, who is a sport whom we all knows an' respects, will now state the object of this round-up. The barkeep meanwhile will please continue his rounds, the same not bein' deemed disturbin'; none whatever.”

“Gents, an' fellow townsmen!” says Doc Peets, rising at the call of Enright and stepping forward, “I avoids all harassin' mention of a yeretofore sort. Comin' down to the turn at once, I ventures the remark that thar's somethin' wrong with Wolfville. I would see no virtue in pursooin' this subject, which might well excite the resentment of all true citizens of the town, was it not that I feels a crowdin' necessity for a change of a radical sort. Somethin' must be proposed, an' somethin' must be did. I am well aware thar's gents yere to-day as holds a conviction that a bet is overlooked in not stringin' the Mexican last week on account of the party from Denver. That may or may not be true; but in any event, that hand's been played, an' that pot's been lost an' won. Whether on that occasion we diskyards an' draws for the best interests of the public, may well pass by onasked. At any rate we don't fill, an' the Greaser wins out with his neck. Lettin' the past, tharfore, drift for a moment, I would like to hear from any gent present somethin' in the line of a proposal for future action; one calc'lated to do Wolfville proud. As affairs stand our pride is goin' our brotherly love is goin', our public sperit is goin', an' the way we're p'intin' out, onless we comes squar' about on the trail, we won't be no improvement on an outfit of Digger Injuns in a month. Gents, I pauses at this p'int for su'gestions.”

As Doc Peets sits down a whispered buzz runs through the room. It is plain that what he has said finds sympathy in his audience.

“You've heard Peets,” observes Enright, beating softly. “Any party with views should not withhold 'em. I takes it we-all is anxious for the good of Wolfville. We should proceed with wisdom. Red Dog, our tinhorn rival, is a-watchin' of this camp, ready to detect an' take advantages of any weakenin' of sperit on the Wolfville part. So far Red Dog has been out-lucked, out-played, an' out-held. Wolfville has downed her on the deal, an' on the draw. But, to continue in the future as in the past, requires to-day that we acts promptly, an' in yoonison, an' give the sitooation, mentally speakin', the best turn in the box.”

“What for a play would it be?” asks Dan Boggs, doubtfully, as he rises and bows stiffly to Enright, who bows stiffly in return; “whatever for a play would it be to rope up one of these yere lecture sharps, which the same I goes ag'inst the other night in Tucson? He could stampede over an' put us up a talk in the warehouse of the New York Store; an' I'm right yere to say a lecture would look mighty meetropolitan, that a-way, an' lay over Red Dog like four kings an' an ace.”

“Whatever was this yere ghost dancer you adverts to lecturin' about?” asks Jack Moore.

“I never do hear the first of it,” replies Boggs. “Me an' Old Monte, the stage driver, is projectin' about Tucson at the time we strikes this lecture game, an* it's about half dealt out when he gets in on it. But as far as we keeps tabs, he's talkin' about Roosia an' Siberia, an' how they were pesterin' an' playin' it low on the Jews. He has a lay-out of maps an' sech, an' packs the whole racket with him from deal box to check-rack. Folks as _sabes_ lectures allows he turns as strong a game, with as high a limit, as any sport that ever charged four bits for a back seat. The lecture sharp's all right; the question is do you-alls deem highly of the scheme? If it's the sense of this yere town, it don't take two days to cut this short-horn out of the Tucson herd an' drive him over yere.

“Onder other, an' what one might call a more concrete condition of public feelin',” says Doc Peets, cutting rapidly and diplomatically into the talk, “the hint of our esteemed townsman would be accepted on the instant. But to my mind this yere camp ain't in no proper frame of mind for lectures on Roosia. It'll be full of trouble,--sech a talk. I _sabes_ Roosia as well as I does an ace. Thar's an old silver tip they calls the Czar, which is their language for a sort o' national chief of scouts, an' he's always trackin' 'round for trouble. Thar's bound to be no end of what you might call turmoil in a lecture on Roosia, and the sensibilities of Wolfville, already harrowed, ain't in no shape to bear it. Now, while friend Boggs has been talkin', my idees has followed off a different waggon track. What we-all needs, is not so much a lecture, which is for a day, but somethin' lastin', sech as the example of a refined an' elevated home life abidin' in our very midst. What Wolfville pines for is the mollifyin' inflooence of woman. Shorely we has Faro Nell! who is pleasantly present with us, a-settin' back thar alongside Cherokee Hall; an' that gent never makes a moccasin track in Wolfville who don't prize an' value Nell. Thar ain't a six-shooter in camp but what would bark itse'f hoarse in her behalf. But Nell's young; merely a yearlin' as it were. What we wants is the picture of a happy household where the feminine part tharof, in the triple capacity of woman, wife an' mother, while cherishin' an' carin' for her husband, sheds likewise a radiant inflooence for us.”

“Whoopee! for Doc Peets!” shouts Faro Nell, flourishing her broad sombrero over her young curls.

“Pausin' only to thank our fair young townswoman,” says Doc Peets, bowing gallantly to Faro Nell, who waves her hand in return, “for her endorsements, which the same is as flatterin' as it is priceless, I stampedes on to say that I learns from first sources, indeed from the gent himse'f, that one of the worthiest citizens of Wolfville, Mr. Killifer, who is on the map as blacksmith at the stage station, has a wife in the states. I would recommend that Mr. Killifer be requested to bring on this esteemable lady to keep camp for him. The O. K. Restaurant will lose a customer, the same bein' the joint where Kif gets his daily _con-carne_; but Rucker, the landlord, will not repine for that. What will be Rucker's loss will be general gain, an' for the welfare of Wolfville, Rucker makes a sacrifice. Mr. Chairman, my su'gestion takes the form of a motion.”

“Which said motion,” responds Enright, with such vigorous application of his fist to the purpose of a gavel that nervous spirits might well fear for the results, “which said motion, onless I hears a protest, goes as it lays. Thar bein' no objection the chair declares it to be the commands of Wolfville that Syd Killifer bring on his wife. What heaven has j'ined together, let no gent----”

“See yere, Mr. Chairman!” interposes Killifer, with a mixture of decision and diffidence, “I merely interferes to ask whether, as the he'pless victim of this on-looked for uprisin', do my feelin's count? Which if I ain't in this--if it's regarded as the correct caper to lay waste the future of a gent, who in his lowly way is doin' his best to make good his hand, why! I ain't got nothin' to say. I'm impugnin' no gent's motives, but I'm free to remark, these yere proceeding strikes me as the froote of reckless caprice.”

“I will say to our fellow gent,” says Enright with much dignity, “that thar's no disp'sition to force a play to which he seems averse. If from any knowledge we s'posed we entertained of the possession of a sperit on his part, which might rise to the aid of a general need--I shorely hopes I makes my meanin' plain--we over-deals the kyards, all we can do is to throw our hands in the diskyard an' shuffle an' deal ag'in.”

“Not at all, an' no offence given, took or meant!” hastily retorts Killifer, as he balances himself uneasily upon his feet, and surveys first, Enright and then Peets. “I has the highest regard for the chair, personal, an' takes frequent occasion to remark that I looks on Doc Peets as the best eddicated scientist I ever sees in my life. But this yere surge into my domestic arrangements needs to be considered. You-alls don't know the lady in question, which, bein' as it's my wife, I ain't assoomin' no airs when I says I does.”

“Does she look like me, Kif?” asks Faro Nell from her perch near Cherokee Hall.

“None whatever, Nell!” responds Killifer. “To be shore! I ain't basked none in her society for several years, an' my mem'ry is no doubt blurred by stampedes, an' prairie fires, an' cyclones, an' lynchin's, an' other features of a frontier career; but she puts me in mind, as I recalls the lady, of an Injun uprisin' more'n anythin' else. Still, she's as good a woman as ever founds a flap-jack. But she's haughty; that's what she is, she's haughty.

“I might add,” goes on Killifer, in a deprecatory way, “that inasmuch as I ain't jest lookin' for the camp yere to turn to me in its hour of need, this proposal to transplant the person onder discussion to Wolfville, is an honour as onexpected as a rattlesnake in a roll of blankets. But you-alls knows me!”--And here Killifer braces himself desperately.--“What the camp says, goes! I'm a _vox populi_ sort of sport, an' the last citizen to lay down on a duty. Still!”--here Killifer's courage begins to ebb a little--“I advises we go about this yere enterprise mighty conserv'tive. My wife has her notions, an' now I thinks of it she ain't likely to esteem none high neither of our Wolfville ways. All I can say, gents, is that if she takes a notion ag'in us, she's as liable to break even as any lady I knows.”

“Thar ain't a gent here but what honours Kif,” says the sanguine Peets, as he looks encouragingly at Killifer, who has resumed his seat and is gloomily shaking his head, “for bein' frank an' free in this.”

“Which I don't want you-alls to spread your blankets on no ant-hill, an' then blame me!” interrupts Killifer dejectedly.

“I believe, Mr. Chairman,” continues Doc Peets, “we fully onderstands the feelin's of our townsman in this matter. But I'm convinced of the correctness of my first view. Thar can shorely be nothin' in the daily life of Wolfville at which the lady could aim a criticism, an' we needs the beneficent example of a home. I would tharfore insist on my plan with perhaps a modification.”

“I rises to ask the Preesidin' Officer a question!” interrupts Dave Tutt.

“Let her roll!” retorts Enright.

“How would it be to invite Kif's wife to come yere on a visit?” queries Tutt. “Sorter take her on probation! That's the way an oncle of mine back in Missouri j'ines the Meth'dist Church. An' it's lucky the congregation takes them precautions; which they saves the trouble of cuttin' the old felon out of the herd later, when he falls from grace. Which last he shorely does!”

“Not waitin' for the chair to answer,” replies Doc Peets, “I holds the limitation of Tutt to be good. I tharfore pinches down my original resolootion to the effect that Kif bring his wife yere for a month. Let her stack up ag'inst our daily game, an' triumph through a deal or so, an' she'll never quit Wolfville nor Wolfville her. I shorely holds the present occasion the openin' of a new era.”

It is a month later, perhaps, when everybody assembles at the post-office to receive the lady on whom the local public has built so many hopes. Killifer has gone over to Tucson to act as her escort into Wolfville, and, as he said, “to sorter break the effect.”

She is an iron-visaged heroine. As Killifer hands her from the stage--a ceremony upon which he bestows that delicate care wherewith he would have aided the unloading of so much dynamite--Doc Peets steps gallantly forward, raising his hat. Doc Peets is the proprietor of the only stiff hat in town, and presumes on it.

“Who is that insultin' drunkard, Mr. Killifer?” demands the lady, as she bends her eyes on the suave Peets, with such point-blank wrath that it silences the salutation on Peets' lips; “no friend of your'n I hope?”

“Which I says it in confidence,” remarks Old Monte, as an hour later he refreshes himself at the bar of the Red Light, “for I holds it onprofessional to go blowin' the private affairs of my passengers, but I shorely thinks the old grizzly gives Kif a clawin' on the way over. I hears him yell like a wolf back in Long's canyon. To be shore! he's inside an' I can't see, but I'm offerin' two to one up to $100 she was lickin' him; if I don't I'm a Siwash!”

It turns out as Killifer predicted. He read the lady aright. There is nothing in Wolfville to which she yields approval. It would be as impossible as it would be terrific, to repeat in print the conduct of this remarkable woman. She utterly abashes Enright; while such hare-hearts as Jack Moore, Cherokee Hall, Dave Tutt, Texas Thompson, Short Creek Dave and Dan Boggs, fly from her like quicksilver. Even Doc Peets acknowledges himself defeated and put to naught. The least of her feats is the invasion of a peaceful poker game to which Killifer is party, and the sweeping confiscation of every dollar in the bank on claim that it is money ravished from Killifer by venal practices. The mildest of her plans is one to assail the Red Light with an axe, should she ever detect the odour of whiskey about Killifer again.

“An' do you know, Doc!” observes Enright, a fortnight later, as they meet for their midday drink, “the boys sorter lays it on you. You know me, Doc! I'll stand up ag'in the iron for you; but as a squar' man, with a fairly balanced mind, I'm bound to admit the boys is right. Now I don't say they feels resentful; it's more like they was mournful over what used to be, an' a day of peace gone by. But you knows what people be whose burdens is more'n they can bear; an' if I was you, this yere lady or I would leave the camp. I'm the last gent to go dictatin' about the details of another gent's game; but you an' me, Doc, has been old friends, an' as a warnin' from a source which means you well, I gives it to you cold the camp is gettin' hostile.”

It is always a spectacle to inspire, to witness a great soul rise to an occasion. Doc Peets never so proves the power of his nature as now, when the tremendous shadow of “Kif's wife” has fallen across Wolfville like a blight. Peets, following Enright's forebodings, holds a long and secret conference with the unhappy Killifer. That night Peets rides to Tucson. The next day Old Monte, with his six horses a-foam, comes crashing into Wolfville two hours ahead of schedule. Before even a mail bag is thrown off, Old Monte unpouches a telegram received at the Tucson office for Mistress Killifer. Its earmark is Illinois; its contents moving. No matter what it tells, its news is cogent enough to decide the lady's mind.

The next morning this dread woman departs, leaving, as she came, with a withering look at all around. That night Killifer gets drunk. Wolfville not only pardons Killifer in his weakness; it joins him.

“But you suppresses the facts, Kif, when you says she's haughty,” observes Dan Boggs. “Haughty, as a deescription, ain't a six-spot!”

“It's with no purpose, Kif,” says Doc Peets, as he fills his glass, “to discourage you--whom I sympathises with as an onfortunate, an' respects as a dead game gent--that I yereby invites the pop'lation to join me in a drink of congratulation on Wolfville's escape from your wife. An' all informal though this assemblage be, I offers a resolootion that this, the 23d of August, the date when the lady in question pulls her freight, be an' remain forevermore a day of yearly thanksgivin' to Wolfville.”

“Which I libates to that myse'f!” says Killifer as he drains his cup to the last lingering drop. “Also I trusts this camp will proceed with caution the next time it turns in to play my domestic hand.”

BEARS

Bears are peaceful folk. They are a mild and lowly citizenry of the woods--I'm talking of the black sort--and shuffle modestly away the moment they hear you coming. We get many of our impressions of the ferocity of animals and the deadly poisons of reptiles from an unworthy sort of hearsay evidence. Much of it comes from Mexicans and Indians rather than from real experience. Now I wouldn't traduce either the Mexicans or the Indians, for their lot is one of hard, sodden ignorance; but it must be conceded that they're by no means careful historians, and run readily to tales of the marvellous and the tragic. I am going back to a bear story I have in mind before I get through; but I want to interject here, while I think of it, that though the centipede, the rattlesnake, the tarantula and the Gila monster, have bitter repute as able to deal death with their poisonous feet or fangs, I was never, in my years on the plains and in the mountains, able to secure proof of even the shallowest sort that a death, whether of man or animal, had ever resulted from the sting of any one of these. On the other hand, I have been with men who were bitten by rattlesnakes, or stung by tarantulas; or who while asleep had suffered as the inadvertent promenade of a centipede, with its hundred hooked, poison-exuding feet; but none of them died. They were sick in an out-of-sort, headache fashion for a day or two; the bitten place inflamed and was sore for a week or a month; that was all. I suppose I've known of fully one hundred horses, cows and sheep which were bitten by rattlesnakes; none died. They were invariably fanged in the nose, too, as they grazed towards my lord of the rattlers. On more than one occasion I kept the animal so bitten in sight to note results. Its head would swell and puff; it would lounge about with a sick listlessness for several days; then the poison would wear away in force, and back to its grass it would go with the wire-edge appetite of a sailor home from sea.

But about bears. I was remarking that my black, shaggy cousins of the woods were a peaceful folk. So much is this true, and so little do their neighbours apprehend violence at their clumsy hands, that they who live in regions which abound in bears evince not the least alarm about the safety of their children. The babies, some as young as five or six years, roam the same mountains with the bears; and, while the latter will swoop upon a pig and run dangers with wide-open eyes in doing it, never did I hear of one who disturbed a ringlet on a child's head. They had daily opportunities enough, for many are the households to live in the wide, pine-sown Rockies.

Our bears, too, are creatures of vast physical power. Often, as I rode the mountain for cattle, have I come across a dead and fallen pine tree, which would have defeated the best efforts of a horse to move, completely torn from its bed in the earth and leaves, and either overturned or thrown one side by the mighty arms of a bear. He was in search of a dinner cf grubs--those white, helpless worms which make their dull homes under rotten logs--and Sir Bear made no more ado of lifting and laying aside a pine tree in his grub-hunt than would you or I of a billet of firewood.

While in the mountains I marvelled over the fact that the bears and the mountain lions never assailed the young calves. The hills were rife with cattle, and every spring found the canyons and oak-bushed slopes a perfect nursery of calves. And yet neither the panthers nor the bears disturbed them. It was due, I think, more to the bellicose character of the old cow and her relatives, than any uprightness of character on the part of the bears, and the panthers. Let a calf raise but one yell of distress in those mountains--and I assure you he can make their walls and valleys ring with his youthful music when so disposed--and, out of canyons and off mesas, over logs and crashing through the oak bushes, will come plunging all the cattle within hearing. Not thirty seconds will elapse before as many cattle will be by the side of the threatened calf, lusting for battle. They make such a phalanx of sharp, threatening horns, coupled with their rolling, wrath-red eyes and ferocious breathings, that, I warrant you, they have so shocked the nerves of past bears and panthers, it has become instinct with these latter to give the whole horned, truculent brood a wide berth.

The Indians are very fond of the bear for his wisdom, and he divides their respect with the beaver as a personage of sagacity. The curiosity of my shaggy friend would shame any boy or girl of ten. You may be sure, were a bear to visit you for a week at your home, he would open every door, ransack every bureau, take every garment off every hook in every closet--and I had almost said “try it on”--before he had been with you an hour. Not a box nor a barrel, not a nook nor cranny, from cellar to ridge pole, would escape his investigation. His black nose would sniff at every crack, his black hand explore every crevice. Nor, beyond what he bestowed in his remorseless stomach, would he destroy anything. I have the black coat of a bear at my house, who might be wearing it himself to-day, were it not for his curiosity.

There was a salt spring near my camp on the upper Red River; perhaps two miles away, which is “near” in the mountains. This salt spring was popular with the deer. They repaired thither to lick the salt earth about the waters. I had, among the lumber at my camp, a big, two-spring trap of steel; I suppose it must have weighed sixty pounds. It occurred to me that a lazy way to kill a deer would be to set this wide-jawed engine near the spring and let one walk into it. I'm not proud of this plan as a method in deer-killing, and wouldn't do it now. On this occasion, however I was not particular. I “set” the trap at my camp--for I had to use a hand-spike to crush down the springs, and it all gave me a deal of work and trouble--and then, with its jaws wide open, but held so that it wouldn't nip me in case it did snap, I crept carefully aboard my pony and rode over to the spring. The next morning early I had to go again to remove the trap, as during the day the cattle would take the places of the deer at this delectable salt spring, and I didn't care to break the legs of a thirty-dollar steer with my trapping. I went over while it was yet dark, and found no deer in the trap. I took it and hid it, face downward--the jaws still spread and “set”--by the of a big yellow pine log, which stretched its decayed length along the slope of the canyon. There I left it, intending to return and rearrange it for deer at dusk.

It snowed that day, and as I grew lazy towards night, I left my trap where I'd hidden it by the yellow pine log. The deer would have one night of safety. What was safety for the deer proved otherwise for the bear.

The following day I rode over just as the canyons were getting dark and the cattle climbing out of them to pass the night on the hills. Behold! my trap was gone!

There was a great flourish of tracks in the snow; long plantigrade impressions like the bare footprints of some giant! I knew that a bear had somehow acquired my trap, or the trap, him; at that time I couldn't tell which. To make it short, however, it came to this: The bear, scouting in a loaferish way down the hill, and pausing no doubt to make an estimate of the probable grubs he would find beneath this particular yellow pine next summer, had chanced upon the trap. Here was a great find. Thoughts of grubs and common edible things at once deserted him. The mysterious novelty he had found took possession of his addle-pate like a new toy. A wolf or a fox would have smelled the odour of my handling, even off the cold steel of the trap, and been over the hills and far away in a twinkling. Your wolf is the canniest of timber folk; a grey Scotchman of the mountains. But my bear was reared on a different bottle. He sat down at once and actually took the new plaything in his lap. Then it would seem as if he deliberately thrust his paw into it and sprung its savage jaws on his forearm.

In his first wrathful surprise, my bear tore up the snow and bushes for twenty feet about; but at last he set off with the trap on his foot.

It was late. For half an hour I followed the broad track where his bearship had dragged the trap in the snow at a gallop. It was dark when at last I turned off for camp. Bright and betimes, I took the trail next day. It carried me over some ten miles of rough, close country. About midday I stood on the bluff edge of the Canyon Caliente, picking a pathway with my eyes along its steep, perilous side for my pony to get down. The bear had crossed here; but he was in the roughest of moods, and seemingly made no more of hurling himself over twenty-foot precipices--himself and my trap--or sublimely sliding down dangerous descents of hundreds of feet where foothold was impossible, than you would of eating buttered buns. So I had to pick out paths for myself; I couldn't trust to so reckless and uncivil an engineer as my bear.

As I sat in the saddle running a quick eye over the slope for a trail, I, of an instant, heard a most surprising noise. It was indeed a noble racket, and might have passed for a blacksmith shop. But I knew the hills too well. It was of a verity my bear; and from the riot he was making, it was plain I would have to get there soon if I wanted to save the trap.

This formidable uproar came from across the Caliente, perhaps half a mile. I slid from the saddle and went forward afoot. It didn't take long to cover the distance. I fell and tumbled down the first third, much as the bear had done a bit earlier.

Once on the other side, I came upon my rough gentleman cautiously, and found him sitting by the side of a round, boulder-like rock, something the size and contour of a load of hay. And he was smiting the enduring granite with my trap in a way which told more of his feelings than would have been possible with mere words. He would raise his arm clumsily, 60-pound trap and all, and then bring it against the rock with all the fervour of rage and giant strength.

He was so wrapt in the enterprise, he never heard me until a shot from my Winchester met him just under the ear. One shot did it; and I had trap and bear. He had ruined the trap; one spring was broken and the whole disparaged beyond my power to repair. Wherefore I stripped him of his black overcoat to pay for the damage he had done; and that and the grease I took from him covered all costs and damages.

THE BIG TOUCH

(Annals of The Bend)

Me fren', Mollie Matches,” observed Chucky.

That was our introduction. A moment later Chucky whispered in a hoarse aside:

“Matches is d' dip I chins youse about, who gets d' Hummin' Boid t'run into him.”