Chapter VI (2)

“Matches,” as Chucky called him, was a sad, grey, broken man. Years and a life of flight and anxious furtivity had told on him. His eye was dancing and birdlike; resting on nothing, roving always; the sure mark of one sort of criminal. Matches drank for an hour before he felt at ease. That time arrived, however, and I took advantage of it to feed my curiosity. It was no easy matter, but at last I won him by a deft blending of flattery and drink to talk of his crimes. And indeed I fear--for I suppose the expert thief does plume himself a bit on his art--that Matches took some sort of wretched pride in his illicit pocket searchings.

“D' biggest touch I ever makes,” said Matches, in response to a query, “was $36,000; quite a bunch of dough. Gettin' it was easy; gettin' away wit' it was d' squeak.

“We toins d' trick on d' train from Albany. D' tip comes straight to me in New York that a bloke is goin' to draw $36,000 from d' Albany bank on such a day. I makes up a mob; t'ree stalls an' meself;--all pretty fly we was--an' lands in Albany.

“We gets onto d' party who's to be woiked early in d' mornin', an' shadows him so dost he's never out of reach. Our play is to follow him to d' bank an' do him wit 'd' drop game. If that misses, we're to stay wit' him till d' bundle's ours be one racket or another.

“This sucker is pretty soon himself, see! He ain't such a mut as we figgers. His train starts at 1 o'clock, an' he takes in d' bank on his way to d' station.

“Of course we was wit' him; but he's dead leary an' never t'rows himself open to be woiked. D' stuff is in t'ousand-dollar willyums, an' as he just sinks it in his keck d' minute his hooks is onto it, an' never stops to count or run his lamps over it, we don't get no chanct to do d' drop. D' instant d' money's in his mits he plants it--all stretched out long in a big leather, it is--in his inside pocket, an' screws his nut for d' door. D' hack slams an' he's on his way to d' train.

“Yes; we starts for d' station be another street. D' bloke ain't onto us yet, an' we tries not to plant a scare into him. He's leary enough as it is; just havin' such a roll wit' him rattles him.

“So I makes up me mind to do d' job on d' train runnin' into New York. As he sinks d' stuff away, I notes how d' ends of d' bills sticks out over d' pocket-book. Me idee is to weed it--get d' dough an' leave d' leather in his pocket--if I can make d' play. Weedin' was d' way to do; you gets d' long green an 'd' sucker still has d' leather to feel of, an' it's some time before he tumbles he's been touched, see!

“D' guy wit 'd' stuff plants himself in a seat. Two of me stalls sits ahead of him, me an' me other pal is behint him. We only waits now for him to get up an' come along d' aisle of d' car to get in our hooks.

“Foist I goes d' len'th of d' train to see who's onto it. I always does that; I wants to see if any guy aboard knows Mollie Matches. You see, if there is, when d' holler comes, an' some duck declares himself shy his spark, or roll, or ticker, it's 40 to 1 Mr. Know-all, who's onto me for a crook, sends a tip to d' p'lice: 'Matches was on d' train!' an' I gets d' collar. No, I never woiks when one of me acquaintances is along be accident. D' cops, in such case, as I says, is put onto me an' spots me wit 'd' foist yell.

“I covers d' train an' comes back. There's no guy on me visiting list who's along. So I sits down wit' me pal to d' rear of d' sucker an' waits.

“It's not for long. D' leather's still in his inside keck, 'cause I can see him pressin' on it wit' his mit to make sure it's there. At last he gets up to go to d' watercooler. I sees d' move comin', an' is in d' aisle before him. So's me stalls. From start to finish no one bungles d' stunt. There's a tangle--all be accident, of course--every mug 'pologises, we break away, an' I've got d' blunt. But d' woist part is, I can't weed it. D' stuff won't come no other way, an' so I lifts leather an' all.

“There's due to be a roar in no time;--this mark's bound to be on he's frisked!--so I splits out each stall's bit in a hurry an' says: 'Every gent for himself! an' if youse is nipped, don't knock!' an' then I sherries me nibs for d' rear coach. It was great graft. Me bit was $9,000, an' I has me plan all set up to save it an' meself wit' it. This is d' racket I has in me cocoa.

“In d' last coach is an old w'ite choker--a pulpit t'umper, you understand. Wit' him is his daughter, an' wit' her is her kid. Mebby d' kid, say, is six years. I heads for 'em an' begins to give d' old skate a jolly. I was dead strong on patter in them days, an' puts it up I'm a gospel sharp from Hamilton. I saws it off on his nibs how me choich boins down, an' how I'm linin' out to New York to see if d' good folks down there won't spring their rolls--cough up be way of donations, you understand, an' help us slam up a new box--choich, I means--so we can go back to our graft.

“It's all right. Me razzle dazzle takes like spring water. In two minutes me an 'd' old party an 'd' loidy, an' for that matter d' kid, is t'ick as t'ieves. We was bunched together, singin' 'Jesus, Lover of me Soul,' to beat four of a kind, when d' galoot I skins for his bundle lifts d' shout he's been done, see!

“This dub who lose is t'ree coaches ahead. D' foist we knows of his troubles--all but me--d' Con' comes an' locks d' door. No one can get off d' train. Then he stops an' taps d' wires wit' a machine from d' baggage car an' sends d' story chasin' into New York.

“'Party t'run down for $36,000, says d' message; 'swag an' crooks still on me train. Send orders.'

“D' order comes to keep d' doors locked an' run to New York wit' no more stops. An' after puttin' a Brakey in each coach to see what goes on, that's what dey does. We go spinnin' into New York at forty-five miles an hour.

“Naturally, I'm in a steam. I goes all right wit 'd' Con', an' d' train crew, as a sky pilot, but how was I to make d' riffle wit' de fly cop of New York, who'd be waitin' for d' train--me mug in d' gallery, an' four out o' five of 'em twiggin' me be me foist name? But I t'ought it out.

“When d' train rumbles into d' Gran' Central, d' door is slammed open an' we all gets up to go. A fly-cop is comin' in just as we starts. I grabs up d' kid to carry him, see! bein' d' old preacher party nor d' skirt ain't so able as me.

“Say! it was a winner. I buries me map in d' kid's make-up, gets between d' goil an' d' old stumblin' mucker of a gran'dad, an' walks slap t'rough d' entire day-push of d' Central office. An' hard, sharp marks dey is to beat, see!

“Fly dey is, but not swift enough for Matches wit a scare on, see! Not a dub of 'em tumbles to me.

“In two moves an' ten seconts I'm in d' street. As I goes along I pulls a ring off one of me north hooks wit' me teet,' an' t'oins it over to d' kid as his bit for makin' d' good front for me. No; d' others don't catch on, but d' way he cinches it in his small mit shows me he's goin' to save it out for fair.

“When I hits d' street I drops d' youngone, who's still froze to his solitaire, an' grabs off a cab, an' in twenty minutes I'm buried where all d' p'lice in New York couldn't toin me up in a t'ousand years.

“No; me pals got d' collar, an' each does a stretch. But dey lays dead about me; never peached nor squealed. I win out.

“Who?--d' w'ite choker an' his party? Nit; never hears of 'em ag'in. For four days I gets one of d' fam'ly--he's a crook who's under cover for a bank trick, an' who's eddicted--to read me all d' poipers. I wants to see if d' preacher an' his goil gives up anyt'ing about d' ring I swaps to d' kid.

“Never hears a peep! Nixie; dey was on all right, you bet your life! when their lamps lights on that jewelry; but most likely dey needs d' ring in their graft. It was a spark wort' five hundred cases from any fence in d' land, an' so d' old guy an' his goil sort o' stan's for d' play, see!”

THE FATAL KEY

Young Jenkins prided himself on sharp eyes. He said he could “give a hawk cards and spades.” He could find four-leaf clovers where no one else could see them. He took in the smallest detail of the scenery all about him.

As a result, young Jenkins was a great finder of small trifles, and that he might miss nothing, lost, strayed or stolen, he went about during the little journeys of the day, with his eyes searching the ground. And he picked up many trinkets of a personal sort that other men had lost. Nothing of much value, perhaps, but it served to please young Jenkins, and it gave him a chance to boast of the sharp, devouring character of his eyes.

Even as a child, young Jenkins was prone to find things. He told how once his talents as a retriever made him the subject of parental suspicion. He was ten years old when he picked up a four-blade Barlow knife.

“Where did you get it?” queried old Jenkins, as young Jenkins displayed his treasure trove.

“Found it,” was the reply.

“Oh, you found it!” snorted old Jenkins. “Well, take it straight back, and put it where you found it, and don't 'find' any more. If you do, I'll lick you out of your knickerbockers!”

In spite of such discouragement, young Jenkins kept on finding all sorts of bric-à-brac. He does even to this day.

One evening young Jenkins had a disagreeable adventure, as the fruit of his talent, which for an hour or so made him wish he had weaker vision.

It was on Great Jones Street, and young Jenkins, hurrying along, noticed in the half moonlight a big store key, where the owner had dropped it just after locking up for the night. The hour was full midnight.

Young Jenkins possessed himself of the key. He looked at it as he held it in his hand, and wondered how the careless shopman would open up in the morning without it.

From where it lay it wasn't hard to infer the store to which the key belonged. Yet to make sure on that point it occurred to young Jenkins that he might better try the lock with it.

Young Jenkins had just fitted the big key to the lock when some one seized him by the wrist. It startled him so that he dropped the key and allowed it to go rattling along the sidewalk. As young Jenkins looked up he saw that the party who had got him was a member of the police.

“I was trying to unlock the door!” stammered young Jenkins.

“I saw what you were about,” said the officer with suspicious severity. “What were you monkeying with the door for? You aren't the owner of this store?”

“No, sir,” said young Jenkins, much impressed. “No, sir; I----”

“Nor one of the clerks?”

“No, sir,” replied young Jenkins again, “I have nothing to do with the store. I found the key, and thought I'd see if it opened this door.”

“What did you want to see if it would open the door for? Don't you think it is a little late for a joke of that sort?”

“It wasn't a joke,” said young Jenkins, beginning to perspire rather copiously; “it was an experiment. I found the key on the sidewalk, and wanted to see----”

“Yes!” interrupted the blue coat with a fine scorn; “you wanted to see if you could get into the store and rob it bare. That is what you wanted to see. You're a box-worker, if ever I met one, and if I hadn't come along you would have had this bin cracked and cleaned out in another ten minutes.”

“I told you I found the key,” protested young Jenkins.

“That's all right about your finding the key!” said the policeman in supreme contempt. “You found the key and I found you, and we'll both keep what we've found. That's square, ain't it?”

And in spite of all young Jenkins could say at that late hour of the twenty-four, the faithful officer dragged him to the station, where a faithful sergeant faithfully registered him, and a faithful turnkey locked him faithfully up.

As young Jenkins sat unhappy in his cell, while vermin sparred with him for an opening, he registered a vow that never again would he find anything.

Young Jenkins wouldn't pick up a twenty-dollar gold piece were he to meet one to-day in the street.

AN OCEAN ERROR

No; neither my name nor the name of my vessel can I give. Our navy has a way of courtmartialing its officers who wax garrulous.”

It was just as the Lieutenant called for the _creme de menthe_, that may properly succeed a dinner well ordered and well stowed.

“But you are welcome to the raw facts,” continued the Lieutenant. “It was during those anxious days that went before the penning in of Cervera at Santiago. We had been ordered on a ticklish service. Schley was over south of the island on a prowl for the Spanish fleet. Sampson was, or should have been, off the Windward Passage similarly employed. Cervera was last heard of two weeks before at Barbadoes. Then he disappeared like a ghost; no one knew where his smoke would be sighted next. The one sure thing, of which all were aware, was that with Sampson anywhere between the Mole and Cape Mazie, and Schley searching the wide seas south of Cuba, Cervera might easily with little luck and less seamanship dodge either and appear off Havana. There the cardboard fleet left on blockade wouldn't, with such heavy odds, last as long as a drink of whiskey.

“It stood thus when our orders came to my Captain to proceed to Bayou Hondu, some seventy miles west of Havana, and there stand off and on, like a policeman walking his beat, in what would be the path of Cervera should he work to the rear of Schley and to the north of Cuba by the way of St. Antonio.

“Our vessel was detailed on this duty because of her perfect order and speed of seventeen knots. Our heavy armament was eight 4-inch broadside guns, with a 6-inch rifle forward and another mounted aft. Our orders were: If Cervera came upon us to fight!--steam as slowly as might be for Havana and fight!--and to keep fighting until sunk or sure that the block-aders off Havana were warned, whether by our signals or our racket, of Cervera's coming.

“It was a grinding task, this lonely patrol off Bayou Hondu. The rains had just begun, the weather was a dripping hash of fog and squall and rain. If Cervera didn't come, it meant discomfort; and if he did, it meant death. Take it full and by, the outlook was depressing.

“At night no light burned and the ship was dark as a coffin. This, with the service, contributed to keep us all in a mood of alert nervousness. Cervera's ships would also be dark. We didn't care to be crept upon, and get our first notice of his advent from the broadside that sent us to the bottom like an anvil.

“We had been on this dreary duty some ten days. It was a dark, heavy night. I myself had the bridge, and the captain, whose anxiety kept him up, was seated in the starboard corner, dozing. His sea cloak was thrown over his head to keep out the weather. We were working to the eastward, with engines at quarter speed, and with a head sea running, were making perhaps three knots.

“The ship's bells were not being struck for the hours, and I had just looked at my watch by the light of the binnacle. It was half-past two in the morning.

“'How's your head?' I asked of the man at the wheel, as I put up my timepiece.

“'East by south, half south,' he replied.

“This was taking us too much inshore. 'Starboard for a point!' I said.

“As I turned from the wheel I saw that which sent a thrill over me and brought me up all standing. It was the murky loom of a great ship, black and dim and dark and silent as ourselves. She was off our port quarter and not five hundred yards away. It gave me a start, I confess. None of our ships should be that far to the west of Havana. It was a sword to a sheath knife she was one of Cervera's advance.

“Instantly I reached for the electric button; and instantly the red and white lights, which stood for the letter of that night, burned in our semaphore. The stranger replied with a red over two white lights. It was the wrong letter.

“With my first motion, the captain was on his feet; his hand gripped the lever that worked the engine bells.

“'Try her again!' he said.

“Again I flashed the proper letter, and again came a queer reply.

“The next moment the captain jammed the lever 'Full steam, ahead!' and a general call to quarters went singing through the ship.

“'Starboard!' shouted the captain to the man at the wheel; 'starboard! pull her over!'

“There was a vast churning from the propellers; the vessel leaped forward like a horse; the sailor climbed the wheel like a squirrel. We surged forward with a broad sheer to port. The next instant we opened on our dark visitor with every gun in the larboard battery. It wasn't ten seconds after she gave us the wrong signal when she got our broadside.

“The result was amazing. With the first crash of our guns the stranger went from utter darkness to the extreme of light. She flashed out all over like a Fall River steamer. Knowing who we were--for they bore orders for us--and realizing that there had been some mixing of signals, the officer on her bridge had the wit to turn on every light in his ship. It was an inspiration and saved them from a second broadside.

“Who was she? One of our own vessels. Cervera was locked in Santiago and she had come up to tell us the news. Her officer blundered in giving out the wrong letter for the night, and thereby sowed the seed of our misunderstanding.

“No, beyond peppering her a bit, our fire did no harm. We were so close that most of our shot went over her. Still, I don't believe that vessel will ever get her signals fouled again. And it's just as well that way. If she had made the wrong talk to some one of our heavy-weights, the Oregon, for instance, she would have gone down like so much pig-iron.”

SKINNY MIKE'S UNWISDOM

(Annals of The Bend)

CHUCKY was posed in his usual corner. As I came in he nodded sullenly as one whom the Fates ill-use. I craved of Chucky to name his drink; it was the surest way to thaw him.

“Make it beer,” said Chucky.

Now beer stood as a symbol of gloom with Chucky, as he himself had told me.

“It's always d' way wit' me,” said Chucky on that far occasion when he explained “Beer”, “when I'm dead sore an' been gettin' it in d' neck, to order beer. It's d' sorrowfulest kind of booze, beer is; there's a sob in every bottle of it, see!”

Realising Chucky's low spirits by virtue of present beer, I suavely made query of his unknown grief and tendered sympathy.

“I've been done for me dough,” replied Chucky, softening sulkily. “You minds d' races at d' Springs? That's it; I gets t'run down be d' horses. I get d' gaff for fifty plunks. Now, fifty plunks ain't all d' money in d' woild; but it was wit' me. It was me fortune.”

Chucky ruminated bitterly.

“Oh, I'm a good t'ing!” he ejaculated, as he tilted his chair against the wall with an air of decision. “I'll play d' jumpers agin, nit!

“W'at's d' use? I can't beat nothin'. Say! I couldn't beat a drum! I'm a mut to ever t'ink of it! I ought to give meself up to d' p'lice right now an' ast 'em to put me in Bloomin'dale or some other bug house. I'm nutty, that's what I am; an' that's for fair! Now, I'd as lief tell you. It's d' boss hard luck story, an' that ain't no vision!

“In d' foist place, I was a rank sucker to d' point of deemin' meself a wise guy about d' horses. An' it so follows, bein' stuck on meself about horses, as I says, that when Skinny Mike blows in wit 'd' idee that he can pick d' winner of d' big event, I falls to d' play, an easy mark.

“Mike is an oldtime tout; an' wit' me feelin', as I says, dead fly, it ain't a minute before I'm addin' me ignorance to Mike's, an' we're runnin' over d' dopes in d' papers seein' what d' horses has done. To make a long story short, we settles it for a finish that War Song's out to win. Which, after all, ain't such a sucker t'eory.

“'It's a cinch!' says Skinny Mike; 'War Song's got a pushover. Dey can't beat him; never in a t'ousand years!'

“It looks a sure tip to me, too; so I digs for me last dollar an' hocks me ticker besides, an' makes up d' fifty plunks I mentions. Mike sticks in fifty an' then takes d' whole roll an' screws his nut for d' Springs to get it up on War Song. Naw; I don't go. Mike's plenty to make d' play; an' besides I had me lamps on a sure t'ing for a tenner over on d' Bowery.

“Of course, while Mike's gone, I ain't doin' a t'ing but read d' poipers all to pieces. War Song's a 20-to-1 shot; I stan's to make a killin'--stan's to win a t'ousand plunks, see!

“An', say! War Song win! Mebby I don't give d' yell of d' year when I sees it in d' print.

“'W'at's eatin' youse, Chucky?' says me Rag, as I cuts loose me warwhoop.

“'O, I ain't got no nut!' I says, givin' meself d' gran' jolly. 'No! not at all! I has to ast some mark to tell me me name, I don't t'ink! I'm cooney enough to get onto War Song, all d' same! Say! I'm d' soonest galoot that ever comes down d' pike!'

“That's d' way I feels an' that's d' way I chins.

“At last I cools off me dampers an' sets in to wait for Mike. Meanwhile I begins to figger how I'll blow d' stuff, see! an' settle what I'll buy. It's a case of money to boin an' I was gettin' me matches ready before even Mike shows up.

“But Mike don't come. 'W'at th' 'ell!' I t'inks; 'Mike ain't crookt it; he ain't skipped wit' d' bundle?' An' say! you should a-seen me chew d' rag at d' idee.

“But I'm wrong on me lead. Mike hadn't welched, an' he hadn't been sandbagged. He comes creepin' along a day behint d' play, an' d' secont I gets me lamps on his mug I'm dead on we lose. I don't have to have me fortune told to tumble to that. Mike looks like five cents wort' of lard in a paper bag. An* here's d' song he sings.

“Mike says he goes to d' Springs all right, all right, an' is organised to get War Song for d' limit d' nex' day. It's that night, out be d' stables, when he chases up on a horsescraper--a sawed-off coon, he is--an 'd' horse-scraper breaks off a great yarn on Mike.

“'I ain't no tout, an' dis ain't no tip,' Mike says d' coon says; 'it's a rev'lation. On d' dead! it's a prophecy! It's las' night. I'm sleepin' in d' stall nex' to a little horse named Dancer. All at onct I wakes up an' listens. It's that Dancer horse in d' nex' stall talkin' to himself. Over an' over agin he says: “I'm goin' to win it! I'm goin' to win it!” just like that.'

“Well,” continued Chucky, “you know Skinny Mike. There's a ghost goes wit' Mike, an' he's that sooperstitious, d' nigger's story has him on a string in a hully secont. He can't shake it off. Away he wanders an' dumps d' entire wad on Dancer, an' never puts a splinter on War Song at all.

“W'at do you t'ink of it? On d' level! w'at d' youse really t'ink of it? That Mike's a woild-beater; that's right; a woild-beater an' a wonder to boot! I'd like to trade him for a yaller dawg, an' do d' dawg!”

“Did Dancer win?” I asked.

“Did Dancer win?” repeated Chucky; and his tones breathed guttural scorn; “d' old skate never even finished. Naw; he gets 'round on d' back stretch, stops, bites d' boy off his back, chases over be d' fence an' goes to eatin' grass; that's what Dancer does. He's a dandy race horse, or I don't want a cent! I'll bet me mudder-in-law on that Dancer some day. I tells Mike to take a run an' jump on himself. Naw,” concluded Chucky, with a great gulp, “Dancer don't win; War Song win.”

MOLLIE PRESCOTT

(Wolfville)

The Cactus” was the name bestowed upon her in Wolfville. Her signature, if she had written it, would probably have been Mollie Prescott, at least such was the declaration of Cherokee Hall.

“I sees this yere lady a year ago in Tombstone,” asserted that veracious chronicler, “where she cooks at the stage station; an' she gives it out she's Prescott--Mollie Prescott--an' most likely she knows her name, an' knows it a year ago.”

As Cherokee was a historian of known firmness of statement, no one cared to challenge either his facts or his conclusions. The true name of “The Cactus” was accepted by the Wolfville public as Prescott.

“The Cactus” was personable, and her advent into Wolfville society caused something of a flutter. Her mission was to cook, and in the fulfilment of her destiny she presided over the range at the stage station.

Being publicly hailed as “The Cactus” seemed in no wise to depress her. It was even possible she took a secret glow over an epithet, meant by the critical taste awarding it, to illustrate those thorns in her nature which repelled and held in check the amorous male of Wolfville.

Women were not frequent in Wolfville, and on her coming, “The Cactus” had many admirers. Every man in camp loved her the moment she stepped from the Tucson stage; that is, every man save Cherokee Hall. That scientist, given wholly to faro as a philosophy, had no time--in a day before he met Faro Nell--for so dulcet an affair as love. Also Cherokee had scruples born of his business.

“Life behind a deal box is a mighty sight too fantastic,” observed the thoughtful Cherokee, “for a fam'ly. It does well enough for single-footers, which it don't make much difference with when some gent they've mortified an' hurt, pulls his six-shooter an' sends them lopin' home to heaven all spraddled out. But a lady ain't got no business with a sport who turns kyards as a pursoot.”

As time unfurled, the train of lovers to sigh on the daily trail of “The Cactus” dwindled. There were those who grew dispirited.

“I'm clean-strain enough,” said Dan Boggs, in apologetic description of his failure to persevere, “but I knows when I've got through. I'll play a game to a finish, but when it's down to the turn an' my last chip's gone over to the dealer, why! I shoves my chair back an' quits. An' it's about that a-way of an' concernin' my yearnin's for this yere Cactus girl. I jest can't get her none, an' that settles it. I now drops out an' gives up my seat complete.”

“That's whatever!” said Texas Thompson, who was an interested listener to the defeated Boggs, “an' you can gamble I'm with you on them views! Seein' as how my wife in Laredo gets herse'f that divorce, I turns in an' loves this Cactus person myse'f to a frightful degree. Thar's times I simply goes about sobbin' them sentiments publicly. But yere awhile back I comes wanderin' 'round her kitchen, an' bing! arrives a skillet at my head. That lets me out! You bet! I don't pursoo them explorations 'round her no more. I has exper'ence with one, an' I don't aim to get any lariat onto a second female who is that callous as to go a-chunkin' of kitchen bric-a-brac at a heart which is merely pinin' for her smiles.”

There were two at the shrine of “The Cactus,” who were known to Wolfville, respectively, as Cottonwood Wasson and Cape Jinks. These were distinguished for the ardour wherewith they made siege to the affection of “The Cactus,” and the energy of their demands for her capitulation.

That virgin, however, paid neither heed to their court, nor took an interest in the comment of onlook-ing Wolfville. She pursued her path in life, even and unmoved. She set her tables, washed her dishes, and perfected her daily beefsteaks by the ingenious process, popular in the Southwest, of burning them on the griddles of the range, and all with a composure bordering hard on the stolid.

“All I'm afraid of,” said Old Man Enright, the head of the local vigilance committee, “is that some of these yere young bucks'll take to pawin' 'round for trouble with each other. As the upshot of sech doin's would most likely be the stringin' of the survivors by the committee, nuptials, which now looks plenty feasible, would be plumb busted an' alienated, an' the camp get a setback it would be hard to rally from. I wishes this maiden would tip her hand to some discreet gent, so a play could be made in advance to get the wrong parties over to Tucson or some'ers. Whatever do you think yourse'f, Cherokee?”

“It's a delicate deal,” replied that philosopher, “to go tamperin' 'round a lady for the secret of her soul. But I shorely deems the occasion a crisis, an* public interest demands somethin' is done. I wish Doc Peets was yere; he knows these skirted cattle like I does an ace. But Peets won't be back for a month; pendin' of which, onless we-alls interferes, it's my jedgment some of this yere amorousness 'll come off in the smoke.”

“Thar ought to be statoots,” observed Texas Thompson, with a fine air of wisdom, “ag'in love-makin' in the far West. The East should be kept for sech purposes speshul; same as reservations for Injuns. The Western climate's too exyooberant for love.”

“S'pose me an' you an' Thompson yere goes to this young person, an' all p'lite an' congenial like, we ups an' asks her intentions?” remarked Enright. This was offered to Cherokee.

“Excuse me, pards!” said Texas Thompson with eagerness, “but I don't reckon I wants kyards in this at all. 'The Cactus' is a mighty fine young bein', but you-alls recalls as how I've been ha'ntin' 'round her somewhat in the past myse'f. For which reason, with others, she might take my comin' on sech errants derisive, an' bust me over the forehead with a dipper, or some sech objectionable play. I allows I better keep out of this embroglio a whole lot. I ain't aiming to shirk nothin', but it'll be a heap more shore to win.”

“Thompson ain't onlikely to be plenty right about this,” said Cherokee, “an' I reckons, Enright, we-alls better take this trick ourse'ves.”

The mission was not a success. When the worthy pair of peace-preservers appeared in the presence of “The Cactus,” and made the inquiries noted, the scorn of that damsel was excited beyond the power of words to describe.

“What be you-alls doin' in my kitchen?” she cried, her face a-flush with rage and noonday cookery. “Who sends you-alls curvin' over to me, a-makin' of them insultin' bluffs? I demands to know!”

“An' yere,” said Cherokee Hall, relating the exploit in the Red Light immediately thereafter, “she stamps her foot like a buck antelope, an' lets fly a stovelifter at us; an' all with a proud, high air, which reminds me a mighty sight of a goddess.”

At the time, it would seem, the duo attempted to show popular cause for their presence, and made an effort to point out to “The Cactus” the crying public need of some decision on her part.

“You-all don't want the young male persons of this village to take to shootin' of each other all up none, do you?” asked Enright.

“I wants you two beasts to get outen my kitchen!” replied “The Cactus” vigorously; “an' I wants you to move some hurried, too. Don't never let me find your moccasin tracks 'round yere no more, or I'll turn in an' mark you up.”

“Yere, you!” she continued as the ambassadors were about to leave, something cast down by the conference; “you-alls can tell the folks of this town, that if they're idiots enough to go makin' a gun play over me, to make it. They has shore pestered me enough!”

“Which I don't wonder none at Thompson bein' reluctant an' doobious about seein' this Cactus lady,” said Enright, as the two walked away.

“She's some fiery, an' that's a fact!” observed Cherokee in assent.

The result of the talk with “The Cactus” found its way about Wolfville, and in less than an hour bore its hateful fruit. The peaceful quiet of the Red Light, which, as a rule, was wounded by no harsher notes than the flutter of a stack of chips, was rudely broken.

“Gents who ain't interested, better hunt a lower limb!”

It was the voice of Cottonwood Wasson. The trained instincts of Wolfville at once grasped the trouble, and proceeded to hide its many heads behind barrels, tables, counters, and anything which promised refuge from the bullets.

All but one; Cape Jinks. He knew it meant him the moment Cottonwood Wasson uttered the first syllable, and his pistol came bluntly to the fore without a word. His rival's was already there, and the shooting set in like a hailstorm. As a result, Cottonwood Wasson received an injury that crippled his arm for days, while Cape Jinks was picked up with a hole in his side, which even the sanguine sentiment of Wolfville, inclined to a hardy optimism at all times, called dangerous.

“Well!” said Old Man Enright, drawing a deep, troubled breath, after the duellists were cared for at the O. K. House, “yere we be ag'in an' nothin' settled! Thar's all this shootin', an' this blood-lettin', an' the camp gets all torn up; an' thar's as many of these people now as thar is before, an' most likely the whole deal to go over ag'in.”

“I shore 'bominates things a-splittin' even that a-way!” said Cherokee.

The next day a new face was given the affair when “The Cactus” was observed, clothed in her best frock and with two violent red roses in her straw hat, to take the stage for Tucson. The stage company reported, in deference to the excited state of the Wolfville mind, that “The Cactus” would return in a week.

“Goin' for her weddin' trowsoo, most likely,” said Dan Boggs, as he gazed after the stage.

“Let's drink to the hope she wins out a red dress!” remarked Texas Thompson. “Set up the bottles, bar-keep, an' don't let no gent pass up the play. Which red is my fav'rite colour!”

No one seemed to know the intentions of “The Cactus.” The shooting would appear to have in nowise disturbed her. That may have been her obdurate heart, or it may have come from a familiarity with the evanescent tenure of human life, born of her years on the border. Be that as one will, she expressed not the least concern touching her brace of wounded lovers, and took the stage without saying good-bye to any one.

“An' some fools say women is talkers!” remarked Jack Moore, the Marshal, in high disgust.

Three days later Old Monte, the stage driver, came in with thrilling news. “The Cactus” had wedded a man in Tucson, and would bring him to Wolfville in a week.

“When I first hears of it,” went on Old Monte with a groan, “an' when I thinks of them two pore boys a-layin' in Wolfville, an' their claims bein' raffled off in that heartless way, I shore thinks I'll take my Winchester an' stop them marriage rites if I has to crease the preacher. But, pards, the Tucson marshal wouldn't have it. He stan's me off. So she nails him; an' the barkeep at the Oriental Saloon tells me over thar, how she's been organisin' to wed this yere prairie dog before she ever hops into Wolfville at all. I sees him afterwards; an', gents! for looks, he don't break even with horned toads!”

“Thar you be!” said Enright, making a deprecatory gesture, “another case of woman, lovely woman! However, even if this Cactus lady has done rung in a cold hand onto us, we must still prance 'round an' show her a good time when she trails in with her prey. Where the honour of the camp is concerned, we whoops it up! Of course the Cactus don't please us none with this deal; but most likely she pleases herse'f, which, after all, is the next best thing. Gents,” concluded Enright, after a pause, “the return of the new couple will be the signal of a general upheaval in their honour. It's to be hoped our young friends, Cottonwood an' Jinks, will by then be healthful enough to participate tharin. Barkeep! the liquor, please! Boys, the limit's off; wherefore drink hearty!”

“Which I has preemonitions from the first, this yere Cactus female is a brace game,” remarked Texas Thompson, as he filled his glass; “that's whatever!”

“Oh! I don't know!” replied Cherokee Hall thoughtfully. “She has her right to place her bets to please herse'f, an' win or lose, this camp should be proud to turn for her. Wolfville can't always make a killin'--can't always be on velvet; but as long as the Cactus an' her victim pitches camp yere, Wolfville can call herse'f ahead on the deal. I sees no room for cavil, an' I yereby freights my glass to the Cactus an' the shorthorn she's tied down.”

ANNA MARIE

Anna Marie was to be a new woman. She had decided that for herself. In the carrying out of her destinies, Anna Marie had cut her hair short. She also made a specialty of very mannish costumes, and, outwardly, at least, became as virile as a woman might be with a make-up the basis of which was bound to be a skirt.

Anna Marie was motherless, and at the age of nineteen, when she determined to become a new woman, had no advice save her father's to depend on. When she discussed an adoption of broader and more masculine methods on her girlish part with her father, the old gentleman looked puzzled, and said:

“Well, my dear! I have great confidence in your judgment. There is nothing like experience, so go ahead. You will find, however, before you have gone far, that you labour under many structural defects. The great Architect didn't lay you out for a man, Anna Marie; you were not intended for such a fate.” However, Anna Marie kept on. She was looking for a fuller liberty and a wider field. She was too delicately and too accurately determined in her tastes to be a fool to cigarettes, or swept down in a current of profanity. Bad language she would leave to the real man; in her career as a new woman nothing so vigorous was needed.

But men did other things, had other freedoms; and from that long male list of liberties Anna Marie proceeded to pick out a line of freedom for herself. She had had enough of that pent-up Utica which confines the conventional woman. What she wanted was more room: that is, of proper, decorous sort.

Of course, as Anna Marie proceeded up the long trail of masculinity, it was noted by critics that she still continued essentially feminine as to many common male accomplishments. She could not throw a stone, except in that vague, pawey, overhand fashion usual with ladies, and which confers on the missile neither direction nor force. And when Anna Marie essayed to run, she still put everybody in mind of a cow trying to keep an engagement.

While others noted those solemn truths, Anna Marie did not. She thought she was making strenuous progress, and combed her short hair as a man combs his, and walked with long, decided stride.

Anna Marie rode a bike, and decided to don bloomers for this ceremony. She came to the bloomer decision hesitatingly, but made up her mind at last. Secretly she regarded bloomers as the Rubicon. It was bloomers which flowed between herself and the new woman in full standing; and once Anna Marie had broken on the world in this ill-considered costume, she would feel herself graduated, and no longer at school to Destiny. Therefore, there dawned a day when Anna Marie came down the avenue on her bike, be-bloomered to heart's content. She had made the plunge; the Rubicon was crossed, and Anna Marie felt now like a female Cæsar who must conquer or die.

On the bike-bloomer occasion Anna Marie was weak enough to hurry. She put her unbridled steed to fullest speed, and flashed by the onlookers like unto some sweet meteor. She blamed herself afterward for being such a craven, but concluded that by sticking to her bloomers she would acquire heart and slacken speed in time.

The worst feature about the bloomer business was that Anna Marie wotted not how hideous she looked. She did not know that a printer on his way to his case, caught a fleeting impression of her as she sped by, and that he at once “put on a sub.,” took a night off, and became dejectedly yet fully drunk. Nor did she wist that a nervous person was so affected by the awful tout ensemble of herself, bike, and bloomers that he repaired to Bloomingdale and sternly demanded admission as a right.

No; Anna Marie rode all too frightened and too fast to reap these truths. Still, she might not have altered her system if she had known. For Anna Marie was resolute. Bent as Anna Marie was on her completion as a new woman, she resolved to inhabit bloomers and ride her two-wheeled vehicle even unto a grey old age. How else, indeed, could she be a new woman? A girl friend who had stood appalled at the vigour of Anna Marie asked her as to the bloomers.

“They are good things,” observed Anna Marie. “There's a comfort in bloomers which lurks not in the tangled wilderness of the ordinary skirt. Their fault is that in donning bloomers one does not put them on over one's head. It is a great defect. As it is, one never feels more than half-dressed.” Anna Marie declared that the great want of the day was bloomers, through which one thrust one's arms and head in the process of harnessing.

Anna Marie had a brother George. This youth was twelve years of age. George was essentially masculine. Anna Marie could see that, and it came to her as a thought that in the course of becoming a new woman of fullest feather, a good, ripe method would be to study George. Should she do as George did, young though he was, she was sure to succeed. George would do from instinct what she must do by imitation. Anna Marie felt these things without really and definitely thinking them. It so fell out that, without telling George, Anna Marie began to take him as guide, philosopher and friend. And all without really knowing it herself.

Unconsciously, George loved her all the better because of this, and, moved by a warm, ingenuous lack of years, began to take Anna Marie into his confidence like true comrade. Anna Marie encouraged his frankness.

“George,” said Anna Marie, one day, “whenever you are about to do anything peculiarly boyish and interesting, always tell me, so that I may join you in your sport.”

George said he would, and he did.

It so befell one day, as the fruit of this comradeship, that George changed the channel of Anna Marie's manly determination, and caused her to abandon the rôle of a new woman. This is the story, and it all taught Anna Marie, with the rush of a landslide, that, however industriously she might prune and train her habits to the trellis of the male, she would never be able to bring her nature to that state of icy, egotistical, cold-blooded hardihood absolutely necessary to the perfect man, and therefore indispensable to the new woman. But the story.

“Anna Marie,” said George, coming on her one day, “Anna Marie, me and Billy Sweet wants you.”

“What is it, George?” asked Anna Marie.

“We're going to hang a dog out back of the barn,” explained George. “Me and Billy are to be the jury, and we want you for judge. Hurry up, now! that's a good fellow!”

Anna Marie felt a shock at thought of taking the life of anything. Her first feeling was that George was a brute--a mere animal himself. But Anna Marie quickly reflected, that, whatever George might be, at least his hardened sex was the promontory the new woman must steer by. She put down the garment she was sewing and sought the scene of canine trial.

“You see, Anna Marie!” explained George, pointing to a saffron-coloured dog, which stood with dolorous tail between his legs and looked very repentant, “he murdered a kitten, and we are going to try to convict and hang him. You sit down there by the fence, and the trial won't take a minute. Billy and me have got our minds made up, and we won't take no time to decide. There's the rope, and we're going to hang him to the limb of that maple.”

Anna Marie felt worried. Still, she allowed herself to be installed, and the trial proceeded. It was very brief. George produced the defunct kitten,--which looked indeed, very dead,--with the remark, “Say, you yellow dog! you're charged with murdering this cat; have you got anything to say against being hung?”

The yellow cur feebly wagged his disreputable tail, and looked at Anna Marie in a fashion of sneaking appeal. He said as plain as words: “Save me!”

“I wouldn't hang the poor thing, George,” said Anna Marie, and she began to pat the felon yellow cur.

“You're a great judge!” remonstrated George, indignantly. “It ain't for you to decide; it's for me and Billy. We are the jury, and in favour of hanging him, ain't we, Billy?”

Billy nodded emphatically.

“But, George,” expostulated Anna Marie, “it is so cruel! so brutal!”

“Brutal!” scoffed George. “Don't they hang folks for murder every day? You wear bloomers and talk of being a new woman and having the rights of a man! I have heard you with that Sanford girl! And now you come out here and try to talk off a yellow dog who is guilty of murder, and admits it by his silence! You would act nice if it was a real man and a real murder case! Come on, Billy; let's string him up.”

Here George seized on the cowering victim of lynch law, and started for the maple, where the rope already dangled for its prey. Anna Marie became utterly feminine at this, and burst into tears. Her nineteen years and her progress toward a new womanhood did not save her. In her distress she turned to the other member of the jury.

Billy Sweet, at the age of thirteen, was an ardent admirer of George's sister, loved her dearly, if secretly, and meant to marry her in ten or fifteen years, when he grew up. At present he played with George and kept a loving eye on his future bride. Anna Marie knew of Billy's partiality, so she cunningly turned on this admirer, like a true daughter of the olden woman.

“You think as I do, don't you, Billy?” And Anna Marie's tone had a caress in it which made Billy's ears a happy red.

“Yes, ma'am!” said Billy.

George was disgusted.

“You are the kind of a juryman,” said George, full of contempt, “that makes me tired. There, Anna Marie, take your yellow dog, and don't try to play with me no more. You are too soft!”

Anna Marie felt that some vast deposit of good, hard sense lay hidden in George's last remark. On her way to the house she did a good deal of thinking, as girls whose mothers are dead do now and then. The development of her cogitations was told in a remark to her girl friend:

“It's so tiresome, this being a new woman! I am going to give it up. I am afraid, as father says, I am 'not built right.'”

And thus it ended. Marie is exceedingly the olden woman now. She has beaten her sword into a pruning-hook, her bike into a spinning-wheel! She no longer walks with long, decided stride. She is a woman in all things, and will scream and chase a street car as if it were the last going that way for a week, like the tenderest and frailest of her kind. She has retracted as to bloomers. Anna Marie has returned to the agency, and forever abandoned the warpath of a new and manly womanhood.

THE PETERSENS

(Annals of The Bend)

WHEN Chucky came into the little doggery where we were wont to converse, there arrived with him an emphatic odour of kerosene. Also Chucky's face was worn and sad, and his hands were muffled with many bandages. To add to it all Chucky was not in spirits.

“What's the trouble?” I asked.

“We've been havin 'd' run in' of our lives,” replied Chucky, as he called to the barkeeper for his usual bracer, “an' our tenement is just standin' on its nut right now, an' that's for straight!”

“Tell me about it,” I urged.

“D' racket this time over to d' joint,” said Chucky, “is about a Swede skirt named Petersen who croaks herself be d' gas play last night. D' place is full of cops an' hobos an' all sorts of blokes, pipin' off d' play, while a corner mug is holdin' an inkwest over d' stiff, see! What you smells is d' coal oil on me mits. I soaks me hooks in it to take d' boin away. Me Rag gives me d' tip; an' say! it's a winner at that. D' boins ain't half so bad as dey was.”

“But I don't understand,” I replied. “How did you come to burn your hands? If the gas was burning, I don't see how the woman could have committed suicide.”

“Youse is gettin' away on d' wrong hoof,” said Chucky. “I don't boin me fins over d' Petersen moll croakin' herself. I cremates 'em puttin' out d' flames when d' Petersen kid takes fire d' day before. This inkwest which d' cor'oner guy is holdin' to-day, is d' secont one. He holds d' foist yesterday over d' kid.