Chapter V (2)

He looked at me dubiously and trembling. “Come,” said I, for I knew the reputation of those parts, “I am from Shoreham Gap yonder, and I was near taken for an offense against the revenue.”

“You are a smuggler?” said he anxiously. “They said you were a tobyman.”

“They will take away any decent man’s name,” said I. “I want my horse. You have no fancy for preventive men, I’ll guess.”

And this was true enough, for he had a mine of cellars under his inn and through the roadway.

“But your friend?” said he, still wavering. “Him that is dead——”

“As good a man as ever rolled a barrel,” said I.

He relaxed his grip of the door. “’Tis a sore business for me this night,” he complained.

“Nay,” said I. “For I will rid your premises of myself and friend, by your leave, or without it,” says I.

He seemed relieved at that, and I entered. The horses were safe, as I discovered, for Grubbe must have been too full of his own prime business to make search, and, getting them out, I made my preparations. I strapped the lad’s body in the stirrups, so that he lay forward on the horse with his head a-wagging; but (God deliver him!) his soul at rest. And presently we were on the road, and threading the wilderness of the black pine woods for the vale below toward London.

The moon was a glimmering arc across the Hurtwood as I came out on the back of Shere, and, pulling out of the long lane that gave entry to the village, reined up by the “White Horse.” From the inn streamed a clamor of laughter, and without the doorway and wellnigh blocking it was drawn up a carriage with a coachman on his seat that struck my eyes dimly in the small light. I was not for calling eyes on me with a dead man astride his horse, so I moved into the yard, thinking to drain a tankard of ale if no better, before I took the road over the downs to Effingham. But I was scarce turned into the yard ere a light flaring through the window poured on a face that changed all the notions in my skull. ’Twas Grubbe!

Leaving the horses by I returned to the front of the inn, and says I to the coachman that waited there, as I rapped loud on the door:

“’Tis shrewish tonight.”

“Aye,” says he in a grumbling, surly voice. “I would the country were in hell.”

“Why, so ’twill be in good time,” said I cheerfully; and then to the man that came, “Fetch me two quarts well laced with gin,” says I, “for to keep the chill of the night and the fear o’ death out.”

The coachman laughed a little shortly, for he knew that this was his invitation.

“Whence come you then?” said I, delivering him the pot that was fetched out.

He threw an arm out. “Lewes,” said he, “under charge with a tobyman that was for chains yonder.”

He nodded toward the downs and drank. I cast my eyes up and the loom of the hill just t’other side of the village was black and ominous.

“Oh,” says I, “he hangs there?”

“At the top of London Road,” says he, dipping his nose again. “There stands the gallows, where the roads cross and near the Gate.”

“Gallows Gate,” said I, laughing. “Well, ’twas a merry job enough.”

“Aye,” says he. “But by this we might ha’ been far toward London Town, whither most of us are already gone. But ’twas not his wish. He must come back with the Lewes sheriff and drink him farewell.”

“Leaving a poor likely young man such as yourself to starve of cold and a empty belly here,” said I. “Well, I would learn such a one manners in your place, and you shall have another tankard of dogs-nose for your pains,” says I, whereat I called out the innkeeper again, but took care that he had my share of the gin in addition to his own. By that time he was garrulous, and had lost his caution, so, keeping him in talk a little and dragging his wits along from point to point, I presently called to him.

“Come down,” said I, “and stamp your feet. ’Twill warm you without as the liquor within.” And he did as I had suggested without demur.

“Run round to the back,” says I, “and get yourself a noggin, and if so be you see a gentleman on horseback there asleep, why, ’tis only a friend of mine that is weary of his long journey. I will call you if there be occasion.”

He hesitated a moment, but I set a crown on his palm, and his scruples vanished. He limped into the darkness.

’Twas no more than two minutes later that I heard voices in the doorway, and next came Timothy Grubbe into the night, in talk with someone. At which it took me but thirty seconds to whip me into the seat and pull the coachman’s cloak about me, so that I sat stark and black in the starlight. Grubbe left the man he talked with and came forward.

“You shall drink when ye reach Cobham, Crossway,” says he, looking up at me, “and mind your ways, damn ye!”

And at that he made no more ado, but humming an air he lurched into the carriage. I pulled out the nags, and turned their heads so that they were set for the north. And then I whistled low and short—a whistle I knew that the mare would heed, and I trusted that she would bring her companion with her. The wheels rolled out upon the road and Timothy Grubbe and I were bound for London all alone.

As I turned up the London road that swept steeply up the downs I looked back, and behind the moon shone faintly on Calypso and behind her on the dead man wagging awkwardly in his stirrups.

I pushed the horses on as fast as might be, but the ruts were still deep in mud, and the carriage jolted and rocked and swayed as we went. The wind came now with a little moaning sound from the bottom of the valley, and the naked branches creaked above my head, for that way was sunken and tangled with the thickets of nut and yew. And presently I was forced to go at a foot pace, so abrupt was the height. The moon struck through the trees and peered on us, and Grubbe put his head forth of the window.

“Why go you not faster, damn ye?” says he, being much in liquor.

“’Tis the hill, your honor,” said I.

He glanced up and down.

“What is it comes up behind?” says he, shouting. “There is a noise of horses that pounds upon the road.”

“’Tis the wind,” says I, “that comes off the valley and makes play among the branches.”

He sank back in his seat, and we went forward slowly. But he was presently out again, screaming on the night.

“There is a horseman behind,” says he. “What does he there?”

“’Tis a traveler, your honor,” says I, “that goes, no doubt, by our road, and is bound for London.”

“He shall be bound for hell,” says he tipsily, and falls back again.

The horses wound up foot by foot and emerged now into a space of better light, and I looked around, and there was Grubbe, with his head through the window and his eyes cast backward.

“What fool is this,” says he, “that rides so awkwardly, and drives a spare horse? If he ride no better, I will ask him to keep me company, if he be a gentleman. Many gentlemen have rode along of me, and have rode to the gallows tree,” and he chuckled harshly.

“Maybe he will ride with you to the Gallows Gate, sir,” says I.

“Why, Crossway,” says he, laughing loudly, “you have turned a wit,” and once more withdrew his head.

But now we were nigh to the top of the down, and I could see the faint shadow of the triple beam. With that I knew my journey was done, and that my work must be accomplished. I pulled to the horses on the rise, and got down from my seat.

“Why d’ye stop, rascal?” called Grubbe in a fury, but I was by the door and had it opened.

“Timothy Grubbe,” said I, “ye’re a damned rogue that the devil, your master, wants and he shall have ye.”

He stared at me in a maze, his nostrils working, and then says he in a low voice: “So, ’tis you.”

“Your time has come, Timothy,” said I, flinging off my cloak, and I took my sword. “Out with you, worm.”

He said never a word, but stepped forth, and looked about him. He was sobered now, as I could see from his face, which had a strange look on it.

“Ye’re two rascals to one, Dick,” says he slowly, looking on the dead man on his horse which had come to a stop in the shadows.

“No,” says I, “this gentleman will see fair play for us.”

Grubbe took a step backward. “Sir,” says he, addressing the dead man—but at that moment Calypso and her companion started, and came into the open.

The moon shone on the face of the dead. Grubbe uttered a cry, and turned on me. His teeth showed in a grin.

“No ghost shall haunt me, Dick,” says he. “Rather shall another ghost keep him company,” and his wry neck moved horribly.

I pointed upward where the tobyman hung in chains, keeping his flocks by moonlight. “There’s your destiny,” said I. “There’s your doom. Now defend, damn ye, for I’ll not prick an adder at a disadvantage.”

He drew his blade, for no man could say that Timothy Grubbe, time-server and traitor as he was, lacked courage. Suddenly he sliced at me, but I put out and turned off the blow.

“If you will have it so soon,” said I, “in God’s name have it,” and I ran upon him.

My third stroke went under his guard, and I took him in the midriff. He gave vent to an oath, cursed me in a torrent, and struck at me weakly as he went down.

He was as dead as mutton almost ere he touched the ground.

I have never been a man of the church, nor do I lay any claim to own more religion than such as to make shift by when it comes to the end. No, nor do I deny that I have sundry offenses on my conscience, some of which I have narrated in my memoirs. But when it comes to a reckoning I will make bold to claim credit in that I rid the world he had encumbered of Timothy Grubbe—the foulest ruffian that ever I did encounter in the length of my days on the road.

I climbed the beam and lowered the poor tobyman, and it took me but a little time to make the change. The one I left where he had paid the quittance in the peace of the earth, and t’other a-swinging under the light of the moon on Gallows Gate.

I have said my journey was done, but that was not so. There was more for me to do, which was to deliver poor Masters at his lady-love’s and break the unhappy news. And so, leaving the carriage where it stood with the patient horses that were cropping the grass, I mounted the mare and began to go down the long limb of the downs to the north.

’Twas late—near midnight—when I reached Effingham and found my way to the manor. I rapped on the door, leaving Calypso and t’other in the shadows of the house, and presently one answered to my knock.

“What is it?” says she.

“’Tis a stranger,” says I, “that has news of grave import for Mistress Anne Varley, whom I beg you will call.”

“She cannot hear you,” said she. “’Tis her wedding night.”

“What!” said I in amazement, and instantly there flowed in on me the meaning of this.

“Curse all women save one or two!” thinks I. And I turned to the maid again with my mind made up.

“Look you, wench,” said I. “This is urgent. I have an instant message that presses. And if so be your mistress will bear with me a moment and hold discourse, I’ll warrant she shall not regret it—nor you,” says I, with a crown piece in my palm.

She hesitated and then, “Maybe she will refuse,” says she. “She hath but these few hours been wed.”

“Not she,” said I, “if you will tell her that I bring good news, great news—news that will ease her spirit and send her to her bridal bed with a happy heart.”

At that she seemed to assent, and with my crown in her hand she disappeared into the darkening of the house. It must have been some ten minutes later that a light flashed in the hall and a voice called to me.

“Who is it?” it asked, “and what want you at this hour?”

I looked at her. She was of a pretty face enough, rather pale of color, and with eyes that moved restlessly and measured all things. Lord, I have known women all my life in all stations, and I would ha’ pinned no certainty on those treacherous eyes. She was young, too, but had an air of satisfaction in herself, and was in no wise embarrassed by this interview. I had no mercy on her, with her oaths of constancy writ in water that figured to be tears and her false features.

“Madam,” said I civilly, “I hear you’re wed today to a gentleman of standing.”

“What is that to you, sir?” she asked quickly.

“’Tis nothing, for sure,” said I, “but to a friend of mine that I value deeply ’tis much.”

“You speak of Mr. Masters,” said she sharply, and with discomposure. “Sure, if he be a gentleman, he will not trouble me when he knows.”

“Anne!” said a voice from the top of the stairs, “Anne!”

’Twas her bridegroom calling. Well, she should go to him in what mood she might when I had done with her.

“He will never know,” says I, “unless he hear it from yourself.”

“Anne!” said the voice above the stairs.

“He shall not—I will not,” she cried angrily. “I will not be persecuted. ’Twas all a mistake.”

I whistled. Calypso emerged from the night, and behind Calypso was the horse with its burden. An anxious look dawned in her face. “I am insulted,” says she and paused quickly.

“Edward!” she called, and put a hand to her bosom.

“Anne, darling!” cried the voice, “where are you? Come, child, ’tis late.”

The horse came to a stop before the door with the body on the saddle, bound to the crupper.

“What is it?” she cried in alarm, and suddenly she shrieked, recognizing what was there. “It is an omen—my wedding night!”

“Aye,” says I, “which be your bridegroom, he that calls or he that is silent? Call on him and he hears not.”

Peal after peal went up now from her, and the house was awake with alarm. I turned away, leaving her on the doorstep, and mounted the mare.

As I cantered off into the night I cast a glance behind me, and a group was gathered at the door, and in that group lay Mistress Anne fallen in a swoon, with the sleeping figure on the horse before her.

_The Judge and the Jack Tar_

BY HENRY H. CORNISH

It’s like this here, Your Honor, see?
As near as I can tell,
A gentleman hired my boat, and he
Was quite a proper swell.
He brought a lady down with him
To make a longish trip
And so we scrubbed her thoroughly—

_Judge_—The lady?
_Tar_—No! The ship

Well—cutting off my story short
To come to what befell
We started, but put back to port
Which much annoyed the swell.
She fell between two waterways
And got a nasty nip,
So we rigged her out with brand-new stays—

_Judge_—The lady?
_Tar_—No-o! The ship.

At last we put to sea again
And started for the west,
All spick and span without a stain
When all at once, I’m blest,
Her blooming timbers got misplaced,
Which quite upset the trip,
The water washed around her waist—

_Judge_—The lady’s?
_Tar_ (_nodding_)—And the ship’s.

That’s all, I think, Your Honor, now,
I’ll state to you my claim.
Five hundred dollars, you’ll allow,
Won’t build her up the same.
Her rudder’s gone, her nose is broke,
Her flag I’ve had to dip
She’s lying now upon the mud—

_Judge_—The lady?
_Tar_—No-o-o-o! The ship.

_Object, Matrimony_

BY CAROLINE LOCKHART

With a turn of his red wrist, Porcupine Jim guided his horse in and out among the badger holes which made riding dangerous business on the Blackfoot Reservation. Perplexity and discontent rested upon Porcupine’s not too lofty brow. Though he looked at the badger holes and avoided them mechanically, he saw them not.

“Would you tank, would you tank,” he burst out finally in a voice which rasped with irritation, “dat a girl like Belle Dashiel would rudder have dat pigeon-toed, smart-Aleck breed dan me?”

Porcupine’s pinto cayuse threw back one ear and listened attentively to the naïve conceit of his rider’s soliloquy.

“Look at me!” demanded Porcupine, changing the reins to his left hand that he might make a more emphatic gesture with his right. “A honest Swede, able to make fifteen dollars a day at my trade. Me as has sheared sheep from Montany to the Argentine Republic, gittin’ bounced for dat lazy half-breed dat can’t hold a yob two mont’!”

Porcupine’s thoughts upon any subject were not varied, and he burst forth at intervals with a reiteration of the same idea until he came to the ridge where he could look down upon the house of Dashiel, the squaw-man, who kept a sort of post office in a soapbox.

Porcupine had come twenty-five miles for his mail. Not that he expected any, but to be gibed at by Belle Dashiel had the same fascination for him that biting on a sore tooth has for a small boy. Gradually the knowledge had come to his slow-working mind that the half-breed girl’s interest in him rose solely from the fact that John Laney was his partner in the assessment work which they were doing in the mountains on a tenderfoot’s copper claim.

Laney’s father had been an Irish steamboat captain on Lake Superior, his mother, a Chippewa squaw, and the cross had produced an unusual type. The Indian blood which keeps a half-breed silent and shy before strangers had no such effect upon Laney. His prowess was his theme and his vanity was a byword on the Reservation. He obtained his fashions from the catalogue of a wholesale house in Chicago which furnishes the trusting pioneer with the latest thing in oil drills or feather boas. It was common belief that Laney’s high celluloid collar would some day cut his head off.

Laney’s waking hours were spent in planning schemes of primitive crudeness whereby he might acquire affluence without labor. In his dreams the tenderfoot tourist was generally the person who was to remove him from penury.

“Hello, Porcupine!” called Belle Dashiel, coming to the door with a pink bow pinned on a pompadour of amazing height.

“Hullo yourself!” replied Porcupine, elated at his ready wit and the cordiality in her voice.

“How’s John?”

The smile faded from his face.

“Good ’nough,” he replied shortly.

“When’s he comin’ down?”

“Dunno. Any mail for me?”

“A letter and a paper.”

“Who could be writin’ to me?”

Porcupine looked surprised.

“Didn’t you expect nothin’?” Belle Dashiel’s eyes shone mischievously.

“Yass, I tank, mebby.” A deeper red spread over the Swede’s sunburned face.

He opened his letter and spelled it out laboriously, his chest heaving with the effort.

“A man over in Chicago he tank I’m in turrible need of a pianny,” he said in disgust, as he put the circular in the stove.

Porcupine lingered till the chill of the night air crept into the sunshine of the September day. Then he put spurs to his patient cayuse and hit the trail which led into the fastnesses of the Rockies.

The light was not quite gone when he happened to think of the paper he had thrust in his coat-pocket. There might be news in it! Bacon-Rind-Dick had told Two-Dog-Jack that there was a war over in Jay-pan. Porcupine removed the wrapper and the words _Wedding Chimes_ stared him in the face.

As he read, he laid the reins on his horse’s neck and let the pinto pick his own road. The matrimonial sheet opened up a vista of romantic adventures and possibilities of which the Swede had never dreamed. His imagination, which naturally was not a winged thing, was fired until he saw himself leading to his shack up the North Fork of the Belly River the fairest and richest lady in the land. All he had to do was to send five dollars to _Wedding Chimes_ and thus join their matrimonial club. Upon the receipt of the five dollars, the editor would send him the names and addresses of several ladies who were all young, beautiful, wealthy and anxious to be married. He could open a correspondence with one or all of them, and then choose for his bride the lady whose letter appealed to him most.

Porcupine strained his eyes reading descriptions of lily-white blondes and dashing brunettes. When he could see no longer, he folded the precious paper and buttoned it inside his coat.

His cayuse was puffing up the steep mountain trail in the darkness of the thick pines and spruces when Porcupine suddenly let out a yell which startled the prowling lynx and made his pinto snort with fright. It was a wild whoop of exultation. There had come to Porcupine one of those rare revelations which have made men great. He fairly glowed and tingled with the inspiration which had flashed upon him as though someone had gone through his brain with a lantern.

When he rode into camp, where Laney sat before the fire eating bacon out of a frying-pan, Porcupine’s deep-set blue eyes were shining like stars on a winter’s night.

“Yass, I got de greatest ting in de mail you ever see, I tank!”

Laney’s face expressed curiosity as the Swede sat down on a log and turned his felt hat round and round upon his bullet-shaped head—a trick he had when excited. With great deliberation and impressiveness he produced the paper and handed it to Laney. Laney set the frying-pan where his wolfhound could finish the bacon and opened the paper.

“Young, beautiful, immensely rich; obj., mat.,” he read. Laney’s eyes sparkled. He read for half an hour of successful weddings brought about by the editorial Cupid. Porcupine at last roused him from his absorption.

“Laney, I got a scheme, I tank. I’ll join up with one of dem clubs and you carry out de corryspondance with one of dem ladies. You are a better scholar den me and write a pooty goot letter. Den, if it goes all right, I’ll go and see her and tell her I ain’t exactly de man dat done de writin’, but I’m just as goot.

“’Tain’t no use for you to get into de club, because you are all the same as promised to Belle Dashiel. Sure,” Porcupine went on, “Belle ain’t rich nor beautiful like dem ladies in _Weddin’ Chimes_, but she’s a goot little girl.

“Old Dashiel ain’t got more dan fifty head of beef cattle, and dey say he got a lot of runts in de last Govermint issue, but a ting like dat don’t cut no ice if you’re stuck on de girl.”

Laney moved uneasily and avoided Porcupine’s eyes.

“Now for me,” continued the Swede, “I can marry any millionaire I want to.”

* * * * *

As soon as the mails could get it there, the editor of _Wedding Chimes_ received a neatly penciled and eloquent letter from one John Laney, setting forth his especial needs and preferences, with considerable stress laid upon the financial standing of the matrimonial candidates.

The day the list was due Laney rode down for the mail. The eagerness with which he took the letter from her hand did not escape Belle Dashiel.

“Got a new girl, John?” she asked lightly, though she watched his face with suspicious eyes.

“Perhaps,” replied Laney, and all her urging could not detain him.

By the light of the camp-fire Laney and Porcupine studied the list of names and addresses sent from the office of the matrimonial paper.

“This a-here one suits me,” said Laney. “‘Mayme Livingston, Oak Grove, Iowa.’ It’s a toney-sounding name.”

“It’s me dat’s gittin’ married,” Porcupine suggested significantly. “But Mayme’s all right, I tank. Go on ahead and write.”

So Laney, with the assistance of a sheet of ruled notepaper and a lead pencil which he moistened frequently in order to shade effectively, composed a letter which he and Porcupine regarded not only as a model of cleverness but an achievement from a literary point of view. The legal tone which gave it dignity was much admired by Porcupine. The letter read:

BELLY RIVER, MONT.
MISS MAYME LIVINGSTON:

DEAR MADAM: Whereas I have paid up five
dollars and have the priveledge of writing to any
lady on the list sent from the aforesaid matrimonial
paper, I, the undersigned, have picked out you, Miss
Mayme Livingston party of the first part, obj. mat.

I am an American, five feet seven, and quite dark.
I am interested in copper mines and cattle. I can
ride anything that wears hair and last winter I
killed two silver-tips and a link. I am engaged
somewhat in trapping also. They say I am a tony
dresser and I can dance the Portland Fancy or any
dance that I see once. I play the juice-harp, mouth
organ and accordian. I have a kind disposition and
would make a good husband to any lady who had a
little income of her own.

Let me hear from you as soon as you get this and
tell me what you think of my writing.
Respy. Yrs.
JOHN LANEY.

In witness whereof that this letter is true I have
hereunto set my hand and fixed my seal.
Porcupine Jim X his mark.

The days which followed the mailing of the above composition were the longest Laney and Porcupine had ever known. They discussed Miss Livingston until they felt they knew her. Porcupine thought she had black eyes, black hair, was inclined to stoutness, but with a good “figger.”

The name of Livingston to Laney conjured up a vision of blonde loveliness in red satin, slender, shapely, with several thousand dollars in a handbag which she kept always with her.

Miss Livingston’s letter came with delightful promptness. There was an angry glow in Belle Dashiel’s Indian eyes as she handed the salmon-pink envelope to Laney.

“Who you writin’ to?” she demanded.

“Business,” replied Laney bruskly, and strode out of the house.

Porcupine, who had also come down, lingered a moment to tell her she looked prettier each time that he saw her.

Miss Livingston’s letter read:

Mr. John Laney
deer sir. i take a few minutes to tell you how glad
i was to heer from you Away off in montana i have
not got Much Noos to rite but i will explain abot
Myself i am a suthoner and quite Dark to my Father
was a rice planter before the war which ruhined us
i hav a good Voice and sing in the Quire i danz
most evry Danc goin i have a Stiddy incom and make
hansom presints to annybody i Like if i met a perfect
Genelman i wold Marry him i cannot rite annymore
Today bekaws i hay Piz to make rite offen to
Miss Mayme Livingston
i think your Ritin is good i wish you wold send
your Fotegraf

Laney’s brow was clouded as he folded the letter. “She ain’t much of a scholar,” he said. “You hardly ever see a scholar use little ‘i’s.’”

“What differunce does dat make when she’s got a stiddy income?” replied Porcupine quickly. “And den what she said about handsome presents. Sure, she’s a hairess, I tank.”

Laney brightened at these reminders, and immediately set about composing another letter calculated to impress the wealthy, if unlettered, Miss Livingston.

“Dear madam,” soon developed into “Dearest Mayme,” and “deer sir” as speedily became “darlig John,” and, with each salmon-pink envelope’s arrival, Laney’s coolness toward Belle Dashiel became more marked.

“Porcupine,” said Laney, who had begun to show some reluctance in reading the correspondence to his partner, “the lady is gettin’ oneasy to see me, and when we finish runnin’ that drift in the lead, I think I’ll take a trip over to Iowa and see her.”

“But where do I come in, mebby?” demanded Porcupine.

“That’s what I’m goin’ for—to fix it up for you. Reely, Porcupine,” and he looked critically at the rawboned Swede, whose hair stood up like the quills on the animal from which he had received his sobriquet, “it wouldn’t be right for you to break in on a lady without givin’ her warning of what you was like.”

“I know I ain’t pooty,” replied Porcupine unperturbed, “but I can make fifteen dollars a day at my trade.”

The tenderfoot’s assessment money went toward buying Laney a wardrobe which almost any one of Laney’s relatives or friends would have killed him in his sleep to possess.

A jeweler, advertising in _Wedding Chimes_, received an order for a one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar scarfpin, to be paid for in instalments. Porcupine, whose nature was singularly free from envy, could not but feel a pang when he saw the large horseshoe of yellow diamonds glittering in Laney’s red cravat.

Laney had read that no gentleman should think of venturing into polite society without a “dress suit.” An order was sent for a seventy-five-dollar suit of evening clothes to the Chicago firm from whom they bought their mining tools. When the clothes arrived Laney dressed himself in them one evening in their shack up the North Fork of Belly River, and Porcupine’s face showed the admiration he felt, as Laney strutted like a pheasant drumming on a log.

Laney, who numbered among his accomplishments the ability to draw a rose or a horse so that almost anybody would know what it was, gave an original touch to his costume by purchasing at the Agency a brown broad-brimmed felt hat and painting a red rose directly in front under the stiff brim.

When the drift was run and Laney’s wardrobe was complete, he and the Swede set out across the Reservation to the railroad station.

“Pardner,” said Porcupine as he looked wistfully at the broadcloth coat with satin revers and the tail sloped away like a grasshopper’s wings, “dey ain’t a friend you got, but me, dat would trust you to do their courtin’ for them togged out like dat—sure, dat’s so!”

There was a derisive glint in Laney’s small back eyes; he held the slow-witted Swede in almost open contempt for his innocence. Porcupine shook hands with him on the platform and wished him good luck. “You’ll do your best for me, pard?” he asked anxiously.

“Trust me,” replied Laney gaily, intoxicated by the attention he was receiving from the tourists in the Pullman car.

Porcupine stopped at Dashiel’s on his return. Belle Dashiel met him at the door and her eyes were blazing. Without being able to define the process of reasoning by which he arrived at the conclusion, Porcupine felt that his brilliant plot stood an infinitely better show of success that he did not find her in tears.

“Where’s he gone at?” She stamped her moccasined foot imperiously.

“I wouldn’t like to say,” replied Porcupine in a voice which denoted a wish to shield his partner and yet a noble, if unusual, desire to tell the truth.

“Tell me!” she commanded, and she put her small hand on the big Swede’s arm as though she would shake him.

“I tank,” answered Porcupine meekly; “I dunno, but I tank he’s gone to get married.”

As Laney sat in the day coach in his evening clothes, his broad hat tilted back from his coarse, swarthy face, a constant procession filed through the aisle and every eye rested upon his smiling and complacent countenance. He passed two restless nights sleeping with his head on his patent-leather valise, and monotonous days eating peanuts and slaking his thirst at the ice-tank in the corner of the car. The farther he got from home, the more attention he attracted, which was some recompense for the inconvenience he was enduring.

He had plenty of time to decide a question which had much perplexed him: Could he immediately address the lady as “Mayme” and kiss her upon sight, or should he call her Miss Livingston and merely shake her hand? If too demonstrative, he might frighten her—capital is shy, as all men know. On the other hand, women resent coldness—now there was Belle Dashiel. Something which, if developed, might have proved to be a conscience, gave him a twinge, and he hastened to put the half-breed girl from his thoughts.

He reviewed the subject of his greeting from all possible sides, and decided that, in view of the many endearing phrases which Miss Livingston’s letters had contained and the neat border of “o’s,” labeled “kisses,” which had ornamented her last letter, he could feel reasonably safe in planting a chaste salute upon her trembling lips. Also he wondered how long it would be before he could hint at a small loan.

When they returned from their bridal tour they would take the best room in the hotel at the Agency, and he and work would be strangers ever after. He would send to Great Falls for a top buggy, and buy a mate to drive with his brown colt. He would get a long, fawn-colored overcoat and a diamond ring. He paused in the erection of his air castle to read again the letter which had reached him just before his departure.

“i will be at the Depo in a purple Satin wast with
red roses in my Hat you can’t help but see me,” said
the penciled lines. “i am tickled to deth that you
are coming be Sure an com on the 3.37 thursday o how
can i wait till then.”

Laney smiled contentedly and returned the letter to his pocket. For the hundredth time he consulted the time-table. “Jimminy Christmas!—only three hours more!” He hastened to wash his hands and face, having postponed that ceremony until he should near Oak Grove. The bosom of his pleated shirt was rumpled, and his dress clothes showed that he had slept in them; but trifles could not mar his happiness. He oiled his black hair from a small bottle containing bear grease scented with bergamot, and adjusted his cravat that the horseshoe might show to advantage.

When after a century of nervous tension the train whistled at the outskirts of Oak Grove, Laney’s knees were trembling beneath him and it seemed as though the thumping of his heart would choke him. He swallowed hard as, the solitary arrival, he descended the car steps and looked about him.

There was a flash of purple satin and an avalanche seemed to bury Laney in a moist embrace.

“Hyar yo’ is, honey!” cried a ringing, triumphant voice in his ear as he struggled to free himself. “Ah knowed you’d come!”

“Good Gawd!” cried Laney as he broke loose and jumped back. “Black! Black as a camp coffee-pot!”

“Yes, honey, I’se black, but I’se lovin’!” and Miss Livingston advanced upon him with sparkling eyes and an expanse of gleaming ivories.

“What for a game you been giving me?” demanded Laney, retreating to the edge of the platform. “You said you were the daughter of a Southern planter.”

“So I is, so I is,” replied that lady in a conciliatory tone. “Mah father planted rice foah Colonel Heywood down in South Caroliny till he died.”

“But your money, your steady income——”

“Eb’ry Sataday night Ah draws mah little ole five dollars foah cookin’ in a res-ta-rant.”

Miss Livingston’s mood suddenly changed. From a pleading, loving maiden she became an aggressive termagant; from the defensive she assumed the offensive, gripping her pearl-handled parasol in a suggestive manner.

“Say, yo’ Wil’ Man of Borneo, dressed up in them outlannish clothes, what you mean tellin’ me yo’ was an American?”

Laney made a feeble effort to explain that he was of the race of true Americans, but he might as well have tried to be heard above the roaring of a storm in the Belly River cañon.

“Black, is I?” continued the dusky whirlwind, her voice rising to a shriek. “Maybe you think yo’ look like a snow-bank! What kin’ of a rag-time freak is yo,’ anyhow? If you think yo’ can ’gage mah ’ffections den ’spise me ’cause Ah ain’t no blonde, you’se mistaken in dis chile! Ah don’ stand for no triflin’ from no man. If yo’ scorn me, yo’ ‘What is it’ from de sideshow, Ah’ll have yo’ tuck up foah britch of promise!”

John Laney waited to hear no more. He grabbed his shining valise from the platform and ran down the nearest alley.

The _Iowa Granger_ said editorially in its next issue:

We had a narrow escape from death last Thursday
evening. We were mistaken by an intoxicated redskin
for the editor of a matrimonial publication known as
_Wedding Chimes_. Had we not pasted the infuriated
savage one with the mucilage pot, and defended
ourself with the scissors which, fortunately, we had
in our hand at the time, undoubtedly the paper of
September 12th would have been the last issue of the
_Iowa Granger_. Our compositor came to our rescue in
the nick of time.

The redskin is now in the calaboose, but refuses
to divulge his name or residence. It is believed,
however, that he belongs to the medicine show which
sold bitters and horse liniment in our midst last
week.

When the coyotes howled that evening on the hill which overlooked the road, they saw a radiant Swede with his arm about a pretty half-breed’s slender waist; and Dashiel fed the pinto cayuse a pint of oats, which was the surest kind of sign that he looked upon the pinto’s owner as somewhat closer than a brother.

_Equal to the Occasion_

An old darky preacher down South one Sunday found a poker chip in the collection basket. The minister knew enough of the ways of the wicked world to realize that the little ivory disk represented more money than the average contribution, and he was loath to lose the amount. Rising to his full height in the pulpit, he said:

“Ef de sportin’ gent what done put de pokah chip in de collection plate will be kind ’nuff to tell where hit kin be cashed in, de congregation will ax de Lawd to forgib him de error ob his ways.”

* * * * *

Our lives are made up of selfishness and self-sacrifice. Both are much the same.

The Rivers of the Nameless Dead

BY THEODORE DREISER
_Author of “Sister Carrie”_

The body of a man was found yesterday in the North
River at Twenty-fifth street. A brass check, No.
21,600, of the New York Registry Company was found on
the body.—_N. Y. Daily Paper._

There is an island surrounded by rivers, and about it the tide scurries fast and deep. It is a beautiful island, long, narrow, magnificently populated, and with such a wealth of life and interest as no island in the world has ever before possessed. Long lines of vessels of every description nose its banks. Enormous buildings and many splendid mansions line its streets.

It is filled with a vast population, millions coming and going, and is the scene of so much life and enthusiasm and ambition that its fame is, as the sound of a bell, heard afar.

And the interest which this island has for the world is that it is seemingly a place of opportunity and happiness. If you were to listen to the tales of its glory carried the land over and see the picture which it presents to the incoming eye, you would assume that it was all that it seemed. Glory for those who enter its walls seeking glory. Happiness for those who come seeking happiness. A world of comfort and satisfaction for all who take up their abode within it—the island of beauty and delight.

The sad part of it is, however, that the island and its beauty are, to a certain extent, a snare. Its seeming loveliness, which promises so much to the innocent eye, is not always easy of realization. Thousands come, it is true; thousands venture to reconnoiter its mysterious shores. From the villages and hamlets of the land is streaming a constant procession of pilgrims, the feeling of whom is that here is the place where their dreams are to be realized; here is the spot where they are to be at peace. That their hopes are not, in so many cases, to be realized, is the thing which gives a poignant sadness to their coming. The beautiful island is not possessed of happiness for all.

And the exceptional tragedy of it is that the waters which surround the beautiful island are forever giving evidence of the futility of the dreams of so many. If you were to stand upon its shore, where the tide scurries past in its never-ending hurry, or were to idle for a time upon its many docks and piers, which reach far out into the water and give lovely views of the sky and the gulls and the boats, you might see drifting past upon the bosom of the current some member of all the ambitious throng who, in time past, has set his face toward the city, and who entered only to find that there was more of sorrow than of joy. Sad, white-faced maidens; grim, bearded, time-worn men; strange, strife-worn, grief-stricken women, and, saddest of all, children—soft, wan, tender children, floating in the waters which wash the shores of the island city.

And such waters! How green they look; how graceful, how mysterious! From far seas they come—strange, errant, peculiar waters—prying along the shores of the magnificent island; sucking and sipping at the rocks which form its walls; whispering and gurgling about the docks and piers and flowing, flowing, flowing. Such waters seem to be kind, and yet they are not so. They seem to be cruel, and yet they are not so; merely indifferent these waters are—dark, strong, deep, indifferent.

And curiously the children of men who come to seek the joys of the city realize the indifference and the impartiality of the waters. When the vast and beautiful island has been reconnoitered, when its palaces have been viewed, its streets disentangled, its joys and its difficulties discovered, then the waters, which are neither for nor against, seem inviting. Here, when the great struggle has been ended, when the years have slipped by and the hopes of youth have not been realized; when the dreams of fortune, the delights of tenderness, the bliss of love and the hopes of peace have all been abandoned—the weary heart may come and find surcease. Peace in the waters, rest in the depths and the silence of the hurrying tide; surcease and an end in the chalice of the waters which wash the shores of the beautiful island.

And they do come, these defeated ones, not one, nor a dozen, nor a score every year, but hundreds and hundreds. Scarcely a day passes but one, and sometimes many, go down from the light and the show and the merriment of the island to the shores of the waters where peace may be found. They stop on its banks; they reflect, perhaps, on the joys which they somehow have missed; they give a last, despairing glance at the wonderful scene which once seemed so joyous and full of promise, and then yield themselves unresistingly to the arms of the powerful current and are borne away. Out past the docks and the piers of the wonderful city. Out past its streets, its palaces, its great institutions. Out past its lights, its colors, the sound of its merriment and its seeking, and then the sea has them and they are no more. They have accomplished their journey, the island its tragedy. They have come down to the rivers of the nameless dead. They have yielded themselves as a sacrifice to the variety of life. They have proved the uncharitableness of the island of beauty.

_Wouldn’t Admit It_

MARJORIE—At the meeting of the Spinsters’ Club the members told why they had never married.

MADGE—What reason did they give?

MARJORIE—All kinds, except that they had never got the chance.

* * * * *

_Satiated_

WASHINGTONIAN—Wouldn’t you like to visit the Senate some day while you’re here?

GUEST—No, I guess not. You see, I’m a member of the Board of Visitors for the Old Woman’s Home up where I live.

* * * * *

_Invaluable_

CRAWFORD—Is he a good lawyer?

CRABSHAW—Sure. He knows how every law on the statute books can be evaded.

_Another View of the Simple Life_

BY ZENOBIA COX

For the past few months we have had a deluge of optimism. From various sources we are told that man ought to be happy. “Whatever is, is good,” is the handwriting on the wall. Content is preached from what George Eliot called “that Goshen of Mediocrity,” the pulpit; and politicians publish their elastic statistics, proving prosperity and content. This proselyting Optimism reached its height in the advent of Charles Wagner to our hospitable shores and in the thrusting of his little book, “The Simple Life,” under the nose of the public.

The book was published here several years ago, but has lain unnoticed until today. Our sudden torridity of welcome makes one reflect upon a dog who tramples on the grass beneath his feet and feeds on offal; suddenly he begins to eat the grass and then we cry, “The dog is sick!” Humanity has a canine instinct for its needs. Its tastes must ripen. We can neither hasten nor retard them.

As it takes the fever of intoxication to appreciate the purity of water; as the quiet of repose must follow the stress of effort, so man now turns to the sweet nothingness of a dream, amid the warring clash of realities.

That Wagner’s idyl of simplicity is but a dream, a sigh of the imagination, only idealists can deny. Civilization and Simplicity! Bedlam and Elysium! Nirvana on the Tower of Babel! All these alliances are equally possible.

The very fact of his dream arousing such a storm of approval awakens suspicion. Insistence is always a confession of doubt. Man never talks so much of his happiness as when he is unhappy. This is demonstrated in marriage.

Wagner’s arrival in America was singularly opportune. Certainly it was fortunate that his little olive branch was given to the public just when it was clamoring for something. Its palms were itching for some of the sugar-plums the Privileged Few had wrested from it, and it was beginning to get noisy. Yes, that hydrocephalic infant, the Proletariat, was beginning to sob for the golden spoon in the mouth of Special Privilege, when, lo and behold! the powers behind the throne go to Paris and bring back the soothing syrup of Wagner and his philosophy. The infant lets the Pharisee dope him, and he drops the unintelligible complexities of Franchises, Trusts, Labor Problems and Wrongs to grab the little woolly lamb of Content.

Surely the importers of Wagner are altruists, to try thus to make the public so happy. And that Wagner has had importers as well as indorsers, the Initiated know. Nevertheless, Wagner is a remarkable man. He is remarkable in resembling two historical characters and also in possessing the aptitudes for several vocations.

He resembles Rousseau. Rousseau sang the same little Psalm of Simplicity in the most artificial and febrile period of France. The Philistines shrieked the same applause, and even tried to eat the prescribed grass. He resembles Mme. de Pompadour. When no longer she could charm the palled fancy of Louis XV as Circe, coquette, dancer or _grande dame_, she assumed the garb of a peasant girl.

That was one of the early triumphs of simplicity. Art is always a surprise. Its sole function is to astonish. Therein Wagner is an artist.

He is also a civil engineer, for he has mastered the cosmic momentum. The world is a seesaw. It exists by the eternal balance of contrasts. Wagner, seeing the excess, has given us the weight to restore our equipoise. He has led us back like refractory children to drink of milk after we have eaten _marrons glacés_ and liked them. Of course they have given us indigestion, and that is where Wagner fills the role of physician; he diagnoses our disease, he places his finger upon the very “Malady of the Century,” and he prescribes—sugar pills. This shows his great wisdom, for sugar pills and the dissecting-knife should form the sole equipment of every physician.

Wagner is also a philanthropist. His aim is to make us happy, and his method is to make us believe that a gridiron is a lyre and that cobblestones may be Apples of the Hesperides. He tells us that as things now are, each child is “born into a joyless world; that the complexities of our lives have led us into the Slough of Despond; that Civilization has been futile, for it has left us miserable.” And for all our ills he gives us the panacea of content, simplicity and repose. He summons us to be “merely human, to have the courage to be men and leave the rest to Him who numbered the stars. Each life should wish to be what it is good for it to be, without troubling about anything else.”

This is the gospel of non-resistance, of quietism. The absurdity of it is attested by every step we take, for do they not say we could not walk were it not for the resistance of the ground? Eating, alone, is a triumph over opposition. He wishes to steep us in the _dolce far niente_ of Content, and tells us in order to do so all that is needed is our confidence and trust.

“An imperturbable faith in the stability of the universe and its intelligent ordering sleeps in everything that exists. The flowers, the trees, the beasts of the field live in calm strength, in entire security.”

We must remember that Wagner lives in Paris, and, therefore, make allowances for this last statement. He probably has never seen any beasts of the field except in the cages of the Zoo, else he could not have such exuberant faith in their confidence and security. He could never have studied the stealthy horrors of the forests—the furtive panther—the relentless viper—their trembling victims—and possess such a genial conviction of the mercy and goodness of this scheme of creation. No, he must look away from nature for his examples of harmony and peace.

His perpetual refrain is, “Be human and be simple.” Civilization’s answer is that the two are incompatible. Evolution tends to complexity as inevitably as growth leads to death. The beginnings of all things are simple—people, theories of government and vegetable seeds. But the laws of life will not leave them thus. Like American policemen, their continual order is “move on.”

We would have had no history had it not been for man’s love of novelty. It is the one enduring thing. The anthropology of the world is but the record of man’s taste for the strange. Yet Wagner says, “Novelty is ephemeral. Nothing endures but the commonplace, and if one departs from that, it is to run the most perilous risk. Happy he who is able to reclaim himself, who finds the way back to simplicity.”

After reading pages of hazy verbiage descriptive of this simplicity, one cannot but see that his ideal is a vapory creation, a fusing of the honest animality of the savage and the calloused quietism of the lotus-eater.

Simplicity! What prototypes have we for it in all humanity? Two possible types suggest themselves, the savage and the hermit. But Darwin shows us that we cannot find simplicity in the savage. Like civilized man, his instincts are toward exaggeration. He, too, in his limited way, tries to escape from the realities of life. His protest against truth is tattooing. His idea of beauty is distortion.

As the great anatomist, Bichat, long ago said, “If everyone were cast in the same mold, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de Medici, we should soon wish for a variety. We should wish to see certain characters a little exaggerated beyond the existing common standard.”