Chapter II: Part 2

“Well, I was some warm. First off, I thought I would walk away and not make any trouble; then I thought to myself, ‘Here, I fought Jack Dempsey sixteen rounds the last time I appeared in the ring, and I reckon I’m not going to let any big swaggering stiff of a Dutchman get away with any such a crack as that!’ Those fellers didn’t know about my being a profesh. I changed my name when I quit, after Dempsey licked me, and I never was much of a hand to talk.

“So without any words, I drove a right-hander into Mr. Falk’s Adam’s apple. You’ll hear this and that place spoken of as a tender spot, but when you want to settle a man quick and thorough, jam him in the Adam’s apple. Falk must have weighed a hundred pounds more than I did, but he went down like a load of bricks. I wasn’t taking any chances with such odds in weight against me. To be sure, I had the science, but the only science I ever saw that was worth a cuss in a street fight is to hit the other man early and often, and with all the enthusiasm you can bring to bear. Falk laid on his back, very thoughtful, wondering where he was going to get his next breath of air from. A crack in the Adam’s apple does a good many things at the same time: It stops your wind; gives you a pain in the head; a ringing in your ears; a cramp in the stomach, and a looseness in the joints, all at once. I realized that Mr. Falk wouldn’t be in condition to do business for some time, and as I was right in the spirit of the thing, now that I’d got started, I thought I might as well head Burke up, too.

“I cut him on the end of his Irish nose, and stood it up in the air like the stack of an old wood-burner. Then I whaled him in the butt of the jaw for keeps.

“He fell all over Solomon, and down they went together.

“‘Don’d you mindt me, Mr. Berkints,’ says old Sol, as he scrambled after his hat; ‘Id’s all righd. Dot’s for der zusbenders; gif him a vew vor der gollar-puttons.’ He was a funny motzer, that Solomon. It broke me up so the fight all went out of me. But I up-ended Burke and gave him a medicine talk.

“I’ve been too easy with you fellers, and I see it,’ says I. ‘From this on, however, there won’t be any complaint on that score. You’ll feel like a lost heathen god in the wilderness, if you try any more playing horse with me; I think that blasted stubborn Dutchman is beyond reason--perhaps I’ll have to really hurt him yet--but I think there’s reason in _you_, and you’d better use it, unless you want me to spread you all over the fair face of nature.’

“You see, the citizens of the town had been liberal in coming through for the ball team, and naturally they took the greatest pride in it. We were like soldiers going out to fight. Every time we went away from home to play, the town saw us off with the band, and welcomed us back with the same--winner or loser. Now, I was the manager, and of course, everybody looked to me to see that things were run right; consequently, when fellers cut up like Burke and Falk, it wasn’t to be stood.

“Well, Burke said he’d give the matter his careful consideration.

“‘All right, see that you do,’ says I. ‘Now screw your nut home, and put your face in a sling till you look better. We don’t want any such picture of hard times as you are on the ball field.’

“When Falk got so he could understand language, I gave him a few passages of the strongest conversation I had on tap.

“He listened, to be sure, and didn’t give me any slack; but it was a sullen kind of listening--just that he was afraid to do different, that’s all.

“I forgot to tell you that these two fellers was really hired to play ball. The superintendent of the division gave them a job in the shops, and we paid ’em extra. Falk, he was a painter; and I wish you could see the blue, green and yaller ruin he made of a passenger car. The boss painter wasn’t onto the game, and took the supe’s talk in earnest, therefore he starts Falk out single-handed to paint the car. The boss painter was a quiet man usually, but when he saw that work of art, he let go of some expressions that would have done credit to a steamboat rooster. More, he heaved a can of red paint on brother Falk, and swore he’d kill him too dead to skin, if he dared put foot in the shop again. This boss painter was a sandy little man, even if he wasn’t as big as a pint of cider, and had been leaded so many times that he shook like a quaking asp. The supe had to argue with him loud and long before he’d hear of Falk’s coming back.

“Burke went into the round-house, where all the fellers were more or less sports, and understood the play.

“Not square to hire ’em? Well, it wasn’t exactly, but the crowd across the river taught us the game--they did it first.

“Well, now I’ll tell you how we came by the Injun--the mascot. He was an old feller--the Lord only knows how old--who used to hang around the station selling Injun trinkets to the passengers. He had a stick with notches cut into it to tell how old he was, but the boys used to get the stick and cut more notches when his nibs wasn’t looking, until Methusalom was a suckling kid alongside of that record. ‘Me so old--huh,’ the Injun used to say, and hand the stick to the passengers. They’d be full of interest until they counted up to four or five hundred, when they would smile in a sickly way, and go about their business, feeling that they had been taken in shameful, and much regretting the quarter, or whatever chicken-feed it was they contributed to old Bloody-Ripping-Thunder’s support. No, ‘Bloody-Ripping-Thunder’ probably wasn’t his name; but that’s what young Solomon christened him.

“Young Solomon was nephew to the old feller, and his pardner in the clothing store. He was a great sport. A darned decent young lad. It was his idea that we needed a mascot. We sure did need something about that time, for if there was anything in Dakota that hadn’t beaten us, it was only because they didn’t know our address.

“Ike Solomon takes Rip--that’s short for the aforesaid Injun--into his store one day, a bent, white-haired old man, clad in a dirty blanket, moccasins, and a hat that looked as if it had come off the rag heap, and he works a miracle with him. He wouldn’t let nary one of us inside until he’d carried out his plans.

“When we did go in, there stood as spruce a young gent of a hundred or so as ever you see. That Injun had on a cheap but decent light hand-me-down suit, b’iled shirt and paper collar, red necktie, canvas shoes--mighty small they were; he had feet like a lady--pocket-handkercher with red border sticking out of his pocket, cane in his hand, a white plug hat on his head and a pair of specs on his nose. We were simply dumfounded; that’s the only word for it. The old cuss carried himself pretty well. Darned if you’d find a white man of his years that had as much style to him. And proud! Well, that don’t give you any idea of it. He strutted around like a squint-eyed girl that’s just hooked a feller.

“When he started off down the street to give the folks a benefit, we had our laugh out.

“Into every store of the place goes Mr. Rip. Walks up and down and says ‘Huh!’ After he thinks the folks have had a fair show to take in his glory, ‘Huh!’ says he again, and tries next door. The whole town was worked up over it. The fellers would shake him by the hand, bowing and scraping and giving him all sorts of steers.

“Well, we had our mascot now, so there was no particular reason why we shouldn’t try to get somebody’s scalp.

“We sent a challenge to the Maroons, which they accepted, too quick. The game was to be played on our grounds, and with the eyes of our friends on us, you bet we meant to do our little best; but luck was against us. Our second base, the Hoodoo, had got snake bit. Rattler struck him in the right hand. He had a mighty close squeak for his life. The right field, Doctor Andis, the nicest gentleman that ever wore shoes, was coming down with the fever that carried him off.

“To crown all, just when I should have been rustling around the liveliest, I had one of my headaches--the worst I ever had. Lord! For three days I couldn’t see, and then a fool of a man told me whisky was good for it, and I took his advice. When the drink started my heart up, darned if I didn’t think the top of my head was coming off. I ought to have been in bed the day of the game, but of course that wasn’t to be thought of.

“Well, the boys were nervous, and I was sick, and though I tried my best to put a good foot forward, I’m afraid I didn’t help matters any.

“Everybody and his grandmother turned out. The town knocked off business altogether. The weather was fine for ball, with this exception, the wind blew strong up-field. That was dead against _us_, though it helped their pitcher mightily, as he was weak on curves, and pitching into the wind added at least a foot to his range. With our man, Fitzeben, it was different; he had a tremendous knack on curves; blamed if he couldn’t almost send a ball around a tree, and the extra twist threw him off his reckoning so badly that he lost all command of the ball, and finally got so rattled that we had to put another man in, in the fifth inning. They were slaughtering us then--the score was fifteen to two. We picked up a little after that, and in the ninth it looked as if we might tie them, if we had barrels of good luck.

“Falk went to bat. I cautioned him to wait for his chance; but you know what a grand-stand player he was; he had the gallery in his eye all the time. He was a big, fine looking feller, in a way, but stuck on his shape beyond all reason; so, instead of taking it easy, he swipes at everything that came, keeping up a running fire of brag all the time that made everybody very tired.

“Just before the last ball crossed the plate, he gave the folks to understand that he was going to belt the cover off it, and the remains would land down by the river. He made a fierce pass at it; missed it a mile, caught his toe and waltzed off on his ear. He got a dirty fall and everybody was glad of it. We all laughed ‘Haw! Haw!’ just as loud as we could. Falk got up, boiling mad. He looked at us as if he’d like to eat us raw; but there wasn’t any one round there he felt safe to make trouble with, until his eyes fell on old Ripping-Thunder, sitting up straight in his new clothes and specs and plug hat and cane, and laughing as fine as anybody. Then that big Dutchman did the cowardliest thing I ever saw; he walks up and smashes poor Rip in the face, just as hard as he could drive. ‘Now laugh! you d--d Injun!’ says he. There was a riot in a minute, and I had to keep the fellers off of Falk, though the Lord knows my mind was different! The other captain refused to play the game out. He didn’t want any truck with such people, he said, and, while our boys were crying hot, we couldn’t do a thing but let ’em go.

“I picked up old Rip and asked him if he was hurt. He tried to smile--although his mouth looked like an accident to a balloon, where that big lubber hit him--and told me no, not hurt.

“But his eyes were on Falk all the time, following every move he made. I tell you what, my son, never you hit an Injun unawares. No matter how old or helpless he may seem, it ain’t safe. An Injun’s not out of it till he’s dead, and then it’s just as well to be careful. I know one buck that lashed the trigger of his rifle to his arm with his dying hands, and blew a hole like a railroad tunnel through the feller that tried to take his gun away from him, as well as changing the appearance of the next man behind, which was me; you can see the mark running back from my eyebrow. I’ll tell you about that skirmish sometime. It was the liveliest I ever got into. Well, the Injun’s eyes were a little bleary from age before, but they were bright enough now. I know I thought it won’t be well for you, brother Falk, if the old man gets a crack at you; but being so disgusted with the way things come out, and sick besides, I didn’t pay much attention.

“The next day was prairie-chicken day. Fifteenth of August the law’s up, ain’t it? I can remember the day all right, but I’m never quite sure of the date--and all of the fellers turned out in force to reduce the visible supply of chicken; me and my friend Stevens among the rest. We got a later start than most of the boys, and it must have been ten or after before we reached McMillan’s flat, where we were going to do our shooting. We drove around here and there, but we never flushed a feather.

“‘Now, Jay,’ says Stevens, ‘let’s cut for old man Simon’s shack; there is likely to be some birds in his wheat stubble.’ So off we went. We were sailing down the little sharp coulée which opens on Simon bottom when we heard a gun-shot to the right, and not far off.

“‘Hello!’ says Stevens, ‘there’s a fellow in luck; we’ll give him a lift if he’s got more than he can handle.’

“‘Sounded more like a rifle to me, Steve,’ says I.

“‘Well, let’s investigate anyhow--what the blazes is that?’ For just then riz up a wild howl, ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ it says.

“‘I could swear that that was the voice of that sweet gentleman, Mr. Falk,’ says I. ‘Tie up, and we’ll creep to the top of the bank and see what’s going on; if Falk’s in trouble, I wouldn’t miss it for anything.’ We made our sneak and looked down. Beneath us was a sort of big pot-hole, say forty foot across. On one side was brother Falk, his face as serious as though he was playing a rubber with the gent that always wins, but stepping it high, wide, and frolicsome. Gee! what pigeon wings and didoes he cut! And the reason of it sat on the other side of the pot-hole watching him--Brother Ripping-Thunder, with a rifle in his hand, enjoying himself much, and smiling as good as the damaged condition of his mouth would allow.

“‘Hunh!’ says he, ‘that’s plenty dance--now stand on head.’

“‘I can’t!’ says Falk, ‘I don’t know how!’

“‘Learn!’ says the Injun, ‘now good time.’

“Falk started to make some objections, but old Rip raised the rifle, and Falk, with a wild, despairing cuss, up-ended himself. He was a big man, as I’ve told you, and when he keeled over he come down so hard it jarred the earth.

“‘Wakstashonee!’ cries Rip, ‘that worst I ever see! Got to do better, or I shoot anyhow!’

“So up goes Falk, and down he comes, and up he goes and down he comes, in all kinds of shapes and styles till Steve and me, we had to jam our handkerchers in our mouths for fear we’d snort out loud and spoil the game.

“‘Holy sufferin’!’ says Steve, ‘but ain’t he just everlastingly run up against the worst of it this heat! We couldn’t have wished no better if we tried, Jay!’

“Well, I should say that there wasn’t a piece as big as a quarter on Falk that wasn’t black and blue when at last he seemed to get the knack of it, and held himself up in a wobbly sort of way.

“‘There,’ says Rip, ‘that’s more like business. Just keep feet still--I going to shoot heels off boots.’

“Falk hollered murder.

“Old Rip shook his head. ‘You make such noise I get rattled and shoot hole through foot,’ he complained. Falk shut up like a clam.

“‘Here we go fresh!’ says Rip. ‘Now don’t move feet.’

“Blam! And the right heel zipped into space. Blim! And away went the left one.

“‘Good shooting for old man!’ says Rip. ‘Now you rest. Bimeby we have some more fun.’

“You should have seen Falk’s face as he sat there resting, with the pleasant future in his mind. He wasn’t happy, and he showed it. As soon as he got his wind he tried to bribe Rip, but it didn’t go. He promised him money and ponies and whisky and tobacco, and everything under the sun. Rip simply shook his head. ‘Don’t want!’ says he. ‘Having plenty good time now. Don’t talk any more. Want think what do next.’

“So there they sat, and whenever Rip looked at a place, Falk, he looked too, for he had a large interest in the matter, and it was pretty medium hard to figure out what was passing through Rip’s head.

“There was a mud-puddle with about six inches of water and six foot of mud at the end of the pot-hole. Rip took that in very earnest.

“‘Hunh,’ says he, ‘you rested now!’

“‘No, I ain’t!’ cries Falk, with the sweat starting out all over him. ‘I ain’t rested a little bit. Now, just wait a minute--honest, I’m all played out!’

“‘No ask question--tell you about it. I say rested, you _rested_,’ answers Rip, in a tone of voice that wasn’t to be argued with. Falk knuckled. ‘For God’s sake! What’s it going to be now?’ he asked.

“‘You _fish_,’ says Rip. ‘Plenty dam big fat fish, you!’ He pointed to the puddle. ‘Now swim!’

“I may have mentioned that Falk was stuck on his appearance? Well, he was--powerful. So when it came to wallowing around in a mud-puddle with his brand new hunting clothes on, he beefed for fair. Moses! How he cussed!

“Then old Rip raised the rifle again, and there was a bad light in his old eyes. I can’t give you no idea of the satisfaction he expressed as he simply repeated the one word, ‘swim!’

“Brother Falk ground his teeth till the slivers flew; Rip moved his forefinger. That was enough. Into the mud, ker-sock! goes Falk, and the slime splashed a rod around.

“All this time the Injun had been sort of quiet and sneering, but now he entered into the spirit of the thing. He capered like a school-boy. ‘Leelah ouashtay!’ He hollered. ‘Swim, fish! Kick, fat fish! Kick! Make hand go! Make head go! Make foot go! Wyupee! Chantay meatow leelah ouashtayda!’ Then he took to spanking Falk with the butt of the rifle. It was ‘a animated scene,’ as the poet says. You don’t often get a chance to see a two-hundred-and-twenty pound bully lying on his stomach in a mud-puddle swimming for dear life, so Steve and me made the most of it.

“There was Falk hooking mud like a raving maniac--fountains and geysers and waterspouts of mud--while Rip pranced around him, war-whooping and yelling, and laying it on to him with the rifle-butt until each crack sounded like a pistol-shot. It seldom falls to the lot of man or boy to get such a thorough, heartfelt, soul-searching spanking as that ugly Dutchman received. My! I could feel every swat clear down to my toes, and there isn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind that Falk did too.

“And that Injun looked so comical flying around in his high hat and specs and new clothes and canvas shoes! It was a sight to make a horse laugh. By and by Steve couldn’t stand it and he roared right out. That stopped the matinée. Rip looked up at us and grinned. ‘I got openers, this pot,’ says he, tapping the rifle. ‘Play nice game with friend--stand up, big, fat fish.’

“Well, we had a conniption fit when Falk made himself perpendicular. He _was_ a sight! If there ever a man lived whose name ought to be Mud, ’twas Falk. His hair was full of it; his face was gobbed with it, and drops of it fell off the end of his trickling Dutch _muss_-tash. To say nothing of them nice new clothes! Steve hollered, and I hollered, and the Injun hollered. We _more’n_ hollered; we rocked on our heels and laid back our ears and screeched--Falk looking from one to the other, oozing slough-juice at every vein, and wishing he had been buried young.

“At last he kind of whimpers out, ‘Well, what are you going to do with me now?’

“‘Kika-lap!’ says Rip, ‘fly.’

“And Falk flew, like a little bird; up the side of the pot-hole, over the coulée and across the prairie--vanished, vamoosed, faded, gone for ever. He didn’t even stop to pack his clothes. The first train out was soon enough for him.

“So now you say he’s fallen into a bushel of money, and has a fine house, and drives his trotters in New York? Well! By gum! But this _is_ a strange world! Why couldn’t some decent man have gotten the rocks? I tell you what we ought to do; we ought to take a nice photograph of that pot-hole, of which the general features are impressed on his memory perfect enough not to need no label, I guess, and send it on to him with the compliments of Bloody-Ripping-Thunder, for him to hang as the principal ornament in his art gallery! Old Falk a millionaire! Well, wouldn’t that cramp you! I’ve got to have something to take the taste of that out of my mouth. Yes, the same, Jimmy, with plain water on the side. Well, here’s luck, young feller, even to old Falk!”

IV

THE LITTLE CANOE

ITS INTRODUCTION AND DESTRUCTION AT PORTO RICO

My friend the Señor Don is of a precise and military bearing, clad with a dignity that enhances his scant five feet of stature to herculean proportions. He is a handsome little man with pompadour hair and a bold “Wilhelm der Kaiser” mustache. His speech is exact, somewhat cold, yet with a flavor of melancholy to it, like the style of Thackeray. When he expresses himself in English, it is with seriousness, that seriousness which marks all his enterprises, but it is with some honest mistakes concerning the language as a whole. A fine love for our free institutions is also characteristic of the Señor Don. I can not tell you how his sad story of the little canoe affects me. I may only try.

“When I am to mek retoorn to Puerto Rico, Hooaleece” (which is part of my name on the Spanish tongue), said he, “I have bear in my mind the indolence of those people. Not like that rooggèd American who enjoy the manly art of boxing the eye of hees frien’, or to mek strong resistance on the field of the ball of the foot, or splash t’rough the water in aquatic spooorts. No, hombre! Not sooch do they mek in Puerto Rico. Nuzzing more rrrrobust than to smoke cigarillos and to drink chocolatay, and I say, Thees ees the end of these people. What manner of civilizassyone will mek the drinking of chocolatay and the perpetual smoking of cigarillos? That of the conqueror? No. That of the arts? No. That of what, then? That of nuzzing.

“Well, what then? I say, I shall to missionary these people. To them I shall introduce the can-ooo American. It ees a beginning. Bimeby the boxing-glove, the ball of the foot, the base-ball, but gradooally--poco á poco. At first the can-ooo. There it ees to sit still, after the manner of Puerto Rico, becows, if you are not to sit with precceesion, that can-ooo will to set up, and some man must fish you. I buy can-ooo. I have it transport at mooch expense. I veesit Señor Córdova at hees home upon the sea, and there also has arrrrrived my little can-ooo.

“‘Ah!’ says the señor, ‘what ees thees leetle bo-at? Eet ees very pretty!’

“‘Eet ees can-ooo American,’ I tell heem. ‘You pull eet with thees stick. Eet ees at your disposal. Will you not make essay at eet?’ ‘Buen,’ says Señor Córdova; ‘where to put the foot?’

“I am to tell heem, but he waits not for reply, putting the foot oopon the edge. Eenstantly that can-ooo make revolution, preceepeetating Señor Córdova eento the ocean. Ah, what confusion! What disturbance! How mooch different from America! There, when I have to overthrow myself in that can-ooo, the hardy cour-rrage of those people mek them to cry, ‘Ha, ha, goood eye! Pool for the shore!’ But now! Señora Córdova and Señoritas Córdova three mek lamentable outcry, ‘Papa is to drown!’ And those naygrose which are there run around like stoopeed fellows. Eet ees to me that the responseebeelity falls that my friend Córdova do not perish. There he ees, pushing the water with hees hands, and speaking as one should not before ladies.

“What to do? I can reach heem with my arm, but that ees not nautical. I have by the--the--_como se llaman_ thees pole with the iron? Ah, bo-at-hoook! si, si, si! The bo-at-hoook, and by that I hook heem.

“‘A Dios!’ he cry, ‘I am assassinated!’

“‘Be still, foolish person!’ I say. ‘Is not your life to be saved?’

“‘Si,’ he say. ‘Tiene usted razón, but I shall walk.’ So he place his legs upon the ground beneath the water, which is not extensive in that place, and coom to shore.

“‘Will you try heem again?’ I say.

“‘Causa admiración!’ he say, ‘I theenk not. No sé the habeets of the little can-ooo.’

“So he send a naygro for stimulant, the which I eembibe, while he mek change of hees attire at hees house.

“When he has returned he say to me: ‘Let us behold you master thees bo-at of eenstabeelity. Can you mek heem go?’

“By thees time those stimulant have made my heart strong, my cour-rrage severe. Am I not American citizen? What ees eet? I tell heem that moment:

“‘I can pool eet with the stick; I can put in the sail and fly over the water like a sheep. Do you wish to see?’

“All the ladies and Señor Córdova cry out they will not let me be so dangerous. But I am resolved. Señorita Margarita Córdova is a yoong lady ver-ree beautiful. I am an American citizen. I tek anuzzer glass of aguardiente--brandee. What do I care for one can-ooo? Two? Three? I send the naygro for the sail in a steady voice: ‘Pepe, go at once and get the sail.’

“Señor Córdova says he will resist, but I pay no attencion. I place the pole; I feex the strings; I adjoost the ruddle; I put een three large stone for ballass.

“‘Once more,’ say the ladies, ‘let us intreat--’

“‘At your feet, ladies,’ I say, ‘but I go!’

“So I go, and then for the first eet is pleasant: the weend blow carefully; the little can-ooo jump oopon the water. But now there comes a large cloud. The weend he blow not so carefully. I am far from home. On the shore, Señor Córdova and hees ladies make observacion with a telescope. It is sad, I think, that they can see me so plain, yet am I upon thees stormy ocean. Of what avail is the telescope, if I am to shipwreck the can-ooo? Ah! I would not at that time that I had the ancestors of so cour-rrageous. Eet ees one of them who make Rolando see hees feeneesh. Out oopon these violent water I am cara á cara with the ma’neefeecent past. Shall I to turn the back upon the perilous? Die, then, the thought! Beside, that moment may the Señorita Margarita be with the beautiful eye at the telescope. So I am gay; I smile, as though I mek enjoyment of the terrrible bouncing of that little can-ooo; I sing areea from _Fra Diavolo_--ti-ti-tee-tum-te-tee! But at heart I regret mooch. What is a can-ooo, for the most? Eet ees not so strong as paper; eet ees a small, little boat that thees wave who shake hees teeth at me may devour at a bite. And then, alas! comes in a wave--ta! Ah, veree cold! Veree damp! With my hat I mek attempt to hurl the water outdoors. Comes another wave--another. I labor desperate; eet weel not do. Eet ees not enough. The can-ooo is sinking. Bimeby I am to sit in the water. It happen. Then I am to clasp the can-ooo with my arm, for in the both end of eet exists an air-tink--a box made of iron which hold the air, that the can-ooo may remain upon the water.

“The stern of that can-ooo go down first; glides the large rocks for ballass to where I am sitting. Thees I am to t’row out. Pah! When I bend to catch heem, comes a large wave right down my neck.

“There am I, then, clasping that can-ooo passionately, only hees end sticking up from the water. Those large stone hold the other end downright.

“At once I think, ‘Córdova shall survey t’rough hees telescope, and send to me assistance.’ But on the second thought I see eet ees not to be. I have mek sooch large talk of what I may do with that can-ooo that Córdova shall think: ‘Thees ees novelty American. My friend shows me all! What devils are thees Americans, to swim in a boat standing oop in the water? Who shall presentiment their leemitaciones?’ And he shall call hees neighbors to see the es-pectacle. Everybody shall come and remark, ‘Ah! Meeracoolous!’ and shake hees head.

“When I think that, I am almost to weep. My friends to see me fish for fish with myself before their eyes! Behold the beautiful Margarita! Will it not to melanchate her days of youth to rrrremember, ‘Through a telescope I saw my dear friend dissolve een the water?’ Sad, thees. Well, then, eet ees unavoiadabble. So to mek en end manful--strong. Therefore I smile again. But that smile he take all my strength. I wish not to show disrespec’ for thees so noble country, yet eet ees the coostom for to mek the dollar. On that account some work is not so well done. That air-tink, on which depend my life, he leak. The can-ooo ees sinking, sinking. My ear against hees side, I can hear that little noise--shhhh!--where the water run in and the air run out. Eet ees the hour-glass marking how long I shall remain een the country. When he feel oop--pop! A Dios, el mundo!

“And eet ees so slow! I am of eempatient deesposeecion. With the long waiting I am not simpatico. I look how fast the water come up on that can-ooo, and I esteemate that I have to sit in those cold water for five hours. And my friends observe t’rough the telescope! Misericordia! Eet ees too dam mooch! For five hours must I smile and sink!

“And when I think that Córdova shall say, ‘Ah, but he ees not eenteresting, thees fellow! Eet ees a pairformance monotonoose to sit there in the water! He ees not really an American! Not sooch do they, I give my word!’ then I geenash my tooth, and I shall to tear my hair, but how may I unclasp that little can-ooo?

“Now, to any man thees would seem suffeecent--a meesery plenty for the heart to hold. Yet listen! Here am I, three miles from shore in the stormy ocean, grasping a sinking can-ooo, while eet ees necessary that I seem to enjoy myself, to compensate my friends who witness t’rough the telescope--ees eet not the leemit? Hear me! Now comes the shark! Madre de Dios! How shall I now perform? Shall I make a great splash with my feet to enfrighten that wrrretched repteel away?

“And Margarita mek observation of me in the actions of the little playful child. Ah, my heart shall burst! In her eyes to become reediculous! Si, yet here comes the shark to bite me by the leg. To splash eet ees reediculous, but what can be so mooch reediculous as a man without some legs? Eet ees time I splash. Vigorosely I the water spatter. The shark, that cowardly insect, run away--only to get hees friends. Around me they circulate, each one putting oopon me the obstruction of hees cold, unfeeling eye. And it rains. In the air ees water! in the ocean ees water; in the water ees sharks. I am tire of water; I regret that I have not brought the ball of the foot or the boxer-glove to eenvigorate thees island.

“I am think to be missionary; I am become martyr. One consolación I obtain. The rain eet has obscured the view. From the shore they can not see. I am to smile no longer. That ees joy. A little joy, not too mooch, for now ees but a trifle of that can-ooo left elevated over the water, and I am fatigue with splashing. I am deciding shall I omit to splash, and thus allow thees beeest of shark to bite me queeck, or shall I to drown, when--ta! A hand on the stern of my t’roat, and a voice t’rough the nose, a voice so beautiful, a voice American, saying (eef you pairmeet eemeetacion), ‘Hallo, bosss! Do yer cum out here for thees exercise evvereee Saturday?’ and I am lift into a boat.

“So they tek me to Córdova. My clothes he ees shorten by the water; also hees color ees not all in the same place as when I mek purchase of heem. He ees the flannel clothes with the rrred, white, and blue straps. Now he ees the rainbow, and from the hat has come color to my nose, to my cheeek.

“I land calm, coomposséd--eet ees like I have made the same each day. Córdova he ees perplex; the ladies they know not what to say.

“‘Have you petroleum?’ I ask Córdova.

“He mek reply, ‘Yes, I have.’

“‘Of your kindness, obtain me some,’ I say and retire unto the house.

“When I retoorn, the old clothes repose upon my arm; I smoke the cigarillo. With the cold blood I walk to that can-ooo. I poot the old clothes upon heem. With the petrol I es-sprinkle all. I strike the match, first to light the cigarillo--then so carelessly, I light the little can-ooo.

“‘Pardon,’ I say. ‘Coostom American.’

“The ladies all cry, ‘Ah!’ and Córdova he knock hees feest with hees head and mek outcry: ‘Ah! What devils are thees Americanos! What care they for expense!’

“So I am veen-dickateed. And that end my little can-ooo.”

V

THE REVERSE OF A MEDAL

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MAKING OF MARY ELLEN’S HERO

Mary Ellen Darragh was a strange girl. Her life may have had something to do with that. Left fatherless at sixteen, with a mother and three little Darraghs on her hands, she at once jumped into the breach, which in this case was the breeches, and by the use of good taste, a ready tongue, pleasant manners and plenty of hard work, performed her stint so well that now, at two-and-twenty, she was sole proprietor of a millinery establishment which employed four girls besides herself. Carriage-folk came to the door of Mary Ellen’s establishment, she was so good--and so cheap.

Mary Ellen was born with both gray eyes wide open; she absorbed the deportment of the ladies of her clientele with the unfailing surety of grasp that made her a success. She had the “business” of polite intercourse down as fine as the most pronouncedly mannered of her patrons--even to the English. The objective case received all that was due it from Mary Ellen when she had “her airs on,” as her detractors put it. Now, these were no airs; they were the girl’s standard. More than the tilt of the head and a shade of the voice were in them. There was the hope of something above the buying and selling, and wheedling of cross-grained customers.

Yet the effect on her acquaintances was bad. They thought it buncombe, and although Mary Ellen was trim, pretty and stylish, she had never kept company with any young man until Fireman Carter appeared on the scene. Other young men had come, seen and left, saying that kind of gait was too swift for them. Mary Ellen wanted to sit at a reasonable distance from her caller and converse. It must be added that Mary Ellen’s conversational powers were limited--there was a measure of justification in the course of the young men.

However, Fireman Carter was of another breed. He, too, had inner aspirations toward gentility. Let me at once confute any suspicion that Dick Carter was snob or prig. By no means. Indeed, in his effort not to be superior he sometimes exceeded the most ungentle actions of his companions. The war between his inner monitor and his desire to be rated a good fellow played havoc with Dick’s peace of mind. When he first put his cap under the sofa in Mary Ellen’s little parlor he recognized a quality in his hostess for which he long had yearned. For one thing, he had an opportunity to hold forth at length on that subject so dear to the heart of man--himself.

Mary Ellen was smitten at first sight, and why not? A mighty agreeable picture of young manhood was Fireman Carter: thin, clean, dark, handsome in face; tall, strong and supple in body; alert and ready in mind; an ideal type of the finest corps of men in the world, the firemen. He looked especially distinguished in his uniform. So Mary Ellen listened to the song of Richard Carter. Again, I must interfere. Dick didn’t blow and bluster about his prowess; he merely took out his soul and explained its works to Mary Ellen. He left that night feeling he was understood at last. And he went again every time he had a chance.

Mrs. Darragh, worthy old lady, chaperoned the visits, an acquired idea of Mary Ellen’s. She enjoyed her evening nap in the parlor almost as much as the young folk did their discussions. Little was she needed; Dick appreciated his lady’s dignity too much to do aught to invalidate it. In fact, he studied for those evenings, reading up by stealth and artfully leading the talk to the subject on which he was prepared, and then it would do your heart good to see Fireman Carter, with extended hand explaining the primal causes of things, to Mary Ellen’s cooing obligato of admiration. Solomon, in all his glory was a poor fool to Dick Carter, in one person’s estimation.

This was all very well, but Mary Ellen, like most young women in love, would have liked a more forceful demonstration of her idol’s regard. She understood at last why her friends preferred action to conversation. This long-distance courtship might have been fatal to another man than handsome, daredevil Dick; as it was it added a piquancy; but it made trouble, nevertheless, and here’s how that came.

Under the softening influence of Mary Ellen’s eyes, Carter had grown an intimacy with a man of his company by the name of Holtzer. Holtzer was German by parentage and sentimental by nature. Especially did Holtzer deplore the fact that he knew no nice young women--those who liked music and poetry. Dick gave him a “knock-down” to Mary Ellen, and Holtzer also became a constant visitor. The fact that it is bad policy to introduce one’s best friend to one’s best girl can be proved either by cold reasoning or by experience. Carter tried experience. You see, he would acknowledge to no emotional interest in Mary Ellen when questioned by Holtzer--he scouted the idea--so Holtzer wasn’t to blame.

As for Mary Ellen, Cupid had pounded her heart into a jelly. She was tender to Dick’s friend to a degree that put the none too modest German in possession of facts that were not so. All the overflow of regard he received as Dick’s friend he attributed to his own personal charms, and, unlike Carter, he didn’t hesitate to talk about it. It was Carter’s pleasant duty to listen to Holtzer’s joyful expounding of the reasons why the latter felt he had made a hit with Mary Ellen, and not only to listen, but to indorse. It shows the stuff Fireman Carter was made of to tell that he stood this vicious compound of insult and injury with a tranquil face. The serpent had entered Eden, and utilized Adam to support his position, but Adam smiled and took his medicine like a man.

Several times he intended to question Mary Ellen concerning Holtzer, yet, when in her presence, a certain feeling of surety and a very big slice of pride forbade it.

In the meantime he was regaled with Mary Ellen, per Holtzer, until violent thoughts entered his mind.

Dick yearned for the first time in his life to do something heroic. He sweated to stand out the one man of the day; to be held up to the public gaze on the powerful pen of the reporter. He wanted to swagger into Mary Ellen’s little parlor covered and rustling with metaphorical wreaths, and with an actual disk of engraved metal on his broad chest, and thus extinguish Holtzer beyond doubt--not Carter’s doubt, nor Mary Ellen’s doubt, but Holtzer’s doubt.

In this frame of mind he went to sleep one night, to be awakened in the early hours of the morning by a singular prescience born of long experience, which told him the gong was about to ring. For years the alarm had not wakened Dick. No matter how deep his slumber, he was always alert and strained to catch the first note of it.

The metallic cry for help vibrated through the engine-house. It threw each inmate into action, like an electric shock. The dark winter morning was savagely cold, with a wind like an auger. The heroic cord was busted. “Damn the luck!” cried Dick as he took the pole; and it was no solo.

The two most picturesque feats of civilization are the handling of a field-piece and the charge of a fire-engine. Very fine was the old-time chariot race, but what was the driver’s risk on the smooth hippodrome track compared to that of the man who guides a fire-engine through city streets? The chariot driver could, at least, see what was before him; the man who holds the lines on an engine little knows what’s around the corner. But it’s a tale told too often already. A rush, a clamor of hoofs, a roar, and they were rattling over the pavement, the stream of sparks from the engine stack and the constant lightnings from the horses’ shoes making one think of the old adage of fighting fire with fire.

“I suppose,” said Dick, clinging tightly with one hand and waving the other in wild circles as he got into his coat--“I suppose some old lady has left the cat to play with the lamp.”

“Yah,” assented Holtzer, “or else some Mick has taken his pipe to bed with him.”

Then they cursed the old lady and the Mick or whoever it might be.

“The worst of it is that I’m scart now,” confided Holtzer. “I didn’t ust to care much, except for the trouble, but now, when I think of Mary Ellen, I hate to go shinning around taking chances.”

General Bonaparte, the worst-mannered conqueror in history, said that no man was courageous at three o’clock in the morning, an unmerited slight to the vanity of his soldiery. However it may be as to courage, certainly no man was ever philosophical when hauled from his bed at that hour. It was in Fireman Carter’s mind that a small movement of his foot would put his erstwhile friend in violent contact with the cold world below. However, civilization isn’t impotent. He restrained the action and replied: “You want to leave your girl at home--fires is no place for ’em.”

“You don’t understand,” retorted Holtzer, full of sentiment. “You can’t get away from it. It ain’t thinking what’s going to happen to _me_, so much, as thinking how Mary Ellen will feel about it when she hears.”

“You’re awful dead certain on that part of it,” said Dick, and now he hated his friend. The last vestige of humor had left the theme. “Perhaps she won’t care a cuss--how do you know?”

Holtzer started to answer, while Dick listened, his hands clenched tight--maybe there was something he didn’t know about?

There was no more time for conversation. As they turned the corner they saw their destination, an eight-storied storage warehouse, standing alone, with boarded vacant lots at each side of it.

The watchman was there with the keys; it was he who had turned in the alarm. Without delay the firemen, hauling the hose up after them, swarmed to the roof where the flames were beginning to curl.

The fire was in the back of the upper story. While some fought it on that level, the others cut holes through the roof and turned the streams down upon it.

The hose leaked and slippery ponds formed in an instant where the water fell. The wind sawed into one’s marrow in this utterly exposed position.

A head popped up and called off all the men but Holtzer and Dick.

“You fellers hold her down as best you can!” it shouted. “Keep a watch and don’t let it break through--come on, the rest of yer!”

They worked in silence on Dick’s part, and with a continued rattle of what Mary Ellen would think of this from Holtzer. It wrought harder and harder on his companion’s nerves, this prattle--indeed, such waves of rage came over him that he entirely forgot where he was.

Meanwhile the crowd below--gathered in strong numbers in spite of the weather and the hour--were wondering what must be the thoughts of those men standing over a furnace, a hundred feet from the ground. What could either man think of but the danger? The danger of one’s daily work? There is no such thing.

This was a commonplace fire which soon would be well in hand. It had not in the least turned the current of the thoughts of the two men aloft who formed the spectacle, while the household gods below made burnt-offerings of themselves. Then, as if to show that no fire is commonplace, a giant flare sprang from the corner of the building, poised in the air for a moment, then, overthrown by the wind, toppled toward the firemen. They leaped back--one to safety; the other, slipping on a treacherous skin of ice, to fight vainly for his balance for a second, and then to plunge down the mansard roof, speeding for that hard ground so far away. It was a trained man who fell, though. He turned as he went, instinctively gripping with his hands, and they caught--the edge of the cornice--an ice-covered edge to which they clung miraculously, while his body dangled in the wind.

So Dick, safe, looked down at Holtzer, for whom it was a question of seconds, while the roar of pity from the crowd buzzed in his ears.

He might well have done nothing. No man could go down the steep slant unsupported. Nothing was to be seen of Holtzer but his hands, lighted by the flames; hands that could not clench even, as to grip would be to force loose, but which could only make stiff angles of themselves. It would all be over in ten heart-beats, for to take it as we are doing is like examining the moving pictures one by one at leisure, instead of as they live upon the screen.

Then Dick moved. He ripped off his coat, soaked the arm of it in the hose stream, pressed it to the roof, where it froze fast on touching, and slid down his improvised cloth ladder, held only by the strength of the ice-film that bound the sleeve to the tin.

Before his frantic fellow-firemen below could scale the fence with the jumping-sheet he had hold of Holtzer’s wrist with one strong hand. The strain was terrible; he felt the coat yield with a soft, tearing sound, his head spun, yet somehow he managed it, and there they stood on the cornice together.

Then, while the crowd that had been as silent as death cracked their throats with applause, Dick spoke to Holtzer on a private matter.

It so happened that a young man who did “space” for a morning paper lived on the top floor of the flat-house opposite, and saw the whole thing through an opera-glass. He hustled into his clothes and got down to the street, working a talk out of Dick by the plea that he needed the money.

The reporter was delighted. The incident had the two elements of daring and mother-wit that can be made into the long story of profit.

“How did you ever come to think of using your coat like that?” he asked.

“Why, a feller I knew when I was a kid in the country saved himself from drownding that way,” replied Carter. “He fell through the ice miles from anybody, and if he hadn’t froze the end of his muffler fast, and so anchored himself, he’d ’a’ been a gone gosling all right. That thing come back to me on the minute.”

That is why the first thing Fireman Carter saw in his morning paper was his own name. He started guiltily at the sight and threw the sheet away. No maiden caught _en déshabillé_ could have been more abashed; and, as the maiden afterward might wonder how she _did_ look--was it so _very_ awful?--so did Dick. He picked the paper up again stealthily and read all about it, lost in wonder at the end. To the applause that came his way he turned an inattentive ear, thus giving further life to the old idea that the bravest are always the most modest, which looks like a double superlative and is no more true than that they are always the fattest, or anything else. The bravest are usually the most courageous, and there ends deduction. Dick was busy with his own thoughts--something troubled him. A strange thing was the fact that though his friend Holtzer scrupulously gave him every credit he did not seek his society.

The frown of hard thinking was on Dick’s brow all day. At night he asked for a few hours off and got them.

Mary Ellen met him at the door. “Oh, Dick!” she cried and gulped. “Ain’t you just grand, though!” she said, and looked at him with beatified gray eyes.

Here was golden opportunity. The proper play for Fireman Carter was to reach out his strong arms and gather Mary Ellen then and there, but he did nothing of the sort. He seemed distrait and worried.

To her anxiety, he seated himself on the sofa and fumbled his hat.

“You ain’t mad at me, are you, Dick?” she asked tremulously.

“Holtzer been here?” bruskly interrupted her visitor with no apparent relevance.

“Yes,” said Mary Ellen.

“What did you tell him?”

“I--I--I told him ‘No.’”

Fireman Carter passed his hand over his forehead, then drew out a newspaper, saying: “You’ve read this, ain’t you?”

“Yes.”

“More especially this?” reading aloud the most laudatory paragraph.

Mary Ellen was not feazed by such flagrant egotism.

“Beautiful!” she said dreamily. “Just beautiful!”

“Beautiful!” yelled Fireman Carter, leaping to his feet. The scorn in his voice could not be rendered by a phonograph. Poor man! He was about to knock the light out of those gray eyes, to spoil his own image, and nothing is so trying to a man’s temper.

“Hunh!” he continued. “Shows just about how much intelligence you got--beautiful! It’s a--lie--it’s fuzzy-water gas--there ain’t nothing to it at all--d’ye understand that?”

This last came out so fiercely that Mary Ellen faltered as she said she did.

“All right,” said Fireman Carter. “Now, I want to tell you just one thing: I ain’t the man to back-cap no man, when I come to get cooled down--not with a girl nor nothing else.” He tapped his knee with a perpendicular forefinger. “Not with a girl nor nothing!” he repeated. “Understand that?”

“Yes.”