""Scuse me, seh, may I venture to--"
"Well, what"s the matter with you?"
"My poor lost brother, I am wishful to be infawmed if Misteh Michael Ryan----"
"He"s in his car. I"m busy."
"Oh, but my deah young friend, these profane cowboys are using such feahful language, because Misteh Ryan refuses to see them, being gawn to bed----"
The operator turned on his heel, and turned off growling.
"You see," the preacher wailed after him, "they"ve got a robber."
The operator began to nibble the bait.
"Robber!" He swung round sudden. "What robber?"
"The erring young person is called James du Chesnay."
"They"ve got him? Great snakes!"
"Yes, in bondage. They want to be rewarded with earthly dross, instead of seeking for the blessings and comfort which alone----"
"And Ryan won"t come out?"
"I think, seh, that Misteh Ryan is timid, bekase of the shocking profanity of these misguided men, breaking his windows, too. Let me admonish you, my brother, to eschew the company of all----"
"I"ll fix him," says the operator, and charged along down the platform with the preacher suffering after him.
That night operator, Mr. Mose Bowles, surging along the platform to Ryan"s car, would have bet his last dollar that the facts were true. He saw three sure-enough cowboys sitting their horses easy in front of the private car, and the preacher was plumb correct about the way they talked. Bowles saw the prisoner, bound hand and foot, on a led horse, and that was Jim beyond all doubt, looking plenty discouraged. Bowles knew that Ryan had offered rewards most bounteous for Jim"s body; he hungered for a portion of the plunder, and when he swung himself up the platform on the end of the car his batterings on the door was full of enthusiasm.
"I feah," says the preacher, "that yo"re spoiling the paint. Take thought, my friend, how expensive is paint like that!"
The cowboys were backing their horses away beyond range of the car lamps, out of sight.
"Mr. Ryan!" Bowles shouted, "urgent telegrams! Come out!"
A n.i.g.g.e.r porter slid open an inch of the door. "You go way," says he; "Ma.s.s" Ryan he plumb distrackful. Go "way."
"Let me in, you fool!"
Bowles wrenched the door wide open, and jumped into the car; then there were mutterings and voices, the lighting up of the far end of the Pullman; and after a while came a fat young man bustling out on the platform. He wore a fur coat, bare legs, and slippers, cussing around most peevish.
""Scuse me," says the preacher, "I am an unworthy minister, a "Ticular Baptist, and I could not heah the feahful profanity of these rude men without shedding tears. May I esco"t you, seh, to see this prisoner?"
Bowles and the negro stood on the car platform watching, while the preacher led Ryan off into starlight.
"My heart quakes at the feah that these cowboys have gawn away. Please step this way--and "ware stumbling on these sidings--this way, Misteh Ryan--this way----"
The voice died away, and Bowles was putting out to follow, when all of a sudden he and the negro were seized from behind, gagged, roped, and generally detained. Off among the sidings Mr. Ryan had a gag in his mouth, a rope round his elbows; then felt himself caught up into the starlight and thrown on a horse while his feet were hobbled under the animal"s belly. In the station a robber was playing tunes with an axe on the keys of the telegraph, and the wires were being lopped with a pair of shears. Speaking generally, a whole lot of silence was being procured, and from a robber point of view things worked harmonious until the first bunch of riders went thundering away into the desert.
As it happened, the City Marshal and his deputy, Shorty Broach, straying into these premises to send off a telegram, found the operator and the negro lying gagged and bound on the platform; so when they heard the robbers loping off they sized up the whole situation. They were just too late to get robbers, but plenty swift in turning out the town.
This news of a fresh outrage hit old Grave City sudden, surprising, right in the middle of sleep time, and the whole town swarmed out instant like a hornets" nest for war. Some of the people were full of sleep, others were full of whisky; some had their war-paint, some had a blanket; but all of them felt they were spat on, all of them howled for vengeance. For a whole week the town tribe and the range tribe had been at war, and here was some idiot making a howl about robbers! This was certainly another case of cowboys in town, and the verdict was sudden--to lynch the cowboy leader, Mr. Chalkeye Davies.
It being some expedient first to catch this Chalkeye, these warriors began to make haste and get mounted for pursuit. But from the first things seemed to go wrong, for one after another the horses which had been standing in the street went jumping roaring crazy, pulling back till their reins broke, bucking off their saddles, whirling around the town, and stampeding away to the desert. The people saw that _loco_ weed had been prevailing over the plain sense of these animals; then they found the stables an aching solitude, and the telegraph wrecked to prevent them calling for help, and everything done thoughtful and considerate by felonious parties unknown who had stolen the only millionaire in Arizona. Soon they remembered there had been a whole lot of unpleasantness between Mr. Ryan and Chalkeye. Thus the more they considered, the more their noses went sideways of the truth, smelling the poisonous iniquities of this Chalkeye outlaw.
The town was left afoot, and yet from private stables horses were raked up, enough to mount a posse of thirty men. By this time it was too late to chase, but the Marshal reckoned that, with a shine of bicycle lamps, he could track until daylight, and keep on the robbers" trail until he got more help. He never ruminated on the thoughtful, prophetic way in which these motions were foreseen. Just abreast of the Jim Crow Mine the leading horse of that posse blew up with a loud bang, and Shorty Broach was projected into a p.r.i.c.kly-pear bush. That is how he got his new pseudonym, which is Pincushion Shorty to the present day. On the whole that posse concluded to go home rather than face a pavement of live dynamite.
CHAPTER XXIII
A HOUSE OF REFUGE
Looking back upon the whole discussion between the du Chesnay and Ryan families, I see myself sitting around meek and patient, shy, timid, cautious, and fearfully good, and yet I got all the blame. Of course, I ought to have shot old man Ryan, just as an early precaution, so it"s best to own up that I was all in the wrong for dallying. But after that, there was the ma.s.sacre of the leading Grave City felons; I got the blame. Next came the hunting and escape of Curly and Jim; I got the blame. Furthermore, there was the flight of Curly and Jim from La Morita prison, followed by business transactions with the Frontier Guards; I got the blame. And, moreover, there was the sliding out of Curly, Jim, and the robbers from c.o.c.ky Brown"s ranche at La Soledad, with certain vain pursuits by a posse of citizens; I got the blame. Lastly, there was the stealing of all the horses and a millionaire out of Grave City; I got the blame. Whatever happened, I always got the blame. It"s plumb ridiculous.
Now, taking this last case, what ground is there for supposing that I helped McCalmont"s robbers? My movements all that night were innocent and un.o.btrusive travels. When Dog-gone Hawkins went off with his tenderfoot posse to hunt ghosts, I naturally slid out for home. So I met up with McCalmont, took charge of c.o.c.ky Brown"s old buckboard, and delivered Curly at the back door of my cousins, the Misses Jameson.
These ladies had to hear a whole lot which was pretty near true about poor Curly, and that consumed some time. Afterwards they got scared all to fits by rushes of hors.e.m.e.n, dynamite explosions, and such diverting incidents, ending with the arrival of Shorty Broach to have his p.r.i.c.kles pulled. Through this disturbance I hid up with Curly in a cellar, and when there was peace drove off alone, with my saddled horse tied behind the buckboard. After an hour"s search, I found the old Coeur d"Alene Mine shaft, and tipped the buckboard in, turning the team horses loose to graze their way back to La Soledad. My duties being all performed, I rode back just before dawn to my own home pasture at Las Salinas. There is the whole annals of a virtuous night, and yet these Grave City idiots defamed my character, which it makes me sick.
There"s a habit which I caught from the old patrone at Holy Cross, the same being to have a cold bath. Our Arizona water is mostly too rich for bathing, being made of mud, cow-dung, alkali, and snakes; but at Las Salinas I owned a little spring, quite good for washing and such emergencies. After my bath I felt skittish, a whole lot younger than usual, full of aching memories about getting no supper last night, and pleased all to pieces to hear the breakfast-howl. These symptoms being observed, Custer proposed at once that I pay up the overdue wages, and Ute backed his play, grinning ugly. As for Monte, he was chipped in the face with a recent bullet, and squatted heaps thoughtful over his pork and beans.
"So you-all wants yo" pay?"
They agreed that they did, and Custer pa.s.sed me the biggest cup for my coffee.
"All right, you tigers," says I, "after this grub-pile we"ll cyclone into town and catch what I"ve got in the bank."
"I ain"t no tiger this time," says Ute. "Why, yesterday I just rode up street to collect my washing, and the weather was a lot too prevalent."
"Rain?" says I. "You sh.o.r.ely didn"t have rain!"
"Wall, it splashed up the dust all around me, it did that," says Ute, "but I sorter mistook it for bullets."
Then those boys allowed that we was getting some unpopular in town, but they had a gnawing awful pain in their pants pockets, and nothing would cure that but wages. They were sure good boys, and it made me ache inside to see them want.
"You boys," says I, "spose you collect these here wages yo"selves and make yo"re own settlement?"
"As how?" this Ute inquires, his homely face twisting around into strange new species of grins.
"Why, you-all knows every hawss I got, and has yo" notions of value.
Jest you whirl right in, boys, and take what"s coming to you in hawsses instead of cash. Pay yo"selves liberal, and I"ll sign the bills."
"Shame!" says Monte. "D"ye think we"d take yo" pets?"
In the end we agreed to go into partnership, the which we did, for those boys were as good as brothers from the moment I got into trouble. Monte is my partner still.