But he wouldn"t come back; so I left him surrounded by the wreck of his former smartiness and went home. At the door where the treasures had been ma.s.sed not a solitary thing was left but a plush holder for a whisk broom, with hand-painted pansies on the front; and I decided I could live without that. Tim Mahoney was there, grouching round about having to light up the hall next night for the B"nai B"rith; and I told him to take it for himself. He already had six drawnwork doilies and a vanity box with white and red powder in it.
As I go by the Hong Kong Quick Lunch, Sandy and three or four others is up on stools; the Chinaman, cooking things behind the counter, is wearing a lavender-striped silk dressing sacque and a lace boudoir cap with pink ribbons in it. Yes; we"d all had a purple night of it!
Next day about noon I"m downtown and catch sight of Cousin Egbert setting in the United States Grill having breakfast; so I feel mean enough to go in and gloat over him some more. I think to find him all madded up and mortified; but he"s strangely cheerful for one who has suffered. He was bearing up so wonderful that I asked why.
"Ain"t you heard?" says he, blotting round in his steak platter with a slice of bread. "Well, I got even with that Wales outfit just before daylight--that"s all!"
"Talk on," I beg, quite incredulous.
"I didn"t get to bed till about two," he says, "and at three I was woke up by the telephone. It"s this big stiff Len Wales, that had ought to have his head taken off because it only absorbs nourishment from his system and gives nothing in return. He"s laughing in a childish frenzy and says is this me? I says it is, but that"s neither here nor there, and what does he want at this hour? "It"s a good joke on you," he says, "for the little woman got it on the third trial." "Got what?" I wanted to know. "Got that solitaire," he yells. "And it"s a good joke on you, all right, because now you owe her the thousand dollars; and I hate to bother you, but you know how some women are that have a delicate, high-strung organization. She says she won"t be able to sleep a wink if you don"t bring it up to her so she can have all our little treasure under her pillow; and I think, myself, it"s better to have it all settled and satisfactory while the iron"s hot, and you"d probably prefer it that way, too; and she says she won"t mind, this time, taking your check, though the actual money would be far more satisfactory, because you know what women are--"
"Say! He raves on like this for three minutes, stopping to laugh like a maniac about every three words, before I can get a word in to tell him that I"m a delicate, high-strung organization myself, if you come right down to it, and I can"t stand there in my nightgown listening to a string of nonsense. He chokes and says: "What nonsense?" And I ask him does he think I"d pay a thousand dollars out on a game I hadn"t overlooked? And he says didn"t I agree to in the presence of witnesses, and the cards is laid out right there now on the dining-room table if I got the least suspicion the game wasn"t played fair, and will I come up and look for myself! And I says "Not in a thousand years!" Because what does he think I am!
"So then Mis" Wales she breaks in and says: "Listen, Mr. Floud! You are taking a most peculiar att.i.tude in this matter. You perhaps don"t understand that it means a great deal to dear Leonard and me--try to think calmly and summon your finer instincts. You said I could not only play with my own cards at any hour of the night or day, but in my own home; and I chose to play here, because conditions are more harmonious to my psychic powers--" And so on and so on; and she can"t understand my peculiar att.i.tude once more, till I thought I"d bust.
"It was lucky she had the telephone between us or I should certainly of been pinched for a crime of violence. But I got kind of collected in my senses and I told her I already had been pushed as far as I could be; and then I think of a good one: I ask her does she know what General Sherman said war was? So she says, "No; but what has that got to do with it?" "Well, listen carefully!" I says. "You tell dear Leonard that I am now saying my last word in this matter by telling you both to go to war--and then ask him to tell you right out what Sherman said war was."
"I listened a minute longer for her scream, and when it come, like sweet music or something, I went to bed again and slept happy. Yes, sir; I got even with them sharks all right, though she"s telling all over town this morning that I have repudiated a debt of honour and she"s going to have that thousand if there"s any law in the land; and anyway, she"ll get me took up for conducting a common gambling house. Gee! It makes me feel good!"
That"s the way with this old Egbert boy; nothing ever seems to faze him long.
"How much do you lose on the night?" I ask him.
"Well, the bar was a great help," he says, very chipper; "so I only lose about fourteen hundred all told. It"ll make a nice bunch for the Belgians, and the few dollars you ladies made at your cheap booths will help some."
"How will your fourteen hundred lost be any help to the Belgians?" I wanted to know; and he looked at me very superior and as crafty as a fox.
"Simple enough!" he says in a lofty manner. "I was going to give what I win, wasn"t I? So why wouldn"t I give what I lose? That"s plain enough for any one but a woman to see, ain"t it? I give Mis" Ballard, the treasurer, a check for fourteen hundred not an hour ago. I told you I knew how to run one of these grafts, didn"t I? Didn"t I, now?"
Wasn"t that just like the old smarty? You never know when you got him nailed. And feeling so good over getting even with the Wales couple that had about a thousand dollars of his money that very minute!
Still from the dimly lighted bunk house came the wail of Sandy Sawtelle to make vibrant the night. He had returned to his earlier song after intermittent trifling with an extensive repertoire:
There"s a broken heart for every light on Broadway, A million tears for every gleam, they say.
Those lights above you think nothing of you; It"s those who love you that have to pay....
It was the wail of one thwarted and perishing. "Ain"t it the sobbing tenor?" remarked his employer. "But you can"t blame him after the killing he made before. Of course he"ll get to town sooner or later and play this fourteen number, being that the new reform administration, with Lon Price as Mayor, is now safely elected and the game has opened up again. Yes, sir; he"s nutty about st.i.tches in a mule. I wouldn"t put it past him that he had old Jerry kicked on purpose to-day!"
VII
KATE; OR, UP FROM THE DEPTHS
This day I fared abroad with Ma Pettengill over wide s.p.a.ces of the Arrowhead Ranch. Between fields along the river bottom were gates distressingly crude; clumsy, hingeless panels of board fence, which I must dismount and lift about by sheer brawn of shoulder. Such gates combine the greatest weight with the least possible exercise of man"s inventive faculties, and are named, not too subtly, the Armstrong gate.
This, indeed, is the American beauty of ranch humour, a flower of imperishable fragrance handed to the visitor--who does the lifting with guarded drollery or triumphant snicker, as may be. Buck Devine or Sandy Sawtelle will achieve the mot with an aloof austerity that abates no jot unto the hundredth repet.i.tion; while Lew Wee, Chinese cook of the Arrowhead, fails not to brighten it with a nervous giggle, impairing its vocal correctness, moreover, by calling it the "Armcatchum" gate.
Ma Pettengill was more versatile this day. The first gate I struggled with she called Armstrong in a manner dryly descriptive; for the second she managed a humorous leer to illumine the term; for the third, secured with a garland of barbed wire that must be painfully untwisted, she employed a still broader humour. Even a child would then have known that calling this criminal device the Armstrong gate was a joke of uncommon richness.
As I remounted, staunching the inevitable wound from barbed wire, I began to speak in the bitterly superior tones of an efficiency expert as we traversed a field where hundreds of white-faced Herefords were putting on flesh to their own ruin. I said to my hostess that I vastly enjoyed lifting a hundred-pound gate--and what was the loss of a little blood between old friends, even when aggravated by probable teta.n.u.s germs? But had she ever paused to compute the money value of time lost by her henchmen in dismounting to open these clumsy makeshifts? I suggested that, even appraising the one reliable ranch joke in all the world at a high figure, she would still profit considerably by putting in gates that were gates, in place of contrivances that could be handled ideally only by a retired weight lifter in barbed-wire-proof armour.
I rapidly calculated, with the seeming high regard for accuracy that marks all efficiency experts, that these wretched devices cost her twenty-eight cents and a half each _per diem_. Estimating the total of them on the ranch at one hundred, this meant to her a loss of twenty-eight dollars and a half _per diem_. I used _per diem_ twice to impress the woman. I added that it was pretty slipshod business for a going concern, supposing--sarcastically now--that the Arrowhead was a going concern. Of course, if it were merely a toy for the idle rich--
She had let me talk, as she will now and then, affecting to be engrossed with her stock.
"Look at them white-faced darlings!" she murmured. "Two years old and weighing eleven hundred this minute if they weigh a pound!"
Then I saw we approached a gate that amazingly was a gate. Hinges, yes; and mechanical complications, and a pendant cord on each side. I tugged at one and the gate magically opened. As we pa.s.sed through I tugged at the other and it magically closed. This was luxury ineffable to one who had laboured with things that seemed to be kept merely for the sake of a jest that was never of the best and was staling with use. It would also be, I hoped, an object lesson to my hostess. I performed the simple rite in silence, yet with a manner that I meant to be eloquent, even provocative. It was.
"Oh, sure!" spoke Ma Pettengill. "That there"s one of your _per-diem_ gates; and there"s another leading out of this field, and about six beyond--all of "em just as _per diem_ as this one; and, also, this here ranch you"re on now is one of your going concerns." She chuckled at this and repeated it in a subterranean rumble: "A going concern--my sakes, yes! It moved so fast you could see it go, and now it"s went." Noisily she relished this bit of verbal finesse; then permitted her fancy again to trifle with it. "Yes, sir; this here going concern is plumb gone!"
With active malice I asked no question, maintaining a dignified silence as I lightly manipulated a second paragon of gates. The lady now rumbled confidentially to herself, and I caught piquant phrases; yet still I forbore to question, since the woman so plainly sought to intrigue me.
Even when we skirted a clump of cottonwoods and came--through another perfect gate--upon a most amazing small collection of ranch buildings, dying of desertion, I retained perfect control of a rising curiosity.
By unspoken agreement we drew rein to survey a desolation that was still immaculate. Stables and outbuildings were trim and new, and pure with paint. All had been swept and garnished; no unsightly litter marred the scene. The house was a suburban villa of marked pretension and would have excited no comment on Long Island. In this valley of the mountains it was nothing short of spectacular. Only one item of decoration hinted an attempt to adapt itself to environment: in the n.o.ble stone chimney that reared itself between two s.p.a.cious wings a branding iron had been embedded. Thus did it proclaim itself to the incredulous hills as a ranch house.
Flowers had been planted along a gravelled walk. While I reminded myself that the gravel must have been imported from a spot at least ten miles distant, I was further shocked by discovering a most improbable golf green, in gloomy survival. Then I detected a series of kennels facing a wired dog run. This was overwhelming in a country of simple, steadfast devotion to the rearing of cattle for market.
Ma Pettengill now spoke in a tone that, for her, could be called hushed, though it reached me twenty feet away.
"An art bungalow!" she said, and gazed upon it with seeming awe. Then she waved a quirt to indicate this and the painfully neat outbuildings.
"A toy for the idle rich--was that it? Well, you said something. This was one little _per-diem_ going concern, all right. They even had the name somewhere round here worked out in yellow flowers--Broadmoor it was. You could read it for five miles when the posies got up. There it is over on that lawn. You can"t read it now because the letters are all overgrown. My Chinaman got delirious about that when he first seen it and wanted me to plant Arrowhead out in front of our house, and was quite hurt when I told him I was just a business woman--and a tired business woman at that. He done what he could, though, to show we was some cla.s.s. The first time these folks come over to our place to lunch he picked all my pink carnations to make a mat on the table, and spelled out Arrowhead round it in ripe olives, with a neat frame of celery inclosing same. Yes, sir!"
This was too much. It now seemed time to ask questions, and I did so in a winning manner; but so deaf in her backward musing was the woman that I saw it must all come in its own way.
"We got to make up over that bench yet," she said at last; and we rode out past the ideal stable--its natty weather vane forever pointing the wind to the profit of no man--through another gate of superb cunning, and so once more to an understandable landscape, where sane cattle grazed. Here I threw off the depression that comes upon one in places where our humankind so plainly have been and are not. Again I questioned of Broadmoor and its vanished people.
The immediate results were fragmentary, serving to pique rather than satisfy; a series of _hors d"oeuvres_ that I began to suspect must form the whole repast. On the verge of coherence the woman would break off to gloat over a herd of thoroughbred Durhams or a bunch of sportive Hereford calves or a field teeming with the prized fruits of intermarriage between these breeds. Or she found diversion in stupendous stacks of last summer"s hay, well fenced from pillage; or grounds for criticising the sloth of certain of her henchmen, who had been told as plain as anything that "that there line fance" had to be finished by Sat.u.r.day; no two ways about it! She repeated the language in which she had conveyed this decision. There could have been no grounds for misunderstanding it.
And thus the annals of Broadmoor began to dribble to me, overlaid too frequently for my taste with philosophic reflections at large upon what a lone, defenceless woman could expect in this world--irrelevant, pointed wonderings as to whether a party letting on he was a good ranch hand really expected to perform any labour for his fifty a month, or just set round smoking his head off and see which could tell the biggest lie; or mebbe make an excuse for some light job like oiling the twenty-two sets of mule harness over again, when they had already been oiled right after haying. Furthermore, any woman not a born fool would get out of the business the first chance she got, this one often being willing to sell for a mutilated dollar, except for not wishing financial ruin or insanity to other parties.
Yet a few details definitely emerged. "Her" name was called Posnett, though a party would never guess this if he saw it in print, because it was spelled Postlethwaite. Yes, sir! All on account of having gone to England from Boston and found out that was how you said it, though Cousin Egbert Floud had tried to be funny about it when shown the name in the Red Gap _Recorder_. The item said the family had taken apartments at Red Gap"s premier hotel _de luxe_, the American House; and Cousin Egbert, being told a million dollars was bet that he never could guess how the name was p.r.o.nounced in English, he up and said you couldn"t fool him; that it was p.r.o.nounced Chumley, which was just like the old smarty--only he give in that he was surprised when told how it really was p.r.o.nounced; and he said if a party"s name was Postlethwaite why couldn"t they come out and say so like a man, instead of beating round the bush like that? All of which was promising enough; but then came the Hereford yearlings to effect a breach of continuity.
These being enough admired, I had next to be told that I wouldn"t believe how many folks was certain she had retired to the country because she was lazy, just keeping a few head of cattle for diversion--she that had six thousand acres of land under fence, and had made a going concern _per diem_ of it for thirty years, even if parties did make cracks about her gates; but hardly ever getting a good night"s sleep through having a "pa.s.sel" of men to run it that you couldn"t depend on--though G.o.d only knew where you could find any other sort--the minute your back was turned.
A fat, sleek, prosperous male, clad in expensive garments, and wearing a derby hat and too much jewellery, became somehow personified in this tirade. I was led to picture him a residuary legatee who had never done a stroke of work in his life, and believed that no one else ever did except from a sportive perversity. I was made to hear him tell her that she, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill, was leading the ideal life on her country place; and, by Jove! he often thought of doing the same thing himself--get a nice little spot in this beautiful country, with some green meadows, and have bands of large handsome cattle strolling about in the sunlight, so he could forget the world and its strife in the same idyllic peace she must be finding. Or if he didn"t tell her this, then he was sure to have a worthless son or nephew that her ranch would be just the place for; and, of course, she would be glad to take him on and make something of him--that is, so the lady now regrettably put it, as he had shown he wasn"t worth a d.a.m.n for anything else, why couldn"t she make a cattleman of him?
"Yes, sir; that"s what I get from these here visitors that are enchanted by the view. Either they think my ranch is a reform school for poor chinless Chester, that got led away by bad companions and can"t say no, or they think, like you said, that it"s just a toy for the idle rich.
Show "em a shoe factory or a steel works and they can understand it"s a business proposition; but a ranch--Shucks! They think I"ve done my day"s work when I ride out on a gentle horse and look pleased at the landscape."
Again were we diverted. A dozen alien beeves fed upon the Arrowhead preserves. Did I see that wattle brand--the jug-handle split? That was the Timmins brand--old Safety First Timmins. There must be a break in his fence at the upper end of the field. Made it himself likely.
Wouldn"t she give the old penny-pincher h.e.l.l if she had him here? She would, indeed! Continuous muttering of a rugged character for half a mile of jog trot.
Then again: