ARGONAUT STORIES



Argonaut Stories

  J. LONDON, F. NORRIS, S. E. WHITE, J. F. WILSON, W. C. MORROW,
  G. OVERTON, W. O. McGEEHAN, W. H. IRWIN, K. THOMPSON, M. ROBERTS,
  B. O’NEILL, E. MUNSON, C. F. EMBREE, C. ALFRED, G. C. TERRY,
  N. KOUNS, NEIL GILLESPIE, B. W. SINCLAIR, C. W. DOYLE,
  C. D. WILLARD, R. D. MILNE, G. BONNER.

Selected from the Argonaut

Jerome Hart, Editor

SAN FRANCISCO: PAYOT, UPHAM & COMPANY

Agents for Pacific Coast 1906




Copyright, 1906

By the Argonaut Publishing Company

THE ARGONAUT PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO




CONTENTS

    JACK LONDON: Moon-Face
    FRANK NORRIS: A Caged Lion
    GWENDOLEN OVERTON: The Race Bond
    WILLIAM C. MORROW: The Rajah’s Nemesis
    BUCKEY O’NEILL: The Man-Hunters’ Reward
    GERALDINE BONNER: Conscience Money
    CHARLES DWIGHT WILLARD: The Jack-Pot
    C. W. DOYLE: The Seats of Judgment
    STEWART EDWARD WHITE: A Double Shot
    ROBERT DUNCAN MILNE: Ten Thousand Years in Ice
    W. O. McGEEHAN: Leaves on the River Pasig
    CHARLES F. EMBREE: The Great Euchre Boom
    MARIA ROBERTS: The Sorcery of Asenath
    E. MUNSON: Old “Hard Luck”
    WILL H. IRWIN: The Dotted Trail
    C. ALFRED: The White Grave
    GIBERT CUNYNGHAM TERRY: The Jewels of Bendita
    NATHAN C. KOUNS: The Man-Dog
    JOHN F. WILSON: The Amateur Revolutionist
    NEIL GILLESPIE: The Blood of a Comrade
    BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR: Under Flying Hoofs
    KATHLEEN THOMPSON: The Colonel and “The Lady”




MOON FACE

By Jack London


John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the
kind--cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the
cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy,
equidistant from the circumference, flattened against the very
centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that
is why I hated him, for truly he had become an offense to my eyes,
and I believed the earth to be cumbered with his presence. Perhaps
my mother may have been superstitious of the moon and looked upon it
over the wrong shoulder at the wrong time.

But be that as it may, I hated John Claverhouse. Not that he had
done me what society would consider a wrong or an ill turn. Far from
it, in any such sense. The evil was of a deeper, subtler sort; so
elusive, so intangible, as to defy clear, definite analysis in
words. We all experience such things at some period in our lives.
For the first time we see a certain individual, one whom the very
instant before we did not dream existed; and yet, at the first
moment of meeting, we say: “I do not like that man.” Why do we not
like him? And we do not know why; we only know that we do not. We
have taken a dislike, that is all. And so I with John Claverhouse.

What right had such a man to be happy? Yet he was an optimist. He
was always gleeful and laughing. All things were always all right,
curse him! Ah! how it grated on my soul that he should be so happy!
Other men could laugh, and it did not bother me. I even used to
laugh myself--before I met John Claverhouse.

But his laugh! It irritated me, maddened me, as nothing else under
the sun could irritate or madden me. It haunted me, gripped hold of
me, and would not let me go. It was a huge, Gargantuan laugh. Waking
or sleeping it was always with me, whirring and jarring across my
heart-strings and the very fibres of my being like an enormous rasp.
At break of day it came whooping across the fields to spoil my
pleasant morning reverie. Under the aching noon-day glare, when the
green things drooped and the birds withdrew to the depths of the
forest, and all nature drowsed, his great “Ha! ha!” and “Ho! ho!”
rose up to the sky and challenged the sun. And at black midnight,
from the lonely cross-roads where he turned from town into his own
place, came his plaguy cachinnations to rouse me from my sleep and
make me toss about and clench my nails into my palms.

I went forth privily in the night-time and turned his cattle into
his fields, and in the morning heard his whooping laugh as he drove
them out again. “It is nothing,” he said; “the poor, dumb beasties
are not to be blamed for straying into fatter pastures.”

He had a dog he called “Mars,” a big, splendid brute, part deerhound
and part bloodhound, and resembling both. Mars was a great delight
to him, and they were always together. But I bided my time, and one
day, when opportunity was ripe, lured the animal away and settled
for him with arsenic and beefsteak. It made positively no impression
on John Claverhouse. His laugh was as hearty and frequent as ever,
and his face as much like the full moon as it always had been.

Then I set fire to his hay-stacks and his barn. But the next
morning, being Sunday, he went forth blithe and cheerful.

“Where are you going?” I asked him, as he went by the cross-roads.

“Trout,” he said, and his face beamed like a full moon. “I just dote
on trout, you know.”

Was there ever such an impossible man! His whole harvest had gone up
in his hay-stacks and barn. It was uninsured, I knew. And yet, in
the face of famine and the rigorous winter, he went out gayly in
quest of a mess of trout, forsooth, because he “doted” on them! Had
gloom but rested, no matter how lightly, on his brow, or had his
bovine countenance grown long and serious and less like the moon, or
had he removed that smile but once from off his face, I am sure I
could have forgiven him for existing. But, no, he grew only more
cheerful under misfortune.

I insulted him. He looked at me in slow and smiling surprise.

“I fight you? Why?” he asked, slowly. And then he laughed. “You are
so funny! Ho! ho! You’ll be the death of me! He! he! he! Oh! Ho! ho!
ho!”

What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas, how I
hated him! Then there was that name--Claverhouse! What a name!
Wasn’t it absurd? Claverhouse! Merciful heaven, _why_ Claverhouse?
Again and again I asked myself that question. I should not have
minded Smith, or Brown, or Jones--but _Claverhouse_! I leave it to
you. Repeat it to yourself--Claverhouse. Just listen to the
ridiculous sound of it--Claverhouse! Should a man live with such a
name? I ask of you. “No,” you say. And “No” said I.

But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn
destroyed, I knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd,
close-mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage
transferred to him. I did not appear, but through this agent I
forced the foreclosure, and but few days (no more, believe me, than
the law allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove his goods and
chattels from the premises. Then I strolled down to see how he took
it, for he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met me
with his saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and spreading
in his face till it was as a full-risen moon.

“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “The funniest tike, that youngster of
mine! Did you ever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down
playing by the edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in
and splashed him. ‘Oh, papa!’ he cried; ‘a great big puddle flewed
up and hit me.’”

He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee.

“I don’t see any laugh in it,” I said, shortly, and I know my face
went sour.

He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light,
glowing and spreading, as I have described it, till his face shone
soft and warm, like the summer moon, and then the laugh--“Ha! ha!
That’s funny! You don’t see it, eh? He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He doesn’t
see it! Why, look here. You know, a puddle----”

But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could
stand it no longer. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse
him! The earth should be quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I
could hear his monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky.

Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to
kill John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such a fashion
that I should not look back upon it and feel ashamed. I hate
bungling, and I hate brutality. To me there is something repugnant
in merely striking a man with one’s naked fist--faugh! it is
sickening! So, to shoot, or stab, or club John Claverhouse (O that
name!) did not appeal to me. And not only was I impelled to do it
neatly and artistically, but also in such manner that not the
slightest possible suspicion could be directed against me.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound and
strenuous incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I
bought a water-spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole
attention to her training. Had any one spied upon me, they would
have remarked that this training consisted entirely of one
thing--_retrieving_. I taught the dog, which I called “Bellona,” to
fetch sticks I threw into the water, and not only to fetch, but to
fetch at once, without mouthing or playing with them. The point was
that she was to stop for nothing, but to deliver the stick in all
haste. I made a practice of running away and leaving her to chase
me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught me. She was a
bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness that I was
soon content.

After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to
John Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a
little weakness of his, and of a little private and civic sinning of
which he was regularly and inveterately guilty.

“No,” he said, when I placed the end of the rope to which she was
tied in his hand. “No, you don’t mean it.” And his mouth opened
wide, and he grinned all over his damnable moon-face.

“I--I kind of thought, somehow, you didn’t like me,” he explained.
“Wasn’t it funny for me to make such a mistake?” And at the thought
he held his sides with laughter.

“What is her name?” he managed to ask between paroxysms.

“Bellona,” I said.

“He! he!” he tittered. “What a funny name!”

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out
between them: “She was the wife of Mars, you know.”

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he
exploded with: “Well, I guess she’s a widow now! Oh! Ho! ho! E! he!
he! Ho!” he whooped after me, and I turned and fled swiftly away
over the hill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him: “You go
away Monday, don’t you?”

He nodded his head and grinned.

“Then you won’t have another chance to get a mess of those trout you
just ‘dote’ on.”

But he did not notice the sneer. “Oh, I don’t know,” he chuckled.
“I’m going up to-morrow to try pretty hard.”

Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house
literally hugging myself with rapture.

Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, and
Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut
out by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the
top of the mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the
crest along for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in the
hills, where the little river ramped down out of a gorge, and
stopped for breath in a large and placid rock-bound pool. That was
the spot! I sat down on the croup of the mountain, where I could see
all that occurred, and lighted my pipe.

Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the
bed of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in
high feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper
chest-notes. Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and
sack, and drew from his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat
candle. But I knew it to be a stick of “giant”; for such was his
method of catching trout. He dynamited them. He attached the fuse by
wrapping the “giant” tightly in a piece of cotton. Then he ignited
the fuse and tossed the explosive into the pool.

Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have
shrieked aloud for very joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without
avail. He pelted her with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on
till she got the stick of “giant” in her mouth, when she whirled
about and headed for shore. Then, for the first time, he realized
his danger, and started to run. As foreseen and planned by me, she
made the bank and took out after him. Oh, I tell you, it was great!
As I have said, the pool lay in a sort of amphitheatre. Above and
below, the stream could be crossed on stepping-stones. And around
and around, up and down and across the stones, raced Claverhouse and
Bellona. I could never have believed that such an ungainly man could
run so fast. But run he did, Bellona hot-footed after him, and
gaining. And then, just as she caught up, he in full stride, and she
leaping with nose at his knee, there was a sudden flash, a burst of
smoke, and terrific detonation, and where man and dog had been the
instant before there was naught to be seen but a big hole in the
ground.

“Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing.” That was the
verdict of the coroner’s jury; and that is why I pride myself on the
neat and artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse.
There was no bungling, no brutality; nothing to be ashamed of in the
whole transaction, as I am sure you will agree. No more does his
infernal laugh go echoing among the hills, and no more does his fat
moon-face rise up to vex me. My days are peaceful now, and my
night’s sleep deep.




A CAGED LION

By Frank Norris


In front of the entrance a “spieler” stood on a starch-box and beat
upon a piece of tin with a stick, and we weakly succumbed to his
frenzied appeals and went inside. We did this, I am sure, partly to
please the “spieler,” who would have been dreadfully disappointed if
we had not done so, but partly, too, to please Toppan, who was
always interested in the great beasts and liked to watch them.

It is possible that you may remember Toppan as the man who married
Victoria Boyden, and, in so doing, thrust his greatness from him and
became a bank-clerk instead of an explorer. After he married, he
came to be quite ashamed of what he had done in Thibet and Africa
and other unknown corners of the earth, and, after a while, very
seldom spoke of that part of his life at all; or, when he did, it
was only to allude to it as a passing boyish fancy, altogether
foolish and silly, like calf-love and early attempts at poetry.

“I used to think I was going to set the world on fire at one time,”
he said once; “I suppose every young fellow has some such ideas. I
only made an ass of myself, and I’m glad I’m well out of it.
Victoria saved me from that.”

But this was long afterward. He died hard, and sometimes he would
have moments of strength in his weakness, just as before he had
given up his career during a moment of weakness in his strength.
During the first years after he had given up his career, he thought
he was content with the way things had come to be; but it was not
so, and now and then the old feeling, the love of the old life, the
old ambition, would be stirred into activity again by some sight, or
sound, or episode in the conventional life around him. A chance
paragraph in a newspaper, a sight of the Arizona deserts of sage and
cactus, a momentary panic on a ferry-boat, sometimes even fine music
or a great poem would wake the better part of him to the desire of
doing great things. At such times the longing grew big and troublous
within him to cut loose from it all, and get back to those places of
the earth where there were neither months nor years, and where the
days of the week had no names; where he could feel unknown winds
blowing against his face and unnamed mountains rising beneath his
feet; where he could see great sandy, stony stretches of desert with
hot, blue shadows, and plains of salt, and thickets of jungle-grass,
broken only by the lairs of beasts and the paths the steinbok make
when they go down to water.

The most trifling thing would recall all this to him just as a
couple of notes have recalled to you whole arias and overtures. But
with Toppan it was as though one had recalled the arias and the
overtures, and then was not allowed to sing them.

We went into the arena and sat down. The ring in the middle was
fenced in by a great, circular iron cage. The tiers of seats rose
around this, a band was playing in a box over the entrance, and the
whole interior was lighted by an electric globe slung over the
middle of the cage. Inside a brown bear--to me less suggestive of a
wild animal than of lap-robes and furriers’ signs--was dancing
sleepily and allowing himself to be prodded by a person whose
celluloid standing-collar showed white at the neck above the green
of his Tyrolese costume. The bear was mangy, and his steel muzzle
had chafed him, and Toppan said he was corrupted of moth and rust
alike, and the audience applauded but feebly when he and his keeper
withdrew.

After this we had a clown-elephant, dressed in a bib and tucker and
vast baggy breeches--like those of a particularly big French
_Turco_--who had lunch with his keeper, and rang the bell and drank
his wine and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief like a bed-quilt,
and pulled the chair from underneath his companion, seeming to be
amused at it all with a strange sort of suppressed elephantine
mirth.

And then, after they had both made their bow and gone out, in
bounded and tumbled the dogs, barking and grinning all over, jumping
up on their stools and benches, wriggling and pushing one another
about, giggling and excited like so many kindergarten children on a
show day. I am sure they enjoyed their performance as much as the
audience did, for they never had to be told what to do, and seemed
only too eager for their turn to come. The best of it all was that
they were quite unconscious of the audience, and appeared to do
their tricks for the sake of the tricks themselves, and not for the
applause which followed them. And, then, after the usual programme
of wicker cylinders, hoops, and balls was over, they all rushed off
amid a furious scrattling of paws and filliping of tails and heels.

While this was going on, we had been hearing from time to time a
great sound, half-whine, half-rumbling guttural cough, that came
from somewhere behind the exit from the cage. It was repeated at
rapidly decreasing intervals, and grew lower in pitch until it ended
in a short bass grunt. It sounded cruel and menacing, and when at
its full volume the wood of the benches under us thrilled and
vibrated.

There was a little pause in the programme while the arena was
cleared and new and much larger and heavier paraphernalia were set
about, and a gentleman with well-groomed hair and a very shiny hat
entered and announced “the world’s greatest lion-tamer.” Then he
went away and the tamer came in and stood expectantly by the side of
the entrance. There was another short wait and the band struck a
long minor chord.

And then they came in, one after the other, with long, crouching,
lurching strides, not all good-humoredly, like the dogs or the
elephant, or even the bear, but with low-hanging heads, surly,
watchful, their eyes gleaming with the rage and hate that burned in
their hearts, and that they dared not vent. Their loose, yellow
hides rolled and rippled over the great muscles as they moved, and
the breath coming from their hot, half-open mouths turned to steam
as it struck the air.

A huge, blue-painted see-saw was dragged out to the centre, and the
tamer made a sharp sound of command. Slowly, and with twitching
tails, two of them obeyed, and, clambering upon the balancing-board,
swung up and down, while the music played a see-saw waltz. And all
the while their great eyes flamed with the detestation of the thing,
and their black upper lips curled away from their long fangs in
protest of this hourly renewed humiliation and degradation.

And one of the others, while waiting his turn to be whipped and
bullied, sat up on his haunches and faced us and looked far away
beyond us over the heads of the audience--over the continent and
ocean, as it were--as though he saw something in that quarter that
made him forget his present surroundings.

“You grand old brute,” muttered Toppan; and then he said: “Do you
know what you would see if you were to look into his eyes now? You
would see Africa, and unnamed mountains, and great stony stretches
of desert, with hot blue shadows, and plains of salt, and lairs in
the jungle-grass, and lurking places near the paths the steinbok
make when they go down to water. But now he’s hampered and
caged--_is_ there anything worse than a caged lion?--and kept from
the life he loves and was made for”--just here the tamer spoke
sharply to him, and his eyes and crest drooped--“and ruled over,”
concluded Toppan, “by some one who is not so great as he, who has
spoiled what was best in him, and has turned his powers to trivial,
resultless uses--some one weaker than he, yet stronger. Ah, well,
old brute, it was yours once, we will remember that.”

They wheeled out a clumsy velocipede built expressly for him, and,
while the lash whistled and snapped about him, the conquered king
heaved himself upon it and went around and around the ring, while
the band played a quickstep. The audience broke into applause, and
the tamer smirked and bobbed his well-oiled head. I thought of
Samson performing for the Philistines and Thusnelda at the triumph
of Germanicus. The great beasts, grand though conquered, seemed to
be the only dignified ones in the whole business. I hated the
audience who saw their shame from behind iron bars; I hated myself
for being one of them; and I hated the smug, sniggering tamer.

This latter had been drawing out various stools and ladders, and now
arranged the lions upon them so they should form a pyramid, with
himself on top.

Then he swung himself up among them, with his heels upon their
necks, and, taking hold of the jaws of one, wrenched them apart with
a great show of strength, turning his head to the audience so that
all should see.

And just then the electric light above him cackled harshly,
guttered, dropped down to a pencil of dull red, then went out, and
the place was absolutely dark.

The band stopped abruptly, with a discord, and there was an instant
of silence. Then we heard the stools and ladders clattering as the
lions leaped down; and straightway four pair of lambent green spots
burned out of the darkness and traveled swiftly about here and
there, crossing and recrossing one another like the lights of
steamers in a storm. Heretofore, the lions had been sluggish and
inert; now they were aroused and alert in an instant, and we could
hear the swift _pad-pad_ of their heavy feet as they swung around
the arena, and the sound of their great bodies rubbing against the
bars of the cage as one and the other passed nearer to us.

I don’t think the audience at all appreciated the situation at
first, for no one moved or seemed excited, and one shrill voice
suggested that the band should play “When the Electric Lights Go
Out.”

“Keep perfectly quiet, please!” called the tamer out of the
darkness, and a certain peculiar ring in his voice was the first
intimation of a possible danger.

But Toppan knew; and as we heard the tamer fumbling for the catch of
the gate, which he somehow could not loose in the darkness, he said,
with a rising voice: “He wants to get that gate open pretty quick.”

But for their restless movements the lions were quiet; they uttered
no sound, which was a bad sign. Blinking and dazed by the garish
blue-whiteness of a few moments before, they could see perfectly now
where the tamer was blind.

“Listen,” said Toppan. Near to us, and on the inside of the cage, we
could hear a sound as of some slender body being whisked back and
forth over the surface of the floor. In an instant I guessed what it
was; one of the lions was crouched there, whipping his sides with
his tail.

“When he stops that, he’ll spring,” said Toppan, excitedly.

“Bring a light, Jerry--quick!” came the tamer’s voice.

People were clambering to their feet by this time, talking loud, and
we heard a woman cry out.

“Please keep as quiet as possible, ladies and gentlemen!” cried the
tamer; “it won’t do to excite----”

From the direction of the voice came the sound of a heavy fall and a
crash that shook the iron gratings in their sockets.

“He’s got him!” shouted Toppan.

And then what a scene! In that thick darkness every one sprang up,
stumbling over the seats and over each other, all shouting and
crying out, suddenly stricken with a panic fear of something they
could not see. Inside the barred death-trap every lion suddenly gave
tongue at once, until the air shook and sang in our ears. We could
hear the great cats hurling themselves against the bars, and could
see their eyes leaving brassy streaks against the darkness as they
leaped. Two more sprang, as the first had done, toward that quarter
of the cage from which came sounds of stamping and struggling, and
then the tamer began to scream.

I think that so long as I shall live I shall not forget the sound of
the tamer’s screams. He did not scream as a woman would have done,
from the head, but from the chest, which sounded so much worse that
I was sick from it in a second with that sickness that weakens one
at the pit of the stomach and along the muscles at the back of the
legs. He did not pause for a second. Every breath was a scream, and
every scream was alike, and one heard through it all the long snarls
of satisfied hate and revenge, muffled by the man’s clothes and the
_rip_, _rip_ of the cruel, blunt claws.

Hearing it all in the dark, as we did, made it all the more
dreadful. I think for a time I must have taken leave of my senses. I
was ready to vomit for the sickness that was upon me, and I beat my
hands raw upon the iron bars or clasped them over my ears against
the sounds of the dreadful thing that was doing behind them. I
remember praying aloud that it might soon be over with, so only
those screams might be stopped.

It seemed as though it had gone on for hours, when some men rushed
in with a lantern and long, sharp irons. A hundred voices cried:
“Here he is, over here!” and they ran around outside the cage and
threw the light of the lantern on a place where a heap of gray,
gold-laced clothes writhed and twisted beneath three great bulks of
fulvous hide and bristling black mane.

The irons were useless. The three furies dragged their prey out of
their reach and crouched over it again and recommenced. No one dared
to go into the cage, and still the man lived and struggled and
screamed.

I saw Toppan’s fingers go to his mouth, and through that medley of
dreadful noises there issued a sound that, sick as I was, made me
shrink anew and close my eyes and teeth and shudder as though some
cold slime had been poured through the hollow of my bones where the
marrow should be. It was as the noise of the whistling of a fine
whip-lash, mingled with the whirr of a locust magnified a hundred
times, and ended in an abrupt clacking noise thrice repeated.

At once I remembered where I had heard it before, because, having
once heard the hiss of an aroused and angry serpent, no child of Eve
can ever forget it.

The sound that now came from between Toppan’s teeth and that filled
the arena from wall to wall, was the sound that I had heard once
before in the Paris Jardin des Plantes at feeding-time--the sound
made by the great constrictors, when their huge bodies are looped
and coiled like a _reata_ for the throw that never misses, that
never relaxes, and that no beast of the field is built strong enough
to withstand. All the filthy wickedness and abominable malice of the
centuries since the Enemy first entered into that shape that crawls
was concentrated in that hoarse, whistling hiss--a hiss that was
cold and piercing, like an icicle-made sound. It was not loud, but
had in it some sort of penetrating quality that cut through the
waves of horrid sounds about us, as the snake-carved prow of a
Viking galley might have cut its way through the tumbling eddies of
a tide-rip.

At the second repetition the lions paused. None better than they
knew what was the meaning of that hiss. They had heard it before in
their native hunting-grounds in the earlier days of summer, when the
first heat lay close over all the jungle like the hollow of the palm
of an angry god. Or if they themselves had not heard it, their sires
before them had, and the fear of the thing bred into their bones
suddenly leaped to life at the sound and gripped them and held them
close.

When for a third time the sound sung and shrilled in their ears,
their heads drew between their shoulders, their great eyes grew
small and glittering, the hackles rose and stiffened on their backs,
their tails drooped, and they backed slowly to the further side of
the cage and cowered there, whining and beaten.

Toppan wiped the sweat from the inside of his hands and went into
the cage with the keepers and gathered up the panting, broken body,
with its twitching fingers and dead, white face and ears, and
carried it out. As they lifted it, the handful of pitiful medals
dropped from the shredded, gray coat and rattled down upon the
floor. In the silence that had now succeeded, it was about the only
sound one heard.

                 *       *       *       *       *

As we sat that evening on the porch of Toppan’s house, in a
fashionable suburb of the city, he said, for the third time: “I had
that trick from a Mpongwee headman,” and added: “It was while I was
at Victoria Falls, waiting to cross the Kalahari Desert.”

Then he continued, his eyes growing keener and his manner changing:
“There is some interesting work to be done in that quarter by some
one. You see, the Kalahari runs like this”--he drew the lines on the
ground with his cane--“coming down in something like this shape from
the Orange River to about the twentieth parallel south. The aneroid
gives its average elevation about six hundred feet. I didn’t cross
it at the time, because we had sickness and the porters cut. But I
made a lot of geological observations, and from these I have built
up a theory that the Kalahari is no desert at all, but a big,
well-watered plateau, with higher ground to the east and west. The
tribes, too, thereabout call the place ‘Linoka-Noka’ and that’s the
Bantu for rivers upon rivers. They’re nasty, though, these Bantu,
and gave us a lot of trouble. They have a way of spitting little
poisoned thorns into you unawares, and your tongue swells up and
turns blue and your teeth fall out and----”

His wife Victoria came out on the porch in evening-dress.

“Ah, Vic,” said Toppan, jumping up, with a very sweet smile, “we
were just talking about your paper-german next Tuesday, and _I_
think we might have some very pretty favors made out of white
tissue-paper--roses and butterflies, you know.”




THE RACE BOND

By Gwendolen Overton


The whistle of the steamer saluted three times--twice short and once
long--the sun which rose over the deep green mountains of Costa
Rica. The signal was answered in due time. A small tug put off from
the long iron pier. There was a launch at the end of its tow line, a
big, flat scow of a lighter. It came out across the smooth
mother-of-pearl stretch of water, jerking and bobbing over the great
Pacific swells. The tug shot by the steamer, the launch threw loose
the tow line, and as it came alongside the forward cargo hatchway, a
_lanchero_ pitched another rope up to the boatswain.

There followed delay. There must of necessity follow delay when the
crews and captains of launches are West Coast natives--Mexican
stevedores at the very best--and most of the sailors on the steamers
the same. The first-officer, down on the main deck, gave orders,
there was a creaking of hawsers on the strain, the rattle and squeal
of blocks and tackle, and the rumble of moving freight in one of the
forward cargo-spaces. The captain, immaculate in ducks, came out
from his cabin. He went to the rail and looked over at La Libertad,
where the white and red of its long, low houses showed clear in the
daybreak among the glistening palms. Then he looked down. There were
eight or ten _lancheros_ in the lighter helping to confuse the very
simple process of making her fast, or perched upon the gunwale
observing with the vague placidity of their kind.

The captain had no opinion of Central American natives of any sort,
much less of _lancheros_. He considered these ones with rather more
than usual disgust.

“What’s the matter with them fellows in that launch, Marsden,” he
inquired of the first-officer.

Marsden was peering down into the black hole of the hold. He drew
away and looked up to the rail of the hurricane deck. “Played out,
sir,” he told him; “they were loading the _San Benito_ until she put
out last night at eleven.”

The captain had no sympathy for them on that, or any other score.
His eye was without mercy, as he took stock of them again.
“Hullo--one of them is white,” he said. It was meant, as before, for
the first-officer, but it was entirely audible to the _lancheros_.

The first-officer looked over into the launch, and the man who was
white looked up at him. Then the first-officer turned away. “Yes,
sir,” he said.

He walked to the hatchway edge. “Quartermaster,” he called. A voice
from the hold answered him. “Send up those boxes of nails first,” he
ordered.

There followed a banging in the cargo-space, the boatswain’s whistle
began its shrill little calls, which would keep up all day, a donkey
engine puffed, and a windlass rattled in the bowels of the ship; the
big hook on the end of its rope swung down the hatchway, and
presently a net-sling full of boxes was hoisted and deposited on the
main deck.

“T. S. & Co., over X, one--Garcia, three times--Y in a diamond, two
times--J. S. & Co., over X, four.” The first-officer marked the
boxes with his chalk as he called their address and number, the
checky for the port authorities and the freight-clerk for the ship
kept tally and record in their own books; the net drew taut again at
the boatswain’s whistle, and the first load of cargo swung overside
and was lowered into the launch.

The first-officer went to the side and watched it. It was the white
man who unhooked the sling, who spilled out the boxes, and sent the
sling back empty, all with a promptness that no native _lancheros_
could have hoped, or would have dreamed of, attempting to attain.
These looked rather more than usually dead and alive. Nominally, he
was not the _capitan_ of the launch, but it was clear that he was
the self-constituted boss of it. The captain of the steamer said as
much--“Must make their heads swim, that fellow.”

The mate answered “Yes, sir,” again; but another net full of boxes
was coming up. He went back to them. “J. S. & Co. over X, two
times--Y in a diamond, one,” he called. The checky and the
freight-clerk registered; and the work of the day was well under
way.

But in spite of the one white man in the launch below it did not go
with the speed the mate would have desired. The crew of the
alternating launch was demoralized and worthless to the last degree.
“Half dead--and it’s a _fiesta_ besides, so they’re half drunk,
too,” he remarked upon it to the captain. He pushed his cap back
with the visor on his crown, and ran across his wet forehead the
sleeve of a coat which had begun the day white. It was two o’clock
of an October afternoon, and the heat was one of these things the
fullness whereof can only be realized from having been experienced,
which mere imagination is powerless to present.

The _lancheros_ were fumbling aimlessly at a load of steel rails.
There was no white man in this lighter, and the management of it
showed as much. Three rails were swung clashing together down on
some crates that smashed like match-boxes under them. The mate
raised his shoulders. It was not his business--so long as the
breakage was not done on the ship, he was not accountable for it.
Checky and the _capitan_ of the “lanch” could settle that on shore.

“What’s in those crates?” the captain inquired.

“Merchandise--breakable,” answered the first-officer, cheerfully.

“Brutes,” commented the captain. He gave expression to his views on
black-and-tan _lancheros_ in general.

The mate nodded. He bent over the hatchway. “Quartermaster,” he
called, “send up somebody with a marlinspike to mend this sling.”
Then he went over and looked down into the launch. “_Despacio
abajo_, hurry up--eh?” he shouted by way of suggestion to four
_lancheros_ who were pulling two ways on every rail, and had managed
to drop into the water a rope sling, which it was affording them
much concern and confusion, and the others much chattering and
amusement, to fish out again.

Marsden did not appear to be in a communicative mood, but the
captain was oblivious to moods after the manner of the insistently
good-humored and talkative.

“It must be infernally unpleasant for that white fellow to work with
the dogs,” he opined.

“I expect so,” said Marsden. It was not a tone encouraging a
pursuance of the subject. But the captain did not know it.

“The _capitan_ won’t stand his bossing some time,” he kept it up;
“there’ll be a row, and the whole crew’ll take only too much
pleasure in sticking their knives into him. He looks steady. Must be
in a pretty bad way to come to that. Don’t know that I ever saw a
white man in the fix along here before. He’d better get out of it
while his skin’s whole.”

“Wonder who he is?” he asked, presently. It was in the nature of an
inquiry addressed to no one in general, and the mate in particular.
The mate did not answer. He was concerning himself about a delay in
the hold, and called down some orders which were superfluous, in
view of the fact that the boatswain had just gone scuttling down the
ladder to attend to things himself.

The captain, however, was not put off. He had nothing to do. “Do you
know?” he asked, when the mate came below him again.

“Know what, sir?” Marsden was thinking his own thoughts. He had not
paid much attention.

“Who that fellow is?”

“Man named Stanwood,” said the first-officer, and he tried to head
the captain off by another order to the hold. It was accompanied by
profanity. The delay was nobody’s fault, but, as is frequently the
case, the oaths expended in one direction were inspired from
another.

It was a pity the captain couldn’t go aft and work a reckoning, or
talk to the passengers. Not that he objected to the captain. The
captain was a very good sort. It was the topic Marsden disliked.

“Stanwood--rather imposing for a _lanchero_ in there with all them
black brutes, aint it? Not that he’s any cleaner, though. Who told
you it was that?”

“Nobody,” said Marsden; “I know it.”

It broke in upon the captain then that he was being discouraged.
“Oh!” he said. There followed a pause. “You’d better have a new rope
through that block there when you’re ready to hoist those iron
chimney stacks.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the mate. The captain strolled off to the
quarter-deck to watch the second-steward fishing for sharks.

But time was not hanging heavy on Marsden’s hands. There was a look
of bad weather, and if they were to get off that night, as might
prove highly desirable, there had got to be a lot more hustling than
the _lancheros_ seemed capable of.

The launch alongside had about all it could carry, and its _capitan_
was calling for the tug, the soft, mournful note of his conch shell
floating over the water to the shore. Marsden, by way of losing no
time himself, ran up to the hurricane-deck and on to the bridge, and
the whistle screeched across the blue-green of the sea, glinting in
the sun, across the little port among its palms, and beyond through
the lush jungle of the piling mountains, where the trees and vines
and undergrowth matted in the moist, breathless temperature of a
green-house. There were black clouds piling up behind the mountains,
and rolling low into the great cañons and clefts of palm and fern
trees. Marsden eyed them as he went below again.

The launch alongside was loaded and sent adrift, to be picked up by
the tug and towed back to the wharf. The tug was bringing out the
other one--the one in which Stanwood was of the crew. Marsden wished
that he were not. A man may have been your enemy. He may have
brought about your finish. You may have thought for years that
nothing could be too bad for him. But all the same--if he is a white
man, one of your own kind, be he never so much of a scoundrel, it is
not good to see him working among Central American _lancheros_,
under a _capitan_ of the same breed. It is a trifle too low. He is
one of your own race, after all, and it hits you through the race.

Marsden stood considering, keeping his balance as the ship rolled,
at an angle of forty-five degrees to the line of the deck, backward
or forward, according as she went to weather or to lee. It would
have taken quite all the attention of a landsman to manage the feat
at any effort, and with that he would probably have gone upon his
skull or his nose. But Marsden was not even thinking about it. He
was thinking of the time that Stanwood had bribed a Guatemala high
official--with money already a long way from clean--and had thereby
established in that misgoverned little country his altogether
baseless claim to Marsden’s own sugar _finca_ and refinery. It was
the kind of thing that can be, and is constantly being, done south
of twenty-three. And all your American citizenship can not avail to
save you; rather, in fact, the other way--one of the mishaps of
which you take your chance when you go to those countries to make a
fortune, away from the hustle of colder climes. But it had been a
blackguardly trick, nevertheless. And it had done for Marsden
financially for good and all. He had thought himself in luck
afterward to get the opportunity to ship to San Francisco on a P. M.
steamer as a hand. He had been down to his last _real_ then.

It had done for him in other ways, too. Even now that he had got his
master’s license, and worked up by quick stages to
first-mate--well--his people on the other side of the continent
lived a different sort of life, went in for another and more
conventional style of thing. So did the people of the girl he had
meant to make mistress of his beautiful sugar plantation. He had
been in love with her since his school-days at home--pretty much
ever since he could remember, so far as that went. But it had
obviously been out of the question to expect her to marry a
deck-hand. He had stopped writing to her before long. It had been
better for her. As for himself--it didn’t matter much. His own life
was very thoroughly spoiled, anyway. And the girl had married--a man
of her own sort, which he himself had ceased to be.

He owed all that to Stanwood. He owed a good deal to Stanwood. He
had always intended to pay it some day, too--at the first chance
that should present itself. Was this the chance? Perhaps.

Evidently wrong-doing had not prospered Stanwood. He had probably
come out with that degraded, dirty gang, in that “lanch” which stunk
of bilge water and other filth beyond a white man’s stomach almost,
for no other reason than to get an opportunity to stow, or to ask a
passage up--as Marsden himself had been obliged to ask five years
before. He would not try it now, of course. He had nerve enough for
about anything, but hardly enough for that. He would have to wait at
least a week for another ship and another first-officer.

It happened, nevertheless, that Marsden wanted another sailor. At
the last port, Corinto, one of his men had gone ashore to see one of
the sick mothers he kept along the coast, and that had been the last
seen of _him_. Marsden was anxious to fill the vacancy, but Stanwood
should not have it. He could work with the launch gang a while
longer. It was small enough punishment for his misdeeds.

The launch swung alongside. Stanwood was in her. He was having an
altercation with the _capitan_, too, and the _capitan_ had been
taking more _tequila_, apparently. It would be the course of wisdom
for the Gringo _lanchero_ to hold his peace and his tongue, if he
were not looking for a speedy exit from a bad sort of life. The
_capitan_ and his gang would like nothing better than severally and
collectively to stick knives into him.

Once again the launch went off, discharged her cargo, and came back
for another load. This time it was before the other launch was quite
ready to be towed away, so she made fast, bow and stern, to her, and
the idle _lancheros_ fell to eating some food they had brought with
them as they waited. They crouched together in a group, getting a
good deal of fun out of it. There were the inevitable _frijoles_ and
bread and bottled coffee, and there was besides a most unwonted
treat, a leg of mutton. They passed it from one to the other, and
each gnawed at it with his gleaming teeth, grinning over the game.

Stanwood crouched among them. But he was not having fun out of it.
He was not grinning. He scooped up the common mess of black beans
with scraps of crust. He was ragged and dirty as they were. But he
did not take his degradation with their good humor. He looked sullen
and lean and hungry.

Marsden watched him. It was not a pleasant sight, and he felt a kind
of sick disgust and pity. But he wanted to see if the bone of meat
would go to the white man in the end, and if the white man would
take it. It came to the last of the natives. He picked it all but
clean with a show of keen enjoyment. There were a few shreds left.
He examined them. Then, with the insolence of a base breed having
the upper hand, he tossed it over at Stanwood. It struck him on the
chest. Marsden could see the killing hate in his eyes, and the
shutting of his teeth under the ragged black beard. Then--and he was
conscious of a deep relief--he saw him pick up the bone, stand in
the scow, and drop it over into the water.

Marsden turned away. It was not only of relief that he was
conscious, but of a killing hate of the half-breed _lancheros_ equal
to Stanwood’s own, as well.

The clouds which, at noon, had been rising behind the mountains and
dropping dark into the valleys and cañons, had spread half over the
sky. There was a low, whining wind, growing steadily stronger. And
the seven thousand miles of sea stretching unbroken to the west was
sending in heavier ground swells to the open harbor. The steamer
went heaving from side to side. Even the sailors were finding it not
always easy to keep their footing. And it was now that the great
iron chimney stacks had to be brought up. It would not have been a
small matter at the best. At present it was extremely dangerous. The
loaded lighter had gone off. The tackle had been changed on the
block of the foremost derrick to new hemp, yellow and strong.

There was the huge clangor and rumble of hollow iron striking
against iron down in the cargo-space. The mate had taken out his own
whistle. The responsibility was too great to be intrusted to
subordinates here. He shrilled one order after another, or shouted
them in nautical English and strange Spanish, and they were answered
from the depths of the hold. The monster tube rolled into the
opening guided by a man naked to the waist, on whose brown torso,
swelling with muscles, the sweat rolled and glistened. The stack
rose slowly upward--roaring its vast basso protests as it
struck--fifty feet long, a yard in diameter, heavy, unwieldy,
plunging as the ship rolled to starboard, down and down, and back to
port, down and down again.

It was a formidable thing, all but unmanageable even there. But once
clear of the hatchway it flung itself, charging and swinging and
threshing, with the great iron bellow of warning. The sailors jumped
from its way. There was only the mate to handle it. The ship gave a
heavy lurch to starboard. The chimney whirled and lunged toward him
with a vibrating song of onslaught, and the voice of the white man
in the launch below called an involuntary “Look out!” An instant of
the hesitation of fear and the mate would have been struck overboard
by all the force of the great cylinder of iron. But he put out his
hand and pushed it, and it swung off harmlessly enough, as docile as
it was formidable.

The little whistle shrilled, the derrick moved its long arm around
and out, and the stack hung overside, directly above the launch. The
_lancheros_ had retreated to the sides, ready to scramble out of the
way, or to jump overboard, if need should be. They stood looking up
at it uneasily. If the rope were to break or slip, if the mate were
to give a wrong order----

Suddenly the steamer came over to starboard with a deep roll, and
the great stack dropped with her. The mate saw the chance of mishap.
His whistle piped a sharp, quick order to hoist. The _lancheros_
cowered, their arms over their heads--all but Stanwood. He stood
watching a chance. The stack swung and whirled, gigantic and awful,
not a foot above his reach. But the rope had been just too short.
The ship heaved back, and with a reverberation of metal thunder as
it struck against the hull, the cylinder swung up again.

Courage came back to the _capitan_ of the lighter then, and with it
all his powers of mean impertinence. He shouted up curses at the
first-officer. They were vile, as curses can only be vile in that
“language of prayer.” And the first-officer understood them
perfectly. But he had no time to take notice of them. The ship had
got to get off that night. And the stacks had got to be unloaded.
But it was far from simple to get even this first one lowered into
the launch. Several times they dropped it almost to its place, then,
because the empty scow bobbed one way in a swell, and the ship
another, it had to be hoisted once more. And once the windlass
refused to work at a signal. There was a delay until it could be
repaired. The _capitan_ of the _lancheros_ waxed more impertinent
and abusive; the _tequila_ with which he had been refreshing himself
on shore was beginning to take its violent effect. In the absorption
of his abuse of the ship and all its crew, he forgot to order his
own men. The stack was coming down once again, with a fair chance of
landing squarely in the bottom at last--if the _lancheros_ should be
quick enough at guiding it. But they were doing nothing, frightened
half out of their little available senses. And their _capitan_ was
yelling foul words aloft. It was a critical instant. The white
_lanchero_ knew it. He gave an order. It was all the men needed--a
head. They made to obey. But the boss, in the madness of _tequila_,
turned on his white hand. Was _he_ the _capitan_? Was _he_ in
command? He had the signal conch shell in his hand. He brought it
down with a cracking blow on Stanwood’s head.

The first-officer, watching the critical descent of the iron monster
with all his attention, saw Stanwood spring at the boss’s throat,
saw the knives of the other _lancheros_ drawn, saw them swarming
astern to the rescue of their fellow, ten of them against one. And
the iron stack was swaying just above them. Another starboard
roll--they would be crushed under it. And another moment lost and
the Gringo would have ten knives in his neck and back. The little
whistle shrilled sharply twice, and even as its order was obeyed and
the windlass reversed, the first-officer was sliding overside down
the manrope, had kicked himself off from the hull, and landed in the
launch.

It was a short fight. The first-officer had his six-shooter, the
white _lanchero_ his knife, like another. The natives were fierce
with blood lust, and the drunkenness of knife gleam and _tequila_.
But it was a matter of coolness and of the dominant race. Before the
captain on the hurricane-deck could run to his cabin for his
carbine, it was over with. Two _lancheros_ had disabling bullet
wounds, and the rest had retreated to the bow, all the flush of
fight gone out of them, whipped and cringing and scared.

The first-officer and the white _lanchero_ stood astern. They had
been cut, and the ducks of the first-officer were red. Blood oozed
through the _lanchero’s_ rags. He got breath for a moment clutching
at the gunwale. Then he turned to the first-officer. “Thank you,” he
said.

Marsden looked at him, slowly, from his shaggy black hair to his
bare feet. “Don’t mention it,” he answered. Then he looked up at the
ship. “Unhook that stack for the present, and send down the chair
for us,” he ordered, coolly.

He considered his left arm. The blood was bubbling out just above
the elbow. He knew what it meant. He had seen the thing before. It
would be all right once a tourniquet should be put above it. But
before that, before the doctor could get down in the chair, he would
very likely faint. He was feeling light-headed already--and his eyes
were glazing over. He shut his right hand hard above the wound.

“You can’t stay with this, Stanwood,” he told the _lanchero_. His
voice sounded to himself far away and dead. He was not altogether
sure what he was saying. He glanced up. Away and away overhead in a
vague distance of hot blue, the chair was beginning to lower. He
must make haste. He spoke carefully, with precision, swaying
unsteadily as the launch rolled.

“We lost a man at Corinto,” he went on; “we--need an--other. You can
ship to Frisco with us if----” he staggered, then caught himself,
“if you--like.”

The chair with the doctor touched the bottom of the scow. The
first-officer had fallen, and was lying quite still. The white
_lanchero_ was bending over him, clenching his two hands tight about
the wounded arm.




THE RAJAH’S NEMESIS

By W. C. Morrow


In my travels abroad I once encountered an extraordinary
illustration of the shifts to which Nature will resort in her
efforts to overcome the inconvenience arising from a deprivation of
the tools with which she is accustomed to work; and the facts of the
case are sufficiently peculiar and tragic to warrant their relation.

I was summoned from Calcutta to proceed to the heart of India, being
wanted by a certain rich and powerful rajah to perform a dangerous
surgical operation upon one of the women of his household. I found
the rajah to be a man of lofty character, noble and generous; but,
as circumstances afterward developed, he was possessed of a sense of
cruelty purely Oriental and in sharp contrast to the extreme
indolence of his disposition. He was so grateful for the success
which attended my mission that he urged me to remain his guest at
the palace as long as it should please me to stay; and, as may be
surmised, I thankfully accepted the invitation.

One of his servants early attracted my notice, for he was a man of
marvelous capacity of malice and vindictiveness. His name was
Neranya, and I am certain that there must have been a large
proportion of Malay blood in his veins; for, unlike the Indians
(from whom he differed also in complexion), he was extremely active,
alert, nervous, and sensitive. He had one redeeming trait, and that
was love for his master.

Once his violent temper led him to the commission of an atrocious
crime--the fatal stabbing of a dwarf. In punishment for this the
rajah ordered that Neranya’s right arm (the offending one) be
severed from his body. The sentence was executed in rather a
bungling fashion by a stupid fellow armed with an axe; and I, being
a surgeon, was compelled, in order to save Neranya’s life, to
perform a second amputation upon the stump of the arm, which left
not a vestige of the limb remaining.

Just here, as a possible partial explanation of the terrible and
extraordinary things which followed, I must call intelligent
attention to a matter which has long engaged my notice.

We see that when one arm has been lost, the other acquires an
unwonted dexterity, thus measurably compensating for the loss.
Further, if both arms have been removed, an extraordinary nimbleness
is exhibited in the feet, for they come to discharge to a
considerable extent the functions of hands--to so great an extent
that the toes display a power of prehension which one might suppose
had not existed in them since our abandonment, in the evolutionary
process, of the tree-climbing habit. Thus, with the toes an armless
man may learn to hold a pen and to write, to load and fire a pistol,
to cut food with a knife, and convey it to his mouth with a fork, to
sew, and to do a hundred other useful things, and some which are
purely ornamental, as painting, playing a harp, and the like. I once
saw an armless man give his wife a sound thrashing with a rawhide
whip.

If, now, one of the legs be removed, the remaining foot will develop
an almost redoubled capacity, its agility being marvelous. But
suppose that this member, too, should be parted with--has Nature
reached the end of her resources? Remember, the dexterity that she
developed in those members which remained after the amputation of
others was primarily of a character to take the place of that which
enabled the others to minister to the needs of life. Granted that
both arms and both legs are gone, has Nature, I have asked, reached
the limit of her resources, in the accomplishment of an earnest and
controlling purpose, praiseworthy or perverted?

Let us inquire into the philosophy of the process by which this
compensating dexterity is developed. It is easy for the scientists
to tell us that this is done by the concentration of the will and
the persistent exercise of the muscles in obedience thereto; but to
my understanding this explanation is not sufficient. The principle
of life, the amazing persistence of this principle, and the ways in
which this persistence is maintained, are all inscrutable mysteries,
necessarily and forever beyond our comprehension. It is the fashion
of transcendentalism (not followed, however, by the greater
scientists) to maintain that we have a spiritual, as well as a
material, nature; and by evolution there has grown out of that
belief another, that this spiritual nature is imperishable,
indestructible--the fashionable, though inaccurate, term is
“immortal.” The spirit is assumed to be the _ego_, the
consciousness--that which fixes individuality and determines
identity.

Now, we know that mind is consciousness, and that the mind has its
seat within the brain. But the brain is identical in its chemical,
structural, molecular, and functional characteristics with the
nerves which lead from it and ramify throughout the body; therefore
the mind, and consequently the spirit, ramifies throughout the body;
and hence it follows that if the spirit is indestructible and should
be separated from the body (by death or otherwise) it must have the
essential form and appearance of the body. The fact of our being
unable to see it presents no obstacle to the argument; for we are
unable to see countless things which we are certain exist. The
argument thus put in logical shape may account, by unconscious
synthetical reasoning, for the prevalent belief, seemingly inherent,
that the spirit retains the form of the body after death; for there
is no other conception of the human spirit’s form--we never imagine
it as having the shape of a ball, or a comet, or a balloon, or a
cloud, or as being formless.

Then it must follow that, assuming the spirit to be indestructible
and as having the form of the body, the amputation of a limb does
not exterminate that part of the spirit which occupied that limb;
but as the indivisibility of the spirit must be admitted as an
essential factor of identity and individuality, that part of the
spirit which had occupied the amputated limb must always be present
in the place where the limb had been, and must there, in that place,
possess all the consciousness and intelligence which belonged to it
before the limb was amputated.

This argument may be pursued to some astonishing conclusions which
do not vitally concern the purposes of this relation. I might be
asked, for instance, if the potentiality of a spirit is dependent
upon its possession and control of a body, of what avail is it to
speculate upon the unseparated existence of the spirit of an
amputated limb? But there are some who declare that this dependence
need not and does not always exist.

This, it must be understood, is not the line of argument pursued by
scientists, for they have a purely materialistic explanation for all
the singular phenomena resulting from amputation; but are they not
inconsistent? They admit the inscrutable mystery of the principle of
life and all its countless corollaries, and yet they glibly explain
the evidently marvelous results of a serious interference with the
normal operation of that principle, as in the case of amputation. Is
it not possible that there is danger of too much explanation of
these wonderful mysteries?

Let us proceed with the strange story of Neranya. After the loss of
his arm, he developed an increased fiendishness, an augmented
vindictiveness. His love for his master was changed to hate, and in
his mad anger, he flung discretion to the winds. He was so unruly
and violent in disposition that he could not conceal his feelings.
The rajah, a proud, scornful man, increased Neranya’s hate by
treating him with contempt and scorn, which had the effect of
driving the wretch to frenzy. In a mad moment he sprang upon the
rajah with a knife, but he was seized and disarmed. To his
unspeakable dismay the rajah sentenced him for this offense to
suffer amputation of the remaining arm. It was done as in the former
instance.

This had a temporary effect in curbing the man’s spirit, or rather
in changing the outward manifestation of his diabolic nature. Being
armless, he was at first largely at the mercy of those who
ministered to his wants--a duty which I undertook to see was
properly discharged, for I felt an interest in this horribly
perverted and distorted nature. This sense of helplessness, combined
with a damnable scheme for revenge which he had secretly formed,
caused Neranya to change his fierce, impetuous, and unruly conduct
into a smooth, quiet, insinuating manner, which he carried so
artfully as not only to secure a peace and comfort which he had
never known before, but also to deceive those with whom he was
brought in contact, including the rajah himself.

Neranya, being exceedingly quick, nimble, and intelligent, and
having a tremendous will, turned his attention to the cultivation of
dexterity in his legs, feet, and toes; and in due time he was able
to perform wonderful feats with those members, such as I have
noticed already. His capacity especially for destructive mischief
was restored.

One morning, the rajah’s only son, a young man of an exceedingly
lovable and noble character, was found dead in bed. His murder was a
singularly atrocious one, the body being mutilated in a sickening
manner; but, in my eyes, the most significant of all the mutilations
was _the entire removal and disappearance of the young man’s arms_.
In the wild distraction which ensued in the palace upon the
discovery of the mutilated body, the importance of that one fact was
overlooked. It was the basis, however, of a minute investigation,
which I made, and which, in time, led me to the discovery of the
murderer.

The murder of the young man nearly proved the death of the rajah,
who was thrown into a serious illness, which required all my skill
and attention to combat. It was not, therefore, until his recovery
that there began a systematic and intelligent inquiry into the
murder. I said nothing of my own discoveries and conclusions, and in
no way interfered with the work of the rajah and his officers; but,
after their efforts had failed and I had completed my own work, I
submitted to the rajah a written report, making a close analysis of
all the circumstances, and closing by charging Neranya with the
murder. (I still have a copy of that singular report, and I regret
that its length prevents its insertion here. It deals with unusual
facts and is an illustration of the value of special knowledge and
pure reason in the detection of crime.) My facts, arguments, and
deductions were so convincing that the rajah at once ordered Neranya
to be put to death, this to be accomplished by slow and frightful
torture. The sentence was so cruel, so revolting, that it filled me
with horror, and I implored that the wretch might be shot. Finally,
purely through a sense of noble gratitude, the rajah yielded. When
Neranya was charged with the crime, he denied it, of course; but,
seeing that the rajah was convinced, and upon being shown my report
(which embodied a knowledge of anatomy and surgery that he had never
dreamed of), he threw aside all restraint, and, dancing, laughing,
and shrieking in the most horrible manner, confessed his guilt and
gloated over it--all this, believing that he would be shot on the
morrow.

During the night, however, the rajah changed his mind, and sending
for me in the morning, informed me of his new decision. It was that
Neranya’s life should be spared, but that both his legs should be
crushed with heavy hammers and then that I should amputate both
limbs as close to the trunk as possible! I was too much astounded to
utter a protest; and, besides there was grounded within me that
unyielding, and often inhuman, medical principle, which counts the
saving of life at any cost the highest duty. I may add that,
appended to this horrible sentence, was a provision for keeping the
maimed wretch a prisoner and torturing him at regular intervals by
such means as afterward might be devised.

Sickened to the heart by the awful duty which confronted me, I
nevertheless performed it with success, and I must pass over in
silence the hideous details of the whole affair. Let it suffice to
say that Neranya escaped death very narrowly, and that he was a long
time in recovering his wonted vitality. During all these weeks the
rajah neither saw him nor made inquiries concerning him, but when,
as in duty bound, I made an official report that the man had
recovered his strength, the rajah’s eyes brightened, and he emerged
with deadly activity from the stupor of grief in which he so long
had been plunged. He ordered certain preparations made for the
future care of his now helpless victim.

The rajah’s palace was a noble structure, but it is necessary here
to describe only the grand hall. It was an immense room, with a
floor of polished stone and a lofty arched ceiling. A subdued light
stole into it through stained glass set in the roof and in windows
on the sides. In the middle of the room was a fountain which threw
up a tall, slender column of water in the centre, with smaller jets
grouped around it. Across one end of the hall, half-way to the
ceiling, was a balcony, which communicated with the upper story of a
wing, and from which a flight of stairs descended to the stone floor
of the hall. This room was kept at a uniform temperature, and during
the hot summers it was delightfully cool. This was the rajah’s
favorite lounging-place, and when the nights were hot, he had his
cot brought hither and here he slept.

This hall was chosen for Neranya’s permanent abiding-place; here was
he to stay as long as he might live, without ever a glimpse of the
face of nature or the glorious heavens. To one of his restless,
nervous, energetic, discontented nature, the cruelty of such
confinement was worse than death; but there was more yet of
suffering in store for him, for at the rajah’s order there was
constructed a small iron pen, in which Neranya was to be kept. This
pen was circular and about four feet in diameter. It was elevated on
four slender iron posts, ten feet from the floor, and was placed
half-way between the fountain and the balcony. Around the edge of
the pen was erected an iron railing, four feet high, but the top was
left open for the convenience of the servants whose duty it should
be to care for him. These precautions for his safe confinement were
taken at my suggestion, for, although the man was deprived of all
four of his limbs, I still feared that he might develop some
extraordinary, unheard-of power for mischief. It was provided that
the attendants should reach his cage by means of a movable ladder.
All these arrangements having been made and Neranya hoisted into his
prison, the rajah emerged upon the balcony to see him, and the two
deadly enemies faced each other. The rajah’s stern face paled at the
hideous sight which met his gaze, but he soon recovered, and the
old, hard, cruel, sinister look returned. Neranya, by an
extraordinary motion, had wriggled himself into an upright position,
his back propped against the railing. His black hair and beard had
grown long, and they added to the natural ferocity of his aspect.
Upon seeing the rajah his eyes blazed with a terrible light, his
lips parted, and he gasped for breath. His face was white with rage
and despair, and his thin, distended nostrils quivered.

The rajah folded his arms and gazed down upon the frightful wreck
which he had made. Neranya returned the gaze with blazing eyes. Oh,
the pathos of that picture, the inhumanity of it, the deep and
dismal tragedy of it! Who might look into that wild, desperate heart
and see and understand the frightful turmoil there, the surging,
choking passions, unbridled but impotent ferocity, frantic thirst
for a vengeance that should be deeper than hell! Neranya gazed, his
shapeless body heaving, his eyes ablaze, and then, in a strong,
clear voice which rang throughout the great hall, with rapid speech
he hurled at the rajah the most insulting defiance, the most awful
curses. He cursed the womb that conceived him, the food that
nourished him, the wealth that brought him power; cursed him in the
name of Buddha and all the prophets, in the name of heaven and of
hell; cursed him by the sun, the moon, and the stars, by all
continents, oceans, mountains, and rivers, by all things living;
cursed his head, his heart, his entrails; cursed him in a furious
outpouring of unmentionable words; heaped insults and contumely upon
him; called him a knave, a beast, a fool, a liar, an infamous and
damnable coward. Never had I heard such eloquence of defiance,
curses, and vituperation; never had heard so terrible a
denunciation, so frightful and impetuous an outflow of insults.

The rajah heard it all calmly, without the movement of a muscle or
the slightest change of countenance, and when the poor wretch had
exhausted his strength and fallen helpless and silent to the floor,
the rajah, with a grim, cold smile, turned and strode away.

The days passed. The rajah, not deterred by Neranya’s curses often
heaped upon him, spent even more time than formerly in the great
hall, and slept there oftener at night, and finally Neranya, wearied
of cursing and defying him, maintained a sullen silence. The man was
a study for me, and I noticed every change in his fleeting moods.
Generally his condition was one of miserable despair, which he
attempted bravely to conceal. Even the boon of suicide had been
denied him, for when he was erect the top of the rail was a foot
above his head, and he could not throw himself over it and crush his
skull on the stone floor below; and when he had tried to starve
himself the attendants forced food down his throat, so that he
abandoned such attempts. At times his eyes would blaze and his
breath would come in gasps, for imaginary vengeance was working
within him; but steadily he became quieter and more tractable, and
was pleasant and responsive when I conversed with him. Whatever the
tortures the rajah had decided upon, none had as yet been ordered,
and although Neranya knew that they were in contemplation, he never
referred to them or complained of his lot.

The awful climax of this terrible situation was reached one night,
and even after this lapse of years I can not approach a description
of it without a shudder.

It was a hot night, and the rajah had gone to sleep in the great
hall of the palace, lying on a high cot. I had been unable to sleep
in my apartment, and so I stole softly into the hall through the
heavily curtained entrance at the end furthest from the balcony. As
I did so, I heard a peculiar soft sound above the gentle patter of
the fountain. Neranya’s cage was partly concealed from my view by
the spraying water, but I suspected that the unusual sound came from
him. Stealing a little to one side and crouching against the dark
hangings of the wall, I could faintly see him in the dim light which
illumined the hall, and then I discovered that my surmise was
correct--Neranya was at work. Curious to learn more, I sank into a
thick robe on the floor and watched him. My sight was keen and my
eyes soon became accustomed to the faint, soft light.

To my great astonishment Neranya was tearing off with his teeth the
bag which served as his outer garment. He did it cautiously, casting
sharp glances frequently at the rajah, who, sleeping soundly on his
cot, breathed heavily. After starting a strip with his teeth,
Neranya would by the same means attach it to the railing of his cage
and then wriggle away, much after the manner of a caterpillar’s
crawling, and this would cause the strip to be torn out the full
length of his garment. He repeated this operation with incredible
patience and skill until his entire garment had been torn into
strips. Two or three of these he tied together with his tongue,
lips, and teeth, and secured the ends in a similar way to the
railing, thus making a short swing on one side. This done, he tied
the other strips together, doubling some which were weak, and in
this way he made a rope several feet in length, one end of which he
made fast to the rail. It then began to dawn upon me that he was
going to make an insane attempt--impossible of achievement without
hands or feet, arms or legs--to escape from his cage! For what
purpose? The rajah was asleep in the hall----! I caught my breath.
Oh, the desperate, insane thirst for revenge which consumed the
impotent, miserable Neranya! Even though he should accomplish the
impossible feat of climbing over the railing of his cage and falling
to the stone floor below (for how could he slide down the rope?), he
would in all probability be killed or stunned; and even if he should
escape these dangers it would be impossible for him to climb upon
the cot without rousing the rajah, and impossible even though the
rajah were dead! A man without arms or legs might descend by
falling, he never could ascend by climbing. Amazed at his daring,
and fully convinced that his sufferings had destroyed his reason, I
watched him with breathless, absorbing interest.

He caught the longer rope in his teeth at a point not far from the
rail. Then, wriggling with great effort to an upright position, his
back braced against the rail, he put his chin over the swing and
worked toward one end. He tightened the grasp of his chin upon the
swing, and, with tremendous exertion, working the lower end of his
spine against the railing, he began gradually to ascend. The labor
was so great that he was compelled to pause at intervals, and his
breathing was hard and painful, and even while thus resting he was
in a position of terrible strain, and his pushing against the swing
caused it to press hard against his windpipe and nearly suffocate
him.

After amazing effort he elevated the lower end of his body until it
protruded above the railing, the top of which was now across the
lower end of his abdomen. Gradually he worked his body over, going
backward, until there was sufficient excess of weight on the outer
side, and then with a quick lurch he raised his head and shoulders
and swung into a horizontal position. Of course, he would have
fallen to the floor below had it not been for the rope which he held
in his teeth. With such nicety had he calculated the distance
between his mouth and the point of fastening, that the rope
tightened and checked him just as he reached the horizontal position
on the rail. If one had told me beforehand that such a feat as this
man had accomplished was possible, I would have thought him a fool.
I continued to watch with intense interest.

Neranya was now balanced on his stomach across the top of the
railing, and he eased his position somewhat by bending his spine and
hanging down as much as possible. Having rested in this position for
some minutes, he began cautiously to slide off, slowly paying out
the rope through his teeth. Now, it is quite evident that the rope
would have escaped from his teeth laterally when he slightly relaxed
his hold to let it slip, had it not been for a very ingenious device
to which he had resorted. This consisted in his having made a turn
of the rope around his neck before he attached the swing, thus
securing a three-fold control of the rope--one by his teeth, another
by friction against his neck, and a third by his ability to compress
it between his cheek and shoulder.

A stupendous and seemingly impossible part of his task was
accomplished. Could he reach the floor in safety? Gradually he
worked himself backward over the rail, in momentary imminent danger
of falling; but his nerve never quivered, and I could see a
wonderful glitter in his eyes. With something of a lurch, his body
fell against the outer side of the railing, and he was hanging by
his chin. Slowly he worked his chin away and then hung suspended by
the rope, his neck bearing the weight of his trunk. By almost
imperceptible degrees, with infinite caution, he descended the rope,
and finally his unwieldy body rolled upon the floor, safe and
unhurt!

What next? Was this some superhuman monster who had accomplished
this impossible miracle? Would he immediately spring to invisible
feet, run to the rajah’s bedside, and stab him with an invisible
dagger held in an invisible hand? No; I was too philosophic for such
mad thoughts; there was plenty of time for interference. I was quick
and strong. I would wait awhile and see what other impossible things
this monster could do.

Imagine my astonishment when, instead of approaching the sleeping
rajah, Neranya took another direction. Then it was only escape after
all that the miserable wretch contemplated and not the murder of the
rajah! But how could he escape? The only possible way to reach the
outer air was by ascending the stairs to the balcony and leaving by
the corridor, which opened upon it, and surely it was impossible for
Neranya to ascend that long flight of stairs! Nevertheless, he made
for the stairs. He progressed by lying on his back, with his face
toward the point of destination, bowing his spine upward, and thus
causing his head and shoulders to slip nearly an inch forward,
straightening his spine and pushing forward the lower end of his
back a distance equal to that which his head had advanced, each time
pressing his head to the floor to keep it from slipping. His
progress was slow, painful, and laborious, as the floor was
slippery, rendering difficult the task of taking a firm hold with
his head. Finally, he arrived at the foot of the stairs.

It was at once manifest that his purpose was to ascend them. The
desire for freedom must have been strong within him. Wriggling to an
upright position against the newel-post, he looked up at the great
height which he had to climb and sighed; but there was no dimming of
the bright light in his eyes. How could he accomplish the impossible
task before him?

His solution of the problem was very simple. While leaning against
the newel-post, he fell in a diagonal position and lay safe upon the
bottom step on his side. Turning upon his back, he wriggled forward
along the step the necessary few inches to reach the rail, scrambled
to an upright, but inverted, position against the rail, and then
fell and landed safely on the second step. This explains the manner
in which, with inconceivable labor, he accomplished the ascent of
the entire flight of stairs.

It being evident that the rajah was not the object of Neranya’s
movements, the anxiety which I had felt on that account was entirely
dispelled, and I watched Neranya now only with a sense of absorbing
interest and curiosity. The things which he had accomplished were
entirely beyond the wildest imagination, and, in a sense, I was in a
condition of helpless wonder. The sympathy which I had always felt
for the unhappy man was now greatly quickened; and as small as I
knew the chances of his ultimate escape to be, I nevertheless hoped
that he would succeed. There was a bare chance that he would fall
into the hands of the British soldiery not far away, and I inwardly
prayed for his success. Any assistance from me, however, was out of
the question; nor should it ever be known that I had witnessed the
escape.

Neranya was now upon the balcony, and I could dimly see him
wriggling along as he slowly approached the door. The rail was low,
and I could barely see him beyond it. Finally he stopped and
wriggled to an upright position. His back was toward the hall, but
he slowly turned around and faced me. At that great distance I could
not distinguish his features, but the slowness with which he had
worked, even before he had fully accomplished the ascent of the
stairs, was evidence all too eloquent of his extreme exhaustion.
Nothing but a most desperate resolution could have sustained him
thus far, but he had about drawn upon the last remnant of his
strength.

He looked around the hall with a sweeping glance, and then upon the
rajah, who was soundly sleeping immediately beneath him, over twenty
feet down. He looked long and earnestly, sinking lower, and lower,
and lower upon the rail. Suddenly, to my inconceivable astonishment
and dismay, he toppled over and shot downward from his lofty height.
I held my breath, expecting to see him crushed into a bloody mass on
the stones beneath, but instead of that he fell full upon the
rajah’s breast, crashing through the cot, and hurling him to the
floor. I sprang forward with a loud cry for help, and was instantly
at the scene of the disaster. Imagine my indescribable horror when I
found that Neranya’s teeth were buried in the rajah’s throat! With a
fierce clutch I tore the wretch away, but the blood was pouring out
in torrents from the frightfully lacerated throat, the chest was
crushed in, and the rajah was gasping in the death agony. People
came running in, terrified. I turned to Neranya. He lay upon his
back, his face hideously smeared with blood. Murder, and not escape,
was his intention from the beginning; he had adopted the only plan
by which there was a possibility of accomplishing it. I knelt beside
him, and saw that he was dying--his back had been broken by the
fall. He smiled sweetly into my face; and the triumphant look of
accomplished revenge sat upon his face even in death.




THE MAN-HUNTERS’ REWARD

By Buckey O’Neill


“That isn’t a bad reward!”

“No; if a fellow could catch him, he would make pretty good wages.
Let’s see,” and the second speaker began to read the postal-card
that the postmaster at Hard Scrabble had just tacked to the door of
the store that constituted the “office,” so that every one might
read:

                          TAKE HIM IN!

    $500 Reward will be paid for the arrest and delivery of Rube
    White to the sheriff of Yavapai County. He is about
    twenty-five years old, six feet tall, and slim, with light
    complexion, and has a big scar on the right side of his
    face. He is wanted for robbery and other crimes. If killed
    in resisting arrest the reward will be paid on satisfactory
    proof of his identity. When last heard from was making for
    the Tonto Basin country.

By the time the reader had finished, a crowd of half a dozen or more
men surrounded him.

“Now, if that feller is headed for the Tonto Basin country, it
wouldn’t be much of a trick to take him,” said the first speaker,
reflectively, as if debating with himself the advisability of making
the attempt.

“If you hear me, he ain’t going to be taken in, and the feller that
tries it is going to have his hands full. They have been after him
for two or three years and aint got him yet. They say he’s right on
the shoot,” remarked another of the crowd.

“Well, a feller ought to know him as soon as he sees him, from that
description,” hazarded the first speaker, “if he got up close enough
to see the scar; and then all he’d have to do would be to turn loose
at him if he didn’t throw up his hands when you told him. Besides,
nobody but him would try to cross over the mountains into the basin
with this snow on the ground. Blamed if I don’t think I’ll go after
him.”

“Well, somebody ought to round him up,” asserted some one in the
crowd; “he’s been foolin’ roun’ hyah long enough, jes havin’ his own
way, sorter as if the country belonged to him. Durned if I wouldn’t
go with you, Hi, if I didn’t have to take this grub over to the boys
in camp.”

“Well, if any of you want to go, all right. I’m going,” replied the
man addressed as Hi.

It was not the first time that Hi Lansing had been on such
expeditions. He was one of those men for whom danger seems to have a
fascination. At his remark, Frank Crandall, a young fellow who had
been standing quietly by, volunteered to accompany him. The crowd
turned toward him with more interest than they had thus far evinced
during the entire proceedings. It was but a few months since he had
come among them, fresh from the East, to take charge of one of the
mines which had been closed down by the winter’s storms. For weeks
he had been cooped up in the isolated settlement, and he longed for
something to break its monotony.

“Well, get your horse and gun, and come,” replied Hi, and, in an
instant, the two men had left the room to arm and equip themselves
for the chase, while the loungers gathered around the stove to
discuss the probabilities of their success. In a few minutes, the
two men rode past the door, each armed with a rifle and six-shooter,
and the crowd, stepping out, bade them good-by, with the
oft-repeated warning: “Be keerful and don’t let him get the drop on
ye.”

The crust of the unbroken snow cracked crisply under foot as the two
rode on fast, leaving the little settlement in their rear. For some
time neither spoke; but, at last, the silence was broken by Lansing,
asking his young companion: “Did you ever try this kind of thing
before?”

“No,” replied the young man; “I never have.”

“Well, then, you want to be keerful. If you don’t lose yer head,
you’re all right. The only danger is that we may run on him before
we know it.”

“And if we do, what then?” asked the young man.

“Well, he will probably commence shooting, and if he does, and you
arn’t hit the first rattle out of the box, why you want to git off’n
your horse and git behind something and shoot back. If ther aint
anything to git behind, keep your horse between you and him, and
keep a-shooting. Whatever you do, don’t let go of your gun. But what
we want to do is to see him first, and then we’ve got the play on
him, and all you have to do is to tell him to throw up.”

“And if he don’t throw up?” asked Crandall.

“Why, then you let him have it. The reward will be paid just the
same.”

The apparent indifference with which Lansing spoke of the entire
matter, much as if he were discussing the best method of hunting a
wild animal, shocked the young man; but he had committed himself too
far to withdraw. Besides he had that feeling that all men have when
they are young--the curiosity to know whether or not he could rely
on himself when danger threatened.

“We should strike his trail on the hills here, if he is really
headed for the basin country,” said Lansing. They had been riding
for several hours in silence through the snow, unbroken by aught
save the scattered pines that here and there dotted the mesa. Before
them towered the mountains through whose passes the man whom they
were after would have to pass in his search for safety in the
half-settled wilds beyond.

As the two men rode along, scanning in each direction the
snow-covered mesa, Lansing suddenly wheeled his horse to the right,
and when Crandall joined him he pointed to a narrow trail where two
horses had passed through the snow.

“That’s him. He’s driving one horse and leading another, and he
hasn’t passed by very long, either. See, the snow hasn’t had time to
drift in it,” said he.

With the discovery his whole demeanor had changed. A new look came
into his eyes, and his voice sounded strange. He even grasped his
weapons in a manner different to that he had heretofore displayed.
“He’s right ahead, and we want to look out,” the older man
continued, as they began to follow the trail. As they approached the
summit of each hill they would stop their horses, and Lansing would
dismount and crawl to the top so that he might look, without being
discovered, into the valley beyond, in order that they might not
come on the fugitive too suddenly.

They had traveled this way for several miles, when, reining in his
horse, Lansing pointed to what seemed an old road leading off to the
right of the one they were following, and said: “That’s the
‘cut-off’ into the basin. I thought he would take it, but he
probably doesn’t know the country. You had better take it and ride
on ahead until you strike the road we’re on again. Then if you can’t
find his tracks, you had better ride back to meet me until you do. I
will follow the trail up.”

The young man tried to expostulate with Lansing for the great risk
he was assuming, in thus following the trail alone, but his
companion was obdurate, and, cutting the argument short by again
warning the young man to be on his guard, he rode on, following the
trail in the snow, while the younger man, finding objection useless,
took the “cut-off” road. He had no difficulty in following it, and
he wondered why the man they were in pursuit of had not taken
advantage of it. The whole pursuit seemed almost like a dream to
him. The snow, unbroken save by his horse’s footfall, stretched away
mile after mile in every direction, with here and there a pine
through whose branches the wind seemed to sob and sigh, making the
only noise that broke the stillness of the wintry afternoon. It
added to this feeling. Not a thing in sight. He began to depict in
his own mind the manner of man they were pursuing. He had almost
forgotten his name. After all, what had the man done that he, Frank
Crandall, should be seeking his blood? Perhaps, like himself, the
man had a mother and sisters to grieve over any misfortune that
would overtake him. These and a hundred kindred thoughts passed
through his mind. The sun was fast declining as he passed from the
“cutoff” into the main road again. The air was getting chilly with
the coming of evening, and the snow in the distance took on colors
of pink and purple where the rays of the setting sun touched the
mountain peaks. He scanned the main road eagerly to see if the man
they were in pursuit of had passed, but the snow that covered it was
unbroken. Then he rode back on the main road, in the direction from
which he had come, to meet his comrade and the fugitive. He had just
ascended one of the many rolling hills, when, in the distance, he
discovered a man riding one horse and driving another. At the sight
his heart almost stood still. He dismounted, and leading his horse
to one side, concealed him in a clump of young pines. Then he
returned to the road-side and waited. The man was urging his horses
forward, but they seemed to be wearied, and made but slow progress.
Crandall felt his heart beat faster and faster at the length of time
it took the man to reach him. He examined his revolver and rifle,
cocking each, to see that they were in order. It seemed to relieve
the tension of his nerves. After he had done this, he knelt down so
that he could fire with surer aim, and waited. He did not care much
now whether the man resisted or not. If the fugitive resisted, he
would have to stand the consequence of resistance. It was nothing to
him. He could hear the footfall of the approaching horses in the
snow, and he cocked his rifle so as to be ready. The setting sun
shone full in the man’s face, but Crandall forgot to look for the
scar that the notice had said was on the right cheek, although he
had resolved to do so particularly. When he first discovered the
fugitive, he scanned the road behind him to discover Lansing, but
the nearer the man approached, the less Crandall cared whether
Lansing came or not. He let the man approach nearer and nearer, so
that his aim would be the more accurate. He could not afford to
throw away the first shot. The face of the man grew more and more
distinct. He seemed to be oblivious to his surroundings. Crandall
felt almost disposed to let him pass, but the thought that every one
would think him a coward if he did so, spurred him on, and, rising
erect, he ordered the man to surrender. The horse that the man was
driving in front of him, frightened at Crandall’s appearance,
swerved from the road, leaving the two men facing each other. For an
instant, Crandall looked straight into the other’s eyes. Then the
man raised his rifle from the pommel of the saddle, and Crandall
fired. The horse which the man was riding sprang from the road, and,
at the same moment, its rider’s gun was discharged. The smoke from
Crandall’s own gun blew back into his eyes, and he turned from it to
follow the movements of the man at whom he had fired. As he saw the
man still erect in his saddle, he felt the feverish haste to fire
again come over him that men feel when they have shot and missed,
and know that their life may be the forfeit of their failure. He
threw another cartridge into the chamber of his rifle, and raised it
to his shoulder, but before he could fire, the man reeled from his
saddle and fell, while his frightened horse galloped off through the
pines.

Crandall stepped toward him, holding his rifle prepared to fire
again, if necessary. As he did so, the man raised his hand and said,
simply: “Don’t fire--you’ve got me.”

The snow was already red with blood where he lay. For the first
time, Crandall looked for the scar that the description said was on
the right cheek. For an instant he did not see it, and his heart
seemed to stop beating with the fear of having made a mistake, and
when, on drawing nearer, he saw that it was there, that only the
pallor which had spread over the man’s face had made it indistinct,
he could have cried out with joy at the feeling of relief that
passed over him.

“Are you badly wounded?” he asked.

“I don’t know how bad it is. It is here somewhere,” the man said,
placing his hand on his breast, as if not certain of the exact spot.
“It feels numb-like,” he added. Stooping down, Crandall unbuckled
and took off the man’s pistol-belt and threw it into the snow, where
lay his rifle, and then he tore open the man’s shirt. As he did so
his fingers came in contact with the warm blood, and he
involuntarily drew back, with a feeling of disgust.

“Did you find it?” asked the man, who was watching him closely, and
who had observed the movement.

Recalled to himself by the question, Crandall again tore at the
shirt, exposing the breast. Where the blood did not cover it, it
looked like marble, despite the dark hair on it. He could not see
the wound, on account of the blood, until he had wiped the latter
from the breast, and then he found it.

“What do you think of it?” the man asked.

“There it is,” replied Crandall. He could not say more. The
appealing tone in the man’s voice for some hope--some
encouragement--made him feel faint and sick.

“What do you think of it?” the man repeated, in a querulous voice,
and, as he did so, he coughed until his mouth filled with blood, and
he spat it out on the white snow.

Crandall shook his head and walked toward where his horse was tied.
He felt that if he watched the wounded man any longer he would
faint. Noticing his walking away, the wounded man said: “For God’s
sake, don’t leave me. Now that you have killed me, stay with me, and
don’t let me die like a dog.”

The voice was one of entreaty, and Crandall returned and seated
himself in the snow by the man’s side. The sun had gone down, and
the twilight had come on, bringing with it the chill of night.
Crandall covered the wounded man’s body with his overcoat, and
raised his head from the snow. Almost unconsciously he noted that as
the patch of red made by the blood grew larger and larger, the face
of the wounded man grew whiter and whiter. He never took his eyes
from Crandall’s face, while his breath came quicker and shorter, as
if he breathed with labor. With each breath the blood seemed to
bubble from the wound in the breast. One of the man’s hands fell
from under the coat that covered him. As Crandall raised it from the
snow, its coldness sent a chill through him. Once he had asked the
wounded man if he could do anything for him; but the man had only
shaken his head in reply. Crandall felt like reviling himself for
what he had done, and wondered why the wounded man did not reproach
him. Even when he expressed his sorrow at having shot him, the dying
man had said, gently: “Don’t mind it. It’s too late now.”

The twilight gave way to darkness, and still he sat there. He could
not hear the dying man breathe without leaning over his face. He did
not do this but once, though, and then the dying man had opened his
eyes and looked up into his face, inquiringly. Crandall would rather
have stayed there until morning than to have caught that look again.

Suddenly he heard a voice call to him. He started as if he had been
fired at, but it was only Lansing. As he answered the call, Lansing
rode forward and, seeing the outstretched form on the snow, said:
“By God, you got him!”

“Hush!” replied Crandall, fearful lest the wounded man would hear
the exulting tone which grated on his own ears as nothing had ever
before done. But not minding the admonition, Lansing dismounted, and
striking a match held it close to the man’s face. It was pale and
cold, and the half-opened eyes were glazed. They did not even
reflect the light made from the match, but from the partly opened
mouth a tiny stream of half-congealed blood seemed to be still
flowing down over the beard.

“That’s him, and it’s a pretty good day’s work we have done by
earning that reward,” said Lansing, coolly, as the match went out.

Somehow, though, as Crandall lay awake through the night, within a
few yards of the body, to keep the wolves from it so that it would
be unmarred in the morning when they would lash it to a horse and
take it into the settlements for identification, he wondered why
Lansing could sleep so soundly. As for himself, the rigid form,
covered with only a saddle-blanket, lying where the snow was red
instead of white, was always before his eyes, even when he closed
them.




CONSCIENCE MONEY

By Geraldine Bonner


In January the darkness settles early in Paris. It was not yet five,
and it was closing in, soft and sudden. This particular night it was
rendered denser by the light rain that was falling--one of those
needle-pointed, noiseless rains that come in the midst of a Paris
winter and persist for days.

Celia Reardon came home through it, letting her skirts flap against
her heels. The package of sketches she had not sold to the dealer on
the Rue Bonaparte was under her arm. From beneath the dark tent of
her umbrella she looked straight before her down the vista of the
street, glistening and winking from its lamps and windows. The
light, striking clearly on her face, revealed it as small, pale, and
plain, with a tight line of lip, and eyes sombrely staring at
nothing. She made no attempt to lift her sodden skirt or avoid
puddles.

Walking heavily forward through the early dusk, she was advancing to
meet the giant Despair.

This was on her mind, and, to the observant eye, in her face. Celia
knew of only one way to evade the approaching giant. It was by the
turn that led to the river. Many people, in their terror at his
approach, took this turn. She had seen them in the morgue in the
days when she was new to Paris, and went about seeing the sights
like a tourist.

After the dealer on the Rue Bonaparte had given her back the
sketches, telling her it was impossible to sell them, she had turned
downward toward the _quais_, and came out there, under the skeleton
trees, where the book-stalls line the wall. The dark, slumberous
current of the river swept by under the gemmed arches of its
bridges. It was carrying away all the foul and useless things of the
day’s tumultuous life, all going helter-skelter, pell-mell, to the
oblivion of the sea.

She thought of herself going with them, whirling about in the
currents, serenely indifferent to everything that tortured her now.
The thought had a creeping fascination. She drew nearer, staring
down at the water, stabbed with hundreds of quivering lights, and
saw herself--a face, a trail of hair, a few folds of eddying
drapery--go floating by. A sudden gust of wind snatched at her
umbrella, and shook a deluge from the tree boughs, fretting the
surface of the pools. It roused her, and she turned away shuddering.
She would wait and meet the Giant face to face.

As she turned into the _impasse_ where her studio was, she felt that
he was getting very near. The long walk had tired her. Since
yesterday her only food had been the free tea at the Girls’ Club.
Her door was the last on the left-hand side, and broke the face of
what looked a blank wall. Near it a bell-handle hung on the end of a
wire. On the fourth floor she opened a door that had her card nailed
to it.

The studio was dark, only the large window showed a dim, gray
square. She lit the lamp, and then, suddenly, in the recklessness of
her desperation, the fire. There were eight pieces of wood and six
briquettes in the box. She would burn them all. She would burn the
bed and the chairs, but she would be warm to-night. To-morrow was
twelve hours off.

The light showed the emptiness of the chill, barn-like room. The
walls alone were furnished, decorated with a series of life-class
studies, some made twenty years before, when she had been the star
of one of the Julians. Now these spirited delineations of nakedness,
unlovely and unabashed, offered silent testimony to the brilliant
promise of Celia Reardon’s youth. To-night she only thought of the
fire and cowered over it--a little, pale shadow of a woman, near
upon middle age.

For hours she sat watching the flames dart up through the holes in
the briquettes. The warmth consoled her. She grew dreamy and
retrospective. Her thoughts went slipping back from point to point,
in the glamourous past, when she had been hung in the Salon, and
sold her pictures, and was an artist people spoke of who would some
day “arrive.” From those radiant days of youth and hope, things had
been gradually declining to this--one by one stand-bys failing and
her old patrons leaving, rich Americans who ordered copies growing
scarcer and scarcer. Finally no money to hire models, bad food, and,
in consequence, declining health, poor work that failed to find a
market; pride coming to her aid and withdrawing her from the help of
friends; furtive visits to the Mont de Piete, and more dreaded ones
to the dealers on the Rue Bonaparte; and to-night the end of all
things.

It was late when she slept. Waking in the gray dawn she found
herself lying cramped and cold in front of the white ashes of the
fire, and crept shivering to bed. There she slept on till after
midday. She felt weak and stupid when she rose, and her dressing
took a long time. She began to realize that her state was nearly as
bad physically as it was financially.

It was better to walk about the streets till the hour for tea than
to freeze in the studio. She put on her hat and jacket, relics of
better days to which she desperately clung, and went forth. In the
night the thermometer had fallen and the rain had turned to snow.
She buried her chin in her collar and tried to walk briskly. She
thought she would go to the Louvre, which was warm, and sit there
till four, when she could come back to the Girls’ Club. Both walks
were long, but the hour’s rest at the Louvre would strengthen her,
and there was still the faint possibility of meeting some one she
knew who would order a copy.

She felt singularly tired when the long flank of Catharine de’
Medici’s part of the old palace came into view with the river
sucking at the wall. All the surroundings were gray and motionless
like a picture, and in the midst of this dead immobility the swift,
turbulent tide rolled on, a thing of sinister life, calling to her
as it sped. Midway across the bridge she stopped to look down on it,
and then stood gazing, fascinated, unable to tear herself away.

Close to her, on the coping of the wall, an image-seller had set out
his wares. They were a dream of fair women, classic and modern. The
solemn majesty of the great Venus was contrasted with Phryne hiding
her eyes in a spasm of modesty. Clytie, with the perfect fall of her
shoulders, rising from the lily leaves that fold back as if
unwilling to hide so much beauty, stood droopingly beside the proud
nakedness of Falguière’s Diane. The boy who presided over this
gallery of loveliness--a meagre Italian, his face nipped with
frost--stood a hunched-up, wretched figure, his eyes questioning the
passers-by.

Presently one of these halted in the hurrying march with an eye on
Clytie. The boy drew his hands from his pockets, and with piteous
eagerness held out the bust. The tones of his voice penetrated
Celia’s dark musings, and she looked that way.

The buyer was a lady, young, and of a curiously soft and silly
prettiness. She displayed all of a Parisienne’s flawless finish. Her
cheek, by art or nature, was like a magnolia petal; her hair showed
burnished on its loose ripples. Beneath the edge of her veil her
uncovered mouth appeared, fresh as a child’s, serious, and
charmingly foolish. Her chin rested on a fluff of white tulle and
was a white of a warmer tint. There was dubious debate in her glance
as it paused on the figures. She looked the incarnation of sweet
indecision. Presently she decided on Clytie, and said she would take
it with her. Celia knew she had bought the head from a sudden,
careless pity for the boy’s red nose and chilblains. If _she_ had
peddled sketches on the bridge, with her nose red and her toes
coming through her boots, she, too, would have made money, she
thought, as she hungrily wondered how much the boy had made by his
sale.

The lady unclasped the little bag that hung by a chain to her wrist,
and searched for money. She was evidently careless, and carried many
things therein. Suddenly she jerked out a whisp of
pocket-handkerchief, and under it found the _cache_ where the money
had been secreted. She bent her face to search for the desired coin,
and so did not see that with the handkerchief a five-franc piece had
been twitched out.

Celia did see. She saw it spring out, and then drop into a bank of
snow, noiselessly, as if purposely to avoid detection. She made a
step forward to pick it up and return it. And then she stopped--a
thought went through her like a zigzag of lightning. Cupidity, born
of hunger, burst into life in her, and nailed her to the spot, her
mouth dry, her eyes vacant of expression. For the first time in her
life Temptation gripped her.

The traditions of generations of seemly New England forbears cried
out upon her and struggled within her. But she stood her ground. The
coin lying in the snow seemed of more importance to her than
everything else in the world.

As the lady passed away, Celia drew near the images. The boy was
rearranging them. When his back was turned she bent down and groped
in the snow. Then rose with her face red.

She crushed down the shame that surged in her, and turned to leave
the bridge. There is a Duval on the Boulevard St. Germain, and she
almost ran to it, thinking as she went of what she would order. She
would spend two francs and a half, allowing a twenty-five centime
_pourboire_ for the girl.

It was not the crowded hour, and she had no need to hurry. She ate
sumptuously and slowly, and began to feel the revivifying tide of
life flowing back into her starved body. The Giant began to look dim
and distant. The river called no more. In the leisurely French
fashion she sat a long time over her meal. The day was darkening to
its early twilight as she emerged and fared down the boulevard.

She was walking slowly down the great street, her body warmed, the
cries of her hunger stilled, when the enormity of her act began to
force itself upon her. She refused to acknowledge it at first.
Hunger was sufficient excuse. But not so much her conscience as her
sense of dainty self-respect insisted on her shame. She was a thief.
Her whiteness was stained forever. She had never before done
anything for which to blush or to lie. Her poverty, her
discouragement, her pitiful, proud struggles, had always been
honest. She would as soon have thought of murdering some one as of
stealing from them.

Now she had done it. One moment’s temptation had marked her forever.
As the money had fallen into the snow something in her had fallen,
never to rise.

Pursued by harassing thoughts, she half-unconsciously wended her way
toward the river. Here, unencumbered by houses, daylight still
lingered. The gray afternoon was dying with a frosty brilliance. In
its death throes it exhaled a sudden, angry red which broke through
the clouds in smoldering radiance. Its flush tinted the sky and
touched the tops of the wavelets, and Celia felt it on her face like
the color of shame.

As she stood staring at it, her pallor glazed with an unnatural
blush, an inspiration came to her which sent a tide of real color
into her face. A manner of redeeming herself suddenly was revealed
to her. She would give the rest of the money to the most needy
person she met that evening. She would walk the city till she found
some one more deserving of it than she. Then she would give all she
had--share her theft with some other pauper to whom two francs would
mean salvation.

She felt instantly stimulated and revived by a return of
self-respect. Either side of the river would be rich in case of
heartbreak and hunger. Standing in the middle of the bridge, she
looked from the straight line of gray houses on the Quai Voltaire to
the vast façade of the Louvre. Then some whim impelled her to choose
the side of the city where wealth dwells, and she walked forward
toward the _guichets_ of the old palace.

The city had on the first phase of its evening aspect of brilliantly
illumined gayety. People were dining; she caught glimpses of them
over the half-curtains of restaurant windows. Women in voluminous
wraps were making mincing exits from the hotel doorways to waiting
fiacres. There was the _frou-frou_ of skirts, whiffs of perfumery,
the shifting of many feet under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli.

Passing the entrance of one of the largest hotels, she was arrested
by a familiar voice, and a richly clad and rustling lady deflected
her course from the carriage that awaited her at the curb toward the
astonished artist. Celia felt a curious sensation of fatefulness
when she saw in the face before her that of an old patron, long
absent from Paris. The lady gave her a warm greeting; she wanted to
see her to-morrow, apropos of some copies to be made. Had Celia time
to make the copies? Well, then, would she come to lunch to-morrow
and talk it over?

The little artist blinked in the glare of the doorway and the lady’s
diamonds. She would.

And now would she go to the theatre with the lady? Only her niece
was with her, and they had a box.

No--Celia could not do that. She had--er--business--business that
might keep her up very late.

The carriage rolled away with the lady and the niece, and Celia
turned up one of the side streets that lead to the great boulevard.
So Fortune was going to smile on her once more. All the more reason
to square things with her conscience. She grasped her purse tightly
and looked about her as she passed up the narrow thoroughfare.
Misery often lurked ashamed in corners. She knew just how and why.

A few moments more walking, with an occasional turn into cross-cuts,
brought her into the spacious widening of the ways before the Gare
St. Lazare. It was particularly lively inside the depot inclosure,
as the boat train for Calais was soon to leave. There was an
incessant rattling of carriages piled high with trunks, and a great
disgorging of travelers, who ran staggering up the steps weighted
with the amazing amount of hand luggage indispensable to the
Continental tourist.

Certainly it did not look a promising place in which to seek
distressed humanity. Celia turned away and began to walk upward
toward the street which flanks the building on the left, and winds
an ascending course toward Montmartre. It was badly lit, sheltered
by the vast blank wall of the depot, and showed only an occasional
passer-by, and the lamps of a long line of waiting fiacres.

As she advanced into the semi-obscurity of this dark byway, a
carriage rattled up and stopped precipitately near the side entrance
into the yard. A man sprang out and then turned with a sort of
elaboration of gallantry and helped out a woman. Celia idly noted
her trim foot as it felt for the step, her darkly clad, elegant
figure, then her face. It came with a shock of familiarity on its
smooth, rounded prettiness; now, however, no longer placid, but
deeply disturbed. Under it unwonted currents of feeling were
corrugating the brow and making the lips droop. Only an eye used to
note faces would have recognized it as that of the woman who had
bought the head of Clytie a few hours before.

Celia loitered, and then drew back into the shadow of the wall. The
woman was evidently in the grip of mental distress. Apprehension,
indecision, terror almost, were stamped on her mobile and childish
countenance. The man stretched his hand inside the carriage and
pulled out two valises. He spoke to her, shortly but with slightly
veiled tenderness, and with a start like a frightened animal she
drew back into the shadow. He paid the driver, and then, standing
between the bags, he drew out his pocket-book and gave her some
murmured instructions.

She suddenly interrupted him in a louder key.

“I have my ticket,” she said, “I bought it this afternoon. I passed
Cook’s, and went in and bought it.”

“You bought it yourself?” giving her a fatuously loving look from
under his hat-brim, “you were afraid we would perhaps be late? Dear
one, how thoughtful!”

“I don’t know what I thought. Oh, yes, I do. I thought if I went in
to buy it here with you I might see some one I knew. That would be
so dreadful.”

“Of course, you must not go in with me. You must wait here. Keep
back in the shadow there while I’m gone.”

“Here--take it--Oh, I’m so nervous! Take it, and get yours, and then
come back.”

She feverishly clawed off the little bag she wore on her wrist, and
thrust it into his hand. Though less obviously so, the man was also
nervous. He clutched up his valises, and put them down; then glanced
uneasily up and down the street’s dim length.

“I’ll go alone and buy mine,” he said, “and put the bags in the
compartment. I’ll be gone a few moments. You wait here, and don’t
move till I come for you.”

“Oh, of course, not. I shouldn’t dare. And please hurry. I don’t see
how I will ever be able to get in. At any moment I might meet some
one I know. Think of what that would be! I had no idea this was
going to be so terrible. It’s not easy to do wrong.”

“Do wrong?” echoed the man, in a tone of tender, though somewhat
hurried, reproof. “Don’t say such foolish things. We have a right to
happiness. Oh--er--haven’t you got a veil you could put on when you
enter the Gare? It would be better.”

A bell rang within the building, and the woman gave a suppressed
shriek.

“Oh, go--go!” she cried wildly. “Don’t stop to talk now. That may be
the train. What would happen if we missed it?”

The bell struck him into action, too, and he hurried off, swaying
between the two heavy valises.

Celia, from her station near the wall, was too smitten by the sudden
revelation before her to have will to move. So she was eloping, this
baby-cheeked creature, whose kindly impulse had prompted her to buy
the Clytie from the frost-nipped boy on the bridge. Without any
natural predisposition in that direction, she was going the way of
the Devil, and even at this stage stood aghast, bemused, and
terrified at what she had done.

The Frenchwoman moved forward into the light, and stood for a moment
watching her departing lover. Then she began to send fearful glances
up and down the street. Celia thought she could hear her breathing,
and the thumping of her heart. It was not hard to see how she had
been cajoled and overruled.

Suddenly, from the fullness of her heart her mouth spoke: “Oh, I
want to go home.” She spoke aloud, making at the same moment a
gesture of clasping her hands. Her face took on an expression as
near to resolution as possible. Its flower-soft curves stiffened.
Her lover was gone, and her hypnotized will was struggling to life.

She turned desperately toward the line of carriages and beckoned to
the _cocher_ of the nearest one, then dropped the raised hand to her
wrist, where the bag had hung. It encountered nothing, and in a
moment she remembered that her purse was with the man.

“Good God!” she said, and this time the violent Gallic ejaculation
sounded appropriate.

As the carriage rattled up, Celia came out of the shadow. She spoke
excellent French, and the Parisienne might have thought her a
fellow-countrywoman. “What is the matter?” she said, quietly. “Do
you feel sick?”

“No--no--but my money is gone. I gave my purse to my friend, and now
I want to go back.”

“But he’ll be here again in a minute.”

“That’s just it--in a minute. And I must go before he comes back,
and I have no money.”

“You can always pay the _cocher_ at the house.”

“Not now--not to-night.”

She was far past a regard for the ordinary reticences of every-day
life, but the humiliation of her admission was in her face. “My
husband--he’s there, with only one old servant. He thinks I’m in the
country with my mother. So I was till this afternoon. If I come home
unexpectedly with no money to pay the _cocher_, he will be
surprised. He will be angry. He will want to know all about it--I
can’t explain it or tell more lies. I was mad when I said I’d go. I
didn’t realize--Oh, good heavens!” with a sudden burst of agonized
incoherence, “here he is! He’s coming and that will be the end of
me.”

Celia turned. Against the bright background of the depot entrance
she saw the Frenchman’s thick-set figure coming rapidly down the
steps. He had got rid of the valises, and was almost running.

“Quick,” she said, and turning to the waiting carriage wrenched open
the door.

“Get in,” she commanded. The terrified creature did so. She was
ready to be dominated by any imperious will. Celia stretched her arm
through the window, and into the little gloved hand pressed the
two-franc piece, then cried:

“You can tell the _cocher_ the address when you get started. Don’t
stop him till you get some way off. Go,” she cried to the man, “down
by the Rue Auber--don’t waste a minute. Fly!”

The _cocher_ flicked his horse with the whip, and it started. At the
window a pale face appeared, and Celia heard the cry: “But your
name, your address? I must send the money back.”

“Never mind that,” cried Celia, “it isn’t mine. It’s conscience
money.”

The fiacre rolled down the street, and, plunging into the mêlée of
vehicles, wound its way through the press to the Rue Auber. A man
standing on the sidewalk drew the stares of the passers-by as he
gazed blankly this way and that. A woman quietly picked her way
across the _carrefour_, toward the station where one takes the
Vaugirard omnibus.




THE JACK-POT

By Charles Dwight Willard


There were five of us in the party--six, counting Long Tom, the
guide. After two days’ hard climbing, which the _burros_ endured
with exemplary fortitude, we arrived at the little valley high up in
the mountains, through which threaded the trout-stream.

“Jest you all go over into the cabin there and make yourself
comf’ble, while I ’tend to gettin’ this stuff unpacked,” said Long
Tom; “there ain’t no one there. My pardner, he’s down below.”

“The cabin appears to be two cabins,” said the colonel, as we
approached it.

“That is for economy in ridge-poles,” said the doctor; “sleeping
apartments on one side and kitchen on the other. In the space
between, you keep your fishing-tackle and worms.”

We entered the right-hand section of the twin cabin, which proved to
be the kitchen side. There was not much furniture--a table of hewn
logs, a chair of bent saplings, and a rough bench.

However, we did not notice such furniture as there was, for each
member of the party, as he stepped over the high threshold, had his
attention instantly attracted by the stove, and a brief roundelay of
ejaculations went along the group.

“Well, that staggers me,” said the stock-broker.

“H’m,” said the professor, in a mysterious tone, and rubbed his
chin.

The stove was a plain, small cooking-range, rather old and rusty.
The strange thing about it was its position. Its abbreviated legs
stood upon large cedar posts, which were planted in the floor and
were over four feet in height. This brought the stove away up in
mid-air, so that the top was about on a level with the face of the
colonel, and he was a six-footer.

We formed in a circle about the stove and stared at it as solemnly
as a group of priests around a sacrificial tripod. We felt of the
posts--they were firm and solid, showing that the mysterious
arrangement was a permanent, not a temporary, one. Then we all bent
our necks and opened our mouths to look up at the hole in the roof,
through which the stove-pipe vanished.

Suddenly the stock-broker burst out into a laugh.

“Oh, I understand it now,” said he.

“Understand what?” asked the colonel, sharply.

“Why Long Tom has his stove hoisted up so high from the floor.”

“So do I,” said the doctor; “but I suspect that my explanation is
not the same that any one else would offer.”

“Well, I will bet that I am right,” said the stock-broker, “and put
up the money.”

“I am in this,” said the judge; “I have a clear idea about that
stove and will back it.”

“Make it a jack-pot,” said the colonel; “I want to take a hand.”

The stock-broker drew a small yellow coin out of his pocket and
dropped it on the table.

“He has the stove up there,” he said, “to get a better draught. In
this rarefied mountain air there is only a small amount of oxygen to
the cubic inch, and combustion is more difficult to secure than in
the lower latitudes. I have heard that if you get high enough up,
you can’t cook an egg--that is, I mean, water won’t boil--or
something like that,” he continued, thrown into sudden confusion by
the discovery that the professor’s eye was fixed upon him with a
sarcastic gaze.

“Is that supposed to be science?” demanded the professor.

“Well,” said the stock-broker, doggedly, “never mind the reasons.
Experience is probably good enough for Long Tom. He finds that he
gets a better draught for his stove by having it up in mid-air, so
he has it there.”

“The right explanation,” began the professor, “is the simplest. My
idea is that----”

“Excuse me,” interrupted the stock-broker, tapping the table; “are
you in this pot?”

The professor made a deposit, and proceeded:

“Have you noticed that our host is a very tall man? Like most men of
his height, he hates to bend over. If the stove were near the floor,
he would have to stoop down low when he whirled a flap-jack or
speared a rasher of bacon. Now he can stand up and do it with ease.
Your draught theory is no good; the longer the pipe, if it is
straight, the better the fire will burn.”

“Professor,” remarked the colonel, “I regret to have to tell you
that your money is gone. Long Tom told me, on the way up, that his
partner did all the cooking, and he is a man of rather short
stature.” The colonel then paid his compliments to the jack-pot, and
continued: “Now, my idea is that the stove heats the room better
there than on the floor. It is only a cooking-stove, to be sure, but
when the winter is cold it makes this room comfortable. Being up in
the middle of the space, it heats it all equally well, which it
could not do if it were down below.”

The doctor greeted this theory with a loud laugh. “Colonel,” he
said, “you are wild--way off the mark. Hot air rises, of course, and
the only way to disseminate it is to have your stove as low as
possible. According to your idea, it would be a good plan to put the
furnace in the attic of a house instead of in the basement.”

“I think,” said the colonel, “that I could appreciate your argument
better if you would ante.”

“The pot is mine,” said the doctor, as he deposited his coin; “you
will all adopt my idea the moment you hear it, and Long Tom, who
will be here in a minute, will bear me out. This room is very small;
it has but little floor-space, and none of it goes to waste. Now, if
he had put the stove down where we expected to find it, Long Tom
could not have made use of the area underneath, as you see he has
done. On all sides of the supporting posts, you will notice there
are hooks, on which he hangs his pans and skillets. Underneath,
there is a kitchen-closet for pots and cooking-utensils of various
sorts. What could be more convenient? Under your ordinary stove
there is room only for a poker and a few cockroaches.”

The judge, who had been listening to the opinions offered by the
others with the same grim smile that occasionally ornamented his
face when he announced that an objection was overruled, now stepped
forward and dropped a coin on the table. He then rendered his
decision as follows:

“It appears that none of you have noticed the forest of hooks in the
roof just over the stove. They are not in use at present, but they
are there for some purpose. I imagine that during the winter huge
pieces of venison and bear’s-meat dangle over the stove, and are
dried for use later. Now, if the stove were on the floor, it would
be too far from the roof to be of service in this way.”

“Here comes old Tom,” shouted the colonel, who had stepped to the
open door while the judge was speaking.

The old trapper put down the various articles of baggage with which
his arms were loaded and came into the kitchen-cabin where we all
stood. He glanced at the group and then at the stilted stove in our
midst.

“I see you air all admirin’ my stove,” said he, “and I’ll bet you’ve
been a-wonderin’ why it is up so high.”

“Yes, we have,” said the professor; “how did you know it?”

“People most allus generally jest as soon as they come into the
place begin to ask me about it--that’s how I knowed.”

“Well, why is it up so high?” demanded the stock-broker impatiently,
with a side glance at the well-developed jack-pot on the table.

“The reason’s simple enough,” said Long Tom, with a grin that showed
his bicuspids; “you see we had to pack all this stuff up here from
down below on _burros_. Originally there was four j’ints of that
stove-pipe, but the cinch wasn’t drawed tight enough on the _burro_
that was carryin’’em, and two of’em slipped out and rolled down the
mountain. When we got here and found that there wasn’t but two
pieces left, I reckoned that I would have to kinder h’ist the stove
to make it fit the pipe--so I jest in an’ h’isted her. And thar she
is yet. Say, what’s all this here money on the table for?”

There was a deep silence which lasted so long that Tom ventured to
repeat his question about the money.

“It is a jack-pot,” said the doctor, sadly, “and as near as I can
make out, it belongs to you.”




THE SEATS OF JUDGMENT

By C. W. Doyle


                              I.
        That Two Eyes are Better than One in the Dark.


“Thou hast the writings of Le Toy, Wau Shun?” asked Sam Lee of his
brother-highbinder, as the latter issued from the receiving hospital
of San Francisco.

“Verily, or thou hadst heard my dogs bark within,” replied Wau Shun.

“And Lee Toy?”

“Lee Toy died babbling of wings, and of the white babe whose life he
saved from fire this day at the price of his own, and whose father
stood beside him weeping like a woman.”

“Was ever the like seen before!” exclaimed Sam Lee. “That Lee Toy,
the bravest of the brave, the keenest hatchet of our ‘tong,’ should
fail his brethren, and break his oaths, and worship the white babe
whose abduction he had undertaken--and that the babe’s father should
weep for one of our people!”

“Ay, and, what is of more importance, that Lee Toy should have given
me the writings that would have hanged us, who compassed his
passing! Eh, Sam Lee?”

“Yea, Wau Shun; and compassed also the hanging of Quong Lung--nay,
turn not so suddenly in a narrow lane, my brother, for I have but
one eye, as thou knowest, and that can not abide swift movement in
the dark on the part of a man whose life is forfeit”; and Sam Lee
drew a darkling revolver from his blouse.

With a deft movement, Wau Shun, who had the advantage of two
eyes--though they looked in different directions and were hard to
meet--threw Sam Lee’s hand up, and snatched the pistol from him.

“’Twere easy to slay thee now, Sam Lee; and ’twere profitable,
too--if only Quong Lung were out of the way.”

“Ay, if Quong Lung were only out of the way; but Quong Lung lives
and waxes fat, and Wau Shun is his slave!”

No more was said. They turned into a narrow alley near the top of
Jackson Street, Wau Shun walking in the rear. As soon as they had
entered the shadow produced by the narrowness of the lane and by its
angle to the lighted main street, there was a sharp report, and Sam
Lee fell on his face, and coughed like one who is stricken through
the lungs.

The swarms that inhabit Chinatown began to buzz. In a few minutes
the alley was crowded with curious coolies jabbering excitedly, and
in the fifth or sixth row of those who stood round Sam Lee was Wau
Shun, watching the blood that welled from the mouth of the dying man
and prevented speech.

After Wau Shun had seen the corpse of his brother-highbinder laid
out on a slab at the morgue, he treated himself to a couple of
jorums of “hot-Scotch,” and sought his den in Cum Cook Alley.

Lighting a dim candle, he proceeded to barricade himself, and to
conceal his light, by means of a coverlet that was held in its
place, on his side of the door, by iron bars that crossed and
recrossed each other.

When all was snug, he drew from an inner pocket the roll of papers
given to him by Lee Toy, which set forth the names of the several
highbinders who belonged to his “tong,” the various loppings
accomplished by their “hatchets,” and, in a special supplement, the
instigations to certain notorious crimes by their master-mind, Quong
Lung.

Lighting a brazier, he tore out his own record from the writing, and
committed it to the flames. But that which related to Quong Lung he
placed in a receptacle cunningly concealed in the threshold of the
door.

Then, extinguishing his light, he sallied forth with the rest of Lee
Toy’s confessions in his pocket, to speak with Quong Lung, who had
awaited him these many hours with patience--and wrath.


                               II.
                     The Lesser Discipline.


The dawn of Christmas Day was rosy when Wau Shun reached Quong
Lung’s store. The bells throughout the city of San Francisco were
once more frantically announcing the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem,
as Wau Shun gave the signal of “The Brethren” on Quong Lung’s
electric bell. It was answered by a deep voice that came through a
speaking-tube, the end of which was so cleverly hidden that none but
the initiated could find it: “Peace attend thy feet! What brother
needs succor?”

“Thy servant, Wau Shun.”

“Enter, Wau Shun,” and the door was opened by some mechanical
contrivance, and closed, as soon as Wau Shun had crossed the
threshold, with a snap suggestive of a steel trap. Pressing a
concealed button, Wau Shun lit an incandescent lamp that showed him
how to avoid the thread, the breaking of which would have
precipitated a hundred-weight of iron on the head of an intruder. At
the end of the passage thus illuminated was a door, to which he
applied his pass-key and entered an apartment that was a reflex of
its occupant, in whom East and West were met. The room was decorated
and furnished in accordance with the tastes of a Chinese gentleman
of high culture; but the illumination was supplied by electricity,
and a long-distance telephone, of the latest pattern, stood at the
elbow of the stout, spectacled Chinese merchant, who sat on a great
ebony chair, gravely smoking a cigar.

This was Quong Lung, the famous head of the high-binders of the See
Yups--the most powerful “tong” in San Francisco--and who owed his
bad preëminence to the fact that he was absolutely unscrupulous,
using even his devoted friends as stepping-stones to his ambitions.
Then, too, he was a “Native Son of the Golden West,” and used the
idioms and swore with the ease of a born Californian. He had
friends--old school-fellows and college chums--among the executive
of San Francisco, and, by means of his more intimate knowledge of
what was happening, he was enabled to humiliate his rivals and
punish his enemies.

“Thou hast done well, Wau Shun,” he began, “and deservest well--but
dry tongues can not speak.”

Pouring out some whisky for himself, he pushed the bottle across to
Wau Shun, who had now seated himself on the other side of the table.

“Thy servant is enriched by thy approbation, Most Powerful,” replied
Wau Shun, draining his glass after Quong Lung had drunk.

“The passing of Lee Toy by way of fire was excellently done, Wau
Shun--most excellently done. And where is Sam Lee?”

“He is aweary and sleepeth, Great Master,” answered Wau Shun, whose
squinting was suddenly accentuated.

“May his sleep refresh him! But the end of Lee Toy, as I have
already said, was surpassingly excellent, Wau Shun. I learnt by
this”--and Quong Lung pointed with his cigar to the telephone--“I
learnt by this of the firing of the house of the white devil, whose
babe Lee Toy guarded, and how Lee Toy died to save the devilkin.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” interrupted Wau Shun, chuckling softly, and helping
himself again from the bottle.

“And the writings of Lee Toy?” asked Quong Lung, after a while.

Without a word Wau Shun laid a packet on the table.

“But these pertain to Sam Lee only,” exclaimed Quong Lung, after he
had examined the roll of papers; and his nostrils dilated slightly.
“Thou hast, doubtless, others that relate to thee and to me.”

“Now, nay, All-Seeing; the packet is as Lee Toy gave it to me--so
Sam Lee will tell thee.”

“If the dead may speak,” said Quong Lung, deliberately.

The other turned toward him with amazement and horror in his looks.
It was admirably done, but it did not even attract the attention of
Quong Lung, who quietly flicked the ash from his cigar, and went on:
“And thou wast seen by two of our brethren in the crowd that
witnessed the end of Sam Lee; and ’twere easy, too, to find
witnesses who saw thee slay Sam Lee.” Then, after a pause, he went
on: “Moreover, only fools tell lies to such as me. None may sit on
that chair and lie to me--only lift not thy voice at the proof of
it, lest death come to thee suddenly!”

The next moment the horror-stricken highbinder was writhing under
the spell of an electric current, strong enough to prevent him from
relaxing his hold on the arms of his chair, which he had grasped as
he tried to spring to his feet.

After Quong Lung had disarmed his victim, he said: “Thou wilt be
here two days hence, and at the same hour, with the other writings
of Lee Toy! Two of thy brethren await thee on the street, and will
see to thy punctuality. Drink once more, Wau Shun, thou hast need.
Ho, ho!”


                            III.
               Sweet Counsel and “Black Smoke.”


“Roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mince pies, plum pudding,
cheese-straws, a choice between beer and champagne! Well, Quong
Lung, and what do you want of me, you prince of plotters?”

The speaker had all the outward and visible signs of one who was a
slave to opium; but under the influence of Quong Lung’s Christmas
dinner his eyes sparkled and his spirits rose to a high pitch.

“Nothing, nothing, Jim--at least nothing to speak of; and we won’t
speak of it until we have had a small black coffee, and--a small
black pipe. By the way,” he went on, “Miss Ah Moy and Miss Shun Sen
will come in presently with the coffee and pipes.”

Quong Lung’s guest, James Ray, was lank, and sallow, and of
uncertain age, because of his terrible vice, and his hair was
prematurely gray. He had been an electrical engineer of high promise
until he became an opium-fiend. Even his clothes betrayed his
failing, no less than his scanty and feeble beard and mustache and
his leaden complexion. He had attended the same Eastern college as
Quong Lung, and had imbued the latter with a taste for Shakespeare
and Byron and the Psalms of David; together they had graduated from
Yale; and then Quong Lung, recognizing the ability of his friend and
the possibilities of electricity in the career of a highbinder, had
introduced Ray to the fascination of opium-smoking; and so--through
the uses of adversity--he held the latter in pawn for his own
nefarious ends.

“Why all this magnificence, Quong Lung?” inquired Ray, after Ah Moy
and her colleague had brought in the coffee and the implements
pertaining to “black smoke.” “You have but to say the word, old man,
and, like Ariel, ‘I’ll put a girdle round the earth in forty
minutes.’”

Now the hiring of Ah Moy and Shun Sen to twang their _samyens_ for
the delectation of white devils, and hand them coffee and sing to
them, “came high,” for the damsels were famous in their way and in
great demand.

“This is too small a thing for you to notice, Jim,” replied Quong
Lung; “nothing is too good for my friend.”

“Why didn’t you add, ‘the earth is my lord’s and the fullness
thereof,’ and crush me with your compliments? As though I were a
damned coolie!”

There was some petulance in Ray’s voice, as he gave way to the
feeble irritability that attends the constant use of narcotics and
stimulants by all except Orientals. He rose to his elbow from the
mat on which he was smoking, and threw the pipe on its tray, like a
spoiled child. But Quong Lung took no notice of the little outbreak,
and Ah Moy put the pipe to his lips with her own fair hands and soon
coaxed him into complacency. When a look of contentment had once
more settled on his face, Ray said, deprecatingly: “It was the
‘dope’ that spoke, Quong Lung, and not I; forgive me, old man! And
now, what do you want?”

Quong Lung motioned to the girls to withdraw, and when he was alone
with Ray he said: “Jim, I shall hang unless you help me.”

“You must be in a bad fix, indeed, Quong Lung, if you depend on my
small arts to help you. Explain.”

“Certain papers implicating me are in the possession of one of my
blood-hounds, who has shown himself recalcitrant and ungrateful--the
damned dog! By means of the battery yonder, which you rigged up for
me, I frightened the brute considerably this morning, and he will be
here again two nights hence with such of the papers as his fears may
compel him to part with; but if his courage should revive, as it
may, and if he should come without the documents, I want to put him
under the stress of telling me where they are to be found, and then
I desire that he should never speak again!”

Quong Lung darted a look full of dangerous meaning at Ray.

“Why don’t you employ your regular bull-dogs to attend to this
unpleasant affair, Quong Lung?”

“Because their methods are coarse and their weapons clumsy.”

“But it is deuced risky to be an accessory before the fact in a
murder case, my friend.”

“No, no, Jim, not murder! Call it, rather, ‘the sudden death of an
unknown coolie, from unknown causes.’”

“And the consideration for me?”

“Two hundred dollars now,” said Quong Lung, laying a pile of notes
on the platform on which they were smoking, “and two hundred more
after the thing is over.”

“And if I refuse?”

Quong Lung shrugged his shoulders, and said, in an indifferent tone
of voice: “Life without opium, and without means of obtaining it,
were hell, as you know. Besides, so many accidents are constantly
happening in Chinatown.”

“Very well,” replied the other, rising languidly to his feet and
thrusting the notes into his pocket; “very well. You must let me
have entire possession of this room for the next two days, and
provide such assistance and implements as I may require.”

As he was leaving the room he stopped to smell a tuberose that stood
on a bamboo flower-stand. The passing act seemed to give him an
idea, for he turned suddenly to Quong Lung, saying: “See to it,
Quong Lung, that you provide plenty of punk-sticks for the eventful
night. You will need them, I am thinking. And be good to this green
brother,” pointing to the tuberose.


                              IV.
                Concerning Cherries and Tuberoses.


An hour before the time set for the arrival of Wau Shun, Ray called
Quong Lung into the room wherein he had labored almost incessantly
during the past two days.

“All’s done,” he said, “save only the payment of my dues.”

“Proceed,” returned Quong Lung, laying ten double eagles on the
table and seating himself on his favorite ebony chair.

Ray eyed him curiously while he pocketed the money, and the
Chinaman, who seemed to notice everything, rose quickly from the
chair and said, with a smile:

    “‘How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds,
    Makes ill deeds done!’

Eh Jim? Now show me your trick.”

“Should somebody you dislike sit on the chair you have just left,
Quong Lung, pressure on this button”--pointing to an
innocent-looking cherry painted on a panel that hung on the
wall--“would connect the chair with the electric-light wires that
pass over your house, and make your objectionable guest the
recipient of--say, three thousand volts.”

“And then?”

“And then--slightly altering the words of your favorite poet, to
describe the result--‘his heart would once heave, and forever stand
still’; and nobody would know how your highbinder died.”

As Ray left the room, he was again attracted to the tuberose. After
smelling it, he turned round and called to Quong Lung, saying: “But
you will not leave this innocent in the room, Quong Lung; its odor
would be ruined by the punks you will burn, and by other savors.”

Then gravely saluting Quong Lung, James Ray left the Chinaman’s
house, and made his way to the office of the chief of police of San
Francisco, for even a dope-fiend has a fragmentary conscience.


                              V.
                    The Greater Discipline.


While Ray told his story to the chief of police, with all the
circumstances and detail that would exonerate him and implicate
Quong Lung, the latter met Wau Shun at his outer door, and, holding
him by the hand, escorted him to his chamber, which was dim with the
smoke of many burning punks, the odor of which filled the air.

“Those who are true to me, Wau Shun, will always find that my ‘ways
are ways of pleasantness, and all my paths are peace,’” said Quong
Lung, softly, misquoting the Psalmist.

“Thy house, Far Reacher, is the well-known dwelling of pleasantness
and peace.”

When Quong Lung would have seated Wau Shun on the chair of which the
highbinder had such a lively recollection, the coolie shook his
head, saying: “Nay, who is thy slave that he should sit in the
presence of the Most Powerful. The ground thou treadest is good
enough for him.” And Wau Shun squatted on the floor before his
chief.

“There is no harm in the chair, Wau Shun,” said Quong Lung, seating
himself on it carelessly, “no harm unless, indeed, the sitter tells
lies or have deceit in his heart.” Then, after a pause, he went on:
“The writings of Lee Toy--thou hast brought them?”

“Of a surety,” replied Wau Shun, producing a packet of papers from
his blouse.

After Quong Lung had looked through them, and satisfied himself that
they were authentic and complete, he said: “Wau Shun, the white
devils say that virtue is its own reward; but that would be poor
reward for such virtuous actions as thine. Thou shalt drink with me
first, and then expound to me how I may lighten the burden of
obligations thou hast laid on me.”

He went to the table, and pouring out two glasses of spirits, he
advanced with them on a tray to the squatting coolie.

After they had drunk, Quong Lung resumed his seat, and lighting a
cigar, he said: “It is not meet that he who hath saved my life this
day should crouch on the ground like a dog. Let Wau Shun take my own
particular chair, whereon none have sat save those I would
honor--nay, I insist”; and Quong Lung pointed to the great chair of
ebony, broad enough to accommodate two men such as himself. It was
adorned with a shield of bronze, richly carved and inlaid, that
formed its back; and it stood on a dais of burnished copper, and
might have been the throne of an Oriental potentate; and behind it
was a mirror which reflected the exquisite carving on its back.

When Wau Shun, after much protestation, had ensconced himself in a
corner of the great chair, Quong Lung once more filled the glasses,
and again they drank in silence.

“And now, Wau Shun, though I can not weigh my gold against thy
services to me, yet, I pray thee, name some reward that will not put
me to shame to bestow on thee.”

“Will the payment of fifty dollars afflict thee, my lord?”

“Nay, Wau Shun, that is the due of but a part of thy merits--the
slaying of Sam Lee, for instance. Here is more for thy other many
good deeds,” and Quong Lung tossed on the table a heavy bag that
chinked opulently. “Moreover,” he continued, “now that Lee Toy, our
keenest hatchet, is dead, some worthy successor to him must be
found, and who so worthy as Wau Shun, the slayer of the uncommon
slain, Lee Toy?”

“Further, Instigator,” interrupted Wau Shun, squinting atrociously,
for the liquor had begun to mount to his head; “further, it seems to
me that if anything happened to thee--which God forbid!--_I_ might
be found worthy to sit in this thy chair by reason of thy
recommendation, and--my worthiness.”

“Of course, of course,” said Quong Lung, looking at the point of his
cigar and crossing his knees. “The See Yups have need of strong men,
and who so strong as Wau Shun! Drink once more to thy worthiness.”

After they had disposed of the liquor and smoked awhile, Wau Shun
said, familiarly and half-insolently: “Quong Lung, thou owest me
reparation for thy insults of two nights ago; and seeing thou art
seated on the chair of humiliation” (here Wau Shun lapsed into
impudent vernacular), “you must needs do as I say or be twisted out
of shape.”

“What!” exclaimed Quong Lung, putting one hand carelessly behind his
head and resting the other against the adjacent wall, whereon was a
painted panel that glowed with cherries--“what! wouldst thou plague
me?”

“Nay, but I would discipline you,” said Wau Shun, thickly; “I would
discipline you with cramps, if need were.”

“And cramps only?” asked Quong Lung, toying with the flower-painted
panel. “’Twere dangerous to play with me so lightly. Cramps can not
touch me and are for fools alone.”

“Then I would kill you otherwise, smooth, fat hog!”

“Have at thee, Wau Shun!” exclaimed Quong Lung, fiercely, pressing
the fatal cherry; and Wau Shun, sitting in the corner of the
gorgeous chair, stiffened into a frightful attitude, and then began
writhing dreadfully. To the heavy, punk-laden atmosphere of the room
was added an odor of burning flesh.

Quong Lung rose from his seat and crossed the room to where his
victim was being electrocuted. “Ho, ho, ho!” he laughed softly;
“excellent Jim, most excellent Jim!”

As he watched the grim murder enacting before him, he saw, reflected
in the mirror behind the chair of doom, the door that led into the
room slowly open, and James Ray and a detective well known to Quong
Lung entered swiftly.

“Throw up your hands, Quong Lung!” commanded the officer, as he
covered the Chinaman with his pistol.

Taken in the midst of his crime, Quong Lung started and, backing
against the fatal chair, he fell on the seat beside his victim, with
a yell, as the tremendous current shot through him, killing him
instantly.

“Turn off the current, Ray. For God’s sake, be quick!” shouted the
officer, as the bodies writhed and twisted on the chair of death.

“Yes, yes,” came the leisurely reply, as Ray took the tuberose from
the flower-stand; “there will be plenty of time after I have removed
this sweet tenderling from this horrible atmosphere.”




A DOUBLE SHOT

By Stewart Edward White


Pat McCann came up from the plains into the hills in a bad humor
with himself and the world. He had tried to be a cow-puncher and had
been promptly bucked off; he had tackled the cooking problem and
only escaped mobbing by resigning his job; now he had dragged his
little, squab form, with its hanging arms, up into the hills to try
mining. He applied to the first camp he came to. King, the foreman,
gave him a job.

Early the next morning he and another man walked down the gulch
through the sarvis bushes for half a mile, turned abruptly to the
right, climbed the uneven length of a zigzag trail, and at last
halted near the top of a ridge. The pine trees, slim and tall, grew
out of the unevenly carpeted ground, through which cropped irregular
slices of a red-brown, crumbling rock. At the very crest was a
dark-gray “dike” of quartzite, standing up steep and castellated for
a height of thirty feet or more. This was the “hanging wall” of the
prospective mine. Down through the trees were glimpses of vast,
breathless descents to other ridges and other pines far below. Over
the dike was nothing but the blue sky.

The two men had stopped within a hundred feet of the top. The old
hand went over to a rough lean-to of small trees covering a rude
forge, from beneath which he drew several steel drills of various
lengths and a sledge-hammer, which he carried to a scar in the face
of a huge outcropping rock. After dumping these he returned and got
a can of water and a long T-shaped implement of iron. The two men
then set to work.

McCann held firmly while the other struck. After each blow he would
half-turn the drill. When a dozen strokes had been given, he poured
a little water in the hole, and thrust the drill through a bit of
sacking to keep it from splashing. The other man jammed his hat down
closely over his forehead and struck fiercely, alternately breathing
in and grunting in rhythmical succession. When the hole became
clogged with fine, gray mud, McCann carefully spooned it out with
the T-shaped instrument, wiping the latter each time on his
trousers. While he did this his companion leaned on his sledge or
threw chunks of rock, with wonderful accuracy, at the squirrels that
ran continually back and forth on the ridge. As the hole grew
deeper, longer drills were used, until at last the longest of all
left barely enough above the surface of the rock to afford a
hand-hold. With that the miner expressed himself satisfied. He then
brought three cylindrical packages wrapped in greasy paper.

“What’s them?” McCann inquired.

The miner grunted contemptuously.

“Hercules powder,” he replied. He pronounced the proper name in two
syllables.

With a sharp knife he cut these into lengths of about three inches
each, and dropped them one by one into the hole in the rock. He then
rammed them home with a hickory ramrod, just as all old miners will
insist on doing. Because of this a large percentage of old miners
have no fore and middle fingers on their right hands. The last piece
he split, inserted in the crack a bit of fuse, on the end of which
was a copper cap, dropped it in, and then carefully chinked-in with
the wet grit which had been spooned out of the hole.

“Mosey for cover, Irish!” he said, and touched it off.

From behind his tree McCann saw the sputtering fuse disappear. The
next instant the rock seemed to bulge, splitting in radiation as it
did so, and then the smoke belched forth in a canopy, filled with
fragments of quartz. Following the miner, he found a jagged opening
in the rock. Then they sharpened their drills at the forge and went
at it again. By night they had fired two more blasts, and had made a
start toward a shaft. After the third, Bob, the miner, said,
glancing at the West: “That’ll do, Irish.”

They _caçhed_ the tools, caught up the water-bucket, and swung
rapidly down the trail. Bob was ahead, slouching along with the
mountaineer’s peculiar gait, which seems so lazy, and yet which gets
over the ground so fast. In a very few moments he reached the gulch
below, plunging from the bare, rock-strewn hillside under the pines
to the lush grasses and cool saplings of the cañon bed, as from a
desert to a garden. He looked around to say something. McCann was
gone.

“Well, I’m damned!” he ejaculated, and yelled loudly.

After a moment’s pause, from far down the opposite slope came a
faint whoop. Bob sat down on a fallen tree, and waited
philosophically, shouting at intervals. In a little while the
Irishman came charging frantically up the gulch, tearing along
through the vines and bushes at full speed, so terrified that he
passed within ten feet of Bob without seeing him. The latter watched
him surge by with an odd little twinkle in his eye. Then suddenly he
shouted again. Pat slowed up, looked about for a moment vacantly,
and then his rugged Hibernian face broke into a multitude of jolly
wrinkles.

“Arrah, it’s yerself, darlin,” he said; “Oi thought it’s Pat McCann
as is goin’ t’ slape wid th’ mountain lines this night!”

“You stick t’ me,” was Bob’s only comment.

After a short climb the men reached the camp on a knoll overlooking
two confluent gulches. There was the superintendent’s office, the
cook-house, the bunkhouse, the blacksmith’s shop, the stables, and
the corral--all of logs. Supper was served at sundown. The men filed
in, took off their coats, and sat down without a word. As each one
finished eating, he arose, put on his coat again, and sauntered
outside, filling his pipe as he went. Finally the whole gang was
gathered at the bunk-house, smoking, telling laconic stories, or
playing cribbage--the great American game in the mountains.

As the last comer, Pat was told to water the horses. He went boldly
into the corral with a rope, and was kicked flat. The boys
straightened him out, and, after he had regained his breath, gave
two of the horses’ halters into his hands. Except in the main cañons
of the Black Hills there is no surface water, the creeks all running
down along the bed-rock. As a consequence, wells are necessary even
in the upper hills. Pat first let a horse get loose, then he lost
the bucket down the well, then he fell in himself in trying to fish
it out. The boys fished him out with some interest. So manifestly
inadequate an individual it had not been their fortune to meet
before, and they looked on him as a curiosity. On the spot they
adopted Pat McCann much as they would have adopted a stray kitten or
puppy, and doubtless in somewhat the same amused, tolerant state of
mind.

The next morning Bob and Pat cleared away the _débris_ of the three
blasts, wrenching off the broken, adhering bits with a pick, and
shoveling them out. King came up with an axe-gang and built a rough,
square breastwork of logs down the hill, to catch the quartz as in a
bin. They also squared a number of timbers, and tongued the ends.
These were to timber the shaft.

All this interested the little Irishman. He recovered his spirits,
and his Old World blarney came back to him. The clear, fresh air of
the hills, the abundant food, the hard work, the sound sleep, the
reaction against the taciturnity of the men, and the calm grandeur
of the mountains, filled him with animal spirits. He imagined he had
found his vocation at last. He wanted to do everything. In time he
learned to strike with the sledge, although it was only after long
practice on a stake that he could induce any one to “hold” for him;
he sharpened drills--after a fashion; he even helped in the
timbering-up. The only thing lacking was the “shooting” of the
charges. He had an ambition to touch the thing off. This King
roughly forbade.

“That fly-away fool to risk his neck that way?” he said; “I guess
not! He don’t know enough now to make his head ache. When I want a
wild Irishman too dead to skin, I’ll let you know. I don’t want that
man to have the first thing to do with the powder. Understand that!”

What King said went in that camp. Besides, the men knew him to be in
the right. Pat was the unluckiest man alive, and the most awkward.
He was sure to be in any trouble there was about--in fact, as Jack
Williams said, he was a sort of lightning-rod for the whole camp in
the way of trouble; every one else was sure of exemption, if there
was only one man’s share of difficulty dealt out. So McCann pleaded
in vain.

This went to his heart. He would have given his black-thorn
shillalah from Dublin to have been looked upon as a full-fledged
miner. He used to put on all the airs of one in Sweetwater when he
went down there once a week, swaggering about in copper-riveted
jeans, with his hat on one side, conversing learnedly though vaguely
on “blow-outs,” “horses,” “foot-walls,” and other technicalities,
hauling out of his pockets yellow-flecked bits of quartz--in short,
“putting on dog” to an amazing extent. But as he turned past the
stamp-mill of the Great Snake and began to scale the heart-breaking
trail that led to the top of the ridge, his crest began to fall. As
he followed the narrow, level summit for the three miles of its
length, standing as it were in the very blueness of the air, his
spirits began to evaporate. When he took the shorter and gentler
descent to the camp, the old conviction had returned with sickening
force. He was not a miner. He had never “shot.” He used all his
persuasive powers in vain. For one thing, the men were afraid to
disobey King. For another, they liked Pat, and, having a firm faith
in his “hoodoo,” were convinced that his “shooting” and sudden death
would be synonymous terms. So Pat abandoned persuasion and tried
craft.

The old shaft on which he and Bob had first begun work had been
carried down fifty feet. Appropriate cross-cuts and drifts had been
made to exploit the lead. It was now abandoned. Bob and Pat were put
to work at another spot in the same lead a little farther along the
ridge. The place marked out for the first blast was between two huge
bowlders, or rather between the two rounded cheeks of one bowlder.
The passage between them was perhaps five or six feet wide. One end
led out in a gradual descent to the broad, open park of the ridge
top, the other dropped off abruptly three or four feet to another
level place. Around the corner of the first the miners kept their
tools and forge; down the second they planned to drop when the blast
was fired; and there they had built a little fire, it being, on that
particular day, in the lee of the rock.

The hole had been all drilled before Bob discovered that he had
forgotten to bring any powder; so, cursing, he started down the
passage to get some from the sheet-iron powder-house in the draw.
Hardly was he out of sight before McCann, chuckling softly to
himself, pulled from under a shelving bit of rock the missing
powder. With this he loaded the hole; he arranged the fuse, and then
dropped down the ledge to get a brand from the fire. It was nearly
out, so it took a few moments to start a torch. However, he was in
no hurry, as it was some little distance to the powder-house, and
Bob could not possibly return inside of half an hour. At last he
coaxed a bit of pine into a glow, and turned to climb back. A
startling sight met his eyes.

When Bob went to get the powder he stopped at the forge for the
water-pail. As he stooped to pick it up, something struck him a
sudden blow in the thigh that knocked him over and set the blood
flowing--he said afterward he thought the bone was broken. When he
could see, he looked about to find what had hit him, and discovered
not ten feet away the long, tawny body of a puma.

The great cat lay watching him through half-shut eyes, lazily
switching its tail back and forth. From the depths of its throat
came a deep rumbling purr. He tried to rise, but could not. Then he
turned over on his left side and started to crawl painfully through
the passageway of the rocks. The beast opened its eyes and followed
stealthily, step after step, still switching its tail, and still
purring. It was in a sportive mood, and played with its prey, as a
cat plays with a mouse. Inch by inch the man pulled himself along,
leaving a trail of blood. At last, within a few feet of the ledge,
he stopped; he could go no further. The puma, too, paused.

At this moment Pat McCann, a blazing pine-brand in his hand, looked
over the ledge. Bob saw him and faintly warned him back. The puma
saw him too. The purring ceased, and the lithe muscles tightened
under the skin. The game was over. The animal was preparing to make
its spring.

It did not occur to the little Irishman’s fighting soul to retreat.
His comical features stiffened; his little blue eyes fairly snapped.
Slowly he drew himself up on the ledge, keeping his eye fixed on the
puma, until he stood erect, then he shifted his brand mechanically
into his left hand, and drew his sheath-knife. He did not know that
the fire was his best weapon, and Bob was too weak to tell him. The
brand, held point downward, began to blaze. The puma’s great eyes
shifted uneasily at this, and its muscles relaxed. It was evidently
discomposed. Pat did not await the attack, but stepped forward,
holding his knife firmly.

When within a few feet of the animal, Pat hesitated and stopped. His
nerve was still unshaken, but he did not know how to begin. The puma
still sniffed uneasily at the blaze, but had recovered from its
first fear, and was again gathering its powers for a spring. For a
moment there was absolute silence, and Pat heard through the still
air the sharp chatter of a squirrel and the clank of the ore-team’s
whiffle-trees from the ore road far below. While he stood thus
uncertain, the fire from the pine, having run up along the torch,
began to burn Pat’s fingers. Without moving his head or shifting his
eyes, he dropped it gently--plumb upon the fuse he had so carefully
arranged a few moments before. Then he took a step backward to avoid
the smoke. There was a splutter and a flash, then a sudden roar. The
man and the beast were hurled violently in opposite directions, and
a volcano of rock shot high in the air and showered down again.

The axe-gang found the puma very dead and Pat very hard to revive.
The whisky-and-water method brought him around at last. He looked
hazily about him in evident bewilderment until his eye caught sight
of the dead animal, and then his face lighted up with eager joy.

“Glory to God, Oi’m a miner!” he shouted. “Oi’ve ‘shot’ at last!”




TEN THOUSAND YEARS IN ICE

By Robert Duncan Milne


While lounging listlessly along the sea-wall one afternoon about the
beginning of August last--the eighth, I think it was--enjoying the
sunshine and inhaling the sea-breeze, my attention was attracted to
an unusual bustle and commotion on the quay of Section Two. I could
see from where I was that considerable exertions were being made to
transfer some heavy object from a vessel moored alongside the quay
to the quay itself. As I got nearer I discovered by the name on the
stern that the vessel was the whaling-bark _Marion_, and that the
object which the crew, assisted by a number of longshoremen, were
making such efforts to get on shore was an immense rectangular
block, measuring some nine feet in length by about four in breadth
and thickness. Had it been a block of granite, the men could not
have worked harder, prying it with rollers and levers along a
gangway made of a dozen or so of stout planks laid abreast from the
ship’s deck to the quay. As, however, this object, whatever it was,
was swathed and enveloped with a plentiful supply of sacking, I
could form no opinion as to its nature.

While standing abstractedly by, looking on and speculating as to
what this very heavy object might be, and wondering what it could be
doing aboard a whaler, I was tapped gently on the shoulder by
somebody, and, looking round, my eyes rested on a heavily bearded
and bronzed individual in pea-jacket and rough trousers, with a
laughing eye, who said, cheerily: “What! don’t you know me?”

I was certain I had never seen the man before, though something in
the voice sounded familiar. My doubts, however, were speedily set at
rest by this individual exclaiming: “Don’t you recollect Joe
Burnham? Has a year made such a difference? If so, I’m glad of it.
You couldn’t have paid me a better compliment.”

“Can it be possible?” I said, in surprise, as I grasped his hand;
“why, Joe, who would have expected to meet you coming off a whaler?
And with a heavy beard, too!”

“Why, I thought you knew all about it,” he returned, with equal
surprise; “just wait a minute,” he added, as he turned to give some
directions to the men who had now got the heavy object safe on
shore, and were proceeding to hoist it upon a dray.

While he was thus engaged, I recalled some circumstances which
served to explain the unexpected and original appearance of my
friend.

Joe Burnham, the son of the well-known millionaire mining-man, had,
I knew, been recommended to go abroad for change of air about a year
before, owing to failing health arising from too intense application
to study. This, however, was all I knew, and I had no idea that he
had concluded to take his change of air aboard a whaler. But knowing
his taste for scientific pursuits of any and every character, I can
not say that I was very much surprised to meet him again as I had
just done. At any rate, the trip had certainly been most beneficial,
as he had changed from a sickly and rather delicate student to a
hale, hearty, and robust man.

“Yes,” he remarked, as he came back from the dray, which was now
moving slowly off, the four sturdy horses which drew it evidently
straining under the weight with which it was loaded, “my doctor
prescribed absolute freedom from brain-work of any kind. He shook
his head when I suggested Europe. There was too much, he said, to be
seen in Asia, or, in fact, in any other quarter of the globe, to
insure the perfect repose he thought necessary. Even a prolonged
yachting excursion did not meet his views. That, he said, would be
worse than anything else. Its very monotony and loneliness would
drive me to cogitation. The sea part of it, he admitted, was
capital. If a sea voyage could be combined with excitement and
something to do--but would I work? Then some lucky inspiration
seemed to flash across my mind, and I asked him if there were any
objections to a whaling trip. ‘The very thing,’ he said; ‘you have
plenty of money and can go more as a passenger than as a sailor. You
won’t have much time to study on board _that_ kind of a vessel, and
I’ll risk all the chances you get to indulge in the study of the
flora and fauna of the Arctic.’ And now you see how it is that I
happen to be disembarking at the present moment from the stanch bark
_Marion_.”

“You seem to have got plenty of baggage, anyhow,” I returned,
motioning toward the dray, which was now fast retreating in the
direction of the city; “your share of the blubber, perhaps,” I
added, banteringly; “or maybe specimens of the flora and fauna of
the Arctic, which your doctor cautioned you against.”

“Partly right and partly wrong,” said Burnham, sententiously and
somewhat seriously; “you may have got nearer the truth about that
queer parcel than you think. But this is no time or place to speak
about it. Come up to the house to-morrow forenoon, if you have time,
and I will show you something that will astonish you. I particularly
wish you to come,” he added, with emphasis; “you will be amply
repaid for doing so by what you will see. Meantime, I have something
more to arrange on board this vessel.” So saying, he crossed the
gangway and disappeared.

Next morning about ten, in accordance with my friend’s invitation, I
ascended the steps of the Burnham mansion, rang the bell, and sent
in my card. I was evidently expected, as the servant requested me to
follow him, and led the way downstairs. There, in a small court-yard
sacred to himself, and in which, together with two apartments
opening thereon, my friend conducted his experiments, I found him in
his shirt-sleeves, superintending the disposition of the ponderous
mass which had excited my curiosity the day before on the sea-wall.
The workmen had just succeeded in hoisting it on to a strong and
massive trestle-work, some three feet from the ground, and upon this
the nondescript, oblong package, swathed with sacking and bound with
ropes, now rested.

“There!” said Burnham, as he settled with the men and turned the key
of the door leading into the ordinary court-yard of the house; “the
most laborious part of the job is over. It was no easy matter
getting the package up here. But now, as publicity at this stage
must on every consideration be avoided, I must ask you to stand
ready to lend me a hand when necessary. Better leave your coat in
the laboratory or in the studio--which you please--you can suit
yourself.”

The “laboratory” and the “studio” were the respective names of the
two rooms opening onto the court-yard where we were now standing,
which was itself separated, as I have said, from the main court-yard
of the building by a tolerably high wall, opposite which were the
entrances and windows of the rooms aforesaid, which had been
originally intended for outhouses of some sort. The other two sides
of this little court-yard were blind-walls of the house itself.
Certainly, if secrecy were the requisite aimed at in my friend’s
enterprise, whatever it might be, a happier place could not have
been chosen. The “laboratory” and the “studio,” while each opened on
the court, and while there was also intercommunication between the
rooms, differed greatly in interior arrangement, as well as in the
uses to which they were put. The laboratory was fitted up with
benches, tables, and shelves, littered with chemical, optical,
electrical, and photographic apparatus, zoölogical and botanical
specimens, _et hoc genus omne_; a perfect scientific chaos, in
short, without a semblance of law and order. The studio, on the
other hand, was richly and luxuriously furnished and kept in
scrupulous order by Burnham’s own valet, who, I noticed, however,
was not there at this time.

Passing into the laboratory first, I noticed that a trestle-work
similar to that in the court-yard stood in the centre of the floor,
and that it was surmounted by a shallow pan of zinc, fitted at one
end with a waste-pipe, like that of a bath-tub, leading to the
gutter of the court. I was still further surprised to note, when I
passed on into the studio, that the centre of that chamber also
contained what might be termed a supplement to the trestle-work, in
that the furniture had been moved to one side to make room for an
improvised table on which rested an ordinary mattress. In addition
to this a bureau-bed had been unfolded and set in readiness at one
of the walls, while a blazing fire burned in the grate, although the
day was anything but cold. Before I had time to speculate upon the
meaning of all these mysterious preparations, I heard Burnham
calling, so throwing my coat on a settee I hastened to join him. I
found him engaged in firing up a small portable steam-engine that
stood in one corner of the yard, and in affixing to the exhaust-pipe
of the cylinder another pipe, several feet in length, with a movable
arm, evidently for the purpose of ejecting steam in any desired
direction.

“Now,” he said, as he completed the connection, “while the boiler is
getting up steam, you and I must get to work and uncover our
package. I expected Dr. Dunne here before this, but doctors, you
know, are always entitled to latitude in non-professional matters.”

So saying, he took a knife and began to cut away the ropes from the
package, I following his example. Then we removed layer after layer
of sacking, the air growing, I thought, all the time sensibly
colder, till upon removing the last of the sack-cloth--we could not,
of course, remove the wrapping on which the weight rested, but
merely contented ourselves with ripping the top open and letting it
fall on either side--what was my surprise to see before me an
immense oblong block of blue, pellucid ice. But who shall express my
feelings when, a moment after, I discerned _imbedded in the heart of
the transparent crystal the form of a man_.

But let me describe what I saw. There, lying on its back in the
middle of the frozen slab, was unmistakably the body of a man, but
so wonderfully life-like in every detail that it was as difficult to
believe that the man was dead as it was to conceive how he had come
into his present position. The eyes were dark and wide open, and
whether or not it was due to some peculiar refracting qualities of
the medium through which they were observed, they did not look
glassy or seem to have lost their lustre. The short, thick, curly
black locks that clustered about the forehead, and the closely
trimmed beard that fringed the cheeks, looked as natural as they
could have done in the heyday of life. But just as inexplicable was
the dress. It was composed of some light material such as is worn in
hot climates, and had more in common with the ancient Greek chlamys,
or the Arab burnous, than with any other type of dress that I
recall. Such colors as it had were tasteful and resplendent, and had
lost none of their original freshness. The feet were shod with
sandals, and a gemmed ring still sparkled upon one of the fingers of
the right hand. It was the face and figure of a handsome man of
thirty, or thereabouts, and the whole posture was so indicative of
repose as to indicate that, whoever he might be, he had met his end
calmly and without pain.

I turned mechanically toward Burnham and saw that he was watching my
surprise and smiling.

“Well, what do you think of my package,” he asked; “was it worth the
trouble of bringing it here from the Arctic circle?”

“I must congratulate you on your specimen,” I returned; “it will
certainly be a great acquisition to our scientific men and
antiquaries. But how are you going to preserve it? Won’t you find it
rather a difficult matter to keep the ice in a state of
congelation--and expensive, too, I should think?”

“That is not my intention,” he replied; “I mean to thaw him out.”

“And then?” I queried.

“Resuscitate him.”

I looked at my friend to see if he were not joking, but could detect
no sign of mirth about his face.

“Why not?” he said; “that man in the ice there is as organically
perfect as you or I are. No fibre or atom of his organism has
undergone any change since he came into the condition he is now in.
Say that he met his death--if indeed he is dead--by drowning, and
the water he was drowned in was subsequently frozen, he is no worse
off at this moment, even though he has been lying where he is
thousands of years, than the man who was drowned five minutes ago.
And I hold, and my friend Dr. Dunne agrees with me----”

Dr. Dunne, one of the most scientific physicians and surgeons in the
city, as is well known, entered the court-yard at that moment, after
giving a secret knock, and apologized for his tardiness.

“My friend, Dr. Dunne, I say, agrees with me, that our treatment of
drowned, or so-called drowned, men is all wrong, and that they can
be resuscitated hours after death has apparently supervened, if the
proper measures are taken. Drowning is simply a case of arrested
function, that is all. Provided the organism is sound, why should it
not be made to perform its functions again? Does a temporary
stoppage ruin a watch if the works are all right? If so, what are
doctors and watch-makers for, I should like to know? Is it not so,
doctor?”

“At all events we can try,” rejoined the doctor, impressively; “I am
heartily glad of such a favorable, such an ultra-favorable,
opportunity, I should say, of testing the efficacy of my treatment
of drowned men upon so promising a subject.”

“But what about the freezing, doctor?” I ventured to remark, for the
coolness with which the whole subject was treated reminded me
painfully of my own deficiencies of scientific lore and rendered me
proportionately modest. “I have always understood that frozen limbs
are as good as dead, and that amputation alone can save the life of
the rest of the organism in such a case. It seems to me that when
the whole body is frozen, so much the worse.”

“So much the better,” returned the doctor, warmly; “it is much
easier to work where the conditions are homogeneous.”

By this time the steam escaping from the safety-valve of the
portable engine showed that the pressure was considerable, and
Burnham, who had previously shifted the slide-valve so that the
steam would pass straight into the exhaust, now wheeled the engine
opposite the block of ice, pointed the lateral pipe, which he had
connected with the exhaust, and which he manipulated on its joint by
means of a fork, toward the side of the block, turned the
globe-valve and let the jet of blue vapor play upon the ice. The
court-yard was soon thick with clouds of steam, but the huge
ice-block kept dwindling away as the steam was directed upon one
point or the other, by wheeling the engine round it, till in less
than half an hour the court-yard was little better than a puddle and
nothing remained of the ice-block but a crystal envelope, a few
inches thick, around the inclosed body, so deftly and skillfully had
Burnham directed the steam-jet upon all portions alike.

“We shall now have to exercise more care,” he remarked; “the
remaining ice must be removed in a more gentle manner. Help me to
carry the body into the laboratory.”

So saying, we all lent a hand and transferred the ice-bound body to
the zinc tray upon the trestles in the laboratory, in which a
roaring stove-fire had previously been lit, and the temperature of
which, when the doors were shut, was like that of a Turkish bath.

“There!” ejaculated Burnham, who, though in his shirt-sleeves, was
perspiring freely and panting after his work; “so far, so good. Let
us go into the studio and sit down and rest while _our guest_”--I
was struck with the quaintness of the epithet as applied to the
corpse in the next room, as also with the emphasis Burnham gave
it--“sheds the remnant of the crystal mantle he has worn for who
shall say how many thousand years. It will take at least half an
hour before he is completely thawed out, and meanwhile, if you like,
I will tell you how I managed to run across him in the Far North.”

We were all curious to know, so Burnham gave the following details:

“After leaving San Francisco in March, last year, we sailed North
with the intention of reaching Behring Sea by the time the ice broke
up, hoping to do well enough with whales and seals to return before
the season closed. I had, of course, made my arrangements with the
captain, going as a volunteer, to do duty or not as I pleased, and
living in the cabin. We had the usual adventures which are part and
parcel of a whaler’s experience, and which I will not bother you
with, as they are not germane to the question, and I found my health
improving wonderfully under the influence of the fresh air,
exercise, and excitement.

“By June we had passed Behring Straits and then cruised for a good
many weeks in the open sea beyond; but our luck was bad, and, owing
to trying to better it before we left, we waited too long; worse
than that, we were caught by a storm which blew us nearly due north
for several days to a point some hundred miles east of Banks’s Land
and the Parry Isles; and before we knew where we were, we found
ourselves shut in by the ice, luckily in the lee of some bluffs,
forming part of a small island only a few square miles in extent, to
which circumstance alone we could attribute the escape of our vessel
from being crushed by the ice-pack. Subsequent observations showed
that we were in longitude 162 degrees W. and about latitude 76
degrees N.--a point, by the way, rarely reached by navigators even
under the most exceptionally favorable circumstances. There was
nothing for it, however, but to make the best of a bad job and
prepare to winter it out with the best grace we could. Luckily we
had plenty of provisions--I had looked after the matter of
commissariat, personally, before embarking--and I think I may safely
say that few whalers ever wintered in the Arctic circle better
equipped in that respect than we were.

“As you can readily imagine, the life of a ship’s crew, ice-bound,
during the long, dark, northern winter is not an enviable one.
Suffice it to say that we got through it with probably less than the
ordinary amount of hardship, and were very glad to catch a glimpse
of the sun about the beginning of April, as it looked like a sign of
release, though the captain did not think the ice would break up for
at least six weeks longer. There was now some pleasure in rambling,
as there were a few hours of sunlight to do it by, and I used to
make the most of it, as one might get an occasional pop at a seal or
otter, and not unfrequently the captain--we were by this time great
chums--would accompany me.

“One day in May we were tramping along, gun in hand, over the
ice-fields, going over some new ground to the east of the ship, when
we came upon a patch of remarkably clear and transparent ice, about
a mile from the vessel. This was the more peculiar as the generality
of the ice in our neighborhood was rough, jagged, opaque, and
usually coated with snow. Looking down casually as we were crossing
this patch, my eye was arrested by the curious spectacle of the body
of a man embedded in the ice, some sixteen or eighteen feet below
the surface. I called the captain’s attention to the phenomenon,
and, getting down on our hands and knees, we spent a good while in
examining the strange object as well as we could, and speculating
upon how it could have got there. What puzzled us most was the white
clothing upon the body, the captain’s theory being that it was the
corpse of some officer of consequence, belonging, perhaps, to some
government expedition, whose shroud had burst its canvas casing
after being consigned to the deep, and which had afterward drifted
there with the currents and frozen fast. I, however, whose eyes were
keener, could see that the dress upon the body was no shroud, and
that the features, instead of being livid, bloated, and swollen,
like those of a corpse that had been some time in the water, were
clear-cut, fresh, and untouched by decay. I became anxious to obtain
a nearer view of this strange discovery, and at length prevailed
upon the captain to let me have the use of half a dozen of the crew
to dig down through the ice till I could satisfy my curiosity
regarding it. Accordingly, next morning we set to work with pick and
shovel to sink a shaft in the ice, and it was only the work of an
hour or two before we were within two feet of the body.

“At this distance I renewed my examination and became the more and
more impressed and mystified as I did so. But my astonishment was
still further increased when, upon gazing downward through the
pellucid depths below, I saw, or thought I saw, the dim outlines of
buildings, just as they might seem from the top of some tall
monument. I thought I could detect lines of streets and squares, the
buildings on which were white as of marble, their architecture
seeming to approach the Grecian in type. Gardens and trees, too, I
thought I saw, but the light of the low sun was so feeble that I did
not know whether it might not all be due to the fantastic forms of
sea-weed, and that imagination was doing the rest. As it was,
however, the impression I received served to increase my interest in
the mysterious object beneath me.

“I now resolved to secure possession of this wonderful windfall,
from a scientific standpoint, which luck had thrown in my way; and
by dint of promising a liberal reward to my assistants I succeeded
in persuading them to dig round and below the body, leaving the
block, which we just now melted, only supported securely enough at
its ends to keep it from breaking down, till such time as we were
prepared to remove it. Here, again, I had a bitter altercation with
the captain, when I mooted my design of carrying off my prize. It
was absurd, he said, preposterous, to think of packing a huge block
of ice, containing only the dead body of a man, and of no earthly
use to anybody. Did I think that whalers were fitted out for costly
voyages into polar seas for the fun of the thing? Look at the room
it would take, if nothing else. No; he must draw the line there; he
would be d----d if he gave his countenance to any such nonsense as
that, science or no science.

“I now saw that it was neck or nothing. There is nothing so obdurate
as a sea-captain, if he sets his foot down, and by long association
I knew my man. I determined to try him on a new tack, and to go to
almost any length in doing so, partly through the spirit of
opposition which is strong within me, and partly because I had
already formulated, in a vague manner, the scheme which we are now
carrying into practice. I felt a deep conviction, too, that I was in
some mysterious way working out mysterious ends, and that gave new
strength to my resolve.

“‘Captain,’ I said that evening as we sat in the cabin, ‘what do you
estimate that your present trip is worth?’

“‘Worth nothing as yet,’ he answered, with a growl; ‘worse luck to
it.’

“‘I mean what would you take for the net earnings of the voyage,
provided somebody bought your chances for what you might pick up
upon the return?’

“The captain studied. It was plain that I had given his ideas a new
turn. Perhaps he divined the bent of mine.

“‘Well,’ he said, at length, ‘there would be the crew to be
considered, as well as myself, in a case of that sort. We’re all
working on shares. Captain gets half, and the other half of the net
proceeds are divided _pro rata_ among the petty officers and crew.
What would suit me mightn’t suit them.’

“‘Well, what could you reasonably expect to take on the home voyage
with average luck?’ I said, returning to the charge.

“‘Half a dozen sperm-whales wouldn’t be out of the way,’ returned
the captain, cheerily; ‘might get more. Catch might range anywhere
from twenty to forty thousand dollars.’

“‘Call it thirty thousand,’ I said; ‘would that be a fair average?’

“‘Well, there’s twenty-two of a crew. That would net about seven
hundred dollars apiece for their share. I don’t think they would
growl at that. Fifteen thousand would suit me, and I think I should
be very well out of it, for that matter. But why do you ask such
questions?’

“‘Read that,’ I said, for answer, and shoved a slip of paper across
the table.

“‘Why, what’s this?’ said the captain, taking up the slip of paper
and reading:

                                        Off the Parry Isles,
                                        Long. 162° W., lat. 76° N.,
                                        May 14th, 1888.

Bank of California, San Francisco.

Pay to the order of J. F. Manson, captain whaling bark _Marion_, the
sum of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) and debit

                                                  Richard Burnham.

“‘Simply a check for your possible gains on the return voyage,
captain. I want the use of your ship as far as San Francisco.
Everything satisfactory, I suppose. Good-night.’ So saying, I
strolled into my stateroom, leaving the worthy captain to deliberate
upon my proposal.

“Next morning I purposely got up late; but by the earnest and
many-voiced conversation which I could faintly hear, upon the deck
above me, I knew that the seed I had sown was germinating, if not
bearing fruit.

“Well, to cut a long story short, my proposal was accepted; the
ice-block dug out and conveyed to the vessel with a good deal of
trouble; my check certified and cashed in Victoria, where most of
the crew were paid off, and----here we are. Now, suppose we adjourn
to the laboratory and see if _our guest_ has completely thawed out
yet.”

The strong heat from the stove had, in truth, very nearly finished
what the steam had begun. Though there was still a shell of ice
surrounding the body, it was little more than a shell, and Dr. Dunne
recommended that the next stage in the treatment should be
approached with all expedition. Burnham, accordingly, went off to
prepare a bath in the bath-room adjoining the studio, and when he
hailed us, the doctor and myself carried in the zinc tray with the
body and deposited the latter in the bath.

“We must proceed very slowly,” said the doctor, as he stood by,
thermometer in hand; “I shall begin with a temperature of fifty and
increase it very gradually--say, in half an hour or so--to blood
heat. All the internal organs are, of course, frozen; the lungs,
too, are doubtless full of ice, and the first thing to be done is to
relieve them of the water. Not the least remarkable feature,
gentlemen,” he continued, turning to us, “is that this body must
have been frozen almost before--in my theory, certainly before--it
was drowned. But how to account for this? That is the point. It is
certainly beyond the range of our scientific experience, nor can we
conceive of any natural or chemical force powerful enough to effect
such a result. This man, too, is clad in the garb of a tropical, or
sub-tropical, region. These are evidently his every-day clothes
which he is wearing. He must have been both drowned and frozen
almost simultaneously. The drowning and the freezing must have been
nearly coincident events--at all events, within an hour or two of
each other. I can not see into it. I give it up,” concluded the
doctor, with a shake of the head.

“Still,” said Burnham, “have we not something of a parallel in the
elephants which, some years ago, were found embedded in the ice to
the north of Siberia, just as this man was? The elephant is a
tropical animal, and can scarcely be credited with going to the
North Pole on a pleasure trip. How do you account for that?”

“Perhaps,” suggested I, “it was a case of the mountain coming to
Mahomet in both instances. Perhaps the pole came to them. Suppose
that through some unknown natural cause, or some outside cosmical
agency, the axis of the earth should change abruptly, as it is
probable that it is now doing gradually, and that what were formerly
the equatorial regions became the polar, and _vice versâ_, what
would naturally follow? In the first place, the oceans and seas
would be hurled over the continents in tidal waves miles high. Only
mountaineers dwelling in the highest altitudes would escape. That
would be the first result. The second would be that the waters upon
what were formerly the tropical regions would be frozen. The third
would be----what we see before us now in that bath.”

“Very ingenious, certainly,” remarked the doctor, dryly; “but we
have got no time for speculation now. Let us attend to business. Our
friend here should be pretty thoroughly warmed through by this time.
Please lend a hand to get him on the operating-table.”

Accordingly, we removed the body from the bath to the mattress in
the studio, the room having been meanwhile closed and its
temperature raised to blood heat.

“We must first get the water out of the lungs,” said the doctor, as
he reached for what looked something like a stomach-pump, but which,
instead of the suction tube, terminated in a diaphragm made of some
elastic substance, which he applied to the open mouth of the body,
pressing it closely with his left hand, at the same time asking me
to compress the nostrils tightly. The flesh was now warm, soft, and
yielding. The doctor then drew back the piston of his pump and a
stream of water followed through the discharge tube. This was
repeated several times, till the lungs were pronounced free from
water.

A consultation now followed between the doctor and Burnham.

“The blood in the veins and arteries,” said the doctor, “though it
has undergone liquefaction, is probably, to a certain extent,
coagulated. Though why,” he continued, musingly, “should such be the
case? At any rate, let us see.”

He then took a lancet from his instrument-case and proceeded to make
an incision in the median vein of the left arm, when, to his
manifest joy, as I could see, a few drops of blood spurted out.

“Yes! it is as I thought,” he exclaimed, joyfully; “the blood has
_not_ coagulated. It is a simple case of drowning, and, to all
intents and purposes, our friend here is no better and no worse off
than if he had been asphyxiated by water only a few hours ago. Mr.
Burnham, I congratulate you,” taking that gentleman by the hand and
shaking it with the utmost enthusiasm, “upon being instrumental in
providing a subject for resuscitation--for resuscitate him I do not
doubt that I shall, now that I have direct evidence that the blood
has undergone no chemical change--a subject, compared with which a
mere, ordinary case of drowning sinks into the most infinitesimal
insignificance; for--who can tell?--perhaps this man has lain in
this condition for hundreds, aye, for thousands of years; perhaps he
belongs to a remote prehistoric age, for ice, the great embalmer,
knows neither time nor seasons, and a thousand years are to it but
as one hour. Whatever our friend here is, or has been, he will
presently be one of us; he will open his mouth and unlock the
secrets of the past. He will tell us how he came to be in his
present plight. He will add another page to the world’s history.”

I felt myself catching all the doctor’s enthusiasm, and now hung
upon everything that he did with breathless interest.

“The next step,” said the doctor, “is to stimulate the heart’s
action and restore the circulation. To do this will require our
united efforts. You, Mr. Burnham, will take charge of the battery
and apply the electrodes; our friend here”--signifying myself--“will
assist in inflating the lungs; I will attend to the circulation.
Your battery is ready, is it not, Mr. Burnham?”

The battery, with its auxiliary apparatus for intensifying the
current, was brought round and placed on a table close by. Dr. Dunne
then made an incision in the breast so as to expose the breast-bone,
or sternum, and another in the back, in the region of the third
vertebra. To the former of these the negative pole of the battery
was applied, and to the latter the positive electrode.

“Where is that phial, I wonder?” interjected the doctor, looking
over his medicine-chest, and taking out bottle after bottle; “ah,
here it is,” he said, at last, “here is the substance on which I
rely to restore the action of the heart and give new life to our
friend here. It has only lately been introduced into the
pharmacopœia; but since its introduction it has done wonders in
cardiac affections. It is distilled from a plant which grows only in
East Africa. Its name is _strephanthus_, and its effect is to
accelerate the action of the heart. It is now my purpose to inject a
portion of this powerful stimulant into the median vein, which I
have just opened, in our friend’s arm, whence it will be conveyed to
the heart. Meanwhile, you, Mr. Burnham, and our friend here will
induce artificial respiration in the lungs, so that the blood may be
oxygenated after it has been expelled from the heart by the
spasmodic valvular action which the _strephanthus_ will excite in
that organ. Now, let us each attend closely to his allotted duty.”

My part consisted in inflating the lungs by means of a tiny bellows,
the nozzle of which had been introduced into the larynx, till such
time as the breathing should become automatic and the rise and fall
of the lungs regular. At a given signal from the doctor, Burnham
turned on the current, the electrodes having been previously placed
in position, and, at the same instant, the chest expanded. I plied
my bellows as the breast rose, and a second afterward it collapsed,
the discharged air rushing back through the larynx with a whistling
sound. Three seconds afterward the chest rose automatically again,
and again I assisted its rise by inflating the lungs as before. This
was kept up for some dozen or more respirations, occupying in all
about two minutes.

Meantime, the doctor was intently engaged with a syringe and
graduating glass at the left arm of the body. So absorbed was he in
his occupation that he seemed oblivious to everything else. Suddenly
he sprang to his feet, with an exclamation which startled us.

“We have won!” he shouted; “see! the blood is circulating.”

I looked down at the arm, and, sure enough, blood was spurting in a
thin jet from the lower extremity of the vein which the doctor had
severed. In my excitement I had withdrawn the bellows from the
mouth, but there was no further use for artificial respiration, as
the chest was now rising and falling automatically and in regular
cadence. The doctor now tied up the severed vein, sewed up the
incision in the arm, and, after dressing the patient--for such he
must now be called--in a suit of Burnham’s underwear, we lifted him
into the bureau-bed that had been prepared at the side of the studio
next the fire.

“There is nothing more to be done,” said the doctor, simply; “he
will wake by and by of his own accord, and will then need some
nourishment. Soup and stimulants will be the proper thing to
administer at first.”

Burnham went out and returned presently with a tray containing the
desired refreshments. We now waited anxiously for the awakening,
which must sooner or later come. The breathing, which had hitherto
been labored and stertorous, was becoming easier, the color was
returning to the cheeks, and the occasional twitching of the muscles
showed that our strange patient was on the point of awaking. At
length he turned on his side, opened his eyes, stared fixedly at us,
and then uttered an exclamation in some foreign tongue. Burnham got
up, wheeled a table to the side of the bed, set the tray of
refreshments upon it, and motioned him to help himself, at the same
time pouring out a glass of wine. Here Dr. Dunne interposed.

“No,” he said, smiling; “after a fast of so many thousand years I
certainly must prescribe hot water as an initiative. It is
absolutely necessary for the stomach to begin with.”

The hot water was brought, and our patient, evidently comprehending
that he was under medical treatment, shifted his position in bed so
as to recline upon his elbow, took the tumbler which was handed him,
and, after eying it critically, raised it to his lips and tasted the
contents. A shade of surprise and faint protest passed across his
features as he elevated his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and
swallowed the potion.

“Now let him attack the viands if he wants to,” said the doctor, as
our guest’s eye roved somewhat greedily, I thought, over the table.
Burnham pushed the tray a little nearer, no second invitation being
necessary, and the bowl of soup that had been brought, together with
a couple of glasses of old Madeira, speedily disappeared. This duty
having been performed, our guest became voluble. He gesticulated and
spoke, and, to judge by the inflexions of his voice and the
character of his gestures, he was, I should say, appealing to us for
an explanation of his presence there and of the strange objects
which met his gaze. It need scarcely be said that we could not
understand one word of what he was saying, though the voice was
clear and mellow and the syllables of his words as distinct and
sonorous as ancient Greek, though they bore no other resemblance to
that language.

“Suppose we bring him pen and ink and see if he can write,”
suggested Burnham, and the idea struck us as a peculiarly happy one.

Pen, ink, and paper were accordingly set upon the table. Our patient
eyed the articles curiously for a moment or two, took up the pen,
and examined the steel nib with an expression of critical approval,
then took up a sheet of paper, examined its texture, and smiled, at
the same time spreading it out before him. It was evident that he
comprehended what was required of him, for he dipped the pen into
the ink and wrote a few words upon the paper, guiding the pen,
however, from right to left, according to Oriental usage. The
characters partook more of the Chaldaic, or ancient Sanscrit, than
any other type. As it was, none of us could make them out. Our guest
watched our efforts at deciphering with an amused smile, but when
one of our daily papers was handed him by Burnham, this quickly
changed to an expression of rapt attention and intense interest. He
did not, however, handle the sheet like a savage, but like one who
knew the object of it, examining the words and letters with the
closest attention, evidently to see whether he could gain any clew
to their meaning. After a minute or two he gave up the task, and
then, tapping his forehead with a tired expression, smiled at us,
lay back on his pillow, and was soon fast asleep.

“He will be all right by evening,” remarked the doctor; “and then,”
turning to Burnham, “what will you do with him? Introduce him to the
Academy of Sciences, I suppose?”

“Not just yet,” returned Burnham; “I have no objection to some
inkling of our wonderful prize getting out--our friend here,”
alluding to me, “will, no doubt, attend to that--but I certainly
shall not bring him before the public in any way, nor even introduce
him to our scientific men, till I have educated him to some little
knowledge of our language. There will, I think, be no difficulty
about that. He is evidently a man of superior intelligence, and I
shall go right to work in the same way as if he was any ordinary
foreigner cast upon our shores with no knowledge of our language and
I myself equally ignorant of his. It is merely giving names of
objects, he learning my name for the object, I his. In that manner
we shall speedily arrive at a solution of the all-absorbing question
who this remarkable being is whom we have rescued from the jaws of
death, and who, to all intents and purposes, has been dead for--who
can tell?--how many ages past.”

The events I have here detailed occurred on the ninth of August
last. Since that time, my friend Burnham has been enthusiastically
engaged in carrying out the project which he mapped out on the day
of the resuscitation of his remarkable patient and guest. His tailor
was called in, and, when Mr. Kourban Balanok, as the stranger calls
himself, left Burnham’s studio three days after, he did so as a
nineteenth-century gentleman, and is now installed in Burnham’s
house as one of the family. People may have noticed the young,
handsome, and distinguished stranger to be seen occasionally walking
arm-in-arm with Burnham on Kearny or Market Street, but none would
guess that he had lain in the North Polar ice in the neighborhood of
ten thousand years. Such is the case, however, and, as he is fast
acquiring an intimate knowledge of the English language, we may
confidently look forward to the appearance, in the near future, of a
detailed account of the economy of the prehistoric world, and of the
vast cataclysm which swamped it and left Mr. Kourban Balanok
embedded in the ice.




LEAVES ON THE RIVER PASIG

By W. O. McGeehan


The Boulong _casco_ lay on the Quiapo Market, which is on the left
bank of the Pasig, just below the suspension-bridge. The Chinese
junk--tradition says--was modeled after a whimsical emperor’s shoe,
consequently the _cascos_ of the Philippines, being really junks
without sails, are not very dainty bits of naval architecture. As a
rule, they are not accorded the dignity of a name; but this one was
known as the “Boulong casco,” because it was owned and manned by
members of one family. Santiago Boulong was steersman, his three
sons were polemen, and Simplicia, the daughter, was _el
capitan_--her father said, affectionately. Their permanent home was
a little _nipa_-thatch shelter at the stern of the vessel.

The men had gone ashore shortly after the mooring--the father on
business, the sons on pleasure bent--and Simplicia, much to her
disgust, was left on board. She was a Tagalo girl, of the
light-complexioned type, pretty even when judged by our standards,
of which fact she was aware.

“The river, the river,” she said to herself, petulantly, “always the
river. I was born on the river, and I have been going up and down
the river all my life. When we come to Manila I may go ashore for a
few hours only, and then the river again--and the lake. And Ramon is
a fool!”

It was a clear, warm night, and the rippling water of the Pasig
glistened in the moonlight, so that she could see the leaves rush by
in clusters. Ramon had said: “Think of me when you see the leaves on
the river--the bright green leaves from the dear lake country. It
seems sad to think that they must float down past the city where the
water is fouled, and then out--far out--to be lost on the big salt
sea.” But Ramon was always saying queer things that she could not
understand.

The murmur of drowsy voices came from the crowded huts of the
market-place. Oh, how long till morning! She wanted to buy some bits
of finery there, and then to stroll through the city, especially
along the Escolta, where there were stores that exhibited splendors
from all countries. She hoped that one of her brothers would hire a
_carametta_ the next evening, and take her to the Lunetta, where the
wealthy of Manila congregated to enjoy the cool night air and the
concert. A band of Americanos played there every evening.

They were wonderful men, these Americano soldiers, much taller than
Filipinos or Spaniards, and many of them had blue eyes and hair of
the color of gold. The pride of kings was in their stride, and they
looked as though they feared nothing.

Farther on down the river at the Alhambra Café, where the Spanish
officers once gathered to hear the music of Spain, the orchestra
played a new air that delighted her. There was a burst of cheering.
The music was “Dixie,” and the demonstration was made by some
Tennessee volunteers, who always gave something reminiscent of the
old “rebel yell” whenever they heard it. From the Cuartel
Infanteria, across the river, the American bugles began to shrill a
“tattoo.” Their music was wonderful--everything pertaining to these
big, bold men was wonderful, she thought.

Something bumped against a side of the _casco_, and Simplicia
hurried over to order away a supposed ladrone. She leaned over the
side with such abruptness that the wooden comb slipped from her
heavy mass of black hair. It fell a dusky curtain, and brushed the
upturned face of a man. He was not a little brown Filipino, but a
tall Americano, fair and yellow-haired. He laughed a soft, pleasant
laugh. She drew herself backward with a frightened cry, but his eyes
held hers. The man was standing in a small canoe, steadying his
craft by holding on to the _casco_.

“_Buenas noches_,” he said, smiling. He spoke Spanish, but not like
a Spaniard or a Tagalo. Simplicia smiled, faintly. She knew that she
should go into the _nipa_ cabin, but this handsome man looked so
kind and--Ramon was a fool. And her father and brothers were
selfish, and----

So Simplicia returned the salutation, and stood leaning over the
bulwark tasting the delirious delight of her first flirtation. The
man--he was a college boy until the United States Government gave
him a suit of khaki and the right to bear the former
designation--thrilled with joy at the delicious novelty of the
situation. He was in a city that was at once the tropics and the
Orient, and over which hung the glamour of departed mediæval days.
For several hundred years guitars had tinkled on that river, and
voices had been lifted to laticed windows. The air was laden with
ghosts of everything but common sense and scruples.

A bugle across the river caused the man to recollect that he was
under certain restraint. “I must go,” he said, but he did not
release his hold on the _casco_.

Simplicia’s eyes were big and bright in the moonlight. He stretched
out one arm and drew her face toward him. She tore herself away, and
stood breathing hurriedly through parted lips.

“_Mañana por la noche_,” said the soldier. He plied the paddle
vigorously, and the canoe glided away. But he looked back,
longingly, for Simplicia’s lips were very soft and warm.

She stood gazing after him till the canoe vanished into the shadow
of the Cuartel Infanteria. The unseen bugle softly wailed “taps,”
the call that bids the soldier rest. It is also sounded over graves.

                 *       *       *       *       *

The sun beat down fiercely on the Pasig. Canoes toiled up and
skimmed down the river. Lumbering _cascos_, their crews naked to
their waists, were poled painfully along. The Quiapo Market was
astir with a babble of tongues, the barking of dogs, and the
incessant challenge of hundreds of game-cocks. The little brown
people bought, sold, and bargained with the full strength of their
lungs.

Simplicia, as purser of the _casco_, was in the market purchasing
provisions, but she spent most of her time near the stall of a
Chinese vender of fabrics. After much haggling, she became the
possessor of a dainty bodice of silk and piña cloth.

Most of the girls who visited the market-place seemed to be drawn to
that spot, for there Simplicia met a friend who had left the lake
country a little later than herself.

“Ramon will come down the river to-night,” said the friend,
breathlessly, delighted to carry a message of that sort. “He has
written something that he thinks they may print in _La Libertad_.
Isn’t that wonderful? You must feel so proud of him. For a man to be
able to write at all is wonderful--but for the papers!”

Apparently there were no words in the Tagalo dialect strong enough
to express the girl’s admiration. Simplicia tossed her head,
loosening the hair, a frequent happening. She caught the heavy
tresses quickly, and almost forgot for an instant everything but the
last time they had fallen.

“Are you not pleased?” asked the other girl, in astonishment. She
was dark, and not pretty from any point of view.

“Oh, yes,” drawled Simplicia, “but Ramon is very tedious sometimes,
and the lake country is very dreary. We will go into the city this
afternoon and see the Americanos.”

They saw many Americanos--State volunteers clad in blue shirts and
khaki trousers. The city was full of them. They occupied all the
barracks formerly the quarters of the Spanish soldiers, and they
crowded the drinking-resorts. Along the Calle Real they came upon
companies drilling, and on the Lunetta they saw an entire regiment
on dress-parade.

Simplicia, though she scanned every soldier’s face, did not see the
stranger of the previous night, nor did she see a face that seemed
nearly as handsome.

“They say,” mused the other girl, “that the men of Aguinaldo will
drive these Americanos out of Manila if they do not go of their own
accord soon.”

Simplicia laughed scornfully, and pointed toward the troops. The men
were in battalion front, standing at “present,” and the sun
glistened on a thousand bayonets.

“But there are only a few Americanos and there are many thousands of
Filipinos,” said the girl.

“The Americanos will take what they want and nothing can stop them,”
announced Simplicia, decisively. “Let us go to our _cascos_.”

                 *       *       *       *       *

The twilight gathered on the river. In the north the sky was lit by
continuous flashes of lightning. Myriads of stars were overhead, and
the Southern Cross was viceroy of the heavens, for the moon had not
yet come into her kingdom. The water noisily gurgled by, and
Simplicia waited. Which would come first, the tedious Filipino
school-master lover or the stranger? Would the Americano come again?

She watched every canoe that passed, but they were all going up or
down. The moon appeared and clearly revealed the river’s surface.
Simplicia fixed her eyes on the shadow of the Cuartel Infanteria.
Something emerged from it and glided rapidly through the stream. It
was a canoe, and it was being paddled with strong, sure strokes
toward her. Her heart beat tumultuously, and she almost cried out in
her delight.

He came, and, fastening his canoe, swung himself aboard the _casco_.
Her arms were about his neck in an instant, and her beautiful
tresses escaped the comb again.

They sat in the shade of the _nipa_ thatch talking in low tones. His
arm was round her waist. Her head rested on his shoulder. He puffed
with deep breaths of enjoyment a cigarette that she had daintily lit
for him. The intoxication of the country was in his brain--the devil
that whispers, “There is nothing but pleasure, and no time but now.”

The _plunk-plunk_ of a guitar close by startled them both. Simplicia
trembled violently.

“It is a foolish man who is always singing to me,” she explained.

A clear, musical voice rose in a song, and the soldier checked a
question to listen, for the voice and the song charmed him from the
first note. The song was in Spanish, and, though he was by no means
perfect in the language, he caught the meaning and spirit of it. It
ran something to this effect:

    Bright are the leaves and the blossoms that grow in the
      beautiful lake country,

    They fill the place with brilliance of things celestial.

    Some of them drop or are thrown to the river,

    Helpless they drift on its swift running surface.

    Down past the city through sliminess foul,

    Out they are whirled to waters eternal

    Lost and forgotten forever and ever.

    Blossom I cherish; I’ll hold thee.

    Never shalt thou leave the lake country.

    But my heart, it is sad for the leaves on the Pasig.

The last words died on the air like the sob or the faint cry of a
passing spirit. The soldier sat mute, like one bewitched by fairy
music. Simplicia’s lips, pressed against his cheek, brought him back
to her.

“I do not care for him. On my soul, I do not!” she whispered. She
was pretty, and her arm tightened coaxingly about his neck. His
better nature was conquered, and the devil in his blood reigned
supreme. The situation suddenly seemed highly amusing, and he
laughed a suppressed laugh of recklessness. To be serenaded by a
native poet while the arm of the troubadour’s lady-love encircled
his neck--verily he would have a great tale to tell some day.

There was a faint sound of a footfall on the deck of the _casco_.
The soldier disengaged himself. A face peeped in through an opening
in the thatch, and the American struck it a sharp blow with his
fist. He would have rushed after the intruder, but Simplicia held
him.

“It is only a foolish man,” she said, “do not follow him. It would
make trouble.”

“I would not bring you any trouble,” he said. “What is the matter?
You tremble.”

“It is nothing,” she replied. “I love you.”

The soldier’s conscience smote him. He swore that he loved her, and
tried to believe that it was true. She seemed almost happy again.

“To-morrow the _casco_ goes up to the lake again, and we will be
gone three days. Oh, that is so long!”

“Very long,” he assented.

“But you will wait and think of me always.”

“Yes, I will watch the leaves on the river----”

She shuddered.

“No! no! Do not speak of them. _Madre de Dios!_ I hate the river,
and I hate the leaves it drags along. I think I hate everything but
you.”

The soldier was young, and this was his first experience with
hysteria and woman, which combination often disturbs even wiser
heads. It disturbed him exceedingly, but he soothed her finally with
the wildest vows and many kisses. He kissed a tress of her long hair
as he stepped from the _casco’s_ poling platform into his canoe.

For the second time she watched the canoe till it glided into the
shadows. Then she shivered violently, chilled to the bone.

                 *       *       *       *       *

A sergeant of a certain regiment of United States volunteers was
prowling along the brink of the Pasig, outside the Cuartel
Infanteria’s walls, looking for a pet monkey that had disappeared.
Something in the long grass caught his eye, and he stopped. He
stepped back quickly and hurried around the corner of the wall,
returning with four soldiers.

He parted the grass with his arms, and they saw the dead body of a
Filipino girl. Her face was concealed by a disordered mass of black
hair, and, pinned to her breast by a rudely fashioned knife that was
buried to the hilt, was a miniature insurgent flag.

They tenderly bore the body to the pathway, and the hair fell from
the face. One of the soldiers let go his hold and tottered to the
ground.

“Harrison’s a softy,” grunted one of the men. “Take hold, sergeant.
He’s fainted, I guess.”

The form was placed in an unused storeroom. When the news went round
the men came to view it, not out of curiosity, but to show respect
such as they would pay to their own dead.

“This is the way I make it out,” said the sergeant, sagely. “The
girl was killed by Aguinaldo’s gang, and it must have been because
she spoke a good word for our people.”

“And we’ll take it out of their hides when the time comes,” said one
of the soldiers, snapping his jaws together, which resolution the
regiment unanimously adopted. Even the chaplain refrained from
chiding when he heard of it. He knew his flock.

There being no way of finding out anything about the girl, a fund
was quickly collected and arrangements made for the funeral. Several
hundred soldiers followed the hearse to the cemetery at El Paco.

The regimental chaplain read the regulation burial service, while
the men stood with bared heads. They placed at the head of the
freshly made mound a plain board that read:

                  FOUND IN THE PASIG.

After the last soldier had gone, a cowering thing walked unsteadily
up to the grave, and, kneeling beside it, laid down a cluster of
green leaves.

“By God! I did love her. I did,” he muttered, continuously. He drew
a pencil from his pocket and scratched her name on the board:
“Simplicia.”

And his youth was buried there.




THE GREAT EUCHRE BOOM

By Charles Fleming Embree


To Euchretown, Los Angeles County, came Mr. Stoker and his wife. He
bought ranches, and, strikingly dressed, drove about in the
rubber-tired buggies of real-estate agents; while Mrs. Stoker, a
handsome young woman, sniffed the social air. Just what should she
do to win, with _éclat_, the commanding place in the local feminine
view? For her no slow progress to social supremacy! Rather the
Napoleonic sweeping away of rivals.

At that stage of its rise from a desert to a paradise Euchretown was
belied by its name. A sombreness hovered over the thought of the
place; the method of life was Puritanic. Euchre? One would have
thought there was never a deck in the town.

“I don’t want to be un-Christian,” snapped the wife of Reverend
Hummel; “but I wish that Mrs. Stoker had never stuck her foot in
this town.”

Mrs. Hummel was out of place linked to a preacher. Fairly well had
she clothed her mind in the prevalent Puritanic mood; but in her
heart she was different. As for social leaders, she was the one, and
she knew it.

“Why, Jennie,” complained the Reverend Hummel, a pale gentleman with
eyes that ever bespoke a receptive surprise at his debts; “your
words ring evil. And then the term you employed--stuck. How, pray,
could Mrs. Stoker stick her foot?”

At this moment the maid (employed despite the mortgaged condition of
Hummel’s real estate) ushered in Mrs. Banker Wheelock.

“And _have_ you heard the news about Mrs. Stoker!” cried Mrs.
Wheelock, as Mr. Hummel, wandering away, hummed “Throw Out the Life
Line” in a fumbling voice. “Oh, haven’t you got an invitation?”

“What is it?” said Mrs. Hummel, darkly.

“A euchre-party! Everybody!”

Mrs. Hummel’s arms dropped limp.

“But, of course,” she said, “nobody will go.”

“They’re all wild about it!” ejaculated Mrs. Wheelock; “Mrs. Stoker
is said to have struck the psychological moment.”

Mrs. Hummel started up.

“There hasn’t been a card-party for years!” cried she; “where’ll she
get her decks? Does she carry around a trunk full? Or will she clean
out the saloons? But----” and the tears leaped up to her lashes, “I
wouldn’t be un-Christian about it.”

Mrs. Wheelock arose and laid her hands on Mrs. Hummel’s arm.

“Of course, dear, you know the only reason you wouldn’t be invited
is that you’re the preacher’s wife,” soothed she; and then, with a
puzzled air: “That _must_ be the reason.”

Now the maid brought in an envelope. It was Mr. and Mrs. Hummel’s
invitation to Mrs. Stoker’s euchre-party. The eye of Jennie met that
of Mrs. Wheelock, as a partial relief made its way into the breast
of the preacher’s wife.

“Did you ever hear of such impudence?” she breathed.

                 *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Stoker had a new green cottage with nine Corinthian pillars
(capitals enormously ornate) along her front porch. Within, electric
lights, white-pine woodwork, brilliant floral tributes of Axminster
carpets, and bird’s-eye maple furniture combined to produce an
effect luxurious, irrefutable.

“Oh, yes,” natty Stoker was saying to the men, “I gave him three
thousand for his ten acres. Wheelock, run over to the city with me
to-morrow and look at the Pasadena Villa Tract. I’ve a mind to pick
up a bunch of those lots.”

“O _Mrs._ Hummel!” came Mrs. Stoker’s winning voice, and everybody
listened. There was the purple-draped hostess flowing toward the
preacher’s wife. “I was dreadfully afraid you wouldn’t come! I’m
_so_” (powerful kiss) “glad you did! And dear Mr. Hummel?”

“To-night he works on his sermon,” said Mrs. Hummel, beaming about
on the faces of the alert and delightfully surprised company. “I
persuaded him to run in for me later; for I just came to look on. Of
course,” here she turned the sweet lips toward Mrs. Stoker, “you
couldn’t expect us to play.”

Mrs. Stoker put new fuel in her smile to Mrs. Hummel; and Mrs.
Hummel did likewise further fire up her smile to Mrs. Stoker; and
the edified company sat down.

The games went on with a vim that made it seem some hungry gambling
spirit, dormant in the town, rose up and reveled. Mrs. Stoker had
risked it all on her belief in the psychological moment--and won!
The town was ready for sin.

“And that little statue is the prize,” now said Mrs. Stoker, moving
about. “Mrs. Hummel, would you hold it up?”

All eyes came round in sneaking way toward Mrs. Hummel, who grew
pallid. There, on the mantel, near her hand as she stood to watch,
was the statuette--a nude Greek maid.

“Would you mind holding it up? They can’t see,” repeated Mrs.
Stoker, louder, fires in her eyes.

Hypnotized, Mrs. Hummel lifted it and saw a price tag, $7.50.

“Why,” said she, forcing into her voice the daring experiment of a
note of censure, “I didn’t know there was to be a prize!”

“Oh,” echoed Mrs. Wheelock from a distance, instilling into her
tones a strain of triumph, “I didn’t know there was to be a prize!”

“No!” chimed all the women, in mutually sanctioning delight, “we
didn’t know there was to be a prize!”

“Just a cheap little thing,” said Mrs. Stoker.

A new brightening of eyes fastened on euchre decks. The games went
on with strange excitement; for, lo! all the women had suddenly
resolved to win or ruin their nerves in the fight.

“Would you punch--while I look to the sherbet?” whispered Mrs.
Stoker to Mrs. Hummel, with new, bald patronage.

The preacher’s wife stared round. The fascination of the game was
influencing her. She felt her footing go; she saw the Stoker
triumph, the reins gone from her hand. Desperately did she leap at
this only chance to cling to the victorious vehicle of pleasure
which her rival from this night on was to drive headlong through the
Puritanic mood of Euchretown.

Mrs. Hummel punched the cards.

More fierce became the spirit of gaming, until, with final shriek of
delight, Mrs. Wheelock won the statue. Followed by jealous eyes she
took it.

“Splendid!” she cried, examining the tag and seeing $7.50. Then she
passed it round. “Beautiful!” said the women, seeing $7.50.

And the corruption of Euchretown was accomplished.

We pass hastily to the strange fury in its later vigor. From the
night of the initiative prize an extraordinary inflation went on
apace. Scarcely had a week elapsed (full of gossip at the Stoker’s
indubitable success) when Mrs. Wheelock gave a second euchre-party.
And when the guests flocked to the banker’s two-story house in the
mission style (on the fifty-foot lot which he bought for $1,400 of
Jeffreys Sassy), they were yet more morally poisoned to observe, on
the cut-glass dish which she awarded to shrieking Mrs. Botts, the
half-extinguished price-mark, $9.65.

For six days, $9.65 was a sort of tag to the town’s mental status;
when, to the thrilling of all, Mrs. George Botts did suddenly cast
out invitations; and at Mrs. Bott’s brilliant affair, Mrs. Stoker,
after a dashing race neck-and-neck with six women who all but beat
her, won a clock on the bottom of which, mysteriously blurred, the
figures $13.75 could, after careful scrutiny, be distinguished.

The value of the prize at the fourth party was $15; at the sixth,
$19; at the ninth, $25.50. Agape, the town stared ahead at its
coming dizzy course. Then Mrs. Samuel Lethwait, taciturn woman,
stupefied the inhabitants of the place by making one flying leap
from $25 to $50. Out of the ranks, out of the number of the unfeared
had Mrs. Lethwait made her daring rise.

There was an instant’s recoil. Could Mrs. Stoker, Mrs. Wheelock,
Mrs. Botts pause now? Their shoulders were at the wheel, their hands
on the flying plow which tore up such amazing furrows in the social
field. The recoil was but momentary. At the very hour when Mrs.
Botts was putting on her hat, sworn to buy a prize worth $60, there
fell into her agitated hand an invitation. Mrs. Stoker had sprung to
the breach.

A scramble for the cottage of the nine pillars. And behold on the
golden lamp there displayed as prize, were the shameless figures,
$75.00.

Now had the insanity taken general root. He who fails to understand
knows not California. The dangerous mania once contracted, no matter
what its form, must continue till the collapse. If the gold fury of
’49, and the equally furious land boom of ’87, are not
object-lessons enough, let the sociologist recall the Belgian hares.
And if yet he doubts the historical verity of such a cast in the
California mind, let him give this euchre boom his careful
consideration. As men bid for twenty-five foot lots in San Diego in
the insane days of ’87, so did women now bid, under the thin
disguise of euchre prizes, for choice positions in the social field
of Euchretown. It was the old disease.

In two more leaps the prizes had advanced to a hundred. And, most
significant of all, seldom was the price of a prize now paid down.
The credit system had saved the day. The people of Euchretown were
not millionaires. Few felt able to toss out a hundred with this
rapid periodicity. So small first payments, contracts, “the rest in
six and twelve,” became the rule.

In the rear dust of this race, panting, tagged Mrs. Hummel. Again
and again, contrary to the will of pained Mr. Hummel (who to himself
sang “Throw Out the Life Line” in despair), did she attend, punch
cards, look on with jealous eye; yet she did not play. She was a
buffer whom the sinners held between their gaming and their
consciences. Oh, how she longed to give a party that would stagger
the general mind!

Now for a fatal three weeks Mr. Hummel was in Oregon. Two sleepless
nights his wife spent tossing, then arose feverish, stood on the
high pinnacle of temptation, and plunged down.

First she went for a prize. The price had risen to a hundred and
forty; she must act quick; now!--lest she be ruined, for the boom
waited for no man. At a furniture store she asked information on the
contract system. The dealer (who had furnished prizes) was confused;
he could not accept the Hummel’s contract. Why? she gasped. Oh, he
hastened, it was not for doubts of the Hummel honesty; it was for
doubts of the honesty of the community. In the present furious state
he did not believe the Hummels would get their salary! Infinitely
sorry, infinitely polite was he; and she went away dazed.

But she would do it or die. One more hour of suffering brought her
back.

“I’ll mortgage our household goods,” said she, dry-eyed, “till
Hummel returns.” And he agreed.

So, Mrs. Stoker’s old slain rival rose up astonishing over the
horizon. The chill that ran through the community with Mrs. Hummel’s
invitations, gave way to white heat, and everybody, euchre mad, now
rushed to the preacher’s home.

Mrs. Hummel’s struggles had been heroic; the house was decorated as
never before, the refreshments were beyond any that Mrs. Stoker had
conceived. And on the portières (given as a prize) the mark one
hundred and fifty dollars stook forth a challenge.

Mrs. Stoker, playing recklessly, lost; and her drawn face suggested
nervous collapse and thoughts criminal. But a crisis in the social
life of Euchretown was now imminent. There was yet another element
to Mrs. Hummel’s victory; a murmur went round of the coming ruin of
Stoker. As ladies moved to tables they eyed Mrs. Stoker, and
whispered gossip; as men sat down they hinted at revelations,
speaking in one another’s ears.

“What is it?” whispered Mrs. Hummel, huskily, to Mrs. Wheelock.

“They say that Stoker is found out; that he gave false title to some
land!”

At that moment Stoker’s wild, unnatural laugh was heard.

In the final neck-and-neck sprint to the goal, Mrs. Stoker, gone to
pieces, wretched, was distanced; Mrs. Botts carried off the
portières; the party broke up, and Mrs. Hummel’s night of sinful
conquering passed into history.

When Hummel returned, the news emaciated him. He went to bed and lay
ill for a week, and nobody threw out the life line to him. Nay, even
the bed he lay on came near to being snatched from under him. And
now, with the boom trembling on the verge of collapse, with
everybody’s contracts coming due, bills began to rain upon the
preacher’s head.

“Jennie,” groaned he, “you have ruined me. See, they haven’t paid my
salary, and the furniture man is mad. We will be cast into the
street!”

Then there fell into Mrs. Hummel’s hands an envelope--“Mrs.
Stoker--at home--Friday night--euchre!”

“Why,” cried Mrs. Wheelock, bursting in with Mrs. Botts, “everybody
knows that the Stokers are on the brink of ruin. They say he is
fighting like mad to keep his head up--maybe to keep out of jail!
This is their final fling. And everybody has learned about her
prize. Guess what it is!”

“And guess what it cost!” shouted Mrs. Botts.

“I wouldn’t be un-Christian about it,” declared Jennie, “but I do
think swindlers had better hide their heads. What is the thing,
then, and what does it cost?”

There was an impressive hush.

“A bedroom set worth two hundred! And she’s let everybody know that
she paid cash down for it.”

They all gazed at one another, the fire of gaming in their eyes.

“She is making one last grand play,” said they.

One day of gloom did Mrs. Hummel pass in Hummel’s bedroom, arguing,
pleading. To Hummel, he and the whole town were gone to the devil.

“No! Never!” cried he, receiving more duns, and shaken.

But at last toward night he arose and, haunted, went to the furniture
store. In the window was the bedroom set, and over it a sign, “The
prize for Mrs. Stoker’s euchre-party.” Staring, the emaciated Hummel
lost his soul.

“Would it cover the bill,” he whispered, hoarsely, in the dealer’s
back room, “if we won it?”

“About,” mused the dealer; “Hummel, since it’s you. I’d call it
square.”

And Hummel returned, unsteady on his feet.

                 *       *       *       *       *

Once again the cottage of the Corinthian pillars shone with the
brilliancy of a euchre evening. Stoker was making a high play
to-night to keep his footing with the men. Mrs. Stoker had rouged to
hide the pallor of her cheeks. The house distanced all previous
efforts in its decorations, the refreshments were beyond the
experience of the most high-rolling citizen of the town.

Behold, in came Mrs. Hummel, her blood up.

“And dear Mr. Hummel?” asked Mrs. Stoker, taking Mrs. Hummel’s hand
in both of hers.

“Hummel’s in bed,” said Jennie, tersely; “Mrs. Stoker, I’ll play
to-night.”

A moment’s silence, as of a solitude; then a great hubbub, the
guests making for tables.

“So glad!” cried Mrs. Stoker; “we’ve always hoped you would!”

“So glad!” shrieked all the women into Mrs. Hummel’s ear; and the
games began.

Why dwell on the mad scramble? That night was the culmination.
Disgraceful as was the thing in itself, it pales before the disgrace
incident to a mood of reckless confession which seized the company.
Somebody blurted out that she’d win that two hundred or die. Then a
nigh insane man in a corner shouted across the room, to the shocking
of all: “Let’s make it poker!”

The laugh that greeted this was spasmodic; and all at once right
before Mrs. Hummel on the central table, Mr. Stoker, as though he
had lost his mind, and grown wild and cynical, began to deal
out--ten-dollar bills from his deck. These Mr. Wheelock snatched up
and shook aloft with fearful merriment under the chandelier.

In that instant the boom collapsed. Who could predict the
psychological moment? The sight of the ten-dollar bills was too
much. Shame rushed into every breast; the reaction began; and
henceforth in the hands of everybody but Mrs. Hummel (who, brain on
fire, had failed to catch the significance of the moment), euchre
fell a limp and lifeless thing.

And that alone is why the preacher’s wife, who scarcely knew her
bowers, won the bedroom set.

A sudden, fierce knocking at the door, and in burst an officer.

“I have a warrant for the arrest of John Stoker,” said he.

“I’m here,” said Stoker, sneering and white; and Mrs. Stoker
fainted.

Everybody stared; all seized hats; like rats the euchre players
slunk away; the Corinthian cottage, like a bedizened but deserted
courtesan, stood gaudily shining in the night, alone.

Later the town awoke, as the high-roller awakes next morning with a
suffering and repentant head, and the readjustment began. Everybody
owed somebody for prizes, as, in ’88, everybody owed somebody for
lots. Everybody was a buffer to everybody. The thing let itself down
and evened itself up, and nobody was hard on anybody. And thus the
euchre boom passed into history.

Now the church people began to rehabilitate their consciences. And
Banker Wheelock hit upon a scheme. As financier of the bankrupt
soul, Wheelock will ever stand out a genius.

“Why,” said he to Botts, “we did it to help Hummel.”

“True,” said Botts, dazzled; “let’s go and tell him.”

And on a Saturday evening a score of citizens came to Hummel’s
house.

Hummel was lying pallid on a lounge.

“We’ve come,” said Wheelock, blandly, “to felicitate you. We
couldn’t bear to see you carry that debt, Hummel. We fixed the
little thing in what was, I agree, an unprecedented way. But when we
schemed beforehand with Mrs. Stoker to give a party and pass the
victory on to your wife--Hummel, my friend, our hearts went with
it!”

And Hummel, seeing this astonishing loophole for them all, arose to
greet the general smile.

“Kind friends,” said he, in trembling relief, “more blessed is it to
give than to receive.”




THE SORCERY OF ASENATH

By Maria Roberts


People often ask me why I gave up a promising business career and
devoted myself to traveling, in which I find no pleasure; exploring,
for which I have no taste; and archæology, which is to me the most
tiring of pursuits. The question has never been answered, save by
the statement that there is no reason to give, which involves the
telling of an incredible story.

There are two or three to whom I would like to tell it. If they
survive me, they shall know--to that end, these pages.

It is my conviction that whatever intelligent man has known, he has
tried to record in some way--that living truths, new to us, may be
gleaned from the stone tablets of races extinct for ages. For such a
truth, I am searching. One man found it, but he is dead. His spirit
I have called up, as the woman at Endor called up Samuel, and
questioned it. He told me that the knowledge had sent it to the
world of shades before its time, and had put power into the hands of
an evil one, who had bidden it never in any place to reveal to any
mortal what it knew.

“Even yet I must obey her,” said the spirit of Paul Glen; “but what
you seek is written.”

As yet, I have not read. Many strange things have I unearthed, but
never this that I seek.

Now, I will write my story. You who read it may believe or not, as
you see fit. I know that it is true.

It is many years now since I went South to visit my sister Helen. I
had not seen her since the day of her marriage, three years before,
till she met me at the door of her own home and welcomed me in her
old sweet and quiet manner. It seemed to me, at the first glance,
that her face had aged too much, and that a certain once fine
expression--a suggestion of latent determination--had overdeveloped,
and marked her with stern lines. From the first moment, too, I
feared the existence of a trouble in her life, of which her letters
had given no hint.

She seemed, though, cheerful enough. She led the way into a great
room that was shaded and cool and full of the scent of lilacs. With
a motion of her hand, she dismissed three or four black maids, whom
she had been assisting or instructing at some sewing work, and they
went out, courtesying and showing their white, even teeth at the
door.

A fourth did not leave, but retired to a far end of the room and
went on with the sewing. I noticed what a tiny garment she was
making, and what a sharply cut silhouette her face made against the
white curtain of the window by which she sat.

Helen chatted away, apologizing for her husband’s absence, asking a
host of questions, and planning some pleasure for every one of the
days of my stay with her. I lay back in my chair, with a feeling of
languid content, and listened. When Helen suggested sleep and
refreshment, I declined both, feeling no need of anything but her
presence and that delicious room, the atmosphere of which was laden
with rest as with the scent of the lilacs.

The black woman sat directly in the line of my vision, and I
remember now that my gaze never strayed from her. I noticed, idly at
first, then with interest, the regularity of her features and the
grand proportions of her head and bust. Her hair, brownish in color,
with dull copper tints, was as straight as my own, and she had a
hand and arm so perfectly molded that, except for their black skin,
they might have been those of a lady of high degree. But it was the
pride, speaking from every line of that dark face, that most
attracted my notice. There was in it, too, an exultant sense of
power, and it was the most resolute face, black or white, that I
ever saw.

Presently I began to feel that it required an effort to keep the
thread of what Helen said, and to reply. Her voice seemed to get
faint, then to come in snatches, with an indistinct murmur between
them; at last, not at all, though I knew she was still speaking.

I was not unconscious, but perception was contracted and
concentrated upon one abnormal effort. From me a narrow path of
light stretched down the room to the black woman. She seemed to
expand and to grow luminous; a vapor exhaled from her, floated to
the middle of the pathway, and there assumed her own form, almost
nude, perfect like her face in its every line, motionless as if
carved from ebony, but with fierce, impure eyes that looked straight
into mine and from which there seemed to be no escape.

Their gaze begot an overwhelming sense of disgust. My soul
shuddered, but my body could not move. The evil face smiled. A cloud
floated over the form of ebony, slowly passed away, revealing one
like polished ivory, but the eyes changed not.

How long their gaze held me motionless and helpless I do not know.
Suddenly, something white shut out the vision, and my sister’s
voice, now harsh and loud, struck upon my hearing like a lash.
Instantly the room assumed its ordinary appearance, the scent of the
lilacs greeted me as if I had newly come into the atmosphere, and
Helen, in her white dress, stood before me, trembling.

The negress at the window looked at us both with insolent amusement.
It was to her that Helen spoke.

“How dared you!” she exclaimed; “oh, that I could punish you as you
deserve!”

The girl smiled and slowly drew her needle through the cloth in her
lap.

“Go out to Lucas,” commanded Helen. “Go!”

The girl drew herself up, and her face took on an expression of
sullen defiance. It seemed for an instant that she would not obey.
She clenched her hands, and I heard her teeth grate together. But
she hesitated only a moment, then went slowly out of the room.
Presently she passed by the window, pushing a heavy barrow full of
earth. Lucas, the gardener, followed, carrying a long gad. In a
minute or two they passed again, going in the same direction, and
afterward again and again. The girl was pushing the barrow around
and around the house.

“That is the heaviest and most menial employment I can devise for
her,” said Helen; “I wish there were something worse. She grows more
impudent every day, but this is the first time she has dared to
exert her snaky power upon a white person in my presence. How did
you feel while you were under that spell?”

“Now, Helen, for heaven’s sake don’t imagine----”

“I imagine nothing,” she interrupted, in a low voice. “I know that
girl. She can do strange things. If ever a human creature was
possessed of a devil, she is.”

“Why, Helen!”

She went on without heeding my astonishment. “Every negro on the
plantation, except Lucas, is mortally afraid of her. My birds cower
in a corner of their cage if she approaches them, the gentlest horse
we have will rear and kick at sight of her, and if she goes into the
poultry-yard the hens cover up their chicks as if night had come.
She has affected others as she did you. She has done worse. When I
first came here, she was given to me for a maid; but, not liking
her, I took a little mulatto girl who was bright and smart then, but
who is now idiotic through fear of Asenath.”

I did not think it best to dispute with Helen, knowing her well
enough to be sure that any argument I could adduce against her
belief she had already weighed and found wanting. She was not a
superstitious woman, nor a hasty one, but one whose very mistakes
deserved respect, since she always took that course of action which
she believed to be wisest and best, even if it were to her own
disadvantage. I simply asked: “Why do you not get rid of her?”

“I have tried, but something frustrates every effort of that kind.
Robert objects to sale--it is unusual on this plantation. We once
offered her her freedom if she would go away; but she only looked as
if she scorned the freedom we could give, and laughed in a way that
chilled my blood.”

“She seems very insolent.”

“Insolent--that is a weak word! I sometimes think she is
birth-marked with impudence as she is with straight hair.”

“That hair, then, is a birth-mark? I thought it must be a wig.”

“She was born with it and with an insane craving to be white. When a
child, she used to scream and shriek over her blackness for hours at
a time. Mother Glen whipped that out of her.”

“It is a pity she did not whip out some of her other peculiarities.”

“Mother Glen was much to blame for some of them. You knew Paul Glen,
and what a strange, silent being he was--always absorbed in some
mysterious pursuits, roving from one lost region to another, coming
home, now and then, for a day and leaving, as if for a short time,
to be heard of after months of inquiry in Hyderabad, or Jerusalem,
or the heart of Guinea. Well, after he came home the last time he
made Asenath the subject of numerous psychological experiments. He
could mesmerize any one--what other gifts he had is not known; but
he called mesmerism child’s play. Mother Glen did not object to his
making this use of the girl, because she did not wish to cross Paul
and have him go away again. It is my belief that Asenath discovered,
through some of his experiments, the existence of an occult power in
herself. Before long, she had Paul completely under her control. I
had not yet come here; but Mother Glen told me about it, and that
any effort to break the spell made Paul perfectly furious. He taught
her to read, and to sing, and obeyed her in everything--think of it!
After a while he fell sick, but it was thought not dangerously.
Asenath nursed him, and he would not eat or drink unless she bade
him.”

“That, though, may have been a mere whim, such as the sick often
take.”

She shook her head. “You have not heard all: Two of the
servants--Mammy Clara and Belinda--declare that they overheard
Asenath forbid Paul ever to touch food again, and tell him that she
would pretend to bid him eat, but he must not do so. And it is
certainly true that he at last refused all sustenance and died of
starvation.”

“What a horrible idea!”

“Shortly before Paul was stricken down,” Helen proceeded, “he
disposed of all his property--it was in securities of various
kinds--and we have never been able to find out what he did with the
money he received. Thousands and thousands of dollars took wing
somehow. It was never brought here, so she could not have stolen it
actually, but I am as sure that Asenath knows where that money is as
I am that I live.”

“Now, Helen, be sensible, do.”

“Mother Glen was a sensible woman, and she believed as I do. She
said the girl was uncanny. Moreover, she declared to me that Asenath
had set out to conquer her as she did Paul, and that it was only by
constant resistance that she prevented her from gaining her object.
There was a psychic contest between them. Mother Glen’s brain was in
a condition of siege for months. It could not stand the strain. She
was seized with paralysis and died. I blame Asenath for her death.”

I did not say much in reply. My odd experience of a few minutes
before puzzled me. Helen’s account of the girl threw a weird light
upon what I felt bound, as a reasonable man, to consider merely
curious phenomena, subjective in character and due to some
unexplained physical cause. I determined to say a few decided words
to Robert Glen about the culpability of allowing his delicate wife
to contend with such an annoyance as Asenath, who, if not a
sorceress, certainly was a fractious and troublesome servant.

“It is strange that Robert does not remove her,” said I.

Helen’s face flushed and was drawn by a momentary spasm. She looked
at me in troubled silence, as if she could not decide to speak what
she wished to tell me.

“I am afraid for Robert,” she said at length, almost in a whisper;
“there is something in that girl’s demeanor to him that it sickens
me to think of--and which I dare not try to explain, even to myself.
It seems impossible that she can dare to think that he”--she went on
hurriedly, after a pause--“you see, he believes in no psychic powers
and is not on his guard. He calls her unearthly pranks mere mischief
that a few years’ discipline will take out of her. Robert intends
her to marry Lucas.”

She spoke the last sentence quite loudly, and, as the girl and her
driver were passing by the window, they overheard. Lucas, a squat,
stolid-looking mulatto, with a face like that of a satiated animal,
chuckled and poked at Asenath with the gad.

The girl stopped. She threw down her burden, flung back her head,
and turned upon Helen a wild and vicious stare. Her face, streaming
with perspiration, was full of threat. She gasped for breath from
emotion or the heaviness of her toil. She raised one hand, wiped her
brow with its open palm, and flung the drops of sweat in a shower at
Helen.

“May every drop curse you!” she said, between her labored breaths.

Helen looked at her with quiet scorn. “Go on, Lucas,” she said,
calmly.

Asenath shook herself, like a chained animal. She ground her teeth
and turned upon Lucas in fury, as if she would rend him. He did not
quail, but raised his gad threateningly and pointed to the
barrow-handles, and, after a momentary struggle with herself, the
girl took them up and went on, panting under her toil.

“She shall continue that until she drops,” said my sister.

“But, Helen, that surely is cruel.”

“Not more so than drawing the fangs of a snake. I have discovered
that she is psychically powerless when physically exhausted. All the
negroes on the place know this and are rejoicing now--they all feel
more secure for knowing that she has been disciplined.”

While she was speaking, I saw Robert Glen coming along the walk to
the house. Helen saw him, too. Leaning out the window, she called to
Lucas and bade him take his charge “to the old barn.” He hurriedly
departed, driving the girl--who now seemed doubly unwilling to drag
her load--literally like an ox, and very unsparing of the gad.

Robert greeted me cordially; but it was evident to me that there was
a cloud between his wife and him. His ruddy face assumed a stern
expression when he looked at her, and his voice had a hard tone when
he addressed her. Her manner to him had an appealing, almost
fawning, air, which it distressed me to see.

It was some days before I found a chance to speak to Robert on the
subject of the girl. I had better have held my tongue, for he was
nettled in an instant, shrugged his shoulders, and curled his lip.

“You Northern people know nothing whatever about the management of
slaves. Helen leads that girl the life of a toad under a harrow,
because the other darkies say she ‘hoodoos’ them, and because my
mother had some irrational ideas about demoniacal possession. I
declare to you, Tom, that if I did not know Helen’s delicate
condition and nervousness were much to blame, I should be ashamed of
her treatment of Asenath, who is a good house-servant, and
valuable.”

“But she is an annoyance that Helen should not have to contend with
now.”

“How is she to be got rid of?” he demanded, impatiently. “We never
sell any of the people on this estate, and she won’t take her
freedom as a gift. I can’t kill her.”

Then I dropped the subject. When I next saw Helen, she had been
crying, and she begged me not to speak to Robert about the girl
again.

I saw no more of Asenath for some time, and learned that she had
been put steadily to work at the loom, the day following my arrival.

One morning, news came that the loom-house had been entered in the
night, all the yarn carried off, the woven cloth cut to pieces, and
the loom and wheels so shattered that new ones would be necessary.
Even the walls of the building were half-destroyed.

“This is some of Asenath’s work,” said Helen.

Robert, who had been annoyed by the news, now seemed additionally
so.

“Pshaw, Helen!” he said sharply; “it would take the strength of
several men to do some of this mischief.”

“She has it at command. Lucas shall take her in hand again.”

“No, we will have no more of that,” Robert said, sternly. “Now, hear
me, Helen; I have told Lucas that if he obeys you in that respect
again he shall be flogged within an inch of his life, and I mean
it.”

Helen’s face turned very white, her hands fell into her lap, and she
sat as if stricken helpless and hopeless. I hastened away to avoid
hearing more, comprehending now what the trouble in my sister’s life
was, and with a presentiment of coming evil that would be greater.

It was that very night that, having strolled into the shrubbery to
smoke my cigar, I fell asleep upon a rustic bench there and awoke to
find it was late at night, with the wind moaning as if a storm were
brewing in the cloudy heavens.

As I arose to go to the house, something--that was not
visible--seemed to come from every quarter at once and smite me. I
felt a sharp, electric thrill, which was followed by a sensation as
if I had been flung from a height and raised up again, with some of
my faculties benumbed by the fall. My hair stood up, but I felt no
fear, only a passive wonder, mixed with expectation. Turning, I saw,
by a transient gleam of moonlight, the girl Asenath, standing in the
path near by, pointing at me with a long, slender rod. The ray
passed and left a black Shadow there, which moved slowly away,
beckoning to me. I followed.

The Shadow led me out of the shrubbery and along the wide avenue
between the two rows of huts occupied by the negroes, and ended at
the mansion house. I had no will or thought but to follow it
exactly. It stopped before one of the huts and bent itself nearly
double. I, too, bent over, involuntarily, and every muscle of my
body seemed to become tense. The perspiration started out of me, and
my will was like a bar of steel ending in great fingers, which
grasped something and pulled upon it with such force that my inner
self was a-tremble with weakness when the tension relaxed, which it
did at the opening of the cottage door and the coming out of a
little lad--a mere child--who looked ghastly, as one of the dead
walking. He placed himself beside me, we followed the shadowy woman
to another house, dragged at the invisible cords of another human
soul, and brought it out into the night. It was a woman, this time,
in scantiest of night-robes.

And so we went on, stopping at every door, and from every door some
one came forth, except from that of Lucas. There, grasp as it would,
the steel fingers clutched nothing, and the door remained shut.

The woman Asenath muttered to herself, and all the crowd of
followers muttered, too. With them, my own lips formed words, of
which I did not then comprehend the meaning: “Soulless beast!” We
went on beyond the quarters, stopped at the mansion, and dragged at
something that resisted with all its strength, which was weaker than
ours, for it yielded at last, and came slowly, slowly down the steps
and stood among us. It was my sister Helen.

Asenath laughed, and ghastly laughter broke from all, even from
Helen herself.

I had no feeling of compassion for her, nor of fear for her or
myself, but was simply a force which another exerted. The wills of
those who followed Asenath were but strands in the cable of her
power, and their strength was in her hands for good or ill.

We followed again--out of the plantation, through a forest of pines,
over a bridge that spanned slow-crawling, black water, past a fallen
church, surrounded by forgotten graves, to the top of a hill where
there were stones laid in the form of a serpent--a great cleft
stone, like open jaws, forming the head. There Asenath paused and
cast down her rod. She stretched out her hands, and in a moment we
were formed into a circle about the rod.

And then once again those fingers of steel grasped
something--something that all their strength seemed unable to move.
Our breath came in gasps, our forms shook like the leaves of the
aspen tree, and in the heart was a fear, too great to be measured,
of failure. Long, long the effort lasted--lasted until the will
seemed to discard its own puerile strength and to fling itself upon
the bosom of impersonal force, seize the reservoir of the universal
will, and turn its power in a mighty stream upon the burden of one
desire--one unyielding demand that the door be opened. And with that
borrowed force came the sense of unlimited strength. Faith was born.
We stretched out our arms in gestures of which I can only remember
that they were first those of invitation, then of welcome. Nature
began to pulsate. There was a sound like the slow, regular beating
of a heart, in the chambers of which we were inclosed. The inner
life throbbed with it so fiercely that the blood seemed almost to
leap from my body. All about us were the movements of awakening
birds and insects; from afar came the lowing of kine, the crowing of
cocks, and the crying of children, as if they were suddenly startled
into fear.

In the centre of the circle appeared a square of strange light. We
looked upon it and beheld a place of which the darkness and the
light of this world are but the envelopes. We saw there, afar off, a
vast crystalline globe, from which extended, in all directions,
millions of filaments of clear light. The globe scintillated as a
diamond does, and its sparks floated away upon the endless filaments
of light. Nearer to us, moving about, were beings not human, and not
resembling each other further than that they were all gigantic and
all possessed of some human attributes. Some were beautiful, some
hideous; but upon every one was stamped--in strange characters that
I somehow understood--the words “_I only am God_.” Upon some the
writing was fantastic, as if put on in mockery. Upon others it shone
with a clear and cruel radiance that pained the sight. Some bore it
faded and dim, as if the pretension it set up had fallen like a leaf
into the stream of the ages and been almost forgotten. A great awe
fell upon us all, so great that all, except the woman Asenath and
myself, fell down and seemed as if dead. The woman trembled and
murmured to herself, and again my lips formed her words: “Is it
worth while, when human desires are so poor, human life so short?”

Through that door there floated not a voice, for the silence was
only broken by a faint, soft hum, like very distant music, but an
unspoken command that impressed itself upon the spirit.

“_Speak!_”

Still the woman hesitated. Suddenly her lips moved again, mine
following them: “But only through this can _he_ be won.”

“I would have the desire of my heart,” she said aloud.

“_It is thine_,” was the silent answer; “_to him who knocks at this
door shall it be opened, and what he asks for there shall he
receive, whether for good or ill. It is the law._”

“I would be fair, like those who enslave me. All that she has”--she
pointed to my sister--“I would take from her and have for my own.”

“_The power to obtain thy will is thine, whether thou be of the just
or of the unjust. The spirit which commands shall be obeyed. It is
the law._”

“And is there a penalty to be paid?”

“_Thy act is the seed from which its penalty shall grow._”

The woman sighed.

“What penalty?”

“_Thou knowest the law._”

Sighing again, bitterly, Asenath stretched out her hand. The square
of light went out. Across the spot where it had been, drifted
indistinct forms which passed into invisibility on either side.
Under their feet ran a serpent of fire, which leaped at the woman.
She grasped it, and it seemed to become the rod she had cast down.

I remembered nothing more until I came slowly to myself, stretched
upon the bench in the shrubbery, with the morning sun shining into
my face. My limbs were stiff, my head ached, and my heart was heavy
with a foreboding of evil. It was impossible for me to decide
whether the experience of the night was a dream or a reality, but I
was sorely troubled; I could not think of Asenath without a creeping
of the flesh.

On approaching the house, I saw Robert standing in the doorway. My
first glimpse of him set me to trembling with fear of evil tidings,
he looked so agitated and distressed. When he perceived me, he wrung
his hands and burst into tears.

“Oh, Tom!” he cried, “Helen is dying. She was taken with convulsions
early this morning. She does not know me. The baby was born dead,
and Helen can not live. I must lose her! Oh, God, I must lose her!”

He ran through the hall and up the stairs, like a wild man. I
followed, but the heaviness of the shock was so great that it was
but slowly and with a feeling as if the floor was rising up to my
face. Asenath was moving stealthily about the hall. I bade her
begone. She looked at me like a startled cat, but did not go. A
black girl, coming down the stairs, passed me, and I recognized her
as the first of the women who had joined our ghastly crowd the night
before. She gazed straight before her, with wide-open, horrified
eyes, and her face had the same pinched look the hall mirror had
shown me upon my own as I glanced into it involuntarily when passing
it. At the top of the stairs, Belinda, Helen’s poor little maid,
flung herself at my feet and clasped my knees.

“Oh, Massa Tom,” she cried, “she am ’witched. Go an’ git d’ witch
doctah t’--tak’--de spell off’n her. Nuffin’ll save her ef yo’ don’t
do dat.”

As I stopped to put the poor creature aside, old Mammy Clara, her
face streaming with tears, came up to me.

“Massa Tom,” she said, solemnly, “de good God hab tooken Miss Helen.
She’s in heben wid her li’l’ baby.”

The blow overcame me. It will be best to pass over that time. I shut
myself into my room and bore my agony alone. I went once into the
room where Helen lay and looked at her face. It was the face of one
in peaceful rest, but it had aged twenty years in twelve hours. Her
maids, directed by Mrs. Grayson, an old friend of the family, were
ready to prepare her for the grave.

“They think,” whispered Mrs. Grayson, “that she had walked in her
sleep. Her feet are scratched and torn, as if she had been among
briars barefoot, and the doctors say that her convulsions probably
came on from the shock of awakening. She was found at daybreak,
unconscious, in the hall, and the outer door was wide open.”

I left the plantation a few days after the funeral, and for years
neither saw nor heard directly from Robert Glen. I never could
forgive his indifference to Helen’s peace of mind while she lived,
nor get over a certain disgust with which his lack of self-control
at the time of her death inspired me. I never liked him, and, after
that sad time, I had less regard for him than ever. I never told him
the story I have written. He would only have pronounced me mad, and
I did not wish to obtain that reputation for the mere sake of
warning him. Besides, I tried with all my mind to believe the
experience of that night a dream, but I found that impossible and
was always looking for a sequel to it. The sequel came in its
appointed time.

Years passed away. At the outbreak of the war, the Graysons came
North. From them, I learned that Asenath had disappeared from the
plantation long before, and was supposed to have drowned herself in
the black creek and to haunt the plantation in the form of a
black-and-white snake. Dr. Grayson blamed himself for her death.

“Some of the Glen negroes,” he said, “told some of mine that the
girl was turning white, and that, with the exception of her face and
hands, her whole body had changed its color. Now I had heard of such
cases, but never had seen one, and in spite of what Buffon and other
naturalists say on the subject, felt doubtful of the possibility of
such a thing taking place. I rode over to Glen’s one day to
investigate the matter. Glen was not at home; but, presuming upon
old friendship with him, I saw the girl and told her the object of
my call. I wish you had seen her; she flew into an outrageous
passion, called me vile names, said there was not a white spot on
her person, and that if I touched her it should cost me dear. Of
course, I paid no attention to her threats, and called that Lucas of
Glen’s to help me turn up her sleeves. Her arms really were white,
but before I could half-examine them, she broke away from us and
tore out of the house. We followed, but lost sight of her in the
shrubbery, and to this day she has never been seen again. The
negroes say she drowned herself. Glen, when he returned, seemed to
believe so. He took me to task in a most ungentlemanly manner for
what had happened, and we have not been on speaking terms since. He
has now gone abroad to stay until this little war squall blows over,
I hear.”

“I trust that he may--and longer,” I said. The doctor chuckled a
little and changed the subject. In secret, I said to myself: “I
don’t believe the girl is dead, and I do believe that Robert Glen
knows where she is. The sequel will come.”

In ’68, Robert returned home, bringing a wife with him. He wrote me
a formal announcement of his marriage, to which I replied with equal
formality.

It was rumored that the new wife was rich in her own right; that she
was of English parentage, but born and reared in Calcutta. Later, I
heard that Robert’s old neighbors had not taken to her at all, and
that she had an ungovernable temper, being unable to keep any
servant under her roof, except a couple of East Indian women, whom
she berated continually in their own tongue, but who could not speak
English enough to impart any information about their mistress to her
neighbors.

The year after Robert’s marriage, I accepted an invitation to spend
a few days with the Graysons. Feeling that I owed Robert the
courtesy of a call, I rode over to the plantation, not so much to
discharge a social duty as to see the new Mrs. Glen, about whom I
noticed, on the part of the Graysons, a marked reluctance to speak.
They edged away from the subject, when I brought it up, with nervous
looks at each other.

Leaving my horse at the outer gate, I walked along the wide avenue
nearly to the house. There was a spectral stillness upon the place.
Sadness exhaled from everything, to be drawn in with every breath.
The old servants were all gone. I had met the once sleek and stolid
Lucas, now rheumatic and ragged, begging in the village. Belinda was
in the county asylum, and the others were scattered or dead. The
scent of the lilacs was gone from the air--the very bushes were
rooted up, and lay, sear and dead, by little heaps of earth. A
triangle of cloud in the sky cast upon the earth a triangle of
shadow, in the midst of which Robert Glen’s home lay as if it were
entranced. No sign of happy life met me; but, as I turned aside to
look at a certain bench in the shrubbery, a black-and-white snake
ran over my foot.

I went no further. A woman was seated upon the bench--a fair woman,
with hair like dull copper reflecting sullen fire, with a face and
form perfect as those of the goddesses of old, a face which
betokened an indomitable soul which knew the secret of the power
wielded by the gods. She was bending over her clasped hands, her
face was turned aside in an attitude of eager waiting, and wore a
smile that transfigured it. Slowly approaching her, walking as a man
walks in his sleep, came Robert Glen. He threw himself at her feet
and laid his head upon her knee. She bent to him with a little
rapturous caress, and both faces were as happy as those of the
people in Paradise.

I turned and went away from the place, and entered its precincts no
more. From that hour, I was self-devoted to one purpose--to seek the
knowledge that should open the door to her degradation and
destruction. In the midst of her success, and in the height of her
pride, she should turn black as she was in the day when Lucas drove
her. I swore it. So should my friend and my sister, whom she robbed
and slew, be avenged.




OLD “HARD LUCK”

By E. Munson


Every one admitted he had a good heart in him. Even his bitterest
enemy, Kid Alderson, was willing to make that concession, but
qualified it by adding that he “was so blamed unlucky and peculiar,
a body never knowed when he _was_ in to clear.”

This singularity extended to his name. “H-o-s-s-e-l-k-u-s, accent on
the _sel_,” he was wont to explain, with something like a shade of
weariness, when a new operator faltered on his long patronymic.

Eben J. Hosselkus was engineer of Engine Seventeen-Forty-Three.

With the meagre data available, it is difficult to determine whether
the name Hosselkus belongs to the Anglo-Saxon, Indo-European, or
Teutonic family; but no such uncertainty attached to the origin of
its unfortunate bearer. He was an unmistakable Yankee; rather below
the medium height, lean and wiry; his mild, light-blue eyes were
overshadowed by bushy and frowning eyebrows, and his grizzled
mustache bristled with a singular ferocity, which the weakness of
mouth and chin immediately belied. The whole man was decidedly
contradictory. When first addressed, his manner was brusque and his
voice gruff; but, after a few terrible expletives, his tone would
soften and his most positive assertions invariably ended with an
appeal for confirmation. “Now ain’t it so, for a fact? Now wouldn’t
you say so, ’f you’uz me?” he would ask, while his wistful eyes
wandered from face to face in search of support or sympathy,
perhaps.

He was the oldest engineer on the division, and the most
unfortunate. Two decades of brakemen and conductors had twisted and
distorted his luckless surname in every conceivable way; but to all
appellations, from “Old Hoss” to “Hustle-Cuss,” he ever accorded the
same ready response.

Of late years he had been known simply as “Hard Luck.” When a
train-crew would reach the end of the division, wan and famished
from a protracted sojourn at some desert-siding, the first inquiry
of their sympathetic brethren would be: “Who was pullin’ you?” “Old
Hard Luck, of course,” was the seldom varied reply.

Old Hosselkus had probably suffered more “moving accidents by flood
and field” than any other man ever lived through. And yet he was a
thoroughly competent engineer. He was an earnest student of
mechanical engineering, and could explain the mysteries of “link
motion,” the principles of the “injector,” and the working of the
Westinghouse automatic air-brake in a singularly lucid manner.
Nothing pleased him better than to enlighten a green fireman upon
some knotty point, and the walls of the roundhouse and bunkhouse are
still covered with his elaborate chalk and pencil diagrams of the
different parts of the locomotive.

As far back as he could remember, it had been the dream of
Hosselkus’s life to be a regular passenger-engineer--in railroad
parlance, to “pull varnished cars.” This was the goal upon the
attainment of which the best efforts of his life had been
concentrated, and still, after twenty years’ service, he seemed as
far as ever from success. Many times he had almost achieved it, but
always something had happened to prevent, some unaccountable and
unavoidable piece of ill-luck. Finally, his name became so
synonymous with disaster that the “Company” hesitated to intrust the
valuable equipment of an express-train and the lives of the
traveling public to him. Thus, as the years went by, old Hard Luck
had become accustomed to crawling out from under the disgruntled
engine of a side-tracked worktrain or way-freight to acknowledge the
patronizing wave of the hand, as some former fireman of his whizzed
by with a passenger-train or an “officers’ special.” Despair,
however, had no place in his heart, and he still reveled in the
fancied joys of pulling the fast express, and dreamed of that happy
time when, to the customary inquiry as to the time of his departure,
he would be able to answer: “I go out on Number Three.”

There is a great difference in engineers; some can step off the
foot-board at the end of a long run looking as fresh and clean as at
the start, while, to judge from the appearance of others, one would
imagine they had made the journey in the ash-pan. Hosselkus belonged
to the latter class. It would have required some more powerful
solvent than simple soap and water to have removed the soot and
grime that had gradually accumulated in the wrinkles and hollows of
his countenance during the years of arduous service. There was some
excuse for him, however, seeing that so much of his life had been
spent upon superannuated “ten-wheelers,” which, as every one knows,
are awkward machines to oil, on account of their wheels being so low
and close together. Then, too, he had so many accidents. He scarcely
ever made a round trip without “slipping an eccentric,” “bursting a
flue,” or “burning out his grates,” not to mention more serious
mishaps, such as derailments, head and hind-end collisions, or
running into slides and wash-outs. Much practice had made him almost
perfect in “taking down a side,” or disconnecting a locomotive,
while some of his exploits in the fire-box, plugging flues, rivaled
the exhibition given by the Hebrew children in that seven times
heated furnace of Holy Writ.

But while his extensive experience upon the road had developed
habits of self-reliance and a certain readiness in emergencies, it
was not calculated to impart that gloss or polish which enables one
to shine in society. Hard Luck’s only appearance within the charmed
circle had been when he acted as pall-bearer at the funeral of a
division superintendent, and upon that occasion he had scandalized
his colleagues by appearing without the conventional white gloves,
and a hurried and embarrassed search of his pockets only brought to
light a bunch of “waste” and a “soft hammer,” articles which, though
almost indispensable on a locomotive, are not essential to the
success of a well-ordered interment.

Gamblers say that if one is but possessed of sufficient capital, the
most persistent run of ill-luck may eventually be broken, and so it
proved in Hosselkus’s case.

An “officers’ special,” carrying the leading magnates of the road
upon a tour of inspection, was expected, and Engine
Seven-Seventy-Seven, the fastest locomotive on the division, and
Bill Pearson, an engineer with a record, had been held in readiness
for some time to take them out.

The engine, with a full tank of the best coal, had already been run
out of the roundhouse, and the train-dispatcher had the freights
safely side-tracked, and satisfactory “meets” with the
passenger-trains about figured out, when he was interrupted in his
study of the train-sheet by a nervous ring at the telephone. The
dispatcher answered it himself, and the foreman of the roundhouse
announced that Pearson was sick, and unable to take the special out.

“That’s bad,” mused the dispatcher, but added, a moment later:
“Well, send the next best man, and get a move on; they’ll be here in
ten minutes.”

“They ain’t none,” replied the roundhouse.

“No other engineer?” shouted the dispatcher.

“Well, there’s only Perkins on the yard-engine and Hard Luck just in
on Scott’s work-train--might double him out again--that’s all.”

The dispatcher rushed into the adjoining room to consult the
superintendent.

It was in the midst of the busiest season, and every available
engineer was out upon the road.

“Hard Luck? nonsense!” said the superintendent when he was informed
of the situation. “Tell Pearson he must take the special out--this
is a nice time for him to get sick!”

The roundhouse was notified, and replied that Pearson was “foamin’
awful--his wife’s got him jacked up and two doctors workin’ on him,”
yelled the foreman.

“This is terrible! _terrible!_” groaned the superintendent. “Perkins
is only a boy, we can’t put him on, and Hosselkus will never get
over the division without something happening--never in the world!”
and the perspiration started upon his forehead. The whistle of the
special aroused him to the necessity of immediate action.

“Tell them to put Hosselkus on, and get him out as quick as
possible--we are in the hands of Providence anyway, I suppose,” he
added to himself.

All was hurry and excitement when the special pulled in. The engine
that brought it in was cut off and hurried out of the way, while the
huge, well-groomed “Three-Sevens” backed slowly down in charge of
Hosselkus, whose heart swelled chokingly as the brazen clangor of
her bell pealed out.

But the beginning was ominous. The engine was unfamiliar to him and
worked more stiffly than he had expected, so that when he backed
down to be coupled on, he struck the train with a momentum that
jarred its occupants uncomfortably.

“Lord! _Lord!_” moaned the superintendent as he wiped his clammy
brow and sought to divert the directors’ attention from the mishap
by suggesting some needed improvements in the “Company’s” water
supply.

Presently he excused himself and went ahead to the engine to
interview Hard Luck. He found him with an oil-can in one hand and a
bunch of waste in the other, engaged in the important duty of
“oiling ’round.”

Hosselkus had had no time to change his greasy jumper and overalls
for cleaner ones; his hasty wash had merely imparted a smeary look
to his countenance, and the badge on his cap was upside down, but
his eyes sparkled beneath their shaggy brows, his mustache bristled
savagely, and the whole man was nervously alert as, with a squirt of
oil here, a dab of the waste there, and feeling carefully each key
and bearing to detect any signs of heating, he worked his way around
the mighty racer. He was just finishing his round when the
superintendent came up.

“Now, Hosselkus,” said the latter, appealingly, “_do_ be careful and
try and get us over the division in some kind of shape--make time,
and, for heaven’s sake, don’t break down on the road. If you make a
first-class run, I’ll see what we can do about getting a passenger
run for you.”

Hosselkus put away his tallow-pot, wiped his hands on the bunch of
waste, which he then carefully placed in his pocket to serve as a
handkerchief, and at length spoke: “Colonel,” he said, “don’t you
lose no sleep over this excursion--we’ll git there in the biggest
kind of shape--this mill has got it in her, an’ if I can’t coax a
move out of her, I’ll run a stationary the rest of my life. Now,
these kid-engineers of yours, they ain’t up in mechanics like they’d
oughter be--not but what they’re good boys--mind you, I’m not sayin’
a word agin ’em--but they waste her stren’th--they don’t really
savvy the theory. Now----”

“Yes, yes,” hurriedly interrupted the superintendent; “I know, but
we must be getting out of here, and don’t forget that passenger
run--it’s manslaughter, if not murder in the first degree,” he said
to himself, as he hastened back; “but if we escape with our lives,
he shall have the run.”

The conductor waved his hand, Hosselkus opened the throttle slightly
and the steam shrilled through the cylinder-cocks as the special
moved down the yard. Slowly he threaded the network of tracks,
cut-offs, and blind switches, and then more rapidly by the long
siding opposite the row of cottages, where the families of the
conductors and engineers lived. And instinctively he felt the eyes
of the women upon him, and that they were saying: “Well, if there
ain’t that crazy fool on Pearson’s Three-Sevens, with a passenger
special! Wouldn’t that kill you?” for women are jealous
divinities--they would not that man should have any other gods or
goddesses before them, and, as Hosselkus worshiped only a
locomotive, a thing of steel and iron, they made of him a by-word
and a reproach. But at that moment, Hard Luck cared but little for
their disdain; he only thought of his triumph, and the discordant
clanging of the bell of the Three-Sevens sounded in his ears as a
pæan of victory. “At last--at last,” seemed to say its brazen
tongue.

The last switch was passed, and Hosselkus, forgetting the lightness
of his train, opened the throttle so suddenly that the engine fairly
leaped forward, while passengers’ necks received a violent wrench.

“This engineer of yours, colonel,” said the general superintendent,
spitting out the end of a cigar he had involuntarily swallowed, “is
just off a pile-driver, is he not?”

The colonel laughed a joyless laugh. “The fact is,” he replied, “the
regular man was taken sick at the last moment, and we had no one but
this fellow to put on. He is an old engineer, but not used to the
engine. I think he will improve when he gets the hang of it.”

“I hope so--I hope so,” said the general, fervently, as he lit a
fresh cigar; “there is evidently room for improvement.”

But presently even the anxious superintendent was forced to admit
they were moving. Telegraph-poles, that had appeared and disappeared
with majestic deliberation, began to flit by the windows with a
frequency and abruptness very unusual in those stately objects;
quicker and less rhythmic came the click of the wheels as each rail
was passed, and the leaps of the engine at each revolution of the
driving-wheels were merged into a continuous, convulsive shudder.
The passengers no longer experienced the sensation of being drawn
along, but felt as though projected through space, and the more
timid clung to their seats to avoid soaring off through the roof.
Trainmen who could traverse undisturbed the reeling roofs of a fast
freight, made their way through the swaying cars with difficulty.

Old Hard Luck was evidently “getting there,” and the superintendent
prayed silently that he might maintain the speed to the end.

At the first stop he went forward to congratulate the engineer. The
fireman was under the engine “hoeing out,” and Hosselkus, sooty but
triumphant, was “oiling ’round.”

“How’d’s that suit you, colonel?” he cried, as his superior
approached; “the old girl’s a-crawlin’, ain’t she?”

“You’re doing fine, Hosselkus--fine, but keep it up--pound her on
the back, for the porter tells me the wine is getting low and
they’re liable to see something to beef about. Keep ’em a-rollin’,
and the passenger run is yours.” The colonel had risen from the
ranks, and at times, unconsciously, lapsed into the old dialect.

“Don’t you worry none, we’ll git there. Gimme this mill, colonel,
an’ none of the other boys on the division ’ud ever get a smell of
my smoke. An’ she does it so easy, reminds of your maw’s old
rocker--just handle her right, don’t crowd her, that’s the main
point. Now my theory’s like this, we’ll say the cylinder receives so
much----”

But the colonel had fled. Hard Luck carried his theory with him, for
he never succeeded in obtaining a listener to whom he could expound
it.

No accident occurred, however; the speed was maintained, and the
special reached Oleson’s Siding so far in advance of the
train-dispatcher’s calculations that quite a wait was necessary
while Number Three, the east-bound express, toiled up the grade.

Hosselkus lit the headlight, for the sun was impaled upon one of the
peaks of the distant Sierras, whose eastern slopes were already
purpling with shades of evening.

It was the last stop. Below him wound the tortuous Goose-Neck Grade,
with the division terminus at its foot. The run was nearly ended.

Having finished oiling, Hosselkus leaned against the cylinder-head
and gazed abstractedly down the track. A brakeman was seated on the
head-block of the switch, throwing stones at an adjacent
telegraph-pole, and moodily speculating upon the probabilities of
“getting in” in time for supper, while an occasional breath of wind
from the valley brought with it, from far down the grade, the
puffing of the engines on Number Three.

He had succeeded. The record would be broken beyond a doubt; but as
the cool breeze of sunset blew in his face, he suddenly became aware
of the fact that he was tired, and he remembered then that he had
been on the road for over forty-eight hours.

The smell of heated tallow struck him, for the first time, as being
a singularly unappetizing odor, and he looked over the huge machine
with something akin to dissatisfaction in the expression of his
face. He sighed, and the brakeman asked if she was coming--meaning
the train.

“No,” replied Hard Luck; “she ain’t showed up ’round the bend
yet--I’uz just thinkin’.”

“Well, here she’s a-comin’.”

Hosselkus clambered to his seat, and as soon as the express-train
had cleared the switch it was opened by the brakeman, and the
special was once more under way.

Leaning uncomfortably now to this side, now to that, and with angry
grinding of flange on rail, it swept around the curves with
ever-increasing speed. A crashing roar, a flare of yellow sunset
light reflected from rocky walls, told of a cutting safely passed,
while bridge, and culvert, and trestle bellowed again as the engine
cleared them at a bound.

The Three-Sevens devoured the way. Again and again Hosselkus proved
the correctness of his theory by the terrific bursts of speed with
which the mighty engine responded to his every impulse; but his
nerves were no longer responsive to the exultant thrill of triumph.
A sickening foreboding griped his heart; yet, whenever he would have
shut off steam and slackened speed, an unconquerable impulse
restrained him; for, in the exhaust of the engine and the roar of
wheels, he fancied he heard one word repeated over and over again,
with maddening persistency: “Hurry! hurry! hurry! hurry!” And the
fireman, as he shoveled in coal and struggled to maintain his
difficult footing, noted with wonder, not unmixed with uneasiness,
that Hosselkus was working steam on grades where it was usual to
“let them down” under the restraining pressure of the air-brakes.

The lagging summer twilight gradually deepened until the illuminated
faces of clock and steam-gauge stood out with pallid distinctness in
the gloom of the cab. Lights in lonely section-houses shot past, and
occasionally a great flare of red rushed upward from the momentarily
opened door of the fire-box. The dazzling light of the furnace
revealed old Hard Luck crouching forward on his seat, one hand on
the throttle, the other grasping the reversing lever. His features
were set and sharpened, and so pale that through its grimy enameling
his face looked positively blue. An occasional swift, comprehensive
glance took in clock, steam-gauge, and water-glass, and then his
eyes were again fixed upon the arrowy torrent of ties that streamed
into the glare of the headlight and disappeared beneath the pilot
with unbroken, dizzying swiftness. At last a white post flitted by
and Hosselkus relaxed. He glanced at the clock, and the next moment
a long, wailing blast of the whistle warned the yardmen at the
division’s end.

The record was broken; the passenger run was his at last; old Hard
Luck had actually got over the division without a mishap and in time
never before equaled; but instead of exulting over it, as he shut
off steam, he found himself marveling how faint and far away the
whistle had sounded; had he not felt the vibration of the escaping
steam, he would hardly have believed it was the Three-Seven’s
stentorian voice. Undoubtedly there was something wrong; he would
have to fix it the first thing in the morning. The engine lurched
over the switches, and Hosselkus cursed the sudden fog that had
dimmed the switch-lamps so he could hardly tell red from white, but
at length he pulled up before the Railway Hotel--fortune favored him
to the last, he made a splendid stop.

With a great sigh of relief he leaned back on his seat, while the
eating-house gong banged and thundered a hospitable welcome to the
belated guests.

“You made a magnificent run, Hosselkus. I’ll fix it with the
master-mechanic--you go out on Number Three to-morrow,” called out
the superintendent, as he hurried by.

Presently a yardman uncoupled the engine and waved his lantern. “All
right!” called out the fireman, who was standing in the gangway.

The engineer made no move.

“What’s the matter?” inquired the switchman, climbing into the cab;
“Why in----” The light of his lantern fell upon the engineer’s face;
he paused suddenly, for it was white beneath the grime.

Hard Luck was taken from the engine, laid upon a bench, and a
physician hastily summoned. Engineers, with smoky torches, and
trainmen, with lanterns, crowded around with bated breath, while the
doctor listened long and attentively for a sound of life, but only
the air-pump on the Three-Sevens sighed softly, as the light rings
of smoke from her stack floated up, and up, and up in the quiet air,
where still a tinge of twilight lingered.

“Dead!” said the doctor, and the tension was relaxed.

Then they all praised their late comrade, and all agreed that the
old fellow had a good heart in him, anyway--that is, all but the
doctor, who, as he rose and carefully wiped his spectacles, muttered
something about “Organic weakness--told him so.”

The next day, as the superintendent had promised, Hard Luck went out
on Number Three--but he went in a box, lashed to the platform of the
baggage-car.




THE DOTTED TRAIL

By W. H. Irwin


The first time that Dudley Latimer kissed Belle Sharp, the
half-Spanish “help” at the P. L. Ranch, he was not in earnest; he
would have been the last to say that there was any serious intention
in it. He did it partly in a spirit of pure bravado, and partly
because the morning was as warm and white as new milk, and she,
smiling back over her shoulder as she emptied her pails, looked a
part of it. Equally innocent of any harmful intent, she let him
after a formal struggle. He was tall and clean, and as handsome as a
young Englishman can be when he is in perfect condition, and has a
fine, red coat of tan. Then he bade her good-by. He had been at the
ranch a week, ranging the hills in a vain hunt for antelope, already
then, in the early eighties, becoming scarce. His canvas-covered
wagon and his “side partner,” the Hon. Justin Weymouth, waited by
the gate.

The Hon. Justin was taking a parting nip with the “Old Man,” and did
not see the diversion, and none of the four noticed that Emilio
Gonolez, horse trainer and man-of-all-work, was coming in through
the kitchen yard carrying an antelope so freshly killed that its
throat was not yet cut. Emilio stood and watched. He saw the
struggle, heard the girl cry “The gall of you!” saw her color turn
as she lifted her face with unwilling willingness, saw her throw at
young Latimer, walking away, a look of admiration that he took for
something else. Then Emilio slipped round the barn with his quarry,
and came upon the wagon in front. Dudley was smiling across the
fence at Belle, who had found business in the front yard. For half a
minute, Emilio looked what he felt; then smiled as he slipped into
view, and said: “I make-a present you thees antelope. He ees fresh.
Myself, I shoot heem. He come ver’ close.”

“Careful how you tie it, Emmy,” said the Old Man. “Dump it in for
’em. Well, boys, stacking in the north field. Good-by, and luck to
you.”

While Dudley chatted across the fence with Belle, Emilio was
explaining to the Hon. Justin how an antelope should be tied and
hung for a journey. “Head down so he bleed--the dust bother ver’
leetle--oh, yes, a lee-tle cut on the throat so he bleed slow. That
ees bes’. I cut heem.” A slow, red stream trickled over snowy throat
and gray jaws. The wagon drove on. Down the road behind it trailed
an irregular line of wet dots, the centres for an army of noisy
flies.

“Awfully jolly girl,” said Dudley, as they bowled easily along
through the red dust. The Hon. Justin puffed at his pipe, and made
no answer. He might have said that he hastened their going just
because his companion was very young and the girl very pretty. A
flock of sage-hens started from the olive-green brush to one side.
Justin pulled up, took out his shotgun and followed, Dudley throwing
stones to make them rise. A right and left shot brought down a
brace. They gathered up the birds, and turned to the wagon, and as
they did so, the elder man looked back. Just level with the ranch
house, two miles behind, a cloud of red dust veiled the road and
lapped far over its edge. Through the thin atmosphere came a muffled
rumble, and then a few dots, followed at an interval by another,
heaved out of the mass.

“Cattle!” said Dudley. “That’s jolly. I always wanted to see one of
those big droves on the foot. Shall we wait for them to pass?”

“I think not,” said the Hon. Justin. “Not until we get to the next
ranch. They say that those wild range cattle do singular things.”
But still they stood and watched, fascinated by the shimmering,
shifting, red cloud, the distant rumble, the glint of a blazing sun
on the sabred heads of a thousand Texas long-horns.

Of a sudden the dust-cloud, which had spilled over the road only to
the right, away from the ranch fence, widened out, shifted to the
left. They had passed the fence corner, and were on open range. No
dust arose on that wing; it was hard prairie, tied close by
sagebrush. And inexperienced as were their eyes, the two Englishmen
could see some commotion running through the mass; the units
composing it were spreading hither and thither; two compound dots,
mounted men, were swinging wide about them. The rumble grew louder,
lulled, rose again, and above the noise came the sound of a dozen
shots, fired in quick succession. Away back in his consciousness,
Dudley began to regret that they had chosen, in their young British
insolence, to travel without a guide, who might explain to them the
strange happenings of this incomprehensible country.

Justin started at the sound of a frightened snort in his ear. He
turned to see his horses quivering in every nerve. Almost before he
could catch its bridle, the near one was plunging and pitching.

“Get the reins!” yelled Justin; “we’d best be out of here.”

The team broke into a dead run. Looking back, Justin saw the cloud
ominously, frightfully near. A struggling advance-guard of
long-horns heaved out before, and ahead of them were two men, riding
like demons, yet ever beating backward as they rode. Then the red
veil fell, and there was nothing but a dust-cloud, rolling on nearer
and nearer.

                 *       *       *       *       *

When the Englishmen were gone, Belle looked after their retreating
wagon, and sighed. She was just realizing, now that the week was
past and these clean, courteous, easy-moving beings of another world
were gone, that she had been dreaming dreams. Emilio looked also,
sometimes after the wagon, sometimes after the girl. When he bent
his gaze on Belle he was serious enough, but when his eye ran down
the track of bloody dots, he drew his lips back from his white
teeth, and smiled. He was holding the reins of his roan bronco; he
dropped them to lean over the fence, and looked up the road, away
from the wagon.

“What is it that you see up there?” she asked, carelessly, in
Spanish.

“Something that your white-haired friend will be glad to see,” he
answered. She looked, saw the dust-cloud coming, saw the little,
caking pool of blood, and went white in a moment.

“That,” she cried, “that is what your antelope meant! You knew that
cattle were coming this way to-day.”

“A thousand head passing up to the White River country. And wild,
very wild.”

“They will trample them; kill them!”

“You thought about that when you kissed him,” he sneered; “the blood
goes straight, and the wind is right. He will have a run for
it--your lover.”

Then the roar of padding feet was louder, and the herd was coming.
They were fifty yards away--and a great, white steer, horned in
splendor, lowered his muzzle, and bellowed, and tore the earth, and
shot out in advance. Another followed, and still another, each
breaking into that rocking run, each one stretching out his nostrils
to taste the polluted air. They plunged together over the little
pool of blood; they rolled over and over, horns tossing, feet
stamping, throats acclaim. The leaders crowded against the corral
until its foot-wide posts bent and cracked. A deafening roar, the
bellow of a thousand mad cattle, and then nothing but a tangled
riot, speeding on down the scent, a thousand great, horned hounds
after their quarry.

It was the blood stampede that makes half-wild cattle wholly demons.
A clap of lightning, a sudden shot, even the appearance of a
dismounted man, will send the mercurial herd rushing in panic fear;
but let them once scent blood, and all hell is loosed in them. No
pack of wolves follows with the relentless fury of range cattle on
the trail of blood. Huddled by the barn, still showing his teeth,
but half in fright, at the box of demons that he had opened, the man
who laid the trail knew all this. And the girl knew it best of all.

She was between him and his horse as she turned on him.

“You did this--you murderer!”

“I will go,” he said; “I will cut it loose--it will stop the
cattle.”

“Yes--_you_! I will go myself.” He jumped at her as she sprang into
his saddle. She saw the movement. His lariat hung at the
saddle-horn. She brought it down on his wrist. The same movement
started the high-strung little roan, already a-quiver with fear. His
heels clattered against the bars; Belle, astride like a man, her
calico skirts tucked about her hips, was riding after the red cloud,
swinging wide into the sage-brush to pass them.

The roan had a dash of the thoroughbred. He was the swiftest thing
coursing that day in the four-cornered race between cattle, cowboys,
hunted team, and woman, yet he had two hundred yards the worst of
his start. But, like a thoroughbred, he caught the bit and shook out
his dapple mane, and laid his belly to the earth as he skimmed. Over
sage-brush, over treacherous ant-hills, tangling gopher-holes he
sped, the reins loose, for he knew his work. Two cowboys, caught in
the press, fighting, swearing, striking brutally at heads and horns
as they were borne on, called to her in warning; but the roan
rounded the pack, shook himself free, and galloped on.

And then Belle saw what she had feared. Knowing their peril, but
ignorant of the cause, the two Englishmen were hurrying on ahead,
with the carcass still bumping from the tail-board. The cattle in
the road, where the running was freer, had gained upon those on the
flanks. They were going in a wedge, with the speed of an express
train. The cows, fleeter and fiercer than the males, were leading
on. Half a dozen cowboys skirmished before, shooting and lashing out
desperately, trying to back-fire by a counter-panic, taking chances
of life with every gopher-hole. But there was no checking that mass;
when a steer flinched before the heavy whip, he was pushed on from
behind. And ever they bellowed, with a note of tigers in their
voices.

A moment Belle ran before the herd; then calling to the roan, who
understood as only a cow-horse can understand, she cut an oblique
course across the herd’s face. She gained the road; the herd was
behind her, and the roan, gathering his nerve for a final spurt,
made for the wagon. She shouted, but the roar behind drowned her
voice, and so she reached for the holster, where Emilio kept his
knife. As she whipped it out and drew even, reaching for the
carcass, the wagon slackened and stopped. Her own horse swerved in
his course, and shot past before she could check him.

The off-horse, what with fear and exhaustion, had stumbled and
fallen dead. And the wedge was coming on, now but a quarter of a
mile away.

Deadly as was their fear, the two Englishmen, who had jumped to the
ground, stood and stared to see her turn in beside the standing
horse and, without any ceremony, cut his traces and reins. He reared
and plunged; Justin caught his bridle.

“Mount quick!” she shouted. And before he could grasp the situation
she had pushed Dudley to her roan, almost thrown him into the
saddle, and mounted behind.

As the snorting horses bounded away, the roar was almost on their
flanks. It rose to its climax in a great, dull crash. Looking back,
the girl saw that they were no longer followed. The dust-cloud was a
whirlpool that rolled and tumbled over the spot where the wagon had
been. For only a minute; the cowboys closed in, and the panic was
over. Slowly the men beat back the sullen, sated demons. And when
the press split there was no wagon at all--only broken wheels and
scattered bits of woodwork, and flattened belongings and
blood--blood and gleaming gray hairs trampled into everything.

The two men dismounted and turned to the girl. Then was she first
aware of her skirts tucked about her hips, and of the manner in
which she had ridden. Her color rose, and she jumped down. She
turned redder a moment later when Dudley Latimer took her in his
arms and, for the second time that morning, kissed her.

And that time he kissed her in deadly earnest.




THE WHITE GRAVE

By C. Alfred


Harrison and his wife were evidently tenderfeet. Worse than that,
they had never been outside the City of New York before; and why an
inexperienced, city-bred young man like Harrison should have
attempted to move a year’s outfit, which weighs a ton, over the
Chilkoot Pass, and tempt Fate in the bleakness of the Yukon country,
no one knew.

The reason really was Harrison’s wife. Tired of a living salary in
the city, she was ready, when news of the Klondike gold-fields
reached the world in 1897, to catch the gold fever; caught it, and
argued Harrison into resigning his clerkship in an insurance
company, and into taking her with him to Alaska. They were very much
in love, and could not be separated. So they invested their savings
in sacks of flour, and blankets, and tins of coffee, and in tickets
to Dyea.

They landed there in December. This, of course, was an idiotic time
to arrive, but they didn’t know, and there were lots of other idiots
just then. When Harrison grasped the fact that he must, himself,
pull all his pile of provisions over the desolate mountain range
that ran upward in front of him, his heart failed him; as the
Yukoners say, he got cold feet. But his wife cheered him. Mrs.
Harrison was young, and, therefore, hopeful. Moreover, she was a
pretty little woman, with a great mass of flaxen hair, and on her
account many a rough packer on the trail gave Harrison a lift with
his load in the steeper places.

They struggled on together through storms and snowdrifts. Little by
little the outfit neared the summit that had lain eighteen miles
from them when first they landed. Every morning Harrison would load
some two hundred and fifty pounds on the sled, pull it up the trail
seven miles or so, and come back in the afternoon. And the girl, for
she was nothing more, would cook their little meals on the
sheet-iron stove, and dry Harrison’s moccasins and coddle him, and
tell him how like it all was to a picnic, and how she enjoyed the
life. Which was not true.

And so they passed through Canyon City, beyond which there is no
God, the packers say, and up to Sheep Camp, which is far up in the
mountains on the timber line, and beyond which there lies a frozen
desolation that supports no living thing--not even the scrubby
spruce that can exist on the bare rock in lower altitudes. Here they
disappeared from view, because the horses do not go past Sheep Camp,
the trail being too rough; and the packers, not seeing them, could
bring no word.

Now, there were hotels of a fashion in Dyea at this time, but the
entire downstairs part was usually made into one room, and used as a
bar, dance-hall, and gambling house. So when Harrison came back down
the trail two weeks later at three o’clock in the morning, he had to
elbow his way up to the bar in the Comique to ask for a room. The
first bartender looked at him inquiringly, for he had seen the
Harrisons on the trail, and the teamsters had said they must be over
the summit by now. His curiosity got the better of him.

“Are you the party that went up with a little blonde lady three
weeks ago?” he asked.

“I may be,” said Harrison.

“She seemed kind of light for this country,” pursued the bartender.
“Hope she’s standing it all right. Did she come down with you?”

“I brought her with me,” said Harrison.

“Isn’t she coming in? She doesn’t have to pass through the saloon
here if she don’t like. She can----”

Harrison’s hand went to his forehead. “She’s dead,” he said.

A teamster came in the side door and spoke to him, and he followed
the man out. So did two of the dance-hall girls and the first
bartender. Outside in one of the big freighting sleds lay Mrs.
Harrison. Her flaxen hair waved as in life over the girlish face,
hard now as marble and colder. The moon shone full upon her, and a
snow crystal hung here and there on the little fur parkee that she
wore. She might have been a marble Madonna there in the moonlight.
Through the open door came the noise of the next waltz. One of the
girls slipped in, and the orchestra stopped. Quickly a little group
began to gather, but Harrison did not move. He seemed as in a
trance, staring open-eyed, mistily, at the frozen woman in the sled.

Presently, Blanche, the girl who had stopped the music, touched him
on the arm.

“I know there is nothing much I can do for you,” she said. “I know
how it feels; but I thought perhaps you’d like to bring her inside,
and you can have my room till you--till the funeral.”

And Harrison thanked her. But next day he moved the body to an empty
cabin that stood on the river bank in the pine grove back of the
Comique. He could not bury her, he could not give her up, he said.
True, she could not speak to him, nor move, but even to have her
body with him was something, a kind of comfort. The bitter cold of
the Northland, the icy winds that roared in untrammeled fury down
the cañon--these had killed her; now they would preserve the beauty
they had stilled; keep her forever young, as he had known and loved
her. Why should he bury her? And when they spoke to him of burial,
he bade them leave him alone.

Only in the afternoons, when there was no dancing in the Comique,
Blanche used still to go daily to the cabin in the pines, and
brought him a padlock for the door, and a lantern, and other things.

It all might have drifted on in such wise indefinitely, had it not
been that in a month Harrison had no money to buy his meals with,
and that Blanche asked him point blank about it.

“Why don’t you come over and ask Coughlin for something to do?” she
said, when Harrison admitted that he had eaten no dinner that day.
Coughlin was the man who ran the Comique.

“What could I do?” inquired Harrison. “I’m only a bookkeeper.”

But that night he asked Coughlin about it. Now twice a day Coughlin
put all the gold and bank-notes that were in the cash drawer into
his pocket, leaving the silver for change; and he kept his accounts,
which were few, in his head; and he didn’t need a bookkeeper. But he
was sorry for Harrison; and, besides, Blanche had spoken to him of
it, and he wanted to oblige her. For Blanche was popular among the
men, and was asked to drink oftener than any girl in the house, and
was valuable on that account in a country where one gets a dollar
for two drinks. So he told Harrison he could go to work.

“In the morning?” said Harrison.

“Any time,” said Coughlin.

Harrison looked around a moment. “If you’ll show me the books, I
think I might look them over now.”

“Books?” said Coughlin, hesitatingly. “There aint any, but I guess
you can figure all right in this, perhaps.” He produced a small
paper-covered blank book from under the bottle rack. “You’ll find a
lead pencil in the drawer any time”; and he bustled over to the
faro-bank, satisfied that he had demonstrated his familiarity with
the bookkeeping craft. He came back to ask Harrison what wages he
was going to work for.

“Anything,” said Harrison. “In New York I got seventy-five dollars a
month.”

“That aint much,” said Coughlin. “I never asked any man to take less
than three dollars a day and board. You can eat in the restaurant
there.” Then he introduced Harrison to Big Joe, the day bartender,
telling Joe this was the bookkeeper.

An hour later Joe called Harrison to announce that Red Sheehan had
got a drink without paying therefor.

“He never will pay for it, either,” continued the experienced Joe,
“but I suppose you’ll put it down in the bookkeeping.”

Harrison seemed a little undecided as to the value of this entry,
and his uncertainty settled it, for thereafter Joe never mentioned
such items, and as for Coughlin, he continued to dump the uncounted
contents of the cash drawer at various times into his pocket, and to
pay his debts out of the same receptacle with a total disregard to
cash balances, daily receipts, or outstanding accounts, which made
Harrison’s methodical hair stand on end.

Occasionally, however, he would ask Harrison how he was getting
along, and Harrison, who had debited Red Sheehan’s account with one
drink, and who had never had occasion to make a second entry of any
kind, generally replied that the work was pretty light.

“That’s all right,” Coughlin would say. “Bookkeepers are mighty
handy to have around in case you want to figure some time.”

And so Harrison drew his three dollars a day, and ate in the
restaurant, where Blanche usually managed to sit opposite. Then in
the evening he sat idle in the Comique, and watched the roulette
wheels spin and the cards drop monotonously from the faro-box, heard
the metallic call of the dealers and the buzz of the ball in the
runaway of the wheel; saw the dancing-girls, in all the glories of
scarlet satin, promiscuous affection, and peroxide hair, waltz past;
listened to the wandering musicians of the orchestra play some good
music and much bad; sat in a chair near the end of the bar, and
watched the carnival of sin and revelry around him, and then, about
midnight, when he felt entitled to leave, he went back to the lonely
cabin, where his wife lay in her changeless sleep, to sit and keep
his vigil with her he had loved in life and still adored in death.

In the restaurant he had many conversations with Blanche. “How long
will you stay here?” she asked him once.

“Always, I suppose,” he said.

“But this is only a boom town,” she answered. “Next year there will
be no one here but the Siwashes, and they will be quarreling among
themselves for these buildings.”

“I’ll stay,” persisted Harrison.

“But how can you live? Coughlin is going down the river this summer,
and a man must eat. Why don’t you come along with the rest of us?
He’ll take everybody that is working here, for he means to open up
again in the Yukon country.” Harrison shook his head.

To Blanche he was interesting. Even in the depths to which she had
fallen, or rather deliberately descended, there exists an
unconfessed desire for the better things of the past, for the moral
levels which have been derided and deserted, for the things which
are bitter with the sourness of the grapes the fox could not attain
to; and to talk with Harrison was a breath from the old world,
monotonous, perhaps, but lovable, where she, too ... but she never
thought of those things. What was the use? It made her sad, and she
would undoubtedly drink more than usual, and get reckless, and buy
wine with her salary and percentage money, and be in debt to the
house for a month afterward. So she didn’t think much. It didn’t
ever occur to her that her interest in Harrison was passing the
danger line. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.

                 *       *       *       *       *

A month later, Coughlin announced that the Comique would have a
grand closing one week from that night. “The money is about through
in this town,” he said, in explanation. “We’ll move on to the gold
mines.”

Blanche discussed it that evening with Harrison in the restaurant
The news disturbed him.

“You’ll come, too?” she said. He didn’t know. “There’ll be nothing
here,” she went on, “and it will be so lonely.”

“I don’t mind the loneliness,” said Harrison.

“But I’ll be lonely.”

“Perhaps Coughlin wouldn’t want me, anyway. I haven’t done a stroke
of work while I’ve been here.”

“But he’ll want you if I say so. I’m the best girl he’s got,” said
Blanche, modestly, “and if I say so it goes. And I do say so.”

Harrison was silent. He had often thought of this. He had known, of
course, that he could not live forever at the Comique. Many times he
had decided that death were easier than a final parting from the
dead. He had thought that he could never leave her, but
now---- Well, the lust of life is strong. We do not know how far the
fall is until we stand at the brink and look over. Besides there is
no coming back. If we could only try it for a while and return
again!

“Harrison,” said Blanche, suddenly, “listen. I think I know what you
are thinking, and I know I can not argue such a thing with you. No
one could. You know best, and no one else can know anything about
it. But I want to tell you one fact that perhaps you haven’t thought
of. You want to stay here with her--always. But you can’t. I know it
is horrible to talk of, but it is not always winter even in Alaska,
and the summer is almost here.” The man winced. “Go to bed,
Harrison,” she said; “I can not talk of such things. You know best.”

He went away to the cabin. He knew that Blanche was right. It must
be--but the anguish of it. How should he say the last farewell?

At the foot of the mountains that stretch upward from the Dyea
sands, he dug a grave, four feet. And that night he would bury her.
But his resolution failed him. All night he sat beside the
unreplying dead and stroked her icy hands. “To-morrow I will do it,”
he said. But the next day he dug again in the grave. It should be
six feet. And neither could he say farewell that night.

Then Blanche came over to him. “We leave on Saturday. You know
to-day is Wednesday,” she said, and went away quickly, for she saw
the sheeted form, and understood something of his pain. On Thursday
she came again. Harrison had not been at the restaurant all day, and
she carried a tray with her. The cabin was empty, but a note on the
table said: “I can not give her up. I could not hide her in a grave
of earth. I will lay her on the mountain top above the glacier.
Thank you. Good-by.”

Now the glacier lies in a greater crater of the mountains there,
above the snow line, five thousand feet above Dyea; and behind it
there towers a solitary peak that juts needle-like, head and
shoulders over the lesser crags of the crater. Up above the world,
far from the sound of man, into the great silence it reaches, where
only the northern lights keep the long vigils with its
wind-tormented top.

That night when Blanche asked Billy Matthews, who ought to know,
being a squaw-man and an old-timer there, how long it would take to
go to the glacier, he said the Siwashes called it two days. “And how
long would it take to go to the top of the big peak?” Matthews
smiled. “Why, no one’s ever gone, sis, and I don’t scarcely think
they will.”

But the next day Blanche borrowed the glasses from the trading-post
and watched the snow line. About four o’clock a black speck
gradually emerged at the timber limit, and showed sharply against
the snow-fields that lay beyond. The glasses showed a man with a
long bundle upon his back. Blanche closed them, and watched the
speck with her naked eye. Slowly it crept to the foot of the great
ice rampart, and as it mounted the green precipices, a bank of cloud
engulfed it.

Early next morning Blanche searched the mountain with the glasses.
The speck had crossed the miles of glacier in the night, and was
half way up the mighty pinnacle that lay behind. There it clung to a
precarious hold on the storm-swept crag, its ghastly burden still
upon its shoulders. Five hundred feet below it lay a great
snow-field, hundreds of feet deep. Five hundred feet above it hung
the mountain crest. Blanche could see the wind sweep great banks of
snow around the speck. The footing must have been slippery, for the
speck climbed less than a hundred feet in an hour, and then, as a
wind-gust swept a swirling eddy of sleet across the precipice, it
fell--fell straight to the eternal snows five hundred feet beneath
it, and disappeared. Even with the glasses Blanche could see no hole
in the drift, and besides the wind would fill it full again almost
at once.

Gray-lipped, she sought out Matthews. “Billy,” she asked him, “how
far would a man sink in that snow up there if he fell off the top of
the peak?”

“My God, what questions,” said Billy. “How do I know? He’d stay a
thousand years, anyway.”




THE JEWELS OF BENDITA

By Gibert Cunyngham Terry


Old Bendito was digging when he found them--“the jewels of Bendita.”
He had been ordered by Don Francisco to make a new border around the
“Little Lake of the Emperor” (as it is called even to these days),
and, grumbling mightily, the old man set lazily to work. Stopping
only occasionally to refresh himself with a corn-husk cigarette,
Bendito dug away for as much as two hours, when he was joined by his
comrade, Andrés, who proceeded to pass the time of day.

“What makest thou, friend? Wherefore dost toil so strenuously with
no friend to assist thee, and in the heat of the day?”

“Oh, lazybones! According to that fool, Don Francisco--may the devil
fly away with him--I am making a new bordering for the little lake.
For why? Only God knows. But these strangers--_la Virgen_ bear
witness that--lacking other work, they make a hole in the ground, in
order that a poor devil may have to straightway fill it up again!”

Overwhelmed by his own eloquence, old Bendito groaned, emitted a
fiery Indian oath, and set to spading. “To that mango tree, and no
further, I will dig to-day!” he muttered. “To the devil with Don
Francisco.”

Andrés, sprawling in the sunshine, offered sarcastic comments and
encouragements. “Have a care, comrade. Knowest thou not that there
is wealth concealed in this same garden of the emperor? Oh, yes! I
overheard Padre Diego say so to the Obispo. Be careful lest thou dig
it up, little brother.”

In cynical disbelief, Bendito dug away. “Thinkest thou that if
riches were here, Padre Diego and the Obispo would leave them
untouched? Nonsense. They-of-the-church never allow the paring of a
nail to remain, much less treasure. Compose thyself, little Andrés.
_Once_ there may have been buried treasure of the emperor. But the
nose of the church is sharp, and it smells gold while yet far off.”

At this juncture, Bendito’s spade interrupted conversation with a
loud and startling “clink, clank,” and crossing themselves, their
faces gray with superstitious terror, both _peons_ fled with all
haste from the spot. Their first thought was that a coffin had been
uncovered, and only witches and unblessed heretics would be buried
here in this unhallowed ground. But, as they ran, another idea
occurred to them. They stopped abruptly, and low talk ensued. Then
they stole cautiously back to the mango tree, where the spade still
stood upright. And while old Bendito dug away, in fear and
trembling, but with more energy than he had displayed since the big
earthquake (wherein part of his roof came down upon his head),
Andrés watched to see that no one caught them. Who knew what might
be uncovered? It was well to be cautious.

Firmly embedded in the earth, the men found a large wooden box.
Rotting from damp, with its copper bands oxidized, there still
showed intact an insignia that caused the Indians to tremble with
excitement. And no wonder. They had stumbled upon the buried
treasure of an emperor.

They hurried with the wonderful box to a small ruined pavilion at
one end of the great melancholy garden. No one ever visited this
little rustic building, which the superstitious vowed was haunted by
the unhappy emperor. But, forgetful of spirits or other evils,
Bendito and Andrés pushed back the door, and, in the half gloom,
wrenched open the rotting box.

Out upon Bendito’s faded _tilma_, spread beneath the box, dropped
things that made even those ignorant Indians gasp in greedy terror.
How they sparkled and shone--these ornaments that great queens and
empresses had worn--the chains of brilliant white stones, necklaces
of rubies and emeralds, exquisite ear ornaments, the diamond-studded
portraits of royalties, and other fabulously valuable things. There
were not more than a dozen articles in all, and yet worth much
money, as these men knew. For they had both traveled to the great,
rich capital city, on the Paseo, where the wealthy dames wore these
same sparkling stones. The two replaced the jewels, their fingers
trembling and eyes burning with greed, and begun to discuss the
division. And the sun sank low while they argued and disagreed.

Andrés, having no home or family wherewith to bless himself, was not
missed that night. But old Juana, the wife of Bendito, being of a
suspicious and jealous temperament, at last pricked forth in search
of her missing lord. As it was late, there went with her their
daughter, Bendita, a flat, squat maiden of sixteen. A good girl she
was, but as homely as could well be.

Bendito was not to be found in his usual haunts. Neither the
“Caballitos” nor the “Haven of Peaceful Men” _cantine_ knew him, and
he was not listening to the music in the plaza. These things being
so, the baleful eye of his spouse lit up fiercely.

“The disgraceful old devil,” she muttered to Bendita, “is, without
doubt, in the great garden, which is sufficiently retired and
convenient for flirtations. We will find him there, doubtless, with
the wife of Pepe.”

And there they found him, very dead, but not with the wife of Pepe!
Instead, his companion was the equally dead Andrés. They had
evidently quarreled over the treasure, and then fought with
_machetes_. Between the two was the wooden box, with copper bands.
It was blood-covered, and the women of old Bendito wailed and
crossed themselves as they looked upon it and the two men who had
fought over it to the death. They hastily flung Bendito’s blanket
over him, and, crossing themselves, started to flee.

Bendita, lingering to caress the old man, again noted the box. “It
may be that it contains money,” she whispered, and picked it up,
though her mother protested.

With _rebosos_ closely drawn, the women scurried homeward, leaving
the dead men alone where they had fallen. Heartless of them? Well,
no, for in the tropics law and order sometimes mean little, and
these women knew well that, if they gave the alarm, they would
probably be suspected and convicted of the murder.

Stealthily opened, at midnight, the box proved to contain what old
Juana and her daughter mistook for mere white, red, and green
glass--no gold and no silver! The old woman, in a transport of rage,
sorrow, and disappointment, spit upon the jewels. “Accursed things
of mere glass,” she screamed, “to think that my poor Bendito died
for such valueless things as _you_.”

There was great lamentation next morning when old Bendito was found
and brought home to his alarmed family. They wept and wailed so that
people were very sorry for them, and Padre Diego volunteered, in the
goodness of his heart, to say fifty masses, “at a merely nominal
price,” for the soul of the departed _peon_. Andrés, no one seemed
to regret, and no masses were ever said over him, at bargain prices
or otherwise. And so Andrés and Bendito passed away, by no means the
first men to die for the sake of greed and riches.

While the widow and daughter of Bendito considered the “glass
jewels” of no value, for all the world wore gold and silver
trinkets, they were nevertheless afraid to speak or even hint of
them, lest they be suspected of complicity in the murder. Therefore,
the box was kept hidden in a secret place, and for a while the widow
kept her mouth closed, though she dearly loved to gossip. But the
custody of the box, and the consequent secrecy entailed upon her,
were entirely too much for poor Juana. She sickened and began to
pine for her country, as the Indians so quaintly call their
birthplaces.

Wherefore, their belongings were disposed of, and the two women
proceeded to their old home, many leagues distant. With them was
carried the crumbling box of jewels. Not long after reaching her
birthplace, Juana proceeded to die. Toward the last, she grew
exceedingly nervous over the “glass jewels,” speculating much as to
their value, and declaring that at the worst they might be pawned
for a _peso_ or two. And, still babbling of them, the old woman
died, and was, in Biblical fashion, “buried with her fathers.”

While not of a superstitious disposition, Bendita began to
experience some of her mother’s qualms about the box and its
contents. Finally, for its safety, she secretly removed several
tiles from the floor of her room, and concealed the jewels therein.
Then, satisfied that no one would find them there, she gave no more
thought to the matter, for of what avail were the baubles? “One can
not eat or drink them,” she mused. “But for their sake my poor
father died.”

At this time, Ponciana, the pretty daughter of Pancho, the
_cargador_, returned from Mission school to her proud family. After
her there trailed, later, her sweetheart, Amado. And after Amado, in
turn, came the deluge. For untoward things began to occur. First was
the falling in love of poor homely Bendita. This, of course, was all
right; any woman can fall in love with any man, if she so elects.
But ordinary decency demands that she at least restrain her passion
when the betrothed of another woman is concerned. And it was Amado,
Ponciana’s novio, upon whom Bendita needs must cast eyes. Of course,
it was absurd. For Bendita was square, fat, and flat (if you can
figure to yourself such a combination), while Ponciana was
exceedingly sweet and pretty. Besides, she had been taught in
Mission school, knew some English and much quaint slang, and was a
fascinating little Indian maiden.

“La Ponciana, she knows _much_,” had been Amado’s glowing
description to that potent personage, his mother. “She plays the
piano and guitar well, and sings, aye, as do the birds! And she
dances in a manner entirely exquisite--and sews and embroiders.”

Despite all this eloquence, however, Amado, after due temptation,
heartlessly jilted Ponciana for the unattractive and homely Bendita.
It happened thus: Unable to make any impression on the handsome
Amado, despite her sighs and eye-rolling, Bendita at length decided
to take, as it were, a back seat, and merely view from afar her
beloved, who nightly paraded in the plaza with his beloved. And here
it was, one evening, that a brilliant thought came to Bendita.

It was an ideal night, “one borrowed from Paradise,” as the poetical
Amado had murmured to his Ponciana. Great bright stars blazed in a
velvety-blue sky, while silvery moonlight cast a radiance over the
beautiful tropical plaza, wherein fountains trickled musically, and
glowing flowers of the tropics heavily perfumed the soft, languid
air. From the remote band-stand came sweet, faint strains of the
exquisite “Angel de Amor,” while the lowered voices of many gay
loungers murmured in musical harmony therewith.

Every one seemed so happy that it was no wonder that tears came to
Bendita’s eyes, as she sat, alone and neglected, in her solitary
corner. “I have so much homeliness,” she thought, drearily; “no one
will ever wish me for a _novia_--_ay de mi_!”

Again Amado and Ponciana passed by, Ponciana smiling and dimpling.
She wore a white _mantilla_, while on her finger there was a genuine
ring of gold, set with a white stone that sparkled in the moonlight.
It was the ring of betrothal, that day given. Amado, being poor, had
secured it cheaply from a pawnshop. But Ponciana did not know.

As she gayly flitted by, Bendita noted the sparkle of the ring. “It
is like the little glass jewels,” she pondered. “How Amado seems to
like it! I might--I might wear those at home. They sparkle, too.”

Behold Bendita, therefore, the next night, arrayed even more
magnificently than Solomon in all his glory. For Solomon, whatever
he may have gotten himself up in, surely never wore such huge
diamond ornaments in the ears, such diamonds and rubies in the hair,
such magnificent bracelets. All this was topped off by a long string
of diamonds and pearls, while outside her _mantilla_, at the neck,
Bendita displayed, in all humility, a necklace of pear-shaped black
and white pearls.

Amado, who had served for three years as a pawnbroker’s clerk, alone
of the crowd in the plaza knew that the girl’s jewels were
real--fabulously rich. “_Carrambas_,” he thought, excitedly; “she,
in those jewels, is rich as a princess. El Señor Vega, alone, would
give fifty thousand _pesos_ for them!”

Others, noting the new finery of the homely girl, said smilingly:
“What pretty playthings of glass has our good Bendita found?”

A week’s time saw the feckless Amado off with the old love and on
with the new. Quick work, it is true, but--consider the extenuating
circumstances. To do him justice, he had a plan for securing the
jewels (with Bendita, if it had to be), and later, making matters up
with his own pretty first love. Two things prevented this, however:
first, Bendita rarely wore, touched, or mentioned the jewels, and he
was fearful of exciting her suspicions; second, the jilted Ponciana
had vanished from the ken of even her own family. No one seemed to
know where she was. Old Madre Piedad, in San Geronimo town near by,
knew. The latter dame, thought to be a witch, was the girl’s near
relative. To her Ponciana had stated merely that some one had
injured her; and asked if Madre Maria would keep her quietly hidden,
and teach her how to avenge herself. Madre Piedad promised, and the
two, with the aid of an ugly, squat, herb-stuffed doll, a brazero of
hot coals, and some long pins, set the ball of vengeance in motion.

Meanwhile, instead of preparing for marriage, Bendita fell
grievously ill. She lost flesh rapidly, could not eat, drink, or
rest, and complained of agonizing pains that shot through her body.
A doctor was consulted, but could not relieve her. Then various old
women congregated and muttered together--they could do nothing! Of a
truth, it could be nothing less than the _mal del ojo_ (evil eye),
and with that only old Madre Piedad, of San Geronimo, could cope.
Wherefore Madre Piedad was sent for, and entreated.

At dusk she arrived--a bundled-up old dame, her halting steps aided
by crutches, and her face shrouded in many _tapalos_. A large bundle
came with her--“medicines,” she gruffly explained. The other women,
secretly in deadly terror of her, gladly withdrew at her commands.
“If you wish me to make a cure, you must get out and leave me alone
with the patient,” she ordered. And not until the premises were
clear did she begin operations.

“Arise!” she commanded the suffering Bendita, “arise, and search out
the glass trinkets which spirits tell me you have hidden away! Place
the trinkets, _all_ of them, in this earthen bowl of water, and let
them remain so for eight hours. In the morning drink the water,
after removing the glass jewels. You will then be entirely cured, I
promise you.”

Dazed and sick, poor Bendita arose from her bed and stumbled about,
obeying the old woman’s mandates. All of the jewels were deposited
in an earthen bowl, which, half filled with holy water, was placed
in the exact centre of the room. Then, swallowing a colorless liquid
that Madre Piedad gave her, Bendita was soon fast asleep. The old
witch smiled to herself as she listened to the sick girl’s deep,
regular breathing. “Well may she sleep,” she muttered, who had
shamelessly given a nostrum that would induce eight hours’ sleep.

And now the old body set busily to work. First she deftly
manufactured, out of her mysterious bundle, a dummy figure that
exactly resembled her own. This she seated prominently before the
doorway, so that chance visitors seeing it would, in their fear of
her, retire without entering. Quickly she slipped out of her many
_tapalos_ and other disguises, and stood forth, straight, young, and
lovely--no less a being than the jilted Ponciana! Hastily she
removed the jewels from their watery resting-place, transferring
them to a stout bag, which she tied about her waist, under a
_reboso_. The bowl she left in its original position, save that into
it she cast a small, ragged, rudely made doll, into which had been
plunged many pins. This done, she was ready for flight. “_Adios_,
Bendita,” she chuckled, with a wicked smile on her pretty face. “You
can have my lover--for I have your rich jewels!”

Various neighbors came next morning to inquire for the sick girl,
but were frightened away by the supposed figure of the witch.
Bendita herself, waking up entirely cured after ten hours’ sleep,
first discovered the trick, and cast forth the dummy figure, with
much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But all was not lost, even if
the jewels were gone for aye. Because, drolly enough, Amado was so
sorry for the bereft one that he married her, and they have been
happy ever after.

And Ponciana? Did you ever happen to see the exquisite Señora de la
Villa y Garcia, “of Mexico and Paris,” with her wrinkled old
husband, and her beautiful toilettes and jewels? Well, _that_ is
Ponciana.




THE MAN-DOG

By Nathan C. Kouns


My first knowledge of the singular being called “Du Chien, the
Man-Dog,” began when we were on duty down in the Peché country, a
short time after General Taylor’s celebrated “Run on the Banks,” in
the vicinity of Mansfield. The cavalry had really very little to do
except “to feed,” and await orders. As a result of this idleness
many of the officers and men formed pleasant acquaintances with the
hospitable planters in whose neighborhood we were located.

One of the planters whom I found to be most congenial was Captain
Martas, a French creole, whose father had come from Languedoc. He
was himself native-born. He was a man of forty-eight or fifty years
of age, and had two sons by his first marriage, who were in the army
of Virginia, and a boy two years of age, by his second wife, who was
a young and beautiful lady. The housekeeper was a mulatto girl, who
was in every physical development almost a perfect being--even her
small hands looking like consummate wax-work. She had been taught,
petted, and indulged as much, perhaps, or more than any slave should
have been, especially by Captain Martas, who uniformly spoke to her
more in the tone of a father addressing his daughter, than in that
of a master commanding a slave. She was always gentle and obedient.
The family seemed to prize her very greatly, and the little boy
especially preferred her to his own beautiful mother. I suppose it
would be hard for the later generation, who remember little or
nothing of the “domestic institution,” to understand how such a
pleasant and beautiful confidence and friendship could exist between
a slave and her owners, but it was no uncommon thing in the South
before the war.

The family was so attractive that I visited it often; but one
evening, on my arrival at the house, I found that its peace and
quiet had been disturbed by one of those painful occurrences which
so often marred the happiness of Southern families, and which really
constituted the curse of “the peculiar institution.”

The day before, the beautiful and accomplished wife of Captain
Martas had, for some unexplained reason, got into a frenzy of rage
with Celia, the mulattress, and had ordered the overseer to give her
a severe whipping. The girl had run off into the Black Swamp during
the night, and Captain Martas, who imparted this information to me,
was in a state of terrible distress by reason of her absence. He did
not seem to understand the cause of the trouble, but he could not
justify his slave without condemning his wife, whom he seemed to
regard with a most tender and dutiful devotion. The only emotion
which seemed to master him was a heart-breaking and hopeless grief.
I volunteered to hunt for the runaway, and while asking for such
information as I thought to be necessary about the neighboring
plantations, and of the almost boundless and impracticable
wilderness known as the Black Swamp, I saw Celia slowly and quietly
coming up the broad walk which led from the portico to the big gate.

She carried in her hand a branch of the magnolia tree, from which
depended a splendid blossom of that most glorious of all flowers.
She bowed slightly as she came near the portico, and, passing around
the corner of the house, entered it by a side door. Mrs. Martas was
most passionately devoted to the magnolia, and, from her
exclamations of delight, which were soon heard in the hall, we knew
that Celia had brought the beautiful flower as a peace-offering to
her mistress, and that it had been accepted as such. Very soon the
two women came nearer, and from our seats on the veranda we could
hear their conversation. A terrible weight seemed to have been
lifted from the heart of Captain Martas by the girl’s return, and by
the apparent renewal of friendly relations between his beautiful
wife and his even more beautiful slave--a relief which showed itself
in his face and form, but not in his speech.

“Yes,” said Celia to Mrs. Martas, “it is an old, wide-spreading tree
on the very edge of the water, and is glorious with just such
splendid blossoms as these. There must be more than three hundred
clusters, some that I could not reach being much larger and finer
than this one.”

“And you say,” answered Mrs. Martas, “that the air is still, and
that the perfume broods all around the tree? Oh, how sweet!”

“Yes,” said Celia, “it is so strong that you can taste as well as
smell the wonderful perfume. Few people could bear to stand
immediately beneath the shade; it is so sweet as to be almost
overpowering.”

“Oh, how I wish I could see it! How far is it, Celia?”

“Only four miles. You can go. It is deep in the swamp: but the pony
can follow the ridge all the way. You can go, and get home before
dusk. I would like you to see it before a rain makes the road too
bad, or the winds come and scatter the delicious perfume that now
hangs as heavy as dew all around the glorious tree for yards and
yards away.”

“I will go,” she cried. “Tell Toby to bring out Selim, and you can
take a horse. Let us go at once. It is getting late.”

“I would rather walk,” said Celia, “so as to be sure that I will not
miss the route in going back, although I watched so carefully that I
know I can find it on foot.”

Very soon a boy led up Mrs. Martas’s pony, and she went out to the
steps and mounted, followed by Celia on foot. The girl held the
stirrup for her mistress, and as she did so looked back at Captain
Martas with eyes in which shone strange love, pity, and tenderness;
but the voice of her mistress called her away, and, even in turning
her black and lustrous eyes toward Captain Martas, their expression
totally changed, and showed for a fleeting instant the murderous
glitter that gleamed from the eyes of a panther when ready for a
fatal spring.

I was startled and troubled, and half moved forward to tell the lady
not to go; but a moment’s reflection showed me how foolish such an
unnecessary and silly interference would seem. A strange mistrust
flitted across my mind, but there was nothing on which to base it. I
could not give a reason for it, except to say that I had seen the
light of a gladiator’s eye, the twitch and spasm of an assassin’s
lip, in the eye and mouth of that now smiling and dutiful young
slave girl. The thing was too foolish to think of, and I held my
peace.

The women passed out of the gate, and went on quietly in the
direction of the Black Swamp. Martas and I resumed our conversation.
Hour after hour passed away, and the sun grew large and low in the
West; still Mrs. Martas did not return. The sun was setting--set;
but she had not come. Then Captain Martas called Toby and had him
ride to the edge of the wood and see if he could learn anything of
his mistress; but Toby soon came back, saying that he saw nothing
except the pony’s tracks leading into the swamp, and the pony
himself leisurely coming home without a rider. Then Captain Martas
mounted, and I followed him. He took the plantation conch-shell, and
we rode on into the dark forest as long as we could trace any
footsteps of the pony, or find any open way, and again and again
Captain Martas blew resonant blasts upon his shell that rolled far
away over the swamp, seeking to apprise his wife that we were there,
and waiting for her; but nothing came of it.

“They could hear the shell,” he said, “upon a still night like this
three or four miles,” and it seemed to him impossible that they
could have gone beyond the reach of the sound. But no answer came,
and the moonless night came down over the great Black Swamp, and the
darkness grew almost visible, so thoroughly did it shut off all
vision like a vast black wall.

Then Martas sent Toby back to the plantation for fire and blankets,
and more men, and soon a roaring blaze mounted skyward, and every
few minutes the conch-shell was blown. Nothing more could be done. I
remained with the now sorely troubled husband through the night. At
the first peep of dawn he had breakfast brought from the plantation,
and as soon as it became light enough to see in the great forest, we
searched for and found the pony’s track, and we carefully followed
the traces left in the soft soil. The chase led, with marvelous
turns and twists, right along the little ridge of firmer land which
led irregularly on between the boundless morasses stretched on
either side, trending now this way, now that, but always penetrating
deeper and deeper into the almost unknown bosom of the swamp. The
pony had followed his own trail in coming out of the swamp, and this
made it easier for us to trace his way. At last we came to the dark,
sluggish, sullen water. It was a point of solid ground, of less than
an acre in extent, a foot or two above the water, almost circular in
outline, and nearly surrounded by the lagoon. It was comparatively
clear of timber, and near the centre rose a grand magnolia tree,
such as Celia had described to Mrs. Martas on the evening before. At
the root of this tree, bathed with the rich, overpowering perfume of
the wonderful bloom above her, lay the dead body of the beautiful
woman, her clothes disordered, her hair disheveled, a coarse, dirty
handkerchief stuffed into her mouth, and all the surroundings giving
evidence of a despairing struggle and a desperate crime. Captain
Martas was overcome with anguish, and after one agonized look
around, as if to assure himself that Celia was not also somewhere in
sight, he sat down beside the body and gazed upon his murdered wife
in silent, helpless agony of spirit.

I desired all the men to remain where they were, except Toby, whom I
ordered to follow me; and then, beginning at the little ridge of
land between the waters by which we had reached the circular space
before described, we followed the edge of the ground completely
round to the starting point, seeking in the soft mud along the shore
for a footprint, or the mark made by a canoe or skiff, for some
evidence of the route by which the murderer had reached the little
peninsula, or by which Celia had left it.

We found perfect tracks of all animal life existing in the swamps,
even to the minute lines left by the feet of the smallest birds, but
no trace of a human foot, although a snail could not have passed
into or out of the water without leaving his mark upon the yielding
mud, much less a footstep or a canoe.

The thing was inexplicable. Where was Celia? How had she gone
without leaving a trace of her departure? Had she been there at all?
Who had murdered Mrs. Martas? Surely some man or devil had
perpetrated that crime. How had the villain escaped from the scene
of his crime, leaving not the slightest clew by which it was
possible to tell which way he had gone?

I reported to Captain Martas the exact condition of the affair, and
told him I knew not what to do, unless we could get bloodhounds and
put them on the trail. He said there were no hounds within sixty
miles; that all of the planters he knew preferred to lose a runaway
rather than to follow them with the dogs. Rumors of the loss of Mrs.
Martas had spread from plantation to camp, and two or three soldiers
had immediately ridden out to the plantation, and then had followed
us to the scene of the crime. One of them said: “If there are no
hounds, send to camp for old Du Chien. He is better than any dog.”

The remark was so singular that I asked: “What do you mean by saying
‘He is better than any dog’?”

“I mean that he can follow the trail by the scent better than any
hound I ever saw, and I have seen hundreds of them.”

“Is that a mere camp story,” said I, “or do you know it of your own
knowledge?”

“I know it myself, sir,” said the soldier. “I have seen him smell a
man or his clothes, and then go blindfold into a whole regiment and
pick out that man by his scent. I have seen him pull a lock of wool
off a sheep, smell it good, and then go blindfold into the pen and
pick out that identical sheep from fifty others. I have known him to
smell the blanket a nigger slept in, and follow that darky four or
five miles by the scent of him through cotton, corn, and woods. He
is better than a dog.”

The man looked to be honest and intelligent; and while I could
hardly credit such an astounding and abnormal development of the
nasal power in a human being, there was nothing else to do; so I
told him to take my horse and his own, ride as quickly as possible
to camp, and bring old Du Chien with him.

Then we made a litter, and slowly and reverently we bore the corpse
of the murdered lady along the difficult road until we reached a
point to which it was possible to bring a carriage, in which we
placed her in charge of the horrified neighbors, who had by this
time collected at the plantation.

Captain Martas insisted on remaining with me and awaiting the coming
of Du Chien.

More than two hours elapsed before the soldier whom I had sent for
Du Chien, the Man-Dog, returned with that strange creature. He
surely deserved his name. He must have been six feet high, but was
so lank, loose, flabby, and jumbled-up that it was hard to even
guess at his stature. His legs were long and lank, and his hands
hung down to his knees. A bristly shock of red hair grew nearly down
to his eyebrows, and his head slanted back to a point, sugar-loaf
fashion. His chin seemed to have slid back into his lank, flabby
neck, and his face looked as if it stopped at the round, red,
slobbering mouth. His nose was not remarkably large, but the sloping
away of all the facial lines from it, as from a central point, gave
his nasal organ an expression of peculiar prominence and
significance. When he walked, every bone and muscle about him
drooped forward, as if he were about to fall face foremost and
travel with his hands and feet.

Briefly I explained what had happened, and thereupon Du Chien, who
seemed to be a man of few words, said: “Stay where you are, all of
you, for a minute.” Then he started off at his singular dog-trot
pace, and followed the edge of the water all the way around, just as
I had done, lightly, but with wonderful celerity. Then he came back
to us, looking much puzzled. I handed him the coarse, dirty
handkerchief which I had taken from the dead woman’s mouth, and Du
Chien immediately buried that wonderful nose of his in it, and
snuffed at it long and vigorously. Having apparently satisfied
himself, he removed the dirty rag from his face and said: “Nigger.”

“No,” said I, thinking of Celia, and looking Du Chien in his little,
round, deep-set eyes; “a mulatto.”

“No,” he answered, with quiet assurance; “not mulatto; nigger;
black, wool-headed, and old--a buck nigger.”

“What can you do?” said I.

“Wait a minute,” said Du Chien. Then he started off again to make
the circuit of the peninsula, but more slowly and deliberately than
at first. He threw his head from side to side, like a hound, and
smelled at every tree and shrub. He had got about half way around
when he reached a mighty tree that grew on the edge of the swamp,
leaning out over the water where it was narrowest and deepest, and
seemed to mingle its branches with the branches of another tree of a
similar gigantic growth that grew upon the other side. He walked up
to this tree, saying: “Nigger went up here!” and at once began to
climb. The inclination of the great trunk and the lowness of the
branches made the task an easy one. Almost instantly, Captain
Martas, I, and two or three soldiers followed Du Chien up the tree.
Du Chien had gone up some thirty feet into the dense foliage, when
all at once he left the body of the tree, and began to slide along a
great limb that extended out over the water, holding to the branches
around and above him until he got into the lateral branches of the
tree on the opposite side, and thence to the trunk of that tree,
down which he glided, and stood upon the opposite bank waiting for
us to follow. We did so as speedily as possible, and as soon as we
were safely landed by his side, Du Chien said: “Single file, all!”
and started off, smelling the trees and bushes as he went.

The spot at which we had descended seemed to be a hummock similar to
that on the other side, but less regular in its outline; and soon
the way by which Du Chien led us became more and more difficult and
impassable. Often it seemed that the next step would take us right
into the dark and sluggish water, but Du Chien, almost without
pausing at all, would smell at the leaves and branches and hurry on,
now planting his foot upon a clod just rising out of the water, now
stepping upon a fallen and half-rotted log, now treading a fringe of
more solid ground skirting the dreary lagoon, but going every moment
deeper and deeper into the most pathless and inaccessible portions
of the swamp.

For nearly two hours this strange man followed the trail, and we
followed him. At last we came to a considerable elevation of ground
under which opened a little V-shaped valley made by the water of a
branch which drained the high land into the swamp. This valley was
rather more than two acres in extent, and seemed to be a clearing.
But there was a thick-set growth of sweet gum, holly, and magnolia
across the opening toward the swamp, beyond which we could not see.

With quickened steps, and with many of the same signs of excitement
manifested by a hound when the trail grows hot, Du Chien followed
along this hedge-like line of underbrush, and at its farther end
stopped. There, within three feet of where the steep bank ran into
the water, which seemed to be of great depth, was an opening in the
hedge. He slipped cautiously through it, and we followed him in
silence. It was a little garden in the heart of the swamp, lying
between the hills and the water. At the apex of the V-shaped valley
was a miserable cabin with some fruit trees growing round about it.
We gazed upon the scene with profound astonishment.

“Do you know anything of this place, Captain Martas?” said I, in a
low tone.

“No,” said he; “several years ago one of my fieldhands, a gigantic
Abyssinian, was whipped and ran away to the swamp; I never followed
him, and have never seen him since, although every now and then I
heard of him by the report of the negroes on the plantation; I
suppose he has been living somewhere in the swamp ever since, and,
unless this is his home, I can not imagine how such a place came to
be here.”

“The nigger is there,” said Du Chien. “If there are a dozen of them
I can tell the right one by the smell,” and again he put the old
handkerchief to his nose.

“If it is old Todo,” said Captain Martas, “he is a powerful and
desperate man, and we had better be cautious.”

We formed a line, and slowly and cautiously approached. We had got
within ten or twelve feet of his door, when we saw a gigantic,
half-clad negro spring from the floor, gaze out at us an instant
with fierce, startled eyes, and then, with a yell like that of some
wild beast roused up in its lair, he seized an axe which stood just
at the door, and, whirling it around his head with savage fury,
darted straight at Captain Martas. It seemed to me that the huge,
black form was actually in the air, springing toward the object of
its hatred and fear, when one of the soldiers sent a ball from his
revolver crushing through old Todo’s skull. With a savage, beastly
cry, the huge bulk fell headlong to the earth.

“It is a pity,” said Martas; “I wished to burn the black devil
alive.”

At that instant Du Chien cried out: “Look there!” And extending his
arm toward the top of the ridge, he started off at full speed. We
all looked up and saw Celia flying for dear life toward the forest
of the high ground behind the cabin, and we joined in the chase. It
was perhaps forty yards up the slope to the highest part, and about
the same distance down the other side to the water’s edge. Just as
we got to the crest, Celia, who had already reached the water’s
edge, leaped lightly into a small canoe and began to ply the paddle
vigorously, and with a stroke or two sent the frail bark gliding
swiftly away from the shore, while she looked back at us with a
wicked smile. In a moment more she would be beyond our reach, and
the soldier who had shot Todo leveled his fatal revolver at her
head. But Captain Martas knocked the weapon up, saying, in a voice
choked with emotion: “No, no! let the girl go! She is my daughter.”

Swiftly and silently the slight canoe swept away over the dark
waters of the great, black swamp, now hidden in the shadow, now a
moment glancing through some little patch of sunlight, always
receding farther and farther, seen less often, seen less distinctly
every moment, and then seen no more.




THE AMATEUR REVOLUTIONIST

By John Fleming Wilson


If you should see bronzed men or men with soldierly bearing
frequenting a certain office in a small street in San Francisco, and
if you knew who the men were or what they represented, you could
predict to a nicety the next Central American revolution, its
leaders, and its outcome. That is because San Francisco is the place
where everything commences, and many have their end in the way of
troubles in the “sister republics.”

Three years ago the present government of Guatemala missed overthrow
by just a hair. As the man who had been financing the insurrection
said bitterly when the bottom fell out: “If it weren’t for women
there’d be no revolutions, and if it weren’t for a woman every
revolution would be successful.” He said this to the man who knows
more about troubles political where there’s money and fighting than
any other man in the world. This man nodded his head with a smile
not often seen on his spare face. The financier didn’t like the
look, and he growled some more: “They might at least have let me
hold the government up for my expenses before calling the whole
business off. I could have got everything back and interest on my
venture.”

The other man kept on smiling. “That’s the way you fellows look at
it. If you can’t win, sell out at a good price. But that don’t win
in the long run. One woman can spoil the scheme.”

Two years before this a young woman landed from the Pacific Mail
steamer _City of Para_, and registered at the Palace as from
Mazatlan. She had a little maid who giggled and talked Mexican, some
luggage with Vienna and Paris hotel labels over it, and the manner
of a deposed queen. She signed herself as “Srta Maria Rivas.”

In due time Señorita Rivas left the hotel for quiet lodgings on
Vallejo Street. But before she disappeared from the court, a
gentle-mannered old man, with knotty hands, called and introduced a
companion. “This is the young man I spoke to your excellency about.
I present Señor Thomas Vincent.” Then the gray-haired man slipped
away, and Thomas Vincent was left looking down into the dark face of
Maria Rivas. He did not know why he was there, nor who she was, nor
even the name of the man who had introduced him. But he was not
sorry.

She let him stand while she glanced him over. Vincent drew himself
up at her somewhat insolent manner, and was rewarded by a smile.

“Will you accept an invitation to supper to-night if I press you
very hard?” she asked him in smooth English.

Vincent turned his eyes about the court. Then he looked down at her
again, and nodded curtly. “Certainly, madam.” He flushed, and went
on, “But I failed to catch your name. I am awfully embarrassed.”

She got to her feet, and held out a slender hand. “I am Miss Mary
Rivas,” she said, quietly. “My father was formerly the president of
Honduras. I went to school at Bryn Mawr, and I met your sister
there. That’s why, when I found you were in San Francisco, I asked
to have you brought and introduced.”

Vincent looked at her very soberly, almost pityingly. Then he
offered her his arm, and they went into the supper-room, where
everybody turned to watch their progress, knowing neither of them.

When she removed to the flat on Vallejo Street, Miss Mary Rivas told
Vincent to come and take the first dinner with her. “We’ll christen
the new place,” she said gayly, “and, besides, I hope you’ll find
that I’m really American and can cook.”

That night at nine o’clock when the Mexican maid had departed
giggling to the kitchen, Vincent’s hostess leaned forward over the
table at which they sat, and rested her elbows on it. Her bare arms
framed her face in a sudden way that took Vincent’s heart out of its
regular beat. He leaped to his feet when Maria Rivas, dropping her
head, burst into a torrent of sobs, her white shoulders heaving as
her agony got the better of her.

As he stood there biting his lips she threw back her head and darted
up and to the window. He heard her moan, as if she saw and heard
something too awful to comprehend. He walked over and stood back of
her till she swung round, and he saw the tear-stained face relax and
the swimming eyes close. He carried her to the table, and laid her
down across it, and rubbed her hands. Then the maid came in, still
giggling hysterically, and together they revived her until she sat
up between Vincent’s arms and slid from the big table to the floor.
Vincent sent the astonished maid out by a gesture of command.

“Now, what’s the matter?” he demanded, hoarsely. “If you’re in
trouble tell me.”

She panted before him. “It was what I remembered,” she replied. “How
can I forget?”

“After I had been five years in the States papa sent for me to meet
him in Colon. I got off the steamer, and he was waiting on the
wharf. I knew he would do it just that way. He put on his glasses
with both hands and looked at me as if he were very glad, and oh! I
loved it, for it was just like it was when I was a little girl and
ran into the big room.

“But trouble came in Panama, and papa thought we’d better come up to
San Francisco. ‘I’ve been so busy down here one way and another,’ he
said, ‘that I’m always suspected of conspiracy. Your mother is dead,
and the fun of life is out of it. We will live peaceably as befits
an old man and his daughter.’”

Vincent’s voice broke in on her story. “When was this?”

“Five years ago. And everything went all right till we got to
Amapala. There a friend of papa’s came on board and showed me a
paper. It said papa was not to be allowed to land in Honduras, as he
was plotting an insurrection. He put on his glasses to read it. When
he looked up at me, he said: ‘We shan’t see where your mother is
buried, nor the place where you were born.’ He shook hands with the
friend, and said nothing more.

“On the day we were at Ocos, in the afternoon, I saw the
_comandante_ come on the steamer with some soldiers. He said he
wanted to arrest papa, but that if papa came along willingly he
would not use force.

“‘I am under the American flag,’ papa said. ‘I know who has done
this. It would mean my death if I went with you.’ Suddenly I heard a
shot and then another. I hurried to papa’s room. Outside there were
two soldiers aiming into it. I saw papa sitting on his camp-stool
and his two revolvers were in his lap. He was hunting for his
glasses, but the chain had slipped down. He could not see to shoot.
One of the soldiers, after a long time, fired his gun again, and
father suddenly picked up his revolvers, and I cried out again. He
didn’t shoot, and I know now that he was afraid of hitting me. Then
he fell. The soldiers fired again and ran away, panting and yelling
to each other. I went in to papa, and he asked for his glasses,
sitting up on the floor very weakly. When I found them and gave them
to him, the blood was running very fast down his breast. He put on
his glasses with both hands, wrinkling up his forehead in the old
way, and looked at me very----He looked.... He said, ‘I am glad I
could see you, little one ... before I go.’ That was all.”

She went to the window and stayed there, immobile, while Vincent
walked up and down behind her. At last she turned around. “That was
five years ago. No one has done anything to punish them.”

Vincent, because she was suddenly to him the woman, did what every
man once in his life will do for one woman: he sacrificed his sense
of humor. With all seriousness he stiffened up. “It was under my
flag he was shot down. I’ve served under it. Give me another flag
for Guatemala and I’ll go down there and those murderers shall die
against a wall, with your flag flying over their heads, its shadow
wavering at their feet on the yellow sand.”

Maria Rivas, because she was the Woman in this case, understood
perfectly. “A revolution?” she said, very quietly. He bent over her
hand gravely and youthfully. His manner was confident, as if he saw
very clearly what was to be done and knew how to do it, not as if he
had promised a girl with tear stains on her cheeks to overturn a
government because of a murder one afternoon on a steamer in a
foreign port.

This was the beginning of the affair. Its continuation was in a
little town on the Guatemalan coast, where Vincent landed with a ton
of munitions of war, marked “Manufactures of Metal,” and thirty
ragged soldiers. A month later he had a thousand insurgents and
twenty tons of munitions, and his blood had drunk in the fever that
burns up the years in hours. The first thing Vincent did under its
spell was to march on Ocos and take it. When the town was his and
the _comandante_ in irons, the young man took out of his pocketbook
a little list of names, made out in Maria Rivas’s hand. He compared
this list with the list of prisoners, and ordered out a firing
squad. Half an hour later the shadow of the flag made by the Woman
in the Vallejo Street flat wavered over the sand on which lay six
men in a tangle. Generalissimo Thomas Vincent went out into the sun
and looked at the last postures of the six, and then out across the
brimming waters of the Pacific. A mail steamer lay out there in the
midst of a cluster of canoes, the American flag drooping from her
staff.

An Irishman in a major’s uniform came out of the cool of the
barracks and stopped beside Vincent. “Another week ought to see us
in the capital,” he said slowly. “But I don’t like this business,
general. These beggars don’t amount to anything. Why did you order
them shot?”

A barefoot girl of some ten years crept around the corner of the
sunbaked wall. She picked her way over the sand, darting hot glances
fearfully at the two officers. Suddenly she stooped over the crooked
body of one of the motionless ones. She tugged at the sleeve of a
shirt, and as the face turned slightly upward to her effort, she
fell to beating on the ground with both hands, and sobbed in the
heat, dry-eyed.

Vincent strode over to her, and gently picked her up. Her quick sobs
did not cease as he carried her into the shade, his own face drawn
and white. He looked over at the major, who stood gnawing on his
stubby mustache. He did not reply to the question until the major
repeated it angrily. “It was because ... they deserved it....”
Vincent stopped, and then went on, almost inaudibly, “God knows why
I did it, and then there’s ... the----” He stopped once more, for
the girl’s hard sobs had ceased, and her lithe hand had darted from
the folds of her scanty gown to the young general’s throat, and the
major saw him set the burden softly down, and then fall forward, the
blood pouring around the blade of a knife deep in his throat.

With an oath the major leaped over to him and lifted his head.
Vincent’s eyes looked clearly into his. Then the wounded man looked
over at the little girl, poised for flight, a dozen feet away. He
nodded at her with an air of absolute comprehension, and then died.




THE BLOOD OF A COMRADE

By Neil Gillespie


“A short, severe war is less cruel than a long drawn-out fight,”
said the captain, easily. “Of course it is! Everybody knows it! So
why do the people at home criticise us, and libel and court-martial
us because we use every means in our power to prevent further
rebellion?”

“They ought to be thankful we don’t use Spanish methods,” said
Wilcox, the junior member of the mess. He was only six weeks out of
his cadet gray, and a new arrival at Camp Chicobang.

The captain smiled, pleasantly. “No?” he said. “Haven’t we a
_reconcentrado_ system similar to theirs? Haven’t we a blockade?
We’re merely taking up affairs where they left them, and following
Spanish methods in our own way. When this rebellion began, we tried
to treat the natives as civilized creatures, but, thank heaven,
we’re learning sense at last.”

The subaltern flushed to the roots of his close-cropped hair. “Do
you mean to say that any measure, however cruel, is justifiable in
war?”

“About that,” said the captain, amused at the boy’s interest in a
subject which was a stale one to the rest of the mess. “This
business has got to be straightened out, and that’s exactly what you
and I are here for. War is wrong; therefore it is cruel and
brutalizing. ‘Benevolent assimilation’ talk is all rot, and as for
civilized warfare, there’s no such thing. The measures used are
adopted as circumstances arise, and must be cruel or barbarous, as
the necessity calls for.”

Wilcox was staring at him, half in horror, half in fascination. “And
men can talk that way in the twentieth century,” he murmured.

The captain smiled again. “The only way to carry on war with this
people is to do to them as they first did to us. As long as we spare
them, they’re going to think we’re weaklings, and grow bolder by
result. They haven’t any honor; you can’t treat them as white men.
Their own methods are what they expect, and their own methods are
the only means by which this fighting will ever be stopped. It may
involve an awful lot of suffering for non-combatants, but we can’t
help that. When the people cry out ‘Enough!’ then the insurgents
will lose their support and the rebellion will be at an end--for a
while.”

Wilcox was playing nervously with his fork, and biting his lips as
if to keep back words he would not speak. He was young, and his high
ideals of the calling he had chosen had made him blind to the hard
facts with which he was now brought face to face. It was impossible
to believe that his own countrymen--officers of the United States
army--could be so cruel, so barbarous. He did not care what the
captain said; bloody treatment must serve only to alienate this
struggling people. If the rebellion had once been handled
differently, what was the cause of this reversion to the savage? Had
the lust of blood so crazed the white men that they forgot their
race, their civilization, their upbringing? Wilcox pitied the
Filipinos; they, at least, were fighting for their liberty.

“By the way,” said the captain, “did any of you fellows hear that
the general expects to catch Luiz Maha, who killed our policeman
down at Binaran, and tried to murder the port commander?”

“Been wounded?” asked some one.

“No, but his wife had a baby recently, so he probably won’t move his
quarters so easily. They’ll shoot him on sight.”

“Well, I hope they see him soon,” said the medico. “He’s made more
trouble for us than any other _insurrecto_ in that part of the
island.”

A sudden sound of running feet was heard through the din of the rain
outside. The door of the mess-hall rasped open, and a dripping
figure appeared on the threshold.

“The colonel’s compliments to the commanders of K and O Troops, and
will they please report to him immediately? Outpost No. 2 has been
cut up by _insurrectos_, and Lieutenant Ellard and men at No. 4 have
been captured.”

                 *       *       *       *       *

In the blackness of the night before dawn, a long line of men, lying
flat on the soggy earth, wormed their way through the tall, rank
grass. On the crest of a steep ascent the leading figures halted
cautiously, and one by one the men came to a standstill, each with a
hand on the foot of the man ahead. A light was beginning to streak
the east when the captain consulted the native guide in a soundless
colloquy.

“What does he say?” asked Wilcox, the subaltern. He was wallowing in
the mud like a carabao, and his clothes were coated with dirt.

“The _hacienda_ of the _insurrecto comandante_ is just below us,”
returned the captain. “They’ll be perfectly unsuspecting, and unless
they’ve had time to move on, it’s likely we’ll find our men hidden
there.”

In the gray dawn the Americans drew their lines about the little
plantation, and lay in an unseen circle a stone’s throw from the
brown nipa-hut. The subaltern saw a frowsy woman with two naked
children go into the shack. A tall man in ragged white was putting
out the wash to dry.

“By the eternal,” whispered the captain, excitedly, “if it isn’t a
Spaniard! We’ve had rumors that the Gugus were keeping some
prisoners up here as slaves.”

The tall man glanced toward the jungle and saw a line of blue and
khaki-clad figures spring into view. His eyes bulged from his head,
and he stood motionless with amazement. Suddenly, with a shout of
“Vivan los Americanos! Viva la Libertad!” he dashed forward,
open-armed. A burly sergeant met him with a knock-out blow on the
chin, and the Spaniard staggered back, rubbing his face without
resentment. He understood that silence was demanded.

“Over the hill!” he cried, dancing about with pain and excitement.
“They’ve just left here with three _Americano_ prisoners. Hurry and
you will catch them! Hurry, hurry, but take me with you.”

Once more they dashed into the forest. The subaltern, running beside
the rescued man, noticed that his shirt was stained with blood, and
the fluttering rags gave glimpses of the raw, flayed skin beneath.

“What does that mean?” he asked in his school-boy Spanish.

The man smiled. Past sorrows were nothing to him now.

“I have been two years a prisoner,” he said. “One receives many
beatings.”

“Have you never tried to escape?”

“What was the use? My friend tried, but they caught him and cut off
his head--after roasting his legs.”

Wilcox said nothing, but there was a strained look about his eyes.
To him the last twenty-four hours had been horribly unreal. Stopping
only for food and drink, the troop had followed the track of the
_insurrectos_ deeper and deeper into the hills. He had seen his men
surprise and shoot down a native in sight of his wife, and as excuse
the captain had said that the man was a war traitor, a leader of
insurgents, and a persecutor of _Americanistas_. But Wilcox felt
sickened. The captain and the men became repulsive to him. They were
like a lower order of beings to which he refused to be degraded. The
army was his only outlook, but could he ever be in sympathy with
such things as he was experiencing every day?

Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, and the column came to a
jolting halt. The subaltern looked, and turned pale. By the trunk of
a moss-grown tree, his arms bound above his head, a rope about his
half-naked body, stood an American soldier. Across his mouth from
corner to corner a _bolo_ had slashed, and the bleeding flesh hung
loosely over the jaw. His head was sunk forward, but he was not dead
as his captors had intended he should be after a few days’
lingering.

His “bunkie,” who had first seen the pitiful figure, cut the heavy
hemp with his bayonet, but the column waited only a moment. A
hospital corps man was left behind with a detail, and the troop took
up its march the more cautiously for knowing that it was hot on the
trail.

The subaltern felt that his nerves were strained to the breaking
point. Through the throbbing whirl of his brain came a sickening
thought. If the natives were capable of such a deed as this, how
would they treat the other two prisoners? Surely they would not dare
to harm an American officer. His mind refused to comprehend the
thought of Ellard cold and lifeless. The image of his classmate and
chum was too fresh, too vividly active to be rendered null. No, the
natives could not be so cruel, they could not be so inhuman. And yet
that bound figure by the tree! How slowly the men moved! Why did
they linger when every minute might mean life or death to the
prisoners?

The men passed over another spur and dropped into the valley below.
With every step they moved more cautiously. Tense and alert, the
subaltern crept onward, braced for he knew not what. He saw the
captain, crawling on all fours, become entangled in a trailing vine,
and felt an uncontrollable desire to laugh. It was broad day now,
and the heat grew stifling in the breathless woods.

A shout and distant laughter echoed across the valley, and the
captain halted abruptly. After a moment’s consultation, the troop
divided, and at the head of his creeping file, the subaltern turned
to the right. Nearer and nearer sounded the native voices, and the
men knew that they were close to the insurgent camp. For ten
heartbreaking minutes they wormed their way over the damp, brown
loam, now and again catching a glimpse of the little clearing, until
they had made a complete half circle.

Slowly they drew near the edge of the trees, and the subaltern heard
the sound of hasty digging. A strange look appeared on the set faces
of the men, but Wilcox did not notice. He wondered what the natives
were doing, fearing to look for dread of what he might have to see,
and yet impatient to know if Ellard was alive. He moved his body
until, dirt-color himself, he could watch unseen.

Thank God! At the opposite end of the clearing stood Ellard, upright
and unharmed. Before him, in the centre of the field, was a
rectangular hole like a grave, and the natives were throwing the
earth clods into it. Evidently they were burying some one who had
died, but why did they seem amused? Brady was nowhere in sight. Was
it his body they were burying?

Yelling like an army of blue fiends, the captain’s detachment burst
into the clearing. Surprised and confused, the _insurrectos_ turned
to flee, and met the fixed bayonets of the subaltern’s men.

As soon as he could break away, Wilcox ran to one side. Ellard was
standing as before, still bound hand and foot. His face was half
averted, but on it the subaltern saw a look of the most intense
horror and dread. With a cry of dismay, he dashed forward, but a
naked, brown figure was before him. Twice the shining _kris_ flashed
in the air as the defenseless prisoner toppled backward. Then,
dodging the subaltern’s bullet, the native turned and fled. Two
privates cornered and disarmed him, but before they could put in a
finishing blow, Wilcox had shouted: “Hold on there! Wait till I
come!”

“As you have mercy, put me out of this life!” moaned Ellard.

The tall, strong, young athlete of a moment before lay helpless on
the ground, a bleeding, legless trunk. Sobbing, the subaltern
dropped to his knees beside his friend, and beat passionately at the
earth with clenched fists.

“Don’t, don’t!” almost shrieked the wounded man. “I stood here
powerless to move while they first cut up and then buried Brady
alive, but I didn’t cry! Kill me, shoot me, have mercy on me for
Christ’s sake, but don’t cry!”

A hospital sergeant came running, the captain, white with horror, at
his heels. The fight was over, and a group of men were working at
the grave.

Wilcox staggered to his feet, a strange curse on his lips. The beads
of sweat plowed deep courses through the grime on his cheeks.
Slowly, with infinite deliberation, he reloaded his revolver and
strode to where the troopers held the _insurrecto_ on the ground. As
he went, he muttered, like a man searching for some forgotten
thought, “The measures used are adopted as circumstances arise, and
must be cruel or barbarous as the necessity calls for ... as the
necessity calls for....”

Three times he fired into the prostrate body. “One for Brady, one
for Wright, and one for Ellard!” and then he began to laugh.



UNDER FLYING HOOFS

By Bertrand W. Sinclair.


“Mormon Jack” stretched his generous length in the shade of the
bed-wagon, thereby disturbing the sonorous slumbers of Johnny
Layton, who muttered imprecations as he rolled over to make room.

“You blasted Mormon renegade,” he growled.

“Why don’t you go and lie down where you won’t be disturbin’ a
fellow that has to stand guard to-night?”

“You’re a cantankerous cuss,” Mormon Jack calmly returned. “If I
wasn’t a stranger in a hostile camp I’d climb your carcass for them
insultin’ observations. Besides, it aint good for a kid to sleep too
much. I don’t see how you got the heart to lay here snorin’ like a
cayuse chokin’ down, when you could be sittin’ up enjoyin’ this here
beautiful scenery that’s bein’ desecrated with bawlin’ cows and
buckin’ bronks and greasy, old round-up wagons. You aint got no
sense of nacheral beauty, Kid. You’re just about as ornery a varmint
as old man Hartley, what once inhabited this same flat.”

“I’ve heard of him,” answered the now thoroughly awakened Layton.
“He happened before my time, though. Were you in the country when
they cleaned him out?”

“You bet I was!” Mormon Jack replied. “I knew him before he came
over here, and I was here and saw his finish. There was high old
jinks on this little green bottom that day.”

“So I’ve heard. He wanted to make a sheep-feedin’ ground of the east
bench, didn’t he? How was it?” Layton propped himself up on his
elbow to listen.

Mormon Jack settled his head comfortably against a rolled-up bed. He
rolled a cigarette daintily and inhaled many breaths of smoke before
replying.

“Old man Hartley was a bone-headed cuss,” he began, at length, “that
wouldn’t learn better--even by experience. He was like a fool
buck-sheep that persists in buttin’ everything that gets in his way,
no matter how much he hurts his head. It aint the sheep’s fault;
it’s the breed of him, and the way he was raised--and I guess that
was the trouble with old Hartley.

“I come across him, first time, over in the Hash-Knife country, a
little while after they quit drivin’ herds up the Long Trail. The
railway come in, and you could bring a bunch of cattle from the
Panhandle up there in a week--it took five months on the trail.
Likewise, the railway brought farmers and pilgrims and woolly-backs
by the train-load, and turned ’em loose promiscus on the country,
where they made more trouble with their homestead rights and
barb-wire fences than all the Injuns that ever run buffalo or lifted
hair.

“It wasn’t long till there was heaps of trouble on the range. A
tenderfoot would file on a claim, prove up, and as soon as he got
his papers a big sheep outfit would own the land--you know how they
do. Pretty soon the big sheepmen began to fence the water-holes,
claim or no claim, and hell broke loose. After considerable killin’
and burnin’ and layin’ for each other, they patched up a peace; the
sheepmen that didn’t get killed off stayed on the creeks where they
was settled, and the cow outfits held what was left of the open
range.

“That was where old Hartley got in his work. He had a bunch of
sheep, and stay where he belonged he wouldn’t. He’d slip out on good
grass and fence up a spring or little lake that might be waterin’ a
thousand head of cattle. If a bunch of cows come in to water, he’d
sic his dogs on ’em till they’d quit the earth. If a round-up swung
his way he’d knock down his fence and move out. It was a big country
and hard to watch, but they caught him once or twice, and drove him
back where he belonged. They give him all the show in the world to
be on the square, but he wouldn’t--he wasn’t built that way. He
swore ‘by God’ that he had as much right to drive his blatin’,
stinkin’ woolly-backs all over the range as the cowmen had to turn
their longhorns loose on the country. He was a big, burly,
noisy-mouthed cuss, with the muscle of a pack-mule and the soul of a
prairie-dog. He was game, for all his low-down ways, but he went up
against the cowmen once too often; a round-up headed him north one
day with his sheep and a camp-wagon, and sent a couple of riders
along to see that he kept a-goin’. Then they swung around to his
home ranch and made a bonfire of it, to show the rest of the
ca-na-na’s that there’d be no monkey business on the Hash-Knife
range.

“I didn’t see nor hear of him no more till that fall. Then the
layout I was workin’ for bought a bunch of cattle over here and sent
me to rep for ’em--same as I’m doin’ now. I was huntin’ for the Big
Four wagon, which was supposed to be workin’ on the upper part of
the White Mud, when I struck his trail. Comin’ north along the creek
one day I turned a bend and come on a fellow talkin’ to a girl. It
was Stella Hartley. I met her once at a dance on Powder River, and I
knowed her the minute I laid eyes on her. She was about as nice a
little girl as ever struck Custer County.

“I rode up and says ‘Howdy’ to her, and then I see it was Bobby
Collins she was talkin’ to. I knew him, too--one of the whitest boys
on earth, and the swiftest woddy that ever turned a cow. ‘Hash-Knife
Bob’ they called him, over in Custer.

“‘M’ son,’ says I, ‘I’m sure glad to see you. But how’d you come to
stray off into this wilderness?’

“He told me, then, the whole deal, Stella sittin’ on her horse
tryin’ to smile, though she was nearer cryin’ than anything else;
she’d been sheddin’ tears pretty considerable, as it was. Away along
in the winter Stella ’d promised to marry him, but when the old man
got to hear of it he just tore up the earth and swore he’d rather
see her dead than married to a cowpuncher. Hash-Knife was for
tellin’ him to go to the devil and gettin’ married anyway, but
Stella wouldn’t have it that way. His wife bein’ dead, she was the
only womankind the old man had, and she couldn’t bear to leave him
like that. She said to wait awhile and the old man would come
around. So in the spring Bob goes to the head of Powder River, and
while he was gone the cow outfits put the run on the old man. When
Hash-Knife comes back, Stella and the whole Hartley outfit had
vanished plum off the earth.

“But Hash-Knife Bob was no quitter. He followed ’em up and located
’em on Milk River. Then he got a job with the Big Four, so’s to be
near the girl. He had it figured out that when round-up was over
that fall he’d take up a ranch on Milk River, marry Stella, and
settle down. But he hadn’t more’n made his plan when old man Hartley
breaks out in a fresh place.

“As I said before, old Hartley was a bull-headed old bucko. He was
worse’n that; he was pig-headed and sheep-headed; he had the
contrary stubbornness of all the no-account animals on God’s green
earth. You’d ’a’ thought he’d ’a’ taken a tumble to himself after
livin’ so long in a sagebrush country, and ’specially after bein’
run out of one part of it. But, no, sir! his way was _the_ way. He
wasn’t content on Milk River--he wanted a whole blamed county to
graze over. So he went pokin’ around on the north side, and stumbled
onto the Crossin’ here. It looked good to him, and without sayin’ a
word to anybody but his herder--who was a knot-head like himself and
crazy after Stella--he picks up his traps and sashays in here.

“There was probably seven or eight big cow outfits rangin’ east of
the White Mud then, and they’d just got through havin’ a scrap with
the sheep-wranglers, alongside of which the fuss in Custer County
was about knee-high. Both of ’em had lots of men and money, but the
advantage was on the cowmen’s side, for their boys was fightin’ for
their livin’, for outfits they’d been raised with, and the
sheepherders was in it for coin and because they didn’t know any
better. Anyway, the sheepmen backed off after awhile and made
peace--said they’d be good, they’d had enough. The cowmen made the
White Mud the dead line; there was to be no sheep-camps on the creek
or east of it. And the cowpunchers rode the high pinnacles to see
that no sheep crossed the line.

“This here, Hash-Knife explained to me, was the way things stood:
Hartley was located on the Crossin’ with a bunch of sheep--about
twenty-five hundred head. He’d built him a cabin, and had likewise
strung a four-strand barb-wire fence across the coulée that led down
to the flat. And he was goin’ to stay there, he said. He had a
squatter’s right, and if he wanted to live there and fence his place
he’d do it. It was government land, and to hell with the cow
outfits! He was from Missouri, he was! And up on the bench, about
six or seven miles back, the Big Four and the Ragged H was swingin’
up to the Crossin’ with a beef herd apiece, and the wagon-bosses was
mad, for they’d heard of old man Hartley.

“‘Old “Peek-a-Boo” Johnson’s runnin’ the Big Four,’ Hash-Knife told
me. ‘I got him to let me ride ahead and see if I couldn’t talk some
sense into the old man. But it’s no go. He’s got his neck bowed, and
he’s fool ’nough to try and run a whizzer on Peek-a-Boo’s riders;
they’ll clean him out if he does. I saw Stella ride off as I was
comin’ down to the ranch, and when I got through with him I rambled
down this way and found her. I want her to stay away from the flat
for two or three hours, till the thing is settled one way or the
other, but she’s bound to go home. So I guess we’d better be goin’.
The wagons ought to hit the Crossin’ pretty soon.’

“We went up on the bench. Stella and Hash-Knife and me, and loped
along toward the Crossin’. Pretty soon we could see the two sets of
wagons and a bunch of riders headin’ for the creek, the two
herds--big ones--trailin’ along behind, about a mile apart. At the
head of the coulée I turned my string loose for the horse-wrangler
to pick up. With Stella cryin’ and Hash-Knife tryin’ to comfort her,
we swung down the coulée to the shack.

“When we got there we found the herder had brought the sheep in to
water. They’d moved back off water and was bedded down, bunched
close, about half-way between the cabin and the creek. There was
three of ’em at the cabin; old Hartley, the herder, and a pilgrim
that’d come out to work on the ranch.

“Old Hartley looked pretty black at us as we rode up, but he didn’t
have time to say much before the wagons come rollin’ out the mouth
of the coulée. They was almost at the house before he knowed it.
Then he ducked into the cabin and come out with a Winchester across
his arm. The outfit went past without battin’ an eye at him. They
went round the sheep and started to pitch camp on the creek-bank.
Then Peek-a-Boo and Tom Jordan, the Ragged H boss, come a-ridin’ up
to the cabin.

“They was nice and polite about it. They told old Hartley that
seein’ he was a stranger they thought he’d probably made a mistake
and got over on the wrong side of the ridge. They didn’t want to
make any trouble for him, but he’d have to take his sheep off the
creek. Sorry to bother him, but it was range law.

“‘You can’t bluff _me_,’ says Hartley. ‘This here’s government land.
I got as much right here as anybody. You dassent run me out.’

“Then old Tom Jordan tells him about the big scrap they’d had with
the sheepmen, and how they’d agreed to stay the other side of the
ridge, but the old bonehead kept a-shootin’ off about his rights,
and how they couldn’t bluff _him_, till Tom got mad and rode off,
sayin’ that he’d see his blasted sheep was across the ridge by
sundown.

“Peek-a-Boo stayed talkin’ to him, tryin’ to persuade him to be
reasonable, and showin’ him how foolish he was to run up against the
cowmen after they’d fought a dozen big sheep outfits to a standstill
and whacked up the range fair and square. They talked and talked,
old Hartley gettin’ more and more on the peck. Neither of ’em
noticed that the lead of the first herd had strung down the
coulée--the cowpunchers had done business with the fence. There was
probably a thousand head of big, rollicky steers bunched on the
flat, and the rest of the herd was pourin’ out the mouth of the
draw. Two point-riders was holdin’ ’em up so they wouldn’t scatter.

“Old Hartley saw ’em first. The sight of that big bunch of longhorns
on what he called his land made him see red, I reckon. He shoved the
lever of his gun forward and back, clickity-click, and started on a
run for the bunch, hollerin’ as he went: ‘You can’t drive them
cattle across my flat! I’ll kill you, by God, if you do!’

“Peek-a-Boo stuck the spurs in his horse, and started after him,
callin’ to him to keep away from the herd. Hartley kept a-goin’ till
Peek was about twenty feet from him, then he whirled with his gun to
his shoulder, and cut loose, bang--bang! and Peek-a-Boo tumbled off
his horse.

“Things happened then. Stella had started after the old man, but
Hash-Knife grabbed her and made her stop. When old Hartley dropped
Peek-a-Boo, Bob says to me: ‘Mormon, take Stella over to camp. I got
to get Peek out of there. Maybe he aint killed, and them steers’ll
be a-runnin’ over him in about ten seconds.’

“Hash-Knife had the situation sized up correct. I helped Stella onto
her horse and started for the wagons. A lot of riders come like hell
across the flat toward the herd, but they was too late to do any
good. Just as Hash-Knife picked old Peek-a-Boo up and flopped him
across his horse, Hartley begin to smoke up the two riders that was
holdin’ the herd--which was bunched tight, ready to run. But he
missed first shot, and when he fired the second time they was
scuddin’ for the tail-end of the herd, layin’ low along the backs of
their horses. As they run they jerked the slickers off the backs of
their saddles, swingin’ ’em round their heads, and, yellin’ like
Gros Ventre braves strikin’ the war-post, they rode into the herd.

“When them cattle surged first one way and then the other, and then
swept across the flat, tramplin’ old Hartley down like he was a lone
stalk of bunch-grass stickin’ up out of the prairie, Stella
screeched and hid her face in her hands. But I watched; it was
horrible and fascinatin’. You’ve seen the ice gorge in the Big
Muddy, when it breaks up in the spring; it jams at some narrow place
and piles up and piles up till the river below is bone dry. Then the
weight of the water’ll bust the jam and there’ll be a grindin’,
smashin’ uproar for a minute, and all of a sudden the river is
flowin’ peaceful again.

“That was the way them cattle did. They passed over old Hartley like
he was nothin’, and struck that bunch of slumberin’ sheep like a
breakin’ ice jam. Two thousand strong they was, runnin’ like scared
antelope, packed shoulder to shoulder, with horns and hoofs
clatterin’ like a Spanish dancer’s castanets, and the gallopin’
weight of ’em made the flat tremble. This wise they passed over the
band of sheep, wipin’ ’em out like the spring floods wipe out the
snow in the low places, and thunderin’ by the round-up camp hit the
creek with a rush that knocked it dry for a hundred yards. The lead
of ’em had hardly got to the level before the riders was turnin’
’em. In fifteen minutes them cattle was standin’ bunched on the
flat, puffin’ and blowin’, the big steers starin’ round as if they
were wonderin’ what had scared ’em. But they’d done the trick. There
was no sheep left to quarrel over--nary one. It was an Alamo for the
woolly-backs!

“After we’d found and buried what was left of old man Hartley, we
moved up the creek to camp. The herder and the pilgrim hit the trail
for Milk River. Poor little Stella sure felt bad on account of the
old man, and the boys was all sorry for her. But she had Hash-Knife,
and Peek-a-Boo--who wasn’t hurt bad enough to make him cash in--said
he’d brand a hundred calves for her on the spring round-up. So I
guess she was winner on the deal.

“That’s been eleven years,” Mormon Jack concluded, reminiscently,
“and I aint been here since. I didn’t make no protracted visit the
first time, but I want to tell you, m’ son, it was sure excitin’.”




THE COLONEL AND “THE LADY”

By Kathleen Thompson


About an hour before sunset, Colonel Jerry rode furiously into the
post. Her sweating pony was streaked with dust, and the colonel was
covered with it from head to foot. Except for the rumpled and brief
little corduroy skirt and bloomers, her clothing was an exact, if
miniature, copy of her father’s. Her wide felt hat had its
regulation cord and tassels, there were gauntlets on her small
hands, and gaiters on her small legs. The sleeve of her boyish skirt
carried its device, and she wore a cartridge belt, a little pistol,
and a sword.

She drew her dancing pony sharply up before the group on the porch,
and saluted severely.

“And just in time, too!” said the major, who was also the colonel’s
father. He looked at her reproachfully. “We were about to send a
company out after you! Leave Baby at the side door and go straight
upstairs. When you’re presentable come down, and I’ll introduce you
to your Boston uncle and aunt. We’ve been watching for you all
afternoon. What kept you, you vagabond?”

The colonel, trying to quiet her nervous horse, wheeled about in a
manner that made her aunt dizzy. She answered, jerkily: “Trouble,
sir--on the reservation! Whoa, there, pretty! Quiet, girl! It seems
that--it seems that some of those hogs of Indians got hold--steady,
old girl!--got hold of a keg of whisky--somewhere--and--Peters
said--hold still, you fool! You’ll have your oats in a
minute!--Peters said--that last night--there wasn’t a man in the
camp that wasn’t drunk! You will have to excuse me, sir! She’s
pulling my arms out!” And she gave her horse its head.

When the two had flashed around the corner of the house, the major
smiled, proudly. “What d’ye think of her?” he said, turning to his
brother-in-law.

“Well, for a nine-year-old,” said Dr. Eyre, slowly, “she is
certainly a wonder!”

The doctor’s wife, a pretty, precise little woman, looked at her own
neat little girl, and sighed, profoundly.

“And _this--this_!” she said, plaintively, “is poor Amy’s child!”

The major looked a trifle uncomfortable, but his young aid spoke,
eagerly: “Every one on the post is proud of the colonel! You see,
we’ve brought her up here among us, Mrs. Eyre--taught her everything
she knows! You can’t take in her good points at a glance--but she’s
as square as any man!”

When the little girl presently joined them, her dark hair had been
smoothly brushed, her white frock and buckled slippers were
irreproachable. She gave a cool and impassive little cheek to her
aunt’s kisses, and then, from her father’s knee, soberly studied her
kinspeople.

“How like Amy!” said Mrs. Eyre. “You don’t remember poor dear mamma,
do you, Geraldine?”

“I was two,” said the colonel. The aid choked.

“Yes--yes--of course!” said Mrs. Eyre. “And she has had no training,
has she, Jim? Do you know, darling, that where aunty and cousin Rose
live they would think you were a very funny little girl if they
heard you talk that way?”

“What way, dad?” said the colonel, quickly.

“And to hear you say what you said this afternoon,” pursued her
aunt, calmly.

“To your horse, she means,” supplemented her father, smiling down at
her.

“But that horse can act like the Old Harry,” said the colonel,
musingly.

“Speaking of horses,” her uncle said, a little hurriedly, “you’ve
never seen mine, have you?”

She gave him an eager smile. “No, sir. You know I’ve never been
East. But I’ve read about her. I’m very much interested in that
horse.”

“Well, after dinner, suppose you and I have a look at her?”

“_What!_” The colonel was on her feet; “she’s not _here_!”

“Yes. Came with us to-day. She’s entered for the Towerton Cup.”

The colonel’s pale little face was flushed with excitement.

“You don’t mean The Lady, Uncle Bob? Not the horse that has taken
all those prizes? Here on _this post_?”

“That’s the very one, colonel,” said the major; “we put her in the
Ralston stable.”

“The Lady!” said the colonel, dazedly. “The Lady! To think I shall
see that horse!”

“Aunts and uncles are nothing to horses,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald.

“Well,” said the colonel, “you know every one has aunts and uncles.”
The aid grew crimson again. “But this is the only racer that I know.
And you’ve put her in the Ralston stable?”

“For quiet,” her uncle said. “It excites her to be in a stable with
other horses.”

“And one thing more, colonel,” said her father, firmly; “which you
may as well understand right _now_. You’re not ever, under any
circumstances, to mount that horse.”

“All right, sir,” said the colonel, regretfully. “If you say so,
that goes. But I’d like to try her.”

Her father gave her a sidelong look.

“Now see here, Jerry. The minute I catch you on top of that horse,
you can go to bed without rations, and you needn’t wear your colors
for a week after. Understand?”

The colonel nodded. Her face was crimson.

“Hang it, you’re not _my_ superior officer, Jim,” said his brother,
smiling, “and if I choose to give my niece a ride or so on my own
horse it strikes me----”

“Ah! that’s a different matter,” agreed the major, “only I didn’t
want the colonel here to think The Lady was an ordinary riding
horse.”

The colonel said nothing. She was, at times, an oddly silent child.
But she smiled at her uncle, and loved him at once.

It was almost sunset. Long, clear-cut shadows fell across the
clean-swept parade. The watering-cart rumbled to and fro, leaving a
sweet odor of fresh, wet earth. Lawn-sprinklers began to whirr in
the gardens of Officers’ Row. Chattering groups went by, the level
red light flashing on white parasols and brass buttons. All of these
strollers shouted greetings to the major and the little colonel.
Some came up, and were duly presented to the major’s guests. Jerry
sat on the steps, her little dark head against the rail, and
exchanged banter with a degree of equality that astonished her aunt.
The child’s heart was full. She was to be, for several days,
privileged by the sight of the great horse--a week would bring the
Fourth of July, with its bands and picnic and evening of unclouded
joys, fireworks, ice-cream, bonfires. Besides this, the old general,
her especial crony, would arrive in a few days for the holiday.

Dinner was late and long. And the after-dinner cigars were
interrupted by many reminiscences. By the time the men reached the
porch again, the colonel’s patience was sorely strained. She sat
waiting for a long half-hour.

“Uncle Bob,” she began at last, when there was a pause, “are you
going to see The Lady to-night?”

“By George, that is so,” said her uncle, rousing. “We must have a
look at the old girl. Come, kids.”

Just then the breeze brought them the bugle notes.

“Too bad!” said the aid.

“Oh, confound it, there’s taps!” said the colonel, tears of vexation
in her eyes. “You’ll have to go without me.”

And before they realized it, she had said her good-nights and gone
upstairs.

“H’m!” said her uncle, reflectively.

“She was probably tired and sleepy,” said Mrs. Eyre, gently.

“She’ll be out at that stable at five to-morrow,” said the aid.

And, sure enough, Colonel Jerry appeared at the nine-o’clock
breakfast the next day radiant from three hours spent in the great
horse’s stable.

“Well, colonel,” said her uncle, coming in late, “what do you think
of The Lady?”

The plain little face was transformed by a wide smile.

“Oh, Uncle Bob! I never saw such a horse! Baron let me lead her down
to water! She’s the most beautiful horse I ever saw!”

“You’ll be disobeying your father,” he said, smiling, “and running
off some day on The Lady’s back.” She glanced down at her little
sleeve, where the device of a colonel was exquisitely embroidered.

“We’d do a good deal not to have that taken off our sleeve, wouldn’t
we?” said her father.

“Most anything,” she answered, with her flashing smile.

Her own little horse was sick, but she and Rose rode the big
carriage horses every day, and Jerry did her best to entertain this
rather difficult guest. The two children found enough in common to
spend the days pleasantly. Rose developed a profound respect for her
wild little cousin, and Jerry grew to enjoy Rose’s company--even
though Rose could not obey orders, and held bugle-calls in contempt.
Both children, as well as all the others on the post, were planning
for the Fourth of July. All their money went for fireworks, they
shouted the national songs, they cheered the band that practiced
nightly before the house.

The third of July broke hot and cloudless. By nine o’clock, the
piazza rail burned one’s fingers, and as the hours went by the heat
shut down over the earth like a blanket. A heavy haze hung over the
meadows, and lines of heat dazzled up from the far, blue mountains.
Jerry, coming out from an hour’s enforced practice on her violin,
stretched luxuriously in the heat. The post seemed deserted. The
heat beat steadily down; there seemed to be no shadow anywhere.
Locusts hummed loudly. Jerry knew that her father and uncle had gone
to Hayestown to meet the general. They would be back to a late lunch
at three. She strolled around to the stable.

Henry, polishing harness, beamed upon her, and wiped his forehead.

“Git me a fur coat an’ build up the fire,” said he, grinning.

“Shame on you!” said the colonel, plunging her bared arms deep into
the trough. “Say, Henry, do you know if my aunt and cousin went with
dad and Uncle Bob?”

“Why,” said Henry, with a troubled look, “your aunt and cousin went
riding! Full an hour ago! Yes, sir, they left about eleven o’clock.
They says they was going to get back about half-past two.”

“Idiots!” said the colonel, contemptuously. “Riding! A day like
this! Where’d they go?”

“They says they’d go as far as Holly Hill, colonel, and then have
their meal at the spring, an’ then go right over Baldy, and home!”

“Crazy! Climbin’ the hill in this heat!” She looked about the clean,
wide stable. “What horses did you give ’em?”

Henry looked very uncomfortable.

“I thought you knew, colonel. I give your aunt Sixpence--he’s up to
her weight. But Miss Rose says she was to ride _your_ horse.”

The colonel whirled about, her eyes flashing. “Rose said--_my_
horse! You don’t mean _Baby_?”

“That’s what she _says_.”

Jerry turned white.

“But--my goodness! Baby’s _sick_! The vet said she wasn’t to be
ridden!”

“I told Miss Rose I didn’t think the horse was up to it,” said
Henry, aggrievedly. “I _says_ to ask you.”

“You fool--you!” said the colonel, blazing. She reached for an old
cap, and snatched a whip.

“Give me any horse!” she commanded, pulling down her own saddle.
“I’ll follow them! They’ll be at the spring. I’ll bring them home
through the woods.”

“Why, there you are, colonel! There aint a horse on this place. It
was so hot yesterday that we turned them all out. They’re two miles
away, in long meadow. You can’t get a horse on this post.”

Baffled, the child dropped the saddle. She leaned against the
door-post, her swimming eyes looking across the baking earth. “It’ll
kill Baby, Henry,” she whispered, with trembling lips.

No one was about. Above the Ralston stable some little boys had made
a fire in the shade. Jerry clinched her hands in agony above her
heart. Then she picked up her saddle, and went resolutely along the
path.

“Where are you going, colonel, dear?” called Henry.

She did not answer.

“Oh--Baby! Baby!” she was sobbing as she ran; “I can’t let them kill
you! I’ve _got_ to disobey orders!”

The carriage, with the three men in it, was met by the news. A mile
from the post a little boy shouted that the Ralston stable, with the
wonderful mare inside, was burned to the ground. The old general,
bouncing out uncomfortably, kept up a running fire of sympathetic
ejaculation. The major, urging on the big grays, freely used his
strongest language. But his brother did not speak.

Sweating, dust-covered, panting, the horses tore past Officers’ Row,
and stopped at the ruins of what had been the stable. A few fallen
beams still smoked sullenly, the sickening odor of wet wood filled
the air. A group of men and boys in their shirt-sleeves stood near.
At the sound of the wheels, Baron, his face streaked with soot and
perspiration, came toward them. “I was off duty, sir!” he said,
hoarsely. “I was getting my dinner. We done all we could! We had the
hose here in ten minutes, but the fire was too big.”

His master nodded. After a moment he asked: “She was loose?”

“Yes, sir. She must have suffocated. She didn’t struggle----”

“No? Well, I’m glad--of that.” Her owner walked about the ruins. The
other men were silent. Finally the major said: “I can’t tell you,
old man, how sorry I am!”

“Well, no help for it, Jim. I know you are! Go clean up, Baron, then
come talk to me. Shall we go up to the house?”

On the way, he said, sombrely: “I wouldn’t have taken any money for
that mare!”

Just at this moment the mare came into the yard, with the weary
little colonel astride her. The Lady was tired, her satin flanks
were flecked with white, but she knew her master, and whinnied as
she came up to him. At the sound, he turned as if shot, and a moment
later a shout from both men cut short the colonel’s stammered
remarks. Her father lifted her down.

“It takes the colonel, every time!” said he. “What lucky star made
you--this particular afternoon!--well, she’s saved your horse for
you, Bob.”

“We’ll have to promote you,” said the general, to whom the tired
child was clinging.

Her uncle, turning for the first time from the horse, spoke,
solemnly: “You saved her, didn’t you? I won’t forget this! You’ll
have the finest Spanish saddle that can be made, for this!”

“You can go right on breaking rules at this rate!” said her father,
his arm about her. “And now run up and get dressed. You can tell us
about it later.”

“I’ll go up, too,” said the general.

“Go right ahead, sir. We’ll go to the stable for a few minutes and
make fresh arrangements for The Lady.”

                 *       *       *       *       *

When they at last went out to the long-delayed dinner, the high back
chair at the foot of the table found no occupant.

“Late, as usual,” said the major. “Lena,” he added, “go and tell the
colonel that dinner is ready.”

“Oh, if you please, major, she’s gone to bed. She come upstairs more
than an hour ago. She took her bath, sir, and went right to bed. I
ast her did she feel sick, and she says no, but that them was your
orders. She wouldn’t let Nora bring her up no tea.” Lena looked
reproachful.

“And she cried awfully,” said Rose.

“She never let a tear out of her until I shut the door, Miss Rose,”
said Lena, firmly; “and she ast me to put out a dress with a plain
sleeve for to-morrow. She shut the windows down so’s she shouldn’t
hear the band, but she never cried none.”

The aid winced. The general cleared his throat.

“Well, she’s your child, Fitzgerald. But I think I’ll issue a few
orders in this matter myself.”

“You’re my superior officer, sir,” said the major, eagerly.




NOTES


Some weeks after the story, “Ten Thousand Years in Ice,” on page
127, was printed in the _Argonaut_, there arrived at the editorial
rooms one morning quite a large bundle of letters bearing Hungarian
postage-stamps. On opening them, we found them to be in various
languages. One of them was in very queer English; this we reproduce
verbatim:

[_Original._]

Aradi Szechenyi-Gozmalomarader
Szechenyi-Dampfmuhl-Reszveny-Tarsasag Actien-Gesellschaft.

Arad (Hungary), feb. 25.

To the Editor of the Argonaut, San Francisko: Before a short time I
red an article from Dr. Milne translating in the _Pester Lloyd_
newspaper which was very interesting.

The editor of this newspaper told me that this essay was formerly
edited by you, an I am so free to ask you:

Is it very what Dr. Millene wrote from the “Men which is frozen
10,000 years ago in the ice,” and beg to accept my salutations. I am
thankful.

Yours very truly, J. Kleinsson.

Arad (Hungary), Minorite palace, II etage, door 17.

The next letter contained an inclosure, and was couched as follows:

[_Original._]

Reviewer, office of the “Argonaut,” San Francisco--_Dear Sir_: I
take the liberty to beg you, will you be so kind to deliver the
enclosed letter to the autor of the article: “Ten thousand years in
the ice” (published in your newpaper of the 14 january) Sir Robert
Dunkan Milne.

I thank you, sir, for your kindness and I shall be happy to render
you a reciprocal service.

Yours, Sigmonde Barany.

Zombor (Hungary) the 23 february.

[_Inclosure._]

Zombor (Hungary), 23 february.

Sir Robert Dunkan Milne, Esqr., San Francisco--_Dear Sir_: I read
your article: “Ten thousand years in the ice” in the _Argonaut_ of
the 14 january, and while it has made the greatest sensation in our
country I take the liberty to beg you, will you be so kind, to
answer me, what is the truth of this matter?

I shall be happy, sir, when you will honor me with an answer, and
thanking for your kindness, I’m your very obliged

Sigmonde Barany.

The next letter showed that his Austro-Hungarian majesty’s officers
have literary taste. It read thus:

[_Original._]

Kronstadt (Transylvania, Austria), 20th February.

To the Argonaut, belletrist. newspaper, San Francisco, California: I
should feel very much obliged to you, if you were kind enough to
give me some accounts about the _truth and fact_ of the most
interesting tale, which contained the last number of your excellent
paper (dated from the 14th of January)--“_ten thousand years in
ice_,” by Sir Robert Dunkan Milne. Looking forward to your kind
answer,

I am yours thankfully,

A. Kyd, lieutenant in the 2d regmt of the Hussars.

The next letter is signed by one of a family whose name is famous in
Austria:

[_Original._]

To the Editor of the “Argonaute,” periodical, San Francisco,
California, U. S. (Esrakamerika)--_Sir_: I had the pleasure to read
the article: “Ten thousand years in the ice,” by Sir Robert Duncan
Milne (which appeared in the _Argonaut_ of January 14th), in the
_Pester Lloyd_, and in answer to a question regarding this article,
the editor of the _Pester Lloyd_ advised me to write to you, sir, as
you would be surely able to answer the following question:

Is the article: “Ten thousand years in the ice,” based on mere
fiction, or is he partially true? I am rather inclined to think that
there is some truth in the article, because Sir Robert Duncan Milne
in speaking of himself and his friend calls him by his real name.

You would very much oblige me, by being so good as to answer my
question, or in case that you should neither be able to do this, by
forwarding my letter to Sir Robert Duncan Milne.

Apologizing for the trouble I may give you by this request, I am
sir,

Yours very obediently,

Richard Lichtenstein.

February 24th. 26, Andrassy street, Budapest (Hungary).

The next letter was in German. It bore a lithographed heading
showing that the writer dated it from a large foundry. The letter
ran:

[_Translation._]

Maschinenfabrik, Eisen-und Metallgiesseri.

Fuenfkirchen, Hungary, 23 Feb.

To the Esteemed Editorial Department of the Journal of Polite
Literature, “Argonaut,” at San Francisco: In your valued paper, and
namely in the number of the fourteenth of last month, you published
an article by Sir Robert Duncan Milne, “Ten thousand years in ice.”

If the honored editorial department does not consider it
troublesome, I would allow myself a question, the kind answer to
which I beg, what portion is true in this most interesting story?

Hoping you will appreciate the respect in which I sign myself, Your
most humble, P. Haberenyi.

Another German letter was as follows:

[_Translation._]

Budapesth, 23 Feb.

Esteemed Editorial Department of the “Argonaut,” Journal of Polite
Literature, San Francisco, Cal.: In the _Pester Lloyd_ of this city
was published a story “Ten thousand years in ice.” Since I have not
the pleasure of knowing the author of the English original, “Sir
Robert Duncan Milne,” he who alone could give a definite answer as
to what is true in this story; and since the original of this most
interesting story has been published in the journal _Argonaut_,
therefore, I hope that the honored Editorial Department will
certainly be willing to send to Sir Milne the above-mentioned
inquiry, so that, if possible, something more about the particulars
of it may be learned.

Rendering you herewith my best thanks for your trouble, I sign Most
humbly, M. Fisher.

Address: Dolf Harsanyi, Budapest.

The next letter, also in German, came from a lawyer. It read thus:

[_Translation._]

Ugyved Dr. Rusznyak Samu, Advocat,
Budapest, V, Nagy Korona-Utcza, 5. 22nd of February.

An die lobliche Redaction des Argonaut:

Esteemed Editorial Department--In the _Pester Lloyd_, a paper
appearing in Budapest, was reproduced under the title “Ten Thousand
Years in Ice,” a highly interesting story, which was published in
your very valued paper _in the number of the 14th of January_.

The author of the English original published in the _Argonaut_ is
_Sir Robert Duncan Milne_.

The above-mentioned story stirred up a great and general interest
here, so that very many readers turned to the editorial department
of the _Pester Lloyd_ with the question, how much of the story was
true? Said editorial department not being able to answer the
question, referred the inquiries to the esteemed editorial
department of the _Argonaut_.

I permit myself, therefore, to make to your esteemed editorial
department the humble request, and indeed in my own, as well as in
the name of several friends, to be so kind as to state what was true
in the above-mentioned story?

At the same time I request that you may make known to me the
subscription price of your valued paper.

Since I can not furnish myself with postage stamps of the United
States in Budapest, I request that you send me your kind answer
without prepaying same.

Recommending my request to your favor, I sign

Most respectfully, Dr. Samuel Rusznyak.

After a lapse of a few days we received another batch of letters,
two of which explained the epistolary avalanche. One of them was
from the editor of the _Pester Lloyd_, stating that he had printed a
translation of the story in his journal and had been overwhelmed
with inquiries as to whether it was fact or fiction. Another letter
was from Mme. Fanny Steinitz, a literary lady living in Buda-Pesth,
who confessed that she was the cause of the outburst, as she had
translated the story. In order to heighten the interest she had
elevated the writer, Mr. Milne, to the order of knighthood by giving
him an accolade with her pen.

How naïve and ingenuous must be the Hungarian nature! Fancy a number
of serious American business men writing to an American journal
concerning an exciting story like that of Mr. Milne.