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Ranson's Folly

by Richard Harding Davis · English · Gutenberg #5643 · 423,683 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Ranson's Folly

Author: Richard Harding Davis


        
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5643]
                Most recently updated: March 4, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RANSON'S FOLLY ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team







RANSON'S FOLLY

And Others

By Richard Harding Davis


Illustrations By Frederic Remington, Walter Appleton Clark, Howard
Chandler Christy, E.M. Ashe & F. Dorr Steele (illustrations not
available in this file)





CONTENTS

RANSOM'S FOLLY Illustrated by Frederic Remington.

THE BAR SINISTER Illustrated by E.M. Ashe.

A DERELICT Illustrated by Walter Appleton Clark.

LA LETTRE D'AMOUR Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

IN THE FOG Illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele.




Illustrations:

“Throw up your hands,” he commanded.

Ranson faced the door, spinning the revolver around his fourth finger.

“I suppose I'm the ugliest bull-dog in America”.

“Miss Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears.”

“We've got a great story! We want a clear wire.”

He played to the empty chair.

The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
front of the fireplace.

“What was the object of your plot?”




RANSON'S FOLLY

I


The junior officers of Fort Crockett had organized a mess at the
post-trader's. “And a mess it certainly is,” said Lieutenant Ranson. The
dining-table stood between hogsheads of molasses and a blazing log-fire,
the counter of the store was their buffet, a pool-table with a cloth,
blotted like a map of the Great Lakes, their sideboard, and Indian Pete
acted as butler. But none of these things counted against the great fact
that each evening Mary Cahill, the daughter of the post-trader, presided
over the evening meal, and turned it into a banquet. From her high
chair behind the counter, with the cash-register on her one side and
the weighing-scales on the other, she gave her little Senate laws, and
smiled upon each and all with the kind impartiality of a comrade.

At least, at one time she had been impartial. But of late she smiled
upon all save Lieutenant Ranson. When he talked, she now looked at the
blazing log-fire, and her cheeks glowed and her eyes seemed to reflect
the lifting flame.

For five years, ever since her father brought her from the convent at
St. Louis, Mary Cahill had watched officers come and officers go. Her
knowledge concerning them, and their public and private affairs, was
vast and miscellaneous. She was acquainted with the traditions of
every regiment, with its war record, with its peace-time politics, its
nicknames, its scandals, even with the earnings of each company-canteen.
At Fort Crockett, which lay under her immediate observation, she knew
more of what was going forward than did the regimental adjutant, more
even than did the colonel's wife. If Trumpeter Tyler flatted on church
call, if Mrs. Stickney applied to the quartermaster for three feet
of stovepipe, if Lieutenant Curtis were granted two days' leave for
quail-shooting, Mary Cahill knew it; and if Mrs. “Captain” Stairs
obtained the post-ambulance for a drive to Kiowa City, when Mrs.
“Captain” Ross wanted it for a picnic, she knew what words passed
between those ladies, and which of the two wept. She knew all of these
things, for each evening they were retailed to her by her “boarders.”
 Her boarders were very loyal to Mary Cahill. Her position was a
difficult one, and had it not been that the boy-officers were so
understanding, it would have been much more difficult. For the life of a
regimental post is as circumscribed as the life on a ship-of-war, and
it would no more be possible for the ship's barber to rub shoulders with
the admiral's epaulets than that a post-trader's child should visit the
ladies on the “line,” or that the wives of the enlisted men should dine
with the young girl from whom they “took in” washing.

So, between the upper and the nether grindstones, Mary Cahill was left
without the society of her own sex, and was of necessity forced to
content herself with the society of the officers. And the officers
played fair. Loyalty to Mary Cahill was a tradition at Fort Crockett,
which it was the duty of each succeeding regiment to sustain. Moreover,
her father, a dark, sinister man, alive only to money-making, was known
to handle a revolver with the alertness of a town-marshal.

Since the day she left the convent Mary Cahill had held but two
affections: one for this grim, taciturn parent, who brooded over her as
jealously as a lover, and the other for the entire United States Army.
The Army returned her affection without the jealousy of the father, and
with much more than his effusiveness. But when Lieutenant Ranson
arrived from the Philippines, the affections of Mary Cahill became less
generously distributed, and her heart fluttered hourly between trouble
and joy.

There were two rooms on the first floor of the post-trader's--this
big one, which only officers and their women-folk might enter, and the
other, the exchange of the enlisted men. The two were separated by
a partition of logs and hung with shelves on which were displayed
calicoes, tinned meats, and patent medicines. A door, cut in one end
of the partition, with buffalo-robes for portieres, permitted Cahill to
pass from behind the counter of one store to behind the counter of the
other. On one side Mary Cahill served the Colonel's wife with many yards
of silk ribbons to be converted into german favors, on the other her
father weighed out bears' claws (manufactured in Hartford, Conn., from
turkey-bones) to make a necklace for Red Wing, the squaw of the Arrephao
chieftain. He waited upon everyone with gravity, and in obstinate
silence. No one had ever seen Cahill smile. He himself occasionally
joked with others in a grim and embarrassed manner. But no one had ever
joked with him. It was reported that he came from New York, where, it
was whispered, he had once kept bar on the Bowery for McTurk.

Sergeant Clancey, of G Troop, was the authority for this. But when,
presuming on that supposition, he claimed acquaintanceship with Cahill,
the post-trader spread out his hands on the counter and stared at the
sergeant with cold and disconcerting eyes. “I never kept bar nowhere,”
 he said. “I never been on the Bowery, never been in New York, never been
east of Denver in my life. What was it you ordered?”

“Well, mebbe I'm wrong,” growled the sergeant.

But a month later, when a coyote howled down near the Indian village,
the sergeant said insinuatingly, “Sounds just like the cry of the Whyos,
don't it?” And Cahill, who was listening to the wolf, unthinkingly
nodded his head.

The sergeant snorted in triumph. “Yah, I told you so!” he cried, “a man
that's never been on the Bowery, and knows the call of the Whyo gang!
The drinks are on you, Cahill.”

The post-trader did not raise his eyes, but drew a damp cloth up and
down the counter, slowly and heavily, as a man sharpens a knife on a
whetstone.

That night, as the sergeant went up the path to the post, a bullet
passed through his hat. Clancey was a forceful man, and forceful men,
unknown to themselves, make enemies, so he was uncertain as to whether
this came from a trooper he had borne upon too harshly, or whether, In
the darkness, he had been picked off for someone else. The next night,
as he passed in the full light of the post-trader's windows, a shot
came from among the dark shadows of the corral, and when he immediately
sought safety in numbers among the Indians, cowboys, and troopers in the
exchange, he was in time to see Cahill enter it from the other store,
wrapping up a bottle of pain-killer for Mrs. Stickney's cook. But
Clancey was not deceived. He observed with satisfaction that the soles
and the heels of Cahill's boots were wet with the black mud of the
corral.

The next morning, when the exchange was empty, the post-trader turned
from arranging cans of condensed milk upon an upper shelf to face the
sergeant's revolver. He threw up his hands to the level of his ears as
though expressing sharp unbelief, and waited in silence. The sergeant
advanced until the gun rested on the counter, Its muzzle pointing at the
pit of Cahill's stomach. “You or me has got to leave this post,” said
the sergeant, “and I can't desert, so I guess it's up to you.”

“What did you talk for?” asked Cahill. His attitude was still that
of shocked disbelief, but his tone expressed a full acceptance of the
situation and a desire to temporize.

“At first I thought it might be that new 'cruity' in F Troop,” explained
the sergeant “You came near making me kill the wrong man. What harm did
I do you by saying you kept bar for McTurk? What's there in that to get
hot about?”

“You said I run with the Whyos.”

“What the h--l do I care what you've done!” roared the sergeant. “I
don't kmow nothing about you, but I don't mean you should shoot me in
the back. I'm going to tell this to my bunky, an' if I get shot up, the
Troop'll know who done it, and you'll hang for it. Now, what are you
going to do?”

Cahill did not tell what he would do; for, from the other store, the low
voice of Mary Cahill called, “Father! Oh, father!”

The two men dodged, and eyed each other guiltily. The sergeant gazed at
the buffalo-robe portieres with wide-opened eyes. Cahill's hands dropped
from the region of his ears, and fell flat upon the counter.

When Miss Mary Cahill pushed aside the portieres Sergeant Clancey, of
G Troop, was showing her father the mechanism of the new
regulation-revolver. He apparently was having some difficulty with the
cylinder, for his face was red. Her father was eying the gun with the
critical approval of an expert.

“Father,” said Miss Cahill petulantly, “why didn't you answer? Where is
the blue stationery--the sort Major Ogden always buys? He's waiting.”

The eyes of the post-trader did not wander from the gun before him.
“Next to the blank books, Mame,” he said. “On the second shelf.”

Miss Cahill flashed a dazzling smile at the big sergeant, and whispered,
so that the officer in the room behind her might not overhear, “Is
he trying to sell you Government property, dad? Don't you touch it.
Sergeant, I'm surprised at you tempting my poor father.” She pulled the
two buffalo-robes close around her neck so that her face only showed
between them. It was a sweet, lovely face, with frank, boyish eyes.

“When the major's gone, sergeant,” she whispered, “bring your gun around
my side of the store and I'll buy it from you.”

The sergeant nodded in violent assent, laughing noiselessly and slapping
his knee in a perfect ecstasy of delight.

The curtains dropped and the face disappeared.

The sergeant fingered the gun and Cahill folded his arms defiantly.

“Well?” he said.

“Well?” asked the sergeant.

“I should think you could see how it is,” said Cahill, “without my
having to tell you.”

“You mean you don't want she should know?”

“My God, no! Not even that I kept a bar.”

“Well, I don't know nothing. I don't mean to tell nothing, anyway, so if
you'll promise to be good I'll call this off.”

For the first time in the history of Fort Crockett, Cahill was seen to
smile. “May I reach under the counter NOW?” he asked.

The sergeant grinned appreciatively, and shifted his gun. “Yes, but
I'll keep this out until I'm sure it's a bottle,” he said, and laughed
boisterously.

For an instant, under the cover of the counter, Cahill's hand touched
longingly upon the gun that lay there, and then passed on to the bottle
beside it. He drew it forth, and there was the clink of glasses.

In the other room Mary Cahill winked at the major, but that officer
pretended to be both deaf to the clink of the glasses and blind to the
wink. And so the incident was closed. Had it not been for the folly of
Lieutenant Ranson it would have remained closed.

A week before this happened a fire had started in the Willow Bottoms
among the tepees of some Kiowas, and the prairie, as far as one could
see, was bruised and black. From the post it looked as though the sky
had been raining ink. At the time all of the regiment but G and H
Troops was out on a practice-march, experimenting with a new-fangled
tabloid-ration. As soon as it turned the buttes it saw from where the
light in the heavens came and the practice-march became a race.

At the post the men had doubled out under Lieutenant Ranson with wet
horse-blankets, and while he led G Troop to fight the flames, H Troop,
under old Major Stickney, burned a space around the post, across which
the men of G Troop retreated, stumbling, with their ears and shoulders
wrapped in the smoking blankets. The sparks beat upon them and the
flames followed so fast that, as they ran, the blazing grass burned
their lacings, and they kicked their gaiters ahead of them.

When the regiment arrived it found everybody at Fort Crockett talking
enthusiastically of Ranson's conduct and resentfully of the fact that
he had regarded the fire as one which had been started for his especial
amusement.

“I assure you,” said Mrs. Bolland to the colonel, “if it hadn't been
for young Ranson we would have been burned in our beds; but he was most
aggravating. He treated it as though it were Fourth of July fireworks.
It is the only entertainment we have been able to offer him since he
joined in which he has shown the slightest interest.” Nevertheless,
it was generally admitted that Ranson had saved the post. He had been
ubiquitous. He had been seen galloping into the advancing flames like
a stampeded colt, he had reappeared like a wraith in columns of black,
whirling smoke, at the same moment his voice issued orders from twenty
places. One instant he was visible beating back the fire with a wet
blanket, waving it above him jubilantly, like a substitute at the
Army-Navy game when his side scores, and the next staggering from out
of the furnace dragging an asphyxiated trooper by the collar, and
shrieking, “Hospital-steward, hospital-steward! here's a man on fire.
Put him out, and send him back to me, quick!”

Those who met him in the whirlwind of smoke and billowing flame related
that he chuckled continuously. “Isn't this fun?” he yelled at them.
“Say, isn't this the best ever? I wouldn't have missed this for a trip
to New York!”

When the colonel, having visited the hospital and spoken cheering words
to those who were sans hair, sans eyebrows and with bandaged hands,
complimented Lieutenant Ranson on the parade-ground before the assembled
regiment, Ranson ran to his hut muttering strange and fearful oaths.

That night at mess he appealed to Mary Cahill for sympathy. “Goodness,
mighty me!” he cried, “did you hear him? Wasn't it awful? If I'd thought
he was going to hand me that I'd have deserted. What's the use of
spoiling the only fun we've had that way? Why, if I'd known you could
get that much excitement out of this rank prairie I'd have put a match
to it myself three months ago. It's the only fun I've had, and he goes
and preaches a funeral oration at me.”

Ranson came into the army at the time of the Spanish war because it
promised a new form of excitement, and because everybody else he
knew had gone into it too. As the son of his father he was made an
adjutant-general of volunteers with the rank of captain, and unloaded
on the staff of a Southern brigadier, who was slated never to leave
Charleston. But Ranson suspected this, and, after telegraphing his
father for three days, was attached to the Philippines contingent and
sailed from San Francisco in time to carry messages through the surf
when the volunteers moved upon Manila. More cabling at the cost of many
Mexican dollars caused him to be removed from the staff, and given a
second lieutenancy in a volunteer regiment, and for two years he pursued
the little brown men over the paddy sluices, burned villages,
looted churches, and collected bolos and altar-cloths with that
irresponsibility and contempt for regulations which is found chiefly
in the appointment from civil life. Incidentally, he enjoyed himself
so much that he believed in the army he had found the one place where
excitement is always in the air, and as excitement was the breath of his
nostrils he applied for a commission in the regular army. On his record
he was appointed a second lieutenant in the Twentieth Cavalry, and on
the return of that regiment to the States--was buried alive at Fort
Crockett.

After six months of this exile, one night at the mess-table Ranson broke
forth in open rebellion. “I tell you I can't stand it a day longer,” he
cried. “I'm going to resign!”

From behind the counter Mary Cahill heard him in horror. Second
Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis shuddered. They were sons of officers
of the regular army. Only six months before they themselves had been
forwarded from West Point, done up in neat new uniforms. The traditions
of the Academy of loyalty and discipline had been kneaded into their
vertebrae. In Ranson they saw only the horrible result of giving
commissions to civilians.

“Maybe the post will be gayer now that spring has come,” said Curtis
hopefully, but with a doubtful look at the open fire.

“I wouldn't do anything rash,” urged Crosby.

Miss Cahill shook her head. “Why, I like it at the post,” she said, “and
I've been here five years--ever since I left the convent--and I--”

Ranson interrupted, bowing gallantly. “Yes, I know, Miss Cahill,” he
said, “but I didn't come here from a convent. I came here from the
blood-stained fields of war. Now, out in the Philippines there's always
something doing. They give you half a troop, and so long as you bring
back enough Mausers and don't get your men cut up, you can fight all
over the shop and no questions asked. But all I do here is take care of
sick horses. Any vet. in the States has seen as much fighting as I have
in the last half-year. I might as well have had charge of horse-car
stables.”

“There is some truth in that,” said Curtis cautiously. “If you do
resign, certainly no one can accuse you of resigning in the face of the
enemy.”

“Enemy, ye gods!” roared Ranson. “Why, if I were to see a Moro entering
that door with a bolo in each fist I'd fall on his neck and kiss him.
I'm not trained to this garrison business. You fellows are. They took
all the sporting blood out of you at West Point; one bad mark for
smoking a cigarette, two bad marks for failing to salute the instructor
in botany, and all the excitement you ever knew were charades and
a cadet-hop a t Cullum Hall. But, you see, before I went to the
Philippines with Merritt, I'd been there twice on a fellow's yacht, and
we'd tucked the Spanish governor in his bed with his spurs on. Now,
I have to sit around and hear old Bolland tell how he put down a
car-strike in St. Louis, and Stickney's long-winded yarns of Table
Mountain and the Bloody Angle. He doesn't know the Civil War's over. I
tell you, if I can't get excitement on tap I've got to make it, and if I
make it out here they'll court-martial me. So there's nothing for it but
to resign.”

“You'd better wait till the end of the week,” said Crosby, grinning.
“It's going to be full of gayety. Thursday, paymaster's coming out with
our cash, and to-night that Miss Post from New York arrives in the up
stage. She's to visit the colonel, so everybody will have to give her a
good time.”

“Yes, I certainly must wait for that,” growled Ranson; “there probably
will be progressive euchre parties all along the line, and we'll sit up
as late as ten o'clock and stick little gilt stars on ourselves.”

Crosby laughed tolerantly.

“I see your point of view,” he said. “I remember when my father took me
to Monte Carlo I saw you at the tables with enough money in front of
you to start a bank. I remember my father asked the croupiers why they
allowed a child of your age to gamble. I was just a kid then, and so
were you, too. I remember I thought you were the devil of a fellow.”

Ranson looked sheepishly at Miss Cahill and laughed. “Well, so I
was--then,” he said. “Anybody would be a devil of a fellow who'd been
brought up as I was, with a doting parent who owns a trust and doesn't
know the proper value of money. And yet you expect me to be happy with
a fifty-cent limit game, and twenty miles of burned prairie. I tell you
I've never been broken to it. I don't know what not having your own way
means. And discipline! Why, every time I have to report one of my men to
the colonel I send for him afterward and give him a drink and apologize
to him. I tell you the army doesn't mean anything to me unless there's
something doing, and as there is no fighting out here I'm for the back
room of the Holland House and a rubber-tired automobile. Little old New
York is good enough for me!”

As he spoke these fateful words of mutiny Lieutenant Ranson raised his
black eyes and snatched a swift side-glance at the face of Mary Cahill.
It was almost as though it were from her he sought his answer. He could
not himself have told what it was he would have her say. But ever since
the idea of leaving the army had come to him, Mary Cahill and the army
had become interchangeable and had grown to mean one and the same thing.
He fought against this condition of mind fiercely. He had determined
that without active service the army was intolerable; but that without
Mary Cahill civil life would also prove intolerable, he assured himself
did not at all follow. He had laughed at the idea. He had even argued it
out sensibly. Was it reasonable to suppose, he asked himself, that after
circling the great globe three times he should find the one girl on it
who alone could make him happy, sitting behind a post-trader's counter
on the open prairie? His interest in Miss Cahill was the result of
propinquity, that was all. It was due to the fact that there was no
one else at hand, because he was sorry for her loneliness, because her
absurd social ostracism had touched his sympathy. How long after he
reached New York would he remember the little comrade with the brave,
boyish eyes set in the delicate, feminine head, with its great waves of
gorgeous hair? It would not be long, he guessed. He might remember the
way she rode her pony, how she swung from her Mexican saddle and caught
up a gauntlet from the ground. Yes, he certainly would remember that,
and he would remember the day he had galloped after her and ridden with
her through the Indian village, and again that day when they rode to the
water-fall and the Lover's Leap. And he would remember her face at night
as it bent over the books he borrowed for her, which she read while they
were at mess, sitting in her high chair with her chin resting in her
palms, staring down at the book before her. And the trick she had,
whenever he spoke, of raising her head and looking into the fire, her
eyes lighting and her lips smiling. They would be pleasant memories, he
was sure. But once back again in the whirl and rush of the great world
outside of Fort Crockett, even as memories they would pass away.

Mary Cahill made no outward answer to the rebellious utterance of
Lieutenant Ranson. She only bent her eyes on her book and tried to think
what the post would hold for her when he had carried out his threat and
betaken himself into the world and out of her life forever. Night after
night she had sat enthroned behind her barrier and listened to his talk,
wondering deeply. He had talked of a world she knew only in novels, in
history, and in books of travel. His view of it was not an educational
one: he was no philosopher, nor trained observer. He remembered
London--to her the capital of the world--chiefly by its restaurants,
Cairo on account of its execrable golf-links. He lived only to enjoy
himself. His view was that of a boy, hearty and healthy and seeking only
excitement and mischief. She had heard his tales of his brief career at
Harvard, of the reunions at Henry's American bar, of the Futurity, the
Suburban, the Grand Prix, of a yachting cruise which apparently had
encountered every form of adventure, from the rescuing of a stranded
opera-company to the ramming of a slaver's dhow. The regret with which
he spoke of these free days, which was the regret of an exile marooned
upon a desert island, excited all her sympathy for an ill she had never
known. His discourteous scorn of the social pleasures of the post, from
which she herself was excluded, rilled her with speculation. If he could
forego these functions, how full and gay she argued his former life must
have been. His attitude helped her to bear the deprivations more easily.
And she, as a loyal child of the army, liked him also because he was
no “cracker-box” captain, but a fighter, who had fought with no morbid
ideas as to the rights or wrongs of the cause, but for the fun of
fighting.

And one night, after he had been telling the mess of a Filipino officer
who alone had held back his men and himself, and who at last died in his
arms cursing him, she went to sleep declaring to herself that Lieutenant
Ranson was becoming too like the man she had pictured for her husband
than was good for her peace of mind. He had told the story as his
tribute to a brave man fighting for his independence and with such
regret that such a one should have died so miserably, that, to the
embarrassment of the mess, the tears rolled down his cheeks. But he
wiped them away with his napkin as unconcernedly as though they were
caused by the pepper-box, and said simply, “He had sporting blood, he
had. I've never felt so bad about anything as I did about that chap.
Whenever I think of him standing up there with his back to the cathedral
all shot to pieces, but giving us what for until he died, it makes me
cry. So,” he added, blowing his nose vigorously, “I won't think of it
any more.”

Tears are properly a woman's weapon, and when a man makes use of them,
even in spite of himself, he is taking an advantage over the other
sex which is unfair and outrageous. Lieutenant Ranson never knew the
mischief the sympathy he had shown for his enemy caused in the heart of
Mary Cahill, nor that from that moment she loved him deeply.

The West Point graduates before they answered Ranson's ultimatum smoked
their cigarettes for some time in silence.

“Oh, there's been fighting even at Fort Crockett,” said Crosby. “In the
last two years the men have been ordered out seven times, haven't they,
Miss Cahill? When the Indians got out of hand, and twice after cowboys,
and twice after the Red Rider.”

“The Red Rider!” protested Ranson; “I don't see anything exciting in
rounding up one miserable horse thief.”

“Only they don't round him up,” returned Curtis crossly. “That's why
it's exciting. He's the best in his business. He's held up the stage six
times now in a year. Whoever the fellow is, if he's one man or a gang of
men, he's the nerviest road-agent since the days of Abe Case.”

Ranson in his then present mood was inclined toward pessimism. “It
doesn't take any nerve to hold up a coach,” he contradicted.

Curtis and Crosby snorted in chorus. “That's what you say,” mocked
Curtis.

“Well, it doesn't,” repeated Ranson. “It's all a game of bluff. The
etiquette is that the driver mustn't shoot the road-agent, and that the
road-agent mustn't hurt the driver, and the passengers are too scared
to move. The moment they see a man rise out of the night they throw up
their hands. Why, even when a passenger does try to pull his gun the
others won't let him. Each thinks sure that if there's any firing he
will be the one to get hurt. And, besides, they don't know how many more
men the road agent may have behind him. I don't---”

A movement on the part of Miss Cahill caused him to pause abruptly.
Miss Cahill had descended from her throne and was advancing to meet the
post-trader, who came toward her from the exchange.

“Lightfoot's squaw,” he said. “Her baby's worse. She's sent for you.”

Miss Cahill gave a gasp of sympathy, snatched up her hat from the
counter, and the buffalo robes closed behind her.

Ranson stooped and reached for his sombrero. With the flight of Miss
Cahill his interest in the courage of the Red Rider had departed also.

But Crosby appealed to the new-comer, “Cahill, YOU know,” he said.
“We've been talking of the man they call the Red Rider, the chap that
wears a red bandanna over his face. Ranson says he hasn't any nerve.
That's not so, is it?”

“I said it didn't take any nerve to hold up a stage,” said Ranson; “and
it doesn't.”

The post-trader halted on his way back to the exchange and rubbed one
hand meditatively over the other arm. With him speech was golden and
difficult. After a pause he said: “Oh, he takes his chances.”

“Of course he does,” cried Crosby, encouragingly. “He takes the chance
of being shot by the passengers, and of being caught by the posse and
lynched, but this man's got away with it now six times in the last year.
And I say that takes nerve.”

“Why, for fifty dollars---” laughed Ranson.

He checked himself, and glanced over his shoulder at the retreating
figure of Cahill. The buffalo robes fell again, and the spurs of
the post-trader could be heard jangling over the earth-floor of the
exchange.

“For fifty dollars,” repeated Ranson, in brisk, businesslike tones,
“I'll rob the up stage to-night myself!”

Previous knowledge of his moods, the sudden look of mischief in his eyes
and a certain vibration in his voice caused the two lieutenants to jump
simultaneously to their feet. “Ranson!” they shouted.

Ranson laughed mockingly. “Oh, I'm bored to death,” he cried. “What will
you bet I don't?”

He had risen with them, but, without waiting for their answer, ran to
where his horse stood at the open door. He sank on his knees and began
tugging violently at the stirrup-straps. The two officers, their eyes
filled with concern, pursued him across the room. With Cahill twenty
feet away, they dared not raise their voices, but in pantomime they
beckoned him vigorously to return. Ranson came at once, flushed and
smiling, holding a hooded army-stirrup in each hand. “Never do to have
them see these!” he said. He threw the stirrups from him, behind the row
of hogsheads. “I'll ride in the stirrup-straps!” He still spoke in the
same low, brisk tone.

Crosby seized him savagely by the arm. “No, you won't!” he hissed. “Look
here, Ranson. Listen to me; for Heaven's sake don't be an ass! They'll
shoot you, you'll be killed---”

--“And court-martialed,” panted Curtis.

“You'll go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life!”

Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a
lower shelf he snatched a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged
a rubber poncho, and buttoned it high about his throat. He picked up the
steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the
red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero. It fell before
his face like a curtain. From his neck to his knees the poncho concealed
his figure. All that was visible of him was his eyes, laughing through
the holes in the red mask.

“Behold the Red Rider!” he groaned. “Hold up your hands!”

He pulled the kerchief from his face and threw the poncho over his arm.
“Do you see these shears?” he whispered. “I'm going to hold up the stage
with 'em. No one ever fires at a road agent. They just shout, 'Don't
shoot, colonel, and I'll come down.' I'm going to bring 'em down with
these shears.”

Crosby caught Curtis by the arm, laughing eagerly. “Come to the stables,
quick,” he cried. “We'll get twenty troopers after him before he can go
a half mile.” He turned on Ranson with a triumphant chuckle. “You'll not
be dismissed this regiment, if I can help it,” he cried.

Ranson gave an ugly laugh, like the snarl of a puppy over his bone. “If
you try to follow me, or interfere with me, Lieutenant Crosby,” he said,
“I'll shoot you and your troopers!”

“With a pair of shears?” jeered Crosby.

“No, with the gun I've got in my pocket. Now you listen to me. I'm not
going to use that gun on any stage filled with women, driven by a man
seventy years old, but--and I mean it--if you try to stop me, I'll use
it on you. I'm going to show you how anyone can bluff a stage full with
a pair of tin shears and a red mask for a kicker. And I'll shoot the man
that tries to stop me.”

Ranson sprang to his horse's side, and stuck his toe into the empty
stirrup-strap; there was a scattering of pebbles, a scurry of hoofs, and
the horse and rider became a gray blot in the moonlight.

The two lieutenants stood irresolute. Under his breath Crosby was
swearing fiercely. Curtis stood staring out of the open door.

“Will he do it?” he asked.

“Of course he'll do it.”

Curtis crossed the room and dropped into a chair. “And what--what had we
better do?” he asked. For some time the other made no answer. His brows
were knit, and he tramped the room, scowling at the floor. Then with an
exclamation of alarm he stepped lightly to the door of the exchange and
threw back the curtain. In the other room, Cahill stood at its furthest
corner, scooping sugar from a hogshead.

Crosby's scowl relaxed, and, reseating himself at the table, he rolled
a cigarette. “Now, if he pulls it off,” he whispered, “and gets back to
quarters, then--it's a case of all's well. But, if he's shot, or caught,
and it all comes out, then it's up to us to prove he meant it as a
practical joke.”

“It isn't our duty to report it now, is it?” asked Curtis, nervously.

“Certainly not! If he chooses to make an ass of himself, that's none
of our business. Unless he's found out, we have heard nothing and seen
nothing. If he's caught, then we've got to stick by him, and testify
that he did it on a bet. He'll probably win out all right. There is
nobody expected on the stage but that Miss Post and her aunt. And the
driver's an old hand. He knows better than to fight.”

“There may be some cowboys coming up.”

“That's Ranson's lookout. As Cahill says, the Red Rider takes his
chances.”

“I wish there was something we could do now,” Curtis protested,
petulantly. “I suppose we've just got to sit still and wait for him?”

“That's all,” answered Crosby, and then leaped to his feet. “What's
that?” he asked. Out on the parade ground, a bugle-call broke suddenly
on the soft spring air. It rang like an alarm. The noise of a man
running swiftly sounded on the path, and before the officers reached the
doorway Sergeant Clancey entered it, and halted at attention.

“The colonel's orders,” panted the sergeant, “and the lieutenant's are
to take twenty men from G and H Troops, and ride to Kiowa to escort the
paymaster.”

“The paymaster!” Crosby cried. “He's not coming till Thursday.”

“He's just telegraphed from Kiowa City, lieutenant. He's ahead of his
schedule. He wants an escort for the money. He left Kiowa a few minutes
ago in the up stage.”

The two lieutenants sprang forward, and shouted in chorus: “The stage?
He is in the stage!”

Sergeant Clancey stared dubiously from one officer to the other. He
misunderstood their alarm, and with the privilege of long service
attempted to allay it. “The lieutenant knows nothing can happen to the
stage till it reaches the buttes,” he said. “There has never been a
hold-up in the open, and the escort can reach the buttes long before
the stage gets here.” He coughed consciously. “Colonel's orders are to
gallop, lieutenant.”

As the two officers rode knee to knee through the night, the pay escort
pounding the trail behind them, Crosby leaned from his saddle. “He
has only ten minutes' start of us,” he whispered. “We are certain to
overtake him. We can't help but do it. We must do it. We MUST! If we
don't, and he tries to stop Colonel Patten and the pay-roll, he'll die.
Two women and a deaf driver, that--that's a joke. But an Indian fighter
like old Patten, and Uncle Sam's money, that means a finish fight-and
his death and disgrace.” He turned savagely in his saddle. “Close up
there!” he commanded. “Stop that talking. You keep your breath till I
want it--and ride hard.”

After the officers had galloped away from the messroom, and Sergeant
Clancey had hurried after them to the stables, the post-trader entered
it from the exchange and barred the door, which they in their haste had
left open. As he did this, the close observer, had one been present,
might have noted that though his movements were now alert and eager,
they no longer were betrayed by any sound, and that his spurs had ceased
to jangle. Yet that he purposed to ride abroad was evident from the fact
that from a far corner he dragged out a heavy saddle. He flung this upon
the counter, and swiftly stripped it of its stirrups. These, with more
than necessary care, he hid away upon the highest shelf of the shop,
while from the lower shelves he snatched a rubber poncho and a red
kerchief. For a moment, as he unbarred the door, the post-trader paused
and cast a quick glance before and behind him, and then the door closed
and there was silence. A minute later it was broken by the hoofs of a
horse galloping swiftly along the trail to Kiowa City.




II


That winter Miss Post had been going out a great deal more than was
good for her, and when the spring came she broke down. The family doctor
recommended Aiken, but an aunt of Miss Post's, Mrs. Truesdall, had
been at Farmington with Mrs. “Colonel” Bolland, and urged visiting her
instead. The doctor agreed that the climatic conditions existing at Fort
Crockett were quite as health-giving as those at Aiken, and of the two
the invalid decided that the regimental post would be more of a novelty.

So she and her aunt and the maid changed cars twice after leaving St.
Louis and then staged it to Kiowa City, where, while waiting for “Pop”
 Henderson's coach to Fort Crockett, they dined with him on bacon, fried
bread, and alkali water tinged with coffee.

It was at Kiowa City, a city of four hundred houses on blue-print paper
and six on earth, that Miss Post first felt certain that she was going
to enjoy her visit. It was there she first saw, at large and on his
native heath, a blanket Indian. He was a tall, beautiful youth, with
yellow ochre on his thin, brown arms and blue ochre on his cheekbones,
who sat on “Pop's” steps, gazing impassively at the stars. Miss Post
came out with her maid and fell over him. The maid screamed. Miss Post
said: “I beg your pardon”; and the brave expressed his contempt by
gutteral mutterings and by moving haughtily away. Miss Post was then
glad that she had not gone to Aiken. For the twelve-mile drive through
the moonlit buttes to Fort Crockett there was, besides the women, one
other passenger. He was a travelling salesman of the Hancock Uniform
Company, and was visiting Fort Crockett to measure the officers for
their summer tunics. At dinner he passed Miss Post the condensed
milk-can, and in other ways made himself agreeable. He informed her aunt
that he was in the Military Equipment Department of the Army, but, much
to that young woman's distress, addressed most of his remarks to the
maid, who, to his taste, was the most attractive of the three.

“I take it,” he said genially to Miss Post, “that you and the young lady
are sisters.”

“No,” said Miss Post, “we are not related.”

It was eight o'clock, and the moon was full in the heavens when “Pop”
 Henderson hoisted them into the stage and burdened his driver, Hunk
Smith, with words of advice which were intended solely for the ears of
the passengers.

“You want to be careful of that near wheeler, Hunk,” he said, “or he'll
upset you into a gully. An' in crossing the second ford, bear to the
right; the water's running high, and it may carry youse all down stream.
I don't want that these ladies should be drowned in any stage of mine.
An' if the Red Rider jumps you don't put up no bluff, but sit still. The
paymaster's due in a night or two, an' I've no doubt at all but that the
Rider's laying for him. But if you tell him that there's no one inside
but womenfolk and a tailor, mebbe he won't hurt youse. Now, ladies,” he
added, putting his head under the leather flap, as though unconscious
that all he had said had already reached them, “without wishing to make
you uneasy, I would advise your having your cash and jewelry ready in
your hands. With road-agents it's mostly wisest to do what they say, an'
to do it quick. Ef you give 'em all you've got, they sometimes go away
without spilling blood, though, such being their habits, naturally
disappointed.” He turned his face toward the shrinking figure of the
military tailor. “You, being an army man,” he said, “will of course want
to protect the ladies, but you mustn't do it. You must keep cool. Ef you
pull your gun, like as not you'll all get killed. But I'm hoping for the
best. Good-night all, an' a pleasant journey.”

The stage moved off with many creaks and many cracks of the whip, which
in part smothered Hunk Smith's laughter. But after the first mile, he,
being a man with feelings and a family, pulled the mules to a halt.

The voice of the drummer could instantly be heard calling loudly from
the darkness of the stage: “Don't open those flaps. If they see us,
they'll fire!”

“I wanted you folks to know,” said Hunk Smith, leaning from the
box-seat, “that that talk of Pop's was all foolishness. You're as safe
on this trail as in a Pullman palace-car. That was just his way. Pop
will have his joke. You just go to sleep now, if you can, and trust to
me. I'll get you there by eleven o'clock or break a trace. Breakin' a
trace is all the danger there is, anyway,” he added, cheerfully, “so
don't fret.”

Miss Post could not resist saying to Mrs. Truesdall: “I told you he was
joking.”

The stage had proceeded for two hours. Sometimes it dropped with
locked wheels down sheer walls of clay, again it was dragged, careening
drunkenly, out of fathomless pits. It pitched and tossed, slid and
galloped, danced grotesquely from one wheel to another, from one stone
to another, recoiled out of ruts, butted against rocks, and swept down
and out of swollen streams that gurgled between the spokes.

“If ever I leave Fort Crockett,” gasped Mrs. Truesdall between jolts, “I
shall either wait until they build a railroad or walk.”

They had all but left the hills, and were approaching the level prairie.
That they might see the better the flaps had been rolled up, and
the soft dry air came freely through the open sides. The mules were
straining over the last hill. On either side only a few of the buttes
were still visible. They stood out in the moonlight as cleanly cut
as the bows of great battleships. The trail at last was level. Mrs.
Truesdall's eyes closed. Her head fell forward. But Miss Post, weary
as she was in body, could not sleep. To her the night-ride was full of
strange and wonderful mysteries. Gratefully she drank in the dry scent
of the prairie-grass, and, holding by the frame of the window, leaned
far out over the wheel. As she did so, a man sprang into the trail from
behind a wall of rock, and shouted hoarsely. He was covered to his knees
with a black mantle. His face was hidden by a blood-red mask.

“Throw up your hands!” he commanded. There was a sharp creaking as the
brakes locked, and from the driver's seat an amazed oath. The stage
stopped with a violent jerk, and Mrs. Truesdall pitched gently forward
toward her niece.

“I really believe I was asleep, Helen,” she murmured. “What are we
waiting for?”

“I think we are held up,” said Miss Post.

The stage had halted beyond the wall of rock, and Miss Post looked
behind it, but no other men were visible, only a horse with his bridle
drawn around a stone. The man in the mask advanced upon the stage,
holding a weapon at arm's-length. In the moonlight it flashed and
glittered evilly. The man was but a few feet from Miss Post, and the
light fell full upon her. Of him she could see only two black eyes that
flashed as evilly as his weapon. For a period of suspense, which seemed
cruelly prolonged, the man stood motionless, then he lowered his weapon.
When he opened his lips the mask stuck to them, and his words came from
behind it, broken and smothered. “Sorry to trouble you, miss,” the mask
said, “but I want that man beside you to get out.”

Miss Post turned to the travelling salesman. “He wants you to get out,”
 she said.

“Wants me!” exclaimed the drummer. “I'm not armed, you know.” In a
louder voice he protested, faintly: “I say, I'm not armed.”

“Come out!” demanded the mask.

The drummer precipitated himself violently over the knees of the ladies
into the road below, and held his hands high above him. “I'm not armed,”
 he said; “indeed I'm not.”

“Stand over there, with your back to that rock,” the mask ordered. For
a moment the road agent regarded him darkly, pointing his weapon
meditatively at different parts of the salesman's person. He suggested
a butcher designating certain choice cuts. The drummer's muscles jerked
under the torture as though his anatomy were being prodded with an awl.

“I want your watch,” said the mask. The drummer reached eagerly for his
waistcoat.

“Hold up your hands!” roared the road agent. “By the eternal, if you
play any rough-house tricks on me I'll--” He flourished his weapon until
it flashed luminously.

An exclamation from Hunk Smith, opportunely uttered, saved the drummer
from what was apparently instant annihilation. “Say, Rider,” cried the
driver, “I can't hold my arms up no longer. I'm going to put 'em down.
But you leave me alone, an' I'll leave you alone. Is that a bargain?”
 The shrouded figure whirled his weapon upon the speaker. “Have I ever
stopped you before, Hunk?” he demanded.

Hunk, at this recognition of himself as a public character, softened
instantly. “I dunno whether 'twas you or one of your gang, but--”

“Well, you've still got your health, haven't you?”

“Yes.”

“Then keep quiet,” snarled the mask.

In retort Hunk Smith muttered audible threatenings, but sank obediently
into an inert heap. Only his eyes, under cover of his sombrero, roamed
restlessly. They noted the McClellan saddle on the Red Rider's horse,
the white patch on its near fore-foot, the empty stirrup-straps, and at
a great distance, so great that the eyes only of a plainsman could have
detected it, a cloud of dust, or smoke, or mist, that rode above the
trail and seemed to be moving swiftly down upon them.

At the sight, Hunk shifted the tobacco in his cheek and nervously
crossed his knees, while a grin of ineffable cunning passed across his
face.

With his sombrero in his hand, the Red Rider stepped to the wheel of
the stage. As he did so, Miss Post observed that above the line of his
kerchief his hair was evenly and carefully parted in the middle.

“I'm afraid, ladies,” said the road agent, “that I have delayed you
unnecessarily. It seems that I have called up the wrong number.” He
emitted a reassuring chuckle, and, fanning himself with his sombrero,
continued speaking in a tone of polite irony: “The Wells, Fargo
messenger is the party I am laying for. He's coming over this trail
with a package of diamonds. That's what I'm after. At first I thought
'Fighting Bob' over there by the rock might have it on him; but he
doesn't act like any Wells, Fargo Express agent I have ever tackled
before, and I guess the laugh's on me. I seem to have been weeping
over the wrong grave.” He replaced his sombrero on his head at a rakish
angle, and waved his hand. “Ladies, you are at liberty to proceed.”

But instantly he stepped forward again, and brought his face so close to
the window that they could see the whites of his eyes. “Before we part,”
 he murmured, persuasively, “you wouldn't mind leaving me something as a
souvenir, would you?” He turned the skull-like openings of the mask full
upon Miss Post.

Mrs. Truesdall exclaimed, hysterically: “Why, certainly not!” she cried.
“Here's everything I have, except what's sewn inside my waist, where I
can't possibly get at it. I assure you I cannot. The proprietor of that
hotel told us we'd probably--meet you, and so I have everything ready.”
 She thrust her two hands through the window. They held a roll of bills,
a watch, and her rings

Miss Post laughed in an ecstasy of merriment “Oh, no, aunt,” she
protested, “don't. No, not at all. The gentleman only wants a keepsake.
Something to remember us by. Isn't that it?” she asked. She regarded the
blood-red mask steadily with a brilliant smile.

The road agent did not at once answer. At her words he had started
back with such sharp suspicion that one might have thought he meditated
instant flight. Through the holes in his mask he now glared searchingly
at Miss Post, but still in silence.

“I think this will satisfy him,” said Miss Post.

Out of the collection in her aunt's hands she picked a silver coin
and held it forward. “Something to keep as a pocket-piece,” she said,
mockingly, “to remind you of your kindness to three lone females in
distress.”

Still silent, the road agent reached for the money, and then growled
at her in a tone which had suddenly become gruff and overbearing. It
suggested to Miss Post the voice of the head of the family playing Santa
Claus for the children. “And now you, miss,” he demanded.

Miss Post took another coin from the heap, studied its inscription, and
passed it through the window. “This one is from me,” she said. “Mine is
dated 1901. The moonlight,” she added, leaning far forward and smiling
out at him, “makes it quite easy to see the date; as easy,” she went
on, picking her words, “as it is to see your peculiar revolver and the
coat-of-arms on your ring.” She drew her head back. “Good-night,” she
cooed, sweetly.

The Red Rider jumped from the door. An exclamation which might have been
a laugh or an oath was smothered by his mask. He turned swiftly upon the
salesman. “Get back into the coach,” he commanded. “And you, Hunk,” he
called, “if you send a posse after me, next night I ketch you out here
alone you'll lose the top of your head.”

The salesman scrambled into the stage through the door opposite the one
at which the Red Rider was standing, and the road agent again raised
his sombrero with a sweeping gesture worthy of D'Artagnan. “Good-night,
ladies,” he said.

“Good-night, sir,” Mrs. Truesdall answered, grimly, but exuding a
relieved sigh. Then, her indignation giving her courage, she leaned from
the window and hurled a Parthian arrow. “I must say,” she protested, “I
think you might be in a better business.”

The road agent waved his hand to the young lady. “Good-by,” he said.

“Au revoir,” said Miss Post, pleasantly.

“Good-by, miss,” stammered the road agent,

“I said 'Au revoir,'” repeated Miss Post.

The road agent, apparently routed by these simple words, fled muttering
toward his horse.

Hunk Smith was having trouble with his brake. He kicked at it and,
stooping, pulled at it, but the wheels did not move.

Mrs. Truesdall fell into a fresh panic. “What is it now?” she called,
miserably.

Before he answered, Hunk Smith threw a quick glance toward the column of
moving dust. He was apparently reassured.

“The brake,” he grunted. “The darned thing's stuck!”

The road agent was tugging at the stone beneath which he had slipped
his bridle. “Can I help?” he asked, politely. But before he reached
the stage, he suddenly stopped with an imperative sweep of his arm
for silence. He stood motionless, his body bent to the ground, leaning
forward and staring down the trail. Then he sprang upright. “You old
fox!” he roared, “you're gaining time, are you?”

With a laugh he tore free his bridle and threw himself across his horse.
His legs locked under it, his hands clasped its mane, and with a cowboy
yell he dashed past the stage in the direction of Kiowa City, his voice
floating back in shouts of jeering laughter. From behind him he heard
Hunk Smith's voice answering his own in a cry for “Help!” and from a
rapidly decreasing distance the throb of many hoofs. For an instant he
drew upon his rein, and then, with a defiant chuckle, drove his spurs
deep into his horse's side.

Mrs. Truesdall also heard the pounding of many hoofs, as well as Hunk
Smith's howls for help, and feared a fresh attack. “Oh, what is it?” she
begged.

“Soldiers from the fort,” Hunk called, excitedly, and again raised his
voice in a long, dismal howl.

“Sounds cheery, doesn't it?” said the salesman; “referring to the
soldiers,” he explained. It was his first coherent remark since the Red
Rider had appeared and disappeared.

“Oh, I hope they won't--” began Miss Post, anxiously.

The hoof-beats changed to thunder, and with the pounding on the dry
trail came the jangle of stirrups and sling-belts. Then a voice, and
the coach was surrounded by dust-covered troopers and horses breathing
heavily. Lieutenant Crosby pulled up beside the window of the stage.
“Are you there, Colonel Patten?” he panted. He peered forward into the
stage, but no one answered him. “Is the paymaster in here?” he demanded.

The voice of Lieutenant Curtis shouted in turn at Hunk Smith. “Is the
paymaster in there, driver?”

“Paymaster? No!” Hunk roared. “A drummer and three ladies. We've been
held up. The Red Rider--” He rose and waved his whip over the top of the
coach. “He went that way. You can ketch him easy.”

Sergeant Clancey and half a dozen troopers jerked at their bridles. But
Crosby, at the window, shouted “Halt!”

“What's your name?” he demanded of the salesman.

“Myers,” stammered the drummer. “I'm from the Hancock Uniform--”

Curtis had spurred his horse beside that of his brother officer. “Is
Colonel Patten at Kiowa?” he interrupted.

“I can't give you any information as to that,” replied Mr. Myers,
importantly; “but these ladies and I have just been held up by the Red
Rider. If you'll hurry you'll--”

The two officers pulled back their horses from the stage and, leaning
from their saddles, consulted in eager whispers. Their men fidgeted with
their reins, and stared with amazed eyes at their officers. Lieutenant
Crosby was openly smiling, “He's got away with it,” he whispered.
“Patten missed the stage, thank God, and he's met nothing worse than
these women.”

“We MUST make a bluff at following him,” whispered Curtis.

“Certainly not! Our orders are to report to Colonel Patten, and act as
his escort.”

“But he's not at Kiowa; that fellow says so.”

“He telegraphed the Colonel from Kiowa,” returned Crosby. “How could he
do that if he wasn't there?” He turned upon Hunk Smith. “When did you
leave Henderson's?” he demanded.

“Seven o'clock,” answered Hunk Smith, sulkily. “Say, if you young
fellows want to catch--”

“And Patten telegraphed at eight,” cried Crosby. “That's it. He reached
Kiowa after the stage had gone. Sergeant Clancey!” he called.

The Sergeant pushed out from the mass of wondering troopers.

“When did the paymaster say he was leaving Kiowa?”

“Leaving at once, the telegram said,” answered Clancey.

“'Meet me with escort before I reach the buttes.' That's the message I
was told to give the lieutenant.”

Hunk Smith leaned from the box-seat. “Mebbe Pop's driving him over
himself in the buckboard,” he volunteered. “Pop often takes 'em over
that way if they miss the stage.”

“That's how it is, of course,” cried Crosby. “He's on his way now in the
buckboard.”

Hunk Smith surveyed the troopers dismally and shook his head. “If he
runs up against the Red Rider, it's 'good-by' your pay, boys,” he cried.

“Fall in there!” shouted Crosby. “Corporal Tynan, fall out with two men
and escort these ladies to the fort.” He touched his hat to Miss Post,
and, with Curtis at his side, sprang into the trail. “Gallop! March!” he
commanded.

“Do you think he'll tackle the buckboard, too?” whispered Curtis.

Crosby laughed joyously and drew a long breath of relief.

“No, he's all right now,” he answered. “Don't you see, he doesn't know
about Patten or the buckboard. He's probably well on his way to the post
now. I delayed the game at the stage there on purpose to give him a good
start. He's safe by now.”

“It was a close call,” laughed the other. “He's got to give us a dinner
for helping him out of this.”

“We'd have caught him red-handed,” said Crosby, “if we'd been five
minutes sooner. Lord!” he gasped. “It makes me cold to think of it. The
men would have shot him off his horse. But what a story for those women!
I hope I'll be there when they tell it. If Ranson can keep his face
straight, he's a wonder.” For some moments they raced silently neck
by neck, and then Curtis again leaned from his saddle. “I hope he HAS
turned back to the post,” he said. “Look at the men how they're keeping
watch for him. They're scouts, all of them.”

“What if they are?” returned Crosby, easily. “Ranson's in uniform--out
for a moonlight canter. You can bet a million dollars he didn't wear his
red mask long after he heard us coming.”

“I suppose he'll think we've followed to spoil his fun. You know you
said we would.”

“Yes, he was going to shoot us,” laughed Crosby. “I wonder why he packs
a gun. It's a silly thing to do.”

The officers fell apart again, and there was silence over the prairie,
save for the creaking of leather and the beat of the hoofs. And then,
faint and far away, there came the quick crack of a revolver, another,
and then a fusillade. “My God!” gasped Crosby. He threw himself forwards
digging his spurs into his horse, and rode as though he were trying to
escape from his own men.

No one issued an order, no one looked a question; each, officer and
enlisted man, bowed his head and raced to be the first.

The trail was barricaded by two struggling horses and an overturned
buckboard. The rigid figure of a man lay flat upon his back staring at
the moon, another white-haired figure staggered forward from a rock.
“Who goes there?” it demanded.

“United States troops. Is that you, Colonel Patten?”

“Yes.”

Colonel Patten's right arm was swinging limply at his side. With
his left hand he clasped his right shoulder. The blood, black in the
moonlight, was oozing between his fingers.

“We were held up,” he said. “He shot the driver and the horses. I fired
at him, but he broke my arm. He shot the gun out of my hand. When he
reached for the satchel I tried to beat him off with my left arm, but he
threw me into the road. He went that way--toward Kiowa.”

Sergeant Clancey, who was kneeling by the figure in the trail, raised
his hand in salute. “Pop Henderson, lieutenant,” he said. “He's shot
through the heart. He's dead.”

“He took the money, ten thousand dollars,” cried Colonel Patten. “He
wore a red mask and a rubber poncho. And I saw that he had no stirrups
in his stirrup-straps.”

Crosby dodged, as though someone had thrown a knife, and then raised his
hand stiffly and heavily.

“Lieutenant Curtis, you will remain here with Colonel Patten,” he
ordered. His voice was without emotion. It fell flat and dead. “Deploy
as skirmishers,” he commanded. “G Troop to the fight of the trail, H
Troop to the left. Stop anyone you see--anyone. If he tries to escape,
cry 'Halt!' twice and then fire--to kill. Forward! Gallop! March! Toward
the post.”

“No!” shouted Colonel Patten. “He went toward Kiowa.”

Crosby replied in the same dead voice: “He doubled after he left you,
colonel. He has gone to the post.”

Colonel Patten struggled from the supporting arms that held him and
leaned eagerly forward. “You know him, then?” he demanded.

“Yes,” cried Crosby, “God help him! Spread out there, you, in open
order--and ride like hell!”

Just before the officers' club closed for the night Lieutenant Ranson
came in and, seating himself at the piano, picked out “The Queen of the
Philippine Islands” with one finger. Major Stickney and others who were
playing bridge were considerably annoyed. Ranson then demanded that
everyone present should drink his health in champagne for the reason
that it was his birthday and that he was glad he was alive, and wished
everyone else to feel the same way about it. “Or, for any other reason
why,” he added generously. This frontal attack upon the whist-players
upset the game entirely, and Ranson, enthroned upon the piano-stool,
addressed the room. He held up a buckskin tobacco-bag decorated with
beads.

“I got this down at the Indian village to-night,” he said. “That old
squaw, Red Wing, makes 'em for two dollars. Crosby paid five dollars for
his in New Mexico, and it isn't half as good. What do you think? I got
lost coming back, and went all the way round by the buttes before I
found the trail, and I've only been here six months. They certainly
ought to make me chief of scouts.”

There was the polite laugh which is granted to any remark made by the
one who is paying for the champagne.

“Oh, that's where you were, was it?” said the post-adjutant, genially.
“The colonel sent Clancey after you and Crosby. Clancey reported that
he couldn't find you. So we sent Curtis. They went to act as escort
for Colonel Patten and the pay. He's coming up to-night in the stage.”
 Ranson was gazing down into his glass. Before he raised his head he
picked several pieces of ice out of it and then drained it.

“The paymaster, hey?” he said. “He's in the stage to-night, is he?”

“Yes,” said the adjutant; and then as the bugle and stamp of hoofs
sounded from the parade outside, “and that's him now, I guess,” he
added.

Ranson refilled his glass with infinite care, and then, in spite of a
smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth, emptied it slowly.

There was the jingle of spurs and a measured tramp on the veranda of
the club-house, and for the first time in its history four enlisted men,
carrying their Krags, invaded its portals. They were led by Lieutenant
Crosby; his face was white under the tan, and full of suffering. The
officers in the room received the intrusion in amazed silence. Crosby
strode among them, looking neither to the left nor right, and touched
Lieutenant Ranson upon the shoulder.

“The colonel's orders, Lieutenant Ranson,” he said. “You are under
arrest.”

Ranson leaned back against the music-rack and placed his glass upon the
keyboard. One leg was crossed over the other, and he did not remove it.

“Then you can't take a joke,” he said in a low tone. “You had to run
and tell.” He laughed and raised his voice so that all in the club might
hear, “What am I arrested for, Crosby?” he asked.

The lines in Crosby's face deepened, and only those who sat near could
hear him. “You are under arrest for attempting to kill a superior
officer, for the robbery of the government pay-train--and for murder.”

Ranson jumped to his feet. “My God, Crosby!” he cried.

“Silence! Don't talk!” ordered Crosby. “Come along with me.”

The four troopers fell in in rear of Lieutenant Crosby and their
prisoner. He drew a quick, frightened breath, and then, throwing back
his shoulders, fell into step, and the six men tramped from the club and
out into the night.




III


That night at the post there was little sleep for any one. The feet
of hurrying orderlies beat upon the parade-ground, the windows of the
Officers' Club blazed defiantly, and from the darkened quarters of the
enlisted men came the sound of voices snarling in violent vituperation.
At midnight, half of Ranson's troop, having attacked the rest of
the regiment with cavalry-boots, were marched under arrest to the
guard-house. As they passed Ranson's hut, where he still paced the
veranda, a burning cigarette attesting his wakefulness, they cheered him
riotously. At two o'clock it was announced from the hospital that both
patients were out of danger; for it had developed that, in his hurried
diagnosis, Sergeant Clancey had located Henderson's heart six inches
from where it should have been.

When one of the men who guarded Ranson reported this good news the
prisoner said, “Still, I hope they'll hang whoever did it. They
shouldn't hang a man for being a good shot and let him off because he's
a bad one.”

At the time of the hold-up Mary Cahill had been a half-mile distant from
the post at the camp of the Kiowas, where she had gone in answer to the
cry of Lightfoot's squaw. When she returned she found Indian Pete in
charge of the exchange. Her father, he told her, had ridden to the
Indian village in search of her. As he spoke the post-trader appeared.
“I'm sorry I missed you,” his daughter called to him.

At the sound Cahill pulled his horse sharply toward the corral. “I had
a horse-deal on--with the chief,” he answered over his shoulder. “When I
got to Lightfoot's tent you had gone.”

After he had dismounted, and was coming toward her, she noted that his
right hand was bound in a handkerchief, and exclaimed with apprehension.

“It is nothing,” Cahill protested. “I was foolin' with one of the new
regulation revolvers, with my hand over the muzzle. Ball went through
the palm.”

Miss Cahill gave a tremulous cry and caught the injured hand to her
lips.

Her father snatched it from her roughly.

“Let go!” he growled. “It serves me right.”

A few minutes later Mary Cahill, bearing liniment for her father's hand,
knocked at his bedroom and found it empty. When she peered from the top
of the stairs into the shop-window below she saw him busily engaged with
his one hand buckling the stirrup-straps of his saddle.

When she called, he sprang upright with an oath. He had faced her so
suddenly that it sounded as though he had sworn, not in surprise, but at
her.

“You startled me,” he murmured. His eyes glanced suspiciously from her
to the saddle. “These stirrup-straps--they're too short,” he announced.
“Pete or somebody's been using my saddle.”

“I came to bring you this 'first-aid' bandage for your hand,” said his
daughter.

Cahill gave a shrug of impatience.

“My hand's all right,” he said; “you go to bed. I've got to begin taking
account of stock.”

“To-night?”

“There's no time by day. Go to bed.”

For nearly an hour Miss Cahill lay awake listening to her father moving
about in the shop below. Never before had he spoken roughly to her, and
she, knowing how much the thought that he had done so would distress
him, was herself distressed.

In his lonely vigil on the veranda, Ranson looked from the post down
the hill to where the light still shone from Mary Cahill's window. He
wondered if she had heard the news, and if it were any thought of him
that kept sleep from her.

“You ass! you idiot!” he muttered. “You've worried and troubled her. She
believes one of her precious army is a thief and a murderer.” He cursed
himself picturesquely, but the thought that she might possibly be
concerned on his account, did not, he found, distress him as greatly
as it should. On the contrary, as he watched the light his heart glowed
warmly. And long after the light went out he still looked toward the
home of the post-trader, his brain filled with thoughts of his return
to his former life outside the army, the old life to which he vowed he
would not return alone.

The next morning Miss Cahill learned the news when the junior officer
came to mess and explained why Ranson was not with them. Her only
comment was to at once start for his quarters with his breakfast in a
basket. She could have sent it by Pete, but, she argued, when one of her
officers was in trouble that was not the time to turn him over to the
mercies of a servant. No, she assured herself, it was not because
the officer happened to be Ranson. She would have done as much, or as
little, for any one of them. When Curtis and Haines were ill of the
grippe, had she not carried them many good things of her own making?

But it was not an easy sacrifice. As she crossed the parade-ground she
recognized that over-night Ranson's hut, where he was a prisoner in his
own quarters, had become to the post the storm-centre of interest,
and to approach it was to invite the attention of the garrison. At
head-quarters a group of officers turned and looked her way, there was a
flutter among the frocks on Mrs. Bolland's porch, and the enlisted men,
smoking their pipes on the rail of the barracks, whispered together.
When she reached Ranson's hut over four hundred pairs of eyes were upon
her, and her cheeks were flushing. Ranson came leaping to the gate,
and lifted the basket from her arm as though he were removing an
opera-cloak. He set it upon the gate-post, and nervously clasped the
palings of the gate with both hands. He had not been to bed, but that
fact alone could not explain the strangeness of his manner. Never before
had she seen him disconcerted or abashed.

“You shouldn't have done it,” he stammered. “Indeed, indeed, you are
much too good. But you shouldn't have come.”

His voice shook slightly.

“Why not?” asked Mary Cahill. “I couldn't let you go hungry.”

“You know it isn't that,” he said; “it's your coming here at all. Why,
only three of the fellows have been near me this morning. And they
only came from a sense of duty. I know they did--I could feel it. You
shouldn't have come here. I'm not a proper person; I'm an outlaw. You
might think this was a pest-house, you might think I was a leper.
Why, those Stickney girls have been watching me all morning through a
field-glass.” He clasped and unclasped his fingers around the palings.
“They believe I did it,” he protested, with the bewildered accents of a
child. “They all believe it.”

Miss Cahill laughed. The laugh was quieting and comforting. It brought
him nearer to earth, and her next remark brought him still further.

“Have you had any breakfast?” she asked.

“Breakfast!” stammered Ranson. “No. The guard brought some, but I
couldn't eat it. This thing has taken the life out of me--to think sane,
sensible people--my own people--could believe that I'd steal, that I'd
kill a man for money.”

“Yes, I know,” said Miss Cahill soothingly; “but you've not had any
sleep, and you need your coffee.” She lifted the lid of the basket.
“It's getting cold,” she said. “Don't you worry about what people think.
You must remember you're a prisoner now under arrest. You can't expect
the officers to run over here as freely as they used to. What do you
want?” she laughed. “Do you think the colonel should parade the band and
give you a serenade?” For a moment Ranson stared at her dully, and then
his sense of proportion returned to him. He threw back his head and
laughed with her joyfully.

From verandas, barracks, and headquarters, the four hundred pairs of
eyes noted this evidence of heartlessness with varied emotions. But,
unmindful of them, Ranson now leaned forward, the eager, searching look
coming back into his black eyes. They were so close to Mary Cahill's
that she drew away. He dropped his voice to a whisper and spoke swiftly.

“Miss Cahill, whatever happens to me I won't forget this. I won't forget
your coming here and throwing heart into me. You were the only one who
did. I haven't asked you if you believe that I--”

She raised her eyes reproachfully and smiled. “You know you don't have
to do that,” she said.

The prisoner seized the palings as though he meant to pull apart the
barrier between them. He drew a long breath like one inhaling a draught
of clean morning air.

“No,” he said, his voice ringing, “I don't have to do that.”

He cast a swift glance to the left and right. The sentry's bayonet was
just disappearing behind the corner of the hut. To the four hundred
other eyes around the parade-ground Lieutenant Ranson's attitude
suggested that he was explaining to Cahill's daughter what he wanted
for his luncheon. His eyes held her as firmly as though the palings he
clasped were her two hands.

“Mary,” he said, and the speaking of her name seemed to stop the
beating of his heart. “Mary,” he whispered, as softly as though he were
beginning a prayer, “you're the bravest, the sweetest, the dearest girl
in all the world. And I've known it for months, and now you must know.
And there'll never be any other girl in my life but you.”

Mary Cahill drew away from him in doubt and wonder.

“I didn't mean to tell you just yet,” he whispered, “but now that I've
seen you I can't help it. I knew it last night when I stood back there
and watched your windows, and couldn't think of this trouble, nor of
anything else, but just you. And you've got to promise me, if I get out
of this all right--you must--must promise me--”

Mary Cahill's eyes, as she raised them to his, were moist and glowing.
They promised him with a great love and tenderness. But at the sight
Ranson protested wildly.

“No,” he whispered, “you mustn't promise--anything. I shouldn't have
asked it. After I'm out of this, after the court-martial, then you've
got to promise that you'll never, never leave me.”

Miss Cahill knit her hands together and turned away her head. The
happiness in her heart rose to her throat like a great melody and choked
her. Before her, exposed in the thin spring sunshine, was the square
of ugly brown cottages, the bare parade-ground, in its centre Trumpeter
Tyler fingering his bugle, and beyond on every side an ocean of
blackened prairie. But she saw nothing of this. She saw instead a
beautiful world opening its arms to her, a world smiling with sunshine,
glowing with color, singing with love and content.

She turned to him with all that was in her heart showing in her face.

“Don't!” he begged, tremblingly, “don't answer. I couldn't bear it--if
you said 'no' to me.” He jerked his head toward the men who guarded him.
“Wait until I'm tried, and not in disgrace.” He shook the gate between
them savagely as though it actually held him a prisoner.

Mary Cahill raised her head proudly.

“You have no right. You've hurt me,” she whispered. “You hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” he cried.

She pressed her hands together. It was impossible to tell him, it was
impossible to speak of what she felt; of the pride, of the trust and
love, to disclose this new and wonderful thing while the gate was
between them, while the sentries paced on either side, while the curious
eyes of the garrison were fastened upon her.

“Oh, can't you see?” she whispered. “As though I cared for a
court-martial! I KNOW you. You are just the same. You are just what you
have always been to me--what you always will be to me.”

She thrust her hand toward him and he seized it in both of his, and then
released it instantly, and, as though afraid of his own self-control,
backed hurriedly from her, and she turned and walked rapidly away.

Captain Carr, who had been Ranson's captain in the Philippines, and
who was much his friend, had been appointed to act as his counsel. When
later that morning he visited his client to lay out a line of defence he
found Ranson inclined to treat the danger which threatened him with the
most arrogant flippancy. He had never seen him in a more objectionable
mood.

“You can call the charge 'tommy-rot' if you like,” Carr protested,
sharply. “But, let me tell you that's not the view any one else takes
of it, and if you expect the officers of the court-martial and the civil
authorities to take that view of it you've got to get down to work and
help me prove that it IS 'tommy rot.' That Miss Post, as soon as she got
here, when she thought it was only a practical joke, told them that the
road agent threatened her with a pair of shears. Now, Crosby and Curtis
will testify that you took a pair of shears from Cahill's, and from what
Miss Post saw of your ring she can probably identify that, too; so--”

“Oh, we concede the shears,” declared Ranson, waving his hand grandly.
“We admit the first hold-up.”

“The devil we do!” returned Carr. “Now, as your counsel, I advise
nothing of the sort.”

“You advise me to lie?”

“Sir!” exclaimed Carr. “A plea of not guilty is only a legal form. When
you consider that the first hold-up in itself is enough to lose you your
commission--”

“Well, it's MY commission,” said Ranson. “It was only a silly joke,
anyway. And the War Department must have some sense of humor or it
wouldn't have given me a commission in the first place. Of course, we'll
admit the first hold-up, but we won't stand for the second one. I had no
more to do with that than with the Whitechapel murders.”

“How are we to prove that?” demanded Carr. “Where's your alibi? Where
were you after the first hold-up?”

“I was making for home as fast as I could cut,” said Ranson. He suddenly
stopped in his walk up and down the room and confronted his counsel
sternly. “Captain,” he demanded, “I wish you to instruct me on a point
of law.”

Carr's brow relaxed. He was relieved to find that Ranson had awakened to
the seriousness of the charges against him.

“That's what I'm here for,” he said, encouragingly.

“Well, captain,” said Ranson, “if an officer is under arrest as I am and
confined to his quarters, is he or is he not allowed to send to the club
for a bottle of champagne?”

“Really, Ranson!” cried the captain, angrily, “you are impossible.”

“I only want to celebrate,” said Ranson, meekly. “I'm a very happy
man; I'm the happiest man on earth. I want to ride across the prairie
shooting off both guns and yelling like a cowboy. Instead of which I am
locked up indoors and have to talk to you about a highway robbery
which does not amuse me, which does not concern me--and of which I
know nothing and care less. Now, YOU are detailed to prove me innocent.
That's your duty, and you ought to do your duty, But don't drag me in.
I've got much more important things to think about.”

Bewilderment, rage, and despair were written upon the face of the
captain.

“Ranson!” he roared. “Is this a pose, or are you mad? Can't you
understand that you came very near to being hanged for murder and that
you are in great danger of going to jail for theft? Let me put before
you the extremely unpleasant position in which you have been ass enough
to place yourself. You don't quite seem to grasp it. You tell two
brother-officers that you are going to rob the stage. To do so you
disguise yourself in a poncho and a red handkerchief, and you remove the
army-stirrups from your stirrup-leathers. You then do rob this coach, or
at least hold it up, and you are recognized. A few minutes later, in the
same trail and in the same direction you have taken, there is a second
hold-up, this time of the paymaster. The man who robs the paymaster
wears a poncho and a red kerchief, and he has no stirrups in his
stirrup-leathers. The two hold-ups take place within a half-mile of
each other, within five minutes of each other. Now, is it reasonable to
believe that last night two men were hiding in the buttes intent
upon robbery, each in an army poncho, each wearing a red bandanna
handkerchief, and each riding without stirrups? Between believing in
such a strange coincidence and that you did it, I'll be hanged if I
don't believe you did it.”

“I don't blame you,” said Ranson. “What can I do to set your mind at
rest?”

“Well, tell me exactly what persons knew that you meant to hold up the
stage.”

“Curtis and Crosby; no one else.”

“Not even Cahill?”

“No, Cahill came in just before I said I would stop the stage, but I
remember particularly that before I spoke I waited for him to get back
to the exchange.”

“And Crosby tells me,” continued Carr, “that the instant you had gone he
looked into the exchange and saw Cahill at the farthest corner from the
door. He could have heard nothing.”

“If you ask me, I think you've begun at the wrong end,” said Ranson. “If
I were looking for the Red Rider I'd search for him in Kiowa City.”

“Why?”

“Because, at this end no one but a few officers knew that the paymaster
was coming, while in Kiowa everybody in the town knew it, for they saw
him start. It would be very easy for one of those cowboys to ride ahead
and lie in wait for him in the buttes. There are several tough specimens
in Kiowa. Any one of them would rob a man for twenty dollars--let alone
ten thousand. There's 'Abe' Fisher and Foster King, and the Chase boys,
and I believe old 'Pop' Henderson himself isn't above holding up one of
his own stages.”

“He's above shooting himself in the lungs,” said Carr. “Nonsense. No,
I am convinced that someone followed you from this post, and perhaps
Cahill can tell us who that was. I sent for him this morning, and he's
waiting at my quarters now. Suppose I ask him to step over here, so that
we can discuss it together.”

Before he answered, Ranson hesitated, with his eyes on the ground. He
had no way of knowing whether Mary Cahill had told her father anything
of what he had said to her that morning. But if she had done so, he did
not want to meet Cahill in the presence of a third party for the first
time since he had learned the news.

“I'll tell you what I wish you would do,” he said. “I wish you'd let me
see Cahill first, by myself. What I want to see him about has nothing to
do with the hold-up,” he added. “It concerns only us two, but I'd like
to have it out of the way before we consult him as a witness.”

Carr rose doubtfully. “Why, certainly,” he said; “I'll send him over,
and when you're ready for me step out on the porch and call. I'll be
sitting on my veranda. I hope you've had no quarrel with Cahill--I mean
I hope this personal matter is nothing that will prejudice him against
you.”

Ranson smiled. “I hope not, too,” he said. “No, we've not
quarrelled--yet,” he added.

Carr still lingered. “Cahill is like to be a very important witness for
the other side--”

“I doubt it,” said Ranson, easily. “Cahill's a close-mouthed chap, but
when he does talk he talks to the point and he'll tell the truth. That
can't hurt us.”

As Cahill crossed the parade-ground from Captain Carr's quarters on his
way to Ranson's hut his brain was crowded swiftly with doubts, memories,
and resolves. For him the interview held no alarms. He had no misgivings
as to its outcome. For his daughter's sake he was determined that he
himself must not be disgraced in her eyes and that to that end Ranson
must be sacrificed. It was to make a lady of her, as he understood what
a lady should be, that on six moonlit raids he had ventured forth in his
red mask and robbed the Kiowa stage. That there were others who roamed
abroad in the disguise of the Red Rider he was well aware. There were
nights the stage was held up when he was innocently busy behind his
counter in touch with the whole garrison. Of these nights he made much.
They were alibis furnished by his rivals. They served to keep suspicion
from himself, and he, working for the same object, was indefatigable
in proclaiming that all the depredations of the Red Rider showed the
handiwork of one and the same individual.

“He comes from Kiowa of course,” he would point out. “Some feller who
lives where the stage starts, and knows when the passengers carry
money. You don't hear of him holding up a stage full of recruits or
cow-punchers. It's always the drummers and the mine directors that the
Red Rider lays for. How does he know they're in the stage if he don't
see 'em start from Kiowa? Ask 'Pop' Henderson. Ask 'Abe' Fisher. Mebbe
they know more than they'd care to tell.”

The money which at different times Cahill had taken from the Kiowa stage
lay in a New York bank, and the law of limitation made it now possible
for him to return to that city and claim it. Already his savings were
sufficient in amount to support both his daughter and himself in one of
those foreign cities, of which she had so often told him and for which
he knew she hungered. And for the last five years he had had no other
object in living than to feed her wants. Through some strange trick of
the mind he remembered suddenly and vividly a long-forgotten scene
in the back room of McTurk's, when he was McTurk's bouncer. The night
before a girl had killed herself in this same back room; she made
the third who had done so in the month. He recalled the faces of the
reporters eyeing McTurk in cold distaste as that terror of the Bowery
whimpered before them on his knees. “But my daughters will read it,”
 he had begged. “Suppose they believe I'm what you call me. Don't go and
give me a bad name to them, gentlemen. It ain't my fault the girl's
died here. You wouldn't have my daughters think I'm to blame for that?
They're ladies, my daughters, they're just out of the convent, and they
don't know that there is such women in the world as come to this place.
And I can't have 'em turned against their old pop. For God's sake,
gentlemen, don't let my girls know!”

Cahill remembered the contempt he had felt for his employer as he pulled
him to his feet, but now McTurk's appeal seemed just and natural. His
point of view was that of the loving and considerate parent. In Cahill's
mind there was no moral question involved. If to make his girl rich and
a lady, and to lift her out of the life of the Exchange, was a sin the
sin was his own and he was willing to “stand for it.” And, like McTurk,
he would see that the sin of the father was not visited upon the child.
Ranson was rich, foolishly, selfishly rich; his father was a United
States Senator with influence enough, and money enough, to fight the
law--to buy his son out of jail. Sooner than his daughter should know
that her father was one of those who sometimes wore the mask of the Red
Rider, Ranson, for all he cared, could go to jail, or to hell. With this
ultimatum in his mind, Cahill confronted his would-be son-in-law with a
calm and assured countenance.

Ranson greeted him with respectful deference, and while Cahill seated
himself, Ranson, chatting hospitably, placed cigars and glasses before
him. He began upon the subject that touched him the most nearly.

“Miss Cahill was good enough to bring up my breakfast this morning,” he
said. “Has she told you of what I said to her?”

Cahill shook his head. “No, I haven't seen her. We've been taking
account of stock all morning.”

“Then--then you've heard nothing from her about me?” said Ranson.

The post trader raised his head in surprise. “No. Captain Carr spoke
to me about your arrest, and then said you wanted to see me first
about something private.” The post trader fixed Ranson with his keen,
unwavering eyes. “What might that be?” he asked.

“Well, it doesn't matter now,” stammered Ranson; “I'll wait until Miss
Cahill tells you.”

“Any complaint about the food?” inquired the post trader.

Ranson laughed nervously. “No, it's not that,” he said. He rose, and,
to protect what Miss Cahill evidently wished to remain a secret, changed
the subject. “You see you've lived in these parts so long, Mr. Cahill,”
 he explained, “and you know so many people, I thought maybe you could
put me on the track or give me some hint as to which of that Kiowa gang
really did rob the paymaster.” Ranson was pulling the cork from the
whiskey bottle, and when he asked the question Cahill pushed his glass
from him and shook his head. Ranson looked up interrogatively and
smiled. “You mean you think I did it myself?” he asked.

“I didn't understand from Captain Carr,” the post trader began in heavy
tones, “that it's my opinion you're after. He said I might be wanted to
testify who was present last night in my store.”

“Certainly, that's all we want,” Ranson answered, genially. “I only
thought you might give me a friendly pointer or two on the outside. And,
of course, if it's your opinion I did the deed we certainly don't want
your opinion. But that needn't prevent your taking a drink with me, need
it? Don't be afraid. I'm not trying to corrupt you. And I'm not trying
to poison a witness for the other fellows, either. Help yourself.”

Cahill stretched out his left hand. His right remained hidden in the
side pocket of his coat. “What's the matter with your right hand?”
 Ranson asked. “Are you holding a gun on me? Really, Mr. Cahill, you're
not taking any chances, are you?” Ranson gazed about the room as though
seeking an appreciative audience. “He's such an important witness,” he
cried, delightedly, “that first he's afraid I'll poison him and he won't
drink with me, and now he covers me with a gun.”

Reluctantly, Cahill drew out his hand. “I was putting the bridle on my
pony last night,” he said. “He bit me.”

Ranson exclaimed sympathetically, “Oh, that's too bad,” he said. “Well,
you know you want to be careful. A horse's teeth really are poisonous.”
 He examined his own hands complacently. “Now, if I had a bandage like
that on my right hand they would hang me sure, no matter whether it was
a bite, or a burn, or a bullet.”

Cahill raised the glass to his lips and sipped the whiskey critically.
“Why?” he asked.

“Why? Why, didn't you know that the paymaster boasted last night to the
surgeons that he hit this fellow in the hand? He says--”

Cahill snorted scornfully. “How'd he know that? What makes him think
so?”

“Well, never mind, let him think so,” Ranson answered, fervently. “Don't
discourage him. That's the only evidence I've got on my side. He says he
fired to disarm the man, and that he saw him shift his gun to his left
hand. It was the shot that the man fired when he held his gun in his
left that broke the colonel's arm. Now, everybody knows I can't hit
a barn with my left. And as for having any wounds concealed about my
person”--Ranson turned his hands like a conjurer to show the front and
back--“they can search me. So, if the paymaster will only stick to
that story--that he hit the man--it will help me a lot.” Ranson seated
himself on the table and swung his leg. “And of course it would be a
big help, too, if you could remember who was in your Exchange when I was
planning to rob the coach. For someone certainly must have overheard
me, someone must have copied my disguise, and that someone is the man we
must find. Unless he came from Kiowa.”

Cahill shoved his glass from him across the table and, placing his hands
on his knees, stared at his host coldly and defiantly. His would-be
son-in-law observed the aggressiveness of his attitude, but, in his
fuller knowledge of their prospective relations, smiled blandly.

“Mr. Ranson,” began Cahill, “I've no feelings against you personally.
I've a friendly feeling for all of you young gentlemen at my mess. But
you're not playing fair with me. I can see what you want, and I can tell
you that you and Captain Carr are not helping your case by asking me
up here to drink and smoke with you, when you know that I'm the most
important witness they've got against you.”

Ranson stared at his father-in-law-elect in genuine amazement, and then
laughed lightly.

“Why, dear Mr. Cahill,” he cried, “I wouldn't think of bribing you with
such a bad brand of whiskey as this. And I didn't know you were such an
important witness as all that. But, of course, I know whatever you say
in this community goes, and if your testimony is against me, I'm sorry
for it, very sorry. I suppose you will testify that there was no one in
the Exchange who could have heard my plan?”

Cahill nodded.

“And, as it's not likely two men at exactly the same time should have
thought of robbing the stage in exactly the same way, I must have robbed
it myself.”

Cahill nursed his bandaged hand with the other. “That's the court's
business,” he growled; “I mean to tell the truth.”

“And the truth is?” asked Ransom

“The truth is that last night there was no one in the Exchange but you
officers and me. If anybody'd come in on the store side you'd have seen
him, wouldn't you? and if he'd come into the Exchange I'd have seen him.
But no one come in. I was there alone--and certainly I didn't hear your
plan, and I didn't rob the stage. When you fellows left I went down to
the Indian village. Half the reservation can prove I was there all the
evening--so of the four of us, that lets me out. Crosby and Curtis were
in command of the pay escort--that's their alibi--and as far as I can
see, lieutenant, that puts it up to you.”

Ranson laughed and shook his head. “Yes, it certainly looks that way,”
 he said. “Only I can't see why you need be so damned pleased about it.”
 He grinned wickedly. “If you weren't such a respectable member of Fort
Crockett society I might say you listened at the door, and rode after me
in one of your own ponchos. As for the Indian village, that's no alibi.
A Kiowa swear his skin's as white as yours if you give him a drink.”

“And is that why I get this one?” Cahill demanded. “Am I a Kiowa?”

Ranson laughed and shoved the bottle toward his father-in-law-elect.

“Oh, can't you take a joke?” he said. “Take another drink, then.”

The voice outside the hut was too low to reach the irate Cahill, but
Ranson heard it and leaped to his feet.

“Wait,” he commanded. He ran to the door, and met Sergeant Clancey at
the threshold.

“Miss Cahill, lieutenant,” said the sergeant, “wants to see her father.”

Cahill had followed Ranson to the door, “You want to see me, Mame?” he
asked.

“Yes,” Miss Cahill cried; “and Mr. Ransom, too, if I may.” She caught
her father eagerly by the arm, but her eyes were turned joyfully upon
Ranson. They were laughing with excitement. Her voice was trembling and
eager.

“It is something I have discovered,” she cried; “I found it out just
now, and I think--oh, I hope!--it is most important. I believe it will
clear Mr. Ranson!” she cried, happily. “At least it will show that last
night someone went out to rob the coach and went dressed as he was.”

Cahill gave a short laugh. “What's his name?” he asked, mockingly. “Have
you seen him?”

“I didn't see him and I don't know his name, but--”

Cahill snorted, and picked up his sombrero from the table. “Then it's
not so very important after all,” he said. “Is that all that brought you
here?”

“The main thing is that she is here,” said Ranson; “for which the poor
prisoner is grateful--grateful to her and to the man she hasn't seen, in
the mask and poncho, whose name she doesn't know. Mr. Cahill, bad as
it is, I insist on your finishing your whiskey. Miss Cahill, please sit
down.”

He moved a chair toward her and, as he did so, looked full into her face
with such love and happiness that she turned her eyes away.

“Well?” asked Cahill.

“I must first explain to Lieutenant Ranson, father,” said his daughter,
“that to-day is the day we take account of stock.”

“Speaking of stock,” said Ranson, “don't forget that I owe you for a
red kerchief and a rubber poncho. You can have them back, if you like. I
won't need a rain coat where I am going.”

“Don't,” said Miss Cahill. “Please let me go on. After I brought you
your breakfast here, I couldn't begin to work just at once. I was
thinking about--something else. Everyone was talking of you--your
arrest, and I couldn't settle down to take account of stock.” She threw
a look at Ranson which asked for his sympathy. “But when I did start
I began with the ponchos and the red kerchiefs, and then I found out
something.” Cahill was regarding his daughter in strange distress, but
Ranson appeared indifferent to her words, and intent only on the light
and beauty in her face. But he asked, smiling, “And that was?”

“You see,” continued Miss Cahill, eagerly, “I always keep a dozen of
each article, and as each one is sold I check it off in my day-book.
Yesterday Mrs. Bolland bought a poncho for the colonel. That left eleven
ponchos. Then a few minutes later I gave Lightfoot a red kerchief for
his squaw. That left eleven kerchiefs.”

“Stop!” cried Ranson. “Miss Cahill,” he began, severely, “I hope you do
not mean to throw suspicion on the wife of my respected colonel, or
on Mrs. Lightfoot, 'the Prairie Flower.' Those ladies are my personal
friends; I refuse to believe them guilty. And have you ever seen Mrs.
Bolland on horseback? You wrong her. It is impossible.”

“Please,” begged Miss Cahill, “please let me explain. When you went to
hold up the stage you took a poncho and a kerchief. That should have
left ten of each. But when I counted them this morning there were nine
red kerchiefs and nine ponchos.”

Ranson slapped his knee sharply. “Good!” he said. “That is interesting.”

“What does it prove?” demanded Cahill.

“It proves nothing, or it proves everything,” said Miss Cahill. “To my
mind it proves without any doubt that someone overheard Mr. Ranson's
plan, that he dressed like him to throw suspicion on him, and that this
second person was the one who robbed the paymaster. Now, father, this
is where you can help us. You were there then. Try to remember. It is so
important. Who came into the store after the others had gone away?”

Cahill tossed his head like an angry bull.

“There are fifty places in this post,” he protested, roughly, “where a
man can get a poncho. Every trooper owns his slicker.”

“But, father, we don't know that theirs are missing,” cried Miss Cahill,
“and we do know that those in our store are. Don't think I am foolish.
It seemed such an important fact to me, and I had hoped it would help.”

“It does help--immensely!” cried Ranson.

“I think it's a splendid clue. But, unfortunately, I don't think we can
prove anything by your father, for he's just been telling me that there
was no one in the place but himself. No one came in, and he was quite
alone--” Ranson had begun speaking eagerly, but either his own words or
the intentness with which Cahill received them caused him to halt and
hesitate--“absolutely--alone.”

“You see,” said Cahill, thickly, “as soon as they had gone I rode to the
Indian village.”

“Why, no, father,” corrected Miss Cahill. “Don't you remember, you told
me last night that when you reached Lightfoot's tent I had just gone.
That was quite two hours after the others left the store.” In her
earnestness Miss Cahill had placed her hand upon her father's arm and
clutched it eagerly. “And you remember no one coming in before you
left?” she asked. “No one?”

Cahill had not replaced the bandaged hand in his pocket, but had shoved
it inside the opening of his coat. As Mary Cahill caught his arm her
fingers sank into the palm of the hand and he gave a slight grimace of
pain.

“Oh, father,” Miss Cahill cried, “your hand! I am so sorry. Did I hurt
it? Please--let me see.”

Cahill drew back with sudden violence.

“No!” he cried. “Leave it alone! Come, we must be going.” But Miss
Cahill held the wounded hand in both her own. When she turned her eyes
to Ranson they were filled with tender concern.

“I hurt him,” she said, reproachfully. “He shot himself last night with
one of those new cylinder revolvers.”

Her father snatched the hand from her. He tried to drown her voice by a
sudden movement toward the door. “Come!” he called. “Do you hear me?”

But his daughter in her sympathy continued. “He was holding it so,” she
said, “and it went off, and the bullet passed through here.” She laid
the tip of a slim white finger on the palm of her right hand.

“The bullet!” cried Ranson. He repeated, dully, “The bullet!”

There was a sudden, tense silence. Outside they could hear the crunch of
the sentry's heel in the gravel, and from the baseball field back of the
barracks the soft spring air was rent with the jubilant crack of the bat
as it drove the ball. Afterward Ranson remembered that while one half
of his brain was terribly acute to the moment, the other was wondering
whether the runner had made his base. It seemed an interminable time
before Ranson raised his eyes from Miss Cahill's palm to her father's
face. What he read in them caused Cahill to drop his hand swiftly to his
hip.

Ranson saw the gesture and threw out both his hands. He gave a
hysterical laugh, strangely boyish and immature, and ran to place
himself between Cahill and the door. “Drop it!” he whispered. “My God,
man!” he entreated, “don't make a fool of yourself. Mr. Cahill,” he
cried aloud, “you can't go till you know. Can he, Mary? Yes, Mary.” The
tone in which he repeated the name was proprietary and commanding. He
took her hand. “Mr. Cahill,” he said, joyously, “we've got something to
tell you. I want you to understand that in spite of all I'VE done--I
say in spite of all I'VE done--I mean getting into this trouble and
disgrace, and all that--I've dared to ask your daughter to marry me.”
 He turned and led Miss Cahill swiftly toward the veranda. “Oh, I knew he
wouldn't like it,” he cried. “You see. I told you so. You've got to let
me talk to him alone. You go outside and wait. I can talk better when
you are not here. I'll soon bring him around.”

“Father,” pleaded Miss Cahill, timidly. From behind her back Ranson
shook his head at the post-trader in violent pantomime. “She'd better go
outside and wait, hadn't she, Mr. Cahill?” he directed.

As he was bidden, the post-trader raised his head and nodded toward
the door. The onslaught of sudden and new conditions overwhelmed and
paralyzed him.

“Father!” said Miss Cahill, “it isn't just as you think. Mr. Ranson did
ask me to marry him--in a way--At least, I knew what he meant. But I did
not say--in a way--that I would marry him. I mean it was not settled,
or I would have told you. You mustn't think I would have left you out of
this--of my happiness, you who have done everything to make me happy.”

She reproached her father with her eyes fastened on his face. His
own were stern, fixed, and miserable. “You will let it be, won't you,
father?” she begged. “It--it means so much. I--can't tell you--” She
threw out her hand toward Ranson as though designating a superior being.
“Why, I can't tell HIM. But if you are harsh with him or with me it will
break my heart. For as I love you, father, I love him--and it has got to
be. It must be. For I love him so. I have always loved him. Father,” she
whispered, “I love him so.”

Ranson, humbly, gratefully, took the girl's hand and led her gently to
the veranda and closed the door upon her. Then he came down the room
and regarded his prospective father-in-law with an expression of
amused exasperation. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his
riding-breeches and nodded his head. “Well,” he exclaimed, “you've made
a damned pretty mess of it, haven't you?”

Cahill had sunk heavily into a chair and was staring at Ranson with the
stupid, wondering gaze of a dumb animal in pain. During the moments in
which the two men eyed each other Ranson's smile disappeared. Cahill
raised himself slowly as though with a great effort.

“I done it,” said Cahill, “for her. I done it to make her happy.”

“That's all right,” said Ranson, briskly. “She's going to be happy.
We're all going to be happy.”

“An' all I did,” Cahill continued, as though unconscious of the
interruption, “was to disgrace her.” He rose suddenly to his feet.
His mental sufferings were so keen that his huge body trembled. He
recognized how truly he had made “a mess of it.” He saw that all he had
hoped to do for his daughter by crime would have been done for her by
this marriage with Ranson, which would have made her a “lady,” made her
rich, made her happy. Had it not been for his midnight raids she would
have been honored, loved, and envied, even by the wife of the colonel
herself. But through him disgrace had come upon her, sorrow and trouble.
She would not be known as the daughter of Senator Ranson, but of Cahill,
an ex-member of the Whyo gang, a highway robber, as the daughter of a
thief who was serving his time in State prison. At the thought Cahill
stepped backward unsteadily as though he had been struck. He cried
suddenly aloud. Then his hand whipped back to his revolver, but before
he could use it Ranson had seized his wrist with both hands. The two
struggled silently and fiercely. The fact of opposition brought back to
Cahill all of his great strength.

“No, you don't!” Ranson muttered. “Think of your daughter, man. Drop
it!”

“I shall do it,” Cahill panted. “I am thinking of my daughter. It's the
only way out. Take your hands off me--I shall!”

With his knuckles Ranson bored cruelly into the wounded hand, and it
opened and the gun dropped from it; but as it did so it went off with a
report that rang through the building. There was an instant rush of
feet upon the steps of the veranda, and at the sound the two men sprang
apart, eyeing each other sheepishly like two discovered truants. When
Sergeant Clancey and the guard pushed through the door Ranson stood
facing it, spinning the revolver in cowboy fashion around his fourth
finger. He addressed the sergeant in a tone of bitter irony.

“Oh, you've come at last,” he demanded. “Are you deaf? Why didn't you
come when I called?” His tone showed he considered he had just cause for
annoyance.

“The gun brought me, I--” began Clancey.

“Yes, I hoped it might. That's why I fired it,” snapped Ranson. “I want
two whiskey-and-sodas. Quick now!”

“Two--” gasped Clancey.

“Whiskey-and-sodas. See how fast one of you can chase over to the club
and get 'em. And next time I want a drink don't make me wake the entire
garrison.”

As the soldiers retreated Ranson discovered Miss Cahill's white face
beyond them. He ran and held the door open by a few inches.

“It's all right,” he whispered, reassuringly. “He's nearly persuaded.
Wait just a minute longer and he'll be giving us his blessing.”

“But the pistol-shot?” she asked.

“I was just calling the guard. The electric bell's broken, and your
father wanted a drink. That's a good sign, isn't it? Shows he's
friendly, What kind did you say you wanted, Mr. Cahill--Scotch was it,
or rye?” Ranson glanced back at the sombre, silent figure of Cahill, and
then again opened the door sufficiently for him to stick out his head.
“Sergeant,” he called, “make them both Scotch--long ones.”

He shut the door and turned upon the post-trader. “Now, then,
father-in-law,” he said, briskly, “you've got to cut and run, and you've
got to run quick. We'll tell 'em you're going to Fort Worth to buy the
engagement ring, because I can't, being under arrest. But you go to
Duncan City instead, and from there take the cars, to--”

“Run away!” Cahill repeated, dazedly. “But you'll be court-martialled.”

“There won't be any court-martial!”

Cahill glanced around the room quickly. “I see,” he cried. In his
eagerness he was almost smiling. “I'm to leave a confession and give it
to you.”

“Confession! What rot!” cried Ranson.

“They can't prove anything against me. Everyone knows by now that there
were two men on the trail, but they don't know who the other man was,
and no one ever must know--especially Mary.”

Cahill struck the table with his fist. “I won't stand for it!” he cried.
“I got you into this and I'm goin'--”

“Yes, going to jail,” retorted Ranson. “You'll look nice behind the
bars, won't you? Your daughter will be proud of you in a striped suit.
Don't talk nonsense. You're going to run and hide some place, somewhere,
where Mary and I can come and pay you a visit. Say--Canada. No, not
Canada. I'd rather visit you in jail than in a Montreal hotel. Say
Tangier, or Buenos Ayres, or Paris. Yes, Paris is safe enough--and so
amusing.”

Cahill seated himself heavily. “I trapped you into this fix, Mr.
Ranson,” he said, “you know I did, and now I mean to get you out of it.
I ain't going to leave the man my Mame wants to marry with a cloud on
him. I ain't going to let her husband be jailed.”

Ranson had run to his desk and from a drawer drew forth a roll of bills.
He advanced with them in his hand.

“Yes, Paris is certainly the place,” he said. “Here's three hundred
dollars. I'll cable you the rest. You've never been to Paris, have you?
It's full of beautiful sights--Henry's American Bar, for instance, and
the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and Maxim's. All good Americans go to
Paris when they die and all the bad ones while they are alive. You'll
find lots of both kinds, and you'll sit all day on the sidewalk and
drink Bock and listen to Hungarian bands. And Mary and I will join you
there and take you driving in the Bois. Now, you start at once. I'll
tell her you've gone to New York to talk it over with father, and buy
the ring. Then I'll say you've gone on to Paris to rent us apartments
for the honeymoon. I'll explain it somehow. That's better than going to
jail, isn't it, and making us bow our heads in grief?”

Cahill, in his turn, approached the desk and, seating himself before it,
began writing rapidly.

“What is it?” asked Ranson.

“A confession,” said Cahill, his pen scratching.

“I won't take it,” Ranson said, “and I won't use it.”

“I ain't going to give it to you,” said Cahill, over his shoulder.
“I know better than that. But I don't go to Paris unless I leave a
confession behind me. Call in the guard,” he commanded; “I want two
witnesses.”

“I'll see you hanged first,” said Ranson.

Cahill crossed the room to the door and, throwing it open, called,
“Corporal of the guard!”

As he spoke, Captain Carr and Mrs. Bolland, accompanied by Miss Post and
her aunt, were crossing the parade-ground. For a moment the post-trader
surveyed them doubtfully, and then, stepping out upon the veranda,
beckoned to them.

“Here's a paper I've signed, captain,” he said; “I wish you'd witness my
signature. It's my testimony for the court-martial.”

“Then someone else had better sign it,” said Carr. “Might look
prejudiced if I did.” He turned to the ladies. “These ladies are coming
in to see Ranson now. They'll witness it.”

Miss Cahill, from the other end of the veranda, and the visitors entered
the room together.

“Mrs. Truesdale!” cried Ranson. “You are pouring coals of fire upon my
head. And Miss Post! Indeed, this is too much honor. After the way I
threatened and tried to frighten you last night I expected you to hang
me, at least, instead of which you have, I trust, come to tea.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Bolland, sternly. “These ladies
insisted on my bringing them here to say how sorry they are that they
talked so much and got you into this trouble. Understand, Mr. Ranson,”
 the colonel's wife added, with dignity, “that I am not here officially
as Mrs. Bolland, but as a friend of these ladies.”

“You are welcome in whatever form you take, Mrs. Bolland,” cried Ranson,
“and, believe me, I am in no trouble--no trouble, I assure you. In fact,
I am quite the most contented man in the world. Mrs. Bolland, in spite
of the cloud, the temporary cloud which rests upon my fair name, I take
great pride in announcing to you that this young lady has done me the
honor to consent to become my wife. Her father, a very old and dear
friend, has given his consent. And I take this occasion to tell you of
my good fortune, both in your official capacity and as my friend.”

There was a chorus of exclamations and congratulations in which Mrs.
Bolland showed herself to be a true wife and a social diplomatist. In
the post-trader's daughter she instantly recognized the heiress to the
Ranson millions, and the daughter of a Senator who also was the chairman
of the Senate Committee on Brevets and Promotions. She fell upon Miss
Cahill's shoulder and kissed her on both cheeks. Turning eagerly upon
Mrs. Truesdale, she said, “Alice, you can understand how I feel when I
tell you that this child has always been to me like one of my own.”

Carr took Ranson's hand and wrung it. Sergeant Clancey grew purple with
pleasure and stole back to the veranda, where he whispered joyfully to a
sentry. In another moment a passing private was seen racing delightedly
toward the baseball field.

At the same moment Lieutenants Crosby and Curtis and the regimental
adjutant crossed the parade ground from the colonel's quarters and ran
up the steps of Ranson's hut. The expressions of good-will, of smiling
embarrassment and general satisfaction which Lieutenant Crosby observed
on the countenances of those present seemed to give him a momentary
check.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, disappointedly, “someone has told you!”

Ranson laughed and took the hand which Crosby held doubtfully toward
him. “No one has told me,” he said. “I've been telling them.”

“Then you haven't heard?” Crosby cried, delightedly. “That's good.
I begged to be the first to let you know, because I felt so badly at
having doubted you. You must let me congratulate you. You are free.”

“Free?” smiled Ranson.

“Yes, relieved from arrest,” Crosby cried, joyfully. He turned and took
Ranson's sword from the hands of the adjutant. “And the colonel's let
your troop have the band to give you a serenade.”

But Ranson's face showed no sign of satisfaction.

“Wait!” he cried. “Why am I relieved from arrest?”

“Why? Because the other fellow has confessed.”

Ranson placed himself suddenly in front of Mary Cahill as though to
shield her. His eyes stole stealthily towards Cahill's confession. Still
unread and still unsigned, it lay unopened upon the table. Cahill was
gazing upon Ranson in blank bewilderment.

Captain Carr gasped a sigh of relief that was far from complimentary to
his client.

“Who confessed?” he cried.

“'Pop' Henderson,” said Crosby.

“'Pop' Henderson!” shouted Cahill. Unmindful of his wound, he struck the
table savagely with his fist. For the first time in the knowledge of the
post he exhibited emotion. “'Pop' Henderson, by the eternal!” he cried.
“And I never guessed it!”

“Yes,” said Crosby, eagerly. “Abe Fisher was in it. Henderson persuaded
the paymaster to make the trip alone with him. Then he dressed up Fisher
to represent the Red Rider and sent him on ahead to hold him up. They
were to share the money afterward. But Fisher fired on 'Pop' to kill, so
as to have it all, and 'Pop's' trying to get even. And what with wanting
to hurt Fisher, and thinking he is going to die, and not wishing to see
you hanged, he's told the truth. We wired Kiowa early this morning and
arrested Fisher. They've found the money, and he has confessed, too.”

“But the poncho and the red kerchief?” protested Carr. “And he had no
stirrups!”

“Oh, Fisher had the make-up all right,” laughed Crosby; “Henderson says
Fisher's the 'only, original' Red Rider. And as for the stirrups, I'm
afraid that's my fault. I asked the colonel if the man wasn't riding
without stirrups, and I guess the wish was father to the fact. He only
imagined he hadn't seen any stirrups. The colonel was rattled. So, old
man,” he added, turning to Ranson, “here's your sword again, and God
bless you.”

Already the post had learned the news from the band and the verandas of
the enlisted men overflowed with delighted troopers. From the stables
and the ball field came the sound of hurrying feet, and a tumult of
cheers and cowboy yells. Across the parade-ground the regimental band
bore down upon Ranson's hut, proclaiming to the garrison that there
would be a hot time in the old town that night. But Sergeant Clancey
ran to meet the bandmaster, and shouted in his ear. “He's going to marry
Mary Cahill,” he cried. “I heard him tell the colonel's wife. Play 'Just
Because She Made Them Goo-goo Eyes.'”

“Like hell!” cried the bandmaster, indignantly, breaking in on the tune
with his baton. “I know my business! Now, then, men,” he commanded,
“'I'll Leave My Happy Home for You.'”

As Mrs. Bolland dragged Miss Cahill into view of the assembled troopers
Ranson pulled his father-in-law into a far corner of the room. He shook
the written confession in his face.

“Now, will you kindly tell me what that means?” he demanded. “What sort
of a gallery play were you trying to make?”

Cahill shifted his sombrero guiltily. “I was trying to get you out of
the hole,” he stammered. “I--I thought you done it.”

“You thought I done it!”

“Sure. I never thought nothing else.”

“Then why do you say here that YOU did it?”

“Oh, because,” stammered Cahill, miserably, “'cause of Mary, 'cause she
wanted to marry you--'cause you were going to marry her.”

“Well--but--what good were you going to do by shooting yourself?”

“Oh, then?” Cahill jerked back his head as though casting out an
unpleasant memory. “I thought you'd caught me, you, too--between you!”

“Caught you! Then you did--?”

“No, but I tried to. I heard your plan, and I did follow you in the
poncho and kerchief, meaning to hold up the stage first, and leave it to
Crosby and Curtis to prove you did it. But when I reached the coach you
were there ahead of me, and I rode away and put in my time at the Indian
village. I never saw the paymaster's cart, never heard of it till this
morning. But what with Mame missing the poncho out of our shop and the
wound in my hand I guessed they'd all soon suspect me. I saw you did.
So I thought I'd just confess to what I meant to do, even if I didn't do
it.”

Ranson surveyed his father-in-law with a delighted grin. “How did you
get that bullet-hole in your hand?” he asked.

Cahill laughed shamefacedly. “I hate to tell you that,” he said. “I got
it just as I said I did. My new gun went off while I was fooling with
it, with my hand over the muzzle. And me the best shot in the Territory!
But when I heard the paymaster claimed he shot the Red Rider through the
palm I knew no one would believe me if I told the truth. So I lied.”

Ranson glanced down at the written confession, and then tore it slowly
into pieces. “And you were sure I robbed the stage, and yet you believed
that I'd use this? What sort of a son-in-law do you think you've got?”

“You thought _I_ robbed the stage, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And you were going to stand for robbing it yourself, weren't you? Well,
that's the sort of son-in-law I've got!”

The two men held out their hands at the same instant.

Mary Cahill, her face glowing with pride and besieged with blushes,
came toward them from the veranda. She was laughing and radiant, but she
turned her eyes on Ranson with a look of tender reproach.

“Why did you desert me?” she said. “It was awful. They are calling you
now. They are playing 'The Conquering Hero.'”

“Mr. Cahill,” commanded Ranson, “go out there and make a speech.” He
turned to Mary Cahill and lifted one of her hands in both of his. “Well,
I AM the conquering hero,” he said. “I've won the only thing worth
winning, dearest,” he whispered; “we'll run away from them in a minute,
and we'll ride to the waterfall and the Lover's Leap.” He looked down at
her wistfully. “Do you remember?”

Mary Cahill raised her head and smiled. He leaned toward her
breathlessly.

“Why, did it mean that to you, too?” he asked.

She smiled up at him in assent.

“But I didn't say anything, did I?” whispered Ranson. “I hardly knew you
then. But I knew that day that I--that I would marry you or nobody else.
And did you think--that you--”

“Yes,” Mary Cahill whispered.

He bent his head and touched her hand with his lips.

“Then we'll go back this morning to the waterfall,” he said, “and tell
it that it's all come right. And now, we'll bow to those crazy people
out there, those make-believe dream-people, who don't know that there
is nothing real in this world but just you and me, and that we love each
other.”

A dishevelled orderly bearing a tray with two glasses confronted Ranson
at the door. “Here's the Scotch and sodas, lieutenant,” he panted. “I
couldn't get 'em any sooner. The men wanted to take 'em off me--to drink
Miss Cahill's health.”

“So they shall,” said Ranson. “Tell them to drink the canteen dry and
charge it to me. What's a little thing like the regulations between
friends? They have taught me my manners. Mr. Cahill,” he called.

The post-trader returned from the veranda.

Ranson solemnly handed him a glass and raised the other in the air.
“Here's hoping that the Red Rider rides on his raids no more,” he said;
“and to the future Mrs. Ranson--to Mary Cahill, God bless her!”

He shattered the empty glass in the grate and took Cahill's hand.

“Father-in-law,” said Ranson, “let's promise each other to lead a new
and a better life.”






THE BAR SINISTER

I


The Master was walking most unsteady, his legs tripping each other.
After the fifth or sixth round, my legs often go the same way.

But even when the Master's legs bend and twist a bit, you mustn't think
he can't reach you. Indeed, that is the time he kicks most frequent. So
I kept behind him in the shadow, or ran in the middle of the street. He
stopped at many public-houses with swinging doors, those doors that are
cut so high from the sidewalk that you can look in under them, and see
if the Master is inside. At night when I peep beneath them the man at
the counter will see me first and say, “Here's the Kid, Jerry, come to
take you home. Get a move on you,” and the Master will stumble out and
follow me. It's lucky for us I'm so white, for no matter how dark the
night, he can always see me ahead, just out of reach of his boot. At
night the Master certainly does see most amazing. Sometimes he sees two
or four of me, and walks in a circle, so that I have to take him by the
leg of his trousers and lead him into the right road. One night, when he
was very nasty-tempered and I was coaxing him along, two men passed us
and one of them says, “Look at that brute!” and the other asks “Which?”
 and they both laugh. The Master, he cursed them good and proper.

This night, whenever we stopped at a public-house, the Master's pals
left it and went on with us to the next. They spoke quite civil to me,
and when the Master tried a flying kick, they gives him a shove. “Do you
want we should lose our money?” says the pals.

I had had nothing to eat for a day and a night, and just before we set
out the Master gives me a wash under the hydrant. Whenever I am locked
up until all the slop-pans in our alley are empty, and made to take
a bath, and the Master's pals speak civil, and feel my ribs, I know
something is going to happen. And that night, when every time they see a
policeman under a lamp-post, they dodged across the street, and when at
the last one of them picked me up and hid me under his jacket, I began
to tremble; for I knew what it meant. It meant that I was to fight again
for the Master.

I don't fight because I like it. I fight because if I didn't the other
dog would find my throat, and the Master would lose his stakes, and I
would be very sorry for him and ashamed. Dogs can pass me and I can pass
dogs, and I'd never pick a fight with none of them. When I see two dogs
standing on their hind-legs in the streets, clawing each other's ears,
and snapping for each other's windpipes, or howling and swearing and
rolling in the mud, I feel sorry they should act so, and pretend not to
notice. If he'd let me, I'd like to pass the time of day with every dog
I meet. But there's something about me that no nice dog can abide. When
I trot up to nice dogs, nodding and grinning, to make friends, they
always tell me to be off. “Go to the devil!” they bark at me; “Get
out!” and when I walk away they shout “mongrel,” and “gutter-dog,” and
sometimes, after my back is turned, they rush me. I could kill most of
them with three shakes, breaking the back-bone of the little ones, and
squeezing the throat of the big ones. But what's the good? They are nice
dogs; that's why I try to make up to them, and though it's not for them
to say it, I am a street-dog, and if I try to push into the company of
my betters, I suppose it's their right to teach me my place.

Of course, they don't know I'm the best fighting bull-terrier of my
weight in Montreal. That's why it wouldn't be right for me to take no
notice of what they shout. They don't know that if I once locked my jaws
on them I'd carry away whatever I touched. The night I fought Kelley's
White Rat, I wouldn't loosen up until the Master made a noose in my
leash and strangled me, and if the handlers hadn't thrown red pepper
down my nose, I never would have let go of that Ottawa dog. I don't
think the handlers treated me quite right that time, but maybe they
didn't know the Ottawa dog was dead. I did.

I learned my fighting from my mother when I was very young. We slept in
a lumber-yard on the river-front, and by day hunted for food along the
wharves. When we got it, the other tramp-dogs would try to take it off
us, and then it was wonderful to see mother fly at them, and drive them
away. All I know of fighting I learned from mother, watching her picking
the ash-heaps for me when I was too little to fight for myself. No one
ever was so good to me as mother. When it snowed and the ice was in the
St. Lawrence she used to hunt alone, and bring me back new bones, and
she'd sit and laugh to see me trying to swallow 'em whole. I was just a
puppy then, my teeth was falling out. When I was able to fight we kept
the whole river-range to ourselves, I had the genuine long, “punishing”
 jaw, so mother said, and there wasn't a man or a dog that dared worry
us. Those were happy days, those were; and we lived well, share and
share alike, and when we wanted a bit of fun, we chased the fat old
wharf-rats. My! how they would squeal!

Then the trouble came. It was no trouble to me. I was too young to care
then. But mother took it so to heart that she grew ailing, and wouldn't
go abroad with me by day. It was the same old scandal that they're
always bringing up against me. I was so young then that I didn't know. I
couldn't see any difference between mother--and other mothers.

But one day a pack of curs we drove off snarled back some new names
at her, and mother dropped her head and ran, just as though they had
whipped us. After that she wouldn't go out with me except in the dark,
and one day she went away and never came back, and though I hunted for
her in every court and alley and back street of Montreal, I never found
her.

One night, a month after mother ran away, I asked Guardian, the old
blind mastiff, whose Master is the night-watchman on our slip, what it
all meant. And he told me.

“Every dog in Montreal knows,” he says, “except you, and every Master
knows. So I think it's time you knew.”

Then he tells me that my father, who had treated mother so bad, was
a great and noble gentleman from London. “Your father had twenty-two
registered ancestors, had your father,” old Guardian says, “and in him
was the best bull-terrier blood of England, the most ancientest, the
most royal; the winning 'blue-ribbon' blood, that breeds champions. He
had sleepy pink eyes, and thin pink lips, and he was as white all over
as his own white teeth, and under his white skin you could see his
muscles, hard and smooth, like the links of a steel chain. When your
father stood still, and tipped his nose in the air, it was just as
though he was saying, 'Oh, yes, you common dogs and men, you may well
stare. It must be a rare treat for you Colonials to see a real English
royalty.' He certainly was pleased with hisself, was your father. He
looked just as proud and haughty as one of them stone dogs in Victoria
Park--them as is cut out of white marble. And you're like him,” says
the old mastiff--“by that, of course, meaning you're white, same as him.
That's the only likeness. But, you see, the trouble is, Kid--well, you
see, Kid, the trouble is--your mother--”

“That will do,” I said, for I understood then without his telling me,
and I got up and walked away, holding my head and tail high in the air.

But I was, oh, so miserable, and I wanted to see mother that very
minute, and tell her that I didn't care.

Mother is what I am, a street-dog; there's no royal blood in mother's
veins, nor is she like that father of mine, nor--and that's the
worst--she's not even like me. For while I, when I'm washed for a fight,
am as white as clean snow, she--and this is our trouble, she--my mother,
is a black-and-tan.

When mother hid herself from me, I was twelve months old and able to
take care of myself, and, as after mother left me, the wharves were
never the same, I moved uptown and met the Master. Before he came, lots
of other men-folks had tried to make up to me, and to whistle me home.
But they either tried patting me or coaxing me with a piece of meat;
so I didn't take to 'em. But one day the Master pulled me out of a
street-fight by the hind-legs, and kicked me good.

“You want to fight, do you?” says he. “I'll give you all the FIGHTING
you want!” he says, and he kicks me again. So I knew he was my Master,
and I followed him home. Since that day I've pulled off many fights for
him, and they've brought dogs from all over the province to have a go at
me, but up to that night none, under thirty pounds, had ever downed me.

But that night, so soon as they carried me into the ring, I saw the dog
was over-weight, and that I was no match for him. It was asking too much
of a puppy. The Master should have known I couldn't do it. Not that I
mean to blame the Master, for when sober, which he sometimes was, though
not, as you might say, his habit, he was most kind to me, and let me out
to find food, if I could get it, and only kicked me when I didn't pick
him up at night and lead him home.

But kicks will stiffen the muscles, and starving a dog so as to get him
ugly-tempered for a fight may make him nasty, but it's weakening to his
insides, and it causes the legs to wabble.

The ring was in a hall, back of a public-house. There was a red-hot
whitewashed stove in one corner, and the ring in the other. I lay in the
Master's lap, wrapped in my blanket, and, spite of the stove, shivering
awful; but I always shiver before a fight; I can't help gettin' excited.
While the men-folks were a-flashing their money and taking their last
drink at the bar, a little Irish groom in gaiters came up to me and give
me the back of his hand to smell, and scratched me behind the ears.

“You poor little pup,” says he. “You haven't no show,” he says. “That
brute in the tap-room, he'll eat your heart out.”

“That's what you think,” says the Master, snarling. “I'll lay you a quid
the Kid chews him up.”

The groom, he shook his head, but kept looking at me so sorry-like,
that I begun to get a bit sad myself. He seemed like he couldn't bear to
leave off a-patting of me, and he says, speaking low just like he would
to a man-folk, “Well, good-luck to you, little pup,” which I thought so
civil of him, that I reached up and licked his hand. I don't do that to
many men. And the Master, he knew I didn't, and took on dreadful.

“What 'ave you got on the back of your hand?” says he, jumping up.

“Soap!” says the groom, quick as a rat. “That's more than you've got
on yours. Do you want to smell of it?” and he sticks his fist under the
Master's nose. But the pals pushed in between 'em.

“He tried to poison the Kid!” shouts the Master.

“Oh, one fight at a time,” says the referee. “Get into the ring, Jerry.
We're waiting.” So we went into the ring.

I never could just remember what did happen in that ring. He give me
no time to spring. He fell on me like a horse. I couldn't keep my feet
against him, and though, as I saw, he could get his hold when he liked,
he wanted to chew me over a bit first. I was wondering if they'd be able
to pry him off me, when, in the third round, he took his hold; and I
began to drown, just as I did when I fell into the river off the Red
C slip. He closed deeper and deeper, on my throat, and everything went
black and red and bursting; and then, when I were sure I were dead, the
handlers pulled him off, and the Master give me a kick that brought me
to. But I couldn't move none, or even wink, both eyes being shut with
lumps.

“He's a cur!” yells the Master, “a sneaking, cowardly cur. He lost the
fight for me,” says he, “because he's a---------cowardly cur.” And
he kicks me again in the lower ribs, so that I go sliding across the
sawdust. “There's gratitude fer yer,” yells the Master. “I've fed that
dog, and nussed that dog, and housed him like a prince; and now he puts
his tail between his legs, and sells me out, he does. He's a coward;
I've done with him, I am. I'd sell him for a pipeful of tobacco.” He
picked me up by the tail, and swung me for the men-folks to see.
“Does any gentleman here want to buy a dog,” he says, “to make into
sausage-meat?” he says. “That's all he's good for.”

Then I heard the little Irish groom say, “I'll give you ten bob for the
dog.”

And another voice says, “Ah, don't you do it; the dog's same as
dead--mebby he is dead.”

“Ten shillings!” says the Master, and his voice sobers a bit; “make it
two pounds, and he's yours.”

But the pals rushed in again.

“Don't you be a fool, Jerry,” they say. “You'll be sorry for this when
you're sober. The Kid's worth a fiver.”

One of my eyes was not so swelled up as the other, and as I hung by
my tail, I opened it, and saw one of the pals take the groom by the
shoulder.

“You ought to give 'im five pounds for that dog, mate,” he says; “that's
no ordinary dog. That dog's got good blood in him, that dog has. Why,
his father--that very dog's father--”

I thought he never would go on. He waited like he wanted to be sure the
groom was listening.

“That very dog's father,” says the pal, “is Regent Royal, son of
Champion Regent Monarch, champion bull-terrier of England for four
years.”

I was sore, and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said
sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing to my
hanging from it.

But the Master calls out, “Yes, his father was Regent Royal; who's
saying he wasn't? but the pup's a cowardly cur, that's what his pup
is, and why--I'll tell you why--because his mother was a black-and-tan
street-dog, that's why!”

I don't see how I get the strength, but some way I threw myself out of
the Master's grip and fell at his feet, and turned over and fastened all
my teeth in his ankle, just across the bone.

When I woke, after the pals had kicked me off him, I was in the
smoking-car of a railroad-train, lying in the lap of the little groom,
and he was rubbing my open wounds with a greasy, yellow stuff, exquisite
to the smell, and most agreeable to lick off.




II


“Well--what's your name--Nolan? Well, Nolan, these references are
satisfactory,” said the young gentleman. My new Master called “Mr.
Wyndham, sir.”

“I'll take you on as second man. You can begin to-day.”

My new Master shuffled his feet, and put his finger to his forehead.
“Thank you, sir,” says he. Then he choked like he had swallowed a
fish-bone. “I have a little dawg, sir,” says he.

“You can't keep him,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very short.

“'Es only a puppy, sir,” says my new Master; “'e wouldn't go outside the
stables, sir.”

“It's not that,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir;” “I have a large kennel of very
fine dogs; they're the best of their breed in America. I don't allow
strange dogs on the premises.”

The Master shakes his head, and motions me with his cap, and I crept out
from behind the door. “I'm sorry, sir,” says the Master. “Then I can't
take the place. I can't get along without the dog, sir.”

“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” looked at me that fierce that I guessed he was going
to whip me, so I turned over on my back and begged with my legs and
tail.

“Why, you beat him!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” very stern.

“No fear!” the Master says, getting very red. “The party I bought him
off taught him that. He never learnt that from me!” He picked me up in
his arms, and to show “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” how well I loved the Master, I
bit his chin and hands.

“Mr. Wyndham, sir,” turned over the letters the Master had given him.
“Well, these references certainly are very strong,” he says. “I guess
I'll let the dog stay this time. Only see you keep him away from the
kennels--or you'll both go.”

“Thank you, sir,” says the Master, grinning like a cat when she's safe
behind the area-railing.

“He's not a bad bull-terrier,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” feeling my head.
“Not that I know much about the smooth-coated breeds. My dogs are St.
Bernards.” He stopped patting me and held up my nose. “What's the matter
with his ears?” he says. “They're chewed to pieces. Is this a fighting
dog?” he asks, quick and rough-like.

I could have laughed. If he hadn't been holding my nose, I certainly
would have had a good grin at him. Me, the best under thirty pounds in
the Province of Quebec, and him asking if I was a fighting dog! I ran to
the Master and hung down my head modest-like, waiting for him to tell
my list of battles, but the Master he coughs in his cap most painful.
“Fightin' dog, sir,” he cries. “Lor' bless you, sir, the Kid don't
know the word. 'Es just a puppy, sir, same as you see; a pet dog, so to
speak. 'Es a regular old lady's lap-dog, the Kid is.”

“Well, you keep him away from my St. Bernards,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,”
 “or they might make a mouthful of him.”

“Yes, sir, that they might,” says the Master. But when we gets outside
he slaps his knee and laughs inside hisself, and winks at me most
sociable.

The Master's new home was in the country, in a province they called Long
Island. There was a high stone wall about his home with big iron gates
to it, same as Godfrey's brewery; and there was a house with five red
roofs, and the stables, where I lived, was cleaner than the aerated
bakery-shop, and then there was the kennels, but they was like nothing
else in this world that ever I see. For the first days I couldn't sleep
of nights for fear someone would catch me lying in such a cleaned-up
place, and would chase me out of it, and when I did fall to sleep I'd
dream I was back in the old Master's attic, shivering under the rusty
stove, which never had no coals in it, with the Master flat on his
back on the cold floor with his clothes on. And I'd wake up, scared and
whimpering, and find myself on the new Master's cot with his hand on
the quilt beside me; and I'd see the glow of the big stove, and hear the
high-quality horses below-stairs stamping in their straw-lined boxes,
and I'd snoop the sweet smell of hay and harness-soap, and go to sleep
again.

The stables was my jail, so the Master said, but I don't ask no better
home than that jail.

“Now, Kid,” says he, sitting on the top of a bucket upside down, “you've
got to understand this. When I whistle it means you're not to go out of
this 'ere yard. These stables is your jail. And if you leave 'em I'll
have to leave 'em, too, and over the seas, in the County Mayo, an old
mother will 'ave to leave her bit of a cottage. For two pounds I must
be sending her every month, or she'll have naught to eat, nor no thatch
over 'er head; so, I can't lose my place, Kid, an' see you don't lose it
for me. You must keep away from the kennels,” says he; “they're not for
the likes of you. The kennels are for the quality. I wouldn't take a
litter of them woolly dogs for one wag of your tail, Kid, but for all
that they are your betters, same as the gentry up in the big house are
my betters. I know my place and keep away from the gentry, and you keep
away from the Champions.”

So I never goes out of the stables. All day I just lay in the sun on
the stone flags, licking my jaws, and watching the grooms wash down the
carriages, and the only care I had was to see they didn't get gay and
turn the hose on me. There wasn't even a single rat to plague me. Such
stables I never did see.

“Nolan,” says the head-groom, “some day that dog of yours will give you
the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against
his natur'.” The head-groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know
everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it. As
if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed
me in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and
sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing
more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of
nights under the bridges, or, what's worse of all, running through the
hot streets with her tongue down, so wild and crazy for a drink, that
the people would shout “mad dog” at her, and stone her. Water's so good,
that I don't blame the men-folks for locking it up inside their houses,
but when the hot days come, I think they might remember that those are
the dog-days and leave a little water outside in a trough, like they
do for the horses. Then we wouldn't go mad, and the policemen wouldn't
shoot us. I had so much of everything I wanted that it made me think a
lot of the days when I hadn't nothing, and if I could have given what I
had to mother, as she used to share with me, I'd have been the happiest
dog in the land. Not that I wasn't happy then, and most grateful to the
Master, too, and if I'd only minded him, the trouble wouldn't have come
again.

But one day the coachman says that the little lady they called Miss
Dorothy had come back from school, and that same morning she runs over
to the stables to pat her ponies, and she sees me.

“Oh, what a nice little, white little dog,” said she; “whose little dog
are you?” says she.

“That's my dog, miss,” says the Master. “'Is name is Kid,” and I ran up
to her most polite, and licks her fingers, for I never see so pretty and
kind a lady.

“You must come with me and call on my new puppies,” says she, picking me
up in her arms and starting off with me.

“Oh, but please, Miss,” cries Nolan, “Mr. Wyndham give orders that the
Kid's not to go to the kennels.”

“That'll be all right,” says the little lady; “they're my kennels too.
And the puppies will like to play with him.”

You wouldn't believe me if I was to tell you of the style of them
quality-dogs. If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't have believed it
neither. The Viceroy of Canada don't live no better. There was forty of
them, but each one had his own house and a yard--most exclusive--and
a cot and a drinking-basin all to hisself. They had servants standing
'round waiting to feed 'em when they was hungry, and valets to wash 'em;
and they had their hair combed and brushed like the grooms must when
they go out on the box. Even the puppies had overcoats with their
names on 'em in blue letters, and the name of each of those they called
champions was painted up fine over his front door just like it was a
public-house or a veterinary's. They were the biggest St. Bernards I
ever did see. I could have walked under them if they'd have let me. But
they were very proud and haughty dogs, and looked only once at me, and
then sniffed in the air. The little lady's own dog was an old gentleman
bull-dog. He'd come along with us, and when he notices how taken aback
I was with all I see, 'e turned quite kind and affable and showed me
about.

“Jimmy Jocks,” Miss Dorothy called him, but, owing to his weight, he
walked most dignified and slow, waddling like a duck as you might say,
and looked much too proud and handsome for such a silly name.

“That's the runway, and that's the Trophy House,” says he to me,
“and that over there is the hospital, where you have to go if you get
distemper, and the vet. gives you beastly medicine.”

“And which of these is your 'ouse, sir?” asks I, wishing to be
respectful. But he looked that hurt and haughty. “I don't live in the
kennels,” says he, most contemptuous. “I am a house-dog. I sleep in Miss
Dorothy's room. And at lunch I'm let in with the family, if the visitors
don't mind. They most always do, but they're too polite to say so.
Besides,” says he, smiling most condescending, “visitors are always
afraid of me. It's because I'm so ugly,” says he. “I suppose,” says
he, screwing up his wrinkles and speaking very slow and impressive, “I
suppose I'm the ugliest bull-dog in America,” and as he seemed to be so
pleased to think hisself so, I said, “Yes, sir, you certainly are the
ugliest ever I see,” at which he nodded his head most approving.

“But I couldn't hurt 'em, as you say,” he goes on, though I hadn't said
nothing like that, being too polite. “I'm too old,” he says; “I haven't
any teeth. The last time one of those grizzly bears,” said he, glaring
at the big St. Bernards, “took a hold of me, he nearly was my death,”
 says he. I thought his eyes would pop out of his head, he seemed so
wrought up about it. “He rolled me around in the dirt, he did,” says
Jimmy Jocks, “an' I couldn't get up. It was low,” says Jimmy Jocks,
making a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Low, that's what
I call it, bad form, you understand, young man, not done in our
circles--and--and low.” He growled, way down in his stomach, and puffed
hisself out, panting and blowing like he had been on a run.

“I'm not a street-fighter,” he says, scowling at a St. Bernard marked
“Champion.” “And when my rheumatism is not troubling me,” he says, “I
endeavor to be civil to all dogs, so long as they are gentlemen.”

“Yes, sir,” said I, for even to me he had been most affable.

At this we had come to a little house off by itself and Jimmy Jocks
invites me in. “This is their trophy-room,” he says, “where they keep
their prizes. Mine,” he says, rather grand-like, “are on the sideboard.”
 Not knowing what a sideboard might be, I said, “Indeed, sir, that must
be very gratifying.” But he only wrinkled up his chops as much as to
say, “It is my right.”

The trophy-room was as wonderful as any public-house I ever see. On the
walls was pictures of nothing but beautiful St. Bernard dogs, and rows
and rows of blue and red and yellow ribbons; and when I asked Jimmy
Jocks why they was so many more of blue than of the others, he laughs
and says, “Because these kennels always win.” And there was many shining
cups on the shelves which Jimmy Jocks told me were prizes won by the
champions.

“Now, sir, might I ask you, sir,” says I, “wot is a champion?”

At that he panted and breathed so hard I thought he would bust hisself.
“My dear young friend!” says he. “Wherever have you been educated? A
champion is a--a champion,” he says. “He must win nine blue ribbons in
the 'open' class. You follow me--that is--against all comers. Then
he has the title before his name, and they put his photograph in the
sporting papers. You know, of course, that _I_ am a champion,” says
he. “I am Champion Woodstock Wizard III., and the two other Woodstock
Wizards, my father and uncle, were both champions.”

“But I thought your name was Jimmy Jocks,” I said.

He laughs right out at that.

“That's my kennel name, not my registered name,” he says. “Why, you
certainly know that every dog has two names. Now, what's your registered
name and number, for instance?” says he.

“I've only got one name,” I says. “Just Kid.”

Woodstock Wizard puffs at that and wrinkles up his forehead and pops out
his eyes.

“Who are your people?” says he. “Where is your home?”

“At the stable, sir,” I said. “My Master is the second groom.”

At that Woodstock Wizard III. looks at me for quite a bit without
winking, and stares all around the room over my head.

“Oh, well,” says he at last, “you're a very civil young dog,” says he,
“and I blame no one for what he can't help,” which I thought most fair
and liberal. “And I have known many bullterriers that were champions,”
 says he, “though as a rule they mostly run with fire-engines, and to
fighting. For me, I wouldn't care to run through the streets after a
hose-cart, nor to fight,” says he; “but each to his taste.”

I could not help thinking that if Woodstock Wizard III. tried to follow
a fire-engine he would die of apoplexy, and that, seeing he'd lost his
teeth, it was lucky he had no taste for fighting, but, after his being
so condescending, I didn't say nothing.

“Anyway,” says he, “every smooth-coated dog is better than any hairy
old camel like those St. Bernards, and if ever you're hungry down at
the stables, young man, come up to the house and I'll give you a bone.
I can't eat them myself, but I bury them around the garden from force
of habit, and in case a friend should drop in. Ah, I see my Mistress
coming,” he says, “and I bid you good-day. I regret,” he says, “that our
different social position prevents our meeting frequent, for you're a
worthy young dog with a proper respect for your betters, and in this
country there's precious few of them have that.” Then he waddles off,
leaving me alone and very sad, for he was the first dog in many
days that had spoken to me. But since he showed, seeing that I was a
stable-dog, he didn't want my company, I waited for him to get well
away. It was not a cheerful place to wait, the Trophy House. The
pictures of the champions seemed to scowl at me, and ask what right had
such as I even to admire them, and the blue and gold ribbons and the
silver cups made me very miserable. I had never won no blue ribbons or
silver cups; only stakes for the old Master to spend in the publics, and
I hadn't won them for being a beautiful, high-quality dog, but just for
fighting--which, of course, as Woodstock Wizard III. says, is low. So I
started for the stables, with my head down and my tail between my legs,
feeling sorry I had ever left the Master. But I had more reason to be
sorry before I got back to him.

The Trophy House was quite a bit from the kennels, and as I left it I
see Miss Dorothy and Woodstock Wizard III. walking back toward them,
and that a fine, big St. Bernard, his name was Champion Red Elfberg, had
broke his chain, and was running their way. When he reaches old Jimmy
Jocks he lets out a roar like a grain-steamer in a fog, and he makes
three leaps for him. Old Jimmy Jocks was about a fourth his size; but
he plants his feet and curves his back, and his hair goes up around his
neck like a collar. But he never had no show at no time, for the grizzly
bear, as Jimmy Jocks had called him, lights on old Jimmy's back and
tries to break it, and old Jimmy Jocks snaps his gums and claws the
grass, panting and groaning awful. But he can't do nothing, and the
grizzly bear just rolls him under him, biting and tearing cruel. The
odds was all that Woodstock Wizard III. was going to be killed. I had
fought enough to see that, but not knowing the rules of the game among
champions, I didn't like to interfere between two gentlemen who might be
settling a private affair, and, as it were, take it as presuming of me.
So I stood by, though I was shaking terrible, and holding myself in like
I was on a leash. But at that Woodstock Wizard III., who was underneath,
sees me through the dust, and calls very faint, “Help, you!” he says.
“Take him in the hind-leg,” he says. “He's murdering me,” he says.
And then the little Miss Dorothy, who was crying, and calling to the
kennel-men, catches at the Red Elfberg's hind-legs to pull him off, and
the brute, keeping his front pats well in Jimmy's stomach, turns his big
head and snaps at her. So that was all I asked for, thank you. I went
up under him. It was really nothing. He stood so high that I had only
to take off about three feet from him and come in from the side, and my
long, “punishing jaw” as mother was always talking about, locked on his
woolly throat, and my back teeth met. I couldn't shake him, but I shook
myself, and every time I shook myself there was thirty pounds of weight
tore at his windpipes. I couldn't see nothing for his long hair, but
I heard Jimmy Jocks puffing and blowing on one side, and munching the
brute's leg with his old gums. Jimmy was an old sport that day, was
Jimmy, or, Woodstock Wizard III., as I should say. When the Red Elfberg
was out and down I had to run, or those kennel-men would have had my
life. They chased me right into the stables; and from under the hay I
watched the head-groom take down a carriage-whip and order them to the
right about. Luckily Master and the young grooms were out, or that day
there'd have been fighting for everybody.

Well, it nearly did for me and the Master. “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” comes
raging to the stables and said I'd half-killed his best prize-winner,
and had oughter be shot, and he gives the Master his notice. But Miss
Dorothy she follows him, and says it was his Red Elfberg what began the
fight, and that I'd saved Jimmy's life, and that old Jimmy Jocks
was worth more to her than all the St. Bernards in the Swiss
mountains--where-ever they be. And that I was her champion, anyway. Then
she cried over me most beautiful, and over Jimmy Jocks, too, who was
that tied up in bandages he couldn't even waddle. So when he heard that
side of it, “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” told us that if Nolan put me on a chain,
we could stay. So it came out all right for everybody but me. I was glad
the Master kept his place, but I'd never worn a chain before, and it
disheartened me--but that was the least of it. For the quality-dogs
couldn't forgive my whipping their champion, and they came to the fence
between the kennels and the stables, and laughed through the bars,
barking most cruel words at me. I couldn't understand how they found it
out, but they knew. After the fight Jimmy Jocks was most condescending
to me, and he said the grooms had boasted to the kennel-men that I was
a son of Regent Royal, and that when the kennel-men asked who was my
mother they had had to tell them that too. Perhaps that was the way of
it, but, however, the scandal was out, and every one of the quality-dogs
knew that I was a street-dog and the son of a black-and-tan.

“These misalliances will occur,” said Jimmy Jocks, in his old-fashioned
way, “but no well-bred dog,” says he, looking most scornful at the St.
Bernards, who were howling behind the palings, “would refer to your
misfortune before you, certainly not cast it in your face. I, myself,
remember your father's father, when he made his debut at the Crystal
Palace. He took four blue ribbons and three specials.”

But no sooner than Jimmy would leave me, the St. Bernards would take to
howling again, insulting mother and insulting me. And when I tore at my
chain, they, seeing they were safe, would howl the more. It was never
the same after that; the laughs and the jeers cut into my heart, and the
chain bore heavy on my spirit. I was so sad that sometimes I wished I
was back in the gutter again, where no one was better than me, and some
nights I wished I was dead. If it hadn't been for the Master being so
kind, and that it would have looked like I was blaming mother, I would
have twisted my leash and hanged myself.

About a month after my fight, the word was passed through the kennels
that the New York Show was coming, and such goings on as followed I
never did see. If each of them had been matched to fight for a thousand
pounds and the gate, they couldn't have trained more conscientious. But,
perhaps, that's just my envy. The kennel-men rubbed 'em and scrubbed 'em
and trims their hair and curls and combs it, and some dogs they fatted,
and some they starved. No one talked of nothing but the Show, and the
chances “our kennels” had against the other kennels, and if this one of
our champions would win over that one, and whether them as hoped to
be champions had better show in the “open” or the “limit” class, and
whether this dog would beat his own dad, or whether his little puppy
sister couldn't beat the two of them. Even the grooms had their money
up, and day or night you heard nothing but praises of “our” dogs, until
I, being so far out of it, couldn't have felt meaner if I had been
running the streets with a can to my tail. I knew shows were not for
such as me, and so I lay all day stretched at the end of my chain,
pretending I was asleep, and only too glad that they had something so
important to think of, that they could leave me alone.

But one day before the Show opened, Miss Dorothy came to the stables
with “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and seeing me chained up and so miserable, she
takes me in her arms.

“You poor little tyke,” says she. “It's cruel to tie him up so; he's
eating his heart out, Nolan,” she says. “I don't know nothing about
bull-terriers,” says she, “but I think Kid's got good points,” says she,
“and you ought to show him. Jimmy Jocks has three legs on the Rensselaer
Cup now, and I'm going to show him this time so that he can get the
fourth, and if you wish, I'll enter your dog too. How would you like
that, Kid?” says she. “How would you like to see the most beautiful dogs
in the world? Maybe, you'd meet a pal or two,” says she. “It would cheer
you up, wouldn't it, Kid?” says she. But I was so upset, I could only
wag my tail most violent. “He says it would!” says she, though, being
that excited, I hadn't said nothing.

So, “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” laughs and takes out a piece of blue paper, and
sits down at the head-groom's table.

“What's the name of the father of your dog, Nolan?” says he. And Nolan
says, “The man I got him off told me he was a son of Champion Regent
Royal, sir. But it don't seem likely, does it?” says Nolan.

“It does not!” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” short-like.

“Aren't you sure, Nolan?” says Miss Dorothy.

“No, Miss,” says the Master.

“Sire unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down.

“Date of birth?” asks “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“I--I--unknown, sir,” says Nolan. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes it
down.

“Breeder?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“Unknown,” says Nolan, getting very red around the jaws, and I drops my
head and tail. And “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” writes that down.

“Mother's name?” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir.”

“She was a--unknown,” says the Master. And I licks his hand.

“Dam unknown,” says “Mr. Wyndham, sir,” and writes it down. Then he
takes the paper and reads out loud: “Sire unknown, dam unknown, breeder
unknown, date of birth unknown. You'd better call him the 'Great
Unknown,'” says he. “Who's paying his entrance-fee?”

“I am,” says Miss Dorothy.

Two weeks after we all got on a train for New York; Jimmy Jocks and me
following Nolan in the smoking-car, and twenty-two of the St. Bernards,
in boxes and crates, and on chains and leashes. Such a barking and
howling I never did hear, and when they sees me going, too, they laughs
fit to kill.

“Wot is this; a circus?” says the railroad-man.

But I had no heart in it. I hated to go. I knew I was no “show” dog,
even though Miss Dorothy and the Master did their best to keep me from
shaming them. For before we set out Miss Dorothy brings a man from town
who scrubbed and rubbed me, and sand-papered my tail, which hurt most
awful, and shaved my ears with the Master's razor, so you could most see
clear through 'em, and sprinkles me over with pipe-clay, till I shines
like a Tommy's cross-belts.

“Upon my word!” says Jimmy Jocks when he first sees me. “What a swell
you are! You're the image of your grand-dad when he made his debut at
the Crystal Palace. He took four firsts and three specials.” But I knew
he was only trying to throw heart into me. They might scrub, and they
might rub, and they might pipe-clay, but they couldn't pipe-clay the
insides of me, and they was black-and-tan.

Then we came to a Garden, which it was not, but the biggest hall in the
world. Inside there was lines of benches, a few miles long, and on them
sat every dog in the world. If all the dog-snatchers in Montreal had
worked night and day for a year, they couldn't have caught so many dogs.
And they was all shouting and barking and howling so vicious, that my
heart stopped beating. For at first I thought they was all enraged at my
presuming to intrude, but after I got in my place, they kept at it just
the same, barking at every dog as he come in; daring him to fight, and
ordering him out, and asking him what breed of dog he thought he was,
anyway. Jimmy Jocks was chained just behind me, and he said he never see
so fine a show. “That's a hot class you're in, my lad,” he says, looking
over into my street, where there were thirty bull-terriers. They was all
as white as cream, and each so beautiful that if I could have broke
my chain, I would have run all the way home and hid myself under the
horse-trough.

All night long they talked and sang, and passed greetings with old
pals, and the home-sick puppies howled dismal. Them that couldn't sleep
wouldn't let no others sleep, and all the electric lights burned in the
roof, and in my eyes. I could hear Jimmy Jocks snoring peaceful, but I
could only doze by jerks, and when I dozed I dreamed horrible. All the
dogs in the hall seemed coming at me for daring to intrude, with their
jaws red and open, and their eyes blazing like the lights in the roof.
“You're a street-dog! Get out, you street-dog!” they yells. And as they
drives me out, the pipe-clay drops off me, and they laugh and shriek;
and when I looks down I see that I have turned into a black-and-tan.

They was most awful dreams, and next morning, when Miss Dorothy comes
and gives me water in a pan, I begs and begs her to take me home, but
she can't understand. “How well Kid is!” she says. And when I jumps into
the Master's arms, and pulls to break my chain, he says, “If he knew
all as he had against him, Miss, he wouldn't be so gay.” And from a book
they reads out the names of the beautiful high-bred terriers which I
have got to meet. And I can't make 'em understand that I only want to
run away, and hide myself where no one will see me.

Then suddenly men comes hurrying down our street and begins to brush the
beautiful bull-terriers, and Nolan rubs me with a towel so excited that
his hands trembles awful, and Miss Dorothy tweaks my ears between her
gloves, so that the blood runs to 'em, and they turn pink and stand up
straight and sharp.

“Now, then, Nolan,” says she, her voice shaking just like his fingers,
“keep his head up--and never let the Judge lose sight of him.” When I
hears that my legs breaks under me, for I knows all about judges. Twice,
the old Master goes up before the Judge for fighting me with other dogs,
and the Judge promises him if he ever does it again, he'll chain him
up in jail. I knew he'd find me out. A Judge can't be fooled by no
pipe-clay. He can see right through you, and he reads your insides.

The judging-ring, which is where the Judge holds out, was so like a
fighting-pit, that when I came in it, and find six other dogs there, I
springs into position, so that when they lets us go I can defend myself,
But the Master smoothes down my hair and whispers, “Hold 'ard, Kid, hold
'ard. This ain't a fight,” says he. “Look your prettiest,” he whispers.
“Please, Kid, look your prettiest,” and he pulls my leash so tight that
I can't touch my pats to the sawdust, and my nose goes up in the air.
There was millions of people a-watching us from the railings, and three
of our kennel-men, too, making fun of Nolan and me, and Miss Dorothy
with her chin just reaching to the rail, and her eyes so big that I
thought she was a-going to cry. It was awful to think that when the
Judge stood up and exposed me, all those people, and Miss Dorothy, would
be there to see me driven from the show.

The Judge, he was a fierce-looking man with specs on his nose, and a red
beard. When I first come in he didn't see me owing to my being too quick
for him and dodging behind the Master. But when the Master drags me
round and I pulls at the sawdust to keep back, the Judge looks at us
careless-like, and then stops and glares through his specs, and I knew
it was all up with me.

“Are there any more?” asks the Judge, to the gentleman at the gate, but
never taking his specs from me.

The man at the gate looks in his book. “Seven in the novice-class,” says
he. “They're all here. You can go ahead,” and he shuts the gate.

The Judge, he doesn't hesitate a moment. He just waves his hand toward
the corner of the ring. “Take him away,” he says to the Master. “Over
there and keep him away,” and he turns and looks most solemn at the six
beautiful bull-terriers. I don't know how I crawled to that corner.
I wanted to scratch under the sawdust and dig myself a grave. The
kennel-men they slapped the rail with their hands and laughed at the
Master like they would fall over. They pointed at me in the corner, and
their sides just shaked. But little Miss Dorothy she presses her lips
tight against the rail, and I see tears rolling from her eyes. The
Master, he hangs his head like he had been whipped. I felt most sorry
for him, than all. He was so red, and he was letting on not to see the
kennel-men, and blinking his eyes. If the Judge had ordered me right
out, it wouldn't have disgraced us so, but it was keeping me there while
he was judging the high-bred dogs that hurt so hard. With all those
people staring too. And his doing it so quick, without no doubt nor
questions. You can't fool the judges. They see insides you.

But he couldn't make up his mind about them high-bred dogs. He scowls at
'em, and he glares at 'em, first with his head on the one side and then
on the other. And he feels of 'em, and orders 'em to run about. And
Nolan leans against the rails, with his head hung down, and pats me. And
Miss Dorothy comes over beside him, but don't say nothing, only wipes
her eye with her finger. A man on the other side of the rail he says to
the Master, “The Judge don't like your dog?”

“No,” says the Master.

“Have you ever shown him before?” says the man.

“No,” says the Master, “and I'll never show him again. He's my dog,”
 says the Master, “an' he suits me! And I don't care what no judges
think.” And when he says them kind words, I licks his hand most
grateful.

The Judge had two of the six dogs on a little platform in the middle of
the ring, and he had chased the four other dogs into the corners, where
they was licking their chops, and letting on they didn't care, same as
Nolan was.

The two dogs on the platform was so beautiful that the Judge hisself
couldn't tell which was the best of 'em, even when he stoops down and
holds their heads together. But at last he gives a sigh, and brushes the
sawdust off his knees and goes to the table in the ring, where there was
a man keeping score, and heaps and heaps of blue and gold and red and
yellow ribbons. And the Judge picks up a bunch of 'em and walks to the
two gentlemen who was holding the beautiful dogs, and he says to each
“What's his number?” and he hands each gentleman a ribbon. And then he
turned sharp, and comes straight at the Master.

“What's his number?” says the Judge. And Master was so scared that he
couldn't make no answer.

But Miss Dorothy claps her hands and cries out like she was laughing,
“Three twenty-six,” and the Judge writes it down, and shoves Master the
blue ribbon.

I bit the Master, and I jumps and bit Miss Dorothy, and I waggled so
hard that the Master couldn't hold me. When I get to the gate Miss
Dorothy snatches me up and kisses me between the ears, right before
millions of people, and they both hold me so tight that I didn't know
which of them was carrying of me. But one thing I knew, for I listened
hard, as it was the Judge hisself as said it.

“Did you see that puppy I gave 'first' to?” says the Judge to the
gentleman at the gate.

“I did. He was a bit out of his class,” says the gate-gentleman.

“He certainly was!” says the Judge, and they both laughed.

But I didn't care. They couldn't hurt me then, not with Nolan holding
the blue ribbon and Miss Dorothy hugging my ears, and the kennel-men
sneaking away, each looking like he'd been caught with his nose under
the lid of the slop-can.

We sat down together, and we all three just talked as fast as we could.
They was so pleased that I couldn't help feeling proud myself, and I
barked and jumped and leaped about so gay, that all the bull-terriers in
our street stretched on their chains, and howled at me.

“Just look at him!” says one of those I had beat. “What's he giving
hisself airs about?”

“Because he's got one blue ribbon!” says another of 'em. “Why, when I
was a puppy I used to eat 'em, and if that Judge could ever learn to
know a toy from a mastiff, I'd have had this one.”

But Jimmy Jocks he leaned over from his bench, and says, “Well done,
Kid. Didn't I tell you so!” What he 'ad told me was that I might get a
“commended,” but I didn't remind him.

“Didn't I tell you,” says Jimmy Jocks, “that I saw your grandfather make
his debut at the Crystal--”

“Yes, sir, you did, sir,” says I, for I have no love for the men of my
family.

A gentleman with a showing leash around his neck comes up just then and
looks at me very critical. “Nice dog you've got, Miss Wyndham,” says he;
“would you care to sell him?”

“He's not my dog,” says Miss Dorothy, holding me tight. “I wish he
were.”

“He's not for sale, sir,” says the Master, and I was that glad.

“Oh, he's yours, is he?” says the gentleman, looking hard at Nolan.
“Well, I'll give you a hundred dollars for him,” says he, careless-like.

“Thank you, sir, he's not for sale,” says Nolan, but his eyes get very
big. The gentleman, he walked away, but I watches him, and he talks to a
man in a golf-cap, and by and by the man comes along our street, looking
at all the dogs, and stops in front of me.

“This your dog?” says he to Nolan. “Pity he's so leggy,” says he. “If he
had a good tail, and a longer stop, and his ears were set higher, he'd
be a good dog. As he is, I'll give you fifty dollars for him.”

But before the Master could speak, Miss Dorothy laughs, and says,
“You're Mr. Polk's kennel-man, I believe. Well, you tell Mr. Polk from
me that the dog's not for sale now any more than he was five minutes
ago, and that when he is, he'll have to bid against me for him.” The man
looks foolish at that, but he turns to Nolan quick-like. “I'll give you
three hundred for him,” he says.

“Oh, indeed!” whispers Miss Dorothy, like she was talking to herself.
“That's it, is it,” and she turns and looks at me just as though she had
never seen me before. Nolan, he was a gaping, too, with his mouth open.
But he holds me tight.

“He's not for sale,” he growls, like he was frightened, and the man
looks black and walks away.

“Why, Nolan!” cries Miss Dorothy, “Mr. Polk knows more about
bull-terriers than any amateur in America. What can he mean? Why, Kid is
no more than a puppy! Three hundred dollars for a puppy!”

“And he ain't no thoroughbred neither!” cries the Master. “He's
'Unknown,' ain't he? Kid can't help it, of course, but his mother,
Miss--”

I dropped my head. I couldn't bear he should tell Miss Dorothy. I
couldn't bear she should know I had stolen my blue ribbon.

But the Master never told, for at that, a gentleman runs up, calling,
“Three Twenty-Six, Three Twenty-Six,” and Miss Dorothy says, “Here he
is, what is it?”

“The Winner's Class,” says the gentleman “Hurry, please. The Judge is
waiting for him.”

Nolan tries to get me off the chain onto a showing leash, but he shakes
so, he only chokes me. “What is it, Miss?” he says. “What is it?”

“The Winner's Class,” says Miss Dorothy. “The Judge wants him with the
winners of the other classes--to decide which is the best. It's only a
form,” says she. “He has the champions against him now.”

“Yes,” says the gentleman, as he hurries us to the ring. “I'm afraid
it's only a form for your dog, but the Judge wants all the winners,
puppy class even.”

We had got to the gate, and the gentleman there was writing down my
number.

“Who won the open?” asks Miss Dorothy.

“Oh, who would?” laughs the gentleman. “The old champion, of course.
He's won for three years now. There he is. Isn't he wonderful?” says he,
and he points to a dog that's standing proud and haughty on the platform
in the middle of the ring.

I never see so beautiful a dog, so fine and clean and noble, so white
like he had rolled hisself in flour, holding his nose up and his eyes
shut, same as though no one was worth looking at. Aside of him, we other
dogs, even though we had a blue ribbon apiece, seemed like lumps of mud.
He was a royal gentleman, a king, he was. His Master didn't have to hold
his head with no leash. He held it hisself, standing as still as an iron
dog on a lawn, like he knew all the people was looking at him. And so
they was, and no one around the ring pointed at no other dog but him.

“Oh, what a picture,” cried Miss Dorothy; “he's like a marble figure by
a great artist--one who loved dogs. Who is he?” says she, looking in her
book. “I don't keep up with terriers.”

“Oh, you know him,” says the gentleman. “He is the Champion of
champions, Regent Royal.”

The Master's face went red.

“And this is Regent Royal's son,” cries he, and he pulls me quick into
the ring, and plants me on the platform next my father.

I trembled so that I near fall. My legs twisted like a leash. But my
father he never looked at me. He only smiled, the same sleepy smile, and
he still keep his eyes half-shut, like as no one, no, not even his son,
was worth his lookin' at.

The Judge, he didn't let me stay beside my father, but, one by one, he
placed the other dogs next to him and measured and felt and pulled at
them. And each one he put down, but he never put my father down. And
then he comes over and picks up me and sets me back on the platform,
shoulder to shoulder with the Champion Regent Royal, and goes down on
his knees, and looks into our eyes.

The gentleman with my father, he laughs, and says to the Judge,
“Thinking of keeping us here all day. John?” but the Judge, he doesn't
hear him, and goes behind us and runs his hand down my side, and holds
back my ears, and takes my jaws between his fingers. The crowd around
the ring is very deep now, and nobody says nothing. The gentleman at the
score-table, he is leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, and
his eyes very wide, and the gentleman at the gate is whispering quick to
Miss Dorothy, who has turned white. I stood as stiff as stone. I didn't
even breathe. But out of the corner of my eye I could see my father
licking his pink chops, and yawning just a little, like he was bored.

The Judge, he had stopped looking fierce, and was looking solemn.
Something inside him seemed a troubling him awful. The more he stares
at us now, the more solemn he gets, and when he touches us he does
it gentle, like he was patting us. For a long time he kneels in the
sawdust, looking at my father and at me, and no one around the ring says
nothing to nobody.

Then the Judge takes a breath and touches me sudden. “It's his,” he
says, but he lays his hand just as quick on my father. “I'm sorry,” says
he.

The gentleman holding my father cries:

“Do you mean to tell me--”

And the Judge, he answers, “I mean the other is the better dog.” He
takes my father's head between his hands and looks down at him, most
sorrowful. “The King is dead,” says he, “long live the King. Good-by,
Regent,” he says.

The crowd around the railings clapped their hands, and some laughed
scornful, and everyone talks fast, and I start for the gate so dizzy
that I can't see my way. But my father pushes in front of me, walking
very daintily, and smiling sleepy, same as he had just been waked, with
his head high, and his eyes shut, looking at nobody.

So that is how I “came by my inheritance,” as Miss Dorothy calls it,
and just for that, though I couldn't feel where I was any different, the
crowd follows me to my bench, and pats me, and coos at me, like I was a
baby in a baby-carriage. And the handlers have to hold 'em back so that
the gentlemen from the papers can make pictures of me, and Nolan walks
me up and down so proud, and the men shakes their heads and says, “He
certainly is the true type, he is!” And the pretty ladies asks Miss
Dorothy, who sits beside me letting me lick her gloves to show the crowd
what friends we is, “Aren't you afraid he'll bite you?” and Jimmy Jocks
calls to me, “Didn't I tell you so! I always knew you were one of us.
Blood will out, Kid, blood will out. I saw your grandfather,” says he,
“make his debut at the Crystal Palace. But he was never the dog you
are!”

After that, if I could have asked for it, there was nothing I couldn't
get. You might have thought I was a snow-dog, and they was afeerd I'd
melt. If I wet my pats, Nolan gave me a hot bath and chained me to the
stove; if I couldn't eat my food, being stuffed full by the cook, for
I am a house-dog now, and let in to lunch whether there is visitors or
not, Nolan would run to bring the vet. It was all tommy-rot, as Jimmy
says, but meant most kind. I couldn't scratch myself comfortable,
without Nolan giving me nasty drinks, and rubbing me outside till it
burnt awful, and I wasn't let to eat bones for fear of spoiling my
“beautiful” mouth, what mother used to call my “punishing jaw,” and my
food was cooked special on a gas-stove, and Miss Dorothy gives me an
overcoat, cut very stylish like the champions', to wear when we goes out
carriage-driving.

After the next show, where I takes three blue ribbons, four silver cups,
two medals, and brings home forty-five dollars for Nolan, they gives
me a “Registered” name, same as Jimmy's. Miss Dorothy wanted to call me
“Regent Heir Apparent,” but I was THAT glad when Nolan says, “No, Kid
don't owe nothing to his father, only to you and hisself. So, if you
please, Miss, we'll call him Wyndham Kid.” And so they did, and you can
see it on my overcoat in blue letters, and painted top of my kennel. It
was all too hard to understand. For days I just sat and wondered if I
was really me, and how it all come about, and why everybody was so kind.
But, oh, it was so good they was, for if they hadn't been, I'd never
have got the thing I most wished after. But, because they was kind, and
not liking to deny me nothing, they gave it me, and it was more to me
than anything in the world.

It came about one day when we was out driving. We was in the cart they
calls the dog-cart, because it's the one Miss Dorothy keeps to take
Jimmy and me for an airing. Nolan was up behind, and me in my new
overcoat was sitting beside Miss Dorothy. I was admiring the view, and
thinking how good it was to have a horse pull you about so that you
needn't get yourself splashed and have to be washed, when I hears a
dog calling loud for help, and I pricks up my ears and looks over the
horse's head. And I sees something that makes me tremble down to my
toes. In the road before us three big dogs was chasing a little, old
lady-dog. She had a string to her tail, where some boys had tied a can,
and she was dirty with mud and ashes, and torn most awful. She was too
far done up to get away, and too old to help herself, but she was making
a fight for her life, snapping her old gums savage, and dying game. All
this I see in a wink, and then the three dogs pinned her down, and I
can't stand it no longer and clears the wheel and lands in the road on
my head. It was my stylish overcoat done that, and I curse it proper,
but I gets my pats again quick, and makes a rush for the fighting.
Behind me I hear Miss Dorothy cry, “They'll kill that old dog. Wait,
take my whip. Beat them off her! The Kid can take care of himself,” and
I hear Nolan fall into the road, and the horse come to a stop. The old
lady-dog was down, and the three was eating her vicious, but as I come
up, scattering the pebbles, she hears, and thinking it's one more of
them, she lifts her head and my heart breaks open like someone had sunk
his teeth in it. For, under the ashes and the dirt and the blood, I can
see who it is, and I know that my mother has come back to me.

I gives a yell that throws them three dogs off their legs.

“Mother!” I cries. “I'm the Kid,” I cries. “I'm coming to you, mother,
I'm coming.”

And I shoots over her, at the throat of the big dog, and the other two,
they sinks their teeth into that stylish overcoat, and tears it off me,
and that sets me free, and I lets them have it. I never had so fine a
fight as that! What with mother being there to see, and not having
been let to mix up in no fights since I become a prize-winner, it just
naturally did me good, and it wasn't three shakes before I had 'em
yelping. Quick as a wink, mother, she jumps in to help me, and I just
laughed to see her. It was so like old times. And Nolan, he made me
laugh too. He was like a hen on a bank, shaking the butt of his whip,
but not daring to cut in for fear of hitting me.

“Stop it, Kid,” he says, “stop it. Do you want to be all torn up?” says
he. “Think of the Boston show next week,” says he, “Think of Chicago.
Think of Danbury. Don't you never want to be a champion?” How was I to
think of all them places when I had three dogs to cut up at the same
time. But in a minute two of 'em begs for mercy, and mother and me lets
'em run away. The big one, he ain't able to run away. Then mother and
me, we dances and jumps, and barks and laughs, and bites each other and
rolls each other in the road. There never was two dogs so happy as we,
and Nolan, he whistles and calls and begs me to come to him, but I just
laugh and play larks with mother.

“Now, you come with me,” says I, “to my new home, and never try to run
away again.” And I shows her our house with the five red roofs, set on
the top of the hill. But mother trembles awful, and says: “They'd never
let the likes of me in such a place. Does the Viceroy live there, Kid?”
 says she. And I laugh at her. “No, I do,” I says; “and if they won't let
you live there, too, you and me will go back to the streets together,
for we must never be parted no more.” So we trots up the hill, side by
side, with Nolan trying to catch me, and Miss Dorothy laughing at him
from the cart.

“The Kid's made friends with the poor old dog,” says she. “Maybe he knew
her long ago when he ran the streets himself. Put her in here beside me,
and see if he doesn't follow.”

So, when I hears that, I tells mother to go with Nolan and sit in the
cart, but she says no, that she'd soil the pretty lady's frock; but I
tells her to do as I say, and so Nolan lifts her, trembling still, into
the cart, and I runs alongside, barking joyful.

When we drives into the stables I takes mother to my kennel, and tells
her to go inside it and make herself at home. “Oh, but he won't let me!”
 says she.

“Who won't let you?” says I, keeping my eye on Nolan, and growling a bit
nasty, just to show I was meaning to have my way. “Why, Wyndham Kid,”
 says she, looking up at the name on my kennel.

“But I'm Wyndham Kid!” says I.

“You!” cries mother. “You! Is my little Kid the great Wyndham Kid the
dogs all talk about?” And at that, she, being very old, and sick, and
hungry, and nervous, as mothers are, just drops down in the straw and
weeps bitter.

Well, there ain't much more than that to tell. Miss Dorothy, she settled
it.

“If the Kid wants the poor old thing in the stables,” says she, “let her
stay.”

“You see,” says she, “she's a black-and-tan, and his mother was a
black-and-tan, and maybe that's what makes Kid feel so friendly toward
her,” says she.

“Indeed, for me,” says Nolan, “she can have the best there is. I'd never
drive out no dog that asks for a crust nor a shelter,” he says. “But
what will Mr. Wyndham do?”

“He'll do what I say,” says Miss Dorothy, “and if I say she's to stay,
she will stay, and I say--she's to stay!”

And so mother and Nolan, and me, found a home. Mother was scared at
first--not being used to kind people--but she was so gentle and loving,
that the grooms got fonder of her than of me, and tried to make me
jealous by patting of her, and giving her the pick of the vittles. But
that was the wrong way to hurt my feelings. That's all, I think. Mother
is so happy here that I tell her we ought to call it the Happy Hunting
Grounds, because no one hunts you, and there is nothing to hunt; it just
all comes to you. And so we live in peace, mother sleeping all day in
the sun, or behind the stove in the head-groom's office, being fed
twice a day regular by Nolan, and all the day by the other grooms most
irregular, And, as for me, I go hurrying around the country to the
bench-shows; winning money and cups for Nolan, and taking the blue
ribbons away from father.






A DERELICT


When the war-ships of a navy lie cleared for action outside a harbor,
and the war-ships of the country with which they are at war lie cleared
for action inside the harbor, there is likely to be trouble. Trouble
between war-ships is news, and wherever there is news there is always a
representative of the Consolidated Press.

As long as Sampson blockaded Havana and the army beat time back of the
Tampa Bay Hotel, the central office for news was at Key West, but
when Cervera slipped into Santiago Harbor and Sampson stationed his
battle-ships at its mouth, Key West lost her only excuse for existence,
and the press-boats burled their bows in the waters of the Florida
Straits and raced for the cable-station at Port Antonio. It was then
that Keating, the “star” man of the Consolidated Press Syndicate, was
forced to abandon his young bride and the rooms he had engaged for her
at the Key West Hotel, and accompany his tug to the distant island of
Jamaica.

Keating was a good and faithful servant to the Consolidated Press. He
was a correspondent after its own making, an industrious collector of
facts. The Consolidated Press did not ask him to comment on what it
sent him to see; it did not require nor desire his editorial opinions or
impressions. It was no part of his work to go into the motives which led
to the event of news interest which he was sent to report, nor to point
out what there was of it which was dramatic, pathetic, or outrageous.

The Consolidated Press, being a mighty corporation, which daily fed
seven hundred different newspapers, could not hope to please the policy
of each, so it compromised by giving the facts of the day fairly set
down, without heat, prejudice, or enthusiasm. This was an excellent
arrangement for the papers that subscribed for the service of the
Consolidated Press, but it was death to the literary strivings of the
Consolidated Press correspondents.

“We do not want descriptive writing,” was the warning which the manager
of the great syndicate was always flashing to its correspondents. “We do
not pay you to send us pen-pictures or prose poems. We want the facts,
all the facts, and nothing but the facts.”

And so, when at a presidential convention a theatrical speaker sat down
after calling James G. Blaine “a plumed knight,” each of the “special”
 correspondents present wrote two columns in an effort to describe
how the people who heard the speech behaved in consequence, but the
Consolidated Press man telegraphed, “At the conclusion of these remarks
the cheering lasted sixteen minutes.”

No event of news value was too insignificant to escape the watchfulness
of the Consolidated Press, none so great that it could not handle it
from its inception up to the moment when it ceased to be quoted in the
news-market of the world. Each night, from thousands of spots all over
the surface of the globe, it received thousands of facts, of cold,
accomplished facts. It knew that a tidal wave had swept through China, a
cabinet had changed in Chili, in Texas an express train had been held up
and robbed, “Spike” Kennedy had defeated the “Dutchman” in New Orleans,
the Oregon had coaled outside of Rio Janeiro Harbor, the Cape Verde
fleet had been seen at anchor off Cadiz; it had been located in the
harbor of San Juan, Porto Rico; it had been sighted steaming slowly past
Fortress Monroe; and the Navy Department reported that the St. Paul had
discovered the lost squadron of Spain in the harbor of Santiago. This
last fact was the one which sent Keating to Jamaica. Where he was sent
was a matter of indifference to Keating. He had worn the collar of
the Consolidated Press for so long a time that he was callous. A board
meeting--a mine disaster--an Indian uprising--it was all one to Keating.
He collected facts and his salary. He had no enthusiasms, he held no
illusions. The prestige of the mammoth syndicate he represented gained
him an audience where men who wrote for one paper only were repulsed on
the threshold. Senators, governors, the presidents of great trusts and
railroad systems, who fled from the reporter of a local paper as from
a leper, would send for Keating and dictate to him whatever it was they
wanted the people of the United States to believe, for when they talked
to Keating they talked to many millions of readers. Keating, in turn,
wrote out what they had said to him and transmitted it, without color or
bias, to the clearinghouse of the Consolidated Press. His “stories,”
 as all newspaper writings are called by men who write them, were as
picturesque reading as the quotations of a stock-ticker. The personal
equation appeared no more offensively than it does in a page of
typewriting in his work.

Consequently, he was dear to the heart of the Consolidated Press, and,
as a “safe” man, was sent to the beautiful harbor of Santiago--to a spot
where there were war-ships cleared for action, Cubans in ambush,
naked marines fighting for a foothold at Guantanamo, palm-trees and
coral-reefs--in order that he might look for “facts.”

There was not a newspaper man left at Key West who did not writhe with
envy and anger when he heard of it. When the wire was closed for
the night, and they had gathered at Josh Kerry's, Keating was the
storm-centre of their indignation.

“What a chance!” they protested. “What a story! It's the chance of a
lifetime.” They shook their heads mournfully and lashed themselves with
pictures of its possibilities.

“And just fancy its being wasted on old Keating,” said the Journal man.
“Why, everything's likely to happen out there, and whatever does happen,
he'll make it read like a Congressional Record. Why, when I heard of it
I cabled the office that if the paper would send me I'd not ask for any
salary for six months.”

“And Keating's kicking because he has to go,” growled the Sun man. “Yes,
he is, I saw him last night, and he was sore because he'd just moved his
wife down here. He said if he'd known this was coming he'd have let her
stay in New York. He says he'll lose money on this assignment, having to
support himself and his wife in two different places.”

Norris, “the star man” of the World, howled with indignation.

“Good Lord!” he said, “is that all he sees in it? Why, there never was
such a chance. I tell you, some day soon all of those war-ships will let
loose at each other and there will be the best story that ever came over
the wire, and if there isn't, it's a regular loaf anyway. It's a picnic,
that's what it is, at the expense of the Consolidated Press. Why,
he ought to pay them to let him go. Can't you see him, confound him,
sitting under a palm-tree in white flannels, with a glass of Jamaica rum
in his fist, while we're dodging yellow fever on this coral-reef, and
losing our salaries on a crooked roulette-wheel.”

“I wonder what Jamaica rum is like as a steady drink,” mused the
ex-baseball reporter, who had been converted into a war-correspondent by
the purchase of a white yachting-cap.

“It won't be long before Keating finds out,” said the Journal man.

“Oh, I didn't know that,” ventured the new reporter, who had just come
South from Boston. “I thought he didn't drink. I never see Keating in
here with the rest of the boys.”

“You wouldn't,” said Norris. “He only comes in here by himself, and he
drinks by himself. He's one of those confidential drunkards, You give
some men whiskey, and it's like throwing kerosene on a fire, isn't it?
It makes them wave their arms about and talk loud and break things, but
you give it to another man and it's like throwing kerosene on a cork
mat. It just soaks in. That's what Keating is. He's a sort of a cork
mat.”

“I shouldn't think the C. P. would stand for that,” said the Boston man.

“It wouldn't, if it ever interfered with his work, but he's never fallen
down on a story yet. And the sort of stuff he writes is machine-made; a
man can write C. P. stuff in his sleep.”

One of the World men looked up and laughed.

“I wonder if he'll run across Channing out there,” he said. The men at
the table smiled, a kindly, indulgent smile. The name seemed to act
upon their indignation as a shower upon the close air of a summer-day.
“That's so,” said Norris. “He wrote me last month from Port-au-Prince
that he was moving on to Jamaica. He wrote me from that club there at
the end of the wharf. He said he was at that moment introducing the
President to a new cocktail, and as he had no money to pay his passage
to Kingston he was trying to persuade him to send him on there as his
Haitian Consul. He said in case he couldn't get appointed Consul, he had
an offer to go as cook on a fruit-tramp.”

The men around the table laughed. It was the pleased, proud laugh that
flutters the family dinner-table when the infant son and heir says
something precocious and impudent.

“Who is Channing?” asked the Boston man.

There was a pause, and the correspondents looked at Norris.

“Channing is a sort of a derelict,” he said. “He drifted into New York
last Christmas from the Omaha Bee. He's been on pretty nearly every
paper in the country.”

“What's he doing in Haiti?”

“He went there on the Admiral Decatur to write a filibustering story
about carrying arms across to Cuba. Then the war broke out and he's
been trying to get back to Key West, and now, of course, he'll make for
Kingston. He cabled me yesterday, at my expense, to try and get him a
job on our paper. If the war hadn't come on he had a plan to beat his
way around the world. And he'd have done it, too. I never saw a man who
wouldn't help Charlie along, or lend him a dollar.” He glanced at the
faces about him and winked at the Boston man. “They all of them look
guilty, don't they?” he said.

“Charlie Channing,” murmured the baseball reporter, gently, as though
he were pronouncing the name of a girl. He raised his glass. “Here's
to Charlie Channing,” he repeated. Norris set down his empty glass and
showed it to the Boston man.

“That's his only enemy,” he said. “Write! Heavens, how that man can
write, and he'd almost rather do anything else. There isn't a paper in
New York that wasn't glad to get him, but they couldn't keep him a
week. It was no use talking to him. Talk! I've talked to him until three
o'clock in the morning. Why, it was I made him send his first Chinatown
story to the International Magazine, and they took it like a flash and
wrote him for more, but he blew in the check they sent him and didn't
even answer their letter. He said after he'd had the fun of writing a
story, he didn't care whether it was published in a Sunday paper or in
white vellum, or never published at all. And so long as he knew he wrote
it, he didn't care whether anyone else knew it or not. Why, when that
English reviewer--what's his name--that friend of Kipling's--passed
through New York, he said to a lot of us at the Press Club, 'You've got
a young man here on Park Row--an opium-eater, I should say, by the look
of him, who if he would work and leave whiskey alone, would make us all
sweat.' That's just what he said, and he's the best in England!”

“Charlie's a genius,” growled the baseball reporter, defiantly. “I say,
he's a genius.”

The Boston man shook his head. “My boy,” he began, sententiously,
“genius is nothing more than hard work, and a man--”

Norris slapped the table with his hand.

“Oh, no, it's not,” he jeered, fiercely, “and don't you go off believing
it is, neither. I've worked. I've worked twelve hours a day. Keating
even has worked eighteen hours a day--all his life--but we never wrote
'The Passing of the Highbinders,' nor the 'Ships that Never Came
Home,' nor 'Tales of the Tenderloin,' and we never will. I'm a better
news-gatherer than Charlie, I can collect facts and I can put them
together well enough, too, so that if a man starts to read my story
he'll probably follow it to the bottom of the column, and he may turn
over the page, too. But I can't say the things, because I can't see
the things that Charlie sees. Why, one night we sent him out on a big
railroad-story. It was a beat, we'd got it by accident, and we had it
all to ourselves, but Charlie came across a blind beggar on Broadway
with a dead dog. The dog had been run over, and the blind beggar
couldn't find his way home without him, and was sitting on the
curb-stone, weeping over the mongrel. Well, when Charlie came back to
the office he said he couldn't find out anything about that railroad
deal, but that he'd write them a dog-story. Of course, they were raging
crazy, but he sat down just as though it was no concern of his, and,
sure enough, he wrote the dog-story. And the next day over five hundred
people stopped in at the office on their way downtown and left dimes and
dollars to buy that man a new dog. Now, hard work won't do that.”

Keating had been taking breakfast in the ward-room of H. M. S.
Indefatigable. As an acquaintance the officers had not found him an
undoubted acquisition, but he was the representative of seven hundred
papers, and when the Indefatigable's ice-machine broke, he had loaned
the officers' mess a hundred pounds of it from his own boat.

The cruiser's gig carried Keating to the wharf, the crew tossed their
oars and the boatswain touched his cap and asked, mechanically, “Shall I
return to the ship, sir?”

Channing, stretched on the beach, with his back to a palm-tree, observed
the approach of Keating with cheerful approbation.

“It is gratifying to me,” he said, “to see the press treated with such
consideration. You came in just like Cleopatra in her barge. If the flag
had been flying, and you hadn't steered so badly, I should have thought
you were at least an admiral. How many guns does the British Navy give a
Consolidated Press reporter when he comes over the side?”

Keating dropped to the sand and, crossing his legs under him, began
tossing shells at the water.

“They gave this one a damned good breakfast,” he said, “and some very
excellent white wine. Of course, the ice-machine was broken, it always
is, but then Chablis never should be iced, if it's the real thing.”

“Chablis! Ice! Hah!” snorted Channing. “Listen to him! Do you know what
I had for breakfast?”

Keating turned away uncomfortably and looked toward the ships in the
harbor.

“Well, never mind,” said Channing, yawning luxuriously. “The sun is
bright, the sea is blue, and the confidences of this old palm are
soothing. He's a great old gossip, this palm.” He looked up into the
rustling fronds and smiled. “He whispers me to sleep,” he went on,
“or he talks me awake--talks about all sorts of things--things he has
seen--cyclones, wrecks, and strange ships and Cuban refugees and
Spanish spies and lovers that meet here on moonlight nights. It's always
moonlight in Port Antonio, isn't it?”

“You ought to know, you've been here longer than I,” said Keating.

“And how do you like it, now that you have got to know it better? Pretty
heavenly? eh?”

“Pretty heavenly!” snorted Keating. “Pretty much the other place! What
good am I doing? What's the sense of keeping me here? Cervera isn't
going to come out, and the people at Washington won't let Sampson go in.
Why, those ships have been there a month now, and they'll be there just
where they are now when you and I are bald. I'm no use here. All I do
is to thrash across there every day and eat up more coal than the whole
squadron burns in a month. Why, that tug of mine's costing the C. P. six
hundred dollars a day, and I'm not sending them news enough to pay for
setting it up. Have you seen 'em yet?”

“Seen what? Your stories?”

“No, the ships!”

“Yes, Scudder took me across once in the Iduna. I haven't got a paper
yet, so I couldn't write anything, but--”

“Well, you've seen all there is to it, then; you wouldn't see any more
if you went over every day. It's just the same old harbor-mouth, and
the same old Morro Castle, and same old ships, drifting up and down; the
Brooklyn, full of smoke-stacks, and the New York, with her two bridges,
and all the rest of them looking just as they've looked for the last
four weeks. There's nothing in that. Why don't they send me to Tampa
with the army and Shafter--that's where the story is.”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Channing, shaking his head. “I thought it was
bully!”

“Bully, what was bully?”

“Oh, the picture,” said Channing, doubtfully, “and--and what it meant.
What struck me about it was that it was so hot, and lazy, and peaceful,
that they seemed to be just drifting about, just what you complain of.
I don't know what I expected to see; I think I expected they'd be racing
around in circles, tearing up the water and thr

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