\
The Open Boat
and Other Stories
f
Hew novels for 1898
Crown 8vo, price 6s. each
DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO
BY I. ZANGWILL
THE SCOURGE-STICK
By MRS. CAMPBELL PRAED
THE LONDONERS
BY ROBERT HICHENS
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
BY H. G. WELLS
THE FOURTH NAPOLEON
BY CHARLES BENHAM
THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH
BY GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
THE MINISTER OF STATE
BY J. A. STEUART
CLEO THE MAGNIFICENT
BY Z. Z.
THE BROOM OF THE WAR-GOD
BY H. N. BRAILSFORD
THE LAKE OF WINE
BY BERNARD CAPES
GOD'S FOUNDLING
BY A. J. DAWSON
EZEKIEL'S SIN
BY J. A. PEARCE
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
The Opei?
and Other Stories
By
Stephen Crane
Author of
1 The Red Badge of Courage," " The Little Regiment,'
" The Third Violet," etc.
London
William Heinemann
A II rights reserved
To the Memory of
THE LATE WILLIAM HIGGINS
and to
CAPTAIN EDWARD MURPHY and STEWARD C. B. MONTGOMERY
Of the sunk Steamer 'Commodore.'
630574
CONTENTS
Part I
Minor Conflicts
Page
The Open Boat i
A Man and Some Others 41
The Bride comes to Yellow Sky .... 65
The Wise Men 85
The Five White Mice 107
Flanagan and His Short Filibustering
Adventure 129
Horses 155
Death and the Child 175
Part II
Midnight Sketches
An Experiment in Misery . . . . . . 211
The Men in the Storm 227
The Duel that was not Fought .... 239
An Ominous Baby 251
A Great Mistake 259
An Eloquence of Grief 265
The Auction 271
The Pace of Youth 279
A Detail . .... 297
t-'I
Miitor
THE OPEN BOAT
A TALE INTENDED TO BE AFTER THE FACT. BEING THE
EXPERIENCE OF FOUR MEN FROM THE SUNK STEAMER
' COMMODORE '
NONE of them knew the colour of the sky. Their
eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves
that swept toward them. These waves were of the
hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming
white, and all of the men knew the colours of the sea.
The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and
rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves
that seemed thrust up in points like rocks.
Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than
the boat which here rode upon the sea. These waves
were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and
tall, and each froth-top was a problem in small boat
navigation.
The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with
both eyes at the six inches of gunwale which separ
ated him from the ocean. His sleeves were rolled
4 MINOR CONFLICTS
over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his un
buttoned vest dangled as he bent to bail out the boat.
Often he said: "Gawd! That was a narrow clip."
As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over
the broken sea.
The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the
boat, sometimes raised himself suddenly to keep clear
of water that swirled in over the stern. It was a thin
little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched
the waves and wondered why he was there.
The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this
time buried in that profound dejection and indiffer
ence which comes, temporarily at least, to even the
bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm
fails, the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind
of the master of a vessel is rooted deep in the timbers
of her, though he commanded for a day or a decade,
and this captain had on him the stern impression of a
scene in the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and
later a stump of a top-mast with a white ball on it
that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low and
lower, and down. Thereafter there was something
strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep
with mourning, and of a quality beyond oration or
tears.
" Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he.
" ' A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the
stern.
A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a
bucking broncho, and, by the same token, a broncho
is not much smaller. The craft pranced and reared,
THE OPEN BOAT 5
and plunged like an animal. As each wave came,
and she rose for it, she seemed like a horse making
at a fence outrageously high. The manner of her
scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing,
and, moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily
these problems in white water, the foam racing down
from the summit of each wave, requiring a new leap,
and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully
bumping a crest, she would slide, and race, and splash
down a long incline, and arrive bobbing and nodding
in front of the next menace.
A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact
that after successfully surmounting one wave you
discover that there is another behind it just as import
ant and just as nervously anxious to do something
effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-
foot dingey one can get an idea of the resources of
the sea in the line of waves that is not probable to
the average experience which is never at sea in a
dingey. As each slaty wall of water approached, it
shut all else from the view of the men in the boat,
and it was not difficult to imagine that this particular
wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last
effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace
in the move of the waves, and they came in silence,
save for the snarling of the crests.
In the wan light, the faces of the men must have
been grey. Their eyes must have glinted in strange
ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed from a
balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have been
weirdly picturesque. But the men in the boat had no
time to see it, and if they had had leisure there were
6 MINOR CONFLICTS
other things to occupy their minds. The sun swung
steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day
because the colour of the sea changed from slate to
emerald-green, streaked with amber lights, and the
foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the
breaking day was unknown to them. They were
aware only of this effect upon the colour of the waves
that rolled toward them.
In disjointed sentences the cook and the corre
spondent argued as to the difference between a life-
saving station and a house of refuge. The cook had
said : " There's a house of refuge just north of the
Mosquito Inlet Light, and as soon as they see us,
they'll come off in their boat and pick us up."
"As soon as who see us ? " said the correspondent.
" The crew," said the cook.
"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the
correspondent. "As I understand them, they are
only places where clothes and grub are stored for the
benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry
crews."
" Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.
" No, they don't," said the correspondent.
" Well, we're not there yet, anyhow," said the oiler,
in the stern.
" Well," said the cook, " perhaps it's not a house of
refuge that I'm thinking of as being near Mosquito
Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-saving station."
" We're not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.
THE OPEN BOAT
11 .x
As the boat bounced from the top of each wave,
the wind tore through the hair of the hatless men, and
as the craft plopped her stern down again the spray
slashed past them. The crest of each of these waves
was a hill, from the top of which the men surveyed,
for a moment, a broad tumultuous expanse, shining
and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It was
probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with
lights of emerald and white and amber.
" Bully good thing it's an on-shore wind," said the
cook. " If not, where would we be ? Wouldn't have
a show."
" That's right," said the correspondent.
The busy oiler nodded his assent.
Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way
that expressed humour, contempt, tragedy, all in one.
" Do you think we've got much of a show now, boys ? "
said he.
Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of
hemming and hawing. To express any particular
optimism at this time they felt to be childish and
stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense
of the situation in their mind. A young man thinks
doggedly at such times. On the other hand, the
ethics of their condition was decidedly against any
open suggestion of hopelessness. So ^they were
silent.
" Oh, well," said the captain, soothing his children,
" we'll get ashore all right."
8 MINOR CONFLICTS
But there was that in his tone which made them
think, so the oiler quoth: "Yes! If this wind
holds ! "
The cook was bailing : " Yes ! If we don't catch
hell in the surf."
Canton flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes
they sat down on the sea, near patches of brown sea
weed that rolled over the waves with a movement
like carpets on a line in a gale. The birds sat com
fortably in groups, and they were envied by some in
the dingey, for the wrath of the sea was no more to
them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a
thousand miles inland. Often they came very close
and stared at the men with black bead-like eyes. At
these times they were uncanny and sinister in their
unblinking ^scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at
them, telling them to be gone. One came, and
evidently decided to alight on the top of the captain's
head. The bird flew parallel to the boat and did not
circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in
chicken-fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed
upon the captain's head. " Ugly brute," said the oiler
to the bird. " You look as if you were made with a
jack-knife." The cook and the correspondent swore
darkly at the creature. The captain naturally wished
to knock it away with the end of the heavy painter ;
but he did not dare do it, because anything resem
bling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this
freighted boat, and so with his open hand, the captain
gently and carefully waved the gull away. After it
had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain
breathed easier on account of his hair, and others
THE OPEN BOAT 9
breathed easier because the bird struck their minds
at this time as being somehow grewsome and
ominous.
In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent
rowed. And also they rowed.
They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed
an oar. Then the oiler took both oars ; then the
correspondent took both oars ; then the oiler ; then
the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed.
The very ticklish part of the business was when the
time came for the reclining one in the stern to take
his turn at the oars. By the very last star of truth, it
is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to
change seats in the dingey. First the man in the
stern slid his hand along the thwart and moved with
care, as if he were of Sevres. Then the man in the
rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It
was all done with the most extraordinary care. As
the two sidled past each other, the whole party kept
watchful eyes on the coming wave, and the captain
cried : " Look out now ! Steady there ! "
The brown mats of sea-weed that appeared from
time to time were like islands, bits of earth. They
were travelling, apparently, neither one way nor the
other. They were, to all intents, stationary. They
informed the men in the boat that it was making
progress slowly toward the land.
The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after
the dingey soared on a great swell, said that he had
seen the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet. Presently the
cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspond
ent was at the oars then, and for some reason he too
io MINOR CONFLICTS
wished to look at the lighthouse, but his back was
toward the far shore and the waves were important,
and for some time he could not seize an opportunity
to turn his head. But at last there came a wave
more gentle than the others, and when at the crest of
it he swiftly scoured the western horizon.
" See it ? " said the captain.
" No," said the correspondent slowly, " I didn't see
anything."
" Look again," said the captain. He pointed. " It's
exactly in that direction."
At the top of another wave, the correspondent did
as he was bid, and this time his eyes chanced on a
small still thing on the edge of the swaying horizon.
It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an
anxious eye to find a lighthouse so tiny.
" Think we'll make it, captain ? "
"If this wind holds and the boat don't swamp, we
can't do much else," said the captain.
The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and
splashed viciously by the crests, made progress that
in the absence of seaweed was not apparent to those
in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing,
miraculously top-up, at the mercy of five oceans.
Occasionally, a great spread of water, like white
flames, swarmed into her.
" Bail her, cook," said the captain serenely.
" All right, captain," said the cheerful cook.
THE OPEN BOAT 11
III
IT would be difficult to describe the subtle brother
hood of men that was here established on the seas.
No one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.
But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm
him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a cor
respondent, and they were friends, friends in a more
curiously iron-bound degree than may be common.
The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow,
spoke always in a low voice and calmly, but he could
never command a more ready and swiftly obedient
crew than the motley three of the dingey. It was
more than a mere recognition of what was best for
the common safety. There was surely in it a quality
that was personal and heartfelt. And after this
devotion to the commander of the boat there was this
comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who
had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at
the time was the best experience of his life. But no
one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.
" I wish we had a sail," remarked the captain.
"We might try my overcoat on the end of an oar
and give you two boys a chance to rest." So the
cook and the correspondent held the mast and spread
wide the overcoat. The oiler steered, and the little
boat made good way with her new rig. Sometimes
the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from
breaking into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a
success.
Meanwhile the lighthouse had been growing slowly
12 MINOR CONFLICTS
larger. It had now almost assumed colour, and
appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky. The
man at the oars could not be prevented from turning
his head rather often to try for a glimpse of this little
grey shadow.
At last, from the top of each wave the men in the
tossing boat could see land. Even as the lighthouse
was an upright shadow on the sky, this land seemed
but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly
was thinner than paper. " We mustbe about opposite
New Smyrna," said the cook, who had coasted this
shore often in schooners. "Captain, by the way,
I believe they abandoned that life-saving station
there about a year ago."
" Did they ?" said the captain.
The wind slowly died away. The cook and the
correspondent were not now obliged to slave in order
to hold high the oar. But the waves continued their
old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little
craft, no longer under way, struggled woundily over
them. The oiler or the correspondent took the oars
again.
Shipwrecks are a propos of nothing. If men could
only train for them and have them occur when the
men had reached pink condition, there would be less
drowning at sea. Of the four in the dingey none
had slept any time worth mentioning for two days
and two nights previous to embarking in the dingey,
and in the excitement of clambering about the deck
of a foundering ship they had also forgotten to eat
heartily.
For these reasons, and for others, neither the oiler
THE OPEN BOAT 13
nor the correspondent was fond of rowing at this
time. The correspondent wondered ingenuously how
in the name of all that was sane could there be
people who thought it amusing to row a boat. It
was not an amusement; it was a diabolical punish
ment, and even a genius of mental aberrations could
never conclude that it was anything but a horror
to the muscles and a crime against the back. He
mentioned to the boat in general how the amusement
of rowing struck him, and the weary-faced oiler
smiled in full sympathy. Previously to the foundering,
by the way, the oiler had worked double-watch in the
engine-room of the ship.
"Take her easy, now, boys," said the captain.
" Don't spend yourselves. If we have to run a surf
you'll need all your strength, because we'll sure have
to swim for it. Take your time."
Slowly the land arose from the sea. From a black
line it became a line of black and a line of white,
trees and sand.- Finally, the captain said that he
could make out a house on the shore. " That's the
house of refuge, sure," said the cook. "They'll see
us before long, and come out after us."
The distant lighthouse reared high. " The keeper
ought to be able to make us out now, if he's looking
through a glass," said the captain. " He'll notify the
life-saving people."
" None of those other boats could have got ashore
to give word of the wreck," said the oiler, in a
low voice. " Else the lifeboat would be out hunting
us."
Slowly and beautifully the land loomed out of the
14 MINOR CONFLICTS
sea. The wind came again. It had veered from the
north-east to the south-east. Finally, a new sound
struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the
low thunder of the surf on the shore. " We'll never
be able to make the lighthouse now," said the captain.
" Swing her head a little more north, Billie," said he.
" ' A little more north,' sir," said the oiler.
Whereupon the little boat turned her nose once
more down the wind, and all but the oarsman watched
the shore grow. Under the influence of this expansion
doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds
of the "men. The management of the boat was still
most absorbing, but it could not prevent a quiet
cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they would be
ashore.
Their backbones had become thoroughly used to
balancing in the boat, and they now rode this wild
colt of a dingey like circus men. The correspondent
thought that he had been drenched to the skin, but
happening to feel in the top pocket of his coat, he
found therein eight cigars. Four of them were
soaked with sea-water ; four were perfectly scatheless.
After a search, somebody produced three dry matches,
and thereupon the four waifs rode impudently in their
little boat, and with an assurance of an impending
rescue shining in their eyes, puffed at the big cigars
and judged well and ill of all men. Everybody
took a drink of water.
THE OPEN BOAT
IV
" COOK," remarked the captain, " there don't seem
to be any signs of life about your house of refuge."
" No," replied the cook. " Funny they don't see
us!"
A broad stretch of lowly coast lay before the eyes
of the men. It was of dunes topped with dark
vegetation. The roar of the surf was plain, and
sometimes they could see the white lip of a wave as
it spun up the beach. A tiny house was blocked
out black upon the sky. Southward, the slim light
house lifted its little grey length.
Tide, wind, and waves were swinging the dingey
northward^ " Funny they don't see us," said the
men.
The surf's roar was here dulled, but its tone was,
nevertheless, thunderous and mighty. As the boat
swam over the great rollers, the men sat listening to
this roar. " We'll swamp sure," said everybody.
It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving
station within twenty miles in either direction, but the
men did not know this fact, and in consequence they
made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the
eyesight of the nation's life-savers. Four scowling
men sat in the dingey and surpassed records in the
invention of epithets.
" Funny they don't see us."
The light-heartedness of a former time had com
pletely faded. To their sharpened minds it was easy
to conjure pictures of all kinds of incompetency and
16 MINOR CONFLICTS
blindness and, indeed, cowardice. There was the
shore of the populous land, and it was bitter and
bitter to them that from it came no sign.
" Well," said the captain, ultimately, " I suppose
we'll have to make a try for ourselves. If we stay
out here too long, we'll none of us have strength left
to swim after the boat swamps."
And so the oiler, who was at the oars, turned
the boat straight for the shore. There was a
sudden tightening of muscles. There was some
thinking.
" If we don't all get ashore " said the captain.
"If we don't all get ashore, I suppose you fellows
know where to send news of my finish ? "
They then briefly exchanged some addresses and
admonitions. As for the reflections of the men,
there was a great deal of rage in them. Perchance
they might be formulated thus : " If I am going to
be drowned if I am going to be drowned if I am
going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven
mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come
thus far and contemplate sand and trees ? Was I
brought here merely to have my nose dragged away
as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life ?
It is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate,
cannot do better than this, she should be deprived of
the management of men's fortunes. She is an old
hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided
to drown me, why did she not do it in the beginning
and save me all this trouble ? The whole affair is
absurd. . . . But no, she cannot mean to drown
me. She dare not drown me. She cannot drown
THE OPEN BOAT 17
me. Not after all this work." Afterward the man
might have had an impulse to shake his fist at the
clouds : " Just you drown me, now, and then hear
what I call you ! "
The billows that came at this time were more
formidable. They seemed always just about to break
and roll over the little boat in a turmoil of foam.
There was a preparatory and long growl in the speech
of them. No mind unused to the sea would have
concluded that the dingey could ascend these sheer
heights in time. The shore was still afar. The oiler
was a wily surfman. " Boys," he said swiftly, " she
won't live three minutes more, and we're too far out
to swim. Shall I take her to sea again, captain ? "
" Yes ! Go ahead ! " said the captain.
This oiler, by a series of quick miracles, and fast
and steady oarsmanship, turned the boat in the
middle of the surf and took her safely to sea again.
There was a considerable silence as the boat
bumped over the furrowed sea to deeper water.
Then somebody in gloom spoke. "Well, anyhow,
they must have seen us from the shore by now."
The gulls went in slanting flight up the wind
toward the grey desolate east. A squall, marked by
dingy clouds, and clouds brick-red, like smoke from
a burning building, appeared from the south-east.
" What do you think of those life-saving people ?
Ain't they peaches ? "
u Funny they haven't seen us."
" Maybe they think we're out here for sport !
Maybe they think we're fishin'. Maybe they think
we're damned fools."
c
i8 MINOR CONFLICTS
It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to
force them southward, but wind and wave said north
ward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea, and sky
formed their mighty angle, there were little dots
which seemed to indicate a city on the shore.
" St. Augustine ? "
The captain shook his head. " Too near Mosquito
Inlet."
And the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent
rowecL Then the oiler rowed. It was a weary busi
ness, jf The human back can become the seat of more
aches and pains than are registered in books for the
composite anatomy of a regiment. It is a limited
area, but it can become the theatre of innumerable
muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and other
comforts. I
" Did you ever like to row, Billie ? " asked the
correspondent.
" No," said the oiler. " Hang it."
When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place
in the bottom of the boat, he suffered a bodily de
pression that caused him to be careless of everything
save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was
cold sea-water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he
lay in it. His head, pillowed on a thwart, was within
an inch of the swirl of a wave crest, and sometimes a
particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and
drenched him once more. But these matters did not
annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat had
capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out
upon the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great
soft mattress.
THE OPEN BOAT 19
" Look ! There's a man on the shore ! "
"Where?"
" There ! See J im ? See 'im ? "
" Yes, sure ! He's walking along."
" Now he's stopped. Look ! He's facing us ! "
" He's waving at us ! "
" So he is ! By thunder ! "
" Ah, now we're all right ! Now we're all right !
There'll be a boat out here for us in half-an-hour."
" He's going on. He's running. He's going up to
that house there."
The remote beach seemed lower than the sea, and
it required a searching glance to discern the little
black figure. The captain saw a floating stick and
they rowed to it. A bath-towel was by some weird
chance in the boat, and, tying this on the stick, the
captain waved it. The oarsman did not dare turn his
head, so he was obliged to ask questions.
"What's he doing now?"
" He's standing still again. He's looking, I think.
. . . There he goes again. Towards the house. . . .
Now he's stopped again."
" Is he waving at us ? "
" No, not now ! he was, though."
" Look ! There comes another man ! "
" He's running."
" Look at him go, would you."
" Why, he's on a bicycle. Now he's met the other
man. They're both waving at us. Look ! "
" There comes something up the beach."
" What the devil is that thing ? "
"Why, it looks like a boat."
20 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Why, certainly it's a boat."
" No, it's on wheels."
"Yes, so it is. Well, that must be the life-boat.
They drag them along shore on a wagon."
" That's the life-boat, sure."
" No, by , it's it's an omnibus."
" I tell you it's a life-boat."
" It is not ! It's an omnibus. I can see it plain.
See ? One of these big hotel omnibuses."
" By thunder, you're right. It's an omnibus, sure
as fate. What do you suppose they are doing with
an omnibus ? Maybe they are going around collect
ing the life-crew, hey ? "
" That's it, likely. Look ! There's a fellow waving
a little black flag. He's standing on the steps of the
omnibus. There come those other two fellows. Now
they're all talking together. Look at the fellow with
the flag. Maybe he ain't waving it."
" That ain't a flag, is it ? That's his coat. Why
certainly, that's his coat."
" So it is. It's his coat. He's taken it off and is
waving it around his head. But would you look at
him swing it."
" Oh, say, there isn't any life-saving station there.
That's just a winter resort hotel omnibus that has
brought over some of the boarders to see us drown."
" What's that idiot with the coat mean ? What's
he signaling, anyhow ? "
" It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north.
There must be a life-saving station up there."
" No ! He thinks we're fishing. Just giving us a
merry hand. See ? Ah, there, Willie."
*
THE OPEN BOAT 21
" Well, I wish I could make something out of those
signals. What do you suppose he means ? "
" He don't mean anything. He's just playing."
" Well, if he'd just signal us to try the surf again, or
to go to sea and wait, or go north, or go south, or go
to hell there would be some reason in it. But look
at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat
revolving like a wheel. The ass ! "
" There come more people."
" Now there's quite a mob. Look ! Isn't that a
boat?"
" Where ? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that's
no boat."
" That fellow is still waving his coat."
" He must think we like to see him do that. Why
don't he quit it ? It don't mean anything."
" I don't know. I think he is trying to make us go
north. It must be that there's a life-saving station
there somewhere."
" Say, he ain't tired yet. Look at 'im wave."
"Wonder how long he can keep that up. He's
been revolving his coat ever since he caught sight of
us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they getting men to
bring a boat out ? A fishing boat one of those big
yawls could come out here all right. Why don't he
do something ? "
" Oh, it's all right, now."
" They'll have a boat out here for us in less than no
time, now that they've seen us."
A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low
land. The shadows on the sea slowly deepened. The
wind bore coldness with it, and the men began to shiver.
22 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Holy smoke ! " said one, allowing his voice to
express his impious mood, " if we keep on monkeying
out here ! If we've got to flounder out here all
night ! "
" Oh, we'll never have to stay here all night ! Don't
you worry. They've seen us now, and it won't be
long before they'll come chasing out after us."
The shore grew dusky. The man waving a coat
blended gradually into this gloom, and it swallowed
in the same manner the omnibus and the group of
people. The spray, when it dashed uproariously over
the side, made the voyagers shrink and swear like
men who were being branded.
" I'd like to catch the chump who waved the coat.
I feel like soaking him one, just for luck."
" Why ? What did he do ? "
"Oh, nothing, but then he seemed so damned
cheerful."
In the meantime the oiler rowed, and then the
correspondent rowed, and then the oiler rowed.
Grey-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically,
turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the
lighthouse had vanished from the southern horizon,
but finally a pale star appeared, just lifting from the
sea. The streaked saffron in the west passed before
the all-merging darkness, and the sea to the east
was black. The land had vanished, and was ex
pressed only by the low and drear thunder of the
surf.
" If I am going to be drowned if I am going to be
drowned if I am going to be drowned, why, in the
name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was
THE OPEN BOAT 23
I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and
trees ? Was I brought here merely to have my nose
dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred
cheese of life?"
The patient captain, drooped over the water-jar,
was sometimes obliged to speak to the oarsman.
" Keep her head up ! Keep her head up ! "
" * Keep her head up/ sir." The voices were weary
and low.
This was surely a quiet evening. All save the
oarsman lay heavily and listlessly in the boat's
bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable
of noting the tall black waves that swept forward in
a most sinister silence, save for an occasional subdued
growl of a crest.
The cook's head was on a thwart, and he looked
without interest at the water under his nose. He
was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke. "Billie," /
he murmured, dreamfully, " what kind of pie do you
like best?"
"PlE," said the oiler and the correspondent,
agitatedly. " Don't talk about those things, blast y
you!"
" Well," said the cook, " I was just thinking about
ham sandwiches, and "
A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night.
As darkness settled finally, the shine of the light,
lifting from the sea in the south, changed to full gold.
24 MINOR CONFLICTS
On the northern horizon a new light appeared, a
small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters. These
two lights were the furniture of the world. Otherwise
there was nothing but waves.
Two men huddled in the stern, and distances were
so magnificent in the dingey that the rower was
enabled to keep his feet partly warmed by thrusting
them under his companions. Their legs indeed ex
tended far under the rowing-seat until they touched
the feet of the captain forward. Sometimes, despite
the efforts of the tired oarsman, a wave came piling
into the boat, an icy wave of the night, and the
chilling water soaked them anew. They would twist
their bodies for a moment and groan, and sleep the
dead sleep once more, while the water in the boat
gurgled about them as the craft rocked.
The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was
for one to row until he lost the ability, and then
arouse the other from his sea-water couch in the
bottom of the boat.
The oiler plied the oars until his head drooped
forward, and the overpowering sleep blinded him.
And he rowed yet afterward. Then he touched a
man in the bottom of the boat, and called his name.
"Will you spell me for a little while?" he said,
meekly.
"Sure, Billie," said the correspondent, awakening
and dragging himself to a sitting position. They
exchanged places carefully, and the oiler, cuddling
down in the sea-water at the cook's side, seemed to
go to sleep instantly.
The particular violence of the sea had ceased.
THE OPEN BOAT 25
The waves came without snarling. The obligation
of the man at the oars was to keep the boat headed
so that the tilt of the rollers would not capsize her,
and to preserve her from filling when the crests
rushed past. The black waves were silent and
hard to be seen in the darkness. Often one was
almost upon the boat before the oarsman was
aware.
In a low voice the correspondent addressed the
captain. He was not sure that the captain was
awake, although this iron man seemed to be always
awake. " Captain, shall I keep her making for that
light north, sir ? "
The same steady voice answered him. "Yes. ;
Keep it about two points off the port bow."
The cook had tied a life-belt around himself in
order to get even the warmth which this clumsy cork
contrivance could donate, and he seemed almost
stove-like when a rower, whose teeth invariably
chattered wildly as soon as he ceased his labour,
dropped down to sleep.
The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at
the two men sleeping under-foot. The cook's arm
was around the oiler's shoulders, and, with their
fragmentary clothing and haggard faces, they were
the babes of the sea, a grotesque rendering of the
old babes in the wood.
Later he must have grown stupid at his work, for
suddenly there was a growling of water, and a crest
came with a roar and a swash into the boat, and it
was a wonder that it did not set the cook afloat in
his life-belt. The cook continued to sleep, but the
26 MINOR CONFLICTS
oiler sat up, blinking his eyes and shaking with the
new cold.
" Oh, I'm awful sorry, Billie," said the correspondent
contritely.
" That's all right, old boy," said the oiler, and lay
down again and was asleep.
Presently it seemed that even the captain dozed,
and the correspondent thought that he was the one
man afloat on all the oceans. The wind had a voice
as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than
the end.
There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat,
and a gleaming trail of phosphorescence, like blue
flame, was furrowed on the black waters. It might
have been made by a monstrous knife.
Then there came a stillness, while the correspond
ent breathed with the open mouth and looked at the
sea.
Suddenly there was another swish and another
long flash of bluish light, and this time it was
alongside the boat, and might almost have been
reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an
enormous fin speed like a shadow through the water,
hurling the crystalline spray and leaving the long
glowing trail.
The correspondent looked over his shoulder at the
captain. His face was hidden, and he seemed to be
asleep. He looked at the babes of the sea. They
certainly were asleep. So, being bereft of sympathy,
he leaned a little way to one side and swore softly
into the sea.
But the thing did not then leave the vicinity of
THE OPEN BOAT 27
the boat. Ahead or astern, on one side or the other,
at intervals long or short, fled the long sparkling
streak, and there was to be heard the whiroo of the
dark fin. The speed and power of the thing was
greatly to be admired. It cut the water like a
gigantic and keen projectile.
The presence of this biding thing did not affect
the man with the same horror that it would if he had
been a picnicker. He simply looked at the sea dully
and swore in an undertone.
Nevertheless, it is true that he did not wish to be
alone. He wished one of his companions to awaken
by chance and keep him company with it. But the
captain hung motionless over the water-jar, and the
oiler and the cook in the bottom of the boat were
plunged in slumber.
VI
" IF I am going to be drowned if I am going to
be drowned if I am going to be drowned, why, in
the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate
sand and trees ? "
During this dismal night, it may be remarked that
a man would conclude that it was really the intention
of the seven mad gods to drown him, despite the
abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly
an abominable injustice to drown a man who had
worked so hard, so hard. The man felt it would be
a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned
28 MINOR CONFLICTS
at sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but
still
When it occurs to a man that nature does not
regard him as important, and that she feels she
would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and
he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and
no temples. Any visible expression of nature would
surely be pelleted with his jeers.
Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels,
perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and
indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands
supplicant, saying : " Yes, but I love myself."
A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he
feels that she says to him. Thereafter he knows the
pathos of his situation.
The men in the dingey had not discussed these
matters, but each had, no doubt, reflected upon them
in silence and according to his mind. There was
seldom any expression upon their faces save the
general one of complete weariness. Speech was
devoted to the business of the boat.
To chime the notes of his emotion, a verse mysteri
ously entered the correspondent's head. He had
even forgotten that he had forgotten this verse, but
it suddenly was in his mind.
" A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of
woman's tears ;
But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade's
hand,
And he said : ' I shall never see my own, my native land/ "
THE OPEN BOAT 29
In his childhood, the correspondent had been made
acquainted with the fact that a soldier of the Legion
lay dying in Algiers, but he had never regarded the
fact as important. Myriads of his school-fellows had
informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning
had naturally ended by making him perfectly in
different. He had never considered it his affair that
a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had
it appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was
less to him than the breaking of a pencil's point.
Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human,
living thing. It was no longer merely a picture of a
few throes in the breast of a poet, meanwhile drinking
tea and warming his feet at the grate ; it was an
actuality stern, mournful, and fine.
The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay
on the sand with his feet out straight and still.
While his pale left hand was upon his chest in an
attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood
came between his fingers. In the far Algerian
distance, a city of low square forms was set against
a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The
correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the
slow and slower movements of the lips of the soldier,
was moved by a profound and perfectly impersonal
comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the
Legion who lay dying in Algiers.
The thing which had followed the boat and waited,
had evidently grown bored at the delay. There was
no longer to be heard the slash of the cut-water, and
there was no longer the flame of the long trail. The
light in the north still glimmered, but it was apparently
30 MINOR CONFLICTS
no nearer to the boat. Sometimes the boom of the
surf rang in the correspondent's ears, and he turned
the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward,
some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach.
It was too low and too far to be seen, but it made a
shimmering, roseate reflection upon the bluff back of
it, and this could be discerned from the boat. The
wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly
raged out like a mountain-cat, and there was to be
seen the sheen and sparkle of a broken crest.
The captain, in the bow, moved on his water-jar
and sat erect. " Pretty long night," he observed to
the correspondent. He looked at the shore. " Those
life-saving people take their time."
" Did you see that shark playing around ? "
" Yes, I saw him. He was a big fellow, all right."
" Wish I had known you were awake."
Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of
the boat.
" Billie ! " There was a slow and gradual dis
entanglement. " Billie, will you spell me ? "
" Sure," said the oiler.
As soon as the correspondent touched the cold
comfortable sea-water in the bottom of the boat, and
had huddled close to the cook's life-belt he was deep
in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the
popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it
was but a moment before he heard a voice call his
name in a tone that demonstrated the last stages of
exhaustion. " Will you spell me ? "
" Sure, Billie."
The light in the north had mysteriously vanished,
THE OPEN BOAT 31
but the correspondent took his course from the wide
awake captain.
Later in the night they took the boat farther out
to sea, and the captain directed the cook to take one
oar at the stern and keep the boat facing the seas.
He was to call out if he should hear the thunder of
the surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the corre
spondent to get respite together. " We'll give those
boys a chance to get into shape again," said the
captain. They curled down and, after a few pre
liminary chatterings and trembles, slept once more
the dead sleep. Neither knew they had bequeathed
to the cook the company of another shark, or perhaps
the same shark.
As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasion
ally bumped over the side and gave them a fresh
soaking, but this had no power to break their repose.
The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected
them as it would have affected mummies.
"Boys," said the cook, with the notes of every
reluctance in his voice, " she's drifted in pretty close.
I guess one of you had better take her to sea again."
The correspondent, aroused, heard the crash of the
toppled crests.
As he was rowing, the captain gave him some
whisky-and-water, and this steadied the chills out of
him. " If I ever get ashore and anybody shows me
even a photograph of an oar "
At last there was a short conversation.
" Billie. . . . Billie, will you spell me ?"
" Sure," said the oiler.
32 MINOR CONFLICTS
VII
WHEN the correspondent again opened his eyes,
the sea and the sky were each of the grey hue of the
dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted upon
the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its
splendour, with a sky of pure blue, and the sunlight
flamed on the tips of the waves.
On the distant dunes were set many little black
cottages, and a tall white windmill reared above them.
No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared on the beach.
The cottages might have formed a deserted village.
The voyagers scanned the shore. A conference
was held in the boat. " Well," said the captain, " if no
help is coming we might better try a run through the
surf right away. If we stay out here much longer we
will be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all."
The others silently acquiesced in this reasoning. The
boat was headed for the beach. The correspondent
wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower,
and if then they never looked seaward. This tower was
a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants.
It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the
serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual
nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of
men. She did not seem cruel to him then, nor bene
ficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was indif
ferent, flatly indifferent. It is, perhaps, plausible that
a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern
of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of
his life, and have them taste wickedly in his mind and
THE OPEN BOAT 33
wish for another chance. A distinction between right
and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in this
new ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands
that if he were given another opportunity he would \ M
mend his conduct and his words, and be better and ]
brighter during an introduction or at a tea. / I
" Now, boys," said the captain, " she is going to
swamp, sure. All we can do is to work her in as far
as possible, and then when she swamps, pile out and
scramble for the beach. Keep cool now, and don't
jump until she swamps sure."
The oiler took the oars. Over his shoulders he
scanned the surf. " Captain," he said, " I think I'd
better bring her about, and keep her head-on to the
seas and back her in."
" All right, Billie," said the captain. " Back her in."
The oiler swung the boat then and, seated in the
stern, the cook and the correspondent were obliged
to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely
and indifferent shore.
The monstrous in-shore rollers heaved the boat high
until the men were again enabled to see the white
sheets of water scudding up the slanted beach. " We
won't get in very close," said the captain. Each time
a man could wrest his attention from the rollers, he
turned his glance toward the shore, and in the ex.
pression of the eyes during this contemplation there
was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing
the others, knew that they were not afraid, but the full
meaning of their glances was shrouded.
As for himself, he was too tired to grapple funda-^
mentally with the fact. He tried to coerce his mind
34 MINOR CONFLICTS
into thinking of it, but the mind was dominated at
this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they
did not care. It merely occurred to him that if he
should drown it would be a shame.
There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain
agitation. The men simply looked at the shore.
" Now, remember to get well clear of the boat when
you jump," said the captain.
Seaward the crest of a roller suddenly fell with a
thunderous crash, and the long white comber came
roaring down upon the boat.
"Steady now," said the captain. The men were
silent. They turned their eyes from the shore to the
comber and waited. The boat slid up the incline,
leaped at the furious top, bounced over it, and swung
down the long back of the wave. Some water had
been shipped and the cook bailed it out.
But the next crest crashed also. The tumbling
boiling flood of white water caught the boat and
whirled it almost perpendicular. Water swarmed in
from all sides. The correspondent had his hands on
the gunwale at this time, and when the water entered
at that place he swiftly withdrew his fingers, as if he
objected to wetting them.
The little boat, drunken with this weight of water,
reeled and snuggled deeper into the sea.
"Bail her out, cook! Bail her out," said the
captain,
" All right, captain," said the cook.
" Now, boys, the next one will do for us, sure," said
the oilen " Mind to jump clear of the boat."
The third wave moved forward, huge, furious,
THE OPEN BOAT 35
implacable. It fairly swallowed the dingey, and
almost simultaneously the men tumbled into the sea.
A piece of lifebelt had lain in the bottom of the boat,
and as the correspondent went overboard he held this
to his chest with his left hand.
The January water was icy, and he reflected ,
immediately that it was colder than he had expected
to find it off the coast of Florida. This appeared to
his dazed mind as a fact important enough to be
noted at the time. The coldness of the water was
sad ; it was tragic. This fact was somehow so mixed
and confused with his opinion of his own situation
that it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The
water was cold.
When he came to the surface he was conscious of
little but the noisy water. Afterward he saw his
companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead in the
race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly. Off
to the correspondent's left, the cook's great white and
corked back bulged out of the water, and in the rear
the captain was hanging with his one good hand to
the keel of the overturned dingey.
There is a certain immovable quality to a shore,
and the correspondent wondered at it amid the con
fusion of the sea.
It seemed also very attractive, but the correspond*
ent knew that it was a long journey, and he paddled
leisurely. The piece of life-preserver lay under him,
and sometimes he whirled down the incline of a wave
as if he were on a hand-sled.
But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where
travel was beset with difficulty. He did not pause
36 MINOR CONFLICTS
swimming to inquire what manner of current had
caught him, but there his progress ceased. The shore
was set before him like a bit of scenery on a stage,
and he looked at it and understood with his eyes each
detail of it.
As the cook passed, much farther to the left, the
captain was calling to him, " Turn over on your back,
cook ! Turn over on your back and use the oar."
" All right, sir." The cook turned on his back,
and, paddling with an oar, went ahead as if he were a
canoe.
Presently the boat also passed to the left of the
correspondent with the captain clinging with one
hand to the keel. He would have appeared like a
man raising himself to look over a board fence, if it
were not for the extraordinary gymnastics of the boat.
The correspondent marvelled that the captain could
still hold to it.
They passed on, nearer to shore the oiler, the
cook, the captain and following them went the
water-jar, bouncing gaily over the seas.
The correspondent remained in the grip of this
strange new enemy a current. The shore, with its
white slope of sand and its green bluff, topped with
little silent cottages, was spread like a picture before
him. It was very near to him then, but he was im
pressed as one who in a gallery looks at a scene from
Brittany or Holland.
He thought : " I am going to drown ? Can it be
possible ? Can it be possible ? Can it be possible ? "
| Perhaps an individual must consider his own death to
be the final phenomenon of nature.
THE OPEN BOAT 37
But later a wave perhaps whirled him out of this
small deadly current, for he found suddenly that he
could again make progress toward the shore. Later
still, he was aware that the captain, clinging with one
hand to the keel of the dingey, had his face turned
away from the shore and toward him, and was call
ing his name. " Come to the boat ! Come to the
boat!"
In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat,
he reflected that when one gets properly wearied,
drowning must really be a comfortable arrangement,
a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large
degree of relief, and he was glad of it, for the main
thing in his mind for some moments had been
horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to
be hurt.
Presently he saw a man running along the shore.
He was undressing with most remarkable speed.
Coat, trousers, shirt, everything flew magically off
him.
" Come to the boat," called the captain.
"All right, captain." As the correspondent pad
dled, he saw the captain let himself down to bottom
and leave the boat. Then the correspondent per
formed his one little marvel of the voyage. A large
wave caught him and flung him with ease and
supreme speed completely over the boat and far
beyond it. It struck him even then as an event in
gymnastics, and a true miracle of the sea. An over
turned boat in the surf is not a plaything to a
swimming man.
38 MINOR CONFLICTS
The correspondent arrived in water that reached
only to his waist, but his condition did not enable him
to stand for more than a moment. Each wave
knocked him into a heap, and the under-tow pulled
at him.
Then he saw the man who had been running and
undressing, and undressing and running, come bound
ing into the water. He dragged ashore the cook, and
then waded towards the captain, but the captain
waved him away, and sent him to the correspondent.
He was naked, naked as a tree in winter, but a halo
was about his head, and he shone like a saint. He
gave a strong pull, and a long drag, and a bully
heave at the correspondent's hand. The correspond
ent, schooled in the minor formulae, said : " Thanks,
old man." But suddenly the man cried: "What's
that ? " He pointed a swift ringer. The correspond
ent said : " Go."
In the shallows, face downward, lay the oiler. His
forehead touched sand that was periodically, between
each wave, clear of the sea.
The correspondent did not know all that transpired
afterward. When he achieved safe ground he fell,
striking the sand with each particular part of his
body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof, but
the thud was grateful to him.
It seems that instantly the beach was populated
with men with blankets, clothes, and flasks, and
women with coffee-pots and all the remedies sacred
to their minds. The welcome of the land to the men
from the sea was warm and generous, but a still and
THE OPEN BOAT 39
dripping shape was carried slowly up the beach, and
the land's welcome for it could only be the different
and sinister hospitality of the grave.
When it came night, the white waves paced to and
fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound
of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they
felt that they could then be interpreters.
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS
DARK mesquit spread from horizon to horizon.
There was no house or horseman from which a mind
could evolve a city or a crowd. The world was
declared to be a desert and unpeopled. Sometimes,
however, on days when no heat-mist arose, a blue
shape, dim, of the substance of a spectre's veil,
appeared in the south-west, and a pondering sheep-
herder might remember that there were mountains.
In the silence of these plains the sudden and
childish banging of a tin pan could have made an
iron-nerved man leap into the air. The sky was ever
flawless ; the manoeuvring of clouds was an unknown
pageant ; but at times a sheep-herder could see, miles
away, the long, white streamers of dust rising from
the feet of another's flock, and the interest became
intense.
Bill was arduously cooking his dinner, bending over
the fire, and toiling like a blacksmith. A movement,
a flash of strange colour, perhaps, off in the bushes,
caused him suddenly to turn his head. Presently he
43
44 MINOR CONFLICTS
arose, and, shading his eyes with his hand, stood
motionless and gazing. He perceived at last a
Mexican sheep-herder winding through the brush
toward his camp.
" Hello ! " shouted Bill.
The Mexican made no answer, but came steadily
forward until he was within some twenty yards.
There he paused, and, folding his arms, drew himself
up in the manner affected by the villain in the play.
His scrape muffled the lower part of his face, and his
great sombrero shaded his brow. Being unexpected
and also silent, he had something of the quality of
an apparition ; moreover, it was clearly his intention
to be mysterious and devilish.
The American's pipe, sticking carelessly in the
corner of his mouth, was twisted until the wrong side
was uppermost, and he held his frying-pan poised
in the air. He surveyed with evident surprise this
apparition in the mesquit. " Hello, Jose ! " he said ;
"what's the matter?"
The Mexican spoke with the solemnity of funeral
tollings : " Beel, you mus' geet off range. We want
you geet off range. We no like. Un'erstan' ? We
no like."
"What you talking about?" said Bill. "No like
what?"
" We no like you here. Un'erstan' ? Too mooch.
You mus' geet out. We no like. Un'erstan' ? "
" Understand ? No ; I don't know what the blazes
you're gittki' at." Bill's eyes wavered in bewilder
ment, and his jaw fell. " I must git out ? I must
git off the range ? What you givin' us ? "
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 45
The Mexican unfolded his scrape with his small
yellow hand. Upon his face was then to be seen a
smile that was gently, almost caressingly murderous.
" Beel," he said, " geet out ! "
Bill's arm dropped until the frying-pan was at his
knee. Finally he turned again toward the fire. " Go
on, you dog-gone little yaller rat ! " he said over his
shoulder. " You fellers can't chase me off this range.
I got as much right here as anybody."
" Beel," answered the other in a vibrant tone,
thrusting his head forward and moving one foot,
"you geet out or we keel you."
" Who will ? " said Bill.
"I and the others." The Mexican tapped his
breast gracefully.
Bill reflected for a time, and then he said : " You
ain't got no manner of license to warn me ofFn this
range, and I won't move a rod. Understand ? I've
got rights, and I suppose if I don't see 'em through,
no one is likely to give me a good hand and help me
lick you fellers, since I'm the only white man in half
a day's ride. Now, look; if you fellers try to rush
this camp, I'm goin' to plug about fifty per cent, of
the gentlemen present, sure. I'm goin' in for trouble,
an' I'll git a lot of you. 'Nuther thing : if I was a
fine valuable caballero like you, I'd stay in the rear
till the shootin' was done, because I'm goin' to
make a particular p'int of shootin' you through the
chest." He grinned affably, and made a gesture of
dismissal.
As for the Mexican, he waved his hands in a
consummate expression of indifference. " Oh, all
46 MINOR CONFLICTS
right," he said. Then, in a tone of deep menace and
glee, he added : " We will keel you eef you no geet.
They have decide."
" They have, have they ? " said Bill. " Well, you
tell them to go to the devil ! "
II
BILL had been a mine-owner in Wyoming, a great
man, an aristocrat, one who possessed unlimited credit
in the saloons down the gulch. He had the social
weight that could interrupt a lynching or advise a
bad man of the particular merits of a remote geo
graphical point. However, the fates exploded the
toy balloon with which they had amused Bill, and on
the evening of the same day he was a professional
gambler with ill-fortune dealing him unspeakable
irritation in the shape of three big cards whenever
another fellow stood pat. It is well here to inform
the world that Bill considered his calamities of life
all dwarfs in comparison with the excitement of one
particular evening, when three kings came to him
with criminal regularity against a man who always
filled a straight. Later he became a cow-boy, more
weirdly abandoned than if he had never been an
aristocrat. By this time all that remained of his
former splendour was his pride, or his vanity, which
was one thing which need not have remained. He
killed the foreman of the ranch over an inconsequent
matter as to which of them was a liar, and the
midnight train carried him eastward. He became a
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 47
brakeman on the Union Pacific, and really gained
high honours in the hobo war that for many years
has devastated the beautiful railroads of our country.
A creature of ill-fortune himself, he practised all the
ordinary cruelties upon these other creatures of ill-
fortune. He was of so fierce a mien that tramps
usually surrendered at once whatever coin or tobacco
they had in their possession ; and if afterward he
kicked them from the train, it was only because this
was a recognized treachery of the war upon the
hoboes. In a famous battle fought in Nebraska in
1879, he would have achieved a lasting distinction if
it had not been for a deserter from the United States
army. He was at the head of a heroic and sweeping
charge, which really broke the power of the hoboes
in that country for three months ; he had already
worsted four tramps with his own coupling-stick,
when a stone thrown by the ex-third baseman of F
Troop's nine laid him flat on the prairie, and later
enforced a stay in the hospital in Omaha. After his
recovery he engaged with other railroads, and shuffled
cars in countless yards. An order to strike came
upon him in Michigan, and afterward the vengeance
of the railroad pursued him until he assumed a name.
This mask is like the darkness in which the burglar
chooses to move. It destroys many of the healthy
fears. It is a small thing, but it eats that which we
call our conscience. The conductor of No. 419 stood
in the caboose within two feet of Bill's nose, and
called him a liar. Bill requested him to use a milder
term. He had not bored the foreman of Tin Can
Ranch with any such request, but had killed him
48 MINOR CONFLICTS
with expedition. The conductor seemed to insist,
and so Bill let the matter drop.
He became the bouncer of a saloon on the Bowery
in New York. Here most of his fights were as suc
cessful as had been his brushes with the hoboes in
the West. He gained the complete admiration of
the four clean bar-tenders who stood behind the great
and glittering bar. He was an honoured man. He
nearly killed Bad Hennessy, who, as a matter of fact,
had more reputation than ability, and his fame moved
up the Bowery and down the Bowery.
But let a man adopt fighting as his business, and
the thought grows constantly within him that it is his
business to fight. These phrases became mixed in
Bill's mind precisely as they are here mixed ; and let
a man get this idea in his mind, and defeat begins to
move toward him over the unknown ways of circum
stances. One summer night three sailors from the
U. S. S. Seattle sat in the saloon drinking and attend
ing to other people's affairs in an amiable fashion.
Bill was a proud man since he had thrashed so many
citizens, and it suddenly occurred to him that the
loud talk of the sailors was very offensive. So he
swaggered upon their attention, and warned them
that the saloon was the flowery abode of peace and
gentle silence. They glanced at him in surprise, and
without a moment's pause consigned him to a worse
place than any stoker of them knew. Whereupon
he flung one of them through the side door before
the others could prevent it. On the sidewalk there
was a short struggle, with many hoarse epithets in
the air, and then Bill slid into the saloon again. A
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 49
frown of false rage was upon his brow, and he strutted
like a savage king. He took a long yellow night-stick
from behind the lunch-counter, and started import
antly toward the main doors to see that the incensed
seamen did not again enter.
The ways of sailormen are without speech, and,
together in the street, the three sailors exchanged no
word, but they moved at once. Landsmen would
have required two years of discussion to gain such
unanimity. In silence, and immediately, they seized
a long piece of scantling that lay handily. With
one forward to guide the battering-ram, and with
two behind him to furnish the power, they made a
beautiful curve, and came down like the Assyrians
on the front door of that saloon.
Mystic and still mystic are the laws of fate. Bill,
with his kingly frown and his long night-stick, ap
peared at precisely that moment in the doorway.
He stood like a statue of victory ; his pride was at
its zenith; and in the same second this atrocious
piece of scantling punched him in the bulwarks of
his stomach, and he vanished like a mist. Opinions
differed as to where the end of the scantling landed
him, but it was ultimately clear that it landed him
in south-western Texas, where he became a sheep-
herder.
The sailors charged three times upon the plate-
glass front of the saloon, and when they had finished,
it looked as if it had been the victim of a rural fire
company's success in saving it from the flames. As
the proprietor of the place surveyed the ruins, he
remarked that Bill was a very zealous guardian of
E
50 MINOR CONFLICTS
property. As the ambulance surgeon surveyed Bill,
he remarked that the wound was really an excavation.
Ill
As his Mexican friend tripped blithely away, Bill
turned with a thoughtful face to his frying-pan and
his fire. After dinner he drew his revolver from its
scarred old holster, and examined every part of it.
It was the revolver that had dealt death to the
foreman, and it had also been in free fights in which
it had dealt death to several or none. Bill loved it
because its allegiance was more than that of man,
horse, or dog. It questioned neither social nor moral
position ; it obeyed alike the saint and the assassin.
It was the claw of the eagle, the tooth of the lion,
the poison of the snake ; and when he swept it from
its holster, this minion smote where he listed, even to
the battering of a far penny. Wherefore it was his
dearest possession, and was not to be exchanged in
south-western Texas for a handful of rubies, nor even
the shame and homage of the conductor of No. 419.
During the afternoon he moved through his mono
tony of work and leisure with the same air of deep
meditation. The smoke of his supper-time fire was
curling across the shadowy sea of mesquit when the
instinct of the plainsman warned him that the still
ness, the desolation, was again invaded. He saw a
motionless horseman in black outline against the
pallid sky. The silhouette displayed serape and
sombrero, and even the Mexican spurs as large as
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 51
pies. When this black figure began to move toward
the camp, Bill's hand dropped to his revolver.
The horseman approached until Bill was enabled to
sec pronounced American features, and a skin too red
to grow on a Mexican face. Bill released his grip on
his revolver.
" Hello ! " called the horseman.
" Hello ! " answered Bill.
The horseman cantered forward. " Good evening,"
he said, as he again drew rein.
" Good evenin'," answered Bill, without committing
himself by too much courtesy.
For a moment the two men scanned each other
in a way that is not ill-mannered on the plains,
where one is in danger of meeting horse-thieves or
tourists.
Bill saw a type which did not belong in the mesquit.
The young fellow had invested in some Mexican
trappings of an expensive kind. Bill's eyes searched
the outfit for some sign of craft, but there was none.
Even with his local regalia, it was clear that the
young man was of a far, black Northern city. He
had discarded the enormous stirrups of his Mexican
saddle ; he used the small English stirrup, and his
feet were thrust forward until the steel tightly gripped
his ankles. As Bill's eyes travelled over the stranger,
they lighted suddenly upon the stirrups and the thrust
feet, and immediately he smiled in a friendly way.
No dark purpose could dwell in the innocent heart of
a man who rode thus on the plains.
As for the stranger, he saw a tattered individual
with a tangle of hair and beard, and with a com-
52 MINOR CONFLICTS
plexion turned brick-colour from the sun and whisky.
He saw a pair of eyes that at first looked at him as
the wolf looks at the wolf, and then became childlike,
almost timid, in their glance. Here was evidently
a man who had often stormed the iron walls of the
city of success, and who now sometimes valued him
self as the rabbit values his prowess.
The stranger smiled genially, and sprang from his
horse. "Well, sir, I suppose you will let me camp
here with you to-night ? "
"Eh? "said Bill.
" I suppose you will let me camp here with you
to-night ? "
Bill for a time seemed too astonished for words.
" Well," he answered, scowling in inhospitable annoy
ance " well, I don't believe this here is a good place
to camp to-night, mister."
The stranger turned quickly from his saddle-girth.
" What ? " he said in surprise. " You don't want me
here ? You don't want me to camp here ? "
Bill's feet scuffled awkwardly, and he looked
steadily at a cactus plant. " Well, you see, mister,"
he said, " I'd like your company well enough, but
you see, some of these here greasers are goin' to chase
me off the range to-night ; and while I might like a
man's company all right, I couldn't let him in for
no such game when he ain't got nothin' to do with
the trouble."
" Going to chase you off the range ? " cried the
stranger.
"Well, they said they were goin' to do it," said
Bill.
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 53
" And great heavens ! will they kill you, do you
think?"
" Don't know. Can't tell till afterwards. You see,
they take some feller that's alone like me, and then
they rush his camp when he ain't quite ready for 'em,
and ginerally plug 'im with a sawed-off shot-gun load
before he has a chance to git at 'em. They lay
around and wait for their chance, and it comes soon
enough. Of course a feller alone like me has got to
let up watching some time. Maybe they ketch 'im
asleep. Maybe the feller gits tired waiting, and goes
out in broad day, and kills two or three just to make
the whole crowd pile on him and settle the thing. I
heard of a case like that once. It's awful hard on a
man's mind to git a gang after him."
" And so they're going to rush your camp to-night ?"
cried the stranger. " How do you know ? Who told
you ? "
" Feller come and told me. ;>
" And what are you going to do ? Fight ? "
" Don't see nothin' else to do," answered Bill
gloomily, still staring at the cactus plant.
There was a silence. Finally the stranger burst
out in an amazed cry. "Well, I never heard of
such a thing in my life ! How many of them are
there ? "
" Eight," answered Bill. " And now look-a-here ;
you ain't got no manner of business foolin' around
here just now, and you might better lope off before
dark. I don't ask no help in this here row. I know
your happening along here just now don't give me
no call on you, and you better hit the trail."
54 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Well, why in the name of wonder don't you go
get the sheriff? " cried the stranger.
"Oh,h !" said Bill.
IV
LONG, smoldering clouds spread in the western sky,
and to the east silver mists lay on the purple gloom
of the wilderness.
Finally, when the great moon climbed the heavens
and cast its ghastly radiance upon the bushes, it
made a new and more brilliant crimson of the camp-
fire, where the flames capered merrily through its
mesquit branches, rilling the silence with the fire
chorus, an ancient melody which surely bears a
message of the inconsequence of individual tragedy
a message that is in the boom of the sea, the sliver
of the wind through the grass-blades, the silken clash
of hemlock boughs.
No figures moved in the rosy space of the camp,
and the search of the moonbeams failed to disclose a
living thing in the bushes. There was no owl-faced
clock to chant the weariness of the long silence that
brooded upon the plain.
The dew gave the darkness under the mesquit a
velvet quality that made air seem nearer to water,
and no eye could have seen through it the black
things that moved like monster lizards toward the
camp. The branches, the leaves, that are fain to cry
out when death approaches in the wilds, were
frustrated by these uncanny bodies gliding with the
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 55
finesse of the escaping serpent. They crept forward
to the last point where assuredly no frantic attempt
of the fire could discover them, and there they paused
to locate the prey. A romance relates the tale of the
black cell hidden deep in the earth, where, upon
entering, one sees only the little eyes of snakes fixing
him in menaces. If a man could have approached
a certain spot in the bushes, he would not have found
it romantically necessary to have his hair rise. There
would have been a sufficient expression of horror in
the feeling of the death-hand at the nape of his neck
and in his rubber knee-joints.
Two of these bodies finally moved toward each
other until for each there grew out of the darkness a
face placidly smiling with tender dreams of assassina
tion. " The fool is asleep by the fire, God be praised !"
The lips of the other widened in a grin of affectionate
appreciation of the fool and his plight. There was
some signaling in the gloom, and then began a series
of subtle rustlings, interjected often with pauses, during
which no sound arose but the sound of faint breathing.
A bush stood like a rock in the stream of firelight,
sending its long shadow backward. With painful
caution the little company travelled along this shadow,
and finally arrived at the rear of the bush. Through
its branches they surveyed for a moment of com
fortable satisfaction a form in a grey blanket extended
on the ground near the fire. The smile of joyful
anticipation fled quickly, to give place to a quiet air
of business. Two men lifted shot-guns with much of
the barrels gone, and sighting these weapons through
the branches, pulled trigger together.
56 MINOR CONFLICTS
The noise of the explosions roared over the lonely
mesquit as if these guns wished to inform the entire
world ; and as the grey smoke fled, the dodging
company back of the bush saw the blanketed form
twitching. Whereupon they burst out in chorus in a
laugh, and arose as merry as a lot of banqueters.
They gleefully gestured congratulations, and strode
bravely into the light of the fire.
Then suddenly a new laugh rang from some un
known spot in the darkness. It was a fearsome laugh
of ridicule, hatred, ferocity. It might have been
demoniac. It smote them motionless in their gleeful
prowl, as the stern voice from the sky smites the
legendary malefactor. They might have been a weird
group in wax, the light of the dying fire on their
yellow faces, and shining athwart their eyes turned
toward the darkness whence might come the unknown
and the terrible.
The thing in the grey blanket no longer twitched ;
but if the knives in their hands had been thrust
toward it, each knife was now drawn back, and its
owner's elbow was thrown upward, as if he expected
death from the clouds.
This laugh had so chained their reason that for a
moment they had no wit to flee. They were prisoners
to their terror. Then suddenly the belated decision
arrived, and with bubbling cries they turned to run ;
but at that instant there was a long flash of red in the
darkness, and with the report one of the men shouted
a bitter shout, spun once, and tumbled headlong. The
thick bushes failed to impede the rout of the others.
The silence returned to the wilderness. The tired
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 57
flames faintly illumined the blanketed thing and the
flung corse of the marauder, and sang the fire chorus,
the ancient melody which bears the message of the
inconsequence of human tragedy.
V
" Now you are worse off than ever," said the young
man, dry-voiced and awed.
"No, I ain't," said Bill rebelliously. "I'm one
ahead."
After reflection, the stranger remarked, "Well,
there's seven more."
They were cautiously and slowly approaching the
camp. The sun was flaring its first warming rays
over the grey wilderness. Upreared twigs, prominent
branches, shone with golden light, while the shadows
under the mesquit were heavily blue.
Suddenly the stranger uttered a frightened cry.
He had arrived at a point whence he had, through
openings in the thicket, a clear view of a dead face.
" Gosh ! " said Bill, who at the next instant had
seen the thing ; " I thought at first it was that there
Jose. That would have been queer, after what I told
7 im yesterday."
They continued their way, the stranger wincing in
his walk, and Bill exhibiting considerable curiosity.
The yellow beams of the new sun were touching the
grim hues of the dead Mexican's face, and creating
there an inhuman effect, which made his countenance
more like a mask of dulled brass. One hand, grown
58 MINOR CONFLICTS
curiously thinner, had been flung out regardlessly to a
cactus bush.
Bill walked forward and stood looking respectfully
at the body. " I know that feller ; his name is Miguel.
He "
The stranger's nerves might have been in that
condition when there is no backbone to the body, only
a long groove. " Good heavens ! " he exclaimed, much
agitated ; " don't speak that way ! "
"What way?" said Bill. "I only said his name
was Miguel."
After a pause the stranger said :
"Oh, I know; but " He waved his hand.
" Lower your voice, or something. I don't know.
This part of the business rattles me, don't you
see?"
" Oh, all right," replied Bill, bowing to the other's
mysterious mood. But in a moment he burst out
violently and loud in the most extraordinary profanity,
the oaths winging from him as the sparks go from the
funnel.
He had been examining the contents of the
bundled grey blanket, and he had brought forth,
among other things, his frying-pan. It was now only
a rim with a handle ; the Mexican volley had centered
upon it. A Mexican shot-gun of the abbreviated
description is ordinarily loaded with flat-irons, stove-
lids, lead pipe, old horseshoes, sections of chain,
window weights, railroad sleepers and spikes, dumb
bells, and any other junk which may be at hand.
When one of these loads encounters a man vitally, it
is likely to make an impression upon him, and a
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 59
cooking-utensil may be supposed to subside before
such an assault of curiosities.
Bill held high his desecrated frying-pan, turning it
this way and that way. He swore until he happened
to note the absence of the stranger. A moment later
he saw him leading his horse from the bushes. In
silence and sullenly the young man went about
saddling the animal. Bill said, " Well, goin' to pull out ? "
The stranger's hands fumbled uncertainly at the
throat-latch. Once he exclaimed irritably, blaming
the buckle for the trembling of his fingers. Once he
turned to look at the dead face with the light of the
morning sun upon it. At last he cried, " Oh, I know
the whole thing was all square enough couldn't be
squarer but somehow or other, that man there
takes the heart out of me." He turned his troubled
face for another look. " He seems to be all the time
calling me a he makes me feel like a murderer."
" But," said Bill, puzzling, " you didn't shoot him,
mister ; I shot him."
" I know ; but I feel that way, somehow. I can't
get rid of it."
Bill considered for a time ; then he said diffidently,
" Mister, you're a eddycated man, ain't you ? "
" What ? "
" You're what they call a a eddycated man, ain't
you?"
The young man, perplexed, evidently had a question
upon his lips, when there was a roar of guns, bright
flashes, and in the air such hooting and whistling as
would come from a swift flock of steam-boilers. The
stranger's horse gave a mighty, convulsive spring,
60 MINOR CONFLICTS
snorting wildly in its sudden anguish, fell upon its
knees, scrambled afoot again, and was away in the
uncanny death run known to men who have seen the
finish of brave horses.
" This comes from discussin' things," cried Bill
angrily.
He had thrown himself flat on the ground facing
the thicket whence had come the firing. He could
see the smoke winding over the bush-tops. He lifted
his revolver, and the weapon came slowly up from the
ground and poised like the glittering crest of a snake.
Somewhere on his face there was a kind of smile,
cynical, wicked, deadly, of a ferocity which at the
same time had brought a deep flush to his face, and
had caused two upright lines to glow in his eyes.
" Hello, Jose ! " he called, amiable for satire's sake.
" Got your old blunderbusses loaded up again yet ? "
The stillness had returned to the plain. The sun's
brilliant rays swept over the sea of mesquit, painting
the far mists of the west with faint rosy light, and
high in the air some great bird fled toward the
south.
" You come out here," called Bill, again addressing
the landscape, " and I'll give you some shootin' lessons.
That ain't the way to shoot." Receiving no reply, he
began to invent epithets and yell them at the thicket.
He was something of a master of insult, and, more
over, he dived into his memory to bring forth impre
cations tarnished with age, unused since fluent Bowery
days. The occupation amused him, and sometimes
he laughed so that it was uncomfortable for his chest
to be against the ground.
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 61
Finally the stranger, prostrate near him, said
wearily, " Oh, they've gone."
" Don't you believe it," replied Bill, sobering swiftly.
" They're there yet every man of 'em."
" How do you know ? "
" Because I do. They won't shake us so soon.
Don't put your head up, or they'll get you, sure."
Bill's eyes, meanwhile, had not wavered from their
scrutiny of the thicket in front. " They're there all
right ; don't you forget it. Now you listen." So he
called out : " Jose ! Ojo, Jose ! Speak up, hombre I I
want have talk. Speak up, you yaller cuss, you ! "
Whereupon a mocking voice from off in the bushes
said, " Senor ? "
"There," said Bill to his ally; "didn't I tell you ?
The whole batch." Again he lifted his voice. " Jose
look ain't you gittin' kinder tired ? You better go
home, you fellers, and git some rest."
The answer was a sudden furious chatter of Spanish,
eloquent with hatred, calling down upon Bill all the
calamities which life holds. It was as if some one had
suddenly enraged a cageful of wild cats. The spirits
of all the revenges which they had imagined were
loosened at this time, and filled the air.
" They're in a holler," said Bill, chuckling, " or
there'd be shootin'."
Presently he began to grow angry. His hidden
enemies called him nine kinds of coward, a man who
could fight only in the dark, a baby who would run
from the shadows of such noble Mexican gentlemen,
a dog that sneaked. They described the affair of the
previous night, and informed him of the base advan-
62 MINOR CONFLICTS
tage he had taken of their friend. In fact, they in all
sincerity endowed him with every quality which he no
less earnestly believed them to possess. One could
have seen the phrases bite him as he lay there on the
ground fingering his revolver.
VI
IT is sometimes taught that men do the furious and
desperate thing from an emotion that is as even and
placid as the thoughts of a village clergyman on
Sunday afternoon. Usually, however, it is to be
believed that a panther is at the time born in the
heart, and that the subject does not resemble a man
picking mulberries.
" B' G ! " said Bill, speaking as from a throat
filled with dust, " I'll go after 'em in a minute."
" Don't you budge an inch ! " cried the stranger,
sternly. " Don't you budge ! "
" Well," said Bill, glaring at the bushes" well"
" Put your head down ! " suddenly screamed the
stranger, in white alarm. As the guns roared, Bill
uttered a loud grunt, and for a moment leaned pant
ing on his elbow, while his arm shook like a twig.
Then he upreared like a great and bloody spirit of
vengeance, his face lighted with the blaze of his
last passion. The Mexicans came swiftly and in
silence.
The lightning action of the next few moments was
of the fabric of dreams to the stranger. The
muscular struggle may not be real to the drowning
A MAN AND SOME OTHERS 63
man. His mind may be fixed on the far, straight
shadows back of the stars, and the terror of them.
And so the fight, and his part in it, had to the
stranger only the quality of a picture half drawn.
The rush of feet, the spatter of shots, the cries, the
swollen faces seen like masks on the smoke, resembled
a happening of the night.
And yet afterward certain lines, forms, lived out
so strongly from the incoherence that they were
always in his memory.
He killed a man, and the thought went swiftly by
him, like the feather on the gale, that it was easy to
kill a man.
Moreover, he suddenly felt for Bill, this grimy
sheep-herder, some deep form of idolatry. Bill was
dying, and the dignity of last defeat, the superiority
of him who stands in his grave, was in the pose of the
lost sheep-herder.
The stranger sat on the ground idly mopping the
sweat and powder-stain from his brow. He wore the
gentle idiot smile of an aged beggar as he watched
three Mexicans limping and staggering in the dis
tance. He noted at this time that one who still
possessed a serape had from it none of the grandeur
of the cloaked Spaniard, but that against the sky the
silhouette resembled a cornucopia of childhood's
Christmas.
They turned to look at him, and he lifted his weary
arm to menace them with his revolver. They stood
for a moment banded together, and hooted curses at
him.
64 MINOR CONFLICTS
Finally he arose, and, walking some paces, stooped
to loosen Bill's grey hands from a throat. Swaying
as if slightly drunk, he stood looking down into the
still face.
Struck suddenly with a thought, he went about
with dulled eyes on the ground, until he plucked his
gaudy blanket from where it lay dirty from trampling
feet He dusted it carefully, and then returned and
laid it over Bill's form. There he again stood
motionless, his mouth just agape and the same stupid
glance in his eyes, when all at once he made a gesture
of fright and looked wildly about him.
He had almost reached the thicket when he
stopped, smitten with alarm. A body contorted, with
one arm stiff in the air, lay in his path. Slowly and
warily he moved around it, and in a moment the
bushes, nodding and whispering, their leaf-faces
turned toward the scene behind him, swung and
swung again into stillness and the peace of the
wilderness.
THE BRIDE COMES TO
YELLOW SKY
THE BRIDE COMES TO
YELLOW SKY
I
THE great Pullman was whirling onward with such
dignity of motion that a glance from the window
seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were
pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-
hued spaces of mesquit and cactus, little groups of
frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all
were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the
horizon, a precipice.
A newly-married pair had boarded this train at
San Antonio. The man's face was reddened from
many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result
of his new black clothes was that his brick-coloured
hands were constantly performing in a most conscious
fashion. From time to time he looked down respect
fully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee,
like a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances
he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy.
The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young.
67
68 MINOR CONFLICTS
She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reserv
ations of velvet here and there, and with steel buttons
abounding. She continually twisted her head to
regard her puff-sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high.
They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that
she had cooked, and that she expected to cook,
dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny
of some passengers as she had entered the car were
strange to see upon this plain, under-class counten
ance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless
lines.
They were evidently very happy. " Ever been
in a parlour-car before?" he asked, smiling with
delight.
" No," she answered ; " I never was. It's fine,
ain't it?"
" Great. And then, after a while, we'll go forward
to the diner, and get a big lay-out. Finest meal in
the world. Charge, a dollar."
" Oh, do they ? " cried the bride. " Charge a dollar ?
Why, that's too much for us ain't it, Jack ? "
" Not this trip, anyhow," he answered bravely.
"We're going to go the whole thing."
Later, he explained to her about the train. " You
see, it's a thousand miles from one end of Texas to
the other, and this train runs right across it, and never
stops but four times."
He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to
her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and, in truth,
her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-
green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and
glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 69
the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze
figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber,
and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescoes
in olive and silver.
To the minds of the pair, their surroundings re
flected the glory of their marriage that morning in
San Antonio. This was the environment of their
new estate, and the man's face, in particular, beamed
with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to
the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed
them from afar with an amused and superior grin.
On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways
that did not make it exactly plain to them that they
were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners
of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He
oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small
knowledge, and they speedily forgot that unfrequently
a number of travellers covered them with stares of
derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed
to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.
"We are due in Yellow Sky at 3.42," he said,
looking tenderly into her eyes.
" Oh, are we ? " she said, as if she had not been
aware of it.
To evince surprise at her husband's statement was
part of her wifely amiability. She took from a
pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before
her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the
new husband's face shone.
" I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine,"
he told her gleefully.
" It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said,
70 MINOR CONFLICTS
looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy
coquetry.
A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively
sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the
numerous mirrors.
At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of
negro waiters in dazzling white suits surveyed their
entrance with the interest, and also the equanimity,
of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to
the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in
steering them through their meal. He viewed them
with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance
radiant with benevolence. The patronage entwined
with the ordinary deference was not palpable to them.
And yet as they returned to their coach they showed
in their faces a sense of escape.
To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a
little ribbon of mist, where moved the keening Rio
Grande. The train was approaching it at an angle,
and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was
apparent that as the distance from Yellow Sky grew
shorter, the husband became commensurately restless.
His brick-red hands were more insistent in their
prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-
minded and far away when the bride leaned forward
and addressed him.
As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to
find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a
leaden slab. He, the town-marshal of Yellow Sky, a
man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a promi
nent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl
he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers,
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 71
had actually induced her to marry him without con
sulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction.
He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and
unsuspecting community.
Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it
pleased them in accordance with a general custom,
but such was Potter's thought of his duty to his
friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken
form which does not control men in these matters,
that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an
extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in
San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he
had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At
San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark.
A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was
easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of
Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching.
He knew full well that his marriage was an im
portant thing to his town. It could only be exceeded
by the burning of the new hotel. His friends would
not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected upon
the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a
new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do
it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a
scene of amazement, glee, reproach. He glanced out
of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in
toward the train.
Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band which played
painfully to the delight of the populace. He laughed
without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens
could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride,
they would parade the band at the station, and escort
72 MINOR CONFLICTS
them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to
his adobe home.
He resolved that he would use all the devices of
speed and plainscraft in making the journey from the
station to his house. Once within that safe citadel,
he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then
not go among the citizens until they had time to wear
off a little of their enthusiasm.
The bride looked anxiously at him. " What's
worrying you, Jack?"
He laughed again. " I'm not worrying, girl. I'm
only thinking of Yellow Sky."
She flushed in comprehension.
A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds, and
developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each
other with eyes softly aglow. But Potter often
laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon
the bride's face seemed quite permanent.
The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly
watched the speeding landscape.
" We're nearly there," he said.
Presently the porter came and announced the
proximity of Potter's home. He held a brush in his
hand, and, with all his airy superiority gone, he
brushed Potter's new clothes, as the latter slowly
turned this way and that way. Potter fumbled out a
coin, and gave it to the porter as he had seen others
do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as
that of a man shoeing his first horse.
The porter took their bag, and, as the train began
to slow, they moved forward to the hooded platform
of the car. Presently the two engines and their long
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 73
string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow
Sky.
" They have to take water here," said Potter, from
a constricted throat, and in mournful cadence as one
announcing death. Before the train stopped his eye
had swept the length of the platform, and he was
glad and astonished to see there was no one upon it
but the station-agent, who, with a slightly hurried and
anxious air, was walking toward the water-tanks.
When the train had halted, the porter alighted first
and placed in position a little temporary step.
" Come on, girl," said Potter, hoarsely.
As he helped her down, they each laughed on a
false note. He took the bag from the negro, and
bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk rapidly
away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were
unloading the two trunks, and also that the station-
agent, far ahead, near the baggage-car, had turned,
and was running toward him, making gestures. He
laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted
the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky.
He gripped his wife's arm firmly to his side, and
they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling
fatuously.
II
THE California Express on the Southron Railway
was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There
were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman
saloon. One was a drummer, who talked a great
74 MINOR CONFLICTS
deal and rapidly ; three were Texans, who did not
care to talk at that time ; and two were Mexican
sheep-herders, who did not talk as a general practice
in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's
dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the
door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced
drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance
of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the
sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so
wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned
near them in a blazing sun, that they caused a doubt
in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass-mats
used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler
end of the railway-station a man without a coat sat
in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut
bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and
there could be seen beyond it a., great plum-coloured
plain of mesquit.
Save for the busy drummer and his companions in
the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. The new-comer
leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited many
tales with the confidence of a bard who has come
upon a new field.
" And at the moment that the old man fell down
stairs, with the bureau in his arms, the old woman
was coming up with two scuttles of coal, and, of
course "
The drummer's tale was interrupted by a young
man who suddenly appeared in the open door. He
cried
" Scratchy Wilson's drunk, and has turned loose
with both hands."
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 75
The two Mexicans at once set down their glasses,
and faded out of the rear entrance of the saloon.
The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered
"All right, old man. S'pose he has. Come and
have a drink, anyhow."
But the information had made such an obvious
cleft in every skull in the room, that the drummer
was obliged to see its importance. All had become
instantly morose.
" Say," said he, mystified, " what is this ? "
His three companions made the introductory
gesture of eloquent speech, but the young man at the
door forestalled them.
" It means, my friend," he answered, as he came
into the saloon, "that for the next two hours this
town won't be a health resort."
The bar-keeper went to the door, and locked and
barred it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in
heavy wooden shutters and barred them. Immedi
ately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the
place. The drummer was looking from one to
another.
" But say," he cried, " what is this, anyhow ? You
don't mean there is going to be a gun-fight ? "
"Don't know whether there'll be a fight or not,"
answered one man grimly. "But there'll be some
shootin' some good shootin'."
The young man who had warned them waved his
hand. "Oh, there'll be a fight, fast enough, if any
one wants it. Anybody can get a fight out there in
the street. There's a fight just waiting."
The drummer seemed to be swayed between the
76 MINOR CONFLICTS
interest of a foreigner, and a perception of personal
danger.
" What did you say his name was ? " he asked.
" Scratchy Wilson," they answered in chorus.
" And will he kill anybody ? What are you going
to do ? Does this happen often ? Does he rampage
round like this once a week or so ? Can he break in
that door ? "
" No, he can't break down that door," replied the
bar-keeper. " He's tried it three times. But when
he comes you'd better lay down on the floor, stranger.
He's dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come
through."
Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye on the
door. The time had not yet been called for him to
hug the floor, but as a minor precaution he sidled near
to the wall.
" Will he kill anybody ? " he said again.
The men laughed low and scornfully at the
question.
" He's out to shoot, and he's out for trouble. Don't
see any good in experimentin' with him."
" But what do you do in a case like this ? What
do you do ? "
A man responded " Why, he and Jack Potter
But, in chorus, the other men interrupted " Jack
Potter's in San Anton'/'
" Well, who is he ? What's he got to do with it ? "
" Oh, he's the town-marshal. He goes out and
fights Scratchy when he gets on one of these tears."
" Whow ! " said the drummer, mopping his brow.
" Nice job he's got."
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 77
The voices had toned away to mere whisperings.
The drummer wished to ask further questions, which
were born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment,
but when he attempted them, the men merely looked
at him in irritation, and motioned him to remain
silent. A tense waiting hush was upon them. In
the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as
they listened for sounds from the street. One man
made three gestures at the bar-keeper, and the latter,
moving like a ghost, handed him a glass and a bottle.
The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down
the bottle noiselessly. He gulped the whisky in a
swallow, and turned again toward the door in im
movable silence. The drummer saw that the bar
keeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester
from beneath the bar. Later, he saw this individual
beckoning to him, so he tip-toed across the room.
" You better come with me back of the bar."
" No, thanks," said the drummer, perspiring. " I'd
rather be where I can make a break for the back
door."
Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but
peremptory gesture. The drummer obeyed it, and
finding himself seated on a box, with his head below
the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at
sight of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a
resemblance to plate armour. The bar-keeper took
a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box.
"You see," he whispered, "this here Scratchy
Wilson is a wonder with a gun a perfect wonder
and when he goes on the war-trail, we hunt our holes
naturally. He's about the last one of the old gang
78 MINOR CONFLICTS
that used to hang out along the river here. He's a
terror when he's drunk. . When he's sober he's all
right kind of simple wouldn't hurt a fly nicest
fellow in town. But when he's drunk whoo ! "
There were periods of stillness.
" I wish Jack Potter was back from San Anton',"
said the bar-keeper. " He shot Wilson up once in
the leg and he would sail in and pull out the kinks
in this thing."
Presently they heard from a distance the sound of
a shot, followed by three wild yells. It instantly
removed a bond from the men in the darkened saloon.
There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each
other.
" Here he comes," they said.
Ill
A MAN in a maroon-coloured flannel shirt, which
had been purchased for purposes of decoration, and
made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east
side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into
the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In
either hand the man held a long, heavy blue-black
revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries rang
through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly fly
ing over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have
no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man.
It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch
of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge
rang against walls >of silence. And his boots had red
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 79
tops with gilded imprints, of the kind beloved in
winter by little sledging boys on the hillsides of New
England.
The man's face flamed in a rage begot of whisky.
His eyes, rolling and yet keen for ambush, hunted the
still door-ways and windows. He walked with the
creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it
occurred to him, he roared menacing information.
The long revolvers in his hands were as easy as
straws ; they were moved with an electric swiftness.
The little ringers of each hand played sometimes in a
musician's way. Plain from the low collar of the
shirt, the cords of his neck straightened and sank as
passion moved him. The only sounds were his ter
rible invitations. The calm adobes preserved their
demeanour at the passing of this small thing in the
middle of the street.
There was no offer of fight no offer of fight. The
man called to the sky. There were no attractions.
He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolver here
and everywhere.
The dog of the bar-keeper of the Weary Gentle
man saloon had not appreciated the advance of events.
He yet lay dozing in front of his master's door. At
sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his re
volver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog
sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen
head and growling. The man yelled, and the dog
broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an
alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and some
thing spat the ground directly before it. The dog
screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong
8o MINOR CONFLICTS
in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whist
ling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-
stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal
in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at
his hips.
Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed
door of the Weary Gentleman saloon. He went to
it, and, hammering with a revolver, demanded drink.
The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit
of paper from the walk, and nailed it to the frame
work with a knife. He then turned his back con
temptuously upon this popular resort, and, walking to
the opposite side of the street and spinning there on
his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper.
He missed it by a half-inch. He swore at himself,
and went away. Later, he comfortably fusiladed the
windows of his most intimate friend. The man was
playing with this town. It was a toy for him.
But still there was no offer of fight. The name of
Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind,
and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he
should go to Potter's house, and, by bombardment,
induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the
direction of his desire, chanting Apache scalp music.
When he arrived at it, Potter's house presented the
same still, calm front as had the other adobes. Tak
ing up a strategic position, the man howled a chal
lenge. But this house regarded him as might a great
stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the
man howled further challenges, mingling with them
wonderful epithets.
Presently there came the spectacle of a man churn-
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 81
ing himself into deepest rage over the immobility of
a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks
a prairie cabin in the north. To the distance there
should have gone the sound of a tumult like the
fighting of two hundred Mexicans. As necessity
bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his
revolvers.
IV
POTTER and his bride walked sheepishly and with
speed. Sometimes they laughed together shame
facedly and low.
" Next corner, dear," he said finally.
They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed
against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a
finger to point the first appearance of the new home,
when, as they circled the corner, they came face to
face with a man in a maroon-coloured shirt, who was
feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver.
Upon the instant the man dropped this revolver to the
ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its
holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bride
groom's chest.
There was a silence. Potter's mouth seemed to be
merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an
instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman's
grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the
bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She
was a slave to hideous rites, gazing at the apparitional
snake.
G
82 MINOR CONFLICTS
The two men faced each other at a distance of three
paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and
quiet ferocity. " Tried to sneak up on me ! " he said.
" Tried to sneak up on me ! " His eyes grew more
baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man
thrust his revolver venomously forward. " No ; don't
you do it, Jack Potter. Don't you move a finger
towards a gun just yet. Don't you move an eyelash.
The time has come for me to settle with you, and I'm
going to do it my own way, and loaf along with no
interferin'. So if you don't want a gun bent on you,
just mind what I tell you."
Potter looked at his enemy. " I ain't got a gun on
me, Scratchy," he said. " Honest, I ain't." He was
stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the
back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated the
sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and
glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as
the surface of a pool of oil all the glory of their
marriage, the environment of the new estate.
" You know I fight when it comes to fighting,
Scratchy Wilson, but I ain't got a gun on me. You'll
have to do all the shootin' yourself."
His enemy's face went livid. He stepped forward,
and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter's
chest.
" Don't you tell me you ain't got no gun on you,
you whelp. Don't tell me no lie like that. There
ain't a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun.
Don't take me for no kid."
His eyes blazed with light and his throat worked
like a pump.
BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 83
" I ain't takin' you for no kid," answered Potter.
His heels had not moved an inch backward. " I'm
takin' you for a fool. I tell you I ain't got a
gun, and I ain't. If you're goin' to shoot me up,
you'd better begin now. You'll never get a chance
like this again."
So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson's
rage. He was calmer.
"If you ain't got a gun, why ain't you got a gun ? "
he sneered. " Been to Sunday school ? "
" I ain't got a gun because I've just come from San
Anton' with my wife. I'm married," said Potter.
" And if I'd thought there was going to be any galoots
like you prowling around when I brought my wife
home, I'd had a gun, and don't you forget it."
"Married!" said Scratchy, not at all compre
hending.
" Yes, married ! I'm married," said Potter, distinctly.
" Married ! " said Scratchy ; seeming for the first
time he saw the drooping drowning woman at the
other man's side. " No ! " he said. He was like a
creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He
moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver
dropped to his side. " Is this is this the lady ? " he
asked.
" Yes, this is the lady," answered Potter.
There was another period of silence.
" Well," said Wilson at last, slowly, " I s'pose it's
all off now?"
" It's all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I
didn't make the trouble."
Potter lifted his valise.
84 MINOR CONFLICTS
"Well, I 'low it's off, Jack," said Wilson. He was
looking at the ground. " Married ! " He was not a
student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence
of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the
earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver,
and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went
away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the
heavy sand.
THE WISE MEN
THE WISE MEN
THEY were youths of subtle mind. They were very
wicked according to report, and yet they managed to
have it reflect great credit upon them. They often
had the well-informed and the great talkers of the
American colony engaged in reciting their misdeeds,
and facts relating to their sins were usually told with
a flourish of awe and fine admiration.
One was from San Francisco and one was from
New York, but they resembled each other in appear
ance. This is an idiosyncrasy of geography.
They were never apart in the City of Mexico, at
any rate, excepting perhaps when one had retired to
his hotel for a respite, and then the other was usually
camped down at the office sending up servants
with clamorous messages. " Oh, get up and come on
down."
They were two lads they were called the kids
and far from their mothers. Occasionally some wise
man pitied them, but he usually was alone in his
wisdom. The other folk frankly were transfixed at
the splendour of the audacity and endurance of these
kids.
87
88 MINOR CONFLICTS
" When do those boys ever sleep ? " murmured a
man as he viewed them entering a cafe about eight
o'clock one morning. Their smooth infantile faces
looked bright and fresh enough, at any rate. " Jim
told me he saw them still at it about 4.30 this
morning."
" Sleep ! " ejaculated a companion in a glowing
voice. " They never sleep ! They go to bed once in
every two weeks." His boast of it seemed almost a
personal pride.
" They'll end with a crash, though, if they keep it
up at this pace," said a gloomy voice from behind a
newspaper.
The Cafe Colorado has a front of white and gold,
in which is set larger plate-glass windows than are
commonly to be found in Mexico. Two little wings of
willow flip-flapping incessantly serve as doors. Under
them small stray dogs go furtively into the cafe", and
are shied into the street again by the waiters. On
the side-walk there is always a decorative effect of
loungers, ranging from the newly-arrived and superior
tourist to the old veteran of the silver mines bronzed
by violent suns. They contemplate with various
shades of interest the show of the street the red,
purple, dusty white, glaring forth against the walls in
the furious sunshine.
One afternoon the kids strolled into the Cafe Colo
rado. A half-dozen of the men who sat smoking and
reading with a sort of Parisian effect at the little tables
which lined two sides of the room, looked up and
bowed smiling, and although this coming of the kids
was anything but an unusual event, at least a dozen
THE WISE MEN 89
men wheeled in their chairs to stare after them.
Three waiters polished tables, and moved chairs
noisily, and appeared to be eager. Distinctly these
kids were of importance.
Behind the distant bar, the tall form of old Pop
himself awaited them smiling with broad geniality.
" Well, my boys, how are you ? " he cried in a voice
of profound solicitude. He allowed five or six of his
customers to languish in the care of Mexican bar
tenders, while he himself gave his eloquent attention
to the kids, lending all the dignity of a great event to
their arrival. " How are the boys to-day, eh ? "
"You're a smooth old guy," said one, eying
him. "Are you giving us this welcome so we
won't notice it when you push your worst whisky at
us?"
Pop turned in appeal from one kid to the other kid.
" There, now, hear that, will you ? " He assumed an
oratorical pose. " Why, my boys, you always get the
best that this house has got."
" Yes, we do ! " The kids laughed. " Well, bring
it out, anyhow, and if it's the same you sold us last
night, we'll grab your cash register and run."
Pop whirled a bottle along the bar and then gazed
at it with a rapt expression. "Fine as silk," he
murmured. " Now just taste that, and if it isn't the
best whisky you ever put in your face, why I'm a liar,
that's all."
The kids surveyed him with scorn, and poured their
allowances. Then they stood for a time insulting Pop
about his whisky. " Usually it tastes exactly like
new parlour furniture," said the San Francisco kid.
90 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Well, here goes, and you want to look out for your
cash register."
" Your health, gentlemen," said Pop with a grand
air, and as he wiped his bristling grey moustaches he
wagged his head with reference to the cash register
question. " I could catch you before you got very
far."
" Why, are you a runner ? " said one derisively.
" You just bank on me, my boy," said Pop, with
deep emphasis. " I'm a flier."
The kids sat down their glasses suddenly and looked
at him. " You must be," they said. Pop was tall
and graceful and magnificent in manner, but he did
not display those qualities of form which mean speed
in the animal. His hair was grey ; his face was
round and fat from much living. The buttons of his
glittering white waistcoat formed a fine curve, so that
if the concave surface of a piece of barrel-hoop had
been laid against Pop it would have touched every
button. " You must be," observed the kids again.
" Well, you can laugh all you like, but no jolly
now, boys, I tell you I'm a winner. Why, I bet you I
can skin anything in this town on a square go.
When I kept my place in Eagle Pass there wasn't
anybody who could touch me. One of these sure
things came down from San Anton'. Oh, he was a
runner he was. One of these people with wings.
Well, I skinned 'im. What ? Certainly I did. Never
touched me."
The kids had been regarding him in grave silence,
but at this moment they grinned, and said quite in
chorus, " Oh, you old liar ! "
THE WISE MEN 91
Pop's voice took on a whining tone of earnestness.
" Boys, I'm telling it to you straight. I'm a flier."
One of the kids had had a dreamy cloud in his eye
and he cried out suddenly " Say, what a joke to play
this on Freddie."
The other jumped ecstatically. " Oh, wouldn't it
though. Say he wouldn't do a thing but howl ! He'd
go crazy."
They looked at Pop as if they longed to be certain
that he was, after all, a runner. " Now, Pop, on the
level," said one of them wistfully, " can you run ? "
" Boys," swore Pop, "I'm a peach ! On the dead
level, I'm a peach."
" By golly, I believe the old Indian can run," said
one to the other, as if they were alone in confidence.
" That's what I can," cried Pop.
The kids said "Well, so long, old man." They
went to a table and sat down. They ordered a salad.
They were always ordering salads. This was because
one kid had a wild passion for salads, and the other
didn't care. So at any hour of the day they might be
seen ordering a salad. When this one came they went
into a sort of executive session. It was a very long
consultation. Men noted it. Occasionally the kids
laughed in supreme enjoyment of something unknown.
The low rumble of wheels came from the street.
Often could be heard the parrot-like cries of distant
vendors. The sunlight streamed through the green
curtains, and made little amber-coloured flitterings on
the marble floor. High up among the severe decora
tions of the ceiling reminiscent of the days when the
great building was a palace a small white butterfly
92 MINOR CONFLICTS
was wending through the cool air spaces. The long
billiard hall led back to a vague gloom. The balls
were always clicking, and one could see countless
crooked elbows. Beggars slunk through the wicker
doors, and were ejected by the nearest waiter. At last
the kids called Pop to them.
" Sit down, Pop. Have a drink." They scanned
him carefully. " Say now, Pop, on your solemn oath,
can you run ? "
" Boys," said Pop piously, and raising his hand, " I
can run like a rabbit."
" On your oath ? "
" On my oath."
" Can you beat Freddie ? "
Pop appeared to look at the matter from all sides.
" Well, boys, I'll tell you. No man is ever cock-sure
of anything in this world, and I don't want to say that
I can best any man, but I've seen Freddie run, and I'm
ready to swear I can beat him. In a hundred yards
I'd just about skin 'im neat you understand, just
about neat. Freddie is a good average runner, but I
you understand I'm just a little bit better."
The kids had been listening with the utmost attention.
Pop spoke the latter part slowly and meanfully. They
thought he intended them to see his great confidence.
One said " Pop, if you throw us in this thing,
we'll come here and drink for two weeks without pay
ing. We'll back you and work a josh on Freddie !
But O ! if you throw us ! "
To this menace Pop cried "Boys, I'll make the
run of my life ! On my oath ! "
The salad having vanished, the kids arose. " All
THE WISE MEN 93
right, now," they warned him. " If you play us for
duffers, we'll get square. Don't you forget it."
" Boys, I'll give you a race for your money. Book
on that. I may lose understand, I may lose no
man can help meeting a better man. But I think I
can skin him, and I'll give you a run for your money,
you bet."
" All right, then. But, look here," they told him,
" you keep your face closed. Nobody gets in on this
but us. Understand ? "
" Not a soul," Pop declared. They left him, gestur
ing a last warning from the wicker doors.
In the street they saw Benson, his cane gripped in
the middle, strolling through the white-clothed jabber
ing natives on the shady side. They semaphored to
him eagerly. He came across cautiously, like a man
who ventures into dangerous company.
" We're going to get up a race. Pop and Fred.
Pop swears he can skin 'im. This is a tip. Keep it
dark. Say, won't Freddie be hot ? "
Benson looked as if he had been compelled to
endure these exhibitions of insanity for a century.
"Oh, you fellows are off. Pop can't beat Freddie.
He's an old bat. Why, it's impossible. Pop can't
beat Freddie."
" Can't he ? Want to bet he can't ? " said the kids.
" There now, let's see you're talking so large."
"Well, you "
" Oh, bet. Bet or else close your trap. That's the
way."
" How do you know you can pull off the race ? Seen
Freddie ? "
94 MINOR CONFLICTS
" No, but "
"Well, see him then. Can't bet with no race
arranged. I'll bet with you all right all right. I'll
give you fellows a tip though you're a pair of asses.
Pop can't run any faster than a brick school-house."
The kids scowled at him and defiantly said " Can't
he ? " They left him and went to the Casa Verde.
Freddie, beautiful in his white jacket, was holding one
of his innumerable conversations across the bar. He
smiled when he saw them. " Where you boys been ? "
he demanded, in a paternal tone. Almost all the
proprietors of American cafes in the city used to adopt
a paternal tone when they spoke to the kids.
" Oh, been ' round/ " they replied.
" Have a drink ? " said the proprietor of the Casa
Verde, forgetting his other social obligations. During
the course of this ceremony one of the kids remarked
" Freddie, Pop says he can beat you running."
" Does he ? " observed Freddie without excitement.
He was used to various snares of the kids.
" That's what. He says he can leave you at the
wire and not see you again."
" Well, he lies," replied Freddie placidly.
" And I'll bet you a bottle of wine that he can do it,
too."
" Rats ! " said Freddie.
" Oh, that's all right," pursued a kid. " You can
throw bluffs all you like, but he can lose you in a
hundred yards' dash, you bet."
Freddie drank his whisky, and then settled his
elbows on the bar.
" Say, now, what do you boys keep coming in here
THE WISE MEN 95
with some pipe-story all the time for ? You can't
josh me. Do you think you can scare me about Pop ?
Why, I know I can beat him. He can't run with
me. Certainly not. Why, you fellows are just
jollying me."
" Are we though ! " said the kids. " You daren't
bet the bottle of wine."
" Oh, of course I can bet you a bottle of wine," said
Freddie disdainfully. " Nobody cares about a bottle
of wine, but "
" Well, make it five then," advised one of the kids.
Freddie hunched his shoulders. " Why, certainly I
will. Make it ten if you like, but "
" We do," they said.
"Ten, is it? All right; that goes." A look of
weariness came over Freddie's face. " But you boys
are foolish. I tell you Pop is an old man. How can
you expect him to run ? Of course, I'm no great
runner, but then I'm young and healthy and and a
pretty smooth runner too. Pop is old and fat, and
then he doesn't do a thing but tank all day. It's a
cinch."
The kids looked at him and laughed rapturously.
They waved their fingers at him. " Ah, there ! " they
cried. They meant that they had made a victim of
him.
But Freddie continued to expostulate. " I tell you
he couldn't win an old man like him. You're crazy.
Of course, I know you don't care about ten bottles of
wine, but, then to make such bets as that. You're
twisted."
" Are we, though ? " cried the kids in mockery.
96 MINOR CONFLICTS
They had precipitated Freddie into a long and
thoughtful treatise on every possible chance of the
thing as he saw it. They disputed with him from
time to time, and jeered at him. He laboured on
through his argument. Their childish faces were
bright with glee.
In the midst of it Wilburson entered. Wilburson
worked ; not too much, though. He had hold of the
Mexican end of a great importing house of New York,
and as he was a junior partner, he worked. But not
too much, though. " What's the howl ? " he said.
The kids giggled. " We've got Freddie rattled."
" Why," said Freddie, turning to- him, " these two
Indians are trying to tell me that Pop can beat me
running,"
" Like the devil," said Wilburson, incredulously.
"Well, can't he?" demanded a kid.
"Why, certainly not," said Wilburson, dismissing
every possibility of it with a gesture. " That old bat ?
Certainly not. I'll bet fifty dollars that Freddie "
" Take you," said a kid.
"What?" said Wilburson, "that Freddie won't
beat Pop ? "
The kid that had spoken now nodded his head.
" That Freddie won't beat Pop ? " repeated
Wilburson.
"Yes. It's a go?"
"Why, certainly," retorted Wilburson. "Fifty?
All right."
"Bet you five bottles on the side," ventured the
other kid.
" Why, certainly," exploded Wilburson wrathfully.
THE WISE MEN 97
"You fellows must take me for something easy.
I'll take all those kinds of bets I can get. Cer
tain ly."
They settled the details. The course was to be
paced off on the asphalt of one of the adjacent side-
streets, and then, at about eleven o'clock in the
evening, the match would be run. Usually in Mexico
the streets of a city grow lonely and dark but a little
after nine o'clock. There are occasional lurking
figures, perhaps, but no crowds, lights and noise. The
course would doubtless be undisturbed. As for the
policeman in the vicinity, they well, they were
conditionally amiable.
The kids went to see Pop ; they told him of the
arrangement, and then in deep tones they said, " Oh,
Pop, if you throw us ! "
Pop appeared to be a trifle shaken by the weight of
responsibility thrust upon him, but he spoke out
bravely. "Boys, I'll pinch that race. Now you
watch me. I'll pinch it."
The kids went then on some business of their own,
for they were not seen again till evening. When
they returned to the neighbourhood of the Cafe
Colorado the usual stream of carriages was whirling
along the calle. The wheels hummed on the asphalt,
and the coachmen towered in their great sombreros.
On the sidewalk a gazing crowd sauntered, the better
class self-satisfied and proud, in their Derby hats and
cut-away coats, the lower classes muffling their dark
faces in their blankets, slipping along in leather
sandals. An electric light sputtered and fumed over
the throng. The afternoon shower had left the pave
H
98 MINOR CONFLICTS
wet and glittering. The air was still laden with the
odour of rain on flowers, grass, leaves.
In the Cafe Colorado a cosmopolitan crowd ate,
drank, played billiards, gossiped, or read in the glaring
yellow light. When the kids entere4 a large circle of
men that had been gesticulating near the bar greeted
them with a roar.
" Here they are now ! "
" Oh, you pair of peaches ! "
" Say, got any more money to bet with ? " Colonel
Hammigan, grinning, pushed his way to them. " Say,
boys, we'll all have a drink on you now because you
won't have any money after eleven o'clock. You'll
be going down the back stairs in your stocking feet."
Although the kids remained unnaturally serene
and quiet, argument in the Cafe" Colorado became
tumultuous. Here and there a man who did not
intend to bet ventured meekly that perchance Pop
might win, and the others swarmed upon him in a
whirlwind of angry denial and ridicule.
Pop, enthroned behind the bar, looked over at this
storm with a shadow of anxiety upon his face. This
widespread flouting affected him, but the kids looked
blissfully satisfied with the tumult they had stirred.
Blanco, honest man, ever worrying for his friends,
came to them. " Say, you fellows, you aren't betting
too much? This thing looks kind of shaky, don't it?"
The faces of the kids grew sober, and after con
sideration one said " No, I guess we've got a good
thing, Blanco. Pop is going to surprise them, I
think."
"Well, don't "
THE WISE MEN 99
" All right, old boy. We'll watch out."
From time to time the kids had much business
with certain orange, red, blue, purple, and green bills.
They were making little memoranda on the back of
visiting cards. Pop watched them closely, the shadow
still upon his face. Once he called to them, and when
they came he leaned over the bar and said intensely
" Say, boys, remember, now I might lose this
race. Nobody can ever say for sure, and if I do,
why-
"Oh, that's all right, Pop," said the kids, reas
suringly. " Don't mind it. Do your derndest, and
let it go at that."
When they had left him, however, they went to a
corner to consult. " Say, this is getting interesting.
Are you in deep ? " asked one anxiously of his friend.
"Yes, pretty deep," said the other stolidly. "Are
you ? "
" Deep as the devil," replied the other in the same
tone.
They looked at each other stonily and went back
to the crowd. Benson had just entered the cafe. He
approached them with a gloating smile of victory.
" Well, where's all that money you were going to
bet?"
"Right here," said the kids, thrusting into their
waistcoat pockets.
At eleven o'clock a curious thing was learned.
When Pop and Freddie, the kids and all, came to
the little side street, it was thick with people. It
seemed that the news of this race had spread like the
wind among the Americans, and they had come to
ioo MINOR CONFLICTS
witness the event. In the darkness the crowd moved,
mumbling in argument.
The principals the kids and those with them
surveyed this scene with some dismay. " Say here's
a go." Even then a policeman might be seen ap
proaching, the light from his little lantern flickering
on his white cap, gloves, brass buttons, and on the
butt of the old-fashioned Colt's revolver which hung
at his belt. He addressed Freddie in swift Mexican.
Freddie listened, nodding from time to time. Finally
Freddie turned to the others to translate. " He says
he'll get into trouble if he allows this race when all
this crowd is here."
There was a murmur of discontent. The police
man looked at them with an expression of anxiety
on his broad, brown face.
" Oh, come on. We'll go hold it on some other
fellow's beat," said one of the kids. The group moved
slowly away debating. Suddenly the other kid cried,
" I know ! The Paseo ! "
"By jiminy," said Freddie, "just the thing. We'll
get a cab and go out to the Paseo. S-s-h ! Keep it
quiet ; we don't want all this mob."
Later they tumbled into a cab Pop, Freddie, the
kids, old Colonel Hammigan and Benson. They
whispered to the men who had wagered, "The Paseo."
The cab whirled away up the black street. There
were occasional grunts and groans, cries of " Oh, get
off me feet," and of " Quit ! you're killing me." Six
people do not have fun in one cab. The principals
spoke to each other with the respect and friendliness
which comes to good men at such times. Once a kid
THE WISEMN 101
put his head out of the window and" lobkeo! backward'.
He pulled it in again and cried, " Great Scott ! Look
at that, would you ! "
The others struggled to do as they were bid, and
afterwards shouted, " Holy smoke ! Well, I'll be
blowed ! Thunder and turf ! "
Galloping after them came innumerable cabs, their
lights twinkling, streaming in a great procession
through the night.
"The street is full of them," ejaculated the old
colonel.
The Paseo de la Reforma is the famous drive of the
city of Mexico, leading to the Castle of Chapultepec,
which last ought to be well known in the United
States.
It is a fine broad avenue of macadam with a much
greater quality of dignity than anything of the kind
we possess in our own land. It seems of the old
world, where to the beauty of the thing itself is add
ed the solemnity of tradition and history, the know
ledge that feet in buskins trod the same stones, that
cavalcades of steel thundered there before the coming
of carriages.
When the Americans tumbled out of their cabs the
giant bronzes of Aztec and Spaniard loomed dimly
above them like towers. The four roads of poplar
trees rustled weirdly off there in the darkness. Pop
took out his watch and struck a match. " Well, hurry
up this thing. It's almost midnight."
The other cabs came swarming, the drivers lashing
their horses, for these Americans, who did all manner
of strange things, nevertheless always paid well for it.
102
VINOR CONFLICTS
Tnere \tfas 'a mfghty'hiirjbub then in the darkness.
Five or six men began to pace the distance and
quarrel. Others knotted their handkerchiefs together
to make a tape. Men were swearing over bets,
fussing and fuming about the odds. Benson came to
the kids swaggering. " You're a pair of asses." The
cabs waited in a solid block down the avenue.
Above the crowd the tall statues hid their visages in
the night.
At last a voice floated through the darkness. " Are
you ready there ? " Everybody yelled excitedly.
The men at the tape pulled it out straight. " Hold
it higher, Jim, you fool," and silence fell then upon
the throng. Men bended down trying to pierce the
deep gloom with their eyes. From out at the start
ing point came muffled voices. The crowd swayed
and jostled.
The racers did not come. The crowd began to
fret, its nerves burning. "Oh, hurry up," shrilled
some one.
The voice called again " Ready there ? " Every
body replied " Yes, all ready. Hurry up ! "
There was a more muffled discussion at the start
ing point. In the crowd a man began to make a
proposition. " I'll bet twenty " but the crowd inter
rupted with a howl. " Here they come ! " The
thickly-packed body of men swung as if the ground
had moved. The men at the tape shouldered madly
at their fellows, bawling, " Keep back ! Keep back ! "
From the distance came the noise of feet pattering
furiously. Vague forms flashed into view for an
instant. A hoarse roar broke from the crowd. Men
THE WISE MEN 103
bended and swayed and fought. The kids back near
the tape exchanged another stolid look. A white form
shone forth. It grew like a spectre. Always could
be heard the wild patter. A scream broke from
the crowd. "By Gawd, it's Pop! Pop! Pop's
ahead ! "
The old man spun towards the tape like a madman,
his chin thrown back, his grey hair flying. His legs
moved like oiled machinery. And as he shot forward
a howl as from forty cages of wild animals went toward
the imperturbable chieftains in bronze. The crowd
flung themselves forward. " Oh, you old Indian ! You
savage ! Did anybody ever see such running ? "
" Ain't he a peach ! Well!"
" Where's the kids ? H-e-y, kids ! "
" Look at him, would you ? Did you ever think ? "
These cries flew in the air blended in a vast shout oi
astonishment and laughter.
For an instant the whole tragedy was in view.
Freddie, desperate, his teeth shining, his face con
torted, whirling along in deadly effort, was twenty feet
behind the tall form of old Pop, who, dressed only in
his only in his underclothes gained with each stride.
One grand insane moment, and then Pop had hurled
himself against the tape victor !
Freddie, fallen into the arms of some men, struggled
with his breath, and at last managed to stammer
" Say, can't can't that old old man run ! "
Pop, puffing and heaving, could only gasp
" Where's my shoes ? Who's got my shoes ? "
Later Freddie scrambled panting through the
crowd, and held out his hand. " Good man, Pop ! "
104 MINOR CONFLICTS
And then he looked up and down the tall, stout
form. " Hell ! who would think you could run like
that?"
The kids were surrounded by a crowd, laughing
tempestuously.
" How did you know he could run ? "
" Why didn't you give me a line on him ? "
" Say great snakes ! you fellows had a nerve to
bet on Pop."
" Why, I was cock-sure he couldn't win."
" Oh, you fellows must have seen him run before."
" Who would ever think it ? "
Benson came by, filling the midnight air with curses.
They turned to jibe him.
" What's the matter, Benson ? "
" Somebody pinched my handkerchief. I tied it up
in that string. Damn it."
The kids laughed blithely. " Why, hello ! Benson,"
they said.
There was a great rush for cabs. Shouting, laugh
ing, wondering, the crowd hustled into their convey
ances, and the drivers flogged their horses toward the
city again.
" Won't Freddie be crazy ! Say, he'll be guyed
about this for years."
" But who would ever think that old tank could
run so ? "
One cab had to wait while Pop and Freddie resumed
various parts of their clothing.
As they drove home, Freddie said "Well, Pop,
you beat me."
Pop said" That's all right, old man."
THE WISE MEN 105
The kids, grinning, said " How much did you lose,
Benson ? "
Benson said defiantly " Oh, not so much. How
much did you win ? "
" Oh, not so much."
Old Colonel Hammigan, squeezed down in a
corner, had apparently been reviewing the event in his
mind, for he suddenly remarked, " Well, I'm damned ! "
They were late in reaching the Cafe Colorado, but
when they did, the bottles were on the bar as thick as
pickets on a fence.
THE FIVE WHITE MICE
THE FIVE WHITE MICE
FREDDIE was mixing a cock-tail. His hand with
the long spoon was whirling swiftly, and the ice in the
glass hummed and rattled like a cheap watch. Over
by the window, a gambler, a millionaire, a railway
conductor, and the agent of a vast American syndicate
were playing seven-up. Freddie surveyed them with
the ironical glance of a man who is mixing a cock-tail.
From time to time a swarthy Mexican waiter came
with his tray from the rooms at the rear, and called
his orders across the bar. The sounds of the indolent
stir of the city, awakening from its siesta, floated over
the screens which barred the sun and the inquisitive
eye. From the far-away kitchen could be heard the
roar of the old French chef, driving, herding, and
abusing his Mexican helpers.
A string of men came suddenly in from the street.
They stormed up to the bar. There were impatient
shouts. " Come now, Freddie, don't stand there like
a portrait of yourself. Wiggle ! " Drinks of many
kinds and colours, amber, green, mahogany, strong
and mild, began to swarm upon the bar with all the
attendants of lemon, sugar, mint and ice. Freddie,
109
i io MINOR CONFLICTS
with Mexican support, worked like a sailor in the
provision of them, sometimes talking with that scorn
for drink and admiration for those who drink which is
the attribute of a good bar-keeper.
At last a man was afflicted with a stroke of dice-
shaking. A herculean discussion was waging, and he
was deeply engaged in it, but at the same time he
lazily flirted the dice. Occasionally he made great
combinations. " Look at that, would you ? " he cried
proudly. The others paid little heed. Then violently
the craving took them. It went along the line like an
epidemic, and involved them all. In a moment they
had arranged a carnival of dice-shaking with money
penalties and liquid prizes. They clamorously made
it a point of honour with Freddie that he should play
and take his chance of sometimes providing this large
group with free refreshment. With bended heads like
football players, they surged over the tinkling dice,
jostling, cheering, and bitterly arguing. One of the
quiet company playing seven-up at the corner table
said profanely that the row reminded him of a bowling
contest at a picnic.
After the regular shower, many carriages rolled over
the smooth calle, and sent a musical thunder through
the Casa Verde. The shop-windows became aglow
with light, and the walks were crowded with youths,
callow and ogling, dressed vainly according to suppo
sititious fashions. The policemen had muffled them
selves in their gnome-like cloaks, and placed their
lanterns as obstacles for the carriages in the middle of
the street. The city of Mexico gave forth the deep
organ-mellow tones of its evening resurrection.
THE FIVE WHITE MICE in
But still the group at the bar of the Casa Verde
were shaking dice. They had passed beyond shaking
for drinks for the crowd, for Mexican dollars, for
dinners, for the wine at dinner. They had even gone
to the trouble of separating the cigars and cigarettes
from the dinner's bill, and causing a distinct man to
be responsible for them. Finally they were aghast.
Nothing remained in sight of their minds which even
remotely suggested further gambling. There was a
pause for deep consideration.
"Well "
" Well "
A man called out in the exuberance of creation.
" I know ! Let's shake for a box to-night at the
circus ! A box at the circus ! " The group was pro
foundly edified. "That's it! That's it! Come on
now ! Box at the circus ! " A dominating voice
cried " Three dashes high man out ! " An Ameri
can, tall, and with a face of copper red from the rays
that flash among the Sierra Madres and burn on the
cactus deserts, took the little leathern cup and spun the
dice out upon the polished wood. A fascinated assem
blage hung upon the bar-rail. Three kings turned their
pink faces upward. The tall man flourished the cup,
burlesquing, and flung the two other dice. From them
he ultimately extracted one more pink king. " There,"
he said. " Now, let's see ! Four kings ! " He began
to swagger in a sort of provisional way.
The next man took the cup, and blew softly in the
top of it. Poising it in his hand, he then surveyed the
company with a stony eye and paused. They knew
perfectly well that he was applying the magic of
ii2 MINOR CONFLICTS
deliberation and ostentatious indifference, but they
could not wait in tranquillity during the performance
of all these rites. They began to call out impatiently.
" Come now hurry up." At last the man, with a
gesture that was singularly impressive, threw the dice.
The others set up a howl of joy. " Not a pair ! "
There was another solemn pause. The men moved
restlessly. " Come, now, go ahead ! " In the end, the
man, induced and abused, achieved something that
was nothing in the presence of four kings. The tall
man climbed on the foot-rail and leaned hazardously
forward. " Four kings ! My four kings are good to
go out," he bellowed into the middle of the mob,
and although in a moment he did pass into the
radiant region of exemption, he continued to bawl
advice and scorn.
The mirrors and oiled woods of the Casa Verde
were now dancing with blue flashes from a great
buzzing electric lamp. A host of quiet members of
the Anglo-Saxon colony had come in for their pre-
dinner cock-tails. An amiable person was exhibiting
to some tourists this popular American saloon. It
was a very sober and respectable time of day. Freddie
reproved courageously the dice-shaking brawlers, and,
in return, he received the choicest advice in a tumult
of seven combined vocabularies. He laughed ; he had
been compelled to retire from the game, but he was
keeping an interested, if furtive, eye upon it.
Down at the end of the line there was a youth at
whom everybody railed for his flaming ill-luck. At
each disaster, Freddie swore from behind the bar in a
sort of affectionate contempt. " Why, this kid has
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 113
had no luck for two days. Did you ever see such
throwin' ? "
The contest narrowed eventually to the New York
kid and an individual who swung about placidly on
legs that moved in nefarious circles. He had a grin
that resembled a bit of carving. He was obliged to
lean down and blink rapidly to ascertain the facts of
his venture, but fate presented him with five queens.
His smile did not change, but he puffed gently like a
man who has been running.
The others, having emerged unscathed from this
part of the conflict, waxed hilarious with the kid.
They smote him on either shoulders. " We've got
you stuck for it, kid ! You can't beat that game !
Five queens ! "
Up to this time the kid had displayed only the
temper of the gambler, but the cheerful hoots of the
players, supplemented now by a ring of guying non-
combatants, caused him to feel profoundly that it
would be fine to beat the five queens. He addressed
a gambler's slogan to the interior of the cup.
" Oh, five white mice of chance,
Shirts of wool and corduroy pants,
Gold and wine, women and sin,
All for you if you let me come in
Into the house of chance."
Flashing the dice sardonically out upon the bar, he
displayed three aces. From two dice in the next
throw he achieved one more ace. For his last throw,
he rattled the single dice for a long time. He already
had four aces; if he accomplished another one, the
five queens were vanquished and the box at the circus
ii4 MINOR CONFLICTS
came from the drunken man's pocket. All the kid's
movements were slow and elaborate. For the last
throw he planted the cup bottom-down on the bar
with the one dice hidden under it. Then he turned
and faced the crowd with the air of a conjuror or a
cheat.
" Oh, maybe it's an ace," he said in boastful calm.
" Maybe it's an ace."
Instantly he was presiding over a little drama in
which every man was absorbed. The kid leaned
with his back against the bar-rail and with his elbows
upon it.
" Maybe it's an ace," he repeated.
A jeering voice in the background said " Yes,
maybe it is, kid ! "
The kid's eyes searched for a moment among the
men. " I'll bet fifty dollars it is an ace," he said.
Another voice asked " American money ? "
" Yes," answered the kid.
" Oh ! " There was a genial laugh at this discom
fiture. However, no one came forward at the kid's
challenge, and presently he turned to the cup. " Now,
I'll show you." With the manner of a mayor unveil
ing a statue, he lifted the cup. There was revealed
naught but a ten-spot. In the roar which arose could
be heard each man ridiculing the cowardice of his
neighbour, and above all the din rang the voice of
Freddie be-rating every one. " Why, there isn't one
liver to every five men in the outfit. That was the
greatest cold bluff I ever saw worked. He wouldn't
know how to cheat with dice if he wanted to. Don't
know the first thing about it. I could hardly keep
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 115
from laughin' when I seen him drillin' you around.
Why, I tell you, I had that fifty dollars right in my
pocket if I wanted to be a chump. You're an easy
lot-
Nevertheless the group who had won in the theatre-
box game did not relinquish their triumph. They
burst like a storm about the head of the kid, swing
ing at him with their fists. " ' Five white mice ' ! "
they quoted, choking. " ' Five white mice ' ! "
" Oh, they are not so bad," said the kid.
Afterward it often occurred that a man would
jeer a finger at the kid and derisively say " ' Five
white mice.* "
On the route from the dinner to the circus, others
of the party often asked the kid if he had really
intended to make his appeal to mice. They suggested
other animals rabbits, dogs, hedgehogs, snakes,
opossums. To this banter the kid replied with a
serious expression of his belief in the fidelity and
wisdom of the five white mice. He presented a most
eloquent case, decorated with fine language and
insults, in which he proved that if one was going to
believe in anything at all, one might as well choose
the five white mice. His companions, however, at
once and unanimously pointed out to him that his
recent exploit did not place him in the light of a
convincing advocate.
The kid discerned two figures in the street. They
were making imperious signs at him. He waited for
them to approach, for he recognized one as the other
kid the Frisco kid : there were two kids. With
the Frisco kid was Benson. They arrived almost
n6 MINOR CONFLICTS
breathless. " Where you been ? " cried the Frisco kid.
It was an arrangement that upon a meeting the one
that could first ask this question was entitled to use a
tone of limitless injury. " What you been doing ?
Where you going ? Come on with us. Benson and I
have got a little scheme."
The New York kid pulled his arm from the grapple
of the other. " I can't. I've got to take these sutlers
to the circus. They stuck me for it shaking dice at
Freddie's. I can't, I tell you."
The two did not at first attend to his remarks.
" Come on ! We've got a little scheme."
" I can't. They stuck me. I've got to take'm to
the circus."
At this time it did not suit the men with the scheme
to recognize these objections as important. " Oh,
take'm some other time. Well, can't you take'm some
other time ? Let 'em go. Damn the circus. Get
cold feet. What did you get stuck for ? Get cold
feet."
But despite their fighting, the New York kid broke
away from them. " I can't, I tell you. They stuck
me." As he left them, they yelled with rage. " Well,
meet us, now, do you hear ? In the Casa Verde as
soon as the circus quits ! Hear ? " They threw
maledictions after him.
In the city of Mexico, a man goes to the circus
without descending in any way to infant amusements,
because the Circo Teatro Orrin is one of the best in
the world, and too easily surpasses anything of the kind
in the United States, where it is merely a matter of a
number of rings, if possible, and a great professional
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 117
agreement to lie to the public. Moreover, the Ameri
can clown, who in the Mexican arena prances and
gabbles, is the clown to whom writers refer as the
delight of their childhood, and lament that he is dead.
At this circus the kid was not debased by the sight of
mournful prisoner elephants and caged animals forlorn
and sickly. He sat in his box until late, and laughed
and swore when past laughing at the comic foolish-
wise clown.
When he returned to the Casa Verde there was no
display of the Frisco kid and Benson. Freddie was
leaning on the bar listening to four men terribly dis
cuss a question that was not plain. There was a
card-game in the corner, of course. Sounds of revelry
pealed from the rear rooms.
When the kid asked Freddie if he had seen his
friend and Benson, Freddie looked bored. " Oh, yes,
they were in here just a minute ago, but I don't know
where they went. They've got their skates on.
Where've they been ? Came in here rolling across the
floor like two little gilt gods. They wobbled around
for a time, and then Frisco wanted me to send six
bottles of wine around to Benson's rooms, but I didn't
have anybody to send this time of night, and so they
got mad and went out. Where did they get their
loads?"
In the first deep gloom of the street the kid paused
a moment debating. But presently he heard quaver
ing voices. " Oh, kid ! kid ! Com'ere ! " Peering, he
recognized two vague figures against the opposite
wall. He crossed the street, and they said " Hello-
kid."
ii8 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Say, where did you get it ? " he demanded sternly.
" You Indians better go home. What did you want
to get scragged for ? " His face was luminous with
virtue.
As they swung to and fro, they made angry denials.
" We ain' load' ! We ain' load'. Big chump. Com-
onangetadrink."
The sober youth turned then to his friend. " Hadn't
you better go home, kid ? Come on, it's late. You'd
better break away."
The Frisco kid wagged his head decisively. " Got
take Benson home first. He'll be wallowing around
in a minute. Don't mind me. I'm all right."
" Cerly, he's all right," said Benson, arousing from
deep thought, " He's all right. But better take'm
home, though. That's ri right. He's load'. But
he's all right. No need go home any more'n you.
But better take'm home. He's load'." He looked
at his companion with compassion. " Kid, you're
load'."
The sober kid spoke abruptly to his friend from
San Francisco. " Kid, pull yourself together, now.
Don't fool. We've got to brace this ass of a Benson
all the way home. Get hold of his other arm."
The Frisco kid immediately obeyed his comrade
without a word or a glower. He seized Benson and
came to attention like a soldier. Later, indeed, he
meekly ventured " Can't we take cab ? " But when
the New York kid snapped out that there were no
convenient cabs he subsided to an impassive silence.
He seemed to be reflecting upon his state, without
astonishment, dismay, or any particular emotion. He
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 119
submitted himself woodenly to the direction of his
friend.
Benson had protested when they had grasped his
arms. " Washa doing ? " he said in a new and gut
tural voice. " Washa doing ? I ain' load'. Comon-
angetadrink. I "
" Oh, come along, you idiot," said the New York
kid. The Frisco kid merely presented the mien of
a stoic to the appeal of Benson, and in silence dragged
away at one of his arms. Benson's feet came from
that particular spot on the pavement with the reluct
ance of roots and also with the ultimate suddenness of
roots. The three of them lurched out into the street
in the abandon of tumbling chimneys. Benson was
meanwhile noisily challenging the others to produce
any reasons for his being taken home. His toes
clashed into the kerb when they reached the other
side of the calle, and for a moment the kids hauled
him along with the points of his shoes scraping
musically on the pavement. He balked formidably
as they were about to pass the Casa Verde. " No !
No ! Leshavanothdrink ! Anothdrink ! Onemore ! "
But the Frisco kid obeyed the voice of his partner
in a manner that was blind but absolute, and they
scummed Benson on past the door. Locked together
the three swung into a dark street. The sober kid's
flank was continually careering ahead of the other
wing. He harshly admonished the Frisco child, and
the latter promptly improved in the same manner of
unthinking complete obedience. Benson began to
recite the tale of a love affair, a tale that didn't even
have a middle. Occasionally the New York kid
120 MINOR CONFLICTS
swore. They toppled on their way like three
comedians playing at it on the stage.
At midnight a little Mexican street burrowing
among the walls of the city is as dark as a whale's
throat at deep sea. Upon this occasion heavy clouds
hung over the capital and the sky was a pall. The
projecting balconies could make no shadows.
" Shay," said Benson, breaking away from his escort
suddenly, " what want gome for ? I ain't load'. You
got reg'lar spool-fact'ry in your head you N J York
kid there. Thish oth' kid, he's mos' proper shober,
mos' proper shober. He's drunk, but but he's
shober."
"Ah, shup up, Benson," said the New York kid.
" Come along now. We can't stay here all night."
Benson refused to be corralled, but spread his legs and
twirled like a dervish, meanwhile under the evident
impression that he was conducting himself most
handsomely. It was not long before he gained the
opinion that he was laughing at the others. " Eight
purple dogsh dogs ! Eight purple dogs. Thas what
kid' 11 see in the morn'. Look ou' for 'em. They "
As Benson, describing the canine phenomena,
swung wildly across the sidewalk, it chanced that
three other pedestrians were passing in shadowy
rank. Benson's shoulder jostled one of them.
A Mexican wheeled upon the instant. His hand
flashed to his hip. There was a moment of silence,
during which Benson's voice was not heard raised in
apology. Then an indescribable comment, one burn
ing word, came from between the Mexican's teeth.
Benson, rolling about in a semi-detached manner,
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 121
stared vacantly at the Mexican, who thrust his lean
face forward while his fingers played nervously at his
hip. The New York kid could not follow Spanish
well, but he understood when the Mexican breathed
softly : " Does the sefior want to fight ? "
Benson simply gazed in gentle surprise. The
woman next to him at dinner had said something
inventive. His tailor had presented his bill. Some
thing had occurred which was mildly out of the
ordinary, and his surcharged brain refused to cope
with it. He displayed only the agitation of a smoker
temporarily without a light.
The New York kid had almost instantly grasped
Benson's arm, and was about to jerk him away, when
the other kid, who up to this time had been an
automaton, suddenly projected himself forward,
thrust the rubber Benson aside, and said "Yes."
There was no sound nor light in the world. The
wall at the left happened to be of the common prison-
like construction no door, no window, no opening at
all. Humanity was enclosed and asleep. Into the
mouth of the sober kid came a wretched bitter taste
as if it had filled with blood. He was transfixed as if
he was already seeing the lightning ripples on the
knife-blade.
But the Mexican's hand did not move at that time.
His face went still further forward and he whispered
" So ? " The sober kid saw this face as if he and it
were alone in space a yellow mask smiling in eager
cruelty, in satisfaction, and above all it was lit with
sinister decision. As for the features, they were remi
niscent of an unplaced, a forgotten type, which really
122 MINOR CONFLICTS
resembled with precision those of a man who had
shaved him three times in Boston in 1888. But the
expression burned his mind as sealing-wax burns the
palm, and fascinated, stupefied, he actually watched
the progress of the man's thought toward the point
where a knife would be wrenched from its sheath.
The emotion, a sort of mechanical fury, a breeze
made by electric fans, a rage made by vanity, smote
the dark countenance in wave after wave.
Then the New York kid took a sudden step for
ward. His hand was at his hip. He was gripping
there a revolver of robust size. He recalled that upon
its black handle was stamped a hunting scene in
which a sportsman in fine leggings and a peaked cap
was taking aim at a stag less than one-eighth of an
inch away.
His pace forward caused instant movement of the
Mexicans. One immediately took two steps to face
him squarely. There was a general adjustment, pair
and pair. This opponent of the New York kid was
a tall man and quite stout. His sombrero was drawn
low over his eyes. His serape was flung on his left
shoulder. His back was bended in the supposed
manner of a Spanish grandee. This concave gentle
man cut a fine and terrible figure. The lad, moved
by the spirits of his modest and perpendicular ances
tors, had time to feel his blood roar at sight of the
pose.
He was aware that the third Mexican was over on
the left fronting Benson, and he was aware that
Benson was leaning against the wall sleepily and
peacefully eying the convention. So it happened
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 123
that these six men stood, side fronting side, five of
them with their right hands at their hips and with
their bodies lifted nervously, while the central pair
exchanged a crescendo of provocations. The mean
ing of their words rose and rose. They were travelling
in a straight line toward collision.
The New York kid contemplated his Spanish
grandee. He drew his revolver upward until the
hammer was surely free of the holster. He waited
immovable and watchful while the garrulous Frisco
kid expended two and a half lexicons on the middle
Mexican.
The eastern lad suddenly decided that he was going
to be killed. His mind leaped forward and studied
the aftermath. The story would be a marvel of
brevity when first it reached the far New York home,
written in a careful hand on a bit of cheap paper,
topped and footed and backed by the printed fortifi
cations of the cable company. But they are often as
stones flung into mirrors, these bits of paper upon
which are laconically written all the most terrible
chronicles of the times. He witnessed the uprising
of his mother and sister, and the invincible calm of
his hard-mouthed old father, who would probably shut
himself in his library and smoke alone. Then his
father would come, and they would bring him here
and say " This is the place." Then, very likely, each ;
would remove his hat. They would stand quietly
with their hats in their hands for a decent minute.
He pitied his old financing father, unyielding and
millioned, a man who commonly spoke twenty-two
words a year to his beloved son. The kid under-
124 MINOR CONFLICTS
stood it at this time. If his fate was not impregnable,
he might have turned out to be a man and have been
liked by his father.
The other kid would mourn his death. He would
be preternaturally correct for some weeks, and recite
the tale without swearing. But it would not bore
him. For the sake of his dead comrade he would be
glad to be preternaturally correct, and to recite the
tale without swearing.
These views were perfectly stereopticon, flashing
in and away from his thought with an inconceivable
rapidity until after all they were simply one quick
dismal impression. And now here is the unreal real :
into this kid's nostrils, at the expectant moment of
slaughter, had come the scent of new-mown hay, a
fragrance from a field of prostrate grass, a fragrance
which contained the sunshine, the bees, the peace of
meadows, and the wonder of a distant crooning stream.
It had no right to be supreme, but it was supreme,
and he breathed it as he waited for .pain and a sight
of the unknown.
But in the same instant, it may be, his thought flew
to the Frisco kid, and it came upon him like a flicker
of lightning that the Frisco kid was not going to be
there to perform, for instance, the extraordinary office
of respectable mourner. The other kid's head was
muddled, his hand was unsteady, his agility was gone.
This other kid was facing the determined and most
ferocious gentleman of the enemy. The New York
kid became convinced that his friend was lost. There
was going to be a screaming murder. He was so
certain of it that he wanted to shield his eyes from
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 125
sight of the leaping arm and the knife. It was sicken
ing, utterly sickening. The New York kid might
have been taking his first sea-voyage. A combination
of honourable manhood and inability prevented him
from running away.
He suddenly knew that it was possible to draw his
own revolver, and by a swift manoeuvre face down all
three Mexicans. If he was quick enough he would
probably be victor. If any hitch occurred in the draw
he would undoubtedly be dead with his friends. It
was a new game ; he had never been obliged to face
a situation of this kind in the Beacon Club in New
York. In this test, the lungs of the kid still con
tinued to perform their duty.
" Oh, five white mice of chance,
Shirts of wool and corduroy pants,
Gold and wine, women and sin,
All for you if you let me come in
Into the house of chance."
He thought of the weight and size of his revolver,
and dismay pierced him. He feared that ifi his hands
it would be as unwieldy as a sewing-machine for this
quick work. He imagined, too, that some singular
providence might cause him to lose his grip as he
raised his weapon. Or it might get fatally entangled
in the tails of his coat. Some of the eels of despair
lay wet and cold against his back.
But at the supreme moment the revolver came forth
as if it were greased and it arose like a feather. This
somnolent machine, after months of repose, was finally
looking at the breasts of men.
Perhaps in this one series of movements, the kid
126 MINOR CONFLICTS
had unconsciously used nervous force sufficient to
raise a bale of hay. Before he comprehended it he
was standing behind his revolver glaring over the
barrel at the Mexicans, menacing first one and then
another. His finger was tremoring on the trigger.
The revolver gleamed in the darkness with a fine
silver light.
The fulsome grandee sprang backward with a low
cry. The man who had been facing the Frisco kid
took a quick step away. The beautiful array of
Mexicans was suddenly disorganized.
The cry and the backward steps revealed something
of great importance to the New York kid. He had
never dreamed that he did not have a complete mono
poly of all possible trepidations. The cry of the
grandee was that of a man who suddenly sees a
poisonous snake. Thus the kid was able to under
stand swiftly that they were all human beings. They
were unanimous in not wishing for too bloody combat.
There was a sudden expression of the equality. He
had vaguely believed that they were not going to
evince much consideration for his dramatic develop
ment as an active factor. They even might be ex
asperated into an onslaught by it. Instead, they had
respected his movement with a respect as great even
as an ejaculation of fear and backward steps. Upon
the instant he pounced forward and began to swear,
unreeling great English oaths as thick as ropes, and
lashing the faces of the Mexicans with them. He
was bursting with rage, because these men had not
previously confided to him that they were vulnerable.
The whole thing had been an absurd imposition. He
THE FIVE WHITE MICE 127
had been seduced into respectful alarm by the concave
attitude of the grandee. And after all there had
been an equality of emotion, an equality: he was
furious. He wanted to take the serape of the grandee
and swaddle him in it.
The Mexicans slunk back, their eyes burning wist
fully. The kid took aim first at one and then at
another. After they had achieved a certain distance
they paused and drew up in a rank. They then re
sumed some of their old splendour of manner. A voice
hailed him in a tone of cynical bravado as if it had
come from between lips of smiling mockery. " Well,
sefior, it is finished ? "
The kid scowled into the darkness, his revolver
drooping at his side. After a moment he answered
" I am willing." He found it strange that he should
be able to speak after this silence of years.
" Good-night, sefior."
" Good-night."
When he turned to look at the Frisco kid he found
him in his original position, his hand upon his hip.
He was blinking in perplexity at the point from
whence the Mexicans had vanished.
" Well," said the sober kid crossly, " are you ready
to go home now ? "
The Frisco kid said " Where they gone ? " His
voice was undisturbed but inquisitive.
Benson suddenly propelled himself from his dream
ful position against the wall. "Frishco kid's all
right. He's drunk's fool and he's all right. But you
New York kid, you're shober." He passed into a
state of profound investigation. " Kid shober 'cause
128 MINOR CONFLICTS
didn't go with us. Didn't go with us 'cause went to
damn circus. Went to damn circus 'cause lose shakin'
dice. Lose shakin' dice 'cause what make lose
shakin' dice, kid ? "
The New York kid eyed the senile youth. " I
don't know. The five white mice, maybe."
Benson puzzled so over this reply that he had to
be held erect by his friends. Finally the Frisco kid
said " Let's go home."
Nothing had happened.
FLANAGAN AND HIS SHORT
FILIBUSTERING ADVENTURE
FLANAGAN AND HIS SHORT
FILIBUSTERING ADVENTURE
I
" I HAVE got twenty men at me back who will fight
to the death," said the warrior to the old filibuster.
" And they can be blowed for all me," replied the
old filibuster. " Common as sparrows. Cheap as
cigarettes. Show me twenty men with steel clamps on
their mouths, with holes in their heads where memory
ought to be, and I want 'em. But twenty brave men
merely ? I'd rather have twenty brave onions."
Thereupon the warrior removed sadly, feeling that
no salaams were paid to valour in these days of
mechanical excellence.
Valour, in truth, is no bad thing to have when
filibustering ; but many medals are to be won by the
man who knows not the meaning of "pow-wow,"
before or afterwards. Twenty brave men with
tongues hung lightly may make trouble rise from the
ground like smoke from grass, because of their sub
sequent fiery pride ; whereas twenty cow-eyed villains
132 MINOR CONFLICTS
who accept unrighteous and far-compelling kicks as
they do the rain from heaven may halo the ultimate
history of an expedition with gold, and plentifully
bedeck their names, winning forty years of gratitude
from patriots, simply by remaining silent. As for the
cause, it may be only that they have no friends or
other credulous furniture.
If it were not for the curse of the swinging tongue,
it is surely to be said that the filibustering industry,
flourishing now in the United States, would be pie.
Under correct conditions, it is merely a matter of
dealing with some little detectives whose skill at
search is rated by those who pay them at a value of
twelve or twenty dollars each week. It is nearly
axiomatic that normally a twelve dollar per week
detective cannot defeat a one hundred thousand
dollar filibustering excursion. Against the criminal,
the detective represents the commonwealth, but in
this other case he represents his desire to show cause
why his salary should be paid. He represents himself
merely, and he counts no more than a grocer's clerk.
But the pride of the successful filibuster often
smites him and his cause like an axe, and men who
have not confided in their mothers go prone with him.
It can make the dome of the Capitol tremble and
incite the Senators to over-turning benches. It can
increase the salaries of detectives who could not
detect the location of a pain in the chest. It is a
wonderful thing, this pride.
Filibustering was once such a simple game. It was
managed blandly by gentle captains and smooth and
undisturbed gentlemen, who at other times dealt in
FLANAGAN 133
law, soap,'medicine, and bananas. It was a great pity
that the little cote of doves in Washington were
obliged to rustle officially, and naval men were kept
from their berths at night, and sundry Custom House
people got wiggings, all because the returned adventurer
pow-wowed in his pride. A yellow and red banner
would have been long since smothered in a shame of
defeat if a contract to filibuster had been let to some
admirable organization like one of our trusts.
And yet the game is not obsolete. It is still played
by the wise and the silent men whose names are not
display-typed and blathered from one end of the
country to the other.
There is in mind now a man who knew one side of
a fence from the other side when he looked sharply.
They were hunting for captains then to command the
first vessels of what has since become a famous little
fleet. One was recommended to this man, and he
said, " Send him down to my office and I'll look him
over." He was an attorney, and he liked to lean back
in his chair, twirl a paper-knife, and let the other
fellow talk.
The sea-faring man came and stood and appeared
confounded. The attorney asked the terrible first
question of the filibuster to the applicant. He said,
" Why do you want to go ? "
The captain reflected, changed his attitude three
times, and decided ultimately that he didn't know.
He seemed greatly ashamed. The attorney, looking
at him, saw that he had eyes that resembled a lambkin's
eyes.
" Glory ? " said the attorney at last.
134 MINOR CONFLICTS
" No-o," said the captain.
" Pay ? "
" No-o. Not that so much."
"Think they'll give you a land grant when they
win out ? "
"No; never thought."
" No glory ; no immense pay ; no land grant.
What are you going for, then ? "
"Well, I don't know," said the captain, with his
glance on the floor and shifting his position again.
" I don't know. I guess it's just for fun mostly."
The attorney asked him out to have a drink.
When he stood on the bridge of his out-going
steamer, the attorney saw him again. His shore
meekness and uncertainty were gone. He was clear-
eyed and strong, aroused like a mastiff at night. He
took his cigar out of his mouth and yelled some
sudden language at the deck.
This steamer had about her a quality of unholy
mediaeval disrepair, which is usually accounted the
principal prerogative of the United States Revenue
Marine. There is many a seaworthy ice-house if she
were a good ship. She swashed through the seas as
genially as an old wooden clock, burying her head
under waves that came only like children at play,
and, on board, it cost a ducking to go from anywhere
to anywhere.
The captain had commanded vessels that shore-
people thought were liners ; but when a man gets
the ant of desire-to-see-what-it's-like stirring in his
heart, he will wallow out to sea in a pail. The thing
surpasses a man's love for his sweetheart. The great
FLANAGAN 135
tank-steamer Thunder-Voice had long been Flana
gan's sweetheart, but he was far happier off Hatteras
watching this wretched little portmanteau boom down
the slant of a wave.
The crew scraped acquaintance one with another
gradually. Each man came ultimately to ask his
neighbour what particular turn of ill-fortune or
inherited deviltry caused him to try this voyage.
When one frank, bold man saw another frank, bold
man aboard, he smiled, and they became friends.
There was not a mind on board the ship that was not
fastened to the dangers of the coast of Cuba, and
taking wonder at this prospect and delight in it.
Still, in jovial moments they termed each other
accursed idiots.
At first there was some trouble in the engine-room,
where there were many steel animals, for the most
part painted red and in other places very shiny
bewildering, complex, incomprehensible to any one
who don't care, usually thumping, thumping, thump
ing with the monotony of a snore.
It seems that this engine was as whimsical as a
gas-meter. The chief engineer was a fine old fellow
with a grey moustache, but the engine told him that
it didn't intend to budge until it felt better. He came
to the bridge and said, " The blamed old thing has
laid down on us, sir."
" Who was on duty ? " roared the captain.
" The second, sir."
" Why didn't he call you ? "
" Don't know, sir." Later the stokers had occasion
to thank the stars that they were not second engineers,
136 MINOR CONFLICTS
The Foundling was soundly thrashed by the waves
for loitering while the captain and the engineers fought
the obstinate machinery. During this wait on the
sea, the first gloom came to the faces of the company.
The ocean is wide, and a ship is a small place for the
feet, and an ill ship is worriment. Even when she
was again under way, the gloom was still upon the
crew. From time to time men went to the engine-
room doors, and looking down, wanted to ask questions
of the chief engineer, who slowly prowled to and fro,
and watched with careful eye his red- painted mysteries.
No man wished to have a companion know that he
was anxious, and so questions were caught at the lips.
Perhaps none commented save the first mate, who
remarked to the captain, " Wonder what the bally old
thing will do, sir, when we're chased by a Spanish
cruiser ? "
The captain merely grinned. Later he looked over
the side and said to himself with scorn, "Sixteen
knots ! sixteen knots ! Sixteen hinges on the inner
gates of Hades ! Sixteen knots ! Seven is her gait,
and nine if you crack her up to it."
There may never be a captain whose crew can't
sniff his misgivings. They scent it as a herd scents
the menace far through the trees and over the ridges.
A captain that does not know that he is on a founder
ing ship sometimes can take his men to tea and but
tered toast twelve minutes before the disaster, but let
him fret for a moment in the loneliness of his cabin,
and in no time it affects the liver of a distant and
sensitive seaman. Even as Flanagan reflected on the
Foundling, viewing her as a filibuster, word arrivec}
FLANAGAN 137
that a winter of discontent had come to the stoke-
room.
The captain knew that it requires sky to give a
man courage. He sent for a stoker and talked to him
on the bridge. The man, standing under the sky,
instantly and shamefacedly denied all knowledge of
the business ; nevertheless, a jaw had presently to be
broken by a fist because the Foundling could only
steam nine knots, and because the stoke-room has no
sky, no wind, no bright horizon.
When the Foundling was somewhere off Savannah
a blow came from the north-east, and the steamer,
headed south-east, rolled like a boiling potato. The
first mate was a fine officer, and so a wave crashed
him into the deck-house and broke his arm. The
cook was a good cook, and so the heave of the ship
flung him heels over head with a pot of boiling water,
and caused him to lose interest in everything save his
legs. " By the piper," said Flanagan to himself, " this
filibustering is no trick with cards."
Later there was more trouble in the stoke-room.
All the stokers participated save the one with a
broken jaw, who had become discouraged. The
captain had an excellent chest development. When
he went aft, roaring, it was plain that a man could
beat carpets with a voice like that one.
II
ONE night the Foundling was off the southern
coast of Florida, and running at half-speed towards
138 MINOR CONFLICTS
the shore. The captain was on the bridge. " Four
flashes at intervals of one minute," he said to himself,
gazing steadfastly towards the beach. Suddenly a
yellow eye opened in the black face of the night, and
looked at the Foundling and closed again. The cap
tain studied his watch and the shore. Three times
more the eye opened and looked at the Foundling
and closed again. The captain called to the vague
figures on the deck below him. " Answer it." The
flash of a light from the bow of the steamer dis
played for a moment in golden colour the crests of
the inriding waves.
The Foundling lay to and waited. The long swells
rolled her gracefully, and her two stub masts reaching
into the darkness swung with the solemnity of batons
timing a dirge. When the ship had left Boston she
had been as encrusted with ice as a Dakota stage-
driver's beard, but now the gentle wind of Florida
softly swayed the lock on the forehead of the coatless
Flanagan, and he lit a new cigar without troubling to
make a shield of his hands.
Finally a dark boat came plashing over the waves.
As it came very near, the captain leaned forward and
perceived that the men in her rowed like seamstresses,
and at the same time a voice hailed him in bad Eng
lish. " It's a dead sure connection," said he to himself.
At sea, to load two hundred thousand rounds of
rifle ammunition, SQven hundred and fifty rifles, two
rapid-fire field guns with a hundred shells, forty
bundles of machetes, and a hundred pounds of dyna
mite, from yawls, and by men who are not born
stevedores, and in a heavy ground swell, and with
FLANAGAN 139
the searchlight of a United States cruiser sometimes
flashing like lightning in the sky to the southward, is
no business for a Sunday-school class. When at last
the Foundling was steaming for the open over the
grey sea at dawn, there was not a man of the forty
come aboard from the Florida shore, nor of the fifteen
sailed from Boston, who was not glad, standing with
his hair matted to his forehead with sweat, smiling at
the broad wake of the Foundling and the dim streak
on the horizon which was Florida.
But there is a point of the compass in these waters
men call the north-east. When the strong winds
come from that direction they kick up a turmoil that
is not good for a Foundling stuffed with coals and
war-stores. In the gale which came, this ship was no
more than a drunken soldier.
The Cuban leader, standing on the bridge with the
captain, was presently informed that of his men,
thirty-nine out of a possible thirty-nine were sea-sick.
And in truth they were sea-sick. There are degrees
in this complaint, but that matter was waived between
them. They were all sick to the limits. They strewed
the deck in every posture of human anguish, and
when the Foundling ducked and water came sluicing
down from the bows, they let it sluice. They were
satisfied if they could keep their heads clear of the
wash ; and if they could not keep their heads clear of
the wash, they didn't care. Presently the Foundling
swung her course to the south-east, and the waves
pounded her broadside. The patriots were all ordered
below decks, and there they howled and measured
their misery one against another. All day the
140 MINOR CONFLICTS
Foundling plopped and floundered over a blazing
bright meadow of an ocean whereon the white foam
was like flowers.
The captain on the bridge mused and studied the
bare horizon. " Hell ! " said he to himself, and the
word was more in amazement than in indignation or
sorrow. "Thirty-nine sea-sick passengers, the mate
with a broken arm, a stoker with a broken jaw, the
cook with a pair of scalded legs, and an engine likely
to be taken with all these diseases, if not more ! If
I get back to a home port with a spoke of the wheel
gripped in my hands, it'll be fair luck ! "
There is a kind of corn-whisky bred in Florida
which the natives declare is potent in the proportion
of seven fights to a drink. Some of the Cuban volun
teers had had the forethought to bring a small quan
tity of this whisky aboard with them, and being now
in the fire-room and sea-sick, feeling that they would
not care to drink liquor for two or three years to
come, they gracefully tendered their portions to the
stokers. The stokers accepted these gifts without
avidity, but with a certain earnestness of manner.
As they were stokers, and toiling, the whirl of
emotion was delayed, but it arrived ultimately, and
with emphasis. One stoker called another stoker a
weird name, and the latter, righteously inflamed at it,
smote his mate with an iron shovel, and the man fell
headlong over a heap of coal, which crashed gently
while piece after piece rattled down upon the deck.
A third stoker was providently enraged at the
scene, and assailed the second stoker. They fought
for some moments, while the sea-sick Cubans sprawled
FLANAGAN 141
on the deck watched with languid rolling glances the
ferocity of this scuffle. One was so indifferent to the
strategic importance of the space he occupied that he
was kicked on the shins,
When the second engineer came to separating the
combatants, he was sincere in his efforts, and he came
near to disabling them for life.
The captain said, "I'll go down there and "
But the leader of the Cubans restrained him. " No,
no," he cried, "you must not. We must treat them
like children, very gently, all the time, you see, or
else when we get back to a United States port they
will what you call ? Spring ? Yes, spring the whole
business. We must jolly them, you see ? "
"You mean," said the captain thoughtfully, "they
are likely to get mad, and give the expedition dead
away when we reach port again unless we blarney
them now ? "
" Yes, yes," cried the Cuban leader, " unless we are
so very gentle with them they will make many
troubles afterwards for us in the newspapers and then
in court."
" Well, but I won't have my crew " began the
captain.
" But you must," interrupted the Cuban, "you must.
It is the only thing. You are like the captain of a
pirate ship. You see ? Only you can't throw them
overboard like him. You see ? "
" Hum," said the captain, " this here filibustering
business has got a lot to it when you come to look it
over."
He called the fighting stokers to the bridge, and
142 MINOR CONFLICTS
the three came, meek and considerably battered. He
was lecturing them soundly but sensibly, when he
suddenly tripped a sentence and cried " Here !
Where's that other fellow? How does it come he
wasn't in the fight ? "
The row of stokers cried at once eagerly, " He's
hurt, sir. He's got a broken jaw, sir."
" So he has ; so he has," murmured the captain,
much embarrassed.
And because of all these affairs, the Foundling
steamed toward Cuba with its crew in a sling, if one
may be allowed to speak in that way.
Ill
AT night the Foundling approached the coast like
a thief. Her lights were muffled, so that from the
deck the sea shone with its own radiance, like the
faint shimmer of some kinds of silk. The men on
deck spoke in whispers, and even down in the fire-
room the hidden stokers working before the blood-
red furnace doors used no words and walked on
tip-toe. The stars were out in the blue-velvet sky,
and their light with the soft shine of the sea caused
the coast to appear black as the side of a coffin. The
surf boomed in low thunder on the distant beach.
The Foundlings engines ceased their thumping for
a time. She glided quietly forward until a bell
chimed faintly in the engine-room. Then she paused
with a flourish of phosphorescent waters.
" Give the signal," said the captain. Three times
FLANAGAN 143
a flash of light went from the bow. There was a
moment of waiting. Then an eye like the one on
the coast of Florida opened and closed, opened and
closed, opened and closed. The Cubans, grouped
in a great shadow on deck, burst into a low chatter
of delight. A hiss from their leader silenced them.
" Well ? " said the captain.
" All right," said the leader.
At the giving of the word it was not apparent that
any one on board of the Foundling had ever been
sea-sick. The boats were lowered swiftly too swiftly.
Boxes of cartridges were dragged from the hold and
passed over the side with a rapidity that made men
in the boats exclaim against it. They were being
bombarded. When a boat headed for shore its rowers
pulled like madmen. The captain paced slowly to
and fro on the bridge. In the engine-room the engin
eers stood at their station, and in the stoke-hold the
firemen fidgeted silently around the furnace doors.
On the bridge Flanagan reflected. "Oh, I don't
know ! " he observed. " This filibustering business
isn't so bad. Pretty soon it'll be off to sea again
with nothing to do but some big lying when I get
into port."
In one of the boats returning from shore came
twelve Cuban officers, the greater number of them con
valescing from wounds, while two or three of them had
been ordered to America on commissions from the
insurgents. The captain welcomed them, and assured
them of a speedy and safe voyage.
Presently he went again to the bridge and scanned
the horizon. The sea was lonely like the spaces amid
144 MINOR CONFLICTS
the suns. The captain grinned and softly smote his
chest. " It's dead easy," he said.
It was near the end of the cargo, and the men
were breathing like spent horses, although their elation
grew with each moment, when suddenly a voice spoke
from the sky. It was not a loud voice, but the quality
of it brought every man on deck to full stop and
motionless, as if they had all been changed to wax.
" Captain," said the man at the masthead, " there's a
light to the west'ard, sir. Think it's a steamer, sir."
There was a still moment until the captain called,
" Well, keep your eye on it now." Speaking to the
deck, he said, " Go ahead with your unloading."
The second engineer went to the galley to borrow a
tin cup. " Hear the news, second ? " asked the cook.
" Steamer coming up from the west'ard."
" Gee ! " said the second engineer. In the engine-
room he said to the chief, " Steamer coming up from
the west'ard, sir." The chief engineer began to test
various little machines with which his domain was
decorated. Finally he addressed the stoke-room.
" Boys, I want you to look sharp now. There's a
steamer coming up to the west'ard."
" All right, sir," said the stoke-room.
From time to time the captain hailed the masthead.
" How is she now ? "
" Seems to be coming down on us pretty fast, sir."
The Cuban leader came anxiously to the captain.
" Do you think we can save all the cargo ? It is rather
delicate business. No ? "
" Go ahead," said Flanagan. " Fire away ! I'll
wait."
FLANAGAN 145
There continued the hurried shuffling of feet on deck,
and the low cries of the men unloading the cargo.
In the engine-room the chief and his assistant were
staring at the gong. In the stoke-room the firemen
breathed through their teeth. A shovel slipped from
where it leaned against the side and banged on the
floor. The stokers started and looked around quickly.
Climbing to the rail and holding on to a stay, the
captain gazed westward. A light had raised out of
the deep. After watching this light for a time he
called to the Cuban leader. " Well, as soon as
you're ready now, we might as well be skipping
out."
Finally, the Cuban leader told him, " Well, this is
the last load. As soon as the boats come back you
can be off."
"Shan't wait for all the boats/' said the captain.
" That fellow is too close." As the second boat came
aboard, the Foundling turned, and like a black shadow
stole seaward to cross the bows of the oncoming
steamer. " Waited about ten minutes too long," said
the captain to himself.
Suddenly the light in the west vanished. "Hum !"
said Flanagan, " he's up to some meanness." Every
one outside of the engine-rooms was set on watch.
The Foundling, going at full speed into the north-east,
slashed a wonderful trail of blue silver on the dark
bosom of the sea.
A man on deck cried out hurriedly, " There she is,
sir." Many eyes searched the western gloom, and one
after another the glances of the men found a tiny
shadow on the deep with a line of white beneath it,
146 MINOR CONFLICTS
" He couldn't be heading better if he had a line to us,"
said Flanagan.
There was a thin flash of red in the darkness. It
was long and keen like a crimson rapier. A short,
sharp report sounded, and then a shot whined swiftly
in the air and blipped into the sea. The captain had
been about to take a bite of plug tobacco at the
beginning of this incident, and his arm was raised. He
remained like a frozen figure while the shot whined,
and then, as it blipped into the sea, his hand went to
his mouth and he bit the plug. He looked wide-eyed
at the shadow with its line of white.
The senior Cuban officer came hurriedly to the
bridge. " It is no good to surrender," he cried. " They
would only shoot or hang all of us."
There was another thin red flash and a report. A
loud whirring noise passed over the ship.
"I'm not going to surrender," said the captain,
hanging with both hands to the rail. He appeared
like a man whose traditions of peace are clinched in
his heart. He was as astonished as if his hat had
turned into a dog. Presently he wheeled quickly and
said " What kind of a gun is that ? "
" It is a one-pounder," cried the Cuban officer. " The
boat is one of those little gunboats made from a
yacht. You see ? "
" Well, if it's only a yawl, he'll sink us in five more
minutes," said Flanagan. For a moment he looked
helplessly off at the horizon. His under-jaw hung low.
But a moment later, something touched him, like a
stiletto point of inspiration. He leaped to the pilot
house and roared at the man at the wheel. The
FLANAGAN 147
Foundling sheered suddenly to starboard, made a
clumsy turn, and Flanagan was bellowing through
the tube to the engine-room before everybody dis
covered that the old basket was heading straight for
the Spanish gun-boat. The ship lunged forward like
a draught-horse on the gallop.
This strange manoeuvre by the Foundling first dealt
consternation on board of the Foundling. Men in
stinctively crouched on the instant, and then swore
their supreme oath, which was unheard by their own
ears.
Later the manoeuvre of the Foundling dealt con
sternation on board of the gunboat. She had been
going victoriously forward dim-eyed from the fury of
her pursuit. Then this tall threatening shape had
suddenly loomed over her like a giant apparition.
The people on board the Foundling heard panic
shouts, hoarse orders. The little gunboat was para
lyzed with astonishment.
Suddenly Flanagan yelled with rage and sprang for
the wheel. The helmsman had turned his eyes away.
As the captain whirled the wheel far to starboard he
heard a crunch as the Foundling, lifted on a wave,
smashed her shoulder against the gunboat, and he saw
shooting past a little launch sort of a thing with men
on her that ran this way and that way. The Cuban
officers, joined by the cook and a seaman, emptied
their revolvers into the surprised terror of the seas.
There was naturally no pursuit. Under comfortable
speed the Foundling stood to the northwards.
The captain went to his berth chuckling. " There,
by God ! " he said. " There now ! "
148 MINOR CONFLICTS
IV
WHEN Flanagan came again on deck, the first mate,
his arm in a sling, walked the bridge. Flanagan was
smiling a wide smile. The bridge of the Foundling
was dipping afar and then afar. With each lunge of
the little steamer the water seethed and boomed
alongside, and the spray dashed high and swiftly.
" Well," said Flanagan, inflating himself, " we've had
a great deal of a time, and we've come through it all
right, and thank Heaven it is all over."
The sky in the north-east was of a dull brick-red
in tone, shaded here and there by black masses
that billowed out in some fashion from the flat
heavens.
" Look there," said the mate.
'" Hum ! " said the captain. " Looks like a blow,
don't it?"
Later the surface of the water rippled and flickered
in the preliminary wind. The sea had become the
colour of lead. The swashing sound of the waves on
the sides of the Foundling was now provided with
some manner of ominous significance. The men's
shouts were hoarse.
A squall struck the Foundling on her starboard
quarter, and she leaned under the force of it as if she
were never to return to the even keel. " I'll be glad
when we get in," said the mate. " I'm going to quit
then. I've got enough."
" Hell ! " said the beaming Flanagan.
The steamer crawled on into the north-west. The
FLANAGAN 149
white water, sweeping out from her, deadened the
chug-chug-chug of the tired old engines.
Once, when the boat careened, she laid her shoulder
flat on the sea and rested in that manner. The mate,
looking down the bridge, which slanted more than
a coal-shute, whistled softly to himself. Slowly,
heavily, the Foundling arose to meet another sea.
At night waves thundered mightily on the bows of
the steamer, and water lit with the beautiful phos
phorescent glamour went boiling and howling along
deck.
By good fortune the chief engineer crawled safely,
but utterly drenched, to the galley for coffee. " Well,
how goes it, chief?" said the cook, standing with his
fat arms folded in order to prove that he could
balance himself under any conditions.
The engineer shook his head dejectedly. " This old
biscuit-box will never see port again. Why, she'll fall
to pieces."
Finally at night the captain said, "Launch the
boats." The Cubans hovered about him. "Is the
ship going to sink ? " The captain addressed them
politely. " Gentlemen, we are in trouble, but all I ask
of you is that you just do what I tell you, and no harm
will come to anybody."
The mate directed the lowering of the first boat,
and the men performed this task with all decency, like
people at the side of a grave.
A young oiler came to the captain. " The chief sends
word, sir, that the water is almost up to the fires."
" Keep at it as long as you can."
" Keep at it as long as we can, sir ? "
ISO MINOR CONFLICTS
Flanagan took the senior Cuban officer to the rail,
and, as the steamer sheered high on a great sea, showed
him a yellow dot on the horizon. It was smaller than
a needle when its point is towards you.
" There," said J:he captain. The wind-driven spray
was lashing his face. " That's Jupiter Light on the
Florida coast. Put your men in the boat we've just
launched, and the mate will take you to that light."
Afterwards Flanagan turned to the chief engineer.
"We can never beach," said the old man. "The
stokers have got to quit in a minute." Tears were in
his eyes.
The Foundling was a wounded thing. She lay on
the water with gasping engines, and each wave re
sembled her death-blow.
Now the way of a good ship on the sea is finer than
sword-play. But this is when she is alive. If a time
comes that the ship dies, then her way is the way of a
floating old glove, and she has that much vim, spirit,
buoyancy. At this time many men on the Foundling
suddenly came to know that they were clinging to a
corpse.
The captain went to the stoke-room, and what he
saw as he swung down the companion suddenly turned
him hesitant and dumb. Water was swirling to and fro
with the roll of the ship, fuming greasily around
half-strangled machinery that still attempted to per
form its duty. Steam arose from the water, and
through its clouds shone the red glare of the dying
fires. As for the stokers, death might have been with
silence in this room. One lay in his berth, his hands
under his head, staring moodily at the wall. One sat
FLANAGAN 151
near the foot of the companion, his face hidden in his
arms. One leaned against the side and gazed at the
snarling water as it rose, and its mad eddies among
the machinery. In the unholy red light and grey mist
of this stifling dim Inferno they were strange figures
with their silence and their immobility. The wretched
Foundling groaned deeply as she lifted, and groaned
deeply as she sank into the trough, while hurried
waves then thundered over her with the noise of land
slides. The terrified machinery was making gestures.
But Flanagan took control of himself suddenly.
Then he stirred the fire-room. The stillness had been
so unearthly that he was not altogether inapprehensive
of strange and grim deeds when he charged into them ;
but precisely as they had submitted to the sea so they
submitted to Flanagan. For a moment they rolled
their eyes like hurt cows, but they obeyed the Voice.
The situation simply required a Voice.
When the captain returned to the deck the hue of
this fire-room was in his mind, and then he under
stood doom and its weight and complexion.
When finally the Foundling sank she shifted and
settled as calmly as an animal curls down in the bush
grass. Away over the waves two bobbing boats
paused to witness this quiet death. It was a slow
manoeuvre, altogether without the pageantry of
uproar, but it flashed pallor into the faces of all men
who saw it, and they groaned when they said, " There
she goes ! " Suddenly the captain whirled and
knocked his hand on the gunwale. He sobbed for
a time, and then he sobbed and swore also.
152 MINOR CONFLICTS
There was a dance at the Imperial Inn. During
the evening some irresponsible young men came from
the beach bringing the statement that several boat
loads of people had been perceived ofif shore. It was
a charming dance, and none cared to take time to
believe this tale. The fountain in the court-yard
splashed softly, and couple after couple paraded
through the aisles of palms, where lamps with red
shades threw a rose light upon the gleaming leaves.
The band played its waltzes slumberously, and its
music came faintly to the people among the palms.
Sometimes a woman said " Oh, it is not really
true, is it, that there was a wreck out at sea ? "
A man usually said " No, of course not."
At last, however, a youth came violently from the
beach. He was triumphant in manner. "They're
out there," he cried. "A whole boat-load!" He
received eager attention, and he told all that he
supposed. His news destroyed the dance. After a
time the band was playing beautifully to space. The
guests had hurried to the beach. One little girl cried,
" Oh, mamma, may I go too ? " Being refused per
mission she pouted.
As they came from the shelter of the great hotel,
the wind was blowing swiftly from the sea, and at
intervals a breaker shone livid. The women shud
dered, and their bending companions seized the
opportunity to draw the cloaks closer.
" Oh, dear ! " said a girl ; " supposin' they were out
there drowning while we were dancing ! "
" Oh, nonsense ! " said her younger brother ; " that
don't happen."
FLANAGAN 153
" Well, it might, you know, Roger. How can you
tell?"
A man who was not her brother gazed at her then
with profound admiration. Later, she complained of
the damp sand,^and, drawing back her skirts, looked
ruefully at her little feet.
A mother's son was venturing too near to the water
in his interest and excitement. Occasionally she
cautioned and reproached him from the background.
Save for the white glare of the breakers, the sea was
a great wind-crossed -void. From the throng of
charming women floated the perfume of many flowers.
Later there floated to them a body with a calm face
of an Irish type. The expedition of the Foundling
will never be historic.
HORSES
HORSES
RICHARDSON pulled up his horse, and looked back
over the trail where the crimson scrape of his servant
flamed amid the dusk of the mesquit. The hills in
the west were carved into peaks, and were painted the
most profound blue. Above them the sky was of
that marvellous tone of green like still, sun-shot
water which people denounce in pictures.
Jose" was muffled deep in his blanket, and his great
toppling sombrero was drawn low over his brow. He
shadowed his master along the dimming trail in the
fashion of an assassin. A cold wind of the impending
night swept over the wilderness of mesquit.
" Man," said Richardson in lame Mexican as the
servant drew near, " I want eat ! I want sleep !
Understand no ? Quickly ! Understand ? "
" Si, sefior," said Jose, nodding. He stretched one
arm out of his blanket and pointed a yellow finger
into the gloom. "Over there, small village. Si,
sefior.'*
They rode forward again. Once the American's
horse shied and breathed quiveringly at something
which he saw or imagined in the darkness, and the
158 MINOR CONFLICTS
rider drew a steady, patient rein, and leaned over to
speak tenderly as if he were addressing a frightened
woman. The sky had faded to white over the
mountains, and the plain was a vast, pointless ocean
of black.
Suddenly some low houses appeared squatting amid
the bushes. The horsemen rode into a hollow until
the houses rose against the sombre sundown sky, and
then up a small hillock, causing these habitations to
sink like boats in the sea of shadow.
A beam of red firelight fell across the trail.
Richardson sat sleepily on his horse while his servant
quarrelled with somebody a mere voice in the gloom
over the price of bed and board. The houses about
him were for the most part like tombs in their white
ness and silence, but there were scudding black figures
that seemed interested in his arrival.
Jose" came at last to the horses' heads, and the
American slid stiffly from his seat. He muttered a
greeting, as with his spurred feet he clicked into the
adobe house that confronted him. The brown stolid
face of a woman shone in the light of the fire. He
seated himself on the earthen floor and blinked
drowsily at the blaze. He was aware that the woman
was clinking earthenware, and hieing here and every
where in the manoeuvres of the housewife. From a
dark corner there came the sound of two or three
snores twining together.
The woman handed him a bowl of tortillas. She
was a submissive creature, timid and large-eyed.
She gazed at his enormous silver spurs, his large and
impressive revolver, with the interest and admiration
HORSES 159
of the highly-privileged cat of the adage. When he
ate, she seemed transfixed off there in the gloom, her
white teeth shining.
Jose entered, staggering under two Mexican saddles,
large enough for building-sites. Richardson decided
to smoke a cigarette, and then changed his mind. It
would be much finer to go to sleep. His blanket
hung over his left shoulder, furled into a long pipe of
cloth, according to the Mexican fashion. By doffing
his sombrero, unfastening his spurs and his revolver
belt, he made himself ready for the slow, blissful twist
into the blanket. Like a cautious man he lay close to
the wall, and all his property was very near his hand.
The mesquit brush burned long. Jose threw two
gigantic wings of shadow as he flapped his blanket
about him first across his chest under his arms, and
then around his neck and across his chest again this
time over his arms, with the end tossed on his right
shoulder. A Mexican thus snugly enveloped can
nevertheless free his fighting arm in a beautifully
brisk way, merely shrugging his shoulder as he grabs
for the weapon at his ^belt. (They always wear their
scrapes in this manner.)
The firelight smothered the rays which, streaming
from a moon as large as a drum-head, were struggling
at the open door. Richardson heard from the plain
the fine, rhythmical trample of the hoofs of hurried
horses. He went to sleep wondering who rode so fast
and so late. And in the deep silence the pale rays
of the moon must have prevailed against the red
spears of the fire until the room was slowly flooded to
its middle with a rectangle of silver light.
160 MINOR CONFLICTS
Richardson was awakened by the sound of a guitar.
It was badly played in this land of Mexico, from
which the romance of the instrument ascends to us
like a perfume. The guitar was groaning and whining
like a badgered soul. A noise of scuffling feet
accompanied the music. Sometimes laughter arose,
and often the voices of men saying bitter things to
each other, but always the guitar cried on, the treble
sounding as if some one were beating iron, and the
bass humming like bees. " Damn it they're having
a dance," he muttered, fretfully. He heard two men
quarrelling in short, sharp words, like pistol shots ;
they were calling each other worse names than com
mon people know in other countries. He wondered
why the noise was so loud. Raising his head from
his saddle pillow, he saw, with the help of the valiant
moonbeams, a blanket hanging flat against the wall
at the further end of the room. Being of opinion that
it concealed a door, and remembering that Mexican
drink made men very drunk, he pulled his revolver
closer to him and prepared for sudden disaster.
Richardson was dreaming of his far and beloved
north.
" Well, I would kill him, then ! "
" No, you must not ! "
"Yes, I will kill him! Listen! I will ask this
American beast for his beautiful pistol and spurs and
money and saddle, and if he will not give them you
will see!"
" But these Americans they are a strange people.
Look out, seftor."
Then twenty voices took part in the discussion.
HORSES 161
They rose in quavering shrillness, as from men badly
drunk. Richardson felt the skin draw tight around
his mouth, and his knee-joints turned to bread. He
slowly came to a sitting posture, glaring at the motion
less blanket at the far end of the room. This stiff and
mechanical movement, accomplished entirely by the
muscles of the waist, must have looked like the rising
of a corpse in the wan moonlight, which gave every
thing a hue of the grave.
My friend, take my advice and never be executed
by a hangman who doesn't talk the English language.
It, or anything that resembles it, is the most difficult
of deaths. The tumultuous emotions of Richardson's
terror destroyed that slow and careful process of
thought by means of which he understood Mexican.
Then he used his instinctive comprehension of the
first and universal language, which is tone. Still, it is
disheartening not to be able to understand the detail
of threats against the blood of your body.
Suddenly, the clamour of voices ceased. There
was a silence a silence of decision. The blanket
was flung aside, and the red light of a torch flared
into the room. It was held high by a fat, round-
faced Mexican, whose little snake-like moustache was
as black as his eyes, and whose eyes were black as
jet. He was insane with the wild rage of a man
whose liquor is dully burning at his brain. Five or
six of his fellows crowded after him. The guitar,
which had been thrummed doggedly during the time
of the high words, now suddenly stopped. They con
templated each other. Richardson sat very straight
and still, his right hand lost in his blanket. The
M
1 62 MINOR CONFLICTS
Mexicans jostled in the light of the torch, their eyes
blinking and glittering.
The fat one posed in the manner of a grandee.
Presently his hand dropped to his belt, and from his
lips there spun an epithet a hideous word which
often foreshadows knife-blows, a word peculiarly of
Mexico, where people have to dig deep to find an
insult that has not lost its savour. The American
did not move. He was staring at the fat Mexican
with a strange fixedness of gaze, not fearful, not
dauntless, not anything that could be interpreted.
He simply stared.
The fat Mexican must have been disconcerted, for
he continued to pose as a grandee, with more and
more sublimity, until it would have been easy for
him to have fallen over backward. His companions
were swaying very drunkenly. They still blinked their
little beady eyes at Richardson. Ah, well, sirs, here
was a mystery ! At the approach of their menacing
company, why did not this American cry out and
turn pale, or run, or pray them mercy ? The animal
merely sat still, and stared, and waited for them to
begin. Well, evidently he was a great fighter ! Or
perhaps he was an idiot ? Indeed, this was an
embarrassing situation, for who was going forward
to discover whether he was a great fighter or an
idiot ?
To Richardson, whose nerves were tingling and
twitching like live wires, and whose heart jolted
inside him, this pause was a long horror ; and for
these men, who could so frighten him, there began to
swell in him a fierce hatred a hatred that made him
HORSES 163
long to be capable of fighting all of them, a hatred
that made him capable of fighting all of them. A
44-calibre revolver can make a hole large enough for
little boys to shoot marbles through ; and there was
a certain fat Mexican with a moustache like a snake
who came extremely near to have eaten his last
tomale merely because he frightened a man too
much.
Jose had slept the first part of the night in his
fashion, his body hunched into a heap, his legs
crooked, his head touching his knees. Shadows had
obscured him from the sight of the invaders. At
this point he arose, and began to prowl quakingly
over toward Richardson, as if he meant to hide
behind him.
Of a sudden the fat Mexican gave a howl of glee.
Jose had come within the torch's circle of light.
With roars of ferocity the whole group of Mexicans
pounced on the American's servant. He shrank
shuddering away from them, beseeching by every
device of word and gesture. They pushed him this
way and that. They beat him with their fists. They
stung him with their curses. As he grovelled on
his knees, the fat Mexican took him by the throat
and said " I am going to kill you ! " And con
tinually they turned their eyes to see if they were to
succeed in causing the initial demonstration by the
American. But he looked on impassively. Under
the blanket his fingers were clenched, as iron, upon
the handle of his revolver.
Here suddenly two brilliant clashing chords from
the guitar were heard, and a woman's voice, full of
1 64 MINOR CONFLICTS
laughter and confidence, cried from without c< Hello !
hello ! Where are you ? " The lurching company of
Mexicans instantly paused and looked at the ground.
One said, as he stood with his legs wide apart in order
to balance himself "It is the girls. They have
come ! " He screamed in answer to the question of
the woman " Here ! " And without waiting he
started on a pilgrimage toward the blanket-covered
door. One could now hear a number of female voices
giggling and chattering.
Two other Mexicans said " Yes, it is the girls !
Yes ! " They also started quietly away. Even the
fat Mexican's ferocity seemed to be affected. He
looked uncertainly at the still immovable American.
Two of his friends grasped him gaily " Come, the
girls are here ! Come ! " He cast another glower at
Richardson. " But this ," he began. Laughing,
his comrades hustled him toward the door. On its
threshold, and holding back the blanket, with one
hand, he turned his yellow face with a last challenging
glare toward the American. Jose, bewailing his state
in little sobs of utter despair and woe, crept to
Richardson and huddled near his knee. Then the
cries of the Mexicans meeting the girls were heard,
and the guitar burst out in joyous humming.
The moon clouded, and but a faint square of light
fell through the open main door of the house. The
coals of the fire were silent, save for occasional
sputters. Richardson did not change his position.
He remained staring at the blanket which hid the
strategic door in the far end. At his knees Jose was
arguing, in a low, aggrieved tone, with the saints.
HORSES 165
Without, the Mexicans laughed and danced, and
it would appear from the sound drank more.
In the stillness and the night Richardson sat
wondering if some serpent-like Mexican were sliding
towards him in the darkness, and if the first thing he
knew of it would be the deadly sting of a knife.
" Sssh," he whispered, to Jose. He drew his revolver
from under the blanket, and held it on his leg. The
blanket over the door fascinated him. It was a vague
form, black and unmoving. Through the opening
it shielded were to come, probably, threats, death.
Sometimes he thought he saw it move. As grim
white sheets, the black and silver of coffins, all the
panoply of death, affect us, because of that which
they hide, so this blanket, dangling before a hole in
an adobe wall, was to Richardson a horrible emblem,
and a horrible thing in itself. In his present mood
he could not have been brought to touch it with his
finger.
The celebrating Mexicans occasionally howled in
song. The guitarist played with speed and enthusiasm.
Richardson longed to run. But in this vibrating and
threatening gloom his terror convinced him that a
move on his part would be a signal for the pounce of
death. Jose, crouching abjectly, mumbled now and
again. Slowly, and ponderous as stars, the minutes
went.
Suddenly Richardson thrilled and started. His
breath for a moment left him. In sleep his nerveless
fingers had allowed his revolver to fall and clang upon
the hard floor. He grabbed it up hastily, and his
glance swept apprehensively over the room. A chill
1 66 MINOR CONFLICTS
blue light of dawn was in the place. Every outline
was slowly growing ; detail was following detail.
The dread blanket did not move. The riotous
company had gone or fallen silent. He felt the effect
of this cold dawn in his blood. The candour of
breaking day brought his nerve. He touched Jose.
" Come," he said. His servant lifted his lined yellow
face, and comprehended. Richardson buckled on his
spurs and strode up ; Jose obediently lifted the two
great saddles. Richardson held two bridles and a
blanket on his left arm ; in his right hand he had his
revolver. They sneaked toward the door.
The man who said that spurs jingled was insane.
Spurs have a mellow clash clash clash. Walking
in spurs notably Mexican spurs you remind your
self vaguely of a telegraphic linesman. Richardson
was inexpressibly shocked when he came to walk.
He sounded to himself like a pair of cymbals. He
would have known of this if he had reflected ; but
then, he was escaping, not reflecting. He made a
gesture of despair, and from under the two saddles
Jose tried to make one of hopeless horror. Richardson
stooped, and with shaking fingers unfastened the
spurs. Taking them in his left hand, he picked up
his revolver, and they slunk on toward the door. On
the threshold he looked back. In a corner he saw,
watching him with large eyes, the Indian man and
woman who had been his hosts. Throughout the
night they had made no sign, and now they neither
spoke nor moved. Yet Richardson thought he
detected meek satisfaction at his departure.
The street was still and deserted. In the eastern
HORSES 167
sky there was a lemon-coloured patch. Jose* had
picketed the horses at the side of the house. As the
two men came round the corner Richardson's beast
set up a whinny of welcome. The little horse had
heard them coming. He stood facing them, his ears
cocked forward, his eyes bright with welcome.
Richardson made a frantic gesture, but the horse,
in his happiness at the appearance of his friends,
whinnied with enthusiasm. The American felt that
he could have strangled his well-beloved steed. Upon
the threshold of safety, he was being betrayed by
his horse, his friend ! He felt the same hate that he
would have felt for a dragon. And yet, as he glanced
wildly about him, he could see nothing stirring in the
street, nothing at the doors of the tomb-like houses.
Jose* had his own saddle-girth and both bridles
buckled in a moment. He curled the picket-ropes
with a few sweeps of his arm. The American's
fingers, however, were shaking so that he could hardly
buckle the girth. His hands were in invisible mittens.
He was wondering, calculating, hoping about his
horse. He knew the little animal's willingness and
courage under all circumstances up to this time ; but
then here it was different. Who could tell if some
wretched instance of equine perversity was not about
to develop ? Maybe the little fellow would not feel
like smoking over the plain at express speed this
morning, and so he would rebel, and kick, and be
wicked. Maybe he would be without feeling of in
terest, and run listlessly. All riders who have had to
hurry in the saddle know what it is to be on a horse
who does not understand the dramatic situation.
1 68 MINOR CONFLICTS
Riding a lame sheep is bliss to it. Richardson,
fumbling furiously at the girth, thought of these
things.
Presently he had it fastened. He swung into the
saddle, and as he did so his horse made a mad jump
forward. The spurs of Jose" scratched and tore the
flanks of his great black beast, and side by side the
two horses raced down the village street. The
American heard his horse breathe a quivering sigh
of excitement. Those four feet skimmed. They
were as light as fairy puff balls. The houses glided
past in a moment, and the great, clear, silent plain
appeared like a pale blue sea of mist and wet bushes.
Above the mountains the colours of the sunlight were
like the first tones, the opening chords of the mighty
hymn of the morning.
The American looked down at his horse. He felt
in his heart the first thrill of confidence. The little
animal, unurged and quite tranquil, moving his ears
this way and that way with an air of interest in the
scenery, was nevertheless bounding into the eye of
the breaking day with the speed of a frightened
antelope. Richardson, looking down, saw the long,
fine reach of forelimb as steady as steel machinery.
As the ground reeled past, the long, dried grasses
hissed, and cactus plants were dull blurs. A wind
whirled the horse's mane over his rider's bridle hand.
Jose's profile was lined against the pale sky. It
was as that of a man who swims alone in an ocean.
His eyes glinted like metal, fastened on some un
known point ahead of him, some fabulous place of
safety. Occasionally his mouth puckered in a little
HORSES 169
unheard cry ; and his legs, bended back, worked
spasmodically as his spurred heels sliced his charger's
sides.
Richardson consulted the gloom in the west for
signs of a hard-riding, yelling cavalcade. He knew
that, whereas his friends the enemy had not attacked
him when he had sat still and with apparent calmness
confronted them, they would take furiously after him
now that he had run from them now that he had
confessed himself the weaker. Their valour would
grow like weeds in the spring, and upon discovering
his escape they would ride forth dauntless warriors.
Sometimes he was sure he saw them. Sometimes he
was sure he heard them. Continually looking back
ward over his shoulder, he studied the purple expanses
where the night was marching away. Jose* rolled
and shuddered in his saddle, persistently disturbing
the stride of the black horse, fretting and worrying
him until the white foam flew, and the great shoulders
shone like satin from the sweat.
At last, Richardson drew his horse carefully down
to a walk. Jose wished to rush insanely on, but the
American spoke to him sternly. As the two paced
forward side by side, Richardson's little horse thrust
over his soft nose and inquired into the black's
condition.
Riding with Jose was like riding with a corpse.
His face resembled a cast in lead. Sometimes he
swung forward and almost pitched from his seat.
Richardson was too frightened himself to do anything
but hate this man for his fear. Finally, he issued a
mandate which nearly caused Jose's eyes to slide out
i;o MINOR CONFLICTS
of his head and fall to the ground, like two coins :
" Ride behind me about fifty paces."
" Sefior " stuttered the servant. " Go," cried
the American furiously. He glared at the other and
laid his hand on his revolver. Jose looked at his
master wildly. He made a piteous gesture. Then
slowly he fell back, watching the hard face of the
American for a sign of mercy. But Richardson had
resolved in his rage that at any rate he was going to
use the eyes and ears of extreme fear to detect the
approach of danger; so he established his panic-
stricken servant as a sort of outpost.
As they proceeded, he was obliged to watch sharply
to see that the servant did not slink forward and join
him. When Jose* made beseeching circles in the air
with his arm, he replied by menacingly gripping his
revolver. Jose had a revolver too ; nevertheless it
was very clear in his mind that the revolver was
distinctly an American weapon. He had been edu
cated in the Rio Grande country.
Richardson lost the trail once. He was recalled to
it by the loud sobs of his servant.
Then at last Jose came clattering forward, gesticu
lating and wailing. The little horse sprang to the
shoulder of the black. They were off.
Richardson, again looking backward, could see a
slanting flare of dust on the whitening plain. He
thought that he could detect small moving figures
in it.
Josh's moans and cries amounted to a university
course in theology. They broke continually from his
quivering lips. His spurs were as motors. They
HORSES 171
forced the black horse over the plain in great head
long leaps. But under Richardson there was a little
insignificant rat-coloured beast who was running
apparently with almost as much effort as it takes
a bronze statue to stand still. The ground seemed
merely something to be touched from time to time
with hoofs that were as light as blown leaves. Occa
sionally Richardson lay back and pulled stoutly at
the bridle to keep from abandoning his servant.
Jose harried at his horse's mouth, flopped about in
the saddle, and made his two heels beat like flails.
The black ran like a horse in despair.
Crimson scrapes in the distance resemble drops of
blood on the great cloth of plain. Richardson began
to dream of all possible chances. Although quite
a humane man, he did not once think of his serv
ant. Jose being a Mexican, it was natural that he
should be killed in Mexico ; but for himself, a New
Yorker ! He remembered all the tales of such
races for life, and he thought them badly written.
The great black horse was growing indifferent.
The jabs of Jose's spurs no longer caused him to
bound forward in wild leaps of pain. Jose had at last
succeeded in teaching him that spurring was to be
expected, speed or no speed, and now he took the
pain of it dully and stolidly, as an animal who finds
that doing his best gains him no respite. Jose was
turned into a raving maniac. He bellowed and
screamed, working his arms and his heels like one in
a fit. He resembled a man on a sinking ship, who
appeals to the ship. Richardson, too, cried madly to
the black horse. The spirit of the horse responded
i;2 MINOR CONFLICTS
to these calls, and quivering and breathing heavily he
made a great effort, a sort of a final rush, not for him
self apparently, but because he understood that his
life's sacrifice, perhaps, had been invoked by these
two men who cried to him in the universal tongue.
Richardson had no sense of appreciation at this time
he was too frightened ; but often now he remembers
a certain black horse.
From the rear could be heard a yelling, and once
a shot was fired in the air, evidently. Richardson
moaned as he looked back. He kept his hand on his
revolver. He tried to imagine the brief tumult of his
capture the flurry of dust from the hoofs of horses
pulled suddenly to their haunches, the shrill, biting
curses of the men, the ring of the shots, his own last
contortion. He wondered, too, if he could not some
how manage to pelt that fat Mexican, just to cure his
abominable egotism.
It was Jose, the terror-stricken, who at last dis
covered safety. Suddenly he gave a howl of delight
and astonished his horse into a new burst of speed.
They were on a little ridge at the time, and the
American at the top of it saw his servant gallop
down the slope and into the arms, so to speak, of a
small column of horsemen in grey and silver clothes.
In the dim light of the early morning they were as
vague as shadows, but Richardson knew them at once
for a detachment of Rurales, that crack cavalry corps
of the Mexican army which polices the plain so zeal
ously, being of themselves the law and the arm of it
a fierce and swift-moving body that knows little of
prevention but much of vengeance. They drew up
HORSES 173
suddenly, and the rows of great silver-trimmed
sombreros bobbed in surprise.
Richardson saw Jose throw himself from his horse
and begin to jabber at the leader. When he arrived
he found that his servant had already outlined the
entire situation, and was then engaged in describing
him, Richardson, as an American senor of vast wealth,
who was the friend of almost every governmental
potentate within two hundred miles. This seemed
profoundly to impress the officer. He bowed gravely
to Richardson and smiled significantly at his men,
who unslung their carbines.
The little ridge hid the pursuers from view, but the
rapid thud of their horses' feet could be heard. Occa
sionally they yelled and called to each other. Then
at last they swept over the brow of the hill, a wild
mob of almost fifty drunken horsemen. When they
discerned the pale-uniformed Rurales, they were sail
ing down the slope at top speed.
If toboggans half-way down a hill should suddenly
make up their minds to turn round and go back,
there would be an effect something like that produced
by the drunken horsemen. Richardson saw the Ru
rales serenely swing their carbines forward, and,
peculiar-minded person that he was, felt his heart
leap into his throat at the prospective volley. But
the officer rode forward alone.
It appeared that the man who owned the best
horse in this astonished company was the fat Mexican
with the snaky moustache, and, in consequence, this
gentleman was quite a distance in the van. He tried
to pull up, wheel his horse, and scuttle back over the
174 MINOR CONFLICTS
hill as some of his companions had done, but the
officer called to him in a voice harsh with rage.
" !" howled the officer. "This sefior is my
friend, the friend of my friends. Do you dare pursue
him, ? ! ! ! ! These dashes
represent terrible names, all different, used by the
officer.
The fat Mexican simply grovelled on his horse's
neck. His face was green : it could be seen that he
expected death. The officer stormed with magni
ficent intensity : " ! ! ! " Finally he
sprang from his saddle, and, running to the fat
Mexican's side, yelled " Go ! " and kicked the horse
in the belly with all his might. The animal gave a
mighty leap into the air, and the fat Mexican, with
one wretched glance at the contemplative Rurales,
aimed his steed for the top of the ridge. Richardson
gulped again in expectation of a volley, for it is
said this is a favourite method for disposing of
objectionable people. The fat, green Mexican also
thought that he was to be killed on the run, from the
miserable look he cast at the troops. Nevertheless,
he was allowed to vanish in a cloud of yellow dust at
the ridge-top.
Jose" was exultant, defiant, and, oh ! bristling with
courage. The black horse was drooping sadly, his
nose to the ground. Richardson's little animal, with
his ears bent forward, was staring at the horses of the
Rurales as if in an intense study. Richardson longed
for speech, but he could only bend forward and pat
the shining, silken shoulders. The little horse turned
his head and looked back gravely*
DEATH AND THE CHILD
DEATH AND THE CHILD
I
THE peasants who were streaming down the
mountain trail had in their sharp terror evidently
lost their ability to count. The cattle and the huge
round bundles seemed to suffice to the minds of the
crowd if there were now two in each case where there
had been three. This brown stream poured on with
a constant wastage of goods and beasts. A goat
fell behind to scout the dried grass and its owner,
howling, flogging his donkeys, passed far ahead. A
colt, suddenly frightened, made a stumbling charge
up the hill-side. The expenditure was always pro
fligate and always unnamed, unnoted. It was as if
fear was a river, and this horde had simply been
caught in the torrent, man tumbling over beast, beast
over man, as helpless in it as the logs that fall and
shoulder grindingly through the gorges of a lumber
country. It was a freshet that might sear the face
of the tall quiet mountain ; it might draw a livid line
across the land, this downpour of fear with a thousand
homes adrift in the current men, women, babes,
177 N
i;8 MINOR CONFLICTS
animals. From it there arose a constant babble of
tongues, shrill, broken, and sometimes choking as
from men drowning. Many made gestures, painting
their agonies on the air with fingers that twirled
swiftly.
The blue bay with its pointed ships and the white
town lay below them, distant, flat, serene. There
was upon this vista a peace that a bird knows when
high in the air it surveys the world, a great calm
thing rolling noiselessly toward the end of the
mystery. Here on the height one felt the existence
of the universe scornfully defining the pain in ten
thousand minds. The sky' was an arch of stolid
sapphire. Even to the mountains raising their
mighty shapes from the valley, this headlong rush
of the fugitives was too minute. The sea, the sky,
and the hills combined in their grandeur to term
this misery inconsequent. Then too it sometimes
happened that a face seen as it passed on the flood
reflected curiously the spirit of them all and still
more. One saw then a woman of the opinion of the
vaults above the clouds. When a child cried it cried
always because of some adjacent misfortune, some
discomfort of a pack-saddle or rudeness of an en
circling arm. In the dismal melody of this flight
there were often sounding chords of apathy. Into
these preoccupied countenances, one felt that needles
could be thrust without purchasing a scream. The
trail wound here and there as the sheep had willed
in the making of it.
Although this throng seemed to prove that the
whole of humanity was fleeing in one direction with
DEATH AND THE CHILD 179
every tie severed that binds us to the soil a young
man was walking rapidly up the mountain, hastening
to a side of the path from time to time to avoid some
particularly wide rush of people and cattle. He
looked at everything in agitation and pity. Fre
quently he called admonitions to maniacal fugitives,
and at other moments he exchanged strange stares
with the imperturbable ones. They seemed to him
to wear merely the expressions of so many boulders
rolling down the hill. He exhibited wonder and awe
with his pitying glances.
Turning once toward the rear, he saw a man in
the uniform of a lieutenant of infantry marching the
same way. He waited then, subconsciously elate at
a prospect of being able to make into words the
emotion which heretofore had only been expressed
in the flash of eyes and sensitive movements of his
flexible mouth. He spoke to the officer in rapid
French, waving his arms wildly, and often pointing
with a dramatic finger. "Ah, this is too cruel, too
cruel, too cruel. Is it not ? I did not think it would
be as bad as this. I did not think God's mercy
I did not think at all. And yet I am a Greek. Or
at least my father was a Greek. I did not come here
to fight. I am really a correspondent, you see ? I
was to write for an Italian paper. I have been
educated in Italy. I have spent nearly all my life
in Italy. At the schools and universities ! I knew
nothing of war ! I was a student a student. I
came here merely because my father was a Greek,
and for his sake I thought of Greece I loved Greece.
But I did not dream "
i8o MINOR CONFLICTS
He paused, breathing heavily. His eyes glistened
from that soft overflow which comes on occasion to
the glance of a young woman. Eager, passionate,
profoundly "moved, his first words, while facing the
procession of fugitives, had been an active definition
of his own dimension, his personal relation to men,
geography, life. Throughout he had preserved the
fiery dignity of a tragedian.
The officer's manner at once deferred to this out
burst. " Yes," he said, polite but mournful, " these
poor people ! These poor people ! I do not know
what is to become of these poor people."
The young man declaimed again. " I had no
dream I had no dream that it would be like this !
This is too cruel ! Too cruel ! Now I want to be
a soldier. Now I want to fight. Now I want to do
battle for the land of my father." He made a
sweeping gesture into the north-west.
The officer was also a young man, but he was very
bronzed and steady. Above his high military collar
of crimson cloth with one silver star upon it, appeared
a profile stern, quiet, and confident, respecting fate,
fearing only opinion. His clothes were covered with
dust; the only bright spot was the flame of the
crimson collar. At the violent cries of his companion
he smiled as if to himself, meanwhile keeping his eyes
fixed in a glance ahead.
From a land toward which their faces were bent
came a continuous boom of artillery fire. It was
sounding in regular measures like the beating of a
colossal clock, a clock that was counting the seconds
in the lives of the stars, and men had time to die
DEATH AND THE CHILD 181
between the ticks. Solemn, oracular, inexorable, the
great seconds tolled over the hills as if God fronted
this dial rimmed by the horizon. The soldier and
the correspondent found themselves silent. The
latter in particular was sunk in a great mournfulness,
as if he had resolved willy-nilly to swing to the
bottom of the abyss where dwell secrets of his kind,
and had learned beforehand that all to be met there
was cruelty and hopelessness. A strap of his bright
new leather leggings came unfastened, and he bowed
over it slowly, impressively, as one bending over the
grave of a child.
Then suddenly, the reverberations mingled until
one could not separate an explosion from another,
and into the hubbub came the drawling sound of a
leisurely musketry fire. Instantly, for some reason of
cadence, the noise was irritating, silly, infantile.
This uproar was childish. It forced the nerves to
object, to protest against this racket which was as
idle as the din of a lad with a drum.
The lieutenant lifted his finger and pointed. He
spoke in vexed tones, as if he held the other man
personally responsible for the noise. " Well, there ! "
he said. " If you wish for war you now have an
opportunity magnificent."
The correspondent raised himself upon his toes.
He tapped his chest with gloomy pride. " Yes !
There is war ! There is the war I wish to enter. I
fling myself in. I am a Greek, a Greek, you under
stand. I wish to fight for my country. You know
the way. Lead me. I offer myself." Struck by a
sudden thought he brought a case from his pocket,
182 MINOR CONFLICTS
and extracting a card handed it to the officer with a
bow. " My name is Peza," he said simply.
A strange smile passed over the soldier's face.
There was pity and pride the vanity of experience
and contempt in it. " Very well," he said, returning
the bow. " If my company is in the middle of the
fight I shall be glad for the honour of your companion
ship. If my company is not in the middle of the
fight I will make other arrangements for you."
Peza bowed once more, very stiffly, and correctly
spoke his thanks. On the edge of what he took to
be a great venture toward death, he discovered that
he was annoyed at something in the lieutenant's tone.
Things immediately assumed new and extraordinary
proportions. The battle, the great carnival of woe,
was sunk at once to an equation with a vexation by a
stranger. He wanted to ask the lieutenant what was
his meaning. He bowed again majestically ; the
lieutenant bowed. They flung a shadow of manners,
of capering tinsel ceremony across a land that
groaned, and it satisfied something within themselves
completely.
In the meantime, the river of fleeing villagers had
changed to simply a last dropping of belated creatures,
who fled past stammering and flinging their hands
high. The two men had come to the top of the great
hill. Before them was a green plain as level as an
inland sea. It swept northward, and merged finally
into a length of silvery mist. Upon the near part of
this plain, and upon two grey treeless mountains at
the side of it, were little black lines from which
floated slanting sheets of smoke. It was not a battle
DEATH AND THE CHILD 183
to the nerves. One could survey it with equanimity,
as if it were a tea-table; but upon Peza's mind it struck
a loud clanging blow. It was war. Edified, aghast,
triumphant, he paused suddenly, his lips apart. He
remembered the pageants of carnage that had marched
through the dreams of his childhood. Love he knew
that he had confronted, alone, isolated, wondering, an
individual, an atom taking the hand of a titanic
principle. But, like the faintest breeze on his fore
head, he felt here the vibration from the hearts of
forty thousand men.
The lieutenant's nostrils were moving. " I must go
at once," he said. " I must go at once."
" I will go with you wherever you go," shouted
Peza loudly.
A primitive track wound down the side of the
mountain, and in their rush they bounded from here
to there, choosing risks which in the ordinary caution
of man would surely have seemed of remarkable
danger. The ardour of the correspondent surpassed
the full energy of the soldier. Several times he
turned and shouted, " Come on ! Come on ! "
At the foot of the path they came to a wide road,
which extended toward the battle in a yellow and
straight line. Some men were trudging wearily to
the rear. They were without rifles ; their clumsy
uniforms were dirty and all awry. They turned eyes
dully aglow with fever upon the pair striding toward
the battle. Others were bandaged with the triangular
kerchief upon which one could still see through blood
stains the little explanatory pictures illustrating the
ways to bind various wounds. " Fig. I." " Fig. 2."
1 84 MINOR CONFLICTS
" Fig. 7." Mingled with the pacing soldiers were
peasants, indifferent, capable of smiling, gibbering
about the battle, which was to them an ulterior
drama. A man was leading a string of three donkeys
to the rear, and at intervals he was accosted by
wounded or fevered soldiers, from whom he defended
his animals with ape-like cries and mad gesticulation.
After much chattering they usually subsided gloomily,
and allowed him to go with his sleek little beasts
unburdened. Finally he encountered a soldier who
walked slowly with the assistance of a staff. His
head was bound with a wide bandage, grimey from
blood and mud. He made application to the peasant,
and immediately they were involved in a hideous
Levantine discussion. The peasant whined and
clamoured, sometimes spitting like a kitten. The
wounded soldier jawed on thunderously, his great
hands stretched in claw-like graspings over the pea
sant's head. Once he raised his staff and made
threat with it. Then suddenly the row was at an
end. The other sick men saw their comrade mount
the leading donkey and at once begin to drum with
his heels. None attempted to gain the backs of the
remaining animals. They gazed after them dully.
Finally they saw the caravan outlined for a moment
against the sky. The soldier was still waving his
arms passionately, having it out with the peasant.
Peza was alive with despair for these men who
looked at him with such doleful, quiet eyes. " Ah,
my God ! " he cried to the lieutenant, " these poor
souls ! These poor souls ! "
The officer faced about angrily. "If you are
DEATH AND THE CHILD 185
coming with me there is no time for this." Peza
obeyed instantly and with a sudden meekness. In
the moment some portion of egotism left him, and he
modestly wondered if the universe took cognizance
of him to an important degree. This theatre for
slaughter, built by the inscrutable needs of the earth,
was an enormous affair, and he reflected that the
accidental destruction of an individual, Peza by name,
would perhaps be nothing at all.
With the lieutenant he was soon walking along
behind a series of little crescent-shape trenches, in
which were soldiers, tranquilly interested, gossiping
with the hum of a tea-party. Although these men
were not at this time under fire, he concluded that
they were fabulously brave. Else they would not
be so comfortable, so at home in their sticky brown
trenches. They were certain to be heavily attacked
before the day was old. The universities had not
taught him to understand this attitude.
At the passing of the young man in very nice
tweed, with his new leggings, his new white helmet,
his new field-glass case, his new revolver holster, the
soiled soldiers turned with the same curiosity which
a being in strange garb meets at the corners of
streets. He might as well have been promenading a
populous avenue. The soldiers volubly discussed his
identity.
To Peza there was something awful in the absolute
familiarity of each tone, expression, gesture. These
men, menaced with battle, displayed the curiosity of
the cafe. Then, on the verge of his great encounter
toward death, he found himself extremely embar-
1 86 MINOR CONFLICTS
rassed, composing his face with difficulty, wondering
what to do with his hands, like a gawk at a levee.
He felt ridiculous, and also he felt awed, aghast, at
these men who could turn their faces from the ominous
front and debate his clothes, his business. There was
an element which was new born into his theory of
war. He was not averse to the brisk pace at which
the lieutenant moved along the line.
The roar of fighting was always in Peza's ears. It
came from some short hills ahead and to the left. The
road curved suddenly and entered a wood. The trees
stretched their luxuriant and graceful branches over
grassy slopes. A breeze made all this verdure gently
rustle and speak in long silken sighs. Absorbed in
listening to the hurricane racket from the front, he
still remembered that these trees were growing, the
grass-blades were extending according to their process.
He inhaled a deep breath of moisture and fragrance
from the grove, a wet odour which expressed all the
opulent fecundity of unmoved nature, marching on
with her million plans for multiple life, multiple death.
Further on, they came to a place where the Turkish
shells were landing. There was a long hurtling sound
in the air, and then one had sight of a shell. To
Peza it was of the conical missiles which friendly
officers had displayed to him on board warships.
Curiously enough, too, this first shell smacked of the
foundry, of men with smudged faces, of the blare of
furnace fires. It brought machinery immediately into
his mind. He thought that if he was killed there at
that time it would be as romantic, to the old standards,
as death by a bit of falling iron in a factory.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 187
II
A CHILD was playing on a mountain and disregard
ing a battle that was waging on the plain. Behind
him was the little cobbled hut of his fled parents. It
was now occupied by a pearl-coloured cow that stared
out from the darkness thoughtful and tender-eyed.
The child ran to and fro, fumbling with sticks and
making great machinations with pebbles. By a strik
ing exercise of artistic license the sticks were ponies,
cows, and dogs, and the pebbles were sheep. He was
managing large agricultural and herding affairs. He
was too intent on them to pay much heed to the fight
four miles away, which at that distance resembled in
sound the beating of surf upon rocks. However,
there were occasions when some louder outbreak of
that thunder stirred him from his serious occupation,
and he turned then a questioning eye upon the battle,
a small stick poised in his hand, interrupted in the act
of sending his dog after his sheep. His tranquillity
in regard to the death on the plain was as invincible
as that of the mountain on which he stood.
It was evident that fear had swept the parents away
from their home in a manner that could make them
forget this child, the first-born. Nevertheless, the hut
was clean bare. The cow had committed no impro
priety in billeting herself at the domicile of her mas
ters. This smoke-coloured and odorous interior
contained nothing as large as a humming-bird.
Terror had operated on these runaway people in its
sinister fashion, elevating details to enormous heights,
i88 MINOR CONFLICTS
causing a man to remember a button while he forgot
a coat, overpowering every one with recollections of a
broken coffee-cup, deluging them with fears for the
safety of an old pipe, and causing them to forget their
first-born. Meanwhile the child played soberly with
his trinkets.
He was solitary ; engrossed in his own pursuits, it
was seldom that he lifted his head to inquire of the
world why it made so much noise. The stick in his
hand was much larger to him than was an army corps
of the distance. It was too childish for the mind of
the child. He was dealing with sticks.
The battle lines writhed at times in the agony of a
sea-creature on the sands. These tentacles flung and
waved in a supreme excitement of pain, and the
struggles of the great outlined body brought it nearer
and nearer to the child. Once he looked at the plain
and saw some men running wildly across a field. He
had seen people chasing obdurate beasts in such
fashion, and it struck him immediately that it was
a manly thing which he would incorporate in his
game. Consequently he raced furiously at his stone
sheep, flourishing a cudgel, crying the shepherd calls.
He paused frequently to get a cue of manner from
the soldiers fighting on the plain. He reproduced, to
a degree, any movements which he accounted rational
to his theory of sheep-herding, the business of men,
the traditional and exalted living of his father.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 189
III
IT was as if Peza was a corpse walking on the
bottom of the sea, and finding there fields of grain,
groves, weeds, the faces of men, voices. War, a
strange employment of the race, presented to him a
scene crowded with familiar objects which wore the
livery of their commonness, placidly, undauntedly.
He was smitten with keen astonishment ; a spread of
green grass lit with the flames of poppies was too old
for the company of this new ogre. If he had been
devoting the full lens of his mind to this phase, he
would have known he was amazed that the trees, the
flowers, the grass, all tender and peaceful nature had
not taken to heels at once upon the outbreak of battle.
He venerated the immovable poppies.
The road seemed to lead into the apex of an angle
formed by the two defensive lines of the Greeks.
There was a straggle of wounded men and of gunless
and jaded men. These latter did not seem to be
frightened. They remained very cool, walking with
unhurried steps and busy in gossip. Peza tried to
define them. Perhaps during the fight they had
reached the limit of their mental storage, their capacity
for excitement, for tragedy, and had then simply
come away. Peza remembered his visit to a certain
place of pictures, where he had found himself amid
heavenly skies and diabolic midnights the sunshine
beating red upon desert sands, nude bodies flung to
the shore in the green moon-glow, ghastly and starv
ing men clawing at a wall in darkness, a girl at her
190 MINOR CONFLICTS
bath with screened rays falling upon her pearly
shoulders, a dance, a funeral, a review, an execution,
all the strength of argus-eyed art : and he had whirled
and whirled amid this universe with cries of woe and
joy, sin and beauty piercing his ears until he had been
obliged to simply come away. He remembered that
as he had emerged he had lit a cigarette with unction
and advanced promptly to a cafe. A great hollow
quiet seemed to be upon the earth.
This was a different case, but in his thoughts he
conceded the same causes to many of these gunless
wanderers. They too may have dreamed at lightning
speed until the capacity for it was overwhelmed. As
he watched them, he again saw himself walking to
ward the cafe, puffing upon his cigarette. As if to
reinforce his theory, a soldier stopped him with an
eager but polite inquiry for a match. He watched
the man light his little roll of tobacco and paper and
begin to smoke ravenously.
Peza no longer was torn with sorrow at the sight of
wounded men. Evidently he found that pity had a
numerical limit, and when this was passed the emo
tion became another thing. Now, as he viewed them,
he merely felt himself very lucky, and beseeched the
continuance of his superior fortune. At the passing
of these slouched and stained figures he now heard a
reiteration of warning. A part of himself was appeal
ing through the medium of these grim shapes. It
was plucking at his sleeve and pointing, telling him to
beware ; and so it had come to pass that he cared for
the implacable misery of these soldiers only as he
would have cared for the harms of broken dolls.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 191
His whole vision was focussed upon his own
chance.
The lieutenant suddenly halted. " Look," he said.
" I find that my duty is in another direction. I must
go another way. But if you wish to fight you have
only to go forward, and any officer of the fighting line
will give you opportunity." He raised his cap cere
moniously ; Peza raised his new white helmet. The
stranger to battles uttered thanks to his chaperon, the
one who had presented him. They bowed punctili
ously, staring at each other with civil eyes.
The lieutenant moved quietly away through a field.
In an instant it flashed upon Peza's mind that this
desertion was perfidious. He had been subjected to
a criminal discourtesy. The officer had fetched him
into the middle of the thing, and then left him to
wander helplessly toward death. At one time he was
upon the point of shouting at the officer.
In the vale there was an effect as if one was then
beneath the battle. It was going on above spme-
where. Alone, unguided, Peza felt like a man grop
ing in a cellar. He reflected too that one should
always see the beginning of a fight. It was too diffi
cult to thus approach it when the affair was in full
swing. The trees hid all movements of troops from
him, and he thought he might be walking out to the
very spot which chance had provided for the recep
tion of a fool. He asked eager questions of passing
soldiers. Some paid no heed to him ; others shook
their heads mournfully. They knew nothing save
that war was hard work. If they talked at all it was
in testimony of having fought well, savagely. They
192 MINOR CONFLICTS
did not know if the army was going to advance, hold
its ground, or retreat ; they were weary.
A long pointed shell flashed through the air and
struck near the base of a tree, with a fierce upheaval,
compounded of earth and flames. Looking back,
Peza could see the shattered tree quivering from head
to foot. Its whole being underwent a convulsive
tremor which was an exhibition of pain, and, further
more, deep amazement. As he advanced through
the vale, the shells continued to hiss and hurtle in
long low flights, and the bullets purred in the air.
The missiles were flying into the breast of an as
tounded nature. The landscape, bewildered, agon
ized, was suffering a rain of infamous shots, and Peza
imagined a million eyes gazing at him with the gaze
of startled antelopes.
There was a resolute crashing of musketry from the
tall hill on the left, and from directly in front there
was a mingled din of artillery and musketry firing.
Peza felt that his pride was playing a great trick in
forcing him forward in this manner under conditions
of strangeness, isolation, and ignorance. But he re
called the manner of the lieutenant, the smile on the
hill-top among the flying peasants. Peza blushed
and pulled the peak of his helmet down on his fore
head. He strode onward firmly. Nevertheless he
hated the lieutenant, and he resolved that on some
future occasion he would take much trouble to
arrange a stinging social revenge upon that grinning
jackanapes. It did not occur to him until later that
he was now going to battle mainly because at a
previous time a certain man had smiled.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 193
IV
THE road curved round the base of a little hill, and
on this hill a battery of mountain guns was leisurely
shelling something unseen. In the lee of the height
the mules, contented under their heavy saddles, were
quietly browsing the long grass. Peza ascended the
hill by a slanting path. He felt his heart beat
swiftly; once at the top of the hill he would be
obliged to look this phenomenon in the face. He
hurried, with a mysterious idea of preventing by this
strategy the battle from making his appearance a
signal for some tremendous renewal. This vague
thought seemed logical at the time. Certainly this
living thing had knowledge of his coming. He en
dowed it with the intelligence of a barbaric deity.
And so he hurried ; he wished to surprise war, this
terrible emperor, when it was growling on its throne.
The ferocious and horrible sovereign was not to be
allowed to make the arrival a pretext for some fit
of smoky rage and blood. In this half-lull, Peza
had distinctly the sense of stealing upon the battle
unawares.
The soldiers watching the mules did not seem to
be impressed by anything august. Two of them sat
side by side and talked comfortably ; another lay flat
upon his back staring dreamily at the sky ; another
cursed a mule for certain refractions. Despite their
uniforms, their bandoliers and rifles, they were dwell
ing in the peace of hostlers. However, the long
shells were whooping from time to time over the
194 MINOR CONFLICTS
brow of the hill, and swirling in almost straight lines
toward the vale of trees, flowers, and grass. Peza,
hearing and seeing the shells, and seeing the pensive
guardians of the mules, felt reassured. They were
accepting the condition of war as easily as an old
sailor accepts the chair behind the counter of a
tobacco-shop. Or, it was merely that the farm-boy
had gone to sea, and he had adjusted himself to the
circumstances immediately, and with only the usual
first misadventures in conduct. Peza was proud and
ashamed that he was not of them, these stupid
peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates
on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide
generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance,
indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world
with the strength of their arms and getting their
heads knocked together in the name of God, the king,
or the Stock Exchange ; immortal, dreaming, hopeless
asses who surrender their reason to the care of a
shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their
lives in his purse. Peza mentally abased himself
before them, and wished to stir them with furious
kicks.
As his eyes ranged above the rim of the plateau,
he saw a group of artillery officers talking busily.
They turned at once and regarded his ascent. A
moment later a row of infantry soldiers in a trench
beyond the little guns all faced him. Peza bowed to
the officers. He understood at the time that he had
made a good and cool bow, and he wondered at it,
for his breath was coming in gasps, he was stifling
from sheer excitement, He felt like a tipsy man
DEATH AND THE CHILD 195
trying to conceal his muscular uncertainty from the
people in the street. But the officers did not display
any knowledge. They bowed. Behind them Peza
saw the plain, glittering green, with three lines of
black marked upon it heavily. The front of the first
of these lines was frothy with smoke. To the left of
this hill was a craggy mountain, from which came a
continual dull rattle of musketry. Its summit was
ringed with the white smoke. The black lines on the
plain slowly moved. The shells that came from there
passed overhead with the sound of great birds frantic
ally flapping their wings. Peza thought of the first
sight of the sea during a storm. He seemed to feel
against his face the wind that races over the tops of
cold and tumultuous billows.
He heard a voice afar off " Sir, what would you ? "
He turned, and saw the dapper captain of the battery
standing beside him. Only a moment had elapsed.
" Pardon me, sir," said Peza, bowing again. The
officer was evidently reserving his bows ; he scanned
the new-comer attentively. " Are you a correspond
ent?" he asked. Peza produced a card. "Yes, I
came as a correspondent," he replied, " but now, sir, I
have other thoughts. I wish to help. You see ? I
wish to help."
" What do you mean ? " said the captain. " Are
you a Greek ? Do you wish to fight ? "
"Yes, I am a Greek. I wish to fight." Peza's
voice surprised him by coming from his lips in even
and deliberate tones. He thought with gratification
that he was behaving rather well. Another shell
travelling from some unknown point on the plain
196 MINOR CONFLICTS
whirled close and furiously in the air, pursuing an
apparently horizontal course as if it were never going
to touch the earth. The dark shape swished across
the sky.
" Ah," cried the captain, now smiling, " I am not
sure that we will be able to accommodate you with a
fierce affair here just at this time, but " He walked
gaily to and fro behind the guns with Peza, pointing
out to him the lines of the Greeks, and describing his
opinion of the general plan of defence. He wore the
air of an amiable host. Other officers questioned
Peza in regard to the politics of the war. The king,
the ministry, Germany, England, Russia, all these huge
words were continually upon their tongues. "And
the people in Athens ? Were they " Amid this
vivacious babble Peza, seated upon an ammunition
box, kept his glance high, watching the appearance of
shell after shell. These officers were like men who
had been lost for days in the forest. They were
thirsty for any scrap of news. Nevertheless, one of
them would occasionally dispute their informant
courteously. What would Servia have to say to that ?
No, no, France and Russia could never allow it.
Peza was elated. The shells killed no one ; war was
not so bad. He was simply having coffee in the
smoking-room of some embassy where reverberate the
names of nations.
A rumour had passed along the motley line of
privates in the trench. The new arrival with the clean
white helmet was a famous English cavalry officer
come to assist the army with his counsel. They
stared at the figure of him, surrounded by officers.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 197
Peza, gaining sense of the glances and whispers, felt
that his coming was an event.
Later, he resolved that he could with temerity do
something finer. He contemplated the mountain
where the Greek infantry was engaged, and announced
leisurely to the captain of the battery that he thought
presently of going in that direction and getting into
the fight. He re-affirmed the sentiments of a patriot.
The captain seemed surprised. " Oh, there will be
fighting here at this knoll in a few minutes," he said
orientally. " That will be sufficient ? You had better
stay with us. Besides, I have been ordered to resume
fire." The officers all tried to dissuade him from
departing. It was really not worth the trouble. The
battery would begin again directly. Then it would
be amusing for him.
Peza felt that he was wandering with his protesta
tions of high patriotism through a desert of sensible
men. These officers gave no heed to his exalted
declarations. They seemed too jaded. They were
fighting the men who were fighting them. Palaver of
the particular kind had subsided before their intense
pre-occupation in war as a craft. Moreover, many
men had talked in that manner and only talked.
Peza believed at first that they were treating him
delicately. They were considerate of his inexperience.
War had turned out to be such a gentle business that
Peza concluded he could scorn this idea. He bade
them a heroic farewell despite their objections.
However, when he reflected upon their ways after
ward, he saw dimly that they were actuated princi
pally by some universal childish desire for a spectator
198 MINOR CONFLICTS
of their fine things. They were going into action,
and they wished to be seen at war, precise and
fearless.
V
CLIMBING slowly to the high infantry position, Peza
was amazed to meet a soldier whose jaw had been
half shot away, and who was being helped down the
sheep track by two tearful comrades. The man's
breast was drenched with blood, and from a cloth
which he held to the wound drops were splashing
wildly upon the stones of the path. He gazed at
Peza for a moment. It was a mystic gaze, which Peza
withstood with difficulty. He was exchanging looks
with a spectre ; all aspect of the man was somehow
gone from this victim. As Peza went on, one of the
unwounded soldiers loudly shouted to him to return
and assist in this tragic march. But even Peza's
fingers revolted ; he was afraid of the spectre ; he
would not have dared to touch it. He was surely
craven in the movement of refusal he made to them.
He scrambled hastily on up the path. He was running
away.
At the top of the hill he came immediately upon a
part of the line that was in action. Another battery
of mountain -guns was here firing at the streaks of
black on the plain. There were trenches filled with
men lining parts of the crest, and near the base were
other trenches, all crashing away mightily. The plain
stretched as far as the eye can see, and from where
DEATH AND THE CHILD 199
silver mist ended this emerald ocean of grass, a great
ridge of snow-topped mountains poised against a
fleckless blue sky. Two knolls, green and yellow
with grain, sat on the prairie confronting the dark
hills of the Greek position. Between them were the
lines of the enemy. A row of trees, a village, a stretch
of road, showed faintly on this great canvas, this
tremendous picture, but men, the Turkish battalions,
were emphasized startlingly upon it. The ranks of
troops between the knolls and the Greek position
were as black as ink.
The first line of course was muffled in smoke, but
at the rear of it battalions crawled up and to and fro
plainer than beetles on a plate. Peza had never
understood that masses of men were so declarative,
so unmistakable, as if nature makes every arrange
ment to give information of the coming and the
presence of destruction, the end, oblivion. The firing
was full, complete, a roar of cataracts, and this pealing
of connected volleys was adjusted to the grandeur of
the far-off range of snowy mountains. Peza, breath
less, pale, felt that he had been set upon a pillar and
was surveying mankind, the world. In the meantime
dust had got in his eye. He took his handkerchief
and mechanically administered to it.
An officer with a double stripe of purple on his
trousers paced in the rear of the battery of howitzers.
He waved a little cane. Sometimes he paused in his
promenade to study the field through his glasses.
" A fine scene, sir," he cried airily, upon the approach
of Peza. It was like a blow in the chest to the wide-
eyed volunteer. It revealed to him a point of view.
200 MINOR CONFLICTS
"Yes, sir, it is a fine scene," he answered. They
spoke in French. " I am happy to be able to enter
tain monsieur with a little practice," continued the
officer. " I am firing upon that mass of troops you
see there a little to the right. They are probably
forming for another attack." Peza smiled ; here again
appeared manners, manners erect by the side of
death.
The right-flank gun of the battery thundered ; there
was a belch of fire and smoke ; the shell flung swiftly
and afar was known only to the ear in which rang a
broadening hooting wake of sound. The howitzer
had thrown itself backward convulsively, and lay
with its wheels moving in the air as a squad of men
rushed toward it. And later, it seemed as if each
little gun had made the supreme effort of its being in
each particular shot. They roared with voices far
too loud, and the thunderous effort caused a gun to
bound as in a dying convulsion. And then occasion
ally one was hurled with wheels in air. These
shuddering howitzers presented an appearance of so
many cowards always longing to bolt to the rear,
but being implacably held to their business by this
throng of soldiers who ran in squads to drag them up
again to their obligation. The guns were herded and
cajoled and bullied interminably. One by one, in
relentless program, they were dragged forward to
contribute a profound vibration of steel and wood, a
flash and a roar, to the important happiness of man.
The adjacent infantry celebrated a good shot with
smiles and an outburst of gleeful talk.
" Look, sir," cried an officer to Peza. Thin smoke
DEATH AND THE CHILD 201
was drifting lazily before Peza, and dodging im
patiently he brought his eyes to bear upon that part
of the plain indicated by the officer's finger. The
enemy's infantry was advancing to attack. From the
black lines had come forth an inky mass which was
shaped much like a human tongue. It advanced
slowly, casually, without apparent spirit, but with an
insolent confidence that was like a proclamation of
the inevitable.
The impetuous part was all played by the defensive
side. Officers called, men plucked each other by the
sleeve; there were shouts, motions, all eyes were
turned upon the inky mass which was flowing toward
the base of the hills, heavily, languorously, as oily and
thick as one of the streams that ooze through a
swamp.
Peza was chattering a question at every one. In
the way, pushed aside, or in the way again, he con
tinued to repeat it. " Can they take the position ?
Can they take the position ? Can they take the
position ? " He was apparently addressing an assem
blage of deaf men. Every eye was busy watching
every hand. The soldiers did not even seem to see
the interesting stranger in the white helmet who was
crying out so feverishly.
Finally, however, the hurried captain of the battery
espied him and heeded his question. " No, sir ! no,
sir! It is impossible," he shouted angrily. His
manner seemed to denote that if he had sufficient
time he would have completely insulted Peza. The
latter swallowed the crumb of news without regard to
the coating of scorn, and, waving his hand in adieu,
202 MINOR CONFLICTS
he began to run along the crest of the hill toward the
part of the Greek line against which the attack was
directed.
VI
PEZA, as he ran along the crest of the mountain,
believed that his action was receiving the wrathful
attention of the hosts of the foe. To him then it was
incredible foolhardiness thus to call to himself the
stares of thousands of hateful eyes. He was like a
lad induced by playmates to commit some indiscretion
in a cathedral. He was abashed ; perhaps he even
blushed as he ran. It seemed to him that the whole
solemn ceremony of war had paused during this
commission. So he scrambled wildly over the rocks
in his haste to end the embarrassing ordeal. When
he came among the crowning rifle-pits filled with
eager soldiers he wanted to yell with joy. None
noticed him save a young officer of infantry, who said
" Sir, what do you want ? " It was obvious that
people had devoted some attention to their own
affairs.
Peza asserted, in Greek, that he wished above
everything to battle for the fatherland. The officer
nodded ; with a smile he pointed to some dead men
covered with blankets, from which were thrust up
turned dusty shoes.
" Yes, I know, I know," cried Peza. He thought
the officer was poetically alluding to the danger.
" No," said the officer at once. " I mean cartridges
DEATH AND THE CHILD 203
a bandolier. Take a bandolier from one of
them."
Peza went cautiously toward a body. He moved
a hand toward the corner of a blanket. There he
hesitated, stuck, as if his arm had turned to plaster.
Hearing a rustle behind him he spun quickly. Three
soldiers of the close rank in the trench were regarding
him. The officer came again and tapped him on the
shoulder. " Have you any tobacco ? " Peza looked
at him in bewilderment. His hand was still extended
toward the blanket which covered the dead soldier.
" Yes," he said, " I have some tobacco." He gave the
officer his pouch. As if in compensation, the other
directed a soldier to strip the bandolier from the
corpse. Peza, having crossed the long cartridge belt
on his breast, felt that the dead man had flung his two
arms around him.
A soldier with a polite nod and smile gave Peza a
rifle, a relic of another dead man. Thus, he felt,
besides the clutch of a corpse about his neck, that the
rifle was as inhumanly horrible as a snake that lives
in a tomb. He heard at his ear something that was
in effect like the voices of those two dead men, their
low voices speaking to him of bloody death, mutila
tion. The bandolier gripped him tighter ; he wished
to raise his hands to his throat like a man who is
choking. The rifle was clammy ; upon his palms he
felt the movement of the sluggish currents of a
serpent's life ; it was crawling and frightful.
All about him were these peasants, with their inter
ested countenances, gibbering of the fight. From time
to time a soldier cried out in semi-humorous lamenta-
204 MINOR CONFLICTS
tions descriptive of his thirst. One bearded man sat
munching a great bit of hard bread. Fat, greasy,
squat, he was like an idol made of tallow. Peza felt
dimly that there was a distinction between this man
and a young student who could write sonnets and
play the piano quite well. This old blockhead was
coolly gnawing at the bread, while he, Peza, was being
throttled by a dead man's arms.
He looked behind him, and saw that a head by
some chance had been uncovered from its blanket.
Two liquid-like eyes were staring into his face. The
head was turned a little sideways as if to get better
opportunity for the scrutiny. Peza could feel himself
blanch ; he was being drawn and drawn by these dead
men slowly, firmly down as to some mystic chamber
under the earth where they could walk, dreadful
figures, swollen and blood-marked. He was bidden ;
they had commanded him ; he was going, going,
going.
When the man in the new white helmet bolted for
the rear, many of the soldiers in the trench thought
that he had been struck, but those who had been
nearest to him knew better. Otherwise they would
have heard the silken sliding tender noise of the
bullet and the thud of its impact. They bawled after
him curses, and also outbursts of self-congratulation
and vanity. Despite the prominence of the cowardly
part, they were enabled to see in this exhibition a
fine comment upon their own fortitude. The other
soldiers thought that Peza had been wounded some
where in the neck, because as he ran he was tearing
madly at the bandolier, the dead man's arms. The
DEATH AND THE CHILD 205
soldier with the bread paused in his eating and
cynically remarked upon the speed of the runaway.
An officer's voice was suddenly heard calling out
the calculation of the distance to the enemy, the re
adjustment of the sights. There was a stirring rattle
along the line. The men turned their eyes to the
front. Other trenches beneath them to the right were
already heavily in action. The smoke was lifting
toward the blue sky. The soldier with the bread
placed it carefully on a bit of paper beside him as he
turned to kneel in the trench.
VII
IN the late afternoon, the child ceased his play on the
mountain with his flocks and his dogs. Part of the
battle had whirled very near to the base of his hill,
and the noise was great. Sometimes he could see
fantastic smoky shapes which resembled the curious
figures in foam which one sees on the slant of a
rough sea. The plain indeed was etched in white
circles and whirligigs like the slope of a colossal wave.
The child took seat on a stone and contemplated the
fight. He was beginning to be astonished ; he had
never before seen cattle herded with such uproar.
Lines of flame flashed out here and there. It was
mystery.
Finally, without any preliminary indication, he
began to weep. If the men struggling on the plain
had had time and greater vision, they could have seen
this strange tiny figure seated on a boulder, surveying
206 MINOR CONFLICTS
them while the tears streamed. It was as simple as
some powerful symbol.
As the magic clear light of day amid the mountains
dimmed the distances, and the plain shone as a pallid
blue cloth marked by the red threads of the firing,
the child arose and moved off to the unwelcoming
door of his home. He called softly for his mother,
and complained of his hunger in the familiar formula.
The pearl-coloured cow, grinding her jaws thoughtfully,
stared at him with her large eyes. The peaceful gloom
of evening was slowly draping the hills.
The child heard a rattle of loose stones on the hill
side, and facing the sound, saw a moment later a man
drag himself up to the crest of the hill and fall pant
ing. Forgetting his mother and his hunger, filled
with calm interest, the child walked forward and stood
over the heaving form. His eyes too were now large
and inscrutably wise and sad like those of the animal
in the house.
After a silence he spoke inquiringly. " Are you a
man?"
Peza rolled over quickly and gazed up into the
fearless cherubic countenance. He did not attempt
to reply. He breathed as if life was about to leave
his body. He was covered with dust ; his face had
been cut in some way, and his cheek was ribboned
with blood. All the spick of his former appearance
had vanished in a general dishevelment, in which he
resembled a creature that had been flung to and
fro, up and down, by cliffs and prairies during an
earthquake. He rolled his eye glassily at the
child.
DEATH AND THE CHILD 207
They remained thus until the child repeated his
words. " Are you a man ? "
Peza gasped in the manner of a fish. Palsied,
windless, and abject, he confronted the primitive
courage, the sovereign child, the brother of the moun
tains, the sky and the sea, and he knew that the
definition of his misery could be written on a grass-
blade.
Part II
Midnight Sketches
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 1
IT was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling
softly down, causing the pavements to glisten with
hue of steel and blue and yellow in the rays of the
innumerable lights. A youth was trudging slowly,
without enthusiasm, with his hands buried deep in his
trouser's pockets, towards the down-town places where
beds can be hired for coppers. He was clothed in an
aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of
dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going
forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the
homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City
Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells
of " bum " and " hobo," and with various unholy
epithets that small boys had applied to him at
intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound
dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet
collar of his overcoat, and as the wet cloth pressed
against his neck, he felt that there no longer could be
pleasure in life. He looked about him searching for
an outcast of highest degree that they too might share
miseries, but the lights threw a quivering glare over
1 From the Press, New York.
211
212 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
rows and circles of deserted benches that glistened
damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It
seemed that their usual freights had fled on this night
to better things. There were only squads of well-
dressed Brooklyn people who swarmed towards the
bridge.
The young man loitered about for a time and then
went shuffling off down Park Row. In the sudden
descent in style of the dress of the crowd he felt
relief, and as if he were at last in his own country.
He began to see tatters that matched his tatters. In
Chatham Square there were aimless men strewn in
front of saloons and lodging-houses, standing sadly,
patiently, reminding one vaguely of the attitudes of
chickens in a storm. He aligned himself with these
men, and turned slowly to occupy himself with the
flowing life of the great street.
Through the mists of the cold and storming night,
the cable cars went in silent procession, great affairs
shining with red and brass, moving with formidable
power, calm and irresistible, dangerful and gloomy,
breaking silence only by the loud fierce cry of the
gong. Two rivers of people swarmed along the side
walks, spattered with black mud, which made each
shoe leave a scar-like impression. Overhead elevated
trains with a shrill grinding of the wheels stopped at
the station, which upon its leg-like pillars seemed to
resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over
the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines
could be heard. Down an alley there were sombre
curtains of purple and black, on which street lamps
dully glittered like embroidered flowers.
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 213
A saloon stood with a voracious air on a corner. A
sign leaning against the front of the door-post
announced " Free hot soup to-night ! " The swing
doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made
gratified smacks as the saloon gorged itself with plump
men, eating with astounding and endless appetite,
smiling in some indescribable manner as the men
came from all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish
superstition.
Caught by the delectable sign the young man
allowed himself to be swallowed. A bar-tender placed
a schooner of dark and portentous beer on the bar.
Its monumental form up-reared until the froth a-top
was above the crown of the young man's brown
derby.
" Soup over there, gents," said the bar-tender
affably. A little yellow man in rags and the youth
grasped their schooners and went with speed toward
a* lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing
whiskers ladled genially from a kettle until he had
furnished his two mendicants with a soup that was
steaming hot, and in which there were little floating
suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his
broth, felt the cordiality expressed by the warmth of
the mixture, and he beamed at the man with oily but
imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priest
behind an altar. " Have some more, gents ? " he in
quired of the two sorry figures before him. The
little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture, but
the youth shook his head and went out, following a
man whose wondrous seediness promised that he
would have a knowledge of cheap lodging-houses.
214 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
On the side-walk he accosted the seedy man.
" Say, do you know a cheap place to sleep ? "
The other hesitated for a time gazing sideways.
Finally he nodded in the direction of the street,
" I sleep up there," he said, " when I've got the
price."
"How much ?"
" Ten cents."
The young man shook his head dolefully. " That's
too rich for me."
At that moment there approached the two a reeling
man in strange garments. His head was a fuddle of
bushy hair and whiskers, from which his eyes peered
with a guilty slant. In a close scrutiny it was
possible to distinguish the cruel lines of a mouth
which looked as if its lips had just closed with
satisfaction over some tender and piteous morsel. He
appeared like an assassin steeped in crimes performed
awkwardly.
But at this time his voice was tuned to the coaxing
key of an affectionate puppy. He looked at the men
with wheedling eyes, and began to sing a little melody
for charity.
" Say, gents, can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of
cents t' git a bed. I got five, and I gits anudder two
I gits me a bed. Now, on th' square, gents, can't yeh
jest gimme two cents t' git a bed ? Now, yeh know
how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down
on his luck, an' I "
The seedy man, staring with imperturbable counten
ance at a train which clattered overhead, interrupted
in an expressionless voice " Ah, go t' h ! "
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 215
But the youth spoke to the prayerful assassin in
tones of astonishment and inquiry. " Say, you must
be crazy! Why don't yeh strike somebody that
looks as if they had money ? "
The assassin, tottering about on his uncertain legs,
and at intervals brushing imaginary obstacles from
before his nose, entered into a long explanation of the
psychology of the situation. It was so profound that
it was unintelligible.
When he had exhausted the subject, the young
man said to him
" Let's see th' five cents."
The assassin wore an expression of drunken woe
at this sentence, filled with suspicion of him. With
a deeply pained air he began to fumble in his clothing,
his red hands trembling. Presently he announced in
a voice of bitter grief, as if he had been betrayed
" There's on'y four.''
" Four," said the young man thoughtfully. " Well,
look-a-here, I'm a stranger here, an' if ye'll steer me
to your cheap joint I'll find the other three."
The assassin's countenance became instantly radiant
with joy. His whiskers quivered with the wealth of
his alleged emotions. He seized the young man's
hand in a transport of delight and friendliness.
"B' Gawd," he cried, " if ye'll do that, b' Gawd,
I'd say yeh was a damned good fellow, I would,
an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would, b' Gawd,
an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compli
ment " he spoke with drunken dignity, " b' Gawd,
I'd treat yeh white, I would, an' I'd allus remember
yeh."
216 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
The young man drew back, looking at the assassin
coldly. " Oh, that's all right," he said. " You show
me th' joint that's all you've got t' do."
The assassin, gesticulating gratitude, led the young
man along a dark street Finally he stopped before
a little dusty door. He raised his hand impressively.
" Look-a-here," he said, and there was a thrill of deep
and ancient wisdom upon his face, " I've brought yeh
here, an' that's my part, ain't it ? If th' place don't
suit yeh, yeh needn't git mad at me, need yeh?
There won't be no bad feelin', will there ? "
" No," said the young man.
The assassin waved his arm tragically, and led the
march up the steep stairway. On the way the young
man furnished the assassin with three pennies. At
the top a man with benevolent spectacles looked at
them through a hole in a board. He collected their
money, wrote some names on a register, and speedily
was leading the two men along a gloom-shrouded
corridor.
Shortly after the beginning of this journey the
young man felt his liver turn white, for from the dark
and secret places of the building there suddenly came
to his nostrils strange and unspeakable odours, that
assailed him like malignant diseases with wings.
They seemed to be from human bodies closely
packed in dens ; the exhalations from a hundred
pairs of reeking lips ; the fumes from a thousand
bygone debauches ; the expression of a thousand
present miseries.
A man, naked save for a little snuff-coloured under
shirt, was parading sleepily along the corridor. He
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 217
rubbed his eyes, and, giving vent to a prodigious
yawn, demanded to be told the time.
" Half-past one."
The man yawned again. He opened a door, and
for a moment his form was outlined against a black,
opaque interior. To this door came the three men,
and as it was again opened the unholy odours rushed
out like fiends, so that the young man was obliged to
struggle as against an overpowering wind.
It was some time before the youth's eyes were
good in the intense gloom within, but the man with
benevolent spectacles led him skilfully, pausing but
a moment to deposit the limp assassin upon a cot.
He took the youth to a cot that lay tranquilly by the
window, and showing him a tall locker for clothes
that stood near the head with the ominous air of a
tombstone, left him.
The youth sat on his cot and peered about him.
There was a gas-jet in a distant part of the room,
that burned a small flickering orange-hued flame. It
caused vast masses of tumbled shadows in all parts
of the place, save where, immediately about it, there
was a little grey haze. As the young man's eyes
became used to the darkness, he could see upon the
cots that thickly littered the floor the forms of men
sprawled out, lying in death-like silence, or heaving
and snoring with tremendous effort, like stabbed fish.
The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the
mummy case near him, and then lay down with an
old and familiar coat around his shoulders. A blanket
he handed gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat.
The cot was covered with leather, and as cold as
218 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
melting snow. The youth was obliged to shiver for
some time on this affair, which was like a slab.
Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and
during this period of leisure from it he turned his
head to stare at his friend the assassin, whom he
could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot
in the abandon of a man filled with drink. He was
snoring with incredible vigour. His wet hair and
beard dimly glistened, and his inflamed nose shone
with subdued lustre like a red light in a fog.
Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay
with yellow breast and shoulders bare to the cold
drafts. One arm hung over the side of the cot, and
the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor
of the room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen
the eyes of the man exposed by the partly opened
lids. To the youth it seemed that he and this corpse-
like being were exchanging a prolonged stare, and
that the other threatened with his eyes. He drew
back watching his neighbour from the shadows of his
blanket edge. The man did not move once through
the night, but lay in this stillness as of death like a
body stretched out expectant of the surgeon's knife.
And all through the room could be seen the tawny
hues of naked flesh, limbs thrust into the darkness,
projecting beyond the cots; upreared knees, arms
hanging long and thin over the cot edges. For the
most part they were statuesque, carven, dead. With
the curious lockers standing all about like tombstones,
there was a strange effect of a graveyard where bodies
were merely flung.
Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly toss-
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 219
ing in fantastic nightmare gestures, accompanied by
guttural cries, grunts, oaths. And there was one
fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams was
oppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden
he began to utter long wails that went almost like
yells from a hound, echoing wailfully and weird
through this chill place of tombstones where men lay
like the dead.
The sound in its high piercing beginnings, that
dwindled to final melancholy moans, expressed a red
and grim tragedy of the unfathomable possibilities
of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were
not merely the shrieks of a vision-pierced man :
they were an utterance of the meaning of the room
and its occupants. It was to him the protest of
the wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbable
granite wheels, and who then cries with an impersonal
eloquence, with a strength not from him, giving voice
to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people. This,
weaving into the young man's brain, and mingling
with his views of the vast and sombre shadows that,
like mighty black fingers, curled around the naked
bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep,
but lay carving the biographies for these men from
his meagre experience. At times the fellow in the
corner howled in a writhing agony of his imaginations.
Finally a long lance-point of grey light shot
through the dusty panes of the window. Without,
the young man could see roofs drearily white in the
dawning. The point of light yellowed and grew
brighter, until the golden rays of the morning sun
came in bravely and strong. They touched with
220 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
radiant colour the form of a small fat man, who snored
in stuttering fashion. His round and shiny bald head
glowed suddenly with the valour of a decoration.
He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully, and
pulled his blanket over the ornamental splendours of
his head.
The youth contentedly watched this rout of the
shadows before the bright spears of the sun, and
presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard
the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses.
Putting up his head, he perceived his comrade seated
on the side of the cot engaged in scratching his neck
with long finger-nails that rasped like files.
" Hully Jee, dis is a new breed. They've got can-
openers on their feet." He continued in a violent
tirade.
The young man hastily unlocked his closet and
took out his shoes and hat. As he sat on the side of
the cot lacing his shoes, he glanced about and saw that
daylight had made the room comparatively common
place and uninteresting. The men, whose faces
seemed stolid, serene or absent, were engaged in
dressing, while a great crackle of bantering convers
ation arose.
A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness.
Here and there were men of brawn, whose skins shone
clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses, standing
massively like chiefs. When they had dressed in
their ungainly garments there was an extraordinary
change. They then showed bumps and deficiencies
of all kinds.
There were others who exhibited many deformities.
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 221
Shoulders were slanting, humped, pulled this way and
pulled that way. And notable among these latter
men was the little fat man, who had refused to allow
his head to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded
like a pear, bustled to and fro, while he swore in fish
wife fashion. It appeared that some article of his
apparel had vanished.
The young man attired speedily, and went to his
friend the assassin. At first the latter looked dazed at
the sight of the youth. This face seemed to be appeal
ing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory.
He scratched his neck and reflected. At last he
grinned, a broad smile gradually spreading until his
countenance was a round illumination. " Hello,
Willie," he cried cheerily.
" Hello," said the young man. " Are yeh ready t'
fly ? "
" Sure." The assassin tied his shoe carefully with
some twine and came ambling.
When he reached the street the young man experi
enced no sudden relief from unholy atmospheres. He
had forgotten all about them, and had been breathing
naturally, and with no sensation of discomfort or
distress.
He was thinking of these things as he walked along
the street, when he was suddenly startled by feeling
the assassin's hand, trembling with excitement, clutch
ing his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voice
went into quavers from a supreme agitation.
"I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed if there wasn't
a feller with a nightshirt on up there in that
joint."
222 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
The youth was bewildered for a moment, but
presently he turned to smile indulgently at the
assassin's humour.
" Oh, you're a d d liar," he merely said.
Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extra
vagantly, and take oath by strange gods. He
frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable
fates if his tale were not true.
" Yes, he did ! I cross m'heart thousan' times ! " he
protested, and at the moment his eyes were large
with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in unnatural
glee.
" Yessir ! A nightshirt ! A hully white night
shirt ! "
" You lie ! "
" No, sir ! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder
ball if there wasn't a jay wid a hully, bloomin' white
nightshirt ! "
His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it.
" A hully white nightshirt," he continually repeated.
The young man saw the dark entrance to a base
ment restaurant. There was a sign which read " No
mystery about our hash " ! and there were other age-
stained and world-battered legends which told him
that the place was within his means. He stopped
before it and spoke to the assassin. " I guess I'll git
somethin' t' eat."
At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be
quite embarrassed. He gazed at the seductive front
of the eating place for a moment. Then he started
slowly up the street. "Well, good-bye, Willie," he
said bravely.
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 223
For an instant the youth studied the departing
figure. Then he called out, " Hoi' on a minnet." As
they came together he spoke in a certain fierce way,
as if he feared that the other would think him to be
charitable. " Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some
breakfas' I'll lend yeh three cents t' do it with. But
say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an' hustle. I
ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night.
I ain't no millionaire."
" I take me oath, Willie," said the assassin earnestly,
" th' on'y thing I really needs is a ball. Me t'roat
feels like a fryin'-pan. But as I can't get a ball, why,
th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh do that for
me, b' Gawd, I say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever
see."
They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges
of phrases, in which they each protested that the other
was, as the assassin had originally said, "a respecter'ble
gentlem'n." And they concluded with mutual
assurances that they were the souls of intelligence and
virtue. Then they went into the restaurant.
There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hid
den sources. Two or three men in soiled white aprons
rushed here and there.
The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents
and a roll for one cent. The assassin purchased the
same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams,
and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged
from the first pyramid. Upon them were black moss-
like encrustations of age, and they were bent and
scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth.
But over their repast the wanderers waxed warm
224 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
and mellow. The assassin grew affable as the
hot mixture went soothingly down his parched
throat, and the young man felt courage flow in his
veins.
Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he
brought forth long tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered
with a chattering swiftness as from an old woman.
" great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hust-
lin' though all time. I was there three days, and then
I went an' ask J im t' lend me a dollar. ' G-g-go ter
the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job."
" South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-
five an' thirty cents a day. Run white man out.
Good grub though. Easy livin'."
" Yas ; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs.
Make two or three dollars er day in the spring. Lived
high. Cold as ice though in the winter."
" I was raised in northern N'York. O-o-oh, yeh
jest oughto live there. No beer ner whisky though,
way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grub yeh
can eat. B' Gawd, I hung around there long as I could
till th' oP man fired me. ' Git t' hell outa here, yeh
wuthless skunk, git t' hell outa here, an' go die,' he ses.
1 You're a hell of a father,' I ses, ' you are,' an' I quit
'im."
As they were passing from the dim eating place,
they encountered an old man who was trying to steal
forth with a tiny package of food, but a tall man with
an indomitable moustache stood dragon fashion, bar
ring the way of escape. They heard the old man
raise a plaintive protest. " Ah, you always want to
know what I take out, and you never see that I
AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY 225
usually bring a package in here from my place of
business."
As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row,
the assassin began to expand and grow blithe.
" B' Gawd, weVe been livin' like kings," he said, smack
ing appreciative lips.
" Look out, or we'll have t' pay fer it t'night," said
the youth with gloomy warning.
But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the
future. He went with a limping step, into which he
injected a suggestion of lamblike gambols. His
mouth was wreathed in a red grin.
In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down
in the little circle of benches sanctified by traditions
of their class. They huddled in their old garments,
slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours
which for them had no meaning.
The people of the street hurrying hither and thither
made a blend of black figures changing yet frieze-like.
They walked in their good clothes as upon important
missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers seated
upon the benches. They expressed to the young man
his infinite distance from all that he valued. Social
position, comfort, the pleasures of living, were uncon
querable kingdoms. He felt ? sudden awe.
And in the background a multitude of buildings, of
pitiless hues and sternly high, were to him emblematic
of a nation forcing its regc? head into the clouds,
throwing no downward glances ; in the sublimity of
its aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder
at its feet. The roar of the city in Jiis ear was to him
the confusion of strange tongues, babbling heedlessly ;
Q
226 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
it was the clink of coin, the voice of the city's hopes
which were to him no hopes.
He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from
under the lowered rim of his hat began to glance
guiltily, wearing the criminal expression that comes
with certain convictions.
THE MEN IN THE STORM
THE MEN IN THE STORM
THE blizzard began to swirl great clouds of snow
along the streets, sweeping it down from the roofs,
and up from the pavements, until the faces of
pedestrians tingled and burned as from a thousand
needle-prickings. Those on the walks huddled their
necks closely in the collars of their coats, and went
along stooping like a race of aged people. The
drivers of vehicles hurried their horses furiously on
their way. They were made more cruel by the
exposure of their position, aloft on high seats. The
street cars, bound up town, went slowly, the
horses slipping and straining in the spongy brown
mass that lay between the rails. The drivers, muffled
to the eyes, stood erect, facing the wind, models of
grim philosophy. Overhead trains rumbled and
roared, and the dark structure of the elevated rail
road, stretching over the avenue, dripped little streams
and drops of water upon the mud and snow beneath.
All the clatter of the street was softened by the
masses that lay upon the cobbles, until, even to one
who looked from a window, it became important
music, a melody of life made necessary to the ear by
229
230 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
the dreariness of the pitiless beat and sweep of the
storm. Occasionally one could see black figures of
men busily shovelling the white drifts from the walks.
The sounds from their labour created new recollec
tions of rural experiences which every man manages
to have in a measure. Later, the immense windows
of the shops became aglow with light, throwing great
beams of orange and yellow upon the pavement.
They were infinitely cheerful, yet in a way they
accentuated the force and discomfort of the storm,
and gave a meaning to the pace of the people and the
vehicles, scores of pedestrians and drivers, wretched
with cold faces, necks and feet, speeding for scores of
unknown doors and entrances, scattering to an infinite
variety of shelters, to places which the imagination
made warm with the familiar colours of home.
There was an absolute expression of hot dinners in
the pace of the people. If one dared to speculate
upon the destination of those who came trooping, he
lost himself in a maze of social calculation ; he might
fling a handful of sand and attempt to follow the
flight of each particular grain. But as to the sugges
tion of hot dinners, he was in firm lines of thought,
for it was upon every hurrying face. It is a matter of
tradition ; it is from the tales of childhood. It comes
forth with every storm.
However, in a certain part of a dark west-side
street, there was a collection of men to whom these
things were as if they were not In this street was
located a charitable house, where for five cents the
homeless of the city could get a bed at night, and in
the morning coffee and bread.
THE MEN IN THE STORM 231
During the afternoon of the storm, the whirling
snows acted as drivers, as men with whips, and at
half-past three the walk before the closed doors of
the house was covered with wanderers of the street,
waiting. For some distance on either side of the
place they could be seen lurking in the doorways and
behind projecting parts of buildings, gathering in close
bunches in an effort to get warm. A covered wagon
drawn up near the curb sheltered a dozen of them.
Under the stairs that led to the elevated railway
station, there were six or eight, their hands stuffed
deep in their pockets, their shoulders stooped, jiggling
their feet. Others always could be seen coming, a
strange procession, some slouching along with the
characteristic hopeless gait of professional strays,
some coming with hesitating steps, wearing the air of
men to whom this sort of thing was new.
It was an afternoon of incredible length. The
snow, blowing in twisting clouds, sought out the men
in their meagre hiding-places, and skilfully beat in
among them, drenching their persons with showers of
fine stinging flakes. They crowded together, mutter
ing, and fumbling in their pockets to get their red
inflamed wrists covered by the cloth.
New-comers usually halted at one end of the groups
and addressed a question, perhaps much as a matter
of form, " Is it open yet ? "
Those who had been waiting inclined to take the
questioner seriously and became contemptuous. "No ;
do yeh think we'd be standin' here ? "
The gathering swelled in numbers steadily and
232 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
persistently. One could always see them coming,
trudging slowly through the storm.
Finally, the little snow plains in the street began to
assume a leaden hue from the shadows of evening.
The buildings upreared gloomily save where various
windows became brilliant figures of light, that made
shimmers and splashes of yellow on the snow. A
street lamp on the curb struggled to illuminate, but it
was reduced to impotent blindness by the swift gusts
of sleet crusting its panes.
In this half-darkness, the men began to come from
their shelter places and mass in front of the doors of
charity. They were of all types, but the nationalities
were mostly American, German, and Irish. Many
were strong, healthy, clear-skinned fellows, with that
stamp of countenance which is not frequently seen
upon seekers after charity. There were men of un
doubted patience, industry, and temperance, who, in
time of ill-fortune, do not habitually turn to rail at
the state of society, snarling at the arrogance of the
rich, and bemoaning the cowardice of the poor, but
who at these times are apt to wear a sudden and
singular meekness, as if they saw the world's progress
marching from them, and were trying to perceive
where they had failed, what they had lacked, to be
thus vanquished in the race. Then there were others
of the shifting, Bowery element, who were used to
paying ten cents for a place to sleep, but who now
came here because it was cheaper.
But they were all mixed in one mass so thoroughly
that one could not have discerned the different
THE MEN IN THE STORM 233
elements, but for the fact that the labouring rrjen, for
the most part, remained silent and impassive in the
blizzard, their eyes fixed on the windows of the house,
statues of patience.
The sidewalk soon became completely blocked by
the bodies of the men. They pressed close to one
another like sheep in a winter's gale, keeping one
another warm by the heat of their bodies. The
snow came down upon this compressed group of men
until, directly from above, it might have appeared
like a heap of snow-covered merchandise, if it were
not for the fact that the crowd swayed gently with a
unanimous, rhythmical motion. It was wonderful to
see how the snow lay upon the heads and shoulders
of these men, in little ridges an inch thick perhaps in
places, the flakes steadily adding drop and drop,
precisely as they fall upon the unresisting grass of
the fields. The feet of the men were all wet and
cold, and the wish to warm them accounted for the
slow, gentle, rhythmical motion. Occasionally some
man whose ear or nose tingled acutely from the cold
winds would wriggle down until hi^ head was pro
tected by the shoulders of his companions.
There was a continuous murmuring discussion as
to the probability of the doors being speedily opened.
They persistently lifted their eyes towards the
windows. One could hear little combats of opinion.
" There's a light in th' winder ! "
" Naw ; it's a reflection f 'm across th' way."
"Well, didn't I see 'em light it?"
"You did?"
" I did ! "
234 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
" Well, then, that settles it ! "
As the time approached when they expected to be
allowed to enter, the men crowded to the doors in an
unspeakable crush, jamming and wedging in a way
that it seemed would crack bones. They surged
heavily against the building in a powerful wave of
pushing shoulders. Once a rumour flitted among all
the tossing heads.
" They can't open th' door ! Th' fellers er smack
up agin 'em."
Then a dull roar of rage came from the men on
the outskirts ; but all the time they strained and
pushed until it appeared to be impossible for those
that they cried out against to do anything but be
crushed into pulp.
" Ah, git away f m th' door ! "
" Git outa that ! "
" Throw 'em out!"
"Kill'em!"
" Say, fellers, now, what th' 'ell ? G've 'em a
chance t' open th' door ! "
" Yeh dam pigs, give 'em a chance t' open th' door ! "
Men in the outskirts of the crowd occasionally
yelled when a boot-heel of one of trampling feet
crushed on their freezing extremities.
" Git off me feet, yeh clumsy tarrier ! "
"Say, don't stand on me feet! Walk on th'
ground ! "
A man near the doors suddenly shouted " O-o-oh !
Le' me out le' me out ! " And another, a man of
infinite valour, once twisted his head so as to half
face those who were pushing behind him. "Quit
THE MEN IN THE STORM 235
yer shovin', yeh " and he delivered a volley of the
most powerful and singular invective, straight into
the faces of the men behind him. It was as if he
was hammering the noses of them with curses of
triple brass. His face, red with rage, could be seen
upon it, an expression of sublime disregard of
consequences. But nobody cared to reply to his
imprecations ; it was too cold. Many of them
snickered, and all continued to push.
In occasional pauses of the crowd's movement the
men had opportunities to make jokes ; usually grim
things, and no doubt very uncouth. Nevertheless,
they were notable one does not expect to find the
quality of humour in a heap of old clothes under a
snow-drift.
The winds seemed to grow fiercer as time wore on.
Some of the gusts of snow that came down on the
close collection of heads, cut like knives and needles,
and the men huddled, and swore, not like dark
assassins, but in a sort of American fashion, grimly
and desperately, it is true, but yet with a wondrous
under-effect, indefinable and mystic, as if there was
some kind of humour in this catastrophe, in this
situation in a night of snow-laden winds.
Once the window of the huge dry-goods shop across
the street furnished material for a few moments of
forgetfulness. In the brilliantly-lighted space ap
peared the figure of a man. He was rather stout
and very well clothed. His beard was fashioned
charmingly after that of the Prince of Wales. He
stood in an attitude of magnificent reflection. He
slowly stroked his moustache with a certain grandeur
236 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
of manner, and looked down at the snow-encrusted
mob. From below, there was denoted a supreme
complacence in him. It seemed that the sight
operated inversely, and enabled him to more clearly
regard his own delightful environment.
One of the mob chanced to turn his head, and per
ceived the figure in the window. " Hello, lookit 'is
whiskers," he said genially.
Many of the men turned then, and a shout went up.
They called to him in all strange keys. They ad
dressed him in every manner, from familiar and cordial
greetings, to carefully-worded advice concerning
changes in his personal appearance. The man pre
sently fled, and the mob chuckled ferociously, like
ogres who had just devoured something.
They turned then to serious business. Often they
addressed the stolid front of the house.
" Oh, let us in fer Gawd's sake ! "
" Let us in, or we'll all drop dead ! "
" Say, what's th' use o' keepin' us poor Indians out
in th' cold ? "
And always some one was saying, " Keep off my
feet."
The crushing of the crowd grew terrific toward the
last. The men, in keen pain from the blasts, began
almost to fight. With the pitiless whirl of snow upon
them, the battle for shelter was going to the strong.
It became known that the basement door at the foot
of a little steep flight of stairs was the one to be
opened, and they jostled and heaved in this direction
like labouring fiends. One could hear them panting
and groaning in their fierce exertion.
THE MEN IN THE STORM 237
Usually some one in the front ranks was protesting
to those in the rear " O-o-ow ! Oh, say now, fellers,
let up, will yeh ? Do yeh wanta kill somebody ! "
A policeman arrived and went into the midst of
them, scolding and be-rating, occasionally threatening,
but using no force but that of his hands and shoulders
against these men who were only struggling to get in
out of the storm. His decisive tones rang out sharply
" Stop that pushin' back there ! Come, boys, don't
push! Stop that ! Here you, quit yershovin'! Cheese
that!"
When the door below was opened, a thick stream
of men forced a way down the stairs, which were of
an extraordinary narrowness, and seemed only wide
enough for one at a time. Yet they somehow went
down almost three abreast. It was a difficult and
painful operation. The crowd was like a turbulent
water forcing itself through one tiny outlet. The men
in the rear, excited by the success of the others, made
frantic exertions, for it seemed that this large band
would more than fill the quarters, and that many
would be left upon the pavements. It would be
disastrous to be of the last, and accordingly men with
the snow biting their faces, writhed and twisted with
their might. One expected that from the tremendous
pressure, the narrow passage to the basement door
would be so choked and clogged with human limbs
and bodies that movement would be impossible. Once
indeed the crowd was forced to stop, and a cry went
along that a man had been injured at the foot of the
stairs. But presently the slow movement began
again, and the policeman fought at the top of the
238 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
flight to ease the pressure of those that were going
down.
A reddish light from a window fell upon the faces
of the men, when they, in turn, arrived at the last three
steps, and were about to enter. One could then note
a change of expression that had come over their
features. As they stood thus upon the threshold
of their hopes, they looked suddenly contented and
complacent. The fire had passed from their eyes and
the snarl had vanished from their lips. The very force
of the crowd in the rear, which had previously vexed
them, was regarded from another point of view, for it
now made it inevitable that they should go through
the little doors into the place that was cheery and
warm with light.
The tossing crowd on the sidewalk grew smaller
and smaller. The snow beat with merciless persist
ence upon the bowed heads of those who waited.
The wind drove it up from the pavements in frantic
forms of winding white, and it seethed in circles about
the huddled forms passing in one by one, three by
three, out of the storm.
THE DUEL THAT WAS
NOT FOUGHT
THE DUEL THAT WAS
NOT FOUGHT
PATSY TULLIGAN was not as wise as seven owls,
but his courage could throw a shadow as long as the
steeple of a cathedral. There were men on Cherry
Street who had whipped him five times, but they all
knew that Patsy would be as ready for the sixth time
as if nothing had happened.
Once he and two friends had been away up on
Eighth Avenue, far out of their country, and upon
their return journey that evening they stopped fre
quently in saloons until they were as independent of
their surroundings as eagles, and cared much less
about thirty days on Blackwell's.
On Lower Sixth Avenue they paused in a saloon
where there was a good deal of lamp-glare and
polished wood to be seen from the outside, and
within, the mellow light shone on much furbished
brass and more polished wood. It was a better
saloon than they were in the habit of seeing, but they
did not mind it. They sat down at one of the little
tables that were in a row parallel to the bar and
241 R
242 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
ordered beer. They blinked stolidly at the decora
tions, the bar-tender, and the other customers. When
anything transpired they discussed it with dazzling
frankness, and what they said of it was as free as air
to the other people in the place.
At midnight there were few people in the saloon.
Patsy and his friends still sat drinking. Two well-
dressed men were at another table, smoking cigars
slowly and swinging back in their chairs. They
occupied themselves with themselves in the usual
manner, never betraying by a wink of an eyelid
that they knew that other folk existed. At another
table directly behind Patsy and his companions was
a slim little Cuban, with miraculously small feet and
hands, and with a youthful touch of down upon
his lip. As he lifted his cigarette from time to time
his little finger was bended in dainty fashion, and
there was a green flash when a huge emerald ring
caught the light. The bar-tender came often with
his little brass tray. Occasionally Patsy and his
two friends quarrelled.
Once this little Cuban happened to make some
slight noise and Patsy turned his head to observe
him. Then Patsy made a careless and rather loud
comment to his two friends. He used a word which
is no more than passing the time of day down in
Cherry Street, but to the Cuban it was a dagger-
point. There was a harsh scraping sound as a chair
was pushed swiftly back.
The little Cuban was upon his feet. His eyes were
shining with a rage that flashed there like sparks as
he glared at Patsy. His olive face had turned a
DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT 243
shade of grey from his anger. Withal his chest was
thrust out in portentous dignity, and his hand, still
grasping his wine-glass, was cool and steady, the
little finger still bended, the great emerald gleaming
upon it. The others, motionless, stared at him.
" Sir," he began ceremoniously. He spoke gravely
and in a slow way, his tone coming in a marvel of
self-possessed cadences from between those lips which
quivered with wrath. "You have insult me. You
are a dog, a hound, a cur. I spit upon you. I must
have some of your blood."
Patsy looked at him over his shoulder.
" What's th' matter wi' che ? " he demanded. He
did not quite understand the words of this little man
who glared at him steadily, but he knew that it was
something about fighting. He snarled with the readi
ness of his class and heaved his shoulders contempt
uously. "Ah, what's eatin' yeh? Take a walk!
You h'ain't got nothin' t' do with me, have yeh ?
Well, den, go sit on yerself."
And his companions leaned back valorously in
their chairs, and scrutinized this slim young fellow
who was addressing Patsy.
" What's de little Dago chewin' about ? "
" He wants t' scrap ! "
"What!"
The Cuban listened with apparent composure. It
was only when they laughed that his body cringed as
if he was receiving lashes. Presently he put down
his glass and walked over to their table. He pro
ceeded always with the most impressive deliberation.
" Sir," he began again. " You have insult me. I
244 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
must have s-s-satisfac-shone. I must have your body
upon the point of my sword. In my country you
would already be dead. I must have s-s-satisfac-
shone."
Patsy had looked at the Cuban with a trifle of
bewilderment. But at last his face began to grow
dark with belligerency, his mouth curve in that wide
sneer with which he would confront an angel of dark
ness. He arose suddenly in his seat and came towards
the little Cuban. He was going to be impressive too.
" Say, young feller, if yeh go shootin' off fer face
at me, I'll wipe d' joint wid yeh. What'cher gaffin'
about, hey? Are yeh givin' me er jolly? Say, if
yeh pick me up fer a cinch, I'll fool yeh. Dat's what !
Don't take me fer no dead easy mug." And as he
glowered at the little Cuban, ,he ended his oration
with one eloquent word, " Nit ! "
The bar-tender nervously polished his bar with a
towel, and kept his eyes fastened upon the men.
Occasionally he became transfixed with interest, lean
ing forward with one hand upon the edge of the bar
and the other holding the towel grabbed in a lump,
as if he had been turned into bronze when in the very
act of polishing. ;
The Cuban did not move when Patsy came toward
him and delivered his oration. At its conclusion he
turned his livid face toward where, above him, Patsy
was swaggering and heaving his shoulders in a con
summate display of bravery and readiness. The
Cuban, in his clear, tense tones, spoke one word. It
was the bitter insult. It seemed to fairly spin from
his lips and crackle in the air like breaking glass.
DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT 245
Every man save the little Cuban made an electric
movement. Patsy roared a black oath and thrust
himself forward until he towered almost directly-
above the other man. His fists were doubled into
knots of bone and hard flesh. The Cuban had raised
a steady finger.
" If you touch me wis your hand, I will keel you."
The two well-dressed men had come swiftly, utter
ing protesting cries. They suddenly intervened in
this second of time in which Patsy had sprung for
ward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The
four men were now a tossing, arguing, violent group,
one well-dressed man lecturing the Cuban, and the
other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage,
loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and manoeuvring
and struggling to get at him for revenge's sake.
The bar-tender, feverishly scouring away with his
towel, and at times pacing to and fro with nervous
and excited tread, shouted out
" Say, for heaven's sake, don't fight in here. If yeh
wanta fight, go out in the street and fight all yeh
please. But don't fight in here."
Patsy knew only one thing, and this he kept
repeating
" Well, he wants t' scrap ! I didn't begin dis ! He
wants t' scrap."
The well-dressed man confronting him continually
replied
" Oh, well, now, look here, he's only a lad. He
don't know what he's doing. He's crazy mad. You
wouldn't slug a kid like that."
Patsy and his aroused companions, who cursed
246 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
and growled, were persistent with their argument.
" Well, he wants t' scrap ! " The whole affair was as
plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The
interference and intolerable discussion brought the
three of them forward, battleful and fierce.
" What's eatin' you, anyhow ? " they demanded.
" Dis ain't your business, is it ? What business you
got shootin' off your face ? "
The other peacemaker was trying to restrain the
little Cuban, who had grown shrill and violent.
" If he touch me wis his hand I will keel him. We
must fight like gentlemen or else I keel him when he
touch me wis his hand."
The man who was fending off Patsy comprehended
these sentences that were screamed behind his back,
and he explained to Patsy
" But he wants to fight you with swords. With
swords, you know."
The Cuban, dodging around the peacemakers, yelled
in Patsy's face
" Ah, if I could get you before me wis my sword !
Ah ! Ah ! A-a-ah ! " Patsy made a furious blow
with a swift fist, but the peacemakers bucked against
his body suddenly like football players.
Patsy was greatly puzzled. He continued doggedly
to try to get near enough to the Cuban to punch him.
To these attempts the Cuban replied savagely
" If you touch me wis your hand, I will cut your
heart in two piece."
At last Patsy said " Well, if he's so dead stuck on
fightin' wid swords, I'll fight 'im. Soitenly! I'll
fight 'im." All this palaver had evidently tired him,
DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT 247
and he now puffed out his lips with the air of a man
who is willing to submit to any conditions if he can
only bring on the row soon enough. He swaggered,
" I'll fight J im wid swords. Let 'im bring on his
swords, an' I'll fight 'im 'til he's ready t } quit."
The two well-dressed men grinned. "Why, look
here," they said to Patsy, "he'd punch you full of
holes. Why, he's a fencer. You can't fight him with
swords. He'd kill you in 'bout a minute."
" Well, I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow," said Patsy,
stout-hearted and resolute. " I'll giv' 'im a go at it,
anyhow, an' I'll stay wid 'im long as I kin."
As for the Cuban, his lithe little body was quiver
ing in an ecstasy of the muscles. His face radiant
with a savage joy, he fastened his glance upon Patsy,
his eyes gleaming with a gloating, murderous light.
A most unspeakable, animal-like rage was in his
expression.
" Ah ! ah ! He will fight me ! Ah ! " He bended
unconsciously in the posture of a fencer. He had all
the quick, springy movements of a skilful swordsman.
" Ah, the b-r-r-rute ! The b-r-r-rute ! I will stick
him like a pig ! "
The two peacemakers, still grinning broadly, were
having a great time with Patsy.
" Why, you infernal idiot, this man would slice you
all up. You better jump off the bridge if you want
to commit suicide. You wouldn't stand a ghost of a
chance to live ten seconds."
Patsy was as unshaken as granite. "Well, if he
wants t' fight wid swords, he'll get it. I'll giv' 'im a
go at it, anyhow."
248 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
One man said " Well, have you got a sword ?
Do you know what a sword is ? Have you got a
sword?"
" No, I ain't got none," said Patsy honestly, " but
I kin git one." Then he added valiantly " An'
quick too."
The two men laughed. "Why, can't you under
stand it would be sure death to fight a sword duel
with this fellow ? "
" Dat's all right ! See ? I know me own business.
If he wants t' fight one of dees d n duels, I'm in it,
understan' ? "
" Have you ever fought one, you fool ? "
"No, I ain't. But I will fight one, dough! I
ain't no muff. If he want t' fight a duel, by
Gawd, I'm wid 'im ! D'yeh understan' dat ! " Patsy
cocked his hat and swaggered. He was getting very
serious.
The little Cuban burst out " Ah, come on, sirs :
come on ! We can take cab. Ah, you big cow, I
will stick you, I will stick you. Ah, you will look
very beautiful, very beautiful. Ah, come on, sirs.
We will stop at hotel my hotel. I there have
weapons."
"Yeh will, will yeh ? Yeh bloomin' little black
Dago," cried Patsy in hoarse and maddened reply to
the personal part of the Cuban's speech. He stepped
forward. "Git yer d n swords," he commanded.
" Git yer swords. Git 'em quick ! I'll fight wi' che !
I'll fight wid anyting, too ! See ? I'll fight yeh wid
a knife an' fork if yeh say so ! I'll fight yer standin'
up er sittin' down ! " Patsy delivered this intense
DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT 249
x
oration with sweeping, intensely emphatic gestures,
his hands stretched out eloquently, his jaw thrust
forward, his eyes glaring.
"Ah," cried the little Cuban joyously. "Ah, you
are in very pretty temper. Ah, how I will cut your
heart in two piece, my dear, d-e-a-r friend." His
eyes, too, shone like carbuncles, with a swift, changing
glitter, always fastened upon Patsy's face.
The two peacemakers were perspiring and in
despair. One of them blurted out
" Well, I'll be blamed if this ain't the most ridiculous
thing I ever saw."
The other said" For ten dollars I'd be tempted
to let these two infernal blockheads have their duel."
Patsy was strutting to and fro, and conferring
grandly with his friends.
" He took me for a muff. He tought he was goin'
t' bluff me out, talkin' 'bout swords. He'll get fooled."
He addressed the Cuban " You're a fine little dirty
picter of a scrapper, ain't che ? I'll chew yez up,
dat's what I will."
There began then some rapid action. The patience
of well-dressed men is not an eternal thing. It began
to look as if it would at last be a fight with six
corners to it. The faces of the men were shining red
with anger. They jostled each other defiantly, and
almost every one blazed out at three or four of the
others. The bar-tender had given up protesting.
He swore for a time, and banged his glasses. Then
he jumped the bar and ran out of the saloon, cursing
sullenly.
When he came back with a policeman, Patsy and
250 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
the Cuban were preparing to depart together. Patsy
was delivering his last oration
" I'll fight yer wid swords ! Sure I will ! Come
ahead, Dago ! I'll fight yeh anywheres wid anyting !
We'll have a large, juicy scrap, an' don't yeh forgit
dat! I'm right wid yez. I ain't no muff! I scrap
wid a man jest as soon as he ses scrap, an' if yeh
wanta scrap, I'm yer kitten. Understan' dat ? "
The policeman said sharply " Come, now ; what's
all this ? " He had a distinctly business air.
The little Cuban stepped forward calmly. " It is
none of your business."
The policeman flushed to his ears. " What ? "
One well-dressed man touched the other on the
sleeve. "Here's the time to skip," he whispered.
They halted a block away from the saloon and
watched the policeman pull the Cuban through the
door. There was a minute of scuffle on the sidewalk,
and into this deserted street at midnight fifty people
appeared at once as if from the sky to watch it.
At last the three Cherry Hill men came from the
saloon, and swaggered with all their old valour toward
the peacemakers.
" Ah," said Patsy to them, " he was so hot talkin'
about this duel business, but I would a-given 'im a
great scrap, an' don't yeh forgit it."
For Patsy was not as wise as seven owls, but his
courage could throw a shadow as long as the steeple
of a cathedral.
AN OMINOUS BABY
AN OMINOUS BABY
A BABY was wandering in a strange country. He
was a tattered child with a frowsled wealth of yellow
hair. His dress, of a checked stuff, was soiled, and
showed the marks of many conflicts, like the chain-
shirt of a warrior. His sun-tanned knees shone above
wrinkled stockings, which he pulled up occasionally
with an impatient movement when they entangled
his feet. From a gaping shoe there appeared an array
of tiny toes.
He was toddling along an avenue between rows of
stolid brown houses. He went slowly, with a look of
absorbed interest on his small flushed face. His blue
eyes stared curiously. Carriages went with a musical
rumble over the smooth asphalt. A man with a
chrysanthemum was going up steps. Two nursery
maids chatted as they walked slowly, while their
charges hobnobbed amiably between perambulators.
A truck wagon roared thunderously in the distance.
The child from the poor district made his way
along the brown street filled with dull grey shadows.
High up, near the roofs, glancing sun-rays changed
cornices to blazing gold and silvered the fronts of
253
254 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
windows. The wandering baby stopped and stared
at the two children laughing and playing in their
carriages among the heaps of rugs and cushions. He
braced his legs apart in an attitude of earnest atten
tion. His lower jaw fell, and disclosed his small,
even teeth. As they moved on, he followed the
carriages with awe in his face as if contemplating a
pageant. Once one of the babies, with twittering
laughter, shook a gorgeous rattle at him. He smiled
jovially in return.
Finally a nursery maid ceased conversation and,
turning, made a gesture of annoyance.
" Go 'way, little boy," she said to him. " Go 'way.
You're all dirty."
He gazed at her with infant tranquillity ior a
moment, and then went slowly off dragging behind
him a bit of rope he had acquired in another street.
He continued to investigate the new scenes. The
people and houses struck him with interest as would
flowers and trees. Passengers had to avoid the small,
absorbed figure in the middle of the sidewalk. They
glanced at the intent baby face covered with scratches
and dust as with scars and with powder smoke.
After a time, the wanderer discovered upon the
pavement a pretty child in fine clothes playing with
a toy. It was a tiny fire-engine, painted brilliantly in
crimson and gold. The wheels rattled as its small
owner dragged it uproariously about by means of a
string. The babe with his bit of rope trailing behind
him paused and regarded the child and the toy. For a
long while he remained motionless, save for his eyes,
which followed all movements of the glittering thing.
AN OMINOUS BABY 255
The owner paid no attention to the spectator, but
continued his joyous imitations of phases of the career
of a fire-engine. His gleeful baby laugh rang against
the calm fronts of the houses. After a little the
wandering baby began quietly to sidle nearer. His
bit of rope, now forgotten, dropped at his feet. He
removed his eyes from the toy and glanced expect
antly at the other child.
" Say," he breathed softly.
The owner of the toy was running down the walk
at top speed. His tongue was clanging like a bell
and his legs were galloping. He did not look around
at the coaxing call from the small tattered figure on
the curb.
The wandering baby approached still nearer, and
presently spoke again.
" Say," he murmured, " le' me play wif it ? "
The other child interrupted some shrill tootings.
He bended his head and spoke disdainfully over his
shoulder.
" No," he said.
The wanderer retreated to the curb. He failed to
notice the bit of rope, once treasured. His eyes
followed as before the winding course of the engine,
and his tender mouth twitched.
" Say," he ventured at last, " is dat yours ? "
" Yes," said the other, tilting his round chin. He
drew his property suddenly behind him as if it were
menaced. " Yes," he repeated, " it's mine."
"Well, le' me play wif it?" said the wander
ing baby, with a trembling note of desire in his
voice.
256 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
" No," cried the pretty child with determined lips.
" It's mine. My ma-ma buyed it."
"Well, tan't I play wif it ?" His voice was a sob.
He stretched forth little covetous hands.
" No," the pretty child continued to repeat. " No,
it's mine."
" Well, I want to play wif it," wailed the other. A
sudden fierce frown man tied his baby face. He clenched
his fat hands and advanced with a formidable gesture.
He looked some wee battler in a war.
" It's mine ! It's mine," cried the pretty child, his
voice in the treble of outraged rights.
" I want it," roared the wanderer.
" It's mine ! It's mine ! "
" I want it ! "
" It's mine ! "
The pretty child retreated to the fence, and there
paused at bay. He protected his property with out
stretched arms. The small vandal made a charge.
There was a short scuffle at the fence. Each grasped
the string to the toy and tugged. Their faces were
wrinkled with baby rage, the verge of tears. Finally,
the child in tatters gave a supreme tug and wrenched
the string from the other's hands. He set off rapidly
down the street, bearing the toy in his arms. He
was weeping with the air of a wronged one who has
at last succeeded in achieving his rights. The other
baby was squalling lustily. He seemed quite helpless.
He rung his chubby hands and railed.
After the small barbarian had got some distance
away, he paused and regarded his booty. His little
form curved with pride. A soft, gleeful smile loomed
AN OMINOUS BABY 257
through the storm of tears. With great care he
prepared the toy for travelling. He stopped a
moment on a corner and gazed at the pretty child,
whose small figure was quivering with sobs. As the
latter began to show signs of beginning pursuit, the
little vandal turned and vanished down a dark side
street as into a cavern.
A GREAT MISTAKE
A GREAT MISTAKE
AN Italian kept a fruit-stand on a corner where he
had good aim at the people who came down from the
elevated station, and at those who went along two
thronged streets. He sat most of the day in a back
less chair that was placed strategically.
There was a babe living hard by, up five flights of
stairs, who regarded this Italian as a tremendous
being. The babe had investigated this fruit-stand.
It had thrilled him as few things he had met with in
his travels had thrilled him. The sweets of the world
had laid there in dazzling rows, tumbled in luxurious
heaps. When he gazed at this Italian seated amid
such splendid treasures, his lower lip hung low and his
eyes, raised to the vendor's face, were filled with deep
respect, worship, as if he saw omnipotence.
The babe came often to this corner. He hovered
about the stand and watched each detail of the busi
ness. He was fascinated by the tranquillity of the
vendor, the majesty of power and possession. At
times he was so engrossed in his contemplation that
people, hurrying, had to use care to avoid bumping
him down.
261
262 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
He had never ventured very near to the stand. It
was his habit to hang warily about the curb. Even
there he resembled a babe who looks unbidden at a
feast of gods.
One day, however, as the baby was thus staring,
the vendor arose, and going along the front of the
stand, began to polish oranges with a red pocket
handkerchief. The breathless spectator moved across
the side walk until his small face almost touched the
vendor's sleeve. His fingers were gripped in a fold
of his dress.
At last, the Italian finished with the oranges and
returned to his chair. He drew a newspaper printed
in his language from behind a bunch of bananas. He
settled himself in a comfortable position, and began
to glare savagely at the print. The babe was left
face to face with the massed joys of the world. For
a time he was a simple worshipper at this golden
shrine. Then tumultuous desires began to shake
him. His dreams were of conquest. His lips moved.
Presently into his head there came a little plan. He
sidled nearer, throwing swift and cunning glances at
the Italian. He strove to maintain his conventional
manner, but the whole plot was written upon his
countenance.
At last he had come near enough to touch the fruit.
From the tattered skirt came slowly his small dirty
hand. His eyes were still fixed upon the vendor.
His features were set, save for the under lip, which had
a faint fluttering movement. The hand went forward.
Elevated trains thundered to the station and the
stairway poured people upon the sidewalks. There
A GREAT MISTAKE 263
was a deep sea roar from feet and wheels going
ceaselessly. None seemed to perceive the babe
engaged in a great venture.
The Italian turned his paper. Sudden panic
smote the babe. His hand dropped, and he gave
vent to a cry of dismay. He remained for a moment
staring at the vendor. There was evidently a great
debate in his mind. His infant intellect had defined
this Italian. The latter was undoubtedly a man who
would eat babes that provoked him. And the alarm
in the babe when this monarch had turned his news
paper brought vividly before him the consequences
if he were detected. But at this moment the vendor
gave a blissful grunt, and tilting his chair against a
wall, closed his eyes. His paper dropped unheeded.
The babe ceased his scrutiny and again raised his
hand. It was moved with supreme caution toward
the fruit. The fingers were bent, claw-like, in the
manner of great heart-shaking greed. Once he
stopped and chattered convulsively, because the ven
dor moved in his sleep. The babe, with his eyes still
upon the Italian, again put forth his hand, and the
rapacious fingers closed over a round bulb.
And it was written that the Italian should at this
moment open his eyes. He glared at the babe a
fierce question. Thereupon the babe thrust the
round bulb behind him, and with a face expressive of
the deepest guilt, began a wild but elaborate series
of gestures declaring his innocence. The Italian
howled. He sprang to his feet, and with three steps
overtook the babe. He whirled him fiercely, and
took from the little fingers a lemon.
AN ELOQUENCE OF GRIEF
AN ELOQUENCE OF GRIEF
THE windows were high and saintly, of the shape
that is found in churches. From time to time a
policeman at the door spoke sharply to some incoming
person. "Take your hat off!" He displayed in his
voice the horror of a priest when the sanctity of a
chapel is defied or forgotten. The court-room was
crowded with people who sloped back comfortably
in their chairs, regarding with undeviating glances
the procession and its attendant and guardian police
men that moved slowly inside the spear-topped railing.
All persons connected with a case went close to the
magistrate's desk before a word was spoken in the
matter, and then their voices were toned to the
ordinary talking strength. The crowd in the court
room could not hear a sentence ; they could merely
see shifting figures, men that gestured quietly, women
that sometimes raised an eager eloquent arm. They
could not always see the judge, although they were
able to estimate his location by the tall stands sur
mounted by white globes that were at either hand
of him. And so those who had come for curiosity's
sweet sake wore an air of being in wait for a cry of
267
268 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
anguish, some loud painful protestation that would
bring the proper thrill to their jaded, world-weary
nerves wires that refused to vibrate for ordinary
affairs.
Inside the railing the court officers shuffled the
various groups with speed and skill ; and behind the
desk the magistrate patiently toiled his way through
mazes of wonderful testimony.
In a corner of this space, devoted to those who had
business before the judge, an officer in plain clothes
stood with a girl that wept constantly. None seemed
to notice the girl, and there was no reason why she
should be noticed, if the curious in the body of the
court-room were not interested in the devastation
which tears bring upon some complexions. Her
tears seemed to burn like acid, and they left fierce
pink marks on her face. Occasionally the girl looked
across the room, where two well-dressed young women
and a man stood waiting with the serenity of people
who are not concerned as to the interior fittings of a
jail.
The business of the court progressed, and presently
the girl, the officer, and the well-dressed contingent
stood before the judge. Thereupon two lawyers en
gaged in some preliminary fire-wheels, which were
endured generally in silence. The girl, it appeared,
was accused of stealing fifty dollars' worth of silk
clothing from the room of one of the well-dressed
women. She had been a servant in the house.
In a clear way, and with none of the ferocity that
an accuser often exhibits in a police-court, calmly
and moderately, the two young women gave their
AN ELOQUENCE OF GRIEF 269
testimony. Behind them stood their escort, always
mute. His part, evidently, was to furnish the dignity,
and he furnished it heavily, almost massively.
When they had finished, the girl told her part.
She had full, almost Afric, lips, and they had turned
quite white. The lawyer for the others/ asked some
questions, which he did be it said, in passing with
the air of a man throwing flower-pots at a stone
house.
It was a short case and soon finished. At the end
of it the judge said that, considering the evidence, he
would have to commit the girl for trial. Instantly
the quick-eyed court officer began to clear the way
for the next case. The well-dressed women and their
escort turned one way and the girl turned another,
toward a door with an austere arch leading into a
stone-paved passage. Then it was that a great cry
rang through the court-room, the cry of this girl who
believed that she was lost.
The loungers, many of them, underwent a spas
modic movement as if they had been knived. The
court officers rallied quickly. The girl fell back
opportunely for the arms of one of them, and her wild
heels clicked twice on the floor. " I am innocent !
Oh, I am innocent ! "
People pity those who need none, and the guilty
sob alone ; but innocent or guilty, this girl's scream
described such a profound depth of woe -it was so
graphic of grief, that it slit with a dagger's sweep the
curtain of common-place, and disclosed the gloom-*
shrouded spectre that sat in the young girl's heart so
plainly, in so universal a tone of the mind, that a
270 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
man heard expressed some far-off midnight terror of
his own thought.
The cries died away down the stone-paved passage.
A patrol-man leaned one arm composedly on the
railing, and down below him stood an aged, almost
toothless wanderer, tottering and grinning.
" Plase, yer honer," said the old man as the time
arrived for him to speak, "if ye'll lave me go this
time, I've niver been dhrunk befoor, sir."
A court officer lifted his hand to hide a smile.
THE AUCTION
THE AUCTION
SOME said that Ferguson gave up sailoring because
he was tired of the sea. Some said that it was because
he loved a woman. In truth it was because he was
tired of the sea and because he loved a woman.
He saw the woman once, and immediately she
became for him the symbol of all things unconnected
with the sea. He did not trouble to look again at the
grey old goddess, the muttering slave of the moon.
Her splendours, her treacheries, her smiles, her rages,
her vanities, were no longer on his mind. He took
heels after a little human being, and the woman made
his thought spin at all times like a top ; whereas the
ocean had only made him think when he was on
watch.
He developed a grin for the power of the sea, and,
in derision, he wanted to sell the red and green parrot
which had sailed four voyages with him. The woman,
however, had a sentiment concerning the bird's
plumage, and she commanded Ferguson to keep it in
order, as it happened, that she might forget to put
food in its cage.
The parrot did not attend the wedding. It stayed
273 T
274 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
at home and blasphemed at a stock of furniture,
bought on the instalment plan, and arrayed for the
reception of the bride and groom.
As a sailor, Ferguson had suffered the acute hanker
ing for port ; and being now always in port, he tried
to force life to become an endless picnic. He was not
an example of diligent and peaceful citizenship.
Ablution became difficult in the little apartment,
because Ferguson kept the wash-basin filled with ice
and bottles of beer : and so, finally, the dealer in second
hand furniture agreed to auction the household goods
on commission. Owing to an exceedingly liberal
definition of a term, the parrot and cage were included.
" On the level ? " cried the parrot, " On the level ? On
the level ? On the level ? "
On the way to the sale, Ferguson's wife spoke hope
fully. "You can't tell, Jim," she said. " Perhaps
some of 'em will get to biddin', and we might get
almost as much as we paid for the things."
The auction room was in a cellar. It was crowded
with people and with house furniture ; so that as the
auctioneer's assistant moved from one piece to another
he caused a great shuffling. There was an astounding
number of old women in curious bonnets. The rickety
stairway was thronged with men who wished to smoke
and be free from the old women. Two lamps made
all the faces appear yellow as parchment. Incidentally
they could impart a lustre of value to very poor
furniture.
The auctioneer was a fat, shrewd-looking individual,
who seemed also to be a great bully. The assistant
was the most imperturbable of beings, moving with
THE AUCTION 275
the dignity of an image on rollers. As the Fergusons
forced their way down the stair-way, the assistant
roared : " Number twenty-one ! "
" Number twenty-one ! " cried the auctioneer.
"Number twenty-one! A fine new handsome
bureau ! Two dollars ? Two dollars is bid ! Two
and a half ! Two and a half! Three ? Three is bid.
Four ! Four dollars ! A fine new handsome bureau
at four dollars ! Four dollars ! Four dollars ! F-o-u-r
d-o-l-l-a-r-s ! Sold at four dollars."
"On the level?" cried the parrot, muffled some
where among furniture and carpets. " On the level ?
On the level ? " Every one tittered.
Mrs. Ferguson had turned pale, and gripped her
husband's arm. " Jim ! Did you hear ? The bureau
four dollars "
Ferguson glowered at her with the swift brutal
ity of a man afraid of a scene. "Shut up, can't
you ! "
Mrs. Ferguson took a seat upon the steps ; and
hidden there by the thick ranks of men, she began
to softly sob. Through her tears appeared the
yellowish mist of the lamplight, streaming about the
monstrous shadows of the spectators. From time to
time these latter whispered eagerly : " See, that went
cheap!" In fact when anything was bought at a
particularly low price, a murmur of admiration arose
for the successful bidder.
The bedstead was sold for two dollars, the mat
tresses and springs for one dollar and sixty cents.
This figure seemed to go through the woman's heart.
There was derision in the sound of it. She bowed
276 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
her head in her hands. " Oh, God, a dollar-sixty !
Oh, God, a dollar-sixty!"
The parrot was evidently under heaps of carpet,
but the dauntless bird still raised the cry, " On the
level?"
Some of the men near Mrs. Ferguson moved
timidly away upon hearing her low sobs. They
perfectly understood that a woman in tears is
formidable.
The shrill voice went like a hammer, beat and beat,
upon the woman's heart. An odour of varnish, of
the dust of old carpets, assailed her and seemed to
possess a sinister meaning. The golden haze from
the two lamps was an atmosphere of shame, sorrow,
greed. But it was when the parrot called that a
terror of the place and of the eyes of the people
arose in her so strongly that she could not have lifted
her head any more than if her neck had been of
iron.
At last came the parrot's turn. The assistant
fumbled until he found the ring of the cage, and the
bird was drawn into view. It adjusted its feathers
calmly and cast a rolling wicked eye over the crowd.
" Oh, the good ship Sarah sailed the seas,
And the wind it blew all day "
This was the part of a ballad which Ferguson had
tried to teach it. With a singular audacity and scorn,
the parrot bawled these lines at the auctioneer as if
it considered them to bear some particular insult.
The throng in the cellar burst into laughter. The
auctioneer attempted to start the bidding, and the
THE AUCTION 277
parrot interrupted with a repetition of the lines. It
swaggered to and fro on its perch, and gazed at the
faces of the crowd, with so much rowdy understanding
and derision that even the auctioneer could not con
front it. The auction was brought to a halt ; a wild
hilarity developed, and every one gave jeering advice.
Ferguson looked down at his wife and groaned.
She had cowered against the wall, hiding her face.
He touched her shoulder and she arose. They
sneaked softly up the stairs with heads bowed.
Out in the street, Ferguson gripped his fists and
said : " Oh, but wouldn't I like to strangle it ! "
His wife cried in a voice of wild grief : " It it
m made us a laughing-stock in in front of all that
crowd \'\
For the auctioning of their household goods, the
sale of their home this financial calamity lost its
power in the presence of the social shame contained
in a crowd's laughter.
THE PACE OF YOUTH
THE PACE OF YOUTH
I
STIMSON stood in a corner and glowered. He was
a fierce man and had indomitable whiskers, albeit he
was very small.
"That young tarrier," he whispered to himself.
" He wants to quit makin' eyes at Lizzie. This is
too much of a good thing. First thing you know,
he'll get fired."
His brow creased in a frown, he strode over to the
huge open doors and looked at a sign. " Stimson's
Mammoth Merry-Go-Round," it read, and the glory
of it was great. Stimson stood and contemplated the
sign. It was an enormous affair ; the letters were as
large as men. The glow of it, the grandeur of it was
very apparent to Stimson. At the end of his con
templation, he shook his head thoughtfully, deter
minedly. " No, no," he muttered. " This is too much
of a good thing. First thing you know, he'll get
fired."
A soft booming sound of surf, mingled with the
cries of bathers, came from the beach. There was a
281
282 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
vista of sand and sky and sea that drew to a mystic
point far away in the northward. In the mighty
angle, a girl in a red dress was crawling slowly like
some kind of a spider on the fabric of nature. A few
flags hung lazily above where the bath-houses were
marshalled in compact squares. Upon the edge of
the sea stood a ship with its shadowy sails painted
dimly upon the sky, and high overhead in the still,
sun-shot air a great hawk swung and drifted slowly.
Within the Merry-Go-Round there was a whirling
circle of ornamental lions, giraffes, camels, ponies,
goats, glittering with varnish and metal that caught
swift reflections from windows high above them.
With stiff wooden legs, they swept on in a never-end
ing race, while a great orchestrion clamoured in wild
speed. The summer sunlight sprinkled its gold upon
the garnet canopies carried by the tireless racers and
upon all the devices of decoration that made Stimson's
machine magnificent and famous. A host of laugh
ing children bestrode the animals, bending forward
like charging cavalrymen, and shaking reins and
whooping in glee. At intervals they leaned out
perilously to clutch at iron rings that were tendered
to them by a long wooden arm. At the intense
moment before the swift grab for the rings one could
see their little nervous bodies quiver with eagerness ;
the laughter rang shrill and excited. Down in the
long rows of benches, crowds of people sat watching
the game, while occasionally a father might arise and
go near to shout encouragement, cautionary com
mands, or applause at his flying offspring. Fre
quently mothers called out : " Be careful, Georgie ! "
THE PACE OF YOUTH 283
The orchestrion bellowed and thundered on its plat
form, filling the ears with its long monotonous song.
Over in a corner, a man in a white apron and behind
a counter roared above the tumult : " Pop corn ! Pop
corn!"
A young man stood upon a small, raised platform,
erected in a manner of a pulpit, and just without the
line of the circling figures. It was his duty to manipu
late the wooden arm and affix the rings. When all
were gone into the hands of the triumphant children,
he held forth a basket, into which they returned all
save the coveted brass one, which meant another ride
free and made the holder very illustrious. The
young man stood all day upon his narrow platform,
affixing rings or holding forth the basket. He was a
sort of general squire in these lists of childhood. He
was very busy.
And yet Stimson, the astute, had noticed that the
young man frequently found time to twist about on
his platform and smile at a girl who shyly sold tickets
behind a silvered netting. This, indeed, was the
great reason of Stimson's glowering. The young
man upon the raised platform had no manner of
licence to smile at the girl behind the silvered netting.
It was a most gigantic insolence. Stimson was
amazed at it. " By Jiminy," he said to himself again,
"that fellow is smiling at my daughter." Even in
this tone of great wrath it could be discerned that
Stimson was filled with wonder that any youth should
dare smile at the daughter in the presence of the
august father.
Often the dark-eyed girl peered between the
284 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
shining wires, and, upon being detected by the young
man, she usually turned her head away quickly to
prove to him that she was not interested. At other
times, however, her eyes seemed filled with a tender
fear lest he should fall from that exceedingly danger
ous platform. As for the young man, it was plain
that these glances filled him with valour, and he stood
carelessly upon his perch, as if he deemed it of no
consequence that he might fall from it. In all the
complexities of his daily life and duties he found
opportunity to gaze ardently at the vision behind the
netting.
This silent courtship was conducted over the heads
of the crowd who thronged about the bright machine.
The swift eloquent glances of the young man went
noiselessly and unseen with their message. There
had finally become established between the two in
this manner a subtle understanding and companion
ship. They communicated accurately all that they
felt. The boy told his love, his reverence, his
hope in the changes of the future. The girl told him
that she loved him, that she did not love him, that
she did not know if she loved him, that she loved
him. Sometimes a little sign saying "cashier" in
gold letters, and hanging upon the silvered netting,
got directly in range and interfered with the tender
message.
The love affair had not continued without anger,
unhappiness, despair. The girl had once smiled
brightly upon a youth who came to buy some tickets
for his little sister, and the young man upon the plat
form observing this smile had been filled with gloomy
THE PACE OF YOUTH 285
rage. He stood like a dark statue of vengeance upon
his pedestal and thrust out the basket to the children
with a gesture that was full of scorn for their hollow
happiness, for their insecure and temporary joy. For
five hours he did not once look at the girl when she
was looking at him. He was going to crush her with
his indifference ; he was going to demonstrate that
he had never been serious. However, when he nar
rowly observed her in secret he discovered that she
seemed more blythe than was usual with her. When
he found that his apparent indifference had not
crushed her he suffered greatly. She did not love
him, he concluded. If she had loved him she would
have been crushed. For two days he lived a miser
able existence upon his high perch. He consoled
himself by thinking of how unhappy he was, and by
swift, furtive glances at the loved face. At any rate
he was in her presence, and he could get a good view
from his perch when there was no interference by the
little sign : " Cashier."
But suddenly, swiftly, these clouds vanished, and
under the imperial blue sky of the restored confid
ence they dwelt in peace, a peace that was satisfac
tion, a peace that, like a babe, put its trust in the
treachery of the future. This confidence endured
until the next day, when she, for an unknown cause,
suddenly refused to look at him. Mechanically he
continued his task, his brain dazed, a tortured victim
of doubt, fear, suspicion. With his eyes he suppli
cated her to telegraph an explanation. She replied
with a stony glance that froze his blood. There
was a great difference in their respective reasons for
286 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
becoming angry. His were always foolish, but appar
ent, plain as the moon. Hers were subtle, feminine,
as incomprehensible as the stars, as mysterious as
the shadows at night.
They fell and soared, and soared and fell in this
manner until they knew that to live without each
other would be a wandering in deserts. They had
grown so intent upon the uncertainties, the varia
tions, the guessings of their affair that the world had
become but a huge immaterial background. In time
of peace their smiles were soft and prayerful, caresses
confided to the air. In time of war, their youthful
hearts, capable of profound agony, were wrung by the
intricate emotions of doubt. They were the victims
of the dread angel of affectionate speculation that
forces the brain endlessly on roads that lead nowhere.
At night, the problem of whether she loved him
confronted the young man like a spectre, looming as
high as a hill and telling him not to delude himself.
Upon the following day, this battle of the night
displayed itself in the renewed fervour of his glances
and in their increased number. Whenever he thought
he could detect that she too was suffering, he felt a
thrill of joy.
But there came a time when the young man looked
back upon these contortions with contempt. He
believed then that he had imagined his pain. This
came about when the redoubtable Stimson marched
forward to participate.
" This has got to stop," Stimson had said to him
self, as he stood and watched them. They had
grown careless of the light world that clattered about
THE PACE OF YOUTH 287
them ; they were become so engrossed in their
personal drama that the language of their eyes was
almost as obvious as gestures. And Stimson, through
his keenness, his wonderful, infallible penetration,
suddenly came into possession of these obvious facts.
" Well, of all the nerves," he said, regarding with a
new interest the young man upon the perch.
He was a resolute man. He never hesitated to
grapple with a crisis. He decided to overturn every
thing at once, for, although small, he was very fierce
and impetuous. He resolved to crush this dreaming.
He strode over to the silvered netting. " Say, you
want to quit your everlasting grinning at that idiot/'
he said, grimly.
The girl cast down her eyes and made a little heap
of quarters into a stack. She was unable to with
stand the terrible scrutiny of her small and fierce
father.
Stimson turned from his daughter and went to a
spot beneath the platform. He fixed his eyes upon
the young man and said
" I've been speakin' to Lizzie. You better attend
strictly to your own business or there'll be a new
man here next week." It was as if he had blazed
away with a shot-gun. The young man reeled upon
his perch. At last he in a measure regained his com
posure and managed to stammer: "A all right,
sir." He knew that denials would be futile with
the terrible Stimson. He agitatedly began to rattle
the rings in the basket, and pretend that he was
obliged to count them or inspect them in some way.
He, too, was unable to face the great Stimson.
288 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
For a moment, Stimson stood in fine satisfaction
and gloated over the effect of his threat.
" I've fixed them," he said complacently, and went
out to smoke a cigar and revel in himself. Through
his mind went the proud reflection that people who
came in contact with his granite will usually ended
in quick and abject submission.
II
ONE evening, a week after Stimson had indulged
in the proud reflection that people who came in con
tact with his granite will usually ended in quick and
abject submission, a young feminine friend of the girl
behind the silvered netting came to her there and
asked her to walk on the beach after " Stimson's
Mammoth Merry-Go-Round " was closed for the
night. The girl assented with a nod.
The young man upon the perch holding the rings
saw this nod and judged its meaning. Into his mind
came an idea of defeating the watchfulness of the
redoubtable Stimson.
When the Merry-Go-Round was closed and the two
girls started for the beach, he wandered off aimlessly
in another direction, but he kept them in view, and
as soon as he was assured that he had escaped the
vigilance of Stimson, he followed them.
The electric lights on the beach made a broad
band of tremoring light, extending parallel to the
sea, and upon the wide walk there slowly paraded a
great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes
THE PACE OF YOUTH 289
colliding. In the darkness stretched the vast purple
expanse of the ocean, and the deep indigo sky above
was peopled with yellow stars. Occasionally out
upon the water a whirling mass of froth suddenly
flashed into view, like a great ghostly robe appearing,
and then vanished, leaving the sea in its darkness,
from whence came those bass tones of the water's
unknown emotion. A wind, cool, reminiscent of the
wave wastes, made the women hold their wraps about
their throats, and caused the men to grip the rims of
their straw hats. It carried the noise of the band in
the pavilion in gusts. Sometimes people unable to
hear the music, glanced up at the pavilion and were
reassured upon beholding the distant leader still ges
ticulating and bobbing, and the other members of the
band with their lips glued to their instruments. High
in the sky soared an unassuming moon, faintly silver.
For a time the young man was afraid to approach
the two girls ; he followed them at a distance and
called himself a coward. At last, however, he saw
them stop on the outer edge of the crowd and stand
silently listening to the voices of the sea. When he
came to where they stood, he was trembling in his
agitation. They had not seen him.
" Lizzie," he began. " I "
The girl wheeled instantly and put her hand to her
throat.
" Oh, Frank, how you frightened me," she said
inevitably.
" Well, you know I I " he stuttered.
But the other girl was one of those beings who are
born to attend at tragedies. She had for love a
u
290 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
reverence, an admiration that was greater the more
that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing
of it. This couple, with their emotions, awed her and
made her humbly wish that she might be destined to
be of some service to them. She was very homely.
When the young man faltered before them, she, in
her sympathy, actually over-estimated the crisis, and
felt that he might fall dying at their feet. Shyly, but
with courage, she marched to the rescue.
" Won't you come and walk on the beach with us ? "
she said.
The young woman gave her a glance of deep grati
tude which was not without the patronage which a
man in his condition naturally feels for one who pities
it. The three walked on.
Finally, the being who was born to attend at this
tragedy, said that she wished to sit down and gaze at
the sea, alone.
They politely urged her to walk on with them, but
she was obstinate. She wished to gaze at the sea,
alone. The young man swore to himself that he
would be her friend until he died.
And so the two young lovers went on without her.
They turned once to look at her.
" Jennie's awful nice," said the girl.
" You bet she is," replied the young man, ardently.
They were silent for a little time.
At last the girl said
" You were angry at me yesterday."
" No, I wasn't."
"Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me
once all day."
THE PACE OF YOUTH 291
" No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on."
Though she had, of course, known it, this confession
seemed to make her very indignant. She flashed
a resentful glance at him.
" Oh, were you, indeed ? ". she said with a great air.
For a few minutes she was so haughty with him
that he loved her to madness. And directly this
poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth lamely in
fragments.
When they walked back toward the other girl and
saw the patience of her attitude, their hearts swelled
in a patronizing and secondary tenderness for her.
They were very happy. If they had been miserable
they would have charged this fairy scene of the night
with a criminal heartlessness ; but as they were
joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea,
the yellow stars, the changing crowds under the
electric lights could be so phlegmatic and stolid.
They walked home by the lake-side way, and out
upon the water those gay paper lanterns, flashing,
fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a chorus of
red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic
bands of the future.
One day, when business paused during a dull
sultry afternoon, Stimson went up town. Upon his
return, he found that the popcorn man, from his stand
over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the
cashier's cage, and that nobody at all was attending
to the wooden arm and the iron rings. He strode
forward like a sergeant of grenadiers.
" Where in thunder is Lizzie ? " he demanded, a
cloud of rage in his eyes.
292 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
The popcorn man, although associated long with
Stimson, had never got over being dazed.
"They've they've gone round to th' th' house,"
he said with difficulty, as if he had just been stunned
" Whose house ? " snapped Stimson.
" Your your house, I 'spose," said the popcorn man.
Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly
denunciations surged, already formulated, to the tip
of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his
anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children.
He found his wife convulsive and in tears.
Where's Lizzie ? "
And then she burst forth " Oh John John
they've run away, I know they have. They drove by
here not three minutes ago. They must have done it
on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her
hand sad-like; and then, before I could get out to ask
where they were going or what, Frank whipped up
the horse."
Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
" Get my revolver get a hack get my revolver,
do you hear what the devil " His voice became
incoherent.
He had always ordered his wife about as if she
were a battalion of infantry, and despite her misery, the
training of years forced her to spring mechanically to
obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a shrill
appeal.
" Oh, John not the revolver."
" Confound it, let go of me," he roared again, and
shook her from him.
He ran hatless upon the street. There were a mul-
THE PACE OF YOUTH 293
titude of hacks at the summer resort, but it was ages
to him before he could find one. Then he charged
it like a bull.
" Uptown," he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear
seat.
The hackman thought of severed arteries. His
galloping horse distanced a large number of citizens
who had been running to find what caused such
contortions by the little hatless man.
It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near
the lake, Stimson gazed across the calm grey expanse
and recognized a colour in a bonnet and a pose of a
head. A buggy was travelling along a highway that
led to Sorington. Stimson bellowed " There
there there they are in that buggy."
The hackman became inspired with the full know
ledge of the situation. He struck a delirious blow
with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of
excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old
vehicle, with its drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and
tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to awaken, to be
come animated and fleet. The horse ceased to rumi
nate on his state, his air of reflection vanished. He
became intent upon his aged legs and spread them in
quaint and ridiculous devices for speed. The driver,
his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched
each motion of this rattling machine down before
him. He resembled an engineer. He used the whip
with judgment and deliberation as the engineer would
have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly
upon the macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of
the vehicle wheezed and groaned.
294 MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive
attitude that comes sometimes to the furious man
when he is obliged to leave the battle to others.
Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came
to his face and he howled
" Go it go it you're gaining; pound 'im ! Thump
the life out of 'im ; hit 'im hard, you fool." His hand
grasped the rod that supported the carriage top, and
it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue.
Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with
speed, as from realization of the menace in the rear.
It bowled away rapidly, drawn by the eager spirit of
a young and modern horse. Stimson could see the
buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like
an eye, was a derision to him. Once he leaned for
ward and bawled angry sentences. He began to feel
impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an
old man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made
him choke again with wrath. That other vehicle,
that was youth, with youth's pace ; it was swift-flying
with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend
those two children ahead of him, and he knew a sud
den and strange awe, because he understood the
power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly
into the future and feel and hope again, even at that
time when his bones must be laid in the earth. The
dust rose easily from the hot road and stifled the
nostrils of Stimson.
The highway vanished far away in a point with a
suggestion of intolerable length. The other vehicle
was becoming so small that Stimson could no longer
see the derisive eye.
THE PACE OF YOUTH 295
At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and
turned to look at Stimson.
" No use, I guess," he said.
Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage,
despair. As the hackman turned his dripping horse
about, Stimson sank back with the astonishment and
grief of a man who has been defied by the universe.
He had been in a great perspiration, and now his bald
head felt cool and uncomfortable. He put up his
hand with a sudden recollection that he had forgotten
his hat.
At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any
rate he was not responsible.
A DETAIL
A DETAIL
THE tiny old lady in the black dress and curious
little black bonnet had at first seemed alarmed at the
sound made by her feet upon the stone pavements.
But later she forgot about it, for she suddenly came
into the tempest of the Sixth Avenue shopping dis
trict, where from the streams of people and vehicles
went up a roar like that from headlong mountain
torrents.
She seemed then like a chip that catches, recoils,
turns and wheels, a reluctant thing in the clutch of the
impetuous river. She hesitated, faltered, debated
with herself. Frequently she seemed about to address
people; then of a sudden she would evidently lose
her courage. Meanwhile the torrent jostled her,
swung her this and that way.
At last, however, she saw two young women gazing
in at a shop-window. They were well-dressed girls ;
they wore gowns with enormous sleeves that made
them look like full-rigged ships with all sails set.
They seemed to have plenty of time; they leisurely
scanned the goods in the window. Other people had
made the tiny old woman much afraid because obvi-
299
3 oo MIDNIGHT SKETCHES
ously they were speeding to keep such tremendously
important engagements. She went close to the girls
and peered in at the same window. She watched
them furtively for a time. Then finally she said
" Excuse me ! "
The girls looked down at this old face with its two
large eyes turned towards them.
" Excuse me, can you tell me where I can get any
work ? "
For an instant the two girls stared. Then they
seemed about to exchange a smile, but, at the last
moment, they checked it. The tiny old lady's eyes
were upon them. She was quaintly serious, silently
expectant. She made one marvel that in that face
the wrinkles showed no trace of experience, knowledge ;
they were simply little, soft, innocent creases. As for
her glance, it had the trustfulness of ignorance and
the candour of babyhood.
" I want to get something to do, because I need the
money," she continued since, in their astonishment,
they had not replied to her first question. "Of
course I'm not strong and I couldn't do very much,
but I can sew well ; and in a house where there was a
good many men folks, I could do all the mending.
Do you know any place where they would like me to
come ? "
The young women did then exchange a smile, but
it was a subtle tender smile, the edge of personal grief.
" Well, no, madame," hesitatingly said one of them
at last ; " I don't think I know any one."
A shade passed over the tiny old lady's face, a
shadow of the wing of disappointment.
A DETAIL 301
" Don't you ? " she said, with a little struggle to be
brave, in her voice.
Then the girl hastily continued " But if you will
give me your address, I may find some one, and if I
do, I will surely let you know of it."
The tiny old lady dictated her address, bending
over to watch the girl write on a visiting card with a
little silver pencil. Then she said
" I thank you very much." She bowed to them,
smiling, and went on down the avenue.
As for the two girls, they walked to the curb and
watched this aged figure, small and frail, in its black
gown and curious black bonnet. At last, the crowd,
the innumerable wagons, intermingling and changing
with uproar and riot, suddenly engulfed it.
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON & BUNGAY.
STEPHEN CRANE'S WORKS
THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE
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MAGGIE: A Child of the Streets
I2mo, buckram, gilt top, 2s.
The Literary World" Contains all the force, all the power, and all the reality
which Mr. Crane has proved his pen to possess."
THE BLACK RIDERS: Verse
I2mo, leather, gilt top, 3^. net.
LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
STEPHEN CRANE'S WORKS
THE THIRD VIOLET
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s.
The AthencEum "A vividness of portraiture which puts The Third Violet on
a high level higher, we think, than Mr. Crane's very different Maggie, though perhaps
lower than The Little Regiment, which is also very different. In his present book
Mr. Crane is more the rival of Mr. Henry James than of Mr. Rudyard Kipling.
But he is intensely American, which can hardly be said of Mr. Henry James, and it
is possible that if he continues in his present line of writing he may be the author who
will introduce the United States to the ordinary English world. We have never come
across a book that brought certain sections of American society so perfectly before
the reader as does The Third Violet. The picture is an extremely pleasant one, and
its truth appeals to the English reader, so that the effect of the book is to draw him
nearer to his American cousins. The Third Violet incidentally contains the best dog
that we have come across in modern fiction. Mr. Crane's dialogue is excellent, and
it is dialogue of a type for which neither The Red Badge of Courage nor his other
books had prepared us."
The Academy "By this latest product of his genius our impression of Mr.
Crane is confirmed : that for psychological insight, for dramatic intensity, and for
potency of phrase he is already in the front rank of English-American writers of
fiction, and that he possesses a certain separate quality which places him apart. It
is a short story and a slender, but taking it in conjunction with what he has previously
given us, there remains, in our judgment, no room for doubt."
The Bookman " An idyll, and a very pretty one. In The Red Badge of
Courage and Maggie there is an intenser force ; but in this slighter effort we feel
the same directness, the same true reading of the workings of the mind, the same
contempt for conventions and clap-trap sentiment."
The Sketch " There is a strong human interest in it, and a boyish vigour which
is refreshing."
The Scotsman 1 ' It is very light, very amusing, and very American. The
literary touch is singularly deft and felicitous, the strokes playful but unerring. . . .
The treatment has the distinction which only a vivid imagination, a fine dramatic
faculty and an intuitive perception of the deeper things of human nature can give to
a book."
Manchester Guardian" It is invigorating to follow the breezy mountain life
up in the pine woods. . . . The book abounds in those felicitous descriptions and
bright dialogues of which Mr. Crane is master. . . . One more delightful dog is
added to the heroes of fiction."
Daily Mail "We would not for the world have it other than it is. ... In its
short tantalisingly abrupt chapters, the tale gives the history of a wooing, a history
clear, simple, and often sparkling as a rill of spring water.".
MAGGIE: A Child of the Streets
12.mo, buckram, gilt top, 2s.
The Literary World " Contains all the force, all the power, and all the reality
which Mr. Crane has proved his pen to possess."
THE BLACK RIDERS: Verse
I2mo, leather, gilt top, 3$. net.
LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
LOAN DEPT.
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
^|L
REC D LD
SEP 20 1956
AUC 3
LIBRARY USE
OCT2S1956
LD
OCJ 26
IN STACKS
195fr
REC^D LD
JAN 1 1959
LD 21-100w-6,'56
(B9311slO)476
General Library
University of California
Berkeley
. 6 3 05 '7f
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
