CHAPTER XIV

The Overland Limited swayed, creaked, and then with a grunting of many chains drew to a sudden stop before the Long Horn saloon at Maverick. From the window the passengers peered at the desolate cow town and wondered how long they were to be delayed.

In their private car at the rear Diana, Henry Kerhill, and Diana's cousin, Sir John Applegate, rose from their seats to study the shipping-point for cattle, so novel in its environment, as indeed their entire journey in America had been for the past months. The death of a distant relative on Diana's side, who had left her an unexpected legacy, had enabled her to retrieve to a great extent their cramped fortunes.

Lady Elizabeth had lived only a short time to enjoy the new improved condition of affairs. She died in the year following Jim's departure and vicarious disgrace. During the months previous to her death she had grown grimmer and held herself more aloof. A stroke of paralysis one morning made her bedridden and speechless; a merciful third stroke caused her death within a month after her first attack. She never spoke, and seemed to find no consolation save in Diana's presence. The trip to America for a much-needed change was principally taken, however, on account of Henry, whose nervous condition the medical attendants declared most serious. The two years had made scarcely a perceptible change in Diana; in Sir John none at all. But in Henry an oppressive melancholy was rarely broken by the old flashes. Towards Diana he had faithfully kept his word to Jim. A truce was accepted, and he never ceased in his pathetic endeavors to try to make her happy. If neither could honestly lay claim to a real joy of life, still they had peace and dignity. As he stood near the window, the strong light showed how much thinner and lined was his face. A touch of gray was distinctly visible along his temples and was beginning perceptibly to streak his dark hair.

"My, but it's a corker!" Sir John gasped, as he put his head out of the window and the blinding heat beat down on him. There was a smile from Diana at Sir John's acquired Americanism. More British than the union-Jack itself, yet he was keen to gain knowledge of the new country, and long conversations with the servile black Sam were enlarging his vocabulary. All three watched with curiosity the ramshackle hostelry, which they could plainly descry from one end of the car.

Diana turned to the men: "Do let us see the place. I've always longed to have a real adventure at a way-place off the beaten tourist track. I'm so tired of the sights that are arranged for one to be shocked at—at so much a head."

They moved to the door, but the intense heat of the day for a moment seemed to dampen their ardor. Then, at Henry's solicitations, Diana was persuaded to wait until he found out from an official the possible length of their stop.

Within the Long Horn saloon the afternoon's heat was apparently not felt by its inmates. It was a roughly hewn, wooden, three-cornered room with an oak beam stretching across it. Over this were thrown saddles and blankets. A bar extended along one side of the room. On the walls were grotesque and crude pictures done in chalk, while other spaces were covered with cheap, highly colored illustrations cut from the papers that reached Maverick. Tables for roulette and faro were placed at set intervals. The floor was covered with a mixture of sand and sawdust, while mounds of wood-dust were heaped near the bar, to be used by the men as cuspidors. It was clean in a certain primitive fashion. The glasses and bar fixtures were not unpleasant. The bartender, Nick, an ex-prize-fighter, took a pride in his "emporium," as he called the saloon, and lavished a loving though crude care on his possessions.

But the place was stained and soiled by the marks of the tragic remnants of humanity that were housed within its walls. Around the gambling-tables on this afternoon were groups of tattered specimens of the various races. Cow-boys at certain tables gave a wholesome, virile note to the place, but the drift-wood of a broken civilization was at this hour in larger proportion than the ranchmen. Among the battered denizens from the world beyond that had strayed into the saloon life was a parson in a frayed frock-coat, who leaned in a neighborly way against the blue shirt of a Chinaman, while a large negro with a face like a black Botticelli angel grinned and gleamed his white teeth in sport with a dago from Monterey. In a chair in a farther corner a tenderfoot lay in a drunken sleep in his soiled evening clothes, which he had donned three nights before to prove to the tormenting habitués of the place, who since then had not allowed him to grow sober, that he was a gentleman.

A half-breed at a faro-table watched with tolerant amusement the antics of those in his game to outwit him. The smell of the sawdust and the human mass of unpleasantness grew stronger as the men played, changed money, and Nick's corks flew and glasses clinked. Over the entire place there hung a curious sense of respectability. Low-muttered oaths were not uncommon, but Nick, sturdy and grim, with his watch-dogs—two large six-shooters—lying on the shelf behind the bar, had a certain straightness of purpose and a crude sense of right and wrong that won respect from the heterogeneous mass of his followers.

The passing of the Limited would have caused a sufficient amount of interest, but its stopping was a momentous occasion. The rude platform outside was only a shipping-point for cattle, not a stopping-place for through or passenger trains. There was a rush of some of the inmates from the room, but to a number of them the game was at its vital point, and Pete's lazy call of "jacks up" quickly chained the attention of the more eager of the players.

But to Nick it meant new trade, and his battered and scarred face grew into one ebullient smile as McSorley, the engineer, in his jumpers, with begrimed face and hands, and Dan, the dapper Pullman conductor of the Overland Limited, entered the saloon. McSorley was mopping his sweating face.

"Say, Dan, who's the English swells in the private?" he asked, as he looked back at the luxuriously fitted car.

"The Earl of Kerhill," Dan answered, as they veered towards the bar. "Been out to the Yellowstone. The old man lets 'em have his private car. Must be the real thing, eh?"

McSorley grunted his approval of the noble freight that he was carrying. "Let's have a drink. What's yours, Dan?"

They reached the solicitous Nick.

"What 'll you have, gents?"

"A bottle of beer for me, Mac," Dan answered his companion's question. Then, with English tips still a pleasant memory, he added, "But this is on me."

Nick began opening a bottle of beer, and its foaming contents were soon filling the glasses. As he served he inquired: "What's up gents? 'Tain't often the Overland Limited honors Maverick with a call!"

"Washout down the road," was McSorley's laconic reply, as the cool liquid slid down his parched throat.

"Staying long?" Nick again asked, with visions of many strangers visiting his bar.

Dan was surveying the place with an unsympathetic eye.

"Not longer than we can help, you bet," he answered. "Expecting orders to move every minute."

But Nick was determined to be affable. "Pity; Maverick's worth seein'. Who's in the parlor-car?"

"English people—Earl of Kerhill and party," Dan replied. Then he moved down the bar with McSorley, both carrying their half-consumed beer.

A Southern cow-puncher, Pete, who had gone from ranch to ranch, finding life too hard at each, leaned back on his stool until he rested against one end of the bar. Through the windows he could see Shorty, one of Jim Carston's men, coming along in animated conversation with several other men of the Englishman's ranch.

"In my opinion the calm serenity of this here metropolis is about to be tore wide open." A nudge from Punk, the Chinaman, made him go on with the shuffling.

"How many, Parson?" Pete queried.

The cadaverous face of the Parson, with its highly colored nose, showing the cause of his cloth's disgrace, turned to him. Frayed and seedy as he was, he bore the imprint of a gentleman.

"Dearly beloved brethren, three."

Again Punk nudged the others, who were inclined to become too talkative. They began indicating the number of cards desired with their fingers while the conversation continued. Nick leaned over the bar and watched Pete's hand.

"Cash Hawkins is in town!" Pete gave the news as though it were of moment. They all knew what Cash's visits usually meant. An ominous whistle followed. They all looked at Nick.

"Bad medicine is this same Mr. Hawkins, particular when he has his gun wid him. Bedad, the kummunity could spare him a whole lot without missing him," Nick volunteered.

"If they provoke unto wrath Brother Carston's outfit, my Christian friend, there will be some useful citizens removed from our midst." The Parson approved of Jim as a remnant of his earlier days. He recognized in him one of his own class.

"And who the devil is Jim Carston?" Nick asked.

"Jim Carston? Never seen Jim? Oh yes, you must have, although Jim don't frequent emporiums much. Why Jim's the English cow-boy. First he had a place about a hundred miles from here. But he's bought Bull Cowan's herd. Bull stuck him—stuck him good," Pete lazily informed the crowd.

"Sure!" said Nick. "That's why Englishmen was invented. More power to 'em."

"Amen," hiccoughed the Parson, whose drinks by this time had been numerous. "The prosperity of our beloved country would go plumb to Gehenna if an all-wise Providence did not enable us to sell an Englishman a mine or a ranch or two now and again."

"Say," Nick asked, seriously, "the Englishman ain't a-goin' up agin Cash, is he now?"

"I call you, Parson," Pete calmly commanded, and then raked in the pot. "When the smoke has cleared away I will venture an opinion as to who has gone agin who," he resumed, as he pocketed the money. "Jim and his outfit is here to ship some cattle to Chicago. I seed them all through the window, and they ain't the kind to run away much."

There was a finality about Pete's words. He might be lazy and slow, but he was anxious to open another pot, so he turned his back on Nick and began shuffling the cards. As he did so, three of Jim's boys—Andy, Shorty, and Grouchy—entered.

"Come on boys and have a drink," Shorty yelled.

Andy was a wiry, slender German with tender, romantic proclivities. Grouchy, who seldom spoke, and then only in a husky, low growl, was a massive fellow and looked like a Samoan native, but was in reality a product of a Hebrew father and an Irish mother, while Shorty gained his name from his low stature. Brave as a lion and honest, with a face from which twinkled the smallest and merriest of blue eyes, he was the live wire of any ranch.

"What's your nose-paint, gents?" Nick asked, as he greeted the new-comers.

"A little of that redeye," Shorty replied, and soon he and his comrades were clinking glasses. Several cow-punchers joined them, and the place began to resound to lively disputes concerning the rates on cattle.

Dan and McSorley had finished their beer.

"How much?" Dan said. His look plainly showed his contempt for the saloon. It was Nick's opportunity to pay back the insult that had been quietly levelled at him by the Pullman conductor's attitude for the past quarter of an hour.

"One dollar," was Nick's quick reply.

"One dollar!" Dan repeated. "For two glasses of beer?" He stepped back and his voice rose in angry protest. It attracted the attention of the others, who were only too eager for a row.

"Why," Dan continued, "it was all collar, anyway."

Nick leaned over the bar and quietly said, "I didn't charge nothin' for the collar, gent, I throwed that in." There was a laugh from the hangers-on at Nick's witticism. Nick flushed with approval and went on, "Beer's our most expensive drink—comes all the way from Cheyenne."

Dan, furious at being done, as he knew he was, struck the bar with his fist. "I won't pay it," he said.

There was a hush about the room. They didn't often see any one venture to buck against Nick's authority.

"Oh yes, you'll pay it, gent." Nick's voice was lower and calmer than Dan's. He had turned while Dan was speaking and was lovingly fingering his six-shooter. He lifted it from the shelf and laid it carefully on the bar, keeping his hand well over the trigger.

McSorley nervously edged to Dan. "Better pay it; better pay it," he whispered.

Nick heard him. "Yes," he added, "better pay it. Saves funeral expenses."

Dan knew enough of the country to know he was at Nick's mercy. He drew a silver dollar from his pocket, and slapped it down on the bar.

"Well, I'll be ——!" Dan started for the door, followed by McSorley, who thought his companion's rage ill-timed. He wished he were back in his caboose. As they reached the door Nick's voice rang out in stentorian tones.

"Wait a minute!" There was no gainsaying his command. Dan halted. Nick, leaning far over the bar, held in each hand a watch-dog. "I don't allow no tenderfoot to use bad language in my emporium. We do strictly family trade and caters particular to ladies and children."

Dan and McSorley stood under the levelled guns. A shriek of mirth shook the crowd. All had stopped playing and were watching the situation. Finally, when there was no doubt as to the ridiculous position of the train officials and the laugh had subsided, Nick dropped the guns, and with a low bow turned from the bar, leaving them free to go. Dan and McSorley quickly disappeared, Dan wildly expostulating while McSorley vainly tried to calm him.

Nick went back to the players.

"Pete," he asked, "what has Cash got agin the Englishman?"

Pete, nothing loath to tell his yarn, especially as he had been winning all the afternoon, drawled the information so that all at his table could hear.

"Well, Jim's outfit has been heard to openly express the opinion that Cash can't tell the difference between his cattle and Jim's."

"Rustling, eh?" the Parson interrupted.

Pete nodded.

"Serious business."

"Yes," said Pete. "Serious—quite—in these here parts. I see the Englishman stand off a greaser down at the agency, and I've got a wad of the long-green to lay even money that Cash can't twist the British lion's tail a whole lot—not a whole lot. Any takers?"

Pete's eye was always keen to take up a "sure thing." The men with him fell into a dispute concerning the respective merits of Jim versus Cash Hawkins.

Meanwhile, seated at a table in the centre of the room were Shorty, Andy, and Grouchy. They had heard nothing of Pete's and the Parson's conversation. They were intent on a mild game and were awaiting Big Bill, who was to meet them at the saloon. None of them saw Big Bill coming towards them until they heard the slow, deep voice saying: "Boys, Cash Hawkins is in town. The boss asks as a special favor to him that you will avoid Cash and his gang and try to get out of town without a collision."

Bill was a giant, over six feet tall, with a great, leonine head. He had a strong face with piercing eyes. The mouth, "a large gash," as Shorty described it, could at times give vent to loud guffaws of laughter, and at others frighten one as it straightened into two lines of grim determination. For two years he had been Jim's right-hand man, and his devotion to the boss was the most beautiful side of Bill's life. Forty years ago he had been born in a prairie saloon; the woman who bore him died the night of his birth. He never knew who his father was, and the upbringing he received was from a handful of miners who had adopted him. As soon as he could toddle he began to try to do for himself. Little errands he volunteered, and long before most boys even on a ranch were anything but a nuisance, Bill was contributing gravely his share to the big game of life. Save once, to Jim, he never spoke of the past. He had drifted to Maverick twenty years ago, and except at intervals, when he took a notion to better himself, he was usually at the cow town.

On one of these occasions when he was trailing the country he met Jim, who was looking for a man to direct the practical side of his affairs. Bill had never met a gentleman who treated him as Jim did, and in return he gave his body's strength and all the scheming devotion of his brain in his endeavor to benefit Jim's complicated affairs.

The three men looked up at Bill, who slid into a chair at their table and started a new game with them.

"Say, Bill," Shorty began, "if Cash has his war-paint on there ain't no use distributin' tracts on love one another."

"Und, Bill," Andy added, "und say for peace—dot's me, Andy. But say, Bill, rustlin'—cattle stealing—you know. Particular when it's our cattle, Cash has got a lot wit' a circle-star brand which original is a big C for Carston. Say," he wildly went on, becoming more incoherent as his temper rose, "und if we stand for it—you know—und say—we got to git out of de business."

Grouchy leaned over to Bill and shook his head. "Say, I wouldn't work for a man that would stand for it."

Still Bill said nothing, but listened gravely to the storm of protests that the message from Jim to the boys had provoked.

"If the peace of a kummunity is worth a damn, you got to shoot him up a whole lot. It's this delicate consideration for the finer feelings of bad men which encourages 'em." Shorty, in his nervous, jerky manner, fairly shook the table with his vibrations of rebellion.

Then Bill spoke. He was in sympathy with the boys, but he had his orders from the boss—that was enough for him.

"Well, you know Jim. It ain't likely he'd ask you to show the white-feather nor to stand no nonsense. Only"—here Bill paused and said, impressively, "don't drink mor'n you can help, and avoid trouble if possible. Them's the boss's orders."

As Bill was laying down the law for the men, the saloon began to fill with curiosity-seekers from the train. The delay was evidently to be longer than had at first been anticipated. Shorty was the first to see the humor of some of the new-comers.

"Gee, get on to the effete East. Say," he called to the rest of them, "get on to the tenderfeet."

They looked with childish glee at a quaint-looking couple who were entering the saloon. Mrs. Doolittle was a prim, mild-mannered little woman with a saintly smile. She evidently was travelling in the West for the first time. Her husband, Hiram, was one of the prosperous New England farmer class. Pleased with the entire condition of affairs, he beamed on the cow-boys with great condescension.

Shorty, who scented some fun, whispered to Bill: "D.C. brand. Day Coach, savvy?" As he watched the odd pair he made his way towards them. They were quietly studying the place. The pictures of prize-fighters and ballet-girls that lined the walls really shocked them, but it also tickled their sense of the wickedness of their adventure. They reached a roulette-table with the game in progress.

"Why, Hiram!" Mrs. Doolittle ejaculated, as she watched the players and surveyed the saloon, "this is a gambling-hell."

Shorty, who with the others was closely watching the strange adventurers and planning to tease them, mocked them in an aside—"Well, I want to know."

But Hiram was too intent on Faith's observations to notice that they were becoming the centre of interest in the place.

"Durned if it ain't," he affirmed, in a pleased tone. Then, ashamed of his laxity, he added, "Want to git out?"

"Why, Hiram, what a question!" Faith Doolittle answered, severely, as she drew away from her husband's out-stretched hand. "'Tain't often one gets a chance to see life. I've read about Montey Carlo, and here it is."

The boys were now all attention. Andy whispered, "Three card, eh; Montey Carlo here, eh!" The laugh began to be noticed by Hiram.

"Dear me," Faith Doolittle gravely remarked, "and over there is rouletty, I suppose."

Shorty came forward. He took off his large sombrero and bowed low to the ground, in mock cavalier fashion as he good-humoredly said, "No lady, that's where they're voting for the most popular lady in the Sabbath-school." His sally was greeted with applause. Faith hardly noticed it; she had taken Hiram by the arm and was trying to drag him to the table.

Pete called to them, "That's not rouletty, that's faro, lady."

The parson added, "So called after Pharaoh's daughter."

"Who found a little prophet in the rushes on the bank," Shorty further explained.

But Faith was eagerly whispering to Hiram, "You know, Hiram, frequently people by just putting down fifty cents, or a dollar, walk out with millions." Then timidly she added, "I'd like to try it once."

"Faith Doolittle!" was all Hiram could exclaim, so great was his surprise at his wife's request. Truly, he thought, women were strange cattle. To think of Faith, so quiet, so serene all these years, and then—to see her now with flushed cheeks, hat awry, and an eager, feverish look in her mild eyes as she tried to draw him to the table.

"Oh," she pleaded, "only fifty cents' worth, Hiram. There couldn't be any harm in fifty cents' worth."

Behind his great hand Shorty convulsed the others by observing, "Mother's a sport, but father's near."

Hiram now realized that he must be firm and leave this place that was affecting so strangely his wife's conduct.

"You couldn't keep money got in that nefarious way, even if you won it," he explained; "you're a churchwoman."

"We could give some of it to the church," quickly reasoned Faith; "and, Hiram, we could do such a lot of good with a million. Just try fifty cents' worth." She made a further attempt to reach the table.

"Come out of here, Faith Doolittle," stormed Hiram, as he saw his protests were of no avail, "or you'll have me going it in a minute." He, too, began to feel the tempting influence of the green cloth, the glittering money-heaps, and the feverish gayety of the ribald crowd.

As Hiram started to lead Faith to the door they were stopped by Shorty.

"Nick," he called to the bartender, "my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hill—Bunkco Hill—of Boston." The slang name for the innocence of the couple caught the crowd's fancy. They quickly formed a circle around them.

"Pleased to know you," Nick observed from the bar. "What's your drink?" He began filling glasses with whiskey.

This time Hiram's indignation was effectual. Grasping his now-frightened spouse by the arm, he fiercely drew her away, the cow-boys laughingly letting them go, with polite bows, and bits of advice called good-naturedly after them.

It was the sport of children, as indeed these men were to a great extent—crude, rough, but with a sweetness not to be denied and a decency that it might seem strange to find in such a place. So far their fun might go, but they knew where to stop, and Faith Doolittle's gentle face was its own protection. They watched Hiram nervously leading his wife along the platform down the line. Then they turned back to the saloon and amused themselves by giving imitations of the quaint visitors, until the place rang with their boisterous merriment.

Suddenly there was a rattle of spurs and a noise from without as a tall cow-puncher lurched through the door.

In a moment there was silence. Every one knew the man.

"Hello, here's Cash now," observed Shorty.

The innocent gayety was forgotten. A different expression began to appear on the men's faces. In Jim's crowd it was one of sullen rebellion and suppressed indignation, in the other an expectant desire for real mischief. With Cash Hawkins's entrance that afternoon, history was made in Maverick.