THE HAND OF THE MIGHTY AND OTHER STORIES
By Vaughan Kester
Author of The Prodigal Judge. The Just and The Unjust. The Fortunes of The Landrays, Etc.
With Portrait, And a Sketch of The Author by Paul Kester
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers
1913
Acknowledgments are due to Short Stories, Munsey's Magazine, The Century Magazine, The Bellman and The American Magazine for permission to reprint certain stories included in this volume.
CONTENTS
[ THE BLOOD OF HIS ANCESTORS ]
[ HOW MR. RATHBURN WAS BROUGHT IN ]
[ MR. FEENY'. SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ]
VAUGHAN KESTER
Vaughan Rester was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but the greater part of his boyhood was spent in Mount Vernon, Ohio.
Among our earliest and most vivid recollections were the long railway journeys which we took with our father and mother back and forth between our home in the East and my grandmother's house in Mount Vernon. It was in Mount Vernon that my brother contracted the severe cold that resulted in a hoarseness of speech from which he never entirely recovered, and that finally developed into the condition which occasioned his most untimely death.
Despite this difficulty of speech, his boyhood was a very happy one. My grandmother's house was near the edge of the town and we knew all the short cuts to the woods and the river. We played games, took long tramps, and lived healthy and delightful lives. We went barefoot, we swam and played with all the boys in the town. Indeed, my brother was an absolute democrat all his life.
We went to a little private school kept by Miss Plummer, a friend of the family. Miss Plummer had an original method of teaching, and expanded our minds and won our affection, but I doubt if we were good students. I know I had great difficulty in learning to read, and Vaughan also had his struggles.
At home our mother made a practise of reading aloud to us books of all sorts—ancient history, science, biography, the Bible—anything in which she was interested. For a long time I think it was the sound of her voice which held our attention, but soon we followed with more or less comprehension the words we heard. This formed a most valuable part of our education.
We were very fortunate, too, in our friendships as little boys. We had charming friends who exercised a lasting influence upon us.
When a little older we went to a private school kept by Mrs. Charles Curtis. Here again we had the personal care of a woman of culture. Her instruction was individual and helpful to us both. Later we attended the public school for one term.
By this time Vaughan had become a great reader. He read everything and forgot nothing. All his life he was astonishing us by the things he knew. At last it came to be a commonplace when any one in the family was in doubt upon any point in history or general knowledge, to hear some one say, “Ask Vaughan”—and almost always Vaughan knew.
When Vaughan was about twelve years old our mother, with her friend, Mrs. Kimball, and others, established the School of Design for Women—now the School of Art—in Cleveland, Ohio—and for the greater part of the next seven years we lived in that city. The school was established on original and useful lines, and its rapid growth was as interesting to Vaughan and me as it was to Mrs. Kimball and our mother.
Much of this time was spent in Mrs. Kimball's house, 1265 Euclid Avenue. If we had been at school in Mount Vernon, here in Cleveland was our university. Everything was discussed before us, and we constantly visited our mother's school, which soon grew to such proportions that it occupied half of the top floor of the vast dingy old City Hall. At that time we attended a private school kept by Mrs. Bierce, and later we had for tutor a young man to whom we recited at Adelbert College.
I think our mother wished Vaughan to enter Adelbert regularly, but he became at this time possessed of a great desire to “go west.” My uncle had recently purchased a ranch on the River Platte, near Denver, and Vaughan was not content until consent was given to his trying the life there.
I did not go west with my brother, and only know from what he wrote, and from what he told us on his return, that the plains and mountains and the Denver of those days made a deep impression upon him. Looking back now I wish that he might have spent a longer time in Colorado. The West appealed to him strongly. He had the large elements of the pioneer in his nature, and a deep and peculiar sympathy with the native American in any primitive condition. Certain chapters in The Fortunes of the Landrays are so vivid and so real that one knows how well he used his opportunities for observation and absorption in the months he spent on the ranch at the foot of the splendid mountains.
It was while we were living in Cleveland that my brother first developed a spasmodic and not very deep interest in writing. With a friend he got out an edition of a highly interesting paper called The Athlete and Quirk, devoted almost wholly to prize fighting. My mother financed the venture. I doubt if a copy remains in existence. The enterprise was abandoned not because our mother's faith declined, but because Vaughan and his fellow editor were too lazy, or too busy with something else, ever to get out a second copy. I don't think Vaughan's contributions were of much value. I know he was terribly bored whenever we reminded him of them.
By this time I was trying to write plays, but it was not for some years that Vaughan took seriously to writing. When he was nineteen our mother resigned from her school and we went to Florida, where we spent six months camping and cruising on the gulf coast, a delectable time for Vaughan, who especially loved salt water and boats.
We camped for many weeks on Sea Horse Key six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico from Cedar Keys. Here Parsons Lathrop, and had been breakfasted by our mother's cousin, William Dean Howells, who then and thenceforth showed us both the utmost kindness. I think meeting Mr. Howells had much to do with firing Vaughan's ambitions. From that time on Mr. Howells was our guide, philosopher and friend, our sponsor and our supporter. We hoarded our funny stories in the hope—generally successful, for his good nature is unfailing—of making him laugh, and he lent an equally willing ear to all our troubles. Two young men never had a kinder friend, nor a wiser. From the first Mr. Howells had faith in Vaughan, and Mrs. Howells, whose rare discrimination we learned to value so highly, and whose generous interest was so unfailing and so helpful, at once saw qualities in him. Her appreciation of him was immediate and intuitive. She sensed at once not only what he was, but what he might become, and I think to her he was always of the stature which he was just consciously attaining when he died.
During one of Vaughan's long visits to his grandmother in Mount Vernon, Ohio, he heard a vague report that Dan Emmett, the composer of Dixie, was living north of the town. He hunted up the famous minstrel, and found him, nearly eighty years old, chopping wood for a living.
Mr. Emmett had been a man of some means, and was well connected, but he had drifted away from his people and was living a hermit's life in a little house he had built, unknown for the most part to his townspeople.
This meeting with Emmett was important to both my brother and to the old composer. They became great friends, and the result was that Vaughan wrote several articles for the papers—accounts of Emmett's career as a composer and as one of the Christy Minstrels. Kate Field's Washington printed the first of these articles. These sketches marked the beginning of Vaughan's career as a writer. It was his first real appearance in print. The money he received for this work he gave to Mr. Emmett, who had furnished him with the facts the articles embodied.
I remember very well how distressed Vaughan was at the thought of leaving Emmett when he should return to Virginia.
He induced me to write to A. M. Palmer, at that time head of the Actors' Fund, stating Mr. Emmett's case and explaining that Emmett was unwilling to make any appeal for himself. The response was immediate. Fifty dollars was telegraphed to my brother for Mr. Emmett, and a letter followed promising a pension of five dollars a week. This pension—and one was never better deserved—was paid to the old composer as long as he lived.
This little success with his pen inspired Vaughan to more serious effort. It was also the direct means of his meeting with Paul Wilstach, who was so long and so intimately associated with us, and whom, indeed, we came to regard as one of our family. Paul Wilstach was collecting autographs at the time Vaughan's article on Emmett appeared in Kate Field's Washington. He wrote, asking Vaughan to secure an autograph copy of Dixie for his collection. Vaughan replied that he would obtain the autograph if Mr. Wilstach would send him a check for five dollars for Mr. Emmett. The check was sent, a correspondence ensued, and when Paul Wilstach came east he visited us at Ben Venue, the house above the Potomac in which he now lives.
Paul Wilstach and my brother wrote some farces together, and aided each other to keep alive their literary enthusiasms. When a little later we were living in the big white house on Riverside Drive in New York, Paul Wilstach frequently made the place his home.
Vaughan was about twenty-three when we went to New York, settling ourselves on Riverside Drive in The Big White House, as the place came to be called by our friends. Here my brother and I wrote a two-act play together—The Cousin of the King—which was published in The Looker-On, and afterward played by Walker Whiteside. This was the only play in which Vaughan had a hand that was ever acted. But he was keenly interested in the theater and most sympathetically and helpfully interested in my various ventures as a playwright.
Not long after we settled in New York he wrote a short story, The Mills of the Little Tin Gods, which Mr. Walker accepted for publication in the Cosmopolitan magazine. Mr. Walker was enthusiastic about the story, and sent for Vaughan, who returned from Irvington with an offer to go on the staff of the magazine and the news syndicate which Mr. Walker was at that time conducting in connection with the Cosmopolitan. Vaughan enjoyed his work at Irvington. It was a novel experience and it brought him into contact with men of ability. He saw a magazine in the making and he helped to make it. He also did a great deal of hard work for the syndicate, and he obtained special articles from others. For a short time I joined my brother on Mr. Walker's editorial staff, and we would go up to Irvington together for the early Monday morning conferences.
After this there was never any doubt as to the career my brother meant to follow. It was while he was associated with the Cosmopolitan that he obtained a short leave of absence from his duties and returning to Mount Vernon, Ohio, was married to Miss Jennings. My brother's wife was deeply interested in his literary career, and devoted herself to him and to his work. His marriage was undoubtedly an added incentive to his ambition and it was at this time, or soon after, that he began the writing of his first novel.
It was after Vaughan left the Cosmopolitan that he joined me in promoting a special performance of Ibsen's Ghosts, which our friend John Blair gave at the Carnegie Lyceum. Charles Henry Meltzer was the other active worker behind the scenes. The whole affair was so distinguished and interesting that Mr. Blair conceived the idea of devoting the following winter to a series of modern plays. Vaughan and I, with Mr. Meltzer, volunteered our services, and we were joined by Mr. George Eustis, who by his generosity made a rather elaborate program possible. Performances of each of the five plays were given in New York, in Boston, and in Washington. The series was brilliantly successful; the genius of Miss Florence Kahn, now Mrs. Max Beerbohm, quite dazzled the critics, to Vaughan's great delight. He gave all his time, and did more, perhaps, than any other single individual to make the season a success. This was his only experience in actual theatricals. He knew, however, many noted actors and actresses. Indeed, our house was much frequented by artists of all sorts.
It was through Mr. Howells' influence that my brother obtained a position with Harper and Brothers. I have no very definite knowledge of the work he did for them, except that I know he read many manuscripts during his association with this publishing house, and that he met a number of men famous in the literary world. I think his whole association with the Harpers, though it did not extend over many months, was a pleasant one for him. It culminated in their acceptance of his first novel, The Manager of the B. & A.
In the spring of 1900 we returned to Virginia, taking up our residence at Woodlawn Mansion, about eight miles distant by road from Gunston Hall, and three miles from Mount Vernon. Woodlawn was built on what had been a part of George Washington's plantation. Washington himself drew the plans for the house, and they were afterward perfected by Doctor William Thornton, the architect of the Capitol.
Soon after we had established ourselves again in Virginia, The Manager of the B. & A. appeared as one of the American novel series the Harpers were then issuing. It was very generously received by the critics.
During the five years we lived at Woodlawn my brother was seldom absent from home. He was deeply interested in the restoration of the house, and even more interested in bringing up the worn-out farm lands.
He had much of the spirit of the backwoodsman. He was tall and powerful, standing six feet two without his shoes. He was very fond of wearing old, easy-fitting clothes—as he was of smoking old pipes. His affection for his old hats was remarkable. To see him about the place tinkering at any odd job which proved too much for the ingenuity of others, delighting in saws and hammers, and pounding his fingers, fond of gardening, and all the rough industries of a large country place, the last idea a stranger would have associated with him was that of authorship.
Vaughan found many types at hand which later offered not a few suggestions for some of the figures in The Prodigal Judge. Bob Yancey in particular had his prototype in Kelly Dove. Mr. Dove and my brother were great cronies, and I remember when years later he was reading the first chapters of The Prodigal Judge to us at Gunston Hall, we instantly recognized Mr. Dove in the character of Bob Yancey.
Farming the land and restoring the house were fascinating and time-engrossing occupations, but Vaughan still continued his writing, and it was at Woodlawn that he wrote his second novel, The Fortunes of the Landrays, which the McClures published.
Always a most deliberate and unhurried worker, he grew even more deliberate and unhastening as time went on. He worked hard, but did not work rapidly. There were times when a chapter would seem to write itself, but I fancy he was a little suspicious of easy composition so far as it concerned his own work.
He was always at his desk when not engaged in some congenial outdoor occupation. He wrote a great deal on scraps, throwing much away. He seldom or never crossed a “t” nor dotted an “i”. Often he left great blank spaces and half pages without a line upon them, covering others closely with his fine writing. In their externals his methods of composition seemed rather slovenly, and his manuscripts would have been the despair of any copyist but his wife; but he knew what he was about, and it was utterly useless to attempt any reformation in his habits. He had great patience. He did not satisfy himself easily. He wrote and rewrote and polished and polished again.
Not infrequently he would put aside his work on a novel to write a short story. He wrote a dozen or more, all of which found their way into print except one, Mollie Darling, written not long before his death, which appears in this volume for the first time.
Just before the publication of The Fortunes of the Landrays, Woodlawn Mansion was sold and I bought a place in the north of England. In England Vaughan met with an understanding a little more complete than he had known in America, except from Mrs. Howells. He made friends immediately, and fitted into the easy agreeable country-house life as perfectly as he had fitted into the different phases of American life he had known. The Fortunes of the Landrays came out while we were at Augill Castle.
Vaughan's throat causing him some concern, we went to London, taking Lady Florence Boyle's little house in Victoria Square, just back of Buckingham Palace. He had begun a new novel at Augill Castle, but he did little or no writing in London. Later it was thought best for him to return to America. Some months were spent at Ben Venue and then we moved into Gunston Hall, which remained my brother's home until his death.
While we were in Ben Venue, Vaughan wrote his one romantic novel, John o' Jamestown. Contrary to his usual custom he wrote this book rapidly; but he compensated himself by taking more time than was usual over his work on a new novel, afterward published under the title of The Just and the Unjust.
He had almost completed this book when he was seized with the idea which resulted in the writing of his best known and most popular story, The Prodigal Judge. He had submitted the incomplete manuscript of The Just and the Unjust to one or two friends, who suggested rewriting certain parts. For this work at the time he had no inclination, so put the book aside and plunged into his work on The Prodigal Judge with a great deal of enthusiasm. At last he had hit on a theme in which he could employ his wonderful sense of humor. His wit was spontaneous; but while it was a constant delight to those who knew him intimately, he had never regarded it as an asset of any value. I think at the last he began to appreciate that it was his best medium, and that with him the line of least resistance was the safest and wisest to follow.
During the three or four years he lived at Gunston Hall, his work was constantly interrupted by journeys to Washington for slight operations upon his throat. He had great singleness of purpose or he could not have successfully continued his work in the face of such disadvantages. But there was nothing of the invalid about my brother. He diffused an atmosphere of wholesome strength, good nature and health, and until the very last weeks of his life he maintained the attitude of a strong well man.
We were confident that The Prodigal Judge would meet a ready acceptance and would find favor with the public. My brother hoped so, too, but there was sufficient doubt in his mind for him to be relieved intensely by the very generous words in which the publishers accepted the book.
The book was well under way and the proofs read, when my brother's physicians decided that an operation of a somewhat serious character was necessary. He met the ordeal bravely and came through it well. We had a pleasant Christmas together at Gunston Hall, and he was recommencing work on The Just and the Unjust, when another very serious operation was determined upon. Two weeks after the second operation a third operation was performed. My brother rallied, and in March was able to return to Gunston Hall. He had the satisfaction of knowing that his book had achieved all the success he could possibly have hoped for it. He died at Gunston Hall on the night of the fourth of July, 1911.
Paul Kester.
THE HAND OF THE MIGHTY
SIMPLE and genuine, that's the way Thomas R. Pendagrast impressed the valley. You really might have felt, after listenin' to his innocent chatter, that he'd barely got under the wire. He wasn't much to look at, either. Plain in the face, but comfortable-lookin', as if he was well fed, and with the winnin'est smile that ever come into the valley. You'd never have picked him out of any crowd for a millionaire, he was such a simple soul. That was the key-note of his character as we have read it. For takin' him all in all, I never seen but one simpler soul, and that was Silas Quinby.
No, we never called Silas Si. That would have been too much like intrudin' on his privacy. You see, you felt instinctive Quinby couldn't stand for no reductions; that he hadn't anything to lose without great personal sufferin'. Silas lived at the head of the valley. His was a white frame house with green blinds and a dornick-bordered walk leadin' down to the front gate. When you knew Silas and seen his house, you realized he was like that; that if there'd been a way to look into his soul, you'd have found it was painted white, with green blinds, and had a straight and narrow path leadin' off to travel in.
We had a heap more respect for Silas than confidence in him. He was a man who looked like he'd stand indefinite without hitchin'. He was a lawyer, but he hadn't no practise, because no one in the valley had ever been able to make up his mind to let Silas practise on him. There was some reckless characters here, just like there is in every neighborhood, but none of 'em had ever been that reckless. So at the end of forty years Silas was still waitin' for his first case.
He done better as a notary public, which ain't a perfession callin' for much independent judgment. We figured it that havin' been through college and the law school, Silas's natural parts were sufficiently improved so as he could witness an oath. But beyond this no one had ever taken chances. So he kept chickens by way of helpin' out his professional earnin's. He was successful at that. Even folks who affected to sneer at him for bein' such a simple soul owned up that he had hen sense. No, his parts couldn't have appeared brilliant on the surface when you realize that after livin' all them years elbow to elbow with him, the most we could find to say was that he had hen sense.
Socially he was of them poor unfortunates that never gets a chance to finish anything they start to say. About the time folks was willin' to listen to him somebody changed the subject. He was always bein' broke off in the middle and serialized. It was as if some one got nervous waitin', and turned the page.
From what I am sayin' you may gather that Silas was at the tail-end of the procession. But that was hardly it. He was more like a man who'd missed the procession entirely. But he was a simple soul all right, and he never bore malice with folks for bein' short with him or showin' plain that they didn't care a cuss for what he thought.
But to go back to Thomas R. Pendagrast. He come into the valley in a great, big, yellow tourin'-car along late one afternoon in dog-days. It was me seen him first. His car was standin' in the road, and he seemed to be examinin' a daisy he had in his hand. None of your ox-eyes, but just one of those ornery white-and-yellow kind same as are such a pest.
“Ain't it wonderful—the white and the deep, deep yellow, like gold?” he says, smilin' at me kind of shy. “Do you think any artist could paint such a golden yellow?” he says. “I don't.”
“I wish they didn't seed so powerful energetic,” I says.
“But who made 'em?” he asks, smilin' quaint.
“Blamed if I know. Burbank didn't; he's got better sense.”
“Yes, you know,” he says, sinkin' his voice and smilin' awful sweet.
“I know they run out a mowin' meadow mighty quick,” I says. “If anybody made 'em, I wish to blazes they'd been about something useful instead.”
“My friend,” he says, lookin' pained, “don't say that. God made 'em; they are His flowers. Are you a church-member?”
“I'm a deacon at the Fork's Meetin'-house,” I says.
“My brother!” he says gentle-like, and smilin' winnin' and friendly.
“Here's another simple soul,” I thought as we shook hands, “another soft pedal like Silas Quinby, dotty and rockin' on his base, but well-meanin' and harmless.”
But I misjudged him. You see, he lived his religion; that was it—it was a part of his everyday life. Most folks go about hidin' their religion as if it was a private matter; but that wasn't Thomas R. Pendagrast's style. He was willin' you should know just how good he was.
Just then one of the men in the car spoke his name. Say, you could have knocked me down with the daisy in his hand, I was that outdone! But I knew it was him from havin' seen his picture so often in the papers. Well, he climbed back into his car after we'd shook hands again, and I took off acrost the fields as hard as I could run. I beat the car down to the valley and spread the news that Pendagrast, the millionaire, was comin', that I'd seen him and shook hands with him.
At first folks didn't believe me, but when his big yellow car rolled in slow over the Fork's road,—the first one that had been seen in the valley,—people realized that we had uncommon visitors with us. And later there was his name on the hotel register, good for no tellin' how many millions. Folks came and looked at it, silent and awed, and then walked away on tiptoe.
One of the gentlemen of Pendagrast's party gave out a statement that the financier was seekin' rest and quiet. No wonder, after the way he must 'a' been workin' to pile up all the money he had. The gentleman said, too, in private conversation with several of us that Mr. Pendagrast was a much misunderstood man, that his aims and purposes were bein' constantly misrepresented by his enemies. He said he was merely one of them Christian business men in whose hands an all-seein' Providence had seen fit to place the temporal welfare of our country. What you noticed at once about Pendagrast and his friends was the religious tone of all their remarks; yet they were cheerful—cheerful without bein' vulgar.
Right from the first Pendagrast liked the valley; and when he seen we kep' out of his way and didn't try to intrude on him, he got awful friendly, and to such an extent that he'd stop and speak to any man he met on the road. He'd ask him his name most likely, how many acres he farmed, if he was married, and how many children, and was he a church-member. You could see he was all balm and oil and gentleness and thoughtfulness. He appeared to overflow with the milk of human kindness. He was as sweet as a cat with sirup on its paws, always soundin' the soft note in his talk, and always moral and improvin'.
Well, sir, his friends just seemed to love him. It was beautiful to watch the way they sort of hung on his words. And when he told a funny joke, you could see them fix their faces, and then they'd laugh and laugh, and slap each other on the back.
It wasn't no time at all until we knew he was just such another simple soul as Silas Quinby. He was simple in his pleasures, in what he et, and in his thoughts, like Silas was. Folks commented on this. But while Pendagrast got a chance to finish all his remarks, poor old Silas had never been trusted with much beside the weather, and even there he had to be mighty careful not to overstay his time.
But the most astonishin' thing was the way Silas Quinby and Pendagrast became friends. It was like two streams of molasses flowin' together and makin' one sweetness. It was because they was both such simple souls, you see. I doubt if Pendagrast had ever met any one like Silas, which was sayin' just like himself.
He said Silas was the most genuine man he had ever met with, and that some day he must come and visit him at his city home. He spent hours with Silas lookin' over the chickens or drinkin' buttermilk and eatin' doughnuts Mrs. Quinby fed 'em at the back door like two happy lads.
You bet it made us feel good. There was the master of millions and our Silas like brothers. Why, we began to talk of runnin' Silas for justice of the peace. He'd wanted the office for years, but no one had felt he'd care to have a case tried before Silas. Not that he was not well meanin'. No; it was his mind we feared, not his heart.
Then Pendagrast and his friends must see the p'ints of interest about the valley. Silas was their guide. No one knew the country better than he did, whose land they was on, and all about the folks that owned it. It was beautiful to see those two simple souls goin' around gatherin' flowers or pickin' up curious rocks and pebbles. You see, they was both so genuine anything that was innocent could charm 'em. They'd come home to the hotel, their arms bulgin' with wild blooms and half a hundred of broken rock mebby stowed away under their feet in the car. I never knew a millionaire's pleasures could be so harmless or so inexpensive.
Nights Silas used to fetch him down to Miller Brothers' store so he could get acquainted with folks. Sociable? The most sociable man I ever met with. Mebby he'd borrow five cents off one of his friends and lay it all out in crackers and cheese; then he'd set on the counter and dangle his legs and talk and munch and munch and talk. He never seemed to carry no money. I suppose, havin' so many millions, he didn't want to appear ostentatious; and when he'd ask for the nickel his friends would laugh and laugh; and it was comical, him having to borrow five cents like that. Once he brought some picture-cards down to the store he'd had taken the year before when he was in the Holy Land. There was views of him at the Tomb, him on the shores of Galilee, him at the Mount of Olives, but no olives.
The first Sunday he spent in the valley he attended church right there in the old Fork's Meetin'-house, and after the service the minister asked him if he wouldn't favor us with a few remarks. Say, I ain't ever forgot that meetin'. What do you think that simple soul done? He got up, his eyes shinin' and tears in his voice like he was gettin' ready to leak, and told us about his early struggles.
Joe Whittaker said afterward he hadn't known whether he was attendin' divine service or night session of a business college. As we left the church, I says to Joe:
“How you can bring yourself to criticize a simple soul like that is more than I can understand.”
“All the same,” says Joe, “he's got God and mammon confused in his mind. Savin's and salvation are pretty much one and the same to him. I don't want to be told how to make twenty-five dollars to start on,—-I know that much,—but I'd be grateful if the old man had told me how to make a million or two.”
“Well, he deserves a lot of credit,” I says.
“What for?” asks Joe.
“For bein' successful and sacrificin' himself to make money,” I says, heated.
“Do you respect a hog for taking on fat?” says Joe.
“No, I don't,” I says. “That's a hog's nature, to take on fat.”
“Well, it's his nature to make money,” says Joe. “He ain't never gone outside of his natural instincts. But where you and me has got various instincts, like bein' careless in our spendin' and lazy, he's never been able to let go a dollar once he's got his hands on it. I bet you the Indian yells with pain when his fingers touch a penny.”
Well, Pendagrast stayed ten days in the valley, and then he went away, promisin' to come back the first chance he got. When he left it was just like the sun had gone down for good. We'd been thinkin' in the hundred millions, dreamin' of motor-cars and steam-yachts, and we was suddenly dumped back on the Miller brothers, our richest family, who mebby made two thousand dollars a year sellin' groceries and calicoes, and speculatin' in hoop-poles and shingles.
The night after the big yellow tourin'-car had gone hootin' good-by down the valley road, Silas Quinby come to see me. I seen he had something on his mind. Finally he got me out to the woodpile. When a man had something very private to say to his neighbor, he always got him out to the wood-pile. It was an old valley custom.
“You're missin' him, Silas?” I says, meanin' Pendagrast.
“Yes,” says Silas, sighin', “a wonderful man, simple and genuine, and all his goodness on the surface, where it counts,” he says. “And yet I don't know as it's so much on the surface as underneath,” he adds.
“It's all around,” I says.
“And yet he's a terribly misjudged man. Have you read them awful libelous attacks on his character in the magazines and newspapers? It makes my heart bleed for him,” says Silas, moved.
Then Silas asked me about some wild land I owned. He wanted to know if I'd ever thought of sellin' it. I'd been tryin' to sell it for thirty years, but couldn't. There was six hundred acres all told, mostly broke rock and scrub-timber. I'd been offerin' it for two-fifty an acre.
“Yes,” I says. “I'll sell fast enough if I get the chance.”
“Well, I've had inquiries,” says Silas.
You see, he was a real-estate agent, though he'd never sold any land. But it's easy to be a real-estate agent. You can start with a sign. And Silas had started twenty years before.
“I wish you'd put your land in my hands to sell,” he kept on. “All I want is a ten per cent, commission if I make a sale. But you must give me a year's time.”
“Why,” I says, “that's an awful long time to take, Silas.”
“Well,” he says, “you've taken thirty years, ain't you, George? And your lowest price is two-fifty?”
“That's my askin' price. I'll accept two,” I says.
“Or as much more as you can get?” he says, laughin' in his simple way.
“Don't be foolish, Silas. If you got anybody feeble-minded enough to think he can farm that land, don't you try to dicker with him,” I says getting anxious.
The upshot of it was I signed a paper giving Silas a sort of option, him to be exclusive agent for one year. Then he handed me a dollar.
“What's this for, Silas?” I asked.
“Why, to bind the bargain,” he says, smilin' at me simple.
“Why, that's all right, Silas; I trust you,” I says, humorin' his fancy.
He made me promise I'd not tell a soul about the option. But that was reasonable, because if anybody in the valley could have got hold of his buyer, first thing they would have done would have been to tell him he'd starve to death on that land, that it was so thin a turkey-buzzard didn't make a shadow flyin' over it. Yes, it was some poor as far as fertility went.
Of course I kept still, but one night as I was walkin' home from the store with the youngest of the Miller brothers,—we married sisters,—it sort of come out that Silas had been to him about land, and they'd give him an option on two thousand acres of cut-over mountainside.
“We'll watch Silas,” I said. “He's losin' his mind.”
“Well, it ain't much to lose,” says Miller. “He's got nothing he'll be less likely to miss.”
“Yes, but he's such a simple soul,” I says. “I don't know but we'd ought to make up a purse and send him off to see a brain specialist. It's a mania he's sufferin' from, for no man in his health would ever think he could sell twenty-six hundred acres of this cut-over land,” I says, appalled at the extent of Silas's hallucination.
“We must watch him,” says Miller. “He may turn violent any moment. These manias grow on a man until he ain't any control over himself. We must watch out for Silas,” he says.
The next day Miller took me aside and told me that Joe Whittaker had told him in confidence that Silas had got an option out of him for his farm.
“What did I tell you?” says Miller. “He's mad, stark starin' mad.”
“That's it, Miller; his poor simple nature has give way at last. Associating with multi-millionaire's was too much for him. I knew his brain was thin in spots, and it's let him through at last. That's over three thousand acres he's goin' to sell—more land than's changed hands in the valley in eighty years.”
“Don't you think we'd ought to get him committed to an asylum right off, and not wait?” says Miller, anxious. “I got a house full of children, and he's my nearest neighbor. I've had new strong locks put on my doors and windows, and I've told my wife if she ever hears Silas give a whoop, not to wait for nothin', but to go inside and lock all the doors.”
Well, we kept on investigatin' Silas, and we got on the track of something like fifty thousand acres of mountain land he was holdin' on option! When me and Miller footed it up, Miller turned white as a sheet, and I felt sick all over.
“Poor, poor Silas!” I says.
“Fifty thousand acres—think of that!” gasps Miller. “Why, you couldn't give it away in an ordinary lifetime. There's never been any one crazier than him, and here he is walkin' the roads without a keeper! It's awful!” The sweat was pourin' off Miller's face. “George,” he says, “with a madman like him, even a strong fellow like you wouldn't be safe. They have awful unnatural strength, these maniacs. Why, you'd be a child in his hands. I bet there ain't no twenty men in the valley could handle him, thin and peaked as he looks. George, it's awful; we're living over a slumberin' volcano.”
“Poor Silas!” I says. “His mind's diseased, all right.”
But we could see plain that Silas had all that terrible cunnin' the mad has. He talked just as rational and simple like he'd always done. He seemed still to have plenty of hen sense, which was the only kind of sense we'd ever credited him with havin'. Yet me and Miller was like men setting over the crater of a volcano,—if that's where you set,—which we was expectin' any moment to bust wide open.
Then one day a stranger drove into the valley. He was a lightnin'-rodder, and he came to me to talk rods. I was cold on the proposition, but he was a clever sociable chap, and one thing led to another, and before long he says.
“You've got a lovely valley; what's land worth here?”
I told him all the way from two an acre for stumpage up to thirty for the best valley farms. He seemed to think them figures mighty reasonable, for he asked me if I had any broke land that 'u'd do to clear for sheep. The upshot of it was that I told him about that six hundred acres I'd been tryin' to sell for such a time, and he made me an offer of two an acre cash out of hand. I wanted to kick myself, for I remembered that fool option I'd give Silas.
“Wait,” said Silas, when I'd hunted him up and explained matters. “Don't be too hasty.”
“Hasty! I can't be half quick enough. I want you to tear up that blame paper, and let me sell my land now I got the chance, Silas.”
He wouldn't do it. He said that wasn't enough for the land, and that I mustn't think of sellin', for he wouldn't agree to it. Stubborn? I never knew he could be so downright mulish. Argument and entreaty didn't budge him.
That same night down to the store Miller took me aside. It seems the lightnin'-rod man had been soundin' him. It really appeared he was more anxious to buy land than he was to sell rods. He'd made Miller the same offer he'd made me, and Miller was crazy to sell. He said he never expected to get so good an offer again, but that fool paper of Silas's stood in the way, and he couldn't do a thing with Silas.
“If I only hadn't taken his blame dollar, I'd tell him to whistle!” said Miller, groanin'.
“Did that simple cuss give you a dollar, too?” I says.
“Simple? Why, George, his option is almost as good as a deed. It's a contract for sale, him to fix the price at any figure he chooses to name above two an acre. We've accepted a consideration. I ain't sure he's so simple, after all.”
“What can we do, Miller?” I asked.
“There's only one thing, George, that I know of,” says Miller. “We must get him adjudged insane, and recover them options that way; and we mustn't lose no time about it, either, or that sucker will buy other land.”
It looked like what Miller feared would happen, for when the lightnin'-rod man found he couldn't do business with me or Miller, he went to Whittaker. Naturally Whittaker was wild to sell, but he was up against Silas.
The lightnin'-rodder was a sport, all right. He said he'd always counted it a fair test of a man's ability to sell rods, but he was findin' there was stiffer business propositions, and he couldn't afford to let no transaction get the better of him. He was goin' to squat right there and buy his sheep farm if it took all summer. You see he had his nerve with him.
And through all them days of stress, when it looked like his neighbors might mob him any minute, Silas preserved the even tenor of his way, like the fellow says, mindin' his chickens, and goin' around serene and ca'm, at perfect peace with the world.
But of course things couldn't go on like that long. Something had to be done. It was Miller thought of what he had ought to do—Miller and his lightnin'-rod man. They got up a petition and sent it to Pendagrast. They reminded him how friendly he'd be'n with Silas, and urged him to join us in sendin' our poor friend to a private asylum for the insane, where he could have the medical attention he was requirin' so much, and be restored to such hen sense as the Creator had endowed him with in the beginnin'.
It showed what a simple genuine soul Pendagrast was when inside of a week his big yellow car came scootin' into the valley and drawed up in front of Miller Brothers' store.
“Where's my poor friend?” he says, after we had shook hands all round. “Yes,” he says, wipin' his eyes, “it's best I should take him where he can be confined and have medical attention.”
We sent for Silas. Say, it was touchin' to see them two meet and clasp hands, each lookin' innocenter and simpler than the other, and like butter would keep indefinite in their mouths.
“Are you well, Silas?” asks Pendagrast, with his arm thrown acrost Silas's shoulder. “And how's Mrs. Quinby and her good doughnuts?” smacking his lips. “And the chickens, and your vegetable garden—all doin' nicely, I hope. Well, you must make up your mind to leave these simple joys for a spell; I want you should visit me in my city home. I've come to fetch you away.” And he winks at Miller.
They'd arranged the doctors was to be introduced to Silas there without his knowin' who they was, so as he wouldn't be on his guard. You see we hadn't been able to do nothing with old Doctor Smith, the valley physician; he said Silas had just as many brains as he ever had, and a heap more than the folks who had put their land in his hands to sell.
But Silas said he couldn't leave home. He was awful firm about stayin' just where he was. He couldn't think of moving.
“It's that dreadful cunnin' insane folks have,” whispers Miller to me. “He's suspicious of his best friend.”
It was just beautiful the way Pendagrast talked with Silas, humorin' him like a little child, pleadin' with him to visit him in his city home, where there'd be prayer-meetin' every Thursday night and two regular services on Sunday. He held out every inducement he could think of, but Silas was as firm as he was gentle. It was plain he was set against leavin' the valley. Presently Pendagrast took him by the arm and says:
“Gentlemen, I must go down and pay my respects to Mrs. Quinby, and beg one of those nice doughnuts off'n her. Me and my friend will return soon, I hope, to say that he has reconsidered his decision, and will go with me to pay me the visit I want him to.” And they locked arms and walked off, two as simple-souled men as you'd wish to see.
We owe it to Mrs. Quinby for a knowledge of what happened down to Silas's. She listened at the keyhole after she'd fed Pendagrast a plate of doughnuts and some buttermilk.
“You're actin' very wrong, Silas, to keep them folks from sellin' their land when they got the chance,” Pendagrast says, after a little friendly talk. “Yes, Mr. Miller's told me all about it. They are thinkin' of havin' you locked up in an asylum somewheres, and you'd better destroy them papers. I doubt if they are legal—”
“They're legal,” says Silas, smilin' his sweetest. “I'd stake my life on that.”
“Have you ever thought of them poor fellows and their bitter disappointment?” says Pendagrast, his voice tremblin'. “Have you put yourself in their place, my friend? Have you applied that great moral test to the situation? Before we go any further, would you like to kneel down beside me and say your prayers?” he says. “I know the temptations of greed, that money's the root of all evil. It can do no hurt,” he urged in that gentle winnin' voice of his.
And Mrs. Quinby, beyond the door, covered her head with her apron, she was that moved by the simple soul's eloquence. She missed Silas's answer, but she heard Pendagrast go on.
“I tremble for your safety here, Silas—even your temporal safety, my friend. Every man in the valley's got land to sell, and now it looks like their opportunity has come, and you're blockin' the deal. It's cruel of you, Silas,” he says. “And they're a rough lot—rough, but gentle, and they may do you bodily harm, like tarrin' and featherin' you without meanin' to. I can't bear to think of that, Silas; it hurts me here,” he said, restin' his hand on his wish-bone. “And you can't pray, my friend. It's a bad sign, Silas, when a man loses the power to pray; it shows he's walked afar with false gods,” he says.
“They don't know what's best for them,” says Silas. “I got a buyer for their land. It'll be sold in good time—”
“What!” gasps Pendagrast, turnin' white.
“I say I've found a purchaser for their land.”
“Who, Silas?” says Pendagrast.
And Mrs. Quinby, watchin' through the keyhole, seen that he spoke with effort.
“It's a group of capitalists in New York. All I got to do is to wire 'em, and their representative will be here on the first train to close the deal,” says Silas.
There was a silence, then Pendagrast says:
“Why didn't you let me know of your havin' this land to sell, my friend? Suppose we form a partnership, Silas. We'll close your options out at once at two an acre, and I'll personally guarantee you your commission, which I understand is ten per cent. That'll be ten thousand dollars for you.”
“No,” says Silas, “I must do better than two dollars an acre. These folks are my neighbors. I want to do the best I can by them.”
“You're wrong there, Silas,” says Pendagrast. “Business is different from most other things, and it's a good rule to think of yourself first.”
“Mebby so,” says Silas; “but it's foolish any way you look at it to sell the best coal land in the state for two an acre. And when you get your railroad built along the line of that old survey that was made twenty years ago, you'll need the gap on the Whittaker place, or you can't get your line acrost the mountains without goin' clean around,” he says.
Mrs. Quinby said Pendagrast pretty near fell off his chair, hearin' this, he was that outdone. Presently he commands himself so as he could speak, and says, sighin' deep:
“I see it's as Mr. Miller said it was, and as I feared, but hoped it was not. There ain't no railroad, and I never heard of no old survey—nor coal,” he says. “My poor friend, I would gladly have stood between you and your neighbors, but I see now the law will have to deal with you, and the sooner the better, so these poor folks can sell their land and get their money.”
“What law?” says Silas.
“A lunacy commission,” says Pendagrast.
“Wait a bit,” says Silas. “Do you remember that roll of papers you lost on the mountain? Well, I found it. I don't need to tell you it contained your plans and a copy of the old survey, as well as the location of the coal that your engineers, who come here two years ago trout-fishin', had checked up for you.”
“Quinby,” says Pendagrast,—he was dealin' now,—“I'll take them options off your hands and give you a bonus of fifty thousand dollars; but you must agree to keep still until after I've dealt with these folks—”
“No,” says Silas; “I'm askin' two hundred an acre for the land.”
Pendagrast groaned.
“Two hundred! Why, that's what it's worth!” he says in a shocked tone.
“Of course,” says Silas. “That's what I want to get for these folks—all their land's worth.”
“But that ain't business,” urges Pendagrast, almost moved to tears. “Silas, my friend—” he began, conjurin' back that old winnin' smile.
But Silas shook his head.
“Two hundred, or I wire them New York parties I've been dickerin' with.”
And Pendagrast seen that he was like adamant—like adamant covered up with cotton-batting.
“No,” cries Pendagrast, “rather than have you do that, I'll pay what the land's worth.”
“Two hundred,” says Silas, gentle but firm.
Mrs. Quinby, looking through the keyhole, says she seen something like a mortal agony wrench Pendagrast; then he groaned horrid, showin' the whites of his eyes, and says weak:
“Fetch pen and paper. It's highway robbery, but I'll sign—I got to,” he says.
“I've the papers ready for you,” says Silas.
Pendagrast signed them, then he drawed himself up.
“I shudder for your future, Quinby,” he says. “No, I won't shake hands with you; I don't feel cordial.”
And he groped his way out to where his big tourin'-car was drawed up under the maples.
And that was how Silas Quinby saved the valley folks something like ten million dollars just by bein' such a simple soul.
The lightnin'-rod man? Oh, he was Pendagrast's agent.
THE BAD MAN OF LAS VEGAS
WHEN the Bad Man of Las Vegas left Baker's ranch, taking himself reluctantly from the midst of the unrighteous revel that was being held there, day was just breaking.
It was about mid-morning and the sun was high in the heavens when his horse stepped gingerly over the cactus bushes and into the well worn trail that led down to Las Vegas.
The Bad Man drew rein. He was having a moment with his conscience; one of the consequences of the early ride; or it may have been the unavoidable aftermath of Baker's whisky, which had been not only abundant but vile.
He recalled how he had come to Las Vegas, a raw lad of twenty. He saw himself as he was then, lank and wondering, with factory bleached skin. He had come West to make his fortune. When that was accomplished he was to return and settle down in the old home where his godly forefathers had dwelt since Pilgrim times, self-respecting and respected.
Las Vegas had been notorious for its wickedness when he first drifted there. For a while he had kept clear of it all, then the experience of a single night had changed the whole after current of his life. Entering one of the gambling hells in search of a friend, he had found him at cards with the bully of the place. He had tried to get him from the room, there had been words, a quarrel, and then all was a blank until he awoke from the delirium of his fear and anger to find himself in the center of the room, beneath the flaring kerosene lamps, with the bully dead in the shadow at his feet.
He lived the years swiftly after that, in a sort of mad, blood-letting frenzy. Every man has friends, and one killing involves other killings. It was not enough that he had killed one bad man; he must keep on killing bad men or else fall himself.
He had preferred to keep on. He speedily acquired a fatal handiness with his weapons, in a few months growing into the strong alert man capable of holding his own against all comers.
He knew, though the change came slowly and almost imperceptibly, that he was none the less surely living toward that day when he would be hunted out of Las Vegas; when the advancing tide of civilization would touch and pause there, and his career would culminate with one murder too many.
He took off his hat to let the wind fan his forehead. It was like the springs he had known in the East.
He seemed to catch the odor of roses and honeysuckle—he remembered his first and only love. Their parting came back to him with vivid minuteness of detail. It had all been infinitely bitter to them, but he was going where a man had a chance, and he would return.
He had scarcely thought of it in years, and now there was only the scent of the flowers and her face rising out of the gray plain before him. She had done her part faithfully and then she had married, to live her days amid the hard commonplaceness of the little eastern village where she was born.
The Bad Man gathered up the reins, which had fallen from his hand to the horn of the saddle, and was about to apply the spur to his horse's flank, when, glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a wagon coming down the trail, the center of a moving cloud of dust. Influenced by a sudden impulse he could not explain, he permitted the reins to fall slack again.
As the wagon came nearer he saw that it was a homesteader's outfit drawn by a single horse that was dark with sweat and dust and flecked here and there with white splotches of foam. A man was driving, and at his back a woman's face was visible.
As the wagon drew up alongside of the Bad Man the homesteader reined in his horse. Las Vegas' questionable hero spoke first. He merely remarked that it was a fine day. The homesteader inspected him narrowly before answering the greeting, then he said—and his tone was one of surly reserve, while his manner was neither easy nor gracious—“It is a fine day.”
He was a round-shouldered man of thirty-five with a sallow unhealthy skin and a scanty ill-kept beard. He had put aside his coat and wore only a faded, much mended cotton shirt and overalls—once blue, but now showing white at the seams—tucked carelessly into the tops of heavy boots.
The woman peered out anxiously and fearfully at the stranger.
The latter said by way of continuing the conversation:
“Where are you bound for, pardner?”
“Sunken River Valley. Got a brother there,” was the gruff response.
The Bad Man looked him over carefully and critically, then the wagon, and last of all the horse. He noted that the wagon showed the effects of the roads and a long journey. The jingle it sent forth whenever the horse moved spoke eloquently for repairs. The horse, however, though it had been driven hard, was comparatively fresh and able. The gentleman from Las Vegas lived in a community where men were largely judged by their horses, and he decided that the animal before him was a recent purchase.
“Where are you from?” he asked, when done with his scrutiny.
“Western Kansas. It's a hell of a country. Grasshoppers one year and no water the next. About cleaned me out.” Then he added surlily: “If you are done looking me over, I guess I'll be moving.”
Meantime the woman had disappeared from view, but she could be heard speaking to some one inside the wagon. Then a child's voice, fretful and tired, answered hers.
The homesteader's manner, even more than his words, was an affront to the Bad Man, who was perhaps unduly sensitive in such matters. He was debating whether he should not interpose, some objections to his continuing on his road, when the woman called out querulously: “Do drive on, Joe. It seems as though we shall never get there!”
The man saluted with his whip. “So long.” And the wagon with a creak and a rattle rolled off, jangling as it went.
The Bad Man touched his horse with the spur. “I'm going your way,” he said.
For a time they rode on in silence. Every now and then the homesteader stole a glance of doubt and mistrust at his insistent and evidently unwelcome companion. Clearly he was far from being at ease. Finally he said:
“You weren't wanting to say anything in particular to me, were you?”
The Bad Man regarded him with mild surprise. “I reckon not,” he answered.
“I didn't know. Only you seemed so all-fired set on stickin' close to me, that's all; I didn't mean no offense.”
There was a pause. The Bad Man turned the matter slowly over in his wind. He had formed a very unfavorable opinion of the homesteader, and was wondering whether it was not a duty he owed society to tell him so frankly. He allowed a certain latitude because of the different sense of humor different men have, but there was nothing funny about the homesteader. He was just plain uncivil.
“Yes, sir-ee,” said the homesteader, “western Kansas is a hell of a place. It ain't worth the powder it would take to blow it to blazes. I wish I'd never seen it. When I made up my mind to come West, my wife sort of persuaded me to stop there. She didn't want to go any farther. Sort of wanted to keep somewhere near the folks in old Vermont. Then she was taken sick; she was ailing before we started West. Then our two boys up and died, and now the young un's down. It's mighty hard on her ma. I got a brother in Sunken River Valley, and some of the folks from back East moved out there while we were in Kansas. My wife will be mighty well satisfied when she gets among her own sort again. Women get lonely so darn easy.”
They could hear the mother singing softly to the sick child. The Bad Man jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“What's the matter?”
“Fever,” said the other laconically.
“So you are from Vermont?”
“Yes. Wish I was there now, you bet. It's God's own country.”
“What part of the state do you come from?”
“Central part. Barrettsville.”
The Bad Man started violently, but recovered himself on the instant.
“I suppose you are pretty well acquainted there?” he asked, with studied indifference.
“I ought to be. Lived there most of my life.”
“That's singular. I met a fellow from Vermont just the other day, from Barrettsville, too.”
“Lots of our folks have come West. They're scattered all over out here. Some of 'em are doing mighty well, too.”
“You didn't happen to know the Thomases, did you?”—with elaborate carelessness. “Which?”
“I guess the man I am asking about had something to do with the mills. There are mills there, ain't there?”
“Well, I declare! That's funny!” and the homesteader laughed a mirthless cackle. “Should say I did know the Thomases. My wife was a Thomas—old French Thomas' daughter. But”—lowering his voice—“the old man's been dead five years come next May.”
The Bad Man turned his face away.
So that was the woman he had loved!
There was silence again, undisturbed save for the clatter of the horses' hoofs and the rattle of the wagon. The child was asleep, and its mother no longer sang to it.
The homesteader thrust aside the flaps and glanced in. The woman, with the child in her arms, was seated on a mattress at the back of the wagon, looking out at the long dusty streak that wound over the range and lost itself in the gray distance of the plain.
Craning his neck the Bad Man saw her, and then as her husband dropped the flaps, he pulled up his horse and drew in behind the wagon. The woman raised her eyes.
“Is the little one asleep?” he asked, his voice shaking with an awkward tenderness.
“Yes. She's just pining away for green fields and trees.”
He surveyed the woman before him with a certain wonder. He would never have recognized her, she was so changed, so altered from the likeness he had carried in his heart; but now, knowing who she was, he could trace where she had fallen from that likeness. He was quite sure she could not recognize him, for he had changed, too, but in a different way.
“If he'd drive slower, wouldn't it be easier for her?”
The woman looked into his face in alarm.
“We want to get there as quick as we can. Seems as though we'd never get there!”
“You can't make it to-day.”
“My husband says he'll drive till he gets there if it takes all night.”
“There'll be a dead horse between the shafts if he tries it,” said the Bad Man in a tone of calm conviction.
“The horse——” and the woman stopped.
“I don't reckon he sets much value on the brute from the way he drives.”
The woman gazed fixedly into his face. “Did he tell you?” she questioned in a frightened whisper.
In a flash he realized what the trouble was. “He shouldn't have done it,” he said gravely. “I know that,” she answered breathlessly. “But what could he do? Our own horse had died. We had no money, and with the baby sick we just couldn't stop! If he is found out, what then?” The Bad Man shook his head dubiously. “I'd rather not say.”
“Do they hang men for horse stealing?”
“They have,” he answered shortly.
Further conversation was interrupted by the sudden stopping of the wagon.
“Darnation! Which trail do I take?”
The Bad Man pointed to the right.
“There's your road. You'll find it plain enough.”
“Much obliged to you, stranger. I don't reckon you're going over to Sunken River Valley yourself?”
“Hold on;” and a detaining hand was placed upon the lines the homesteader held. “That's a good horse you're driving, pardner, but if you keep this pace you'll take only his hide and bones into Sunken River Valley with you.”
“I've got to get there, horse or no horse,” answered the man nervously.
“How'd you like to trade? I've taken a fancy to that animal of yours, and if you're bent on killing a horse I don't, know but I'd rather have you kill the one I'm riding.”